Jesse Tree Ornaments

Does your family do a Jesse Tree? I love the tradition so much that when MC was 16 months old I handmade a set of ornaments for our family. Apparently I thought she was old enough to start comprehending the Bible. The next year some of my friends did a swap, but I'm still glad I have my own special set that is wholly unique.

I pulled out the ornaments today and did some replacing and repairs, as they tend to get beaten up each season. Our ornaments have evolved over the years and they don't follow the strict tradition. For us, it's turned into a time to walk through Salvation History in a chronological order, so our kids can understand the story of our family. 

When I was making mine it was helpful to have some examples to get ideas flowing, so I'm posting what we do, in hopes that it can helps those who are taking on the adventure... which I highly recommend you do! For the order we pulled out some main events from the Bible Timeline. The scripture verses for where you will find each section is listed, but please don't think we read all of what is included!

Creation - World (Genesis 1-2:3)

The Fall - Apple (Genesis 3)

Noah’s Ark - Rainbow (Genesis 6:9-9:17)

Tower of Babel - Tower (Genesis 11:1-9)

Blessing to Abraham - Stars and Sand (Genesis 12:1-3 and 15:4-5)

Sacrifice of Issac - Wood Bundle (Genesis 22:1-18)

Jacob Steals Esau’s Blessing - Lamb (Genesis 27:1-29)

Joseph and his Brothers - Coat of Many Colors (Genesis 37-45)

The Plagues and 1st Passover - Door with Blood (Exodus 6-13)

God Provides Manna - Bread (Exodus 16)

Ten Commandments - Tablet (Exodus 20)

The Promise Land - Grapes (Numbers 13)

Aaron becomes High Priest - Stick with Flower (Numbers 17)

Bronze Serpent Heals the Israelites - Serpent on Stick (Numbers 21:4-8)

Fall of Jericho - Crumbled Wall (Joshua 6)

Samson’s Strength - Pillar (Judges 14-16

David and Goliath - Sling Shot (1 Samuel 17)

King David - Crown (2 Samuel 7)

Kingdom Divides - Torn Kingdom (1 Kings 12)

Elijah and Elisha - Mantel (1 Kings 18-19 and 2 Kings 1-2)

Jonah - Whale (Jonah)

Exile and Persecution - Furnace (2 Kings 17)

Zerubbable is allowed to Lead the Jews - Scroll (Ezra 3)

Nehemiah Rebuilds Jerusalem - Wall (Nehemiah 2: 11-20)

Ezra Reads the Law to the Jews - Heart (Nehemiah 8)

Esther - Crown (Esther)

Maccabees Revolt - Shield (1 Maccabees 1-3)

Purification of the Temple - Candle (1 Maccabees 4)

The Annunciation - Mary (Luke 1:26-38)

Birth of Christ - Star (Matthew 2)

Let me know if you have any specific questions about materials or how I made a particular ornament! Happy Advent!

The Day We Made 2,400 Chocolate Covered Pretzels

MC has been working on sequences in Kindergarten lately, so I have one for you.

First, gather 10 bags of pretzels, 16 packages of candy coating and 100 Ziploc snack baggies for making chocolate covered pretzels to send to your 100 FOCUS anchor mission partners (people who give consistently to our our FOCUS mission) for Christmas.

Next, cover the pretzels with melted candy coating and let them dry on waxed paper.

Then, do this for 6 hours.

Next, do NOT microwave the candy coating with a fork in a glass bowl. It will explode the glass approximately 90 seconds after you take it out, if you cooked it for 1 minute and 50 seconds. You will then find chocolate splattered all over your kitchen in odd places for the rest of the day. (Amazingly the glass measuring cup was being held over the trashcan at said explosion, but glass still went everywhere. Yes, that is a donut box in our trashcan.)

Finally, place 24 pretzels in each baggy to prepare them for shipping with the rest of the mission partner Christmas package.

We love our mission partners, this is proof. Some Cotter love is coming their way!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for... even if our pilgrims and indians didn't get along too well...

wait, eventually they made up...

once we removed the littlest pilgrim.

Our Thanksgiving probably looked a lot like yours.

Good food...

which I made all on my own! We opted for a crock-pot boneless turkey breast. It was super easy and not dried out!! The rest of it was your standard Thanksgiving spread. So what if the stuffing was stove top and the yams were canned, I'm still proud.

The kids played outside...

It was be-u-tiful today, so blessed.

And there were lots of decorations.

