That Reminds Me

found at Amazon
 

That Reminds Me by Jean Brown Eittreim is a great little book filled with 200 story-starters for passing on your faith.  I have pulled it out at dinner times, holidays, vacations, visits with grandparents, bedtime or tea time.  Sometimes all we need are some prompts to help us share what is important or has shaped our faith.  I could only find it for Kindle on Amazon right now, but that works - especially if you have Kindle on your phone like I do.

Memory Keeping/Giving

I love memory keeping! I have so many projects on my "hope to do soon" list. Last month I enjoyed following a 31 days series on memory keeping that I wanted to share.  Maybe it will inspire you too!  My oldest is getting ready to graduate this year - the time has gone so fast!  I plan to make a school memories book for him.  I also plan to start making family yearbooks and going back through the past years to put together books as well. 

I am hoping/planning to make this a priority, especially after the first of the year.  I'll share my progress along the way, and any good ideas I find - or come up with myself.  Please share any helpful tips that you have too!  I wish I was ready to take advantage of all the specials on photobooks and calendars right now.  I will try to post some specials I find in upcoming posts. 

Here's the link to the series I mentioned:

Scrapbook Storytelling

Right now I am taking a class on journaling to renew my teaching certificate. It's on how to use journaling as a teacher and with your students. One of the books that was recommended was Scrapbook Storytelling. I have really enjoyed it. I got it from the library and it is pretty inspiring for my education class. Journaling as a teacher helps you to reflect on your students and where they are with their learning and what is working and not working. When students journal it helps them to reflect on their own learning and preserve it some format.


The same is true as we parent our children and preserve our memories and values and what matters most. We also can choose which stories we want to capture and share - a wonderful gift for our children and ourselves. I guess I've always wanted to be able to hold on to some of the little bits of heaven that God gives us here on earth and most importantly try to be able to see God in every moment.

More and more I am living my life in complete amazement of God's goodness! It's especially in all the little things each day. I've been thinking about trying to start writing more of them down. Today I praise God for summer! It's hot, and we so wanted to have summer! I also thank him for helping my daughter Lila during her big sister's campout. She has a hard time with so many big girls in the house, but she was pleasant - so we are off to buy her a wig. Yes a wig. She likes wigs of colored hair to wear for fun.

Journaling

I just received my grade in the mail today from a class I was taking to renew my teaching certificate. It was on journaling - keeping a Teacher's Journal as well as using journaling with your students. I loved it! Besides reading Scrapbook Storytelling, I also read Educating Esme. Both were good. My project was to keep a Teacher's Reflective Journal. I found it to be a great benefit to reflect on our school days and keep a record of our year. It helped me set goals and to be accountable to them. Plus, as I add pictures to the journal, it makes an excellent record/yearbook of our school year.

For fun I've been reading Pages of Faith, about faithbooking. I'm getting ready to start writing Lila's Story of her adoption, and I want to include how God led us through her adoption process. I want her to know that God built our family. One of my favorite authors, Catherine Marshall, wrote a book about her life called Meeting God at Every Turn. I hope to write more family stories after Lila's, and I want them all to tell God's story of our lives.

Anyway, I signed up with Cherish Bound as a way to publish these stories and to have multiple copies for the kids. I'm looking forward to having a hardbound copy of our stories as part of sharing our faith and passing down some stories. Another reason I like Cherish Bound is all the story starters they offer to help you write your stories, including one on adoption. My goal is to get Lila's done for Christmas.