Great Article...

January is usually one of my hardest months.  It is hard for me to adjust after the holidays and begin a new year.  The Lord has been gracious this year but I am getting very sick of 3 weeks of gray skies.  We have not seen much of the sun in three weeks and I think a few days, I hit a state of desperation even praying that God would just grant us sun.  A sweet friend that is a mentor to me sent me this article for the winter- thought I would pass it along.  (For the Moms Stuck Inside)

Visiting Friends...

While we were in PA over Christmas, we got to see some sweet friends the Jensens that serve the Lord overseas doing amazing Bible translation work in a tribal setting that has not had the Bible translated before.  I grew up with Amy in high school and so thankful we can still keep in touch and pray for one another!  The Lord has uniquely gifted her for this calling of missionary life and I am amazed at all the Lord does through her.  It was so good to reconnect!

Bikers...

Starting Young...

Hersheys...

Lyons Update 2016

Christmas Rumblings from the Lyons Den

Christmas 2016, Cincinnati, Ohio

Looking Back… 

• In January, Michael transitioned to full time as Minister of Discipleship at our church.  We are thankful for another way God has provided for our family!
• In February, we celebrated birthdays of the older two by a Knight and Princess party and an overnight visit to the Air Force museum, while Josiah turned 1 with a birthday blessing party. 
• In March, we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus with family; then Erin went to a Homeschool Convention to officially enter into the wild world of homeschooling. 
• In April, we attended together a conference for those in ministry - Erin was particularly challenged by talks on the importance of her role in mothering.  Michael then joined Erin’s dad for a pastor conference, Together for the Gospel. Few things are more encouraging than singing hymns with 10,000 men!
• In May, we took a brief trip up to the Great Lakes for a family event, enjoyed the beautiful sun as Spring came once again, and went camping joined by a family of raccoons and a morning rain-shower. 
• In June, Erin enjoyed an outing with women from church to a Women’s Conference on 1 Peter and suffering.  It was refreshing to worship with sisters and also have a break from mothering. Daddy was delighted to have her return!  J
• In July, Jeremiah took to the pool for more lessons at swim ministry; this year he learned to swim without floaties and underwater with glee just like a little fishie! We enjoyed family swim times at our church pool as well!
• In August, we had a great opportunity to take a trip to Glacier National Park (Montana) for a week without children! We stayed with precious friends and hiked our legs off (including a 2-hr stint in a thunderstorm complete with hail!). 
• In September, Jeremiah’s kindergarten officially began, a big deal for Mommy and son to learn a homeschooling routine for each day. Lydia and Josiah tagged along in their own ways. We celebrated 11 years of God’s provision for our family and tried another family camping trip—this time without the family of raccoons along.
• In October, Erin enjoyed teaching her Preschool Art class at co-op each week, and we took a little visit to a cabin with Erin’s family.  And oh, guess what? We announced the expectation of our 4^th little cub at the end of May.

• In November, Michael was (and is!) busy writing and working on a major chapter of his dissertation, taking time out to rest as we enjoyed hearing John Piper preach in Cincinnati.
• In December, we are baking cookies and the kids are doing their Advent readings- anxiously awaiting the coming of the promised baby- Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Year’s Reading Recommendations…

Reading shapes us, turns us upside down, and helps us see God and His world afresh. Here are some of our favorites from the past year:

From Erin: A Lantern in Her Hands, Aldrich; Side by Side, Welch; Seasons of Waiting, Howard; The Pastor’s Wife, Furman; The Invisible Woman, Johnson; Managers of their Homes, Maxwell; Taking Time To Quiet Your Soul, Berg.

From Michael: A Lantern in Her Hands, Aldrich (yes, he admits to enjoying it and even tearing up...); Discipling, Dever; The Robe, Douglas; Patrick Henry, Kidd; The Wingfeather Saga, Peterson; The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Elledge; Pearl Harbor, Nelson (audio book!); Persia and the Bible, Yamauchi; The Letters of Jerome, ed. Wright; Let the Nations Be Glad, Piper; And many more books for his dissertation!!

