Christmas Pageant

The snow hit early and hard!

We got snow on Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday. We got Tuesday and Wednesday off for good behavior. Then it hit again today, Thursday. The top of the garbage can is accumulation from 6am to 4pm. And we're averaging 15° every day. Some days it has been 4°. Sooo..when did I move to Alaska??

Holiday Happenings

Curtis decided on Friday we needed to make cupcakes. At 7:00 a.m.

Then on Saturday we decorated gingerbread men.

Happy THANKSgiving

So here we are again, doing a catch-up post.

We had a great Thanksgiving. We spent 3 days in Ontario visiting our loved ones. We have such a good time up there. Paul's sister, and brother and family arrived a couple hours before we had to head home.

Grandma Fluffy arrived from TX via Salt Lake City so we got to visit her before we left.

As always we had fun at Grandma Lucy's and Grandpa Chauncy's. They had a John Deere in the back yard and Curtis thought "holy cow that's a big tractow!"

Then we headed home and visited my parents and grandparents for Thanksgiving day.

Now I am working on Christmas cards....

Blessings

My foster kids came with a few clothes. Actually, they came with a lot, but too much of it is summer stuff. Baby has a lot of stuff... but most of it is pants and very few shirts. Toddler has not so much. I'm shopping for deals so I can get more stuff with my measely $24/month allowance. Well, today my online friend Lee Ann sent me a box of goodies for Toddler. Lots of pants, some long-sleeved shirts, a couple sweaters, a pajama, and the coolest high top Converses. So thank you Lee Ann for blessing us! I was near crying with the feeling of love opening that box.

So... here's my Thank You... I'm shipping back something for you in the box:

Welcome To the Crazy House!

Things are insane around here!! We got 2 new foster babies last week. One is 1/2-a-year and the other is 2. Not going to say much since this is a public blog and they were abused, so we need to be safe. They are precious and we enjoy having them here. A lot of work, but pretty sweet.





I rarely get online anymore, it seems. I do get to check in on my message boards, but not spending the time I used to. (I hear Paul hollaring 'amen!' in the background)





I am now done working at Curves after my summer there. I am glad about that. It would cost me $6/hr for sitting, and I only made $8/hr at work. Doesn't make much sense, eh? I am still volunteering in karen's class on Thursdays and got asked by her advanced math teacher to help out. So I will do that on Mondays when the babies are at visitation. It'll only be about 30 minutes of tutoring help. This way all the kids will get done with 5th grade work and be ready for 6th grade next year when they enter 5th.

Just wanted to add a nice picture... here's one of my recent favorites

Karen is doing better personally. So thank you for praying.

Tying my knot and hanging on

I am asking that you would pray for Karen. She's getting into trouble and doing things that hurt other people. She has hit a couple girls on her soccer team a couple times. She always says it's an accident, but it's getting hard to believe that. Last night the hit in the back was hard enough to drop the girl to her knees. Karen says it's because she's so big and tall that she can't control her body or was just swinging her arms and it hit. She apologizes, but really shows no remorse. Her tears seem to be "everyone hates me" emotion.

I called the school counselor today. He's new to elementary, but has been in the district for 18 years. He is a Christian pastor who loves Jesus, so that is wonderful. He's going to call her in and maybe set up weekly sessions. I pray she opens up and he can find out what's going on. He can talk about Jesus, so that makes me happy.

Please pray for wisdom for Paul and I. Pray for healing for her, whatever it is that needs healed.

Thanks.

Fairly Fun Fair Fun

Karen did great with her fair entries. 5 blues, 2 reds, 2 whites. She earned $35! We had a lot of fun at the fair with lots of good food. We were there from 1:00-8:30. Curtis loved the 'woller coasters' and Karen and I had fun on the big kid rides.

Karen eating her traditional roasted turkey leg. Curtis did not enjoy the Goliath Slide.
The biggest roller coaster. Curtis went on it 3 or 4 times.
The Drop Zone.. one of my favorites. I took this pic from the top of the Ferris Wheel.
Karen shows her muscle.

FDOS

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! My beautiful fourth grader!

New bike and misc.

Karen finally outgrew her 20" bike that she's had for 2 years. She needed one earlier, but it finally became a neccesity to have one now. She found this 24" bike that suits her just fine and got a basket too. She can put all her newspapers in the basket which is nice. She'd been having troubles trying to carry a bag. And there are only a couple houses she has to get off her bike to deliver.

Paul washed his truck and Curtis got in on the action.

Bread Success!

I finally have had success in baking my own bread. I do the mixing and rising in the bread machine, then put it in the pan and bake in the oven. I am happy now.

happy anniversary to us!

Thanks to our parents and Grandma Lucy who sent us happy wishes.

Paul got me garnet jewelry (I got him chocolate) and the kids and I made a cake. We had ribs, mashed potatoes, pineapple and green beans (direct from the garden) for dinner.

14 years!

updates for august

Karen got her hair cut this week. She's very happy and it looks so cute!!
We went down river road and picked 7.5# of blackberries Tuesday.
We were sitting at dinner and I saw Curtis had great eye reflection, so I grabbed the camera.
And nap time Sunday.

Family Camp

This year's family camp was Familympics. We had intense events we had no training for:

Shoot out the candle with a water gun.

Get rid of your clothespins by pinning them on someone else without getting pinned back.

Double Dribble...chug down 2 juice bottles without making a mess.

Kick ball running backwards.

Russian omelette... will your egg be raw or cooked??

Ducky Derby

Find the worms in the chocolate cake.

S'more eating

Synchronized getting-out-of-the-pool

And of course...medals.

Did we have a good time? You betcha!!