Christmas Musical

I wanted to share some pictures of the Christmas musical "The Best Christmas Present Ever" that our 3 oldest boys were in last Sunday - Hope you enjoy! Ezra got to be a sheep a few weeks before and was in a slide show that was shown that morning too!

Nice and toasty!

c

The day finally came this week, when our wood stove installation was complete! It happened on Monday while I was at work until 9:30PM unfortunately, but when I got home the house was VERY nice and toasty! In fact, when I got home the first thing I had to do (after bringing wood up to the house!) was to take off my sweater! It has been 3 full days now, and our furnace hasn't run ONCE! The main level stays around 75 F, and the upstairs around the same! It's pretty fun to enjoy the wood heat, and be able to sit around in a t shirt and feel very comfortable! For our 14th anniversary Rhonda and I bought each other various tools for the fire, an ash bucket, tools, and a little humidifier pot to put some moisture back into the air. Hope you enjoy the pictures and can come and stay warm with us sometime this winter!
As an aside, if you ever need a stove installed or a chimney swept, check out A+ Chimney Services, they took great care of us!

Have we done enough?

Merry Christmas! We hope that all of you are enjoying this Christmas season. We really enjoy the Christmas season at our house and the traditions that go along with it! Ezra was begging for Christmas lights to be put up way before Thanksgiving even. We love making buckeyes, icing sugar cookies, making graham cracker gingerbread houses, cutting out paper snowflakes for our windows, the whispers and secrets of gift-giving preparation, singing (and sometimes butchering) Christmas carols, and just having some good ol’ family time together.

But between the shopping and gift wrapping Dustin and I really try to instill in our kids the true meaning of Christmas. Our church starts December with a Breakfast in Bethlehem where the whole gym is transformed into the marketplace of Bethlehem at the time of Christ. There is a live nativity scene with real animals (that even poop to add to the little ones’ excitement) and there are different booths or shops in the marketplace with hands-on activities for the kids so that they can easier imagine what life may have been like then. Another fun activity was going on the Journey to Bethlehem that is put on by a large church in our area each year. They put you in family groups and you trek through their property on a journey to “Bethlehem”. There are actors along the way to pull you into the scenes as you pass along on your journey, which of course ends at a little stable in Bethlehem where you get to meet a special family with a brand new baby boy. They do a fabulous job and it is enjoyed by all—well, except for those mean Roman soldiers that Ezra could for SURE do without. J Our boys are busy practicing their songs and lines for the upcoming Christmas musical (The Best Christmas Present Ever) this Sunday at our church. We are so looking forward to it, and again, it is a way to focus on the true Christmas. We also have one of those red and green paper chains hanging from our chandelier over our table. Each strip of paper has one verse of the Christmas story on it and down to the littlest, who can’t really even read, we take turns reading those verses as we count down to Christmas day. Then comes our celebration of Jesus on Christmas morning, we read the Christmas story from the Bible (and have even acted it out before) and on our breakfast table sets a huge stack of pancakes which gets candles plopped into it. Next, you guessed it, we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. These traditions are actually among the boys’ favorites.

So, all of that plus the squeezing Jesus into conversations and asking thought provoking questions…surely we’re getting the message through? One would hope so! But why then do I constantly hear about wanting more and asking for more gifts and see the obsession with the gifts that they look forward to? Are we not doing enough? No, we aren’t. We never can. And THAT’S the true meaning of Christmas. The amazing gift of grace that God chose to give us -- Jesus’ love for us! He was willing to be separated from his Heavenly Father and be restricted by human form for many years so that he could love us through HIS sacrifice on the cross. Why? Because we could never do enough and the thought of us being separated from him forever made him sad. He wants us to choose to be with him and it’s just so simple. We just have to do what we love so very much….receive a gift!

