Mummy's little pumpkin!

I have a confession to make.

I love Halloween!

I have always loved Halloween.  When I was little my mum surprised me one year with a trip to the American Airbase near our home.  She’d bought a plain black witches hat and decorated it herself with “Witch” written in gold glitter glue and a plethora of stars.  It was the best night and it’s one of my fondest childhood memories.  People stood at their doors with bowls full of ‘candy’ and we could just walk right up and take handfuls!  Houses were dressed to the nines with spiders webs, gravestones and skeletons which turned out to be people in costumes waiting to scare trick or treaters. 

When I became a Christian I was automatically lead to assume that Christians don’t celebrate Halloween.  Several Christians I knew would basically turn all the lights out and pray for the morning!  When I was a student we went on prayer walks praying against Halloween and I remember telling my non-christian friends that I wouldn't celebrate Halloween because it was a celebration of evil. 

But I always felt a little bit sad and what’s worse is that I always felt a bit guilty for feeling sad that I couldn't celebrate it.

Then last year after 6 years of not celebrating Halloween I read an article called “Why God loves Halloween”.  It blew my mind and I was so excited because I felt free and easy for the first time about celebrating Halloween.  I have since become even more convinced that Halloween is not a celebration of evil (although I guess some make it into that) but at its roots is a Christian Festival and a great opportunity to celebrate the ultimate and eternal victory Jesus has over evil by his life, death and resurrection.

Please follow this link to read the article for yourself, as I could never explain it so well.

http://peterdray.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/why-god-loves-halloween-part-1/

After reading it I concluded that the little lady and I are free to have fun and dress up, poking fun at evil and demonstrating in our boldness our firm belief that the devil and evil have no power anymore because of Christ!

So here we are:

Look what I did...

I'm more interested in eating the crayons quite frankly

Can I have some Mum?

Two sparkly witches...that's my original hat by the way
it's now  16 years old!

Hurry up I can't wait all night

Of course some Christians choose not to celebrate it and that's fine, we are all free in Christ and Romans 14 tells us that we must each make up our own minds according to our conscience.  But as for me and my family we're gonna dec the halls with pumpkins literally till kingdom come!  This year we gave out balloons and sweets and little leaflets all about how Jesus is King over darkness and the victor over evil.  I'm glad I chose to open the door because I gave out 35 leaflets, 48 balloons and many many sweets to around 75 trick or treaters.  All I've got to do now is pray that the leaflets get read...

...oh and try to to eat all the left overs!

Josie's week.

I (or should I say we!) have had some exciting outings recently and a few visitors too! 

The little Lady is generally unaware that there are two Josie's around the house...the only way mummy keeps track of who's who and who's turn it is to be chewed is by looking to see which label looks newer to her.  Last Saturday we bought a new washing machine (second hand-but new to us-that was an exciting outing let me tell you) so we Josie's actually get cleaned rather than being left to make rabbit stew in cold water for a bit and we don't think you'll be able to tell the difference via label for much longer.

Recently Mummy and the Lady have started going to a new toddler group (yes the little Lady isn't quite as little as she once was and is now most definitely a toddler) which has been nice. I have seen the Lady learn to climb slides (sort of), clambour into Little Tykes police cars and sit on chairs made especially for tiny people and have a drink and a snack with all her toddler friends. It's REALLY cute- but then we bunnies are known to hold extreme bias!

On Tuesday we went to Tiny Talk on the bus-which is one of the Lady's favourite things to sign!  She's an old hand at signing now and is one of the oldest in the class.  It's funny to look at the little babies and to think of how the little Lady used to look. She was all wrinkly and red too.. not so long ago...but she now knows 35 signs! It's her own language and I have great fun watching her and Mummy have conversations.  The Lady especially enjoys signing through the opening credits for In the Night Garden.  She points and signs for stars and flowers.  She signs for birds when the Tittifiers sing their songs and she waves bye bye enthusiastically.  She can sign nappy, bib, pig, hot, sun, duck, hat, car, Mummy (at long last) and most importantly she can sign bunny rabbit.

This is me in my younger days...before I was chewed!

On Wednesday the little Lady's God-Mummy and her little Lady came to visit.  My Lady spent a lot of time signing for baby and looked huge in comparison to the four month old next to her.  Mummy looked like she didn't know what to do...like she's almost forgotten what it was like!  I really like the Lady's God-Mummy she's kind and helps Mummy to focus on being a good enough Mummy with the strength she has because of Jesus :) and she has high levels of appreciation for multiple cups of tea...

Yesterday the little Lady went to nursery and we Josies had a chance to have a rest and dry out on the radiator.  Unfortunately the little Lady has a horrible cough and was up for a long time yesterday evening, so Josie number 1 -Mummy thinks- came to the rescue along with a bit of help from the old calpol.

Today we're off to the doctors because Mummy thinks the Lady has a chest infection :( we'd rather be at nursery with her helping her to paint and practise her shapes and colours, but we need to make sure the Lady is well enough to go to nursery!  I don't have to go to nursery as much these days.  The little Lady is all kinds of confident and doesn't generally take me or other soft toys with her any more.  She happily toddles off to play with her friends and comes home full of smiles, yummy food and carrying her latest art work proudly to the fridge door.