MC made some cute little turkeys and signs. I left her to her own during rest time with markers, construction paper, scissors and a glue stick. When I came back she proudly showed me her work, that she had displaid all over the room, by glueing it on the walls! Oops, I won't make that mistake twice. Hooray for Goo-Gone!

We also had trouble with cute nephews eating our decorations.

Poor little man, he just wanted some turkey.

I pray your day was blessed. Whether you are friends, family or mission partners dropping in to visit our little corner of cyber space, know that I am thankful for you!

FOCUS at UNL

This week the whole fam headed to the University of Nebraska - Lincoln for some on-campus time! I did a horrible job taking pictures, so this post will have lots of words.

Most of my extended family live in Nebraska, so between my giving three talks, Kevin doing some team development and visits with family, our three days were packed. 

After a quick visit to Great-Grandma's, I gave a talk to the Greek contingent at the Pi Phi House. Two of my cousins, who are in the UNL Greek system, showed up for the event... photo 1.

The chaplain of the campus, Fr. Matya, happens to be a distant cousin of mine as well. He is on the Board of FOCUS and the students love him. Being related to him made me instantly cool. After my talk we went to the rectory for drinks and lots of laughs.

UNL is one of our most successful campuses with over 60 students in discipleship and hundreds in studies and the credit goes to this amazing team...

The future of our Church lies in their hands. The blonde girl is Becca, a RA of mine from my Hall Director days. She is one of my 5 year olds best friends. MC thinks she went on the trip just to see Becca.

There are actually 14 members on the team, but not all of them own 80s apparel. Since I forgot to get a picture with the team, I stole this one from Facebook. They generously made dinner for over 20 people on our second night and one of my Uncles was able to pop in for a quick visit there.

After our delicious dinner I gave two back to back talks to the men and then the women. On my way into the church I saw a couple who did not appear to be in college walking in front of me. When they turned around because the door was still locked I realized that they were my Aunt and Uncle who came to surprise me! I was surprised, but most happily. It was fun to have my Aunt sitting in the very back of the men's only talk.

The next day we visited another Great-Grandma before jumping on our plane, which is what my 3 year old son thought was the purpose of the trip.

Final fun piece of note. My parents met at UNL and were both Greeks. I swung by my Mom's old house, AOPi. Upon arriving I inquired about the composites, so I could look her up, but the gal informed me that they had all been stolen by Fraternities... except for one, which someone found at a garage sale. Welp, that one happened to have my mom on it!

Photo 2. Wasn't she beautiful? She still is.

That's all the reports I have from "The Good Life." Next time we travel I try to document it a bit better!

The Post on Halloween/All Saints that is 3 Days Overdue

Better late than never! Queen Ester and St. George had a busy 3 days celebrating All Saints Day beginning with trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Above the kids have on their "Can-we-please-go-get-candy-and-stop-taking-pictures" faces.

Halloween is a shortened name for All Hallow's Eve and All Saints Day used to be called All Hallows. So... Halloween is the Christmas Eve of All Saints Day. Just in case you've ever wondered why we celebrate such a day.

Trick-or-treating was a success and we now have enough candy in our house to last the long winter. We kept trying to convince St. George to pick out the Resse's Peanut Butter Cups, but he just wanted blue candy. So, we have a bunch of Baby Ruths. If anybody actually likes Baby Ruths let me know and I'll send you a bag.

Photo by Alzbeta

The candy hoarding all really started with the FOCUS All Saints Day party over a week ago. Once a year the office closes down early and is invaded by kids and crock-pots of chili for a cook-off. FOCUS families come up with some pretty sweet Saint costumes. We were all really impressed with little John the Baptist (bottom right).

Of course we began actual All Saints Day with donuts. Not just regular store bought donuts, but homemade donuts. My mom, knowing our family obsession with donuts, bought us a donut maker. Life will never be the same. So what if they call of an entire stick of butter, at least they are baked and not deep fried!

Because All Saints is a Solemnity (really special feast day), Kevin did not have to work. So we had a family carnival with fun Saints games.

There was St. Anthony's Lost and Found, where the kids searched for symbols for various saints in a box of beans. A duck for St. Francis, a feather for angels, a rose for St. Therese and so on.

We played St. Nicholas' Coin Toss, with the object of the game being to throw coins down our shoebox chimney.

Then there was indoor fishing in honor of the apostles who were fishermen. Paul's favorite.

Finally, we played Saints Guess Who and made soul cakes, which I am still enjoying... 3 days later... like this post.