How to make photo blocks

Buy some wooden blocks from a craft store and paint them.

Ahhhh, what lovely colors!

Cut out photos or pictures and other do-dads you're going to put on the blocks.

Lay out on a table everything you need before you start gluing.

After you have glued everything on, use a fancy schlack glue over the top to make everything secure and shiny.

Slowly it will dry and you'll be able to see your pictures again.

I had Todd drill a small hole in the top of each one.

Put the photo holder in the small hole and put a picture in it and "ta-da!" you're got a photo block!
Enjoy!

How to Make M & M wreaths

A completed M & M Wreath

1st:  bend and cut a hanger...

2nd:  Get Todd to weld the cut hanger closed...

3rd:  Cut pipe cleaners into about 2 inch pieces...

Fun and colorful...

Making wreaths involves jobs for everyone...

Drew loved his job...

Drew and Ben counted out 15 M & Ms....

Patty cut the plastic wrap into squares...
 

 

We wrapped the M & Ms in the plastic and used the pipe cleaners to close them and attach them to the hangers...

Kimberly is holding up a partially completed wreath...

Yum!  A completed wreath.....

 

 

We made one for each family:  The Breuns, The Hensens, The Iversons, and the Sapps...

You may be wondering what makes these M & M wreaths special.... Well, my Grandma and Grandpa Alber always had one of these at their house when we would visit over Christmas vacation.  All of my cousins and siblings fondly remember that we could have one baggie of M & Ms a day.  What a treat!  My Grandma's friend was the one who made them each year.  So, at Thanksgiving this year, my siblings, my mom, and I made our own M & M wreaths.  I think Grandma would have thought that was pretty great! 

Merry Christmas from The Sapps!

 

 Greetings from Todd and Jennifer!  We hope this note finds you happy and well!  Here is our Christmas letter.... a year in pictures....enjoy!  God bless you!  Love, Jennifer

Daniel graduated in May!  He works at Buffalo Wild Wings and goes to St. Cloud Technical College for Industrial Electronics.  He spends a lot of time working on his 1977 Ford Ranchero.

James and Jaimee Sapp got married in June!  They live in Becker.  James works at Remmele Engineering and Jaimee is going to St. Cloud Technical College studying to be an Administrative Assistant. 

Daniel, Jennifer, Todd, James, and Jaimee Sapp!
Merry Christmas, 2012!

Todd and Jennifer enjoyed a trip to Colorado this summer!
It was nice for Todd to get some time off from Remmele and I enjoyed each day of my summer vacation from teaching.   

This is Todd's 1948 Ford Truck and a 1957 Foley lawnmower that belonged to Todd's Grandpa Sapp, and two stationary engines (one with a grain grinding attachment).  We displayed these things at Albany Pioneer Days this fall.

Jennifer's extended family got together for Thanksgiving at the Sapp house this year!

Grandma Alber went to be with Jesus last year, but this year my siblings and I made M & M wreaths to remind us of all the great times we had with our grandparents through the years.  Yum!



We love picking out our own Christmas tree each year! 
Enjoy your family traditions!

Todd and I about to go underground on a mine tour in Colorado!
We are carrying flashlights to help us find our way. 
We are so grateful Jesus was born to help us find The Way!

 

 

 

Oh, Freedom!

Oh, Freedom!

    I adore being a second grade teacher!  November is one of my most favorite months in which to teach.  Each day, my students write down something they are thankful for.  Listing thirty things seems overwhelming to a 7 year old at first.  How rewarding to watch them come to understand the concept that you can be thankful for ANYTHING and EVERYTHING!  It's a choice and it's easy.   

   I love telling my students about those first Americans who left their native land to come to the New World full of new freedoms.  They left a land of being told what to believe and were instead able to build up their own churches and develop their own faith freely.  They abandoned a land where they had to keep their opinions secret to find that in America they could express themselves in newspapers, on soap boxes, and anywhere they went.  It is hard for my second graders to comprehend a world where someone didn't have these freedoms.  These lessons build up an appreciation for our country and the freedoms we still enjoy.

  The Church recently celebrated Reformation Sunday and the impact Martin Luther had on the history of our Protestant faith.  Because he was willing to protest and make reforms, we can enjoy freedom to know God in a very personal way.  Luther rewrote the Bible from Latin to German so we could understand it and read it ourselves.  Luther taught us that we do not have to go through a priest to connect with God, but we can pray directly to God.  We no longer have to pay large sums of money to the church or do elaborate good deeds to be assured of Salvation,  but we know that it is through Jesus we are saved.

