Merry Christmas!

I know, I know, where I have I been? Let's just say I downloaded 100+ pictures off my camera.....I promise you will see lots and lots more.....let's just get through the next couple of days :-)!

Here we are with the kids at church this past Sunday for their Christmas Choir. Mom and I made Ashlynnie's dress and I decided to make the boys a tie and bow tie to match. There was just enough material leftover to make Addie a poncho:


We will catch up soon....I promise!! Have a wonderfully, Merry Christmas!

Because you have to see Ryder.

Unfortunately, I grabbed my camera after the sun had set on Halloween, so these shots are not fantabulous. Actually, they are the perfect example of why I hate using the flash and avoid it whenever possible. But I thought you would enjoy how Ryder stayed in character for each shot and remained so for the rest of the night.....until he arrived home with the candy bag that is.

Look closely behind Ashlynn and the dude is still posing.

Ashlynn was a rock star/princess, Gage was, ofcourse, Darth Vader, and Addie was a princess, which really isn't dressing up since we call her "princess Addie" every single day. And here we are in December and several pieces remain in their candy bags.....kind of hoping they just forget about the rest....

Thankful 2010

We have so much to be thankful for this year! Here are a few shots of our big day last week.

Dale giving Randy lessons on how to carve the turkey:

Randy taking the reins all by himself:

I think someone was excitedly thinking about cherry pie....

So very thankful Ashlynn decided to take pictures, all of the above are courtesy of Ashlynnie herself! You can see one of her decorations here.

Almost famous.

My good friend, Kia, always has an amazing wall display of her beautiful portraits hanging at our local mall. This fall she chose one of our family images from last year to grace the wall. Here are Ashlynn, Addie & I proudly showcasing her work:



We are practically celebrities around here..... :-).

What we've been up to!

Sooooo sorry for the lack of posting these last couple of months. Come HERE and see what we've been up to!

Look what's still blooming!

Here it is October 22nd in the Midwest and my sweet tomato plants have just started blooming again!




Of course, we're still waiting for these September bloomers to turn red....




We've had a glorious late summer and fall this year (last year we had record lows for October-yuck!) and the kids and I have enjoyed every minute of the warm days. I'm keeping my shorts and short sleeve shirts out in hopes that November will turn out just as amazing.

There is always HOPE!!!

Miss Jean and her jelly beans.

One of the most wonderful parts of going to the cabin in Wisconsin each year is getting to spend time with the neighbors. Miss Jean, in particular, is a crowd favorite. She is witty, brilliant, reliable, kind, thoughtful and never afraid to say what is on her mind. She doesn't hesitate to pop in with a funny story or drop off some "extra" produce and cookies.

One tradition she has established with the kids involves dolling out handfuls of jelly beans. As soon as Addie would see her each day, all we would hear is ,"Miss Jean, jelly beans!" Now Miss Jean is very generous with her jelly beans, but she is careful to make sure the kids have eaten their lunch/dinner and taken care of any responsibilities they had for the day. What mom wouldn't love her for a neighbor?








The kids were peaking over my shoulder as I was posting this and they are all dreaming of next summer and Miss Jean's jelly beans!

Late, but important.

Last Saturday, September 11, I had my blogger dashboard up ready to post a tribute to 9/11 when I realized the book I really wanted to quote was returned to the library. After re-checking out the book (must buy this one!), I am able to share a part of the book with you.

Here is an excerpt of Raising Kids for True Greatness, explaining the difference between successful people and truly great people:

"The terrorists who slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center caught us completely off guard. In the middle of a business-as-usual morning, they showed us how naive we were about the magnitude of their hate and the extent to which we could be humbled by their violence.

Many successful people found themselves trapped in the clutches of this ghastly event. At 9:03 that Tuesday morning, their SAT scores and the cars they drove to work meant nothing. There was very little that their pedigrees and resumes could do for them. The famous as well as the obscure became equals in the statistics. In the Twin Towers, 'Who's Who died side by side with Who's he?'

But in the midst of this crisis, there were magnificent people who responded to the urgency of the moment and gave everything they had for the sake of others. as the successful rushed down the stairs of the World Trade Center, the truly great ran up. as the well-heeled and comfortable ran for their lives, the truly great slipped inside the nightmare to see what they could do to help those who were left behind.