Tomorrow Lovely Lady Lynda from Church is coming to look after the little Lady- all being well- because Mummy and Daddy are going to go and buy a car and they thought is was a bit mean to drag the little Lady in and out of cars all morning...the Lady plays with Lynda during the children's work at church sometimes and they're becoming fast friends...which is good!  But it sometimes means I get left on the floor...and one time I nearly ended up in the cupboard for a whole week as the Lady forgot to collect me from the floor and I got scooped up and packed away with all the church toys.  I was frightened until Mummy came and rescued me.

It's a busy life for such a small bunny rabbit...

I wonder what next week will bring.

Simon says...sort of!

Recently the little lady has taken to copying Mummy.  She likes to brush her hair and hold the hair drier just like Mummy, she likes to drink tea out of Mummy’s cup (yes of course my child had to be an early tea lover whether she wanted to or not!), she likes to sit on the grown up toilet, wipe with a piece of toilet tissue  and press the flush, she tries to put on Mummy’s watch…admittedly around her neck but I think she gets the general idea.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS PICTURE...WHAT AN EPIC FIND!

A couple of mornings ago she saw me cleansing and toning my face with nivea cream and cotton wool and she would not be placated until she had her own piece of cotton wool, with which she proceeded to scrub her face!  All of a sudden I really comprehended the overwhelming responsibility to be genuinely Christ-like around her.  Of course, I am called to be like Christ all the time, but I've never had another person so excited about copying my every move!

The baby lady is going to learn behavioral patterns, values and world views from me…and she’s going to imitate them, consciously and not so consciously…all the more reason to strive to be like Jesus and to live a life full of grace!  Not only does my faith affect me and my relationship with God but it’s going to have a massive impact on what the lady thinks about God and how she chooses to respond to him.

Ephesians 5:1 Says “be imitators of Christ”.  I’m now beginning to feel that my quiet times are ever more important!  How can I be like Christ and show him to the lady if I don’t get to know him or spend time with him? I know I need to be reading my bible and deepening my relationship with him through prayer and worship more than ever.  Put VERY simply being a good imitator of Jesus is like playing Simon says with God…God says “love your neighbour”, God says “pray for your enemies” etc! I must listen very carefully and show the lady what to do and how to do it. (there are several pit falls in the illustration but you have to admit it’s quite humorous)

I have been thinking over the word “burden” in my head as I've been writing this.  I know that being Christ-like and being a good witness and example to the little lady should not be a burden…I think I feel that way because being me (which always means being sinful) is just easier...

… I've literally just looked up the word ‘burden’ in Mr. Thesaurus and the word ‘yoke’ has come up as a synonym…which brought to mind this verse:

“my yoke is easy and my burden is light” Matthew 11:30

Why should being an imitator of Christ be easy compared to the alternative of just being me?

Because following Jesus offers me ultimate and eternal rest (vs 28- eternal rest was also the topic of our sermon on Sunday…hmmmm). Hard work now, yeah, maybe, but I can rest later…right now I need to work hard and focus on being the best imitator of Jesus, for his name’s sake, for my sake and for the lady’s.

Being me and being sinful is easier but it will never lead me or the lady into that eternal rest.  

Recent Creativity

So I've been a busy little bee recently and I have been particularly excited by lots of different creative projects so I thought I’d share some of the things I've been doing that have meant I have been too busy to blog until now!

So last week I was back home with my mum for the week along with the little lady.  My mum and I love knitting so we decided to brave a walk in the pouring rain to the local haberdashery.  After ohhhing and ahhing at all the beautiful wools we couldn't afford my eyes caught sight of lovely scarf wool.  It’s very clever as you only have to knit into loops that already exist in the wool…I’m not sure that explains it, especially if you’re not a knitter, but knitter or not here’s a pic to enjoy of my finished scarf… 

Bought on Tuesday, returned home on Wednesday and began knitting that evening…finished by Thursday afternoon.  A quick knit! It  would make a great present and I only used one skein which was £6.99.  Bargain.

My poor little paperback Bible is a few years old now and is beginning to suffer…well it’s generally beginning to lose its cover so I decided to make in a new one!

I got the material from John Lewis in their off-cut bargain box…happy times (same material used for peg bag in photo #32 in 365 Challenge).  I embroidered the verse on using some newly discovered cross stitch type gauze which you stitch over and then remove strand by strand once you've finished sewing.  Genius.

At the fortnightly craft group I help to organize (called Hearts and Crafts-obviously) we have started a new group project.  We’re making floral brooches to sell at a fundraising coffee morning for Macmillan Nurses I’m going to host at the care home where I work.  We all made one for ourselves to start with.  Here’s mine now proudly adorned on my winter coat.

I've also been braving a bit of creativity in the kitchen.  I made jam tarts, which I've never made before..but I've made mince pies and I figured that they were basically the same just swap the mince for jam! And I was correct.  I even made my own short crust pasty.  It is the easiest to make but still!

I've also just inherited some amazing old fashioned knitting patterns from a resident at work so watch this space for the lady in some seriously retro numbers...

If you'd like an instructions or more details please feel free to drop me an email.  I just thought it would make the blog incredibly long if I included everything :)