   While Luther was doing his own searching before the Reformation, he searched the Bible to find the answer to how he could be SURE he would go to Heaven when he died.  He focused on Galations, Psalms, and Romans.  Luther came to a deep understanding that it is by faith we are saved, not through works.  The heart of his discovery was found in Romans 3:21-31.  Here is Romans 3:21-25: 

   "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.  He did this to demonstrate his justice......

So, everyone has sinned.  Sin must be punished.  Jesus took the punishment (He was the sin bearer) so God could be just in forgiving us.  The only way we have "right standing" with God is through Jesus.  Once we understand this and put our faith in Jesus, we begin the process of sanctification and we do our best to uphold the law and do what it is God has laid out for us to do.  

    So, just as the first Americans were free, the first Protestants under the leadership of Luther were free.  What a weight lifted off their shoulders.  Free to be.  Free to enjoy God's grace.  Free.  I'm thankful for freedom.   

95 Years Ago today

 

front:  Bob, Jean, Jane, Dona  back: Lois Ann and Bill

     My Grandma, Lois Ann (Gustin) Alber was born on September 24th, 1917.  So, 95 years ago today a midwife and doctor were at Lois Ann’s mother’s bedside bringing a crying, wriggling baby girl into the home of Ethyl and John.  Lois Ann was their first of six children.  Ethyl had been a teacher for eleven years before marrying John who was a farmer and cowboy.  Together, they raised their children in the town of Grand Island, Nebraska.  Some of Lois Ann’s childhood was spent in town and some out in the country on a farm.  The farm was bought using the savings from Ethyl’s years as a teacher.
    Lois Ann remembers her home in town as being rather large.  It had electricity and a coal-burning stove.  There was a pot bellied heating stove to warm the living room and dining room.  But, Lois Ann slept in an unheated bedroom with her siblings.  John worked at a wholesale house for $100 a month.  He roasted coffee and peanuts.  He even ordered his own green coffee from South America and created his own blend called, “Blue Ribbon.” 
    In 1928, when Lois Ann was ten, her family moved out to the farm that was 4 ½ miles from town.  There was no electricity, so among other things, the family could not use the vacuum cleaner they had enjoyed in town.  It was Lois Ann’s job to sweep the floor with a broom.  In an interview done in 1999, she explained to me, “In the winter the living room was cold because we had no heat in there except for Sundays.  I would go out and pick up snow and bring it in.  I would sprinkle the snow around on the rug and that would collect the dirt and then we’d sweep the dirt up into the dustpan.”  In the summer they would take the rug outdoors, hang it up, and beat the dust out of it with a rug beater.  The vacuum cleaner lay under the bed, unused.  Lois Ann said, “I can remember lying down on the floor and praying to God that we could get electricity, which never happened.”
    It was also Lois Ann’s job to do the ironing.  While Lois Ann worked, she sometimes sang duets with her mother (who was usually cooking or baking for their family of eight).  Lois Ann sang melody while her mother sang harmony.      
    In addition to no electricity, the house on the farm also had no bathtub.  So, the Gustin children took baths on Saturday night in a round washtub.  It was Lois Ann’s job to help wash her twin sisters, Jean and Jane, who were four years old when they first moved out to the farm.
    Lois Ann’s brothers (Bill and Bob) had to help out on the farm by shoveling grain, and shocking wheat and oats.  Sometimes during harvest, the whole family would help with the shocking, help put hay in the haystack, and help guide the work horses as they went around and around.  During dry years, when there was not enough hay to feed the cows, the children herded the cows along the road so they could eat the grass out of the ditches.  When it was time for threshing, the Gustins would have about a dozen men come to work and it was up to Lois Ann and her mother to prepare the big noon meal.  The made beef roast, potatoes, beans, corn, tomatoes, and apple or cherry pie.  The only time they put ice in their icebox was when the threshers came.
