Visit from Arthur

We've had a friend visiting since Friday. Arthur was my husband's roommate in college and he was the best man in our wedding thirteen years ago. The guys have gone ice fishing and played some basketball at the Y. Last night they looked at pictures from a bike trip they took after graduating from college. I'm glad they've stayed good friends all these years. It's good to have friends who know you well.

A year and a half ago, Arthur stopped by for a couple days with his kids while they were on a long road trip vacation. Our kids and Arthur's kids played continually the entire time. They hit it off amazingly well! Because of those great memories, I guess, Grant and Katie have been practically glued to Arthur the entire time he has been here! They are just ga-ga over him! :-) He has been very patient and kind to them as they have fought over sitting next to him, holding his hand, etc. He even babysat them for Dave and I for awhile one afternoon.

But, all good things must come to an end and Arthur heads back home this evening. Hopefully, we will be able to visit him and his family sometime even though he lives all the way up in Walla Walla, Washington! Maybe a long road trip is in our future...

End Of The Spear

When I was a new Christian, someone gave me a copy of the book, "Through Gates Of Splendor" by Elisabeth Elliot. I flipped through it and saw a picture of a man's body floating in a river with a spear sticking out of his hip and thought there was no way I wanted to read that book.

Well, it sat on a table for awhile and one day I picked it up and finally read a bit of it. I couldn't put it down and ended up reading the whole book. Wow! The lives of Jim Elliot and the other missionaries killed by the Auca Indians in Equador in 1956 really challenged me to live fully for Christ. After that I read everything I could find about the mission to the Aucas and all the books by Elisabeth Elliot I could get my hands on.

My life was changed by reading about those missionaries and their complete surrender to Christ's will for their lives. I know that I am not the only one. I have heard many stories of people going to the mission field because of these men who gave their lives for what they believed in.

Their sacrifice influenced the future direction of my life and Elisabeth Elliot's writings and speaking challenged me (and continue to challenge and encourage me)along the way. I even named my daughter after Elisabeth Elliot ~ her middle name is Elisabeth. With an "s." :-)

Now a movie has been made about this incredible story, told from the perspective of the pilot, Nate Saint's son. It's called: End Of The Spear. I hope that God will again use this story to challenge people to live for Him and take the gospel to those who do not know Him yet.

January

The new year is well under way and we've been trying to get back into a more regular routine with our days. The kids are finally getting back in the habit of doing school work every morning and I'm finally getting back in the habit of not eating candy or drinking eggnog every day~ha-ha! :-)

Last week our homeschool co-op met. In the class I teach, Five In A Row, we enjoyed reading A Pair Of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno. It was fun to show the class some of the things I had brought home from a mission trip to Japan 15 years ago. I had some Japanese coins which we let the kids look at and do crayon rubbings with and I brought a little cookie-like snack to share with them. (I found them in the Asian foods section of the grocery store.) When I gave them each one, they had to say please and thank you in Japanese, which they really enjoyed doing.

Katie's birthday is coming up and she will be having a princess party to celebrate with her friends. She is VERY excited and is always suggesting ideas of things we can do at the party. :-) Dave and I are going to attempt to put together some type of castle out of refrigerator boxes for the little princesses to play in. We'll see how that actually turns out...

So that is how our January days are going! :-)

Winter Days

It snowed a little bit last night ~ just a light dusting. Now the sun is shining and it looks like someone sprinkled sugar all over our yard! :-) This picture is from another day, which was overcast, but this is what the kids will be doing this afternoon! :-)

Christmas Recap

Every year I want to slow down and really enjoy the Christmas season and I want our celebration to be about the fact that God sent His Son to the world. And every year the busyness comes rushing in and we get caught up in the frenzy of going to and hosting parties, buying gifts, sending out cards and eating an inordinate amount of sweets. This year was a little better. We did slow down a bit.

And I realized that part of the problem is my idealized vision of what Christmas is supposed to look like. To make it meaningful and give my kids wonderful memories of family Christmases. I think that is already happening. So, I can let go of the phantom "perfect Christmas" and just enjoy the real Christmas we have. :-)

Dance Class

Last fall Katie won a free year of dance classes at a local dance studio! She is learning ballet, tap and jazz in her class. Since boys dance free at this studio, Grant decided he would like to be in a hip hop class. It has been a good experience and great exercise so far! Just before Christmas the classes put on a little presentation for the parents. Dave and I enjoyed watching the fruits of their labors! We thought they both did great and more importantly, they had a blast! :-)

Thirteen Years!

Today is Dave's and my thirteenth wedding anniversary. This is the first year we haven't actually celebrated on our anniversary, but our babysitter wasn't available and I didn't get around to trying to find someone else to watch the kids. So, we will go out for a special date to celebrate in a couple of days.

I couldn't imagine sharing life with anyone other than the wonderful husband that God gave me. I am so blessed!

Family Christmas Picture

I guess we got caught up in Christmas preparations...and then Christmas...and then the Christmas conference we put on for high school students...so I got behind in posting! Anyway, this is the picture we sent out with our Christmas cards this year. We decided to do the cards, had a friend take the picture, went to Dave's office to create the card and email it to the printer all in a couple of hours! We picked them up from the printer and mailed them the next day. It was kind of a relief to just have it done!

