Plans for Ringing in the New Year

Must mean we are getting old, when we don't even try to stay awake and ring in the New Year! Oh well... See you in 2010... and...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Tween Soon-to-be-Teen

Sock Party with the Cousins

Aunt Mary always has such fun ideas... like this Halloween sock party for our gang and hers!

Grandma Betty and Aunt Mary picked out socks for everyone...

...even the BIG kids got in on the fun!

She even concocted these really yummy treats, which the hoards gobbled up right away.

We've always thought Aunt Mary was a super duper aunt! Stuff like this is just ONE of the many reasons why!

"A" is for Apple... Jonathan's First K4 Class Party

(pics are only a few months late!)

Mrs. Romig (and he LOVES his teacher) is getting him ready to pin his apple to the tree... the goal is to land on the big red apple already on the tree.

He nailed it! And he had a blast at his first school party... just as he does every single day at school. Our enthusiastic, lovin' life and people little boy is truly a joy and delight to everyone... most of the time!

Huggin' Cousins

On behalf of the rest of my family, I just want to wish my Gammie a very "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Merry Christmas!

Make sure you scroll to the bottom and turn off the music in the sidebar first, before you try and listen to the video.

Wordless Wednesday (oops... I'm a day late...) The Ladybug Game

76 Trombones...

...OK... well, yes, that is an exaggeration, but sometime (back in October, I think) the excitement was running high around our house the day the parade passed down Perrine. It may have been, in fact...

(as I started to say earlier) ...it may have been ~

...the very first parade our gang had EVER seen! So... once again...

even if it is an exaggeration...

Seventy-six trombones

led the big parade

With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand.

They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuo-

Sos, the cream of ev'ry famous band.

Seventy-six trombones caught the morning sun

With a hundred and ten cornets right behind

There were more than a thousand reeds

Springing up like weeds

There were horns of ev'ry shape and kind...

The 76 pieces of candy and bubblegum per child gathered from the yard and piles of leaves along the sides of the road both during and after the fact, however, might not be...

~Super Duper News~

Words cannot describe the joy and excitement we feel when we see unmistakeable evidence of God working in hearts around our house... it never ceases to amaze us that God allows us input in the formation of such neat little people, tweens and teens! What a privilege! What awesome responsibility!

Last month, Jonathan began asking lots of questions about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus, why Jesus had to die to be our Savior and what was the best way to get to heaven. After one such conversation, I asked him, "What's a sinner?" He responded that sinner was "...someone who did things to make God sad 'cause they don't obey God." When I asked him why Jesus had to die on the cross, he knew it was because men had sinned and that he himself was a sinner. However, when I asked him if he was ready to pray and ask Jesus to be His Savior, he replied: "Not now, Mama. I'm not ready to go to heaven and be with Jesus just yet."

And that was where we left the converation for about a month. Then just last week, Jonathan and I were working together, picking up around the house and I'd asked him to put something in a particular place. He didn't want to walk that far, so he hid it elsewhere... fortunately, he got caught! That is one of those things that I always pray for my children (and myself)... that when they (I) sin, they (I) get caught. I don't want them (or myself) to start getting the idea or practice that they (I) can sin without consequence. When I asked him about it, he just grinned at first and said, "Sorry I disobey Mama. You forgive me please?"

I asked him if he realized that he didn't just disobey me because he didn't do what I'd asked him to do, he'd also disobeyed God because he had tried to be deceitful and God tells us not to lie. At that point he came running into my arms, crawled into my lap and said, "Mama, I do want to go to heaven and be with you someday. I need to pray..." which we promptly did. We are ALL so excited that Jonathan made the decision to follow Jesus... and now our prayer for him is that his knowledge, experience and belief in God grows just as he grows and understands more and more .

He couldn't wait for his daddy and his big brother to get home so he could tell both of them about his important decision!

Ahhhhh... lazy Saturday mornings...

~ after having been up way too late on Friday night, having too much fun, pizza, cheese sticks and laughter ~

~ except there's no such thing as too much good laughter ~

Now that there's SNOW on the ground, and the air is frigid ~

~I'm finally getting around

to posting our "fall" pictures... here are some from Brendan's last gorgeous day soccer game. While it was a little on the chilly, that day was nothing compared to this morning, it was fun to see how much Brendan had improved as a soccer player, and the bright colors were just like the sweet-but-not-too-sweet icing on the cake!

All bundled up! Isn't she a cutie?

It's a good thing I know God wants our family to live, work and serve in Niger... I could really get into being a "soccer mom!" ~ especially with days like this one! It is definitely a fall recipe for fun and delight.