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!