We're Back

What a month! Time has been flying by. We've been in California for eleven days and then came back to get ready for Thanksgiving. I'll post some pics of our trip over the next few days.

Since we've been back, our church had our annual Thanksgiving meal and testimony services, Marcus had his end of the season football party, Josh and I cooked a Thanksgiving feast for our family, bought a new coffee maker on Black Friday, I took the boys to dinner and to see the play Oliver, and bought a tree and decorated it, as well as the house, with all our kids on Sunday afternoon!

We are enjoying life!

Pictures from our phones

Rob had to make a model of a country that he invented for a school assignment. He wrote a paper about it and made a sketch. Then he got some modeling clay and went to work with daddy. Rob's country is called "Cool Country".

Josh showed me some pictures he had on his phone and I thought they were so cute. I wanted to share them. These golf pictures were taken back in August when we went to California.

Taken from my phone...the kids have really been having fun playing marbles in their free time

 

And here's a few pictures of a creative 
project I accomplished yesterday...

I painted this piece of wood, applied a vinyl applique, and then hung it in our schoolroom--
I need this constant reminder :)

Children's Church Art Show

Last night, at the the end of our evening church service, we hosted a children's church art show. One of the parents in our church had a wonderful vision of working with our 7-12 year old kids on painting every Sunday night this month. Michelle worked hard gathering supplies and talking to people in our community about this great idea. Many of them gave donations or supplies towards these classes that she was teaching. I know that my kids absolutely enjoyed the classes. They would bring their paintings home from church on Sunday night and work throughout the week on them. Another cool factor about this project was that Michelle asked Josh what was preaching for the entire month. She wanted the kids to be painting pictures that went along with the topics/Scriptures that he was preaching to the church. They painted pictures of what God spoke to them from these passages from the Bible. What an awesome idea!

Last night the kids proudly stood by their paintings while everyone walked around admiring and praising their work. We're so proud of all of their hard work and creativity! It was a great success!

Zack, Robert and Danny serving refreshments

Marcus enjoying his punch as he stood by his painting :)

Snow Fun!

The kids woke up this morning to find even more snow 

on the ground than yesterday. They eagerly got out their snow

 clothes and went to the backyard for some more snow fun.

 

As you can imagine, they each came inside 

begging for a nice, hot shower!

Our 1st Snow!

(backyard)

Our 1st snow officially came today! I can't believe it. 

Thankfully, it's not cold enough for it to stay on 

the ground...it has melted.

(front yard)