*giveaway over* What's in the Bible? #4 DVD Review & GIVEAWAY!!

Phil Vischer

 Note: Giveaway details are at the bottom.

I am very excited about a new DVD series for kids from Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales called “What's in the Bible?” We were given given a copy of the 4^th video “Battle for the Promise Land” to review for Tyndale. Based on the cover I wasn't all that excited about watching it but I was hooked within the first minute. I loved the bantering back and forth between the puppets and how they all helped each other learn about “housewares,” er... I mean the historical books of the Old Testament. :) The focus on this DVD was on the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. There was some review of what had happened in the Pentateuch (that I am assuming were discussed in the first 3 videos) with fun songs to help remember the first 5 books of the Bible.

The first episode was part review and mostly about the book of Joshua. The favorite song of all 4 of my kids is “You can't stop a Train.” They loved the silly impossibilities that are summed up with “Standing in the way of what God is going to do will be really, really, really really not so good for you.” My 10 year old summed up what he learned in that episode by saying, “I learned that if people stand in God's way God will give them what they deserve if they won't repent, like Pharaoh died and the Canaanites died because they tried to stand in God's way.”

The second episode focused on the books of Judges and Ruth. I thought that they gave a good representation of the Cycle of Apostasy from the book of Judges. My 6 year old summed that up by saying, “I learned that they kept on bowing down to idols, then an army came, then they turned to God, then God sent a guy to rescue them, then they bowed down to idols again. It's hard to understand why they turned back to idols when they just got saved by God but it's true stories.” What a a great discussion starter with my 6 year old!

Here are some things I loved about the DVD:

* the focus on the fact that the Bible is true and helping kids to understand it.

* the focus on God's rescue plan of redemption that is tied throughout the Bible.

* it explains difficult concepts (redemption, holy, sanctified) in a way that makes sense to kids.

* “Tricky Bits with Phil” explained a difficult question in a way that made sense to everyone and left me with an “ah ha” moment.

* fun songs to help kids learn the books of the Bible. My kids have so many Veggie Tales songs memorized and I am excited to have them memorize the songs from these movies so that they can have the books of the Bible and where they are and what they are about memorized.

I think that these DVDs will be great to watch together as a family because they are great discussion starters and can be referred back to time and time again as different challenges come our way. They will also give us all a good overview of the Bible. I think these DVDs would be great to use for a neighborhood Bible club as well.

I asked each of the kids to write a review of what they thought of the DVD and my 4 year old said, “My favorite character is the pirate. It will be good to watch as a family. It is funner than Veggie Tales (if you ever watched them) because it is a Bible story about it and we have not got Bible stories ever as movies. The guy in the car didn't know the rest of the Bible and he was going to learn it through the story.”

I think that these DVDs will be a great way to learn more about the Bible and His-story as a family and to share with others to introduce them to Christ in a non-threatening means. My 8 year old summed up all of our feelings when she said, “I can't wait until the rest come out because I really want to own all of them.”

Go to www.whatsinthebible.com and www.tyndale.com for more information.

Disclaimer: I received this DVD from Tyndale House Publishers, in exchange for my review. No other compensation was received.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS: I was given a coupon for a free copy of this DVD to give away on my blog. If you'd like a chance to win it please leave a comment below. A winner will be picked out of a hat on Sunday night 11/21/10 at 8pm EST.

I'm Not Perfect

I'm not perfect. Are you surprised? For some reason I always am. I am a first born child and, as I recently read in The New Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are by Kevin Leman that I borrowed from the library, that means I am prone to perfectionism. There is a problem with that since (surprise, surprise) I am not perfect. My constant realization of that fact causes me to often live a discouraged life. I am not a perfect follower of Christ, I am not a perfect wife, I am not a perfect mom, I am not a perfect housekeeper, I am not a perfect homeschool teacher. The list could go on forever but the one that I have really been struggling with lately is the last one I mentioned.