From Jeremiah:  The Boxcar Children, Warner; The Three Tales of My Father’s Dragon, Gannett; Dolphin Adventure & Dolphin Treasure, Grover; Keeping Holiday, Meade; any Dinosaur books!; Little House on the Prairie (audio books).

From Lydia: Princess books; any books we read to Jeremiah or she gets from the library.

From Josiah:  Ten in the Bed and Sondra Boynton books. Occasionally he likes to study the Semitic languages and reorganize Daddy’s shelves.

On Our Minds this Past Year…

This year we are thankful for the many ways God has provided for our family; he continues to show his faithfulness around every bend. We are thankful for having had the opportunity to get away, just the two of us, for a week long retreat to the mountains. We are thankful to the Lord for wisdom in picking curriculum for Jeremiah’s schooling and great support at our church in homeschooling and from many sweet friends. Erin is thankful this year for the opportunity to be informally counseled by
a mentor

from church who graciously comes to our home during nap time to meet and pray with Erin. We are thankful for the prayers of the people of God and the Word of God. Erin is also thankful for many sisters she is able to connect with near and far and pray for one another.

News from the Lyons’ Den…

The Parents:  Michael has enjoyed this year having his first full-time job in our 11-years of marriage!  The church has been so gracious to us; he likes his expanded new role of adult discipleship, teaching, occasional preaching, and supervising youth and children staff. He loves most spending time one-on-one with the men in the church. Michael also continues to teach at school, enjoying the relationships he has there. Meanwhile, he is working on his dissertation and hopes to finish in maybe 1 ½ more years (is there an end to this thing??). His dissertation examines famine in ancient Near Eastern literature and the Bible. Erin has enjoyed taking on the new role of homeschooling Jeremiah this year.  She still enjoys running/walking, hiking, getting out with friends, mowing, gardening and doing any yard work she can get her hands on (even taking on her neighbor’s yard and the church’s flower garden this year! We all think she has a secret dream of becoming a farmer…).  The Lord taught her a lot this year as she struggled with some depression last winter.  She has enjoyed meeting with a mentor friend who has encouraged and counseled her with the series Quieting a Noisy Soul (Berg). The Lord is still at work teaching her contentment and satisfaction in Him, stripping away her idol of self, and teaching her to trust that He is more than enough in any situation we face!

Kids:  Jeremiah
will soon be 6 in February.  He loves his homeschool Kindergarten year, though he really wanted to ride on a bus!  He loves to have mommy read chapter books with him and is picking up reading simple words. His favorite subject might be math as he enjoys counting and trying to add things.  He has a soft, tender heart to the things of the Lord.  Jeremiah also enjoys his co-op classes on Wednesdays and he loves to sing in Joyful Noise on Sundays. Oh, and just in case you are wondering: he still has more energy than 10 kids put together. He could wrestle all night with Daddy.  Lydia is 3 going on 4.  She says when she is 4 she will be a big girl!  Lydia loves to look “pretty” and pick out her own clothes.  She loves princesses, baby dolls, purple, and anything “girly.”  She loves to follow her big brother and do everything he does and is deeply in-love with her best friend, cousin Anna!  Josiah-well, he just follows the others!  He loves to read books, play with balls, and wrestle with daddy and the others.  He is easy-going, though lately he likes to exert his desire

to be King of the Four Corners of the World. Oh, here comes the “two’s”…

Church:  We are grateful to remain part of Evangelical Community Church, where Michael serves full time. Our church is full of godly men and women who help us live out following Jesus in community. Erin continues to mentor and lead the Youth Girls’ Study in our home as well as helping with a mom’s group twice a month. Our kids are learning much about the worship of God through Sunday School, the worship service, and various children activities. This year, in the Joyful Noise choir school, the kids are learning about the gospel and missions.