And after the smoke cleared, thousands of truly great people stepped out from their quiet positions within the ranks of successful Americans and opened their hearts and their wallets to those whose lives had been shattered by this cataclysmic event.

Isn't it ironic that as a nation we worship those who are successful, but when tragedy strikes, our survival depends upon those who are great? A cry for help is always answered first by people who live for something more valuable than their own fame or fortune. They respond even though there isn't a thing in it for them.

That's why, when it's time to bury our dead, we mourn the loss of those who were successful, but we celebrate the memory of those who were truly great-the firefighters, the EMT's, the rescue workers, and the countless civilians who sacrificed everything they had for people they'd never met."

The author, Dr, Tim Kimmel, goes on to explain in his book that you can be both successful and great. However, if your only aim is success you may miss an amazing story for your life that God has planned. The key is not short-changing our kids by emphasizing only what the world views as important, but allowing them to go beyond what we could imagine and achieve true greatness.

Look no further.

Than outside, that is. Oh, the inspiration these kids provide!

No stifling around here.

Ryder came to me the other day with an idea. It involved lots of tape, his spider man gloves and four light sabers. He had it all planned out and knew exactly what he wanted. Now I just happen to be reading this really amazing book, Raising Kids for True Greatness , and I just happened to have just read a chapter that made me think how we as parents have a tendency to stifle our kids creativity simply because we are tired, don't have the time or just don't want to deal with the mess.

Lucky Ryder.

Here are the results:

"Jedi Rule"

Honestly, it was so easy to create and he overflowed with joy for days showing everyone what "me and mom made". I'll be sure to review that book soon.

The girls' room, before & after.

With Grams and Gramps making the big move to San Diego, some items of furniture had to be shifted from mom and dad's. Ofcourse, I was more than happy to partake in any of that shifting as anything of theirs or my parents would be a step up from my hodgepodge collection. Ashlynn and Addie received my mom's bedroom set from when she was a girl. It's a beautiful French Provincial set and Ashlynn had a blast picking out colors.

Here is what it looked like before:





And After:







Obviously, these wild colors are not classic French Provincial creams, but we are talking about an 8 year old, though I will be the first to admit my personal love of color. But maybe one day, when we are older, we'll sand it down and get the creaminess back.

Maybe.

And so it begins.

We started school yesterday with Ashlynn and Ryde. It's hard to believe I have a first grader and a third grader in the house! They have been good sports as we plow back into our routine and I know our schedule will iron itself out just right.

All of the kids needed a haircut, so they pulled up a stool in mom's salon (our family room) and I cut away. Gage, Ryder and Addie didn't shed enough to warrant a photo, but Ashlynnie sure did.

Here is our sweet girl before:




And here is the new do (we sent her hair to Locks of Love):








I pulled it back into a pony tail and cut away....and cut and cut and cut. That girl's hair is so thick I started having second thoughts about how short it was becoming the longer it was taking. Apparently, I need to get bigger scissors next time so I can cut the pony tail off in one clip and get on with the styling.

After looking at the finished product in the mirror she hugged me over and over again, thanking me and saying "it is exactly how I imagined it would be mommy!".

Ofcourse, I was most anxious about what daddy would think about the cut. The last time I took my scissors to it, he casually mentioned "it shouldn't be as short next time".

Oops.

Thankfully he loved it and was more worried about what it cost than the length and was very happy to learn I cut it at home (the Dave Ramsey in me must be rubbing off on him!). It is just hair, and it will grow back.....if that's was Miss Ashlynn would like.

Then you're going to entertain us.....

I was working away in my garden the other day when I glanced over at the parsley to see this:






It was completely gone. Then, I noticed several of these on the stems that remained:




Yep, that would be good old caterpillars. They devoured my herbs, so I did the only thing I could think. From the recycle bin in the garage, I found last weeks' empty spinach carton and rigged it up as a make shift hotel for the little critters.





Well, they couldn't all fit, so Ashlynn, Ryder and Gage each have a "pet". Here is Ashlynn's getting ready to form its chrysalis:



What's that saying, "When you mess with the bull, you get the horns"? How about "When you mess with my garden, you become our entertainment!"

I'll be sure to post pictures when they hatch.