At the beginning of school I was super excited because we were starting early (which means we get to get done early!) and because we started a new curriculum (Sonlight) that looked so exciting. The first few weeks of school went well then we lost steam. I had been warned that it was pretty much impossible to check all of the boxes in Sonlight but I didn't know what boxes not to check and soon got overwhelmed at the fact that I hadn't gotten all the boxes checked. I got so frustrated that I wanted to give up. In my head it is all or nothing and since all is often really difficult, if not impossible, to be all I hide under the covers and do nothing. That is not really an option in real life and I often need help to bring myself out of that slump. I sought God and got some advice from Glenn and a couple of wise friends. The conclusion I have come to is that it is OK if we are not all on the same week. It is OK if we finish after the first week of May (public school doesn't get out around here until the end of June anyway). Also I decided that I needed to add to Caleb's workload because the curriculum that I have chosen for him is way too easy and it has given him too much free time to cause trouble and distract his sisters. I had found a book called Plants Grown Up from Doorposts at my aunt's house when I was helping her sort stuff and she let me have it. I decided to start working through it with Caleb. He's got school learning down pretty well. I want to focus more on character training with him.

We started it yesterday with each kid on a different "week" of our curriculum. It didn't go perfect but that is ok (honestly, it is!). This morning I made a list of what each kid needed to do on our whiteboard and told them that they needed to have all of their initials erased before they could be free. I think that that will be helpful. It is going to take some time to get back on track again because we kind of got out of the habit of getting serious amounts of school work done everyday when I was hiding under the covers.

I am thankful for God's grace and that His mercies that are new every morning and that He loves me and chooses to use me even though I am not perfect.

I Love My Kids - Halloween Edition

I love my kids so much. This has been a fun Halloween. This is the first time that we have actually been home on Halloween and lived in an area where we actually get trick or treaters.  After our brief hail storm:

We headed out to visit some of our neighbors to trick or treat and show off the kids costumes. (This picture was taken much later in the evening after I had them re-dress.) It was we made it about a block and then came home to have hot chocolate because we were too cold.

Hannah - Belle, Caleb - ninja, Lydia - Indian Princess, Abigail - cowgirl

We came home and Glenn let us in (he had locked himself away studying with a friend) and then the kids stood by the door to give out candy. They were so excited and just loved seeing all the costumes and making people smile. I think that they had way more fun giving out candy than they had had getting candy. Here is a picture of them huddled by the front door eating popcorn and ready to pass out candy to the next group of people.  The kids kept a tally of how many people came trick or treating and when we got to 158 around 8pm we turned off the lights and came in to get ready for bed.

blurry picture from by the front door eating popcorn and waiting for trick or treaters

A little while later I went out onto the porch to look for something and saw this in our front yard:

our smashed pumpkins :(

I asked Caleb if he would help me clean it up and we went and told the girls that their pumpkins had been smashed. They were very sad and angry but we had a chance to sit and talk about it for a while wondering how Jesus would respond to people who wronged Him then we prayed for the people who had come and gotten candy from us and for the people who smashed our pumpkins and thanked God that nothing worse had happened to us.  Hannah came out and helped Caleb and I clean up the pumpkins from the front yard. They still couldn't understand why people would do something like that. I showed them how fun it was to see a pumpkin drop and smash with parts of the pumpkin and I could tell that God was working in their hearts as we talked and gathered pumpkin chunks. By the time that we took the last load of pumpkin chunks to the backyard they were coming up with a plan together for how to bless our pumpkin smashers next year. They decided that they are going to hide candy in our pumpkins next year so that people who are trying to be mean and smash our pumpkins will be blessed not only with the pleasure of watching the pumpkins splatter but with candy besides. It was so neat watching their hearts change as we walked through this trial together. I love that God is growing my kids and working in their hearts. I am so thankful that our pumpkins were smashed because I had a chance to talk to my kids about being wronged and how to respond when we are wronged. Thanks God for the blessing that my kids got to be to others by giving out candy and for working through the pumpkin smashing to a make them more like you.

Cleaning up pumpkin guts in our front yard.

