Christmas Photo Shoot 2008

We, and by we I mean I, decided to take our Christmas card picture last night.

Can I tell you all something?

I live with a bunch of goofballs. For example, as we were walking into the store Friday, I noticed Ben's baseball hat was on crooked. I took it off of his head to fix it and his harmonica fell out....out from under his hat. He had on jeans...with pockets....but his hat seemed a much more logical location to store it.

Anyway, we did finally get a good picture, but it took several takes! I didn't include the good one because it will be on our card.

We're singing....we're reading a book and we're sssiiinnngggiiinnnggg!!

I can't believe I'm posting this, so I am going to do this quick, before I change my mind!

Thanksgiving 2008 - Pass the Turkey, Please

Gobble, Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!

I pray that you will all have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with your family and friends this year. We are going to go to my parents house tomorrow and then to Eric's parents on Sunday for lunch. We always look forward to the day with family. In the busy-ness of our lives, we don't get to spend a whole lot of time together.

Ben had a feast at school today. His class dressed up as Indians. I thought he was a pretty cute one. :)

On Monday, I did make it through the trip to the deer processing plant. I actually had fun...and they let me use a knife...a sharp one! ha!

I was going to post some pictures, but decided against it.

Your Welcome.

Here is the group picture that we took at the end. These kids did a great job and never complained one time about the job that they were doing. I have really grown to love these kids.
Here we are sportin' our new hats that the plant gave us!

By the way, I will not be posting Turkey Trot pictures this year... I'M SLEEPING IN!!

Fun Times With Friends

We love spending time with friends. The Lord has blessed us with some great ones. One of the things that brings us together is the fact that our kids are all around the same ages. They all seem to get along pretty well, too. Another bonus is that we all go to church together and because of that, we are pretty much family.

Last night, we were able to get together with some friends to play hand & foot. (Gretchen and I beat up on the guys pretty badly! heehee)
While we played cards, the kids played a game called "Bible Baseball" and Clay said something that was so cute. He's in 4th grade and is just one of the cutest kids. It was his turn to answer the question and he said, "Oh man, I just can't put my tongue on it!" It was so funny! He meant to say that it was right on the tip on his tongue and he got it mixed up with I can't put my finger on it! Cute, cute, cute!

Anyway, I decided that I have been a little lax on picture taking lately, so I took the camera along with me.

Here are a few snapshots from the night:

This is a silly one...a perfect fit for this crew. We were missing a couple of boys from another family that couldn't join us. We almost went over a kidnapped them for the evening! We missed having them all there with us.

Ethan and Clay, playing some football!!

Clint was begging me not to take his picture... I won though.

Wyatt and Ben are in the same class at school. They love their teacher and she thinks they are pretty okay. She is a Christian, but can't really teach anything to the kids about it in the public school, so she lets these two goofballs teach the kids a new song every week from church. There's nothing in the rulebook about that!

Well, that is pretty much how our Saturday went. I hope you all had a good one, too!

Ok, I'm finally gonna break out the Christmas music

It's a cold day in Indiana. Actually, it has been a cold WEEK here. Have I mentioned that I don't much care for the cold?

Well, I don't.

Anyway, we have decided to break out the Christmas music and DVD's today. Our kids have been begging for awhile now, so we have finally given in to them. One of the things we did this year to save some money was to get rid of our big cable package and go to the very, very basic. I don't really watch it much, so it hasn't bothered me at all. So, I am sure that because of the lack of stuff to watch on TV, I will be hearing these Christmas DVD's over and over this season!

As far as Christmas music goes, I have been listening to our Cantata that the choir is doing for a month or so now. It never hurts to listen to that as much as possible! Ethan has a speaking part in it this year also, so he has been listening, too. I am anxious to listen to some of my favorites that I dug out today...

Up in the attic, down on my knees, lifetimes of boxes, timeless to me...
(sing along now)
Letters and photographs, yellowed with years....

Not to mention Sleigh Ride and The Chipmunk Song, Away in a Manger, Silent Night, What Child is This, there are so many that I love. What about you?

In other news, Ben did get his cast off on Wednesday. His foot is still not totally healed, so he has to wear his new boots all the time for the next three weeks.

Oh, and he can't run or jump for three weeks either....yeah, that won't be hard to handle! He's a six year old little boy! I almost wish that they would have put another cast on! That would have been easier. :)

On Monday, I get to go to the deer processing plant with the high school kids from Ethan's school.

This could be interesting.

I make it a point to not look at the meat in the grocery store a whole lot, so I think I am in for a interesting morning.

How do I get myself into these predicaments? Maybe I will post a video or some pictures next week.... :)Kidding.

Just because I'm going to be grossed out doesn't mean you all have to be, too...I guess.

I will leave you with this...

I'm singing, I'm in the store and I'm ssssiiinnngggiiinnggg.....:)

A Day In My Life

I have seen several people do this on their blog, so I decided to bore you with the mundaneness (is that a word) of a day in my life...in this season.



Do enjoy. :)



I will start with saying that we typically start our day at 7am. Some days it's 7:20~ those would be considered the "others" days in my blog heading, "Some days are better than others." Sometimes I wake up before everyone else~ those days would be the "better" days in my heading. :) They are few and far between! Like I also say in my heading... every day is a blessing. I truly do believe that.

This morning I:
Feed the kids breakfast
Cassidy came in the door
Loaded my three kids in the van that had a light dusting of snow. Snow...I'll save that for another day.
Picked up 3 boys
Dropped off 2 of the boys and my 2 youngest at school
Took the other boy and my oldest to school at our church

GOT COFFEE :)

Eric brought the baby to me at the church
Worked 4 hours at the school in our church
Gleaned some bits of wisdom from our pastor for about thirty minutes
Came home so that Eric could get back to work after his lunch break.
Cassidy and Olivia were sleeping
Washed dishes
Did 2 loads of laundry
Got the kids up and went to pick up my kids from school.
Cassidy went home
Cleaned out the pantry
Did 2 more loads of laundry. Olivia spit up on Ethan ten minutes after the LAST load went in. Perfect.
Made brownies for Bible study tonight
Made supper (tacos)
Olivia went home
Did dishes
Apparently, we have installed new cabinets in the bathroom.
Actually, they have always been there, but you wouldn't know by the way that I smacked my head on them when I stood up from picking something up off of the floor.
Take Ibuprofen
Cut out Bo.x Top.s.
~~~Now I am writing on my blog and...
going to Bible study
Next I will ...
do my quiet time (I spent most of my day looking for my book! Found it!)
have some down time
Finally...

bedtime :)


So, there you go. That was my Monday. It is Monday, right? ;)