RLB

Tearing up the Good

So we're working on installing our wood stove, and part of that involved cutting out some of the hardwood floor. This was really hard on Rhonda, as she kept asking "do we really have to do that?" and "what other options are there?" over and over! It's good to know she likes our floors! We have been looking all over for the right bricks to put on the hearth, but for now we just needed to get it going! It's a bit painful to tear up the "good" of our hardwood floor, but we know we're just making room for the "better" of the wood stove to keep us warm and toasty this winter! Reminds me of how God sometimes tears out the things we see as good in our lives to make more room for the better - more of Him in us! Hope your American Thanksgiving was a good one, my fellow Americans, and that my Canadian family and friends had a great last weekend of November! God bless!

Making our homemade firestarters!

Everyone (except Rhonda) getting into tearing up the old floor!

Making sure the stove will fit with enough clearances to keep it safe!

A busy fall...

So this fall has been very busy for us, with lots of activities for the boys. This was the weekend it all was to come to an end, and we were ready for the break. A full day Saturday of floor hockey final games and Sol's Lego Robotics competition, then an impromptu early Thanksgiving dinner with friends capped off the day! Alas, our busy time was not to end so easily, as Sol's Lego team did so well that, as a first year team, they advanced to the Eastern Missouri Championship in two weeks! We're thrilled for him, and it pretty much takes away all of the wishing it was all over, at least for now! Thad's floor hockey team only had one loss this year, and he was one of the stars of the team, scoring several goals and being a wall in net, only allowing 2 goals all season! Enjoy the pics of the boys and their fun weekend!

Sol's Lego team at the competition

More Lego competition

All the cousins in their hockey gear

Warming up for the hockey game

Sol's hockey team warm ups

Sol reading to his little brothers

Thad taking his turn to mow the grass (that's why I have all boys!)

Marble Game

Today while Rhonda took the older brothers to karate class, I stayed home and got to help the younger two build their marble tower, and then play with the glow in the dark toy! It was lots of fun so I thought I'd share it with you. I couldn't get the camera to work in the dark, so you have to watch it in the daylight, and the fun is multiplied by at least 10 when you turn out the lights! Enjoy more of the creativity and just plain love for life of my two younger boys!

Captain Redbeard

Today I returned home from a couple of days away at the Missouri School Counselor Fall Conference, and as usual had a few little surprises for my boys in the way of freebees that vendors gave out. One of them was a highlighter that came with little page markers, and Eli, my imaginative little man, decided they had another purpose as well. Enjoy his creativity!

The wealthy Captain Redbeard (that's money he's making himself!)

The fierce Captain Redbeard with his helmet clad younger brother (don't ask about the helmet!)

More Baby-Biking and our yard

The boys have decided it's also fun to make bigger ramps for the baby bikes now, so today after work and before hockey practice we jumped baby bikes for a bit! It's so much fun to watch them fly down the drive and jump those bikes, sometimes even crashing a bit! Mom was a bit worried about the size of the ramp, but I convinced her that the fun is worth the risk in this case!





And finally, a view of our new and much improved front yard! The grass has been coming in well and things are starting to look very green again! Can't wait till next year to make use of our new yard!

Late Night Baby-Biking

So we have a rather unusual pasttime in our house. Our boys have named it "baby-biking," and it's where you hop on one of the plastic three wheelers - the big wheels, the Diego bike, or the garage sale bike, and sail down a hill as fast as you can go! They've managed to work in some spins and turns here and there, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident, and tonight they talked me into building a little jump for them! Hope you enjoy the fun time they're having!

Sadness

I got a phone call from a very upset 8 year old this morning, who told me through his crying that mom had "run over George this morning." Our boys are very sad today as our new little kitten ran under the van wheel as they were going to take Ezra to preschool. Poor George is gone, and we'd appreciate your prayers for the boys as we say goodbye to such a fun little kitty.

