Wednesday morning we had a homeschool co-op field trip to a local pizza restaurant. My kids had never actaully been to a pizza place before, so they thought it was great fun. Each table got to put toppings on a pizza, then tour the kitchen while they baked. Pizza was sure good....not a bad mid morning snack!

Taylor had his first Upward game today....too funny! He just was facinated with watching the time clock run. What? I'm supposed to keep my eye on the ball? what ball? did you see that neat clock? Of course, with his hands stuck inside his neat uniform shirt, he couldn't get the ball if it came his way any. A few lessons to learn this week. lol

December Pictures

A picture is still worth a thousand words.....so consider this a long letter of what we have been doing. Scroll over the picture with your mouse to read the caption.

Five Years Ago in China.....

....a sweet little 15 month old baby girl was placed in our arms. She was crying and confused. She wanted nothing to do with daddy, grandpa or grandma, or big sister. She couldn't turn over from her back to her tummy.

Now, 5 years later, she is the sweetest, funniest, happiest little girl I know. We thank God every day that He placed her in our family



.

Taylor and LiAnne love to play dress up. Taylor always dresses up like a cowboy, and LiAnne has a whole dresser full of dress up clothes. Today LiAnne spent the day with a friend from church, and Taylor was sad. He said that his bestest friend wasn't home, and could he please play a game on the computer?

Relaxing....

Someone asked today what I do to relax on busy days.....so I took a couple of pictures of my favorite things to do.




Any questions?

While I'm waiting for the pictures to load today I'll chat. I fixed dinner last night at church--enchiladas, corn, beans and jello cake. I was planning on 120ish, and we ended up having 150! I had plenty of enchiladas, but we ran out of corn. Had two spoonfuls of beans left. It is so hard to guessitmate how many people will come and how much they will eat. I would have had a lot of enchiladas left over if we had only had 120. There are 2 or 3 new families coming to church and bringing their kids on Wednesday for Awana....and they have came for dinner, too, so that was nice. No dinner next week, then three in December before the Christmas break.

I have a bad feeling about the pictures right now....it is taking too long to load them. Let's see if they ever come up.....










We'll, they didn't load correctly, and it looks like I have to resave them another size....have to do that