I Heart Faces Photo Challenge

I wasn't going to participate this week because I didn't think I had an appropriate photo for the challenge this week: Toushies. But then I remembered this picture from when Elisha was 3:

We went to Boo at the Zoo and he was all dressed up as Dash from the Incredibles. He was still too short to look over the fence at the lions so he looked through the fence. The way he stuck out his little bottom was so cute I couldn't resist taking a picture.

A Picture With a Story

So last night Bethany comes up to me with this picture that she drew:

She tells me "Mommy, look at my picture! It's a sunny day with clouds in the sky. That's Elisha (on the right). He fell down and got a stick in his leg and he's bleeding everywhere. And that's me (Bethany, on the left) and I got a rag to help him out. I'm smiling because I'm happy to help."

She cracks me up. She's so girly, girl at times and so Tom boy the next. I mean, how often do girls draw pictures with someone bleeding in them? Oh and did you see the words at the top? It's supposed to say God loves you but she ran out of room so it says You God loves. This picture just puts a smile on my face! Thank you, my sweet girl, you know just how to brighten my day!

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving yesterday. We spent part of the day at Yohn's mom's house and the other part we spent with friends. It was a relaxed easy going day that went by way too fast. These are the pictures I have to get printed for our Thanksgiving book:

If you don't know about our family Thanksgiving book I posted about it here. We started it in 2005 and it's been we enjoy doing each year. The kids couldn't wait to decorate their pages this year. I'll show you the pages after I get the pictures for them and they are completed.

Bethany's watching tv while Yohn is texting a Thanksgiving greeting on the cell phone.

Mmmm... Bethany enjoys her turkey (and goofs off a little for the camera).

Hope your day was a good one too!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

That's all. Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving before we were off to start our day. Hope everyone has a good one!

To Clarify...

Sorry about the unclear directions the O's. Once they are coated with butter you stir them around in the pan for a few minutes until they are "toasted" or nice and golden brown. Make sure to keep stirring or they will burn. Remove from heat and add salt to your liking.

P.S. Don't do what I did and take one bite and decide because that one bite didn't have enough I'd need to add more. I put on too much!

Hot Buttered O's

When I was a kid my mom found this recipe, I think it was on the back of the Cheerios box, for Hot Buttered O's. They suggested them a good substitute for popcorn. Ya know, in case you hate all those little kernals in your teeth. Anyway, she was kind of skeptical but thought it was easy enough and so gave it a shot. What resulted was Hot Buttered O's becoming a new family favorite. We loved it.

Recently I had a box of plain Cheerios in the cupboard and remembered how much we liked them. I had never made them for my kids and had actually forgotten how to do it. So I googled it and this is what I came up with:

4 cups Cheerios
4 tablespoons butter
salt

You melt the butter in the pan and then add the Cheerios. Stir to coat and then toast them for a few minutes after that. Add salt to taste and enjoy.

My kids did not want to try them but since Mommy made them just for family movie night they gave them a shot without much fuss. Elisha said it was better than popcorn because it wasn't stuck in his teeth. He actually asked me to make more the next day. Since my kids liked them and I like them I thought maybe I'd share here because you just might like to try them too!

Jamie's Birthday

Today is Jamie's sixth birthday and his family celebrated by having it at the bowling alley. The kids had a great time and even though my camera's batteries were dead (I just replaced them on Thursday so was not expecting them to be dead) I found old batteries in the car I was able to milk for just a few pictures.

Poor Elisha hurt himself last night at Gym Jam and has been complaining about his neck hurting. I didn't expect him to want to play but he had fun anyways.

Since Jamie's birthday was after church Bethany was still had her dress on from church. She told me she wanted to be a "cute bowler" and I'm fairly certain she was the cutest bowler there.

Happy Birthday Jamie! May there be many, many more!

Friendship Stew

Today was our annual Friendship Stew at the kids' school where parents, grandparents, relatives and friends are invited to join the kids for stew that everyone contributed to (some bring potatoes, or carrots, or onions, or mixed veggies, or stew mix, etc.). The kids look forward to this luncheon every year and I think the parents do too.

Pastor Yohn prays a blessing over our meal. Not sure if some of you knew this but Yohn does chapel for the elementary school where the kids attend. So he is often asked to lead in prayer for school events because, in a way, he is their pastor, and being their pastor is something he loves!

One more year gone by. It's crazy how fast time flys.