    Lois Ann’s childhood wasn’t all work and no play.  She and her family would have checkers or dominoes tournaments in the winter.  In the summer, the kids would play with the dog and cats or their pet pony.  They made up games, climbed trees, played Hide and Seek or ball games, picked mulberries, pulled weeds and played in the creek.  They had very few dolls or toys and didn’t have any playmates outside the family.  When extended family came, they would have homemade ice cream and sit at their sixteen-foot long lumber picnic table John had made.
    John moved the family to the farm in 1928 because he was hoping he could support them better on a farm than doing his peanuts and coffee roasting in town.  Little did he know that the stock market would crash just one year later (1929).  The crash didn’t affect the Gustins much at first because they were growing so much of their own food.  They had no money in the bank and were living from one crop to the next.  The girls (Lois Ann, Dona, Jean, and Jane) got to make three new cotton dresses every fall.  They would wear one for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and they would wear another one Thursday and Friday.  They washed the dresses on Saturday and started out on Monday with the third dress.  Special Sunday clothes were worn to church.
    The family regularly attended Sunday morning AND Sunday evening church services.  They sat in the back row.  John and Ethyl sang in the church choir and Lois Ann was often a soloist for church.  Her first solo was bright and early on an Easter Sunday before she was ten years old.  She and Dona had matching white dresses that year.  When Gustins arrived home after church on Sunday morning, they would sit and read.  They often had a Sunday afternoon picnic of hot dogs, beans, and coffee by the creek.  Faith was always important to Grandma.  She wanted to either be a missionary (like her pen-pal missionary friend in the Philippine Islands) or a teacher.
    Lois Ann and her siblings got one pair of new Sunday shoes every year, and wore the old ones for everyday.  The soles would wear out, and they had to put cardboard in their shoes.  They had dresses made of flour sacks.  John would buy a large amount of flour at one time so the girls could sew one dress using all the sacks at once.  The funny designs were used to sew their underwear.
    By 1933 (four years into the depression), John sold two loads of calves and got what he had paid for one cow in 1928.  He had to sell the cows in order to buy shoes for the kids.  The family couldn’t afford to butcher their own meat, so Bill and Bob shot pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, possum, and ducks.  The family also ate potatoes, milk, and eggs.  They canned corn, beans, and tomatoes and ate pies of mulberries with rhubarb.  Ethyl could make a one-egg cake using just one cup of sugar and flour.  The cake was big enough for everyone in the family to have a piece.  There was no electric mixer so Bill would beat the cake because he was the strongest.   
    Looking back on her years of living during the depression, Lois Ann said, “I hated being poor.  I hated peanut butter sandwiches.  I hated pancakes.  They were a cheap food for breakfast.  I felt people were always looking at me because I didn’t have nice clothes.  A lot of people were poor, but I still felt people were looking at me.”
    Lois Ann was in fifth grade when they moved out to the farm in 1928.  School was three miles away, so John would drive his kids in their Model T Ford.  Lois Ann described the car as a gas-guzzler!  The one-room schoolhouse was taught by one male teacher, who taught first through eighth grade.  The students marched in and out of the classroom to a tune played on the piano.  Students had to put on boots and coats just to go to the outhouse in the winter. 
    Lois Ann attended 9th – 12th grade in town (Grand Island) from 1931 to 1935.  She lived with her aunt and uncle during the week.  Her dad brought her home for the weekends.  Lois Ann walked to her aunt’s house for a hot lunch each day, stayed to do the dishes, and then walked back to school for the afternoon. 
    Music was a huge part of Lois Ann’s high school life.  She sang in a girls’ glee club and a mixed chorus.  She was in a triple quartet that sang semi-classical music.  In tenth grade she was in the chorus for the musical “HMS Pinafore” and then in eleventh grade she had the alto lead in “Rosamunde.”  That same year, she won top rating in the high school competition for vocal low solo.  Lois Ann also sang a vocal solo for her high school graduation in 1935. 
    Looking back on her childhood Lois Ann said, “One of the things that my dad tried to teach me was to be yourself!  That was way back before psychologists started telling people that.  To find yourself, who you are and then be that person…don’t try to be somebody else.”   