Today did not go as planned

Today was Glenn's second exam of his second year of medical school. After his first exam we kidnapped him and took him to a park for a bike ride. Today we were planning to do something similar. I made the kids get as much school work done as we could first thing in the morning the we threw together a picnic lunch and were throwing things in the car to go get Glenn. As I was walking back to the house to grab my purse I cringed as I saw the door being pulled shut. The kids know that they are supposed to pull the door shut when we leave but we weren't quite ready yet. Most of the stuff for our excursion was in the car but my purse and my keys were locked inside. I asked my neighbor who used to own our house if he still had a key. He tried all the keys on his random keys key ring but none of them worked. I called my landlord and left a message but I had no way to contact Glenn because he is only allowed to bring a pencil to his test - no phone, not even a coat. He had told me that he would start walking if he got done early so I knew he would be heading towards home but he was planning on having us pick him up. After leaving a message for my landlord I thought about the fact that I don't know how often he checks his messages and I remembered that he had been no help to our upstairs neighbors when they had been locked out when his bike fell down the stairs blocking him out. He had had to have the fire department use a ladder to get him in. Another neighbor started walking around the house checking all the windows to see if we could get in that way but we have been broken into too many times, all of our windows were locked (and storm windows down for winter). No luck there. I called my upstairs neighbor but he couldn't get into our apartment because we had deadbolted the kitchen door. While talking to him on the phone and talking to a neighbor lady who was wondering if she could help me get Glenn I saw a police car driving down our street. I ran toward it waving my arms. He stopped and asked what I needed. I told him that I didn't know if he could help but I was locked out of my apartment and my landlord wasn't answering his phone and probably didn't have a key and I was wondering if he could help me get into my house. Thankfully he decided to help and we tried getting in through the back door but it was deadbolted so he decided to try the front door. My neighbor had tried to card the door but was unable to. The police officer had a little crow bar in his car and he used it and some plastic card out of my neighbor's wallet and worked on the door for some time. He told me that I probably don't have to worry too much about someone breaking in because the door was pretty well sealed. After at least 5 minutes of working on it he was finally able to get the door open so that we could go inside. I am SO grateful! Thank you Syracuse City police officer! I didn't even catch his name I wad so caught up in worrying about Glenn wondering where we were and wondering how we were ever going to get into the house. It was the first time I've ever been thankful that someone broke into my house as a first response. I don't know what God is going to teach me or why He allowed this to happen today but I am so thankful for this wonderful police officer and kind neighbors willing to lend a hand and offer a warm place to wait and I am thankful that God answered my prayer quickly to get back into our apartment.

Oh, and in case you were curious, Glenn did make it home. Right after we got into our apartment and got my keys we were about ready to get into the van to go get him when we saw him up the street and ran to him rejoicing that we had gotten let back into our apartment. Our day didn't go as planned but we did get back into our apartment, were reunited with Glenn, and did get to spend part of the afternoon with him. Thank You God for how You take care of us!!

Kid pic update

A picture of the kids that we took yesterday. The girls really like Caleb can you tell? Here is Lydia showing her love.

Playing in leaves

The kids and Sonja had fun playing in the leaves today and I had fun taking pictures of them. I took the photos and made them into a little stop action video. I hope you all enjoy it. (sorry I don't have any music on my computer so no background music to enjoy with it.)

So what happens when Mom is away?

Sonja is in Rochester at a woman's conference and hopefully is having a very good time and is learning lots. It all of kind of came together rapidly though as she only started thinking of going to the conference in the afternoon on Wednesday. (Long story made short, a friend had access to tickets that couldn't be used by the purchasers and wanted someone to go with her.) So I told Sonja to go. I thought I only had one class at 11:00 am that I HAD to be at on Friday so not a huge deal for Sonja to go. I could find someone to watch the kids for a little over 2 hours right? Yes, I could. Then I looked at my schedule and realized that there was another class at 8 am that I HAD to be at also. Now things were starting to look a little more difficult but... Anyways when I told one of my classmates my dilemma she volunteered her husband to watch the kids for me today. It worked out really well and I am so thankful to both Catherine (for volunteering him) and Ryan being willing to be volunteered to watch the kids. The kids had a blast with him and he said as he was leaving that next time he came he was going to bring something (don't remember what) I was just happy that he was willing to come again :-). The rest of the day has gone well also and I have gotten some studying done and the kids really haven't had that much "screen time". So this evening I really wanted to take some picture of the kids and was playing around with taking pictures and trying some different lighting techniques and wanted to post them here for family and friends to see.

The picture below is a step back shot so if you care to you can see how I took the above pictures. Those are plastic cups over the light bulbs to give the colored background.