Note to Self:

Turn on the outside light before leaving the house at 4:00 pm to grocery shop. It is dark outside when you return at 5:15 pm and you cannot see to unlock the door.

Put your seatbelt back on after getting out to check the mail at the end of the driveway. The truck does not like it when you are not buckled and will flash that annoying light the whole time you drive, not to mention that annoying buzzer. And no, there is nothing wrong with it other than the crazy person behind the wheel.

The next time you go grocery shopping do not pat yourself on the back about all your savings and then forget to go and deposit your paycheck. Your savings go out the window when you carelessly do things like this. (By the way just because you got away with it this time does not mean you will every time. Next time go to the bank first just to be on the safe side.

Check the toilet seat BEFORE sitting down. Your darling children have STILL not quite mastered bathroom etiquette and there may be something on there you don’t care to sit in.

Do not expect your dear children, ages 6 and 7 1/2, to properly put away their clothes in their drawers without supervision. The littlest one especially gets distracted easily by all the toys in the room and may just shove the clothes into the drawer any way she sees fit resulting in very wrinkled clothes later.

Do not be surprised to see your dear daughter return to her bedroom when you tell her that she does not match and put the perfectly clean clothes she had on into the dirty clothes hamper. You are the one who has drilled it into her head at least 100 times or more that when she takes her clothes off they go in the hamper.

Please note, dear self, that while these items are small and few, if you choose to heed your own warnings you may save yourself a little frustration in the long run.

Short Answers

I really enjoyed some of my kids' answers from last week so thought I'd join in again this week. The questions kind of set the kids up a bit so some of their answers were pretty comical. If you'd like to do your own post simply ask your kids these questions and post their answers on your blog. Then click on the above picture to take you to the blog you can link up with. It's fun and your kids' answers will crack you up!

What are the benefits of going green?

E: Getting sick.

Me: No, no benefits means good things.

E: Oh... Nothing! (said in the tone of "Are you crazy!")

B: You're turning green! That's fun!

How do remote controls work?

E: There's cords and you push buttons.

Me: Remote controls like the kind for the DVD Player, not like the kind for the game system.

E: There's batteries in it.

B: You use batteries and push a lot of buttons and it controls.

Where do they make Coca Cola?

E: Where the Coca Cola store is.

B: Ha! Ha! Elisha they make it at the Coca Cola factory!

If you had to define your mom in one word, what would it be?

E: Mama!

B: I missed you!

Me: What? I'm right here?

B: You said to find Mommy.

Me: No, DE-fine Mommy, it means to describe me.

B: Oooohhh...I LOVE YOU!

What about your dad?

E: Good, he's good.

B: He's the nicest guy in the whole world.

Student of the Month and Perfect Attendance

Elisha won October's Student of the Month Award for his class. He and Bethany also got perfect attendance tags for the month of October.

Too bad Bethany missed a day this month. She's gonna be bummed when they do the awards next month and she gets no tag.

Count Your Blessings Sunday

Well, it's Sunday again, the week had really flown by. Time for a self evaluation of the blessings in my life. If you'd like to join in, you can do a post on your blog and then link back here or just leave your list of blessings in the comments section. Here goes...

1) My husband whose patience with me never ceases to amaze me. No matter how I screw up he always says it'll be okay. Thanks Babe, some days I wish I was as gracious as you. I'm learning but I think it's because you've been the example. I'm blessed with you!

2) My kids in whom I take great joy and delight. You are fun to get to know as you grow older (but I'd rather you'd slow down that growing a little bit, huh?) and I appreciate how much your little hearts get excited about prayer and when you realize how God has worked in your own lives. It's an inspiration to me.

3) For my job and home because I realize that these days people are losing both.

4) To God my Savior who has been revealing things to me about myself lately that I think I've been in denial about. Every time I start to argue instantly the Holy Spirit is there to remind me of the correct answer. Thank you God you're working on me. Thank you that you don't give up on me. Help me to continue to trust in you.

It's that simple. Hope you'll join in with us.

A Nutty Acorn

Bethany brought home some of her art projects from school this week and I just had to share this one, it really cracked me up:

When I saw these on the wall I knew exactly which one was hers (and that was before I saw her name written on the front instead of the back). Gotta love that smile!

And since I'm sharing pictures of her artwork, I thought I'd throw in this cute pumpkin project just for good measure.

Veteran's Day Fun

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the VETERAN, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote. Thank You All!

I saw this little saying on TogetherWeSave's blog and thought it appropriate for today. Thank Veteran's, both past and present for all you have done and all you will do. We couldn't celebrate our freedom without you!

