Perfect Attendance and Bethany's Drawings

At the kids' school they get award tags (they look kind of like dog tags) each month if they had perfect attendance for the previous month. Elisha and Bethany and few of their friends both got the perfect attendance award for the month of September.

Bethany has been doing a lot of drawings lately and these are a few of her most creative:

This is a cow...

... and this is a manatee with a few birdie friends (she's been watching a lot of Reading Rainbow lately).

Count Your Blessings Sunday - 7 Year Old Edition

It's Count Your Blessings Sunday again and this week I decided to get my kids in on it! Elisha is our special guest, uh.... counter, yeah that's it. Elisha is my special guest counter for Count Your Blessings Sunday. Here are the things he believes God has blessed him with this week.

1) I'm blessed with video games (his oh so favorite that he only gets to play on the weekends)2) I'm blessed with a TV (only the essentials here folks!)3) Food (he's eating right now)4) I'm blessed with my sister and mom and dad (now we're gettin' somewhere!)5) I'm blessed with Star and Sky, our two cats.6) I'm blessed because we live in a house.7) I'm blessed with my dogs, Tonka and Koda.

Not too bad. I do like to remind the kids of the things they do have, especially when so and so from there class gets a new __________ and now they want one too. We've actually been talking a lot about the ways we have been blessed lately so I thought they'd get a little bit excited about me listing the ways they are blessed too. Stay tuned, next week Count Your Blessings Sunday - 6 Year Old Edition!

Now it's your turn. What have you and/or your children/other members of youf family been blessed by this week? Create a post on your blog then come back here and link up! You can add the button to your left so that others might drop by and check out everyone else's blogs. Or just leave your blessing in the form of a comment!

I Love Sleeping Children

Especially my sleeping children and especially when they have been overly whiny.

I took these pictures today when I realized that both of them had fallen asleep while watching a dvd. I couldn't believe it but I was definately happy about it. They've both been a little emotional, a little mouthy and a little whiny which always signals the need for a nap. But since they think they've outgrown a nap it's getting more and more difficult to get this much needed rest time accomplished. So I was very happy to see them snoozing this afternoon, even though I had plans for us all this afternoon. Sometimes the best plans just need to be laid aside for the greater good, and this was most assuredly the greater good!

All I Want For Christmas...

So maybe he won't be singing this song come Christmas time because his teeth are already starting to show but Elisha did manage to loose the other of his two front teeth, see...

He's so funny because while I was trying to take a picture of him he was having a hard time showing his teeth. So I got this great shot of his green eyes, I mean, him holding his lost tooth. Please, just don't look at his dirty hand, okay.

And then I got this goofy shot of him showing off the gap in the front of his mouth. This was the best of the goofy shots but I think he's still kind of cute. But I'm not a biased mother either.

Up To

I feel like I've gotten a little behind on my blogging so I thought I'd give a quick run down on what we've been up to lately.

Well, first of all, Uncle D stopped by a few weeks ago and had the kids all enthralled with some pictures he took on his cell phone of the field trip with the upper grade class to San Francisco.

Back to School night was a lot of fun. Our little friend Jamie won the fundraiser contest and got a chance to be in the BOB (money blowing machine) and boy did he do well! The kid grabbed a whopping $131.00!

Elisha and Jordan and Bethany played around in Elisha's classroom while we took a look around.

Bethany and Jewell continue to enjoy Softball every Saturday (with the exception of last Saturday because we were at the Rock of Ages Festival).

I attempted to photograph the moon with some clouds in front of it because it looked really awesome, but the pictures didn't really turn out the way I had envisioned they would. Something about possibly not really knowing how to do it is the problem I think.



We went to Geoffrey the giraffe's birthday party at Toys R Us and the kids had a great time. They got to play with toys and games and Bethany kept loving on Geoffrey. Seriously, she loved that giraffe. Since giraffe's are her favorite animal I guess that would make sense, huh?

Bethany crashed early after a long day of playing softball, lovin' on a gigantic stuffed giraffe puppet, and just plain playing hard like any kid does. Hmmm..... Do you think that book had anything to do with it?