Seeing and Savoring Christ in Christmas…

Three kids, with one on the way, has a way of making us more dependent upon God each year. Things we once thought we knew, now we realize we don’t; each day is a new day to discover God’s plan for our family. Life as a family is not as easy as they portrayed it in Leave It to Beaver! Let’s be honest, our Christmas letters tend to show the ups more than the downs. But don’t be deceived, we too struggle in the great quest of treasuring Jesus above all things. We look forward this year to praying for you as you pray for us—that God may mold all of us through the ups and the downs into the image of his Incarnate Son, the Baby King born in Bethlehem.

Treasuring Christ,

Michael, Erin, Jeremiah, Lydia & Josiah Lyons

5684 Colerain Avenue Apt. 3, Cincinnati, OH 45239

elyons25@gmail.com, mlyons533@gmail.com, http://melyonsden.blogspot.com

Keeping Holiday...

We just finished our book- Keeping Holiday by Starr Meade today for Read-Aloud time.  It was soooo good!  I think I am going to put it on our Christmas book list to read aloud every year!  Though we did just finish it this week. 

Advent 2016

Advent Happenings for 2016

So I have to admit that I was overwhelmed this year in thinking about Advent and trying to figure out what precisely to do with the kids.  I put way to much pressure on myself!  This is mainly for my own personal record but here are some things we settled on doing this December.  I did end up deciding to ditch most other school stuff in the curriculum and get lots of Christmas books out of the library and enjoy reading those and having different themes for the week.

Christmas Books-  We read a different Christmas book each day- I love the idea of wrapping a book and opening it each day but I didn't make it that far- we just read the books.  It did remind me that I want to accumulate in my library more good Christmas books.  We had different things such as Candy Canes, St. Nicholas, Poinsettias and the Nativity. 

Singing- We would get our instruments out each day and sing carols together.  One of my favorite activities we did was taking the kids caroling to a nursing home.  Jeremiah and Lydia loved going around and singing to the residents- esp. Silent Night- the song they knew the best.

Devotional-  We read one story a day from The Jesus Storybook Bible, leading up to Christ's birth and going through the Old Testament.  We also tried doing Truth in the Tinsel  and making ornaments for each lesson and above is our ornament tree we made.  10 days before Christmas we did our book Donkey in the Living Room, where we hide random characters from the Christmas story.  We also would light our Advent Wreath candles on the table.

Baking & Crafts-  We did some baking of cookies and made buckeyes and chocolate covered pretzels with various friends.  We enjoyed doing Gingerbread Houses with graham crackers with kids from co-op.  We made baggies up for the school kids that walk down the street with the Legend of the Candy Cane on it and handed them out to our school street kids with a little food treat and pack of toy animals.  We tried our hand at a few crafts- making a few linen towels as gifts, some wood paintings and sun catchers and decorating some picture frames. 

The Lord is our Salvation!

It was our first day back to school today!  The routine of life always comes back at me and hits me hard when we have been off or enjoyed fun holiday times together.  I knew today would could be hard and asked for prayer and things were going ok- no one wanted to do school, everyone was tired and stubborn and in bad moods.  When the fighting began to escalate and go on and on this afternoon, my sweet neighbor came in to visit to find me in tears.  There are days like this when the tears come and the Lord reminds me His grace is sufficient- His power is perfected through my weakness.  Praise God!  This morning we chose our hymn for the month to sing with the kids, it is not an old but a new hymn that the Gettys wrote and it points me to Christ and lifts my eyes to the heavens even in the routine, mundane, everyday of life.  God breaks through our mundane and points us to Him as our salvation!  "His strength will help me scale these walls!  When winter fades, I know spring will come.  The Lord is my salvation!"  Michael and I have just grown to love this song!  Rich truths for each day!  The Gettys have an amazing new kids CD- "Getty Kids Hymnal- In Christ Alone!"