Grace Based Parenting, a book review.

Before we left for Wisconsin, I came across a parenting book that intrigued me, Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel. I was so happy to find our library had a copy and was able to take it with me so I had some reading material on vacation.

Wow.

Can I just say this is the most compelling parenting book I ever read. Ever.

It's one those books you just dive right into and any person that crosses your path while you are reading it will probably be read a paragraph or two. They do look at you like you've lost it, but inside you know you've finally found it!

It's not a book that contains precise formulas and methods for raising your kids. It doesn't give you a check list of do's and don'ts. It doesn't instantly transform you into the world's best parent. What it does do is open your eyes to God's infinite love for each of us, for His amazing grace that He continually pours out on us and His everlasting mercy that not one of us deserves.

And yet, it is there for you and for me, totally free of charge. And, it is there for us to shower upon our children so they too can know Him. Dr. Kimmel reasons that Christianity in our culture today is so often simply a checklist of being good or bad (I imagined santa's naughty or nice list) that kids grow up and don't have any real or meaningful relationship with their Maker. They only know, "If I do this, it's bad. If I do this, it's good."

He begins the book describing many styles of parenting and points out that most are fear-based. That one hit me lie a brick as I know a lot of my parenting tends to lean that direction. He also listed three driving inner needs that children are born with:

1. A need for security
2. A need for significance
3. A need for strength

These three needs are in turn met by love, purpose and hope.

"If we've done our job adequately, our children should leave our homes with a love that is secure, a purpose that is significant, and a hope that is strong." (p.25)

Here are a few of my other favorite passages:

"The proof that any model of parenting is effective is not how the parents and children get along. It isn't even how well they treat and respect each other after they are all grown up. Even nonreligious families can accomplish this. The real test of a parenting model is how well equipped the children are to move into adulthood as vital members of the human race. Notice I didn't say "as vital members of the Christian community." We need to have kids that can be sent off to the most hostile universities, toil in the greediest work environments, and raise their families in the most hedonistic communities and yet not be the least bit intimidated by their surroundings. Furthermore, they need to be engaged in the lives of people in their culture, gracefully representing Christ's love inside these desperate surroundings." (P.9)

"You may not want to hear this, but raising safe Christian kids is a spiritual disaster in the making. Your effort will produce shallow faith and wimpy believers. Kids raised in an environment that stresses safety are on track to be evangelical pushovers. They will tend to end up either overly critical of the world system to the point where they won't want anything to do with people in the world system-an idea that comes directly from Satan's playbook. Or, they will become naive about the world system, which ultimately makes them putty in Satan's hands. He chews up these kinds of people like they are spiritual McNuggets and swallows them whole. When they're finally confronted with the full thrust of the world system as young adults, few know how to turn it into an opportunity for spiritual impact. (p.113)

"Raising children in evangelical hideaways and creating a spiritual Disneyland works directly against the development of an empowered relationship with Christ. If anything, safe Christianity isn't about a relationship with Jesus Christ; it's about a relationship with a Western, middle-class caricature of Jesus Christ. It's an option that the majority of Christian parents around the world (especially the Third World) wouldn't consider for their children because it isn't even a remote possibility. Raising safe Christian kids is as much a product of middle to upper-class wealth as it is anything else. Putting it bluntly, the reason parents choose to raise their children in highly protected spiritual enclaves is because they can afford to." (p.117)

And I could go on and on. Buy the book, whether you have children or not, you will be amazed and what you get out of it. Check out Dr. Kimmel's website here.

The maid or made?

A conversation I had with Gage last night as we he was anxiously waiting for me to finish the dishes. See, he has to wait until the dishes are done for dessert.

Gage: "Mooooooom, why do you always have to do the dishes?"

Me: "I know! Why do I always have to do them?!? I should have a maid shouldn't I?"

Gage: "Yes mama, a maid, you should have a maid!"

As I was basking in the glow that one of my children valued my hard work enough that I was deserving of assistance, Gage's wheels kept turning inside his cute little head.

Gage: "But mama, you made all of this dinner and you always made everything, so you are the maid!"

Just when I thought someone was cutting me some slack......

A few, just because.

So we had an AMAZING time up north and I know, I know, all you want are the pictures. Here are a few, you'll get more, I promise.