Carving pumpkins and playing with George

Our fall has definitely been busy, but we found an hour tonight after church, small group, and kids Christmas choir practice to carve our pumpkin and play outside a bit. We had lots of fun digging the guts out of the pumpkin and designing the face, and then I cut it up for us. In the meanwhile Sol, the one kid we KNOW is allergic to cats, spent some time cuddling up to our kitty George. I also threw in a pic Rhonda took last week of George driving the kids car. Pretty talented cat we adopted from Grandma P's litter! Hope your fall is going well!

Sol and his buddy George

Digging out the guts

Ez showing his goofball side

George driving our car

Eli's Star Wars Show

Eli has loved playing with his Star Wars Lego figures, and wanted to put together a short movie for his online audience. What is it with little boys and Star Wars anyhow? Hope you enjoy it, from my getting bigger 6 year old to you!

This was the big weekend - getting our yard all graded off an adding a bunch of dirt to make a much smoother, easier to mow and enjoy type of yard. We began with over a week of cutting down trees, about 8 or 9 in total, plus a myriad of small ones. A lot of chopping wood, and some help from good friends, got us ready to begin this weekend with the grading. My father in law's friend from church brought his bobcat over on Thursday evening and we got started. He was amazing with that thing, turning our yard from something of a dump into a smooth, level place we can plant some new grass and begin to enjoy! He created a nice garden area for Rhonda, leveled out a good spot for me to put my woodpile in the future, and spread a bunch of wood chips under the zip line for safety for the kiddos. He also carved out a spot in back where we hope to put an above ground pool, and is almost done with adding rock to extend our driveway wider and give us extra parking! It's a good chunk of change to get it all done, but it'll sure be well worth it! Oh, and he also set the poles for our bridge across the creek to the fire pit! I'll make sure I get some pics up after we get some grass too!

Me cutting up some firewood

beginning the bobcat work

the boys playing with the downed trees

Grandpa helping Thad drop a tree

adding to the driveway

the new backyardRhonda's garden with the poles in place for the bridge

the front yard

Straight out from our house - MUCH more yard!

So lately I've been working outside in the yard, trying to get enough stuff done to be ready to try to grade off the front yard and re-seed the grass in an attempt to get a bit more usable front yard. Not sure exactly when, but sometime in the next few weeks we'll get some bobcats over here and get the work going. Hence the big piles of dirt and wood chips in the middle of our front yard, and the areas you can't see of chopped down trees and cleared brush where we hope to make a garden and perhaps put a pool one of these days.

And perhaps more importantly, we got a new addition to our family a week or so ago - a cute little kitty we've named George Bailey. That is, until he gets pregnant, and we have to start calling him Georgia! He's an outside kitty, living mostly in our garage while he gets big enough to prowl the area on his own, and I think will be a fun little pet that doesn't require much work, something that we like! The kids are having fun with having a pet, and he's become pretty friendly and even lets Eli and Z pick him up and carry him around! What a good sport!

Life is definitely busy this fall, with me continuing to work Monday evenings, karate for Sol and Thad Tuesday, church Wednesday, floor hockey practice Thursday, nothing Friday, floor hockey games Saturday morning, Lego Robotics for Sol Saturday afternoons, small group Sunday every other week, and kids Christmas musical practice Sunday afternoons as well. On top of that of course there is still all the homeschool stuff, which all makes for a very busy fall for us! Can't wait for Thanksgiving weekend, when we'll get to the end of some of these things and be able to relax in time for the busy Christmas season!

We hope you are all doing well and having a great fall, and hope to see some of you far away family and friends soon, and closer ones even sooner! God bless!

This has been an eventful last month, with us being gone to the lake three weekends and then camping last weekend, bringing us to a full month of weekends away from home! It's been a lot of fun times with friends, so I thot I'd share some pictures of what we've been up to. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll just let them do the talking! oh, but so you have one explanation, the one of me holding the papers is the swearing in ceremony when I received my US citizenship. Long process finally over! And above, our church family at the family campout last weekend!