Today we went to friends house and just hung out all day. I made a cake, which is no where nearly as good as Amanda's, but tasted good just the same.

I had envisioned I'd do some leaf design on it and make it all pretty but then realized I can't exactly do that without colored frosting or at the very least white frosting I can re-color or any supplies to make frosting so I added sprinkles just to make it pretty.

This is Yohn, answering the phone when Sandy called pretending to be someone else. Can you tell he got a kick out of himself.

We ate together. (Like you couldn't have figured that out by the pictures, huh?)

We played games. This is Debbie getting ready to do a "Humdinger" in our Cranium game. If you've never played Cranium you've got to give it a try. It's the best group game ever!

Yohn's trying to guess the little ditty Debbie is humming. He's veerrrrry focused!

We played a looong game of Monopoly. I was winning until I started being generous with my "debtors" but then at the end of the game realized one of them had snowballed me money-wise and won.

Yohn told Elisha that if he wanted soda like Bethany he had to act like a pretty princess, this is his impression.

Hope your day was a good one too!

Short Answers

I stumbled upon this little blog game a few weeks ago and thought I'd see how my kids responded to it. Basically the author just asks random questions of a couple of kids (little brothers or nephews I think, sorry I just started reading it :) just to see how they'd answer. Their answers are sometimes comical and funny, sometimes sweet, and often off the wall. So I thought why not? After subjecting my two sweet, not so little anymore children to it here are their answers:

Which is better, butter or cheese?

B: Cheese, cuz' it's just so good (can you tell she likes cheese, she asks for it daily).

E: Cheese tastes better I think. Know why? Because peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth.

How are donuts made?

B: With dough and clay. Then Daddy asked, "Do you cook it at all?" Nope!

E: They sprinkle sugar on it and just toast a bagel.

Why do trees change color in the fall?

B: Because leaves fall off of it.

E: Because it's the time of fall and fall's the time when leaves change color.

What do broccoli, carrots & cucumbers have in common?

B: They're vegetables. (She said it, like duh! you know that already)

E: What? I don't know? Me: Can you take a guess? E: Umm.... They're hard?

What's a tapestry?

B: A typestry? Me: No a tapestry. B: Ummm.... An instrument?

E: Shrugs his shoulders and then says, a tree?

That was kind of fun and it was definitely entertaining. If only I'd had my camera out for their faces. They were like why in the world are you asking me these things? Random. I love it. I think I'll be doing this one again soon. If you want to see how other kids answers just click on the button above.

Count Your Blessings Sunday

Hello my friends, I know this is late but my dear friend who I do this for participated today so I wasn't about to leave her hanging. What about you? Have you been blessed this week? Care to join in? You can do a post on your own blog and then link back here OR you can just leave your blessing list in the comment section. Ready? Here goes....

1) God is truly showing me how He is in control and not to worry. Mind you I still will take things out of God's hands and run away with them for some reason thinking I can do a better job. But, this week has been better and I've been much more at ease although the situation is still much the same, at least I'm learning to trust.

2) My handsome husband who is always a support. When I am weak he is strong and for that I am definitely thankful.

3) My kids who never cease to crack me up at the things they say. At their sweetness and thoughtfulness. I'm so thankful they are mine (even though they really aren't, they are HIS).

The Cross

This forward was sent to me a few years ago and I've saved it all this time to look at every once in a while. I hope I don't get in trouble for posting it here, because I don't know who drew it and I would definitely give credit where credit is due if I did know. Enjoy it, think about it, be uplifted by it!

Awesome!! We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we cannot.Whatever your cross, whatever your pain, there will always be sunshine, after the rain.... Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall; But God's always ready, to answer your call.... He knows every heartache, sees every tear, a word from His lips, can calm every fear... Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night, But suddenly vanish, dawn's early light.... The Savior is waiting, somewhere above, to give you His grace, and send you His love.

Short Story

This is Elisha's short story that was posted on the wall in his classroom on Back to School Night. We just got it sent home today. Since the kids really like it when I share their pictures and silly stories I thought I would post it here. I love this picture especially the duck:

The story says: One day the bear found the koala and he said hello. And they decided to live together. And one day they went hunting and they found a duck and they became best friends.

Now originally I guess the bear and koala ate the duck but because it was going to be on the wall for Back to School Night his teacher asked if it was possible for it to have a happier ending. He was given the choice but he told me he decided that I might like it better if they were friends. Isn't he sweet?