"I love Jesus!"

 It makes my heart happy to hear my 4 year old Aaron say that.

That's what Aaron has been saying since Monday.  He went to preschool on Monday and they have a nativity set up in the dress up area.  He loved this!

They have started all the fun Christmas preparations at his preschool.  That includes hearing the story of Christmas and the Baby Jesus over and over again.  Hearing those words in the title coming from my litlte Aaron is a big deal.  He has expressed his very certain dislike for Church, and learning about God and Jesus, but it could be that most of that comes from the fact that he doesn't understand a lot (I hope).  It has had me worried about him, so hearing him say this is very comforting.

So, yesterday I pulled out our Little people nativity, and he sat and played with it for a long time.  It plays Silent night with the Angel on top, and he just kept saying "oh, I love the baby Jesus" while watching the nativity.  So, for the first time we really got to talk about Jesus and how much Jesus loves him too.  That picture up above is one of my favorite moments from yesterday.  I just want to wrap up all that he felt at that moment and let him hold it with him forever.  It was truly a peaceful moment.  Anyway, now to wipe the tears away because just thinking about this is making me cry, I'll tell you what we did for our first day of advent activities

On this first day of December we listened to this before everybody went off on their way:  Handel's Messiah sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Then we looked up the scripture in Isaiah 9:6 so they could see that the whole song came from that scripture.  

6:  "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

 We talked about who the child is, Jesus.  We talked about the different names that He is called by.

Then we made these choir people from toilet paper rolls from Family Fun.  They turned out very cute, but I'll have to post pictures later of the ones that we made.  I thought that craft went very well with watching the choir singing, I was so glad to be able to tie it in with today's scripture.

Photo courtesy family fun

I am so excited for these things that we did and will do each day until Christmas.  I'm really hoping to make things more meaningful for the kids this year, and especially to focus on things other than what they will get.  Getting ready for Christmas is so much fun!