More on Christmas later~

A Toothy Tale

The Tooth Fairy is going to have to fork over a bunch of dough tonight! Little Grant had to have his two eye teeth pulled at the dentist today. He was such a trooper as they numbed up his gums with "sleepy juice." The dentist did an excellent job of making Grant feel comfortable. He is really good with kids.

Grant did not feel much other than a little pinch when they gave him the shot of novacaine. He left the dental office with two big wads of gauze in his mouth and a puffy, numb lip. I let him watch videos and eat mashed potatoes and chocolate pudding for dinner. He is feeling much better now. :-)

Narnia Personality Quiz

As Susan, you are mature and respectable, yet with your 'motherly' role you can be quite bossy. Still, you can always be trusted to be loyal and faithful.

Ha~ha! Well, I guess there is a quiz for everything! :-)

Narnia

Oh, we LOVED the Narnia movie!

One of our family's favorite Christmas gifts last year was a volume of all The Chronicles Of Narnia. We began reading it together on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and soon the kids were begging for "Narnia time"! We finished The Last Battle about a week ago and could hardly wait to see the movie, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe!

Last night our whole staff team, kids included, went to see the movie together. Afterward, we all went to one family's home for our Christmas party. It was fun seeing the movie with a big group, but it was really special to see it with our kids after reading the books and anticipating it for so long!

I thought the movie represented the story really well. The times that the children went into and out of Narnia through the wardrobe were just exactly like I imagined it when reading the book. When Aslan first appeared on the scene, I thought that he could have been a little more fierce, but other than that I loved everything about the movie. I'm so glad that the money and time were put into telling this story well and I hope that the other stories in The Chronicles of Narnia will be made into movies, also!

The first thing Katie said when the movie ended was, "I want to watch it again!" :-) I couldn't agree more! I don't think we can wait too long before we go back to see the movie and step into Narnia again!

Tigger is back

My little Tigger is bouncing and chatting again. :-) It is good to see him acting like himself once more. Tonight at dinner he confided that he thinks he should be a secret agent when he grows up because, "I just like being secret and sneaking around." Okay...well, I think everyone would know what he's up to because he also likes to talk and talk about every little thought he has! :-)

This is the weekend of parties! We have our homeschool co-op classes tomorrow and a little party afterward. On Saturday the kids are going to a birthday party and then we are all going to our staff team's family Christmas party. It's a good thing Tigger is back in action for all these parties, because socializing is what he lives for! :-)

Tigger

My little Tigger-like son is down with a headache and fever. He is always so full of energy and non-stop chatter, that it is strange to see him lying around and being so quiet. :-( I'm praying he will be his old bouncy self again soon.

Frosty kids

Grant and Katie just came inside after playing in the snow with the neighbor kids for the past couple of hours. They are red-cheeked and happy. The igloo they started sits in the front yard...only two lonely little snow blocks. It's a start, though, and that project will keep them busy all week! :-)

It's hard to believe that Christmas is only three weeks away! We've already gotten some Christmas cards in the mail ~ boy, I wish I was that organized! We haven't even taken a picture or thought about what kind of greeting we'll send this year. Last year we never even got one out, so hopefully this year we can pull it together! ;-)

Thanksgiving Preparations

We celebrate Thanksgiving every year with some friends whose extended families are out west, like ours. We are all transplanted westerners. :-) We alternate which family is hosting each year and this year our friends are hosting. We are bringing three pies, (apple, pumpkin, pecan), a lettuce salad, rolls, pop and sparkling cider.

My little girl is feeling much better and really wants to help me in the kitchen. She is only five, but is actually very helpful! :-)

Both Katie and Grant want to help roll out dough for pies and I'm sure Katie will stay in the kitchen long after that to help me with everything else that needs to be done. She just ran down to her play kitchen to grab her apron, so she is ready to go! :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunny smile is back!

Katie is sick. :-( She got the sniffles and it blossomed into wheezing and asthma troubles. Sometimes she gets a cold and gets over it in a few days and other times it gets worse and brings on the asthma symptoms.

We started nebbing her last night ~ hoping to get a good start on it ~ but she kept needing nebs every hour all night. I thought it would start to get better today, but finally called the doctor and was able to get her started on prednisone this afternoon. We'll see the doctor in the morning.

Now she is breathing easier and tonight she smiled and even laughed. Her eyes twinkled again. It was SUCH A RELIEF. I think she's on the mend. :-)

First day of school

Wow, I have actually posted 3 pictures in the last few minutes after not being able to post pictures for days! I hope I will be able to continue to post pictures whenever I want to. These pictures of the kids were taken on our first day of school in September. You can see they were ready to get started learning! :-)

Finally...it worked!

Pictures not working again!

Well, I have been trying and trying to post the picture I mentioned in the post below and it just will not work. It is very frustrating and makes me wonder if blogger is really going to work out for me. We'll see, I guess.

A look back at summer

Someday I will get some more pictures posted! I don't have a digital camera, so I have to wait until I get film developed and then scan the pictures and finally post them...and by then so much time has passed that the pictures are of things that have happened long ago! Case in point ~ this pic of the kids at our homeschool co-op camping trip in August. Hopefully, it won't be too long before I can get a digital camera! :-)