Saturday, November 22, 2008

Dare to Not Have An Appropriate Title

Okay the "Dare" theme's gonna have to go for the posts soon cuz' I'm strugglin' for a title (smile).
Here's a picture of us at the kids' Friendship Stew at school. And here's the kids in their outfits they made for this special day.


Saturday, November 15, 2008

Dare to Share a Tradition

Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I thought I'd share our family's annual Thanksgiving tradition. We actually started it in 2005, so this will be our 4th year doing it. I actually decided to share it because I just got it out to look it over and get things ready for this year. Above is a picture of our Thanksgiving scrapbook. Each member of our family takes a picture on Thanksgiving day and then I print it out. We each get our own page in the book to tell what we are thankful for that year, you know, share God's blessings. Whoever we spend the holiday with is also invited to create a page, which I think, is what makes it the most special. Like I stated this will only we our fourth year, but there are some great memories in it already. Here's some pictures of the kids' pages. I know you can't really read the words, but you get the general idea.Above are last year's pages (2007), and below are the ones from 2005 and 2006.


Thursday, November 13, 2008

Dare to go on an Adventure

On Veteran's Day we took a spurt of the moment trip to Paso Nogal Park, which has walking trails and lots of places for the kids to explore. I love days when we can get away even for just a few hours as a family and enjoy the outdoors. The kids really thrive on it too and hate to go home. And of course, as always, I took the opportunity to get some great pictures of the kids.





And Elisha took this picture:

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Dare to Make a Difference

Last night Elisha wrote his first letter to the child we "adopted" through Compassion International. I just had to take a picture because he was so excited and serious about it. I wish I could have gotten a pic of him with his tongue out, because when he's really focusing on his writing his tongue wiggles around his lips, it's so cute.


Here's the story behind his excitement. A few months ago our county had this thing called People Fest which had Christian vendors, Christian music artists like KJ 52 and Seventh Day Slumber (and lots more), jumpers, food, special speakers, and church presentations and admission was free. It was a two day event and we went out on both days. Well on the first day there was a man from Africa speaking on stage and my six year old was very tuned in. He was talking about how he grew up in poverty but because of a church that had a similar sponsership program like Compassion International he found Jesus and was able to get clean water and food and clothing and an education. He was saying that it only took a small amount of money a month to help a child in need. My little boy, who has such a big heart, asked me, "Mommy can we go see the pictures of the girls and boys?" I knew what was coming, I could feel it in my spirit that he was going to ask to adopt one of those little kids and there was no way I was going to deny him. So we went to the tent and had a look. He asked a few questions, and when the lady said there was a pen pal program and he could write to the child and send pictures and the child would send them back, he was so excited. He looked at me and said, "Mommy, I could give him my money from my piggy bank." I already had a plan for him though, and told him he could earn money by helping daddy with the recycling every month. He had the biggest smile on his face and the lady helped him find a little boy the same age as him. So here's the picture of him sending his first letter. He just got his first letter from the little boy last week. It's neat to see the words in his language and then tranlated to English. Elisha prays for this boy often. As you can tell, I'm so proud of him!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Dare to Experiment!

This video was taken almost a year ago now, but I wanted to see if I could figure out how to add clips. I like the cough in the middle of the song.

Yes! I think it worked! Hope you can see it.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Dare to have fun!

Here's a few pictures of the kids during "spirit week" at school. It was all done in fun so don't worry, they don't go around like this on a daily basis.





We got some looks and comments at the grocery store, to which I would just smile and say, "It was crazy hair day at school today," and walk on. Luckily the kids did not hear or understand them.
Oops! My layout got a little crazy, oh well, I'm new at this!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

I'm darin' to be a blogger!




Okay, totally new at this, but after seeing many others, I decided it looks like fun. So here goes...







This is a picture of my "Superkids" on Halloween. This is the first year I have been able to get them to have coordinating costumes without someone pitchin' a fit. Aren't they cute?