We sang Happy 81st Birthday to a dear friend and one of the preschool teachers. I love Mrs. VanHorn and so do our kids. She always makes it a point to greet them every morning and always dotes on them and tells them how much she loves them.

And, as I mentioned before, Elisha lost a tooth last Friday, and I'm hopin' the one next to it will come out before Wednesday so he'll have his two front teeth missing for picture day at school. It's very loose and I think it's only a matter of convincing him it's ready. Maybe I can get Bethany to do it since she's already pulled out one of his bottom teeth...

On top of all that there's the drum and keyboarding lessons the kids are taking and I am told they are doing well at. Elisha's test papers have all come home A's so far and 100% on all of his spelling tests. Bethany has proclaimed that school is now boring and we're having a hard time getting her to make an effort. If you know Bethany at all you know that if she does not enjoy herself, everything is drug out. School work that should only take her only a few minutes will take twenty or thirty if she's not interested. That's why she does so well at the keyboard because she loooovveesss it. She could be on it for hours. Reading too, but not handwriting or math so much. Oh well, we just keep encouraging her and it seems to be helping.

Well that's about it, I think we're all caught up now!

Thursday's Playlist

It's been a few weeks since I've done a Thursday's Playlist but that's because the author (author? founder? creator? I don't know which word to use!) of this blog carnival has been in the process of selling her home and has been extremely busy. However, now that she's back she's set up this challenge, maybe not on purpose, to examine what you're living for. The song she introduced today reminded me of this one so that's why I'm posting this song by Selah. I hope you enjoy it and maybe it will inspire you a little. Then hop on over to her blog by clicking on the button above to listen to the great song she introduced there.

Rock of Ages Festival

It's somewhat of a family tradition to go to the Rock of Ages Festival in Calistoga each year in October. It's an all day event that has Christian bands, skateboard teams, motocross, and so much more. Our kids have grown-up going to this festival and they look forward to it each year(I know they are far from being grow-up but you get my point).

This is Mark Thompson, a ventriloquist who is really great with the kids. His salvation messages are very well explained and you can tell he has a desire for the children to receive Jesus in their hearts. He took a liking to Elisha and spent several minutes talking with him afterwards.

The girls are keeping cool under Bethany's umbrella. This year we had lots of sunshine, a twist from last year's downpour. Last year's rain is the reason why Bethany and Elisha both brought their umbrella's again this year. Cuz' when the rain went away the sun's rays were brutal. So the kids requested to bring their umbrella's to hide from the sun.

The kids show off their face paintings.

Elisha wrote two letters to be put into Bibles for a soldier over seas. He loved this and actually wanted to go back and do it again, but they had already packed up when we went back. The man at the table told him to pray for his letter and that he was certain God would put it into a soldier's hand that needed some encouragement.

One of the kids' favorite parts of the festival is the BMX demonstration. They did lots of tricks and flips and then preached a salvation/re-dedication message. I love watching how God can use our talents in a way to glorify him. You might think kids couldn't receive Jesus from watching stunt bikes, but you'd be mistaken.

The motocross demonstration is another favorite. We saw these guys last year and the kids kept asking how much longer until we can watch the motorcycles?

Elisha and Harmony got autographs and their pictures taken with the two guys that did the motocross tricks. I'm not posting Harmony's pictures though because I think I'll give her mom that privilege.

This is Samson, from our church youth group, helping to entertain our group of munchkins.

Yeah, aren't self portraits great? (You know of course this is sarcasm as I always manage to tilt my head back and take a weird looking picture of my neck) Oh well, it didn't turn out too bad.

Note: digital cameras and friends can make a very fun combination.

This is the comedian Bob Smiley. He was on the sage after almost every band. If you ever have a chance to hear some of his stuff do it. He's a character. He was teasing our kids and had them all cracking up.

This is Mac Powell from Third Day. Not a great shot I know but when you're really far away and it's dark out and you don't know the tricks on your digital camera, then this is the best you can get.

Yohn took this picture. Aren't we just adorable?

I thought this shot of Elisha was kind of funny. Notice the missing upper tooth? He lost that one on Friday. The other one next to it is loose too and I'm hoping that it'll come out before next Wednesday because that's school picture day and I'd love to have a picture with the two front teeth missing.

Here's the kids rockin' out together to Third Day.