Scrapbooking With Grandchildren

Scrapbooking is a perfect opportunity to engage in one of our favourite family activities, storytelling. 

Step #1 in planning for this afternoon’s activity was having our granddaughters prepare their vacations journals, visit this post by clicking here.

Step #2 was making time each day of the vacation for the girls to write or paste something from that day’s activity to remind them of the day.  Emily took to pasting the small packages shampoo and soap in her journal.

Step #3 was to spend a rainy afternoon following the vacation to review the pictures and have the children pick the pictures they would like to include in their journals.

And that brings us to today

Step #4 is a clean table, scrapbooking supplies, the printed photographs, the children favourite music playing softly in the background, and storytelling was we talk about the memories the picture evoke.  

Our oldest grandson is 20 and he still has the vacation journals that he made when vacationing with Grandpa and Grandma.

 Elephants and grandchildren never forget. ~ Andy Rooney

 and vacation journals help everyone remember.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Beet Muffins

Our granddaughters love looking through the old scrapbook cuttings and handwritten recipes that have been handed down to us over the years.  We have become the repository for these well used scrapbooks, boxes and notebooks from both sides of the family and today's recipe comes from this treasure trove of recipes.

What is unique about this recipe is that you use shredded beets and the taste is wonderful, much like a Morning Glory Muffin with just a hint of beet flavour.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup oil
• 3 cups shredded beets
• 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 2 tsp baking soda

Directions:

1. Mix all of your dry ingredients together (flour, wheat germ, sugar,cinnamon, salt, soda, raisin, walnuts, coconut)
2. Mix all of the wet ingredients together (eggs, oil, beets)
3. Slowing pour the wet into the dry mixing as you pour
4. Spoon into muffin tins
5. Bake at 350 F for approx 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean

From Our Table to Yours

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Giant Hibiscus

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Show Interest in Your Grandchildren's Education

The end of August beginning of September marks for many children the first days and weeks of a new school year.  Grandparents who have been involved in their grandchildren's lives over the summer now find themselves taking a back seat to school, extracurricular activities, social clubs, homework and play dates. 

School rather than being the activity that takes grandchildren away can actually draw you closer to them as it is an activity we all engaged in and have some familiarity with.  Yes, we know new math and computer skills were never part of your education but learning was as was being involved in school life and that is the foundation of every education.

The first step is knowing the grade your grandchildren are going into and the name of their teacher.  Having the teachers name adds to questions you will have for them. 

“What did you learn at school today?” In our experience gets the typical nothing or I don't know answer where “What did Mrs. Smith teach you today?” provides your grandchild with a concrete memory trigger point.  They instantly see Mrs. Smith as she was that day and they will recall something she said, did or taught them.  This question in our experience is more likely to get an answer of some kind.

The second step is to go online and search out the school board or better still the school where you grandchild attends website.  Here you will learn interesting things about the day to day activities of the school.  The name of the sport teams, what fund raisers are happening etc.  Now you have the information necessary to ask specific question and to get involved.

Rather than having your grandchildren approach you to buy magazines how exciting for your grandchildren to have you call them and say, Saw that your school is funding well I would like ... magazine and I spoke to your Aunt Carla and she would like... or Calling your grandson to congratulate him on winning the soccer game.  No matter how far away you live the school website keeps you in the know so you can ask interesting questions.

Want to send the message to your grandchildren that school is important and school life exciting for their birthday or Christmas buy them a school t-shirt or hoodie.

By being involved in their school life you send a powerful message that will support their becoming involved as well and the more involved in school they are research says the better their education will be.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Be Kind

In order for you to be kind to others you must start by being kind to yourself.

How many times in a day are you self-critical?

Pay attention to this and when you find yourself being unkind to yourself, stop and apologize to yourself.

This in itself is a kindness and then be kind to yourself.

Pay attention to how your children and grandchild treat themselves 

and when they make unkind comments, 

gently redirect them and teach them about self directed kindness,

so they in turn can be kind to others.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Restorative Justice Isaiah 35:6

“Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.”

Isaiah 35:4-6

The lame will leap, the mute will sing, the blind will see and the dry places will be give water and bloom.  In all of these pictures the outcome is a restored state.  Restored to what society then and now would call is a more productive, valued a more perfect state. 

There is another similarity in the before states of being as each exists on the fringes of society.  When this scripture was written to be blind, mute or deaf meant that you would live in poverty as an outcast, always indebted to others for your existence.  And the desert was a place that you wandered in, a place of hardship, struggle and death.

I believe the message we are being given in this scripture is one of restorative justice.  That we are not to seek punishment, and compensation rather we are to seek restorative justice.  That it is our responsibility as Christians to ensure that when injustice happens that we seek to restore both the victim and offender to a position of health and well being within the community. 

This is easier said than done and yet this is the path of love that Christ has set us on.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls