Future City Engineering Competition tomorrow!

Tomorrow morning at 5:45 AM (!!!!), we will get on the bus to Philadelphia along with the rest of the team and their families and head to the Future City Engineering Competition for a full day of judging, presentations, awards, etc. It will be a very long day for all of us, especially the team. Joel was chosen by his team to be one of the three presenters so he will be answering questions by professional engineers about their future city design. He will also be presenting their city to the judges in a skit format in which he plays the role of the successor of David Murdock, the owner and founder of Dole Foods and Dole Nutrition Group.

Joel and his team of other homeschooled 7th and 8th graders built a model city called Waiani in Hawaii, which means beautiful fresh water city. They created their model city with trash, recycled materials and anything they could find. It all had to be built to scale and had to include certain elements including a movable part. They had to do a computer design of the city using Sim City software and again they had to meet many requirements for that portion of the competition. They had to write a research essay and a design abstract on the topic: "Creating a self sufficint system within the home which conserves, recycles and reuses all existing water sources."

Each of those requirements along with the oral presentation - all factor into the points needed to win the competition. Joel and his team have worked very, very hard on this. They have a wonderful teacher who has poured herself into this and opened her home on weekends for workdays for the team. Also they have an engineer mentor who has helped the team understand how to envision technologies of the future and incorporate those ideas into their city.

To read about this competition go to www.futurecity.org

Last year, there were 32 teams at the regional competition and our team won 4th place! This year, we are hoping to be in the top three. The first place team will then advance to the National Competition held in Washington D.C. next month.

Please pray for Joel and the team tomorrow as they spend the day talking to judges and being at their "very best" all day. It will be stressfull and they will be grilled with lots of questions from engineers. They have to think quickly and creatively answer questions that they may have not even thought about before! Also, as homeschooled students, they will be noticed by all the judges and professionals and pray that they will be a good testimony to those who sometimes misjudge homeschooled students!

Jaden will be spending the night and the day tomorrow with Grandma while the rest of us go to the competition. He is very excited about going to Grandma's house all by himself for a sleep-over! She is going to spoil him rotten.... eat out, go to the Children's Museum, play with new toys..... but they'll have fun. I'll post on here late Saturday night when we get back about the results of the competition.

Thanks for praying!!!

Teaching about the Oregon Trail

This semester, I'm teaching third grade classes in both of our homeschool groups all about the Oregon Trail. I have always found that topic fascinating and am awed by the pioneers who suffered so much to follow their dreams. I don't believe I would have ever wanted to do what they did - walk 2,000 miles across an unknown and foreign country, drinking muddy river water to quench my thirst, watching babies and children be buried, trying to keep my children warm and fed and alive.... all to live a harsh and isolated life!!! If it were just me, I would perhaps be willing to suffer greatly for a dream. But to see my children suffer.... no, I could not do that. Some families did have good experiences and to read their stories is truly inspiring! Many made it across relatively unscathed.... except that they would have seen others suffering and so many, many, many graves. Other families fared much worse. I read that 1 in 11 people who ventured on the trail died on the journey and many of them were children. In the end, for many, it wasn't worth it. They didn't know, until it was too late, how hard it was!

I'm sparing the third graders much of the tragic, gory details of the sad stories, but we are learning much of the geography, daily routines, adventures, hardships, interactions with the Native Americans, and interesting facts along the way. It has been easy to plan activities, games, lessons and everything through the plethura of online resources and library books available. One of the favorite things for my class is the Oregon Trail game we play at the end of each class - no, not the computer game. I drew a large map of the trail that I posted in front of the classroom. I divided the class into two teams, two traveling families. At the end of each class, we continue the game in which each "family" answers questions to move forward on the trail. Sometimes they pull a card with a hardship like an ox dies or a wheel breaks and they have to stay put. Other times, they get fair weather or fresh meat and they advance more. My kids love seeing their wagons progress on the big map! And each week, we pick up the game where we left off. At the end of the 8 weeks, hopefully at least one of the families will have made it to Oregon City!

One website that I found really interesting is
http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/00.n.trailarchive.html
Here you can read full texts of several diaries and memoirs of pioneers who made the trip west. Very fascinating reading! Particularly good reading when feeling like we have it hard as homeschool moms and overwhelmed in our busy lives!

It's COLD!

Jack Frost makes beautiful designs in our sunroom.
The temperature in the family room by the fire is nice and toasty warm - 80 degrees. It is only 10 degrees outside. The coldest weather we've had in years!!!
Even our car is suffering! It usually only looks this bad when we are up in New York!!! This is the normal car look up there! Notice Ivy's signature in the back!

Feeling like we are in Siberia!

It is COLD here! Really, really, really cold. This feels like Siberia, or Minnesota, or way up in the boonies of NY where Mark's family lives. Normal for THEM to have temps in the single digits or below....but for us, it is way too cold! We aren't used to it! We don't like it one bit! OK, got that off my chest!

The straw that broke the camel's back was when we woke up this morning to FROZEN PIPES!!! What in the world?! I thought that only happened in back woods type places, hunting cabins, remote well-water places....not in a neighborhood with public water! Not in my house!!!!!!!

Growing up in Virginia, this was absolutely unheard of. Plus we were always fortunate to have electric heat. So here is Reason #562 that I really, really, really like electric heat! No oil pipes to freeze to make the house cold enough to freeze the water pipes!!! That's exactly what happened - the oil froze in the pipes and made that end of the house freezing cold which froze the water pipes.

I am thankful for our woodstove! In our family room, the temperature is close to 80 degrees with the fire going. The other end of the house by the kids' rooms is 56 degrees!!!!!! When we woke up this morning, Jaden and Ivy were still sleeping in their beds, buried under blankets and unaware of how cold it was in their rooms! I am SOOO thankful that I thought to give them extra blankets last night or they may have had frostbite!

Mark used my hair dryer up in the attic to thaw out the water pipes. Now he's off to get a heat additive to put in the oil to keep it from freezing.

So it has been quite a morning already! I am thankful that so far, there is no apparant damage. I'm thankful that we are warm and cozy by the fire. I'm thankful that Mark knows what to do to fix this! And I'm thankful that the temps should be warming up soon!

The Don't Song

We really like this! This is Johnny and Chachi's The Don't Song. Enjoy!
And by the way, my husband lives out this song very, very well! I am very blessed.

Jaden's Baptism

Yesterday was a very special day for our family as we had Jaden baptised. I was so nervous because three year olds can be so unpredictable and I was imagining all the worst things that Jaden could possibly do or say up there in front of the church! As it turned out, everything went very well. There were 4 little ones baptised and of course, Jaden was the oldest! Mark held him and he had a sweet calm little face as Dr. Rogers sprinkled the water on top of his head.

It is so amazing how God is involved in so many details in our lives. Yesterday morning in Jaden's Sunday School class, the lesson was on baptism! How perfect that was! Jaden has a limited understanding of what it all means, but we have explained it to him the best we can. This shows that he is God's little boy and promises to save Jaden if he puts his faith in Him. We look forward to that day when Jaden does know Jesus as his Savior. For now, he knows that God loves him and the seeds of believing faith are starting to grow in his heart.

I've been tagged!

Amanda at http://www.encouragementalongtheway.blogspot.com/ has tagged me in a photo-posting game! This is what I'm supposed to do: Go to my picture files on my computer. Open the fourth folder and click on the fourth picture and post that to my blog. It has to be the fourth picture of the fourth folder - no exceptions! This put great fear and trepidation in my heart because I have the very, very bad habit of never deleting any pictures!!! I had no idea what picture I would find there!!!! As it turned out, my fourth folder was full of pictures of one of our annual trips to the beach in 2007. And the fourth picture is:

We went to Island Beach State Park in New Jersey for the day on my birthday back in 2007. This is Joel, my husband Mark and little Jaden who was only 19 months old. It was Jaden's first ocean experience! It was a wonderful day and what a great memory to have..... now that it's the middle of January and we are experiencing extremely cold weather! Yes, my heart longs for summer!

I am supposed to tag 4 other bloggers, but for now, I will just pick one: Kelli, at http://www.thelandofboys.blogspot.com/ who sometimes reads my blog and I enjoy hers as well!

A Visit from Dr. Rogers

Our pastor, Dr. Rogers, came to visit us at our home this morning. Tomorrow Jaden is getting baptised and Dr. Rogers wanted to come over and spend some time with Jaden and show him what was going to happen and to pray with us. I thought that was a great idea! Hopefully Jaden will do OK tomorrow and it will be somewhat familiar for him because of the "practice" session today!

When we first told Jaden that Dr. Rogers was coming over to our house, he was SO EXCITED!!! We quickly realized that he thought we were telling him Mr. Rogers was coming over!!! And Jaden loves Mr. Rogers' TV show! Then we explained that our pastor was coming and showed him a picture of him so he wouldn't act disappointed when it wasn't Mr. Rogers at our door!

Interesting side note here: Mr. Fred Rogers was actually a Presbyterian pastor in the Pittsburgh Presbytery at the same time that our pastor, Dr. Michael Rogers was when he was a young pastor in western PA! So for a time they were in the same Presbytery although our pastor said they never actually met each other.

Back to Jaden's baptism, it has taken us a year and a half to get to this special day. We first started attending Westminster Presbyterian Church back in September 2007. Over the months that followed, we studied more and more about reformed theology and the doctrines of grace. Some things that we have always believed have been challenged as we began reading the Bible in a new light. Both of us have bachelor degrees in Bible from a Bible college and yet we continue to learn and grow in the Word of God and it is an exciting journey! One of the areas that our understanding has changed has been the sacrament of baptism.... moving from credo-baptist to paedo-baptist. What helped us to understand what we now believe is the biblical application of baptism is an understanding of covenant theology. It is like puzzle pieces that all fit together! I won't try to write an in-depth explanation here, but I have linked a couple of good articles about baptism on this page. Also the monergism site that I have listed is an excellent place to go to understand reformed theology.

So tomorrow is the big day... Jaden will be baptised as a three year old! I guess you could say that he is twice blessed! He was dedicated at 6 months at our former church! It will be a special day for us as this will be a visible sign and seal of God's covenant of grace. No, this does not save Jaden. There is nothing magic about the water sprinkled on his head. Rather it is a visible marking of Jaden being included in God's covenant people. We hope and pray he will one day put his faith in God and we will teach and instruct him in the ways of the Lord. What an awesome responsibility we have. Yet, it is not our efforts that will save Jaden. (Thank goodness!!!) It will only be through God's grace and His grace alone.

Sequential Spelling

I think I FINALLY found a good spelling program for Ivy!!!!!! A friend of mine who has a son who also struggles with learning challenges and spelling recommended Sequential Spelling to me. After reading the website and using the sample lessons with Ivy, we are hooked! The AVKO (Audio Visual Kinesthetic Oral)Dyslexia Research Foundation publishes this. It is very affordable, very easy program and Ivy really likes it too which is extremely good!

It really is sequential, in that it introduces words in families that build on each other. For example,the word "in" is introduced first and by the end of the week, "beginning" is learned. It gradually builds on words to imprint them in the minds of the students and they are easily remembered.

There are no lists of spelling words to study, no spelling tests! Because with kids like Ivy, that does not work! She can memorize a list of words, take a test and then immediately not know how to spell them again. Very frustrating for her and me!

Sequential Spelling gives a list of words each day and any misspelled words are immediately self-corrected. The list builds all week on the previous words and it really does work. Of course, if you want, you can do spelling tests, but the writers believe that students learn best from their mistakes and so the tests are actually a learning device - not an evaluation.

If you have a child who struggles with spelling, I highly recommend this program - you can look at the website and you can print out sample lessons to try first like I did. http://www.avko.org/

Hymn of the Month

For the past 8 years of homeschooling, we have always begun our school days with Bible reading and a hymn. Each month, we sing a different hymn so that we can learn all the stanzas together. Sometimes we read about the history of the hymn and the author. It has been a wonderful way to start our days singing a hymn of praise to the Lord!

Last month, we just got a new hymn book, the Trinity Hymnal, that our church uses. Since we became Presbyterians over a year ago, we've had to learn many, many new hymns! I don't think we've had a Sunday since we've been there that there wasn't at least one unfamiliar song sung - sometimes all the hymns are unfamiliar!!! (Presbyterians sing different hymns!)

So my goal is to learn some of these "new" yet very old hymns. Joel picked our hymn for this month which is new to us: "Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness" by Ludwig von Zinzendorf, 1739,

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are,
My glorious dress;
'Midst flaming worlds,
In these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in thy great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
From sin and fear,
From guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise
To claim my mansion in the skies,
Ev'n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived,
Hath died, for me.

Jesus, be endless praise to thee,
whose boundless mercy hath for me -
For me a full atonement made,
An everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear thy voice;
Now bid thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this,
Their glorious dress,
Jesus, the blood and righteousness.

The Sovereignty of God and Bad Circumstances

Over the past year and a half, I have come to rest more and more in the sovereignty of God. It has been a deepening realization and the more that I come to grips with God's sovereignty, the more peace and joy I feel even when confronted with bad circumstances or pain. We are seeing the sovereinty of God in my cousin Brian's life. God has used this time of Brian's incarceration to help Brian have a deeper relationship with Him. We are so encouraged by what God is doing in Brian through this awful time and it is becoming more clear that this was indeed part of God's plan for him... Not that God ever desires evil, unjust things to happen. Yet He is sovereign over these things, using them for His purposes and for good.

In recent letters from Brian, he writes that this experience will always remind him that God is in control of his life. He also wrote that this has helped him realize how much God loves him !!! His relationship with the Lord has obviously grown and he has changed and matured in many ways. So through this unjust tragedy in his life, God is working and it is good!

Brian has had a good testimony in this jail. The sheriff has said that Brian's attitude has been great. He is quite a contrast from the others that come and go through there. The Christian books that he's been reading, sent to him by my mom, have been passed around to other inmates. Who knows what impact that will have on many other lives? God can use Brian and those books to bring others to him.

Please continue to pray for Brian. This is very hard and he's got a long wait until the end of July for the trial. But I am praising God in this because He is in control and He is a loving and good Father.

The Curtains Closed

The curtain closed after a busy Christmas Show season for Joel in Sight and Sound Theatre's "Miracle of Christmas" show. Mark and I were able to go see his final show on Friday night. It was a wonderful performance! We were so proud of Joel and so thankful for this opportunity he had to be part of such a fantastic Christmas show.

On Saturday, we saw the final showing of the season's "Voices of Christmas" show at Sight and Sound's Living Waters Theatre. That was so much fun! We really loved that show and highly recommend it to everyone. I think the "Miracle of Christmas" show at the bigger theatre gets most of the attention, but "Voices of Christmas" was an absolute delight! Jaden was enthralled as were the rest of us! It was amazing.

So for now, Joel has a bit of a repreive from the theatre. He is hoping to be back as Ishmael in "Abraham and Sarah" which opens in April. It is time to send in the head shot and measurements and wait for a contract. We would love for him to have another year there. After 6 years, it has become home away from home and such a valued part of his life and experience.

Joel won't be bored though.... Future City Engineering competition is in 3 weeks and he will be busy, busy, busy preparing for that. He has been chosen to be one of the spokesmen at the competition in Philadelphia. Much to prepare for! We hit the ground running today getting back into the routines and rhythms of schooling. Our break was wonderful, but always seems too short!

New Poll

Well my last poll about The Shack was a dud! So here is a new one for you: Did you stay up till midnight last night to ring in the new year? We all did here - except for Jaden who is too young to care about a new year!

And speaking of the Shack book, I had to return mine to the library before I was finished reading it!!! I could only keep it for two weeks since there were holds on it and it could not be renewed. Two weeks was just not enough time for me - especially the busy weeks before Christmas! What was I thinking???!!!! But, honestly, it was not a great book, in my opinion. I thought it was poorly written and although it did give me things to ponder, I found myself disagreeing with it more often than not. Maybe some day I'll pick it up and finish the second half of it, but more likely I won't.

Happy New Year!!!!

We wish your family a wonderful and blessed new year! May you all be filled with hope and joy at this time of new beginnings. I love the feeling of a fresh start, renewed goals, and the nastalgia of the year gone by. Some of my goals are to be better organized, especially with meal planning and scheduling of time. Most importantly, I want the fruits of the spirit to be growing in my heart more this year. More love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Those are my goals! I would like to focus on each one at least one month... starting with Love.

We spent the evening last night at a party at the home of some new friends of ours from church. There were 9 families there so they had a houseful! Mostly teens and their families. Joel had a great time with all of his church friends there! Jaden was the youngest and because of him, we didn't stay very long. He needed to come home and go to bed. We invited my mom over and we watched Its A Wonderful Life and rang in the New Year.

This was the first time Ivy has been away from home on New Years. She was invited to go with a friend and her family last night Downtown to the Celebrate Lancaster! Event. I'm sure she had a great time downtown at midnight seeing the Red Rose drop! I hope she was warm enough since it was VERY cold last night! Then she spent the night with her friend and we haven't seen her yet this year. We missed her, but she was SO excited to go!

Today will be spent watching the Penn State game and continuing a nice long break from school..... oh, it will be so hard to start up again on Monday! Yes, we have enjoyed this wonderful time off!

Have a happy New Years day everyone!

Happy Holidays!

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas! And that you and your families will have a wonderful new year! I really love this holiday season after the crazy busyness and rushing around the weeks before Christmas. Now it is a time to slow down and reflect, savor and enjoy the wonder and peace and joy of Christmas! Our Christmas celebration is always spread out beginnng with two familiy parties earlier in the month. Then there were two Chrismtas Eve services at our church. What a beautiful night that was!

Joel and Ivy were involved in the Christmas Tableaux during the first Christmas Eve service. Joel was a shepherd boy and Ivy was a townsperson. Ivy also sang in the combined children's choir. Mark sang in the Matins choir. It was a beautiful service! Then we all went back to church for the late night Christmas Eve service, a beautiful candle-lit formal service with lots of music. Mark sang in the Senior choir for that service. Jaden went to church in his pajamas because the service didn't end until 11:30 PM.

Christmas was a nice relaxing day here at our house. My mom came over and we took our time opening presents, laughing together, eating a big dinner and just enjoying the day.

The day after Christmas, we all went out to eat at the Olive Garden for dinner and then to Sight and Sound's Millennium Theatre to see Joel in "Miracle of Christmas." That was a spectacular production and we were so proud of Joel! It is always such a joy to see him perform and of course, the shows are wonderful. Later this week, we'll all be going to the Living Waters theatre to see "Voices of Christmas" and hopefully I'll get to see Joel perform "Miracle" one more time this week before the show closes.

That night was the earthquake, which I already mentioned. Thankfully we've had no aftershocks that could be felt! Yikes! We drove by the epicenter yesterday which is 2 miles down the road from us.

Mark has off work all week so we are enjoying the week off, catching up on sleep, having fun and looking forward to celebrating New Years Eve. Next Monday, we'll start school again and ease back into the daily routine and rythyms of school days! I love homeschooling, but I also really love the breaks!

Earthquake!

Last night, well, actually early this morning shortly after midnight, we had an earthquake here! The epicenter was just 2 miles down the road from us - yikes!!! I happened to be in the bathroom, brushing my teeth with my mouth full of toothpaste... I heard the loud rumble that sounded like a freight train going down our street and everything shook for about 10 seconds. I threw down my toothbrush, must have swallowed my toothpaste and went into the bedroom where Mark was sitting up in bed..."It's an earthquake!!" Then I ran to the other side of the house where the kids rooms are and they were all sleeping soundly in their beds. I checked outside - no, the trees didn't come down! It took us a long time to go to sleep, we were so nervous. The last earthquake we felt was 10 years ago but that one was not as intense. I do not like earthquakes and I'm very glad we do not live in California! I don't think I could get used to them being a regular occurrance!

Do you have an extra Christmas card?

My cousin Brian would really appreciate a Christmas card from anyone who would like to send one. He is in jail for a crime he did not commit (see other posts) and is in need of encouragement. Just a brief note or Scripture verse would help to make his day brighter. Maybe your children could write a note or color a picture for him. Thank you!!!!!

Send to:
Brian Lamb
Dallas County Detention Center
204 Poplar
Buffalo MO 65622

"Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Matthew 25:37-40

Jaden's birthday pictures

When I asked Jaden what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he said a BLUE cake! So this is what I came up with!



Jaden was so excited! See his puppy, Douglas, that Ivy bought him from Build-A-Bear?



He got mostly train things for his birthday. My mom got him the engineer's outfit.

My "baby" is 3 years old today!!!!!

Today is Jaden's third birthday and I've been choking up over it all day. The time has gone so quickly! I will never forget the complete and total shock and amazement I felt on April 15, 2005 when we found out that we would be having a baby after so many years!!! (Joel was 10 and Ivy was 8 1/2 when Jaden came!) I am still amazed! What a wonderful blessing and gift he has been to us. I will never cease to be thankful for the surprise gift of Jaden!

Earlier today, we went to Build-a-Bear and Ivy spent her own money for Jaden to make a cute little puppy! He plays "Jingle Bell Rock" and he is so cute! Jaden named him Douglas.

Tonight, we'll be having a family party with hot dogs, cake and ice cream. I blew up tons of balloons all over the house and we'll have party hats and noise makers! I'll put up birthday party pictures later.

For now, here are some pictures of Jaden.

Here he is the day of his birth! December 18, 2005



Where did that little baby go?!

School Days

This week we are in Week 16 (TOG year 1) "Judges, Samuel, and Minor Neighboring Cultures." With Christmas quickly approaching and all of the busyness of the season, we are more laid back these days, but trying to include all the important things. Joel is enjoying reading "The Wanderings of Odysseus" and we are wrapping up our study of the ancient Greeks.

But I am especially enjoying our reading aloud of the book of Judges right now. So many lessons to learn from those ancient Israelites and their relationship with God. The cycle of disobedience, calling to the Lord for help, God's deliverance, peace and safety and then disobedience again keeps being repeated over and over again.

We've had some good talks about that cycle of obedience and disobedience. We all struggle with that. Sometimes as parents, we think that obedience is only something children must learn, but we must all live lives of obedience to the Lord. Am I a good example to my children? I need that reminder now and then as I get caught up in the day to day discipline of our children.

Jaden struggles with obedience in picking up his toys. He loves spreading them out all over the house but balks when it is time to clean up! "Mommy, just look at the ceiling! The ceiling is clean!!!"


Because he didn't help pick up the toys, Mommy had to take them away for a few days. Jaden is still in the training phase. He is still learning about what obedience means. I must be patient with him as he learns and also have a certain amount of empathy for him too - aren't I still learning and growing in my walk with the Lord? How often I still fail. But I am thankful for the grace of our Heavenly Father who lovingly forgives us.

The discipline and training of children can be exhausting. Sometimes they can be slow to "get it". But then I remember that these things take time. And God is working in their hearts just like He works in mine.

And then there are those wonderful moments that I see God's fruit in their lives and I rejoice! Like yesterday, after some hard feelings between the big kids, one of them asked the other for forgiveness and mended the relationship - all without being told to do that! And the other asked for forgiveness too and everything was happy
again.

Some of the saddest verses in the Bible, I think, are found in Judges 2 verses 7 through 15. "The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel....After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. The the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals..."

They had failed to teach their children to love and obey God and the result was great distress.

This week, in the midst of the crazy busy Christmas season, I want to focus on the most important parts of our schooling - our time reading the Word together and learning from the children of Israel as we read through Judges, Ruth and First Samuel. Learning about the Greeks is important too, but I love our focus on Scripture this week!

Winter Wonderland

Snow came yesterday, covering everything with a beautiful white frosting. So plans were changed and rearranged as usually happens in this kind of weather!



After bundling Jaden up, I took him outside and he watched me make a snowman! It was a lot of work rolling those snowballs all around the yard while bent over. Great exercise! But Jaden was very happy and I think the snowman turned out very well! I wanted to put some birdseed on the snowman's head for the birds to enjoy like we read about it our library book called Stranger in the Woods, a photographic fantasy by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoik. A wonderful book to read on a snowy day!

However, our snowman didn't last long.... Ivy and her neighborhood friends decided the snowman was too small so they got rid of ours and attempted to make a bigger one! Imagine my surprise when later I looked out the window and our snowman was gone! The new snowman is in a different location and they left it unfinished - did I say that making a snowman is a lot of work?! Especially a BIG snowman. So they gave up.

Ivy noticed that this squirrel was new to our feeder! How would she know that??!! She explained to me that this was a skinny squirrel and all the regulars here are quite fat!


The kids really enjoyed the snow... especially being able to play outside in the snow after dark with all the neighborhood kids! Joel doesn't think there is anything better than playing football in the snow in the dark!

The only bad thing about the snow yesterday is that we couldn't go to the "Comfy Cozy Christmas Cast Party" last night for the cast of "Miracle of Christmas". It was going to be a fun pajama party breakfast dinner with lots of goofiness - how could it not be crazy with all those actors?! But the roads were slippy last night with ice as well as snow and we didn't want to risk the 45 minute travel on winding countries roads down to Quarryville where the party was going to be.

So to make up for that sad disappointment, we had our own pajama party here!!!! I made breakfast for supper - omelets and a ham and cheese quiche! We all got our jammies on and played games and had a silly time together. We set up the card table by the Christmas tree, put on some Christmas music and played Scrabble Upwords. It was a hilarious time. We all laughed very hard at very silly things. I won, by the way! Yes, I love that game!

Have you read The Shack?

I just put up my first blog poll! It seems like everyone is reading the book called The Shack by William Young. A few weeks ago, I reserved a copy of it from the library and received it last week. I'm not finished with it yet.... and I'm not sure what I think about it or if I like it or not... It is a very different kind of book! I'll put a poll up later asking what you think about the book if you've read it.

Family Christmas Get-togethers

What a busy weekend it was! Friday night was Mark's company Christmas Party at Willow Valley. Saturday morning, Mark's sister Hope and bro-in-law Chad came over for breakfast. They drove down from New York to spend the weekend. Saturday evening we went to Mark's cousin Brandi's house for the annual family Christmas gathering. There were 30 of us....aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and Great-Grandma! It was so much fun - especially for all the little cousins! There were 9 kids in all.






Then on Sunday after church, Nana and Grandpa came over and spent the day with us. They brought down presents for Jaden's birthday and Christmas presents too! We had cake and ice cream to celebrate Nana's and Jaden's birthdays.

Unusual Christmas Presents

At a Ladies Tea at our church, our pastor's wife told about the gifts that her husband chose to give their four young adult children last Christmas. He gave each of them and their spouses.... BURIAL PLOTS!!!! I'm not kidding!!!!

We have a wonderful pastor and this was a very generous gift - burial plots aren't cheap! Our church has a new beautiful cemetary and those lots were on sale last year. I'm sure to him it was a very good and practical gift. Not a practical joke, but a practical gift!

But it struck my funny bone for sure! One of his sons, after thanking his dad, said, "But Dad, how will I tell the guys at the office what I got for Christmas???!!!"

As my husband and I were laughing about this the other night, I said, "Only a Presbyterian pastor would give a gift like that!!! After all, Baptist pastors would never give burial plots to thirty somethings because the Rapture would make that completely unecessary!!!"

And then we thought about it even further, Baptist churches don't have cemeteries either!!

I hope that made you smile and didn't offend our dearly loved Baptists! But the whole thing made us laugh all week!

Something Very Funny

I know that my next post on here is anything but funny, so I wanted to also post some funny things to make people smile or crack up laughing!

Today at the library I overheard the librarian telling a woman that she could not check her books out because the computer alerted her that this woman had a rather large unpaid fine. A fine of over forty dollars! (wow! I thought my fines were big sometimes!!!) Anyway, the woman was flustered about it and asked what the fines were for.

"Well...." said the elderly hearing-impaired Librarian in a very loud voice,"Twenty-five dollars was to replace a book that you checked out back in 2001 and never returned!"

"Really?" asked the embarrassed woman,"What book was that?"

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organizing Your Life!!!!!!!!

Prayer is needed

As I've written before, my 22 year old cousin Brian has been unjustly incarcerated in the Dallas County Jail in Buffalo, MO since November 8, 2007. He has not been convicted of any crime. He has no prior record. He is in jail because a cell phone charger belonging to him was used in a murder of his next door neighbor, an old man who was interestingly a drug dealer. Brian had nothing to do with this murder and there is no, and I mean absolutely no evidence that he was involved in any way except that the cell phone charger that was wrapped around this man's neck belonged to Brian. This man who was murdered as well as Brian and several other tenets had all recently moved due to remodeling in that apartment building. So it is very reasonable that that cell phone charger was left behind or lost in that move.

Anyway, Brian was falsely charged and arrested and has been awaiting trial which isn't scheduled until JULY 2009!!!!!!!!!!! (Can this happen in the United States??? Sadly, yes.)

Brian and the other inmates at the Dallas County Jail in Buffalo MO are not allowed to go outside. EVER. Brian has only been outside twice in the past year, to his two hearings. There are no windows in his cell. No sunlight. Also, this County Jail has no TV, no library, no exercise room.


Brian has had perfect behaviour - no bad attitudes and he is not angry or bitter. He struggles with depression at times but I think he is becoming a stronger and more godly person due to this suffering. I know that God has a reason for this but at the same time, I think it is time we do something about the gross human rights violations at this jail. A year without sunlight and deplorable conditions there are cruel and unjust. Please pray for Brian. Pray for Brian's release and that those responsible for the crime will be brought to justice.

How many more weeks till Christmas break???

We are still plugging away with school. Many of our friends school year around so they can take off most or all of the month of December. We prefer to have a long break in the summer, so we usually only have a week or two off for Christmas. Admittedly it is hard to focus when there is such excitement in the air and such a busy calendar too!

This week we are on Week 15 of TOG year 1, "The Promised Land: Conquest and Settlement". I think it is a good week for us to be focusing on that since we need to press on in our studies as we learn about the children of Israel who had to press on to the Promised Land!

I really love how Tapestry of Grace weaves Biblical history with world history... for example, this week as we read of Joshua and the early judges, we are also reading The Wanderings of Odysseus and D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. Joshua was entering the Promised Land at about the same time that the Mycenaeans were prominant in the Aegean cultures and the Trojan War probably occurred sometime during the period of the Judges. Fascinating! We love to see how it all fits together in history. There are so many interesting connections to make!

A visit to Great-Maw's house

Yesterday, we drove 3 hours down to Alexandria, Virginia early in the morning to go visit Great-Maw (my Grandma). It was so nice to see her again! We had a really nice visit with her and Lucinda, her pug which is remarkably similiar to a pig, but very, very cute!



We took Great-Maw out to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays and had such a nice time together. Then it was time to drive the 3 hours back home. The kids were really good in the car for all those 6 hours. It was a long day, but a very good day too.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

On Saturday, we all went to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. We came home with a beautiful Douglas fir just like always. (By the way, Jaden's middle name is Douglas because he's our Christmas baby!)

Here is the tree all decked out with hundreds of ornaments.

The only problem is that our two cats, Sasha and Starlet cannot resist the temptation of all those ornaments! Each morning we wake up to find a couple dozen ornaments all over the living room floor! We can do our best to prevent the un-decorating when we happen to be home and awake and near the tree, but when we are gone or asleep or out of the room, they go after that tree with tremendous enthusiasm!

Here is Starlet planning her next escapade!

Grand Prize Winner!!!!

Joel entered a drawing contest for Sports Illustrated for Kids magazine - designing a new mascot for his favorite team. Of course he drew a mascot for the Washington Redskins and I thought it was pretty good. He is very critical of his drawing and he wanted to throw it away. But I sent it in and it turned out to be the grand prize winner!!!!!!! Braylon Edwards of the Cleaveland Browns helped to pick the winners and Joel has won his autographed helmet! Today we received the newest issue and his drawing is featured on page 27! In a few days, it will be on their website at http://www.sikids.com/ Look under "cool stuff" - that's where the contest winners usually are. Until then, here is a copy of the winning mascot: