Just a few pictures from our Sunday sleepover ...

It didn't work out for the grandchildren to spend Friday night at my house (long story) … so we decided that I could pick them up Sunday afternoon and have a sleepover (since I didn't have to work Monday and the children were still on break from school due to Christmas).

Christopher stayed at his house so that he could watch the Lion's game with his dad. They both love football. We worked it out so that I would come back after the game and pick Chris up. I don't have a television at my house (intentionally), and I didn't want Chris to miss the game.

Meanwhile, Emma and Matthew and I just played around the Beach house while the football game was on. We experimented with a little magnet kit I had purchased. Matthew and Emma had a lot of fun with this for a very long time, and learned about magnetic forces in the process. 

 And Emma showed me how she had designed her very own "pocket" (with the little loom I had given her for Christmas) by doing TWO potholders, one on top of the other, and "taking them off" together … very very clever for a 12-year-old who did not have a pattern for this and had never seen it done before. She showed me with such JOY too.

We picked up Chris after the game ended (a 30-20 loss for the Lions … yuck). We did our usual bedtime stuff, read a nice Christmas book together called, "Apple Tree Christmas" and then got ready for our movie. I actually ordered a very old favorite movie of mine off Amazon: "Heide" (starring Shirley Temple). I wasn't sure if the kiddos would like it, but … they did!

Monday morning we ate a nice late breakfast and then I taught them how to play KISMET, a fun dice game … but it also involves a lot of adding up of numbers (good for the kids' math skills). It was a really close game. Emma only won by 2 points over Christopher. She had gotten a Kismet of 6's (for 80 points) near the end of the game and Christopher had gotten a Kismet of 4's (70 points). Matthew and I did not get a Kismet at all and had to put a zero in that slot … so we did NOT win.

Our Bible story was about the shepherds of Bethlehem … actually we discussed shepherds in general from the Bible. We talked about some of the Old Testament shepherds, as well as Jesus being our Good Shepherd. We talked about the Bethlehem shepherds perhaps being the ones who cared for the lambs who were to be offered at the temple in Jerusalem. We talked about Jesus being, "the lamb of God!" And then, to make it more personal to us, we talked about the earthly shepherds in our lives--like our moms and dads. And we too, can be shepherds. There is a very dear verse in Isaiah 40:11 that I have always loved: "He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those who have young."

We talked a long time about the beautiful truths in this verse. Christopher asked great questions about … how can God have arms and a heart if He is a spirit? Ah, good question Christopher! So we talked about THAT for a while … about the great and loving heart of God! But mostly we talked about what it means to truly care for someone. I had looked up the word "care" in the dictionary and one of the meanings is: "watchful attention." I really like that. Caring for someone means to watch over them … give them your attention! God does that for us. WE can do that for people in our lives too. We decided that God wants all of us to be GOOD shepherds, to care for the people in our lives, to GENTLY lead them. It was a really wonderful time sharing God's truths … isn't He so amazing?