It is lookin even more Christmasy around here with the addition of this tracing, cutting and gluing project that we worked on yesterday… SO FUN! We hung them on the wall as you walk down to the school room… Grace even made one that says Merry Christmas for Daddy’s office door!
Since the whole family has travelled to the east coast three times since June and Danny has had two more trips east, we are not travelling for the holidays this year! We are tired of travelling and packing, but we are excited to be in our own home and beds this holiday season. Last week we got in the Thanksgiving spirit by reading several Thanksgiving books and then we made these turkeys with what we are thankful for… they turned out really cute. Grace, Hannah and Josiah each had their own. Josiah kept picking off the eyes of his, but that comes with being a two year old boy!
Grace has been studying about graphing in math. She loves organizing and sorting so this activity is right up her alley! But last week she was supposed to make another graph using the given data from her book. Knowing that she likes a challenge and creativity, we went onto FB and asked my friends to help her with her new graph. We asked then to respond with what their favorite food at Thanksgiving food was from our list. We had MANY people respond (THANK YOU!) including the Gordon Gang who called us so each member of the family could have their vote counted! It was a lot of fun!
Here is Grace with the results…. Turkey was the winner with mashed potatoes not far behind!!
By the afternoon I am just run dry of energy…. I have nothing left after running around with the four kids all morning, but my five year old has TONS! She wants to play, run, jump, cook, clean… whatever, as long as it is WITH mommy! What I really want her to say is, “Mom, can we just snuggle on the couch and nap together?” But that rarely happens… well, she DID nap ON DANNY the other day when they were snuggling…NO FAIR!!
Anyway, last Tuesday I summoned all of my energy and made pies with Grace. We had offered to make three apple pies for the Thanksgiving dinner at church so this was a perfect time to do it! We had a BLAST together… there MAY have been a little bit of tasting going on as we slaved away on those pies! :) It was great being together and doing some ministry in our home…TOGETHER!
Open wide, baby boy, here comes the food! Last week I started feeding Caleb baby food. He is just so cute. He opens his mouth wide and gets really excited when he sees the food, but he hasn’t swallowed any of it. He is still at the investigation and spitting out phase, but at least he isn’t blowing it all over me… yet! We have also graduated Siah to the booster seat and Hannah to just a chair without a booster. It is taking a little bit of training and correction, but they are both doing great and are enjoying the freedom and status that comes with their new seats! I will let you know when Caleb starts really getting it!
I hope these two are best buddies! (These pictures were taken last Wednesday night when I was home with just the boys!)
I don’t know what regular kids play with, but when you are from NE a lobsta is a PERFECT toy to teeth on! :) ADORABLE!
I love Operation Christmas Child! I cry at each of the promotional videos that I have ever seen. I can truly imagine the children receiving their boxes and loving each article inside. I can see the balls being played with, the flashlights begin shone during bedtime when they should be sleeping, the fingers as they squish through playdough for the first time, and the dirty feet as they slip into soft socks for the first time! I can hear their giggles…. the giggles of children who hear for the first time of the love of Jesus as they inspect each item from their box! We don’t do OCC for the fame or the thanks… we do it for Jesus so HIS NAME will be proclaimed throughout the whole world… even to those places that will not let people have Bibles they WILL let people get an OCC box!
So.. again this year we participated with our church. For Josiah’s birthday his friends helped to fill his OCC box so we were well on our way! We ended up doing one box for each of the big kids (3 total) and our church filled nearly 800 (that was the goal and I know we are really close!).
Here are pictures from our packing party!
Dad and Mom rented a beach house from friends of theirs while we were all in FL. It was on Sanibel Island and was just a tiny walk to the beach! Oh… it was a little piece of heaven. One morning while the kids and I were on the beach and Danny was home while Caleb napped, I texted Danny that I was TRULY relaxing! This is heavenly to me….so quiet, still, pretty, calming, warm, peaceful!
Since the beach was so close, we went there a couples times a day. One of the special parts of Sanibel is the number of shells on the beach… you literally had to be careful where you stepped. We were able to bring home some really special ones…Here are Hannah and Josiah looking for exactly the right one to take home!
Karen was off work one of the mornings so she slept over and played on the beach for a while before going to work… what a great auntie!
Caleb loved the texture and coolness of the sand on his feet. He kept jumping in the sand… boy, I wish he would be happy once in a while! :) So different from his brother! Nanna loved to really get to know both of the boys on this trip!
Daddy and his kiddos… boy, they LOVE him!
We love going for walks as a family so we carried on the tradition in FL by walking on the BEACH instead! We dropped off our shoes and hit the sand with bare feet and smiles! And yes, Hannah DID get all wet before we headed home!
Sisters are FOREVER!
Looking for shells (I love how you see the girls in the background!)
There is just something about the ocean waves that is amazing to just watch and watch! Wait until they see really HUGE waves some day… the majesty of God is AMAZING to us!
Caleb fell asleep on our walk… he doesn’t do that a lot any more! How precious!
Our Family… Sanibel Island 2012
