Epiphany

 Happy Epiphany yesterday!

We had a fun day celebrating the wisemen's visit to Jesus.

I had a glass star candle on the table at breakfast for each kiddo.  A little surprise!  My kids are loving candles, so they were thrilled to have one for their very own and to keep it at their place all week while they eat!  I got these for a dollar at a thrift store. 

 These wisemen were waiting in the middle of the table.  Facing west (since they were coming from the east) but Q rearranged them, as you can probably tell. 

 Daddy built Jesus' family a house!  So we moved em out of the stable and into a little house.  We spent a lot of time talking about the fact that they lived in a simple house--not a castle or mansion, as most people expected the newborn king to live.  We put a little wooden crate in place of a manger so Jesus could have a bed.  We made a path for the camels/wisemen with rocks and acorns and candles.  Q had lots of fun getting things set up "just so!"  I love using godly play to teach spiritual concepts and Bible stories to my kiddos.  This will all be available for them to play with for a couple weeks, as they work through the story during play. 

 I made a star garland that led to Jesus' house.  I traced a little star cookie-cutter on to some cardboard from the recycle bin.  Cut them out.  Quinn and I painted some of them gold.  Then I sewed them (with my machine) onto a piece of jute.  I strung them from the ceiling down to the house. 

 We read the story SMALL CAMEL FOLLOWS THE STAR (Rachel W.N. Brown), which Quinn loved.  It was a little lengthy for Beck, so he squirmed through it.  Later in the day I got out some of our Christmas board books (that talked about Jesus' birth) and we looked at the pages with the wisemen.  He loved this! 

Q and I have been reading in her Bible about how kings were anointed as a sign of them being chosen by God.  So we anointed our "Baby Jesus"--Aka--the King of Kings!  I melted a little coconut oil and put a few drops of lavender oil in it.  Quinn LOVED this activity! 

 Beck was interested for about 2 minutes.  :)

 We read the story from the gospel of Matthew.  We talked a lot about how kings usually live and look, and why people were surprised by Jesus' humble beginnings.  We talked about the gifts--and how we can give Jesus the gift of our love and the gift of following him with our life and our actions. 

 We made "wiseman" hats--I cut out the back from old jeans.  The kids picked fabric from my scrap bin and I  pieced it together then sewed over it all.  I love how they turned out! 

 Here they are yelling "wisemen!" at eachother.  This is so my kids.  :)

 

We had a special dinner--roast (Daddy's favorite) with sugared apples--I used to make these by putting apples and red hots in the crockpot, but Quinn can't have food dye, so yesterday I used cranberries (sauce--cooked and left over from New Years, a touch of brown sugar and cinnamon, and the apples.  It was soooo yummy!  And a beautiful red color.  

I had set the table with paper stars I'd cut out of brown paper for each person's placemat, and then the stars in the center.  We ate on pretty dishes.  Quinn told the story of the wisemen's visit.  

We also had lots of "camel" pretend play.  We have a stuffed camel they played with, and we also pretend our rocking horse and some other large stuffed animals were camels.  

I look forward to the tradition of celebrating Epiphany and adding a little bit to what we do each year!