Lois Ann's graduation picture in 1935

Grace, Personally

“You are not accepted because you are good.
You are free to be good because you are accepted.
You are not responsible to have it all together.
You are free to respond to the One who holds all things in His hands.
You do not have to live up to impossible expectations. 
You are free to wait expectantly on Jesus, the One who is both author and perfecter of your faith.”  (Freeman p. 137)

Grace, Personally 

      There are times when I just know God is trying to teach me something.  For about the past year or so, I have felt a desire to better understand Grace.  Conversations and songs and written text with the word Grace in it jumps out at me and says, “Pay attention!”  By God’s Grace, I am learning. 
      I am a Christian….a born-again believer who has been saved by Grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Grace is humongous and beautiful.  God is enormous and good.  This same big God that created the world created me.  This same overwhelming concept called Grace is also a very real personal gift that can bless my individual days.  In this blog I’d like to tell you a bit about my Grace journey.
      As a child growing up in the church, I heard many a time that I am saved not because of any work I have done, but because God adopted me into His family and saved me….. by Grace.  God desires to have a personal relationship with each one of us but sin separates us from God.  God sent Jesus to be the bridge that connects us to God.  Jesus had to die on the cross, bearing the weight of all the sins we have ever committed or ever will commit, and endure being separated from God for a short time so that we could live in freedom and know God on a personal level.  I’m so very glad that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive!  He is sitting in Heaven with God, as God, because they are one and the same.  Confusing, I know!  But, by God’s Grace, maybe someday I’ll fully understand!
     Grace became a little clearer one evening during the summer of 2002, when I was visiting the parents of my friend Jill in Ottawa, Canada. Her parents explained that they didn’t know why anyone bothered with God.  Their idea of God was that he was a taskmaster who was constantly requiring work to be done for Him.  They wondered how I could live day-to-day trying to please him, hoping I was being good enough.  All at once I was explaining Grace and what an amazing gift it is!  God spoke through me.  By His grace, I was able to make it clear to them, as it became clearer to me.
     I think I understand the big concept of Grace.  Basically, God chose to save us even though we don’t deserve it.  God pours out to us His mercy and kindness and compassion and love, even though we don’t deserve it.  I am saved because God extended Grace to me, even though I don’t deserve it.  He knew his children would need Grace.  He’s our creator.   
    But, I believe God also knew we would need His grace extended to us in a way that would be uniquely personal to each one of us.  I recently read the book, Grace For the Good Girl:  Letting Go Of The Try Hard Life by Emily Freeman.  Emily is speaking my language in this book. Lysa Terkerst calls Emily’s book, “the most beautiful picture of grace I’ve ever read.”  That sums it up for me as well.  Never have I quite understood the way that grace can be a gift in my every day life until reading this book. 
    Truthfully, I struggle with fear, anxiety, shame, and a desire to please EVERYONE on a daily basis.  That is NOT living under the umbrella of Grace.  It is not what God wants for my life.  He wants me to experience freedom, joy, peace, and strength.  Believing in Grace makes that possible.  About fear and anxiety, Emily wrote, 

“I set my mind on the truth of my salvation, as one who has been given a 

spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. 
The soul screams, but the Spirit whispers. 
Fear shouts for me to run. 
The Spirit beckons me, Come. 
Fear pushes me to hide, take cover, and protect myself. 
The Spirit whispers, I have already overcome. 
Fear hurls insults, chaos, and anxiety. 
The Spirit lavishes love, steadfastness, and peace.”  (Freeman, p. 165)

    About shame and trying to please everyone, I have learned that shame happens when I try to be perfect and can’t be.  I fail.  I mess up.  It’s impossible to please everyone!  Believe me, I’ve tried!  I am learning how to give myself Grace.  “Jennifer Sapp, you don’t have to be perfect.  It’s okay to mess up.  God can take that failure and turn it into something wonderful.  God’s Grace is new every morning.  It doesn’t matter what others think.  Live your life for an audience of One.  God is bigger than you realize!  Experience His Grace, today!”
      How do I see Grace in my life day by day?  I acknowledge that I don’t deserve Grace, but it is a gift of God to be enjoyed and appreciated.  Here are some examples:
      I teach second grade in a public school.  I greatly need God’s grace to help me through my days.  He can take my weaknesses and grow them into good.  Because of Grace, I have taught for 12 years! 
      I share music at church.  I desperately need God’s grace to turn my efforts into heart-connection beauty for the people listening.  By God’s grace, this occurs Sunday after Sunday.  I couldn’t do it on my own.
       I am a step-mom who doesn’t always know how to connect with the teenagers in her life.  God pours Grace on me as He takes my feeble attempts at conversation and helps these young people see my heart and motivation.
       I write blogs, converse with friends, give advice to people around me, and try my best to communicate with words.  God takes those words, infuses them with Grace and helps me express my heart to others.
       I try hard, but I can do nothing without God’s help, in the form of Grace.  Grace is beautiful.  Birds are graceful and beautiful as they fly and enjoy their freedom.  I want to be graceful.  I want to be gracious.  I want to be full of grace – accepting it in my own life and giving it out to those around me.  Why get upset with people?  Give them grace.  Why get frustrated with people?  Give them grace.  No one is perfect.  As my sweet two-year-old niece Anna told me after I commented that her sunglasses looked perfect on her, “God is perfect and Jesus is perfect.  They are the only ones who are perfect.”  The name Anna means “Grace.”  And, Anna’s middle name IS Grace.  I pray that she will learn to accept Grace in her life in a very personal way.                    
       As Andy Stanley wrote in his book, The Grace of God, “Grace is birthed from hopeless inequity.  Grace is the offer of exactly what we do not deserve.  Thus, it cannot be recognized until we are aware of precisely how undeserving we really are.  It is the knowledge of what we do not deserve that allows us to receive grace for what it is.  Unmerited.  Unearned.  Undeserved.  For that reason, grace can only be experienced by those who acknowledge they are undeserving.”  (Stanley, p. xiv)
       When I experience Grace to its fullest, I am free.  I would like to end with the same words by Emily Freeman that introduced this blog.

“You are not accepted because you are good.
You are free to be good because you are accepted.
You are not responsible to have it all together.
You are free to respond to the One who holds all things in His hands.
You do not have to live up to impossible expectations. 
You are free to wait expectantly on Jesus, the One who is both author and perfecter of your faith.”  (Freeman 137)

Open House vs. Assessment Days

 

Open House vs. Assessment Days:  
One Teacher’s Perspective

       I am a teacher.  I became a teacher because I love kids and want to help kids to love learning.  Most days I am excited to get up in the morning and start my day working with my seven-and-eight-year-old second graders.  But, there is one day when I am not excited to get up in the morning.  That day is Open House!     
       Picture this:  You have 26 students whom you have never met.  You have been busy all day preparing the classroom and writing student names on lockers and desks and workbooks.  The students can enter your classroom anytime between 5:00 and 7:00.  Most of them come at the same time!  They come with parents, grandparents, siblings, and sometimes a second set of parents.  It can be hard to tell which child is the second grader as they come in various sizes!  It is always hard to keep track of which child goes with which parent!  You don’t know which parents are divorced, so that can be akward.  While you try to greet everyone as they come into the room in droves, your mouth starts to hurt from smiling so much and you can’t remember which child you asked about his/her summer and which ones you haven’t.  They unpack their bursting backpacks and you try to direct where tissues and paintshirts go while parents start to surround you to tell you important information about their child.  Again, you can’t remember which child goes with which parent!  And, then sometimes a name can be either a boy’s name or a girl’s name and inevitably you guess the wrong one and the parent is offended.  You grab a notebook to write down one kid’s allergy, while you listen to tales of woe about summer illnesses or parent anxiety.  All the while, you are trying desperately to make a good, confident first impression, when all you truly feel is like you are caught in the middle of a tornado!  Then once the room empties, you have to translate your own messy notes, re-do many of the name tags because John goes by “Johnny” and you spelled Anabella wrong!  It’s exhausting!
      This year Becker Primary and Becker Intermediate chose to try something a little different.  We are going to use the first two days of school as an opportunity to spend time with each individual child.  At their scheduled conference time, a student will come to the classroom, put his/her things in his/her desk and then sit down with the teacher for a beginning-of-the-year asssessment.  In the meantime, the parent sits in the hallway and fills out forms, watches an introductory video on the i-pad, and reads the classroom newsletter.  Once the assessment is done and the teacher has gotten a few minutes to talk with the parent, the two of them go to a number of stations around the school.  So, “Johnny” gets his LifeTouch picture taken in one room, gets tested on Reading Fluency (Dibels) and 200 High Frequency Words by friendly interventionists and knowledgeable specialists, and does an active SMART assessment with a Physical Education teacher.  Moms get to pay for lunch and milk break, update Skyward family information, and buy their child a special book bag, clear folder, and headphones!  Uff-dah!
      What you may not know, is that these Assessment Days save us weeks of valuable learning time!  It takes at least an hour per classroom to get fall photos taken from Life Touch.  The Dibels test takes 30 minutes per classroom and uses all the interventionists in the school for up to three weeks.  That means those interventionists cannot be working with students for three weeks!  They are simply assessing.  What a waste of valuable learning time!  The High Frequency Words are usually done by the classroom teacher in addition to the beginning-of-the-year assessment.  It takes approximately 45 minutes per child to do those two tests. 
      Now picture this:  As the teacher, you know this time of year is crucial to creating the type of atmosphere you desire for your classroom.  You have only begun to explain classroom procedures and expectations.  Very few routines are perfected.  Students are “testing” the teacher to see what they can get away with.  And, what are you supposed to do?  Individually test each child (for 45 minutes) as the rest of the class is kept busy.  What?!?!  Are you crazy?  A child can only read or color or do busy work for so long!  What a stressful situation!  In addition, the child you are testing is being distracted by the other students in the room, the loud new kindergarten class in the hallway, the 4th graders playing mini golf for Gym outside, and the telephone ringing!  Not ideal!  There must be another way!
       As a teacher, I am extremely grateful that there is another way!  Assessment Days are the way to go!  This year I am not as stressed out as usual.  I am enjoying getting the final touches of my classroom ready.  I am excited to spend one-on-one time with each student next week.  And, I truly appreciate the extra effort the parents are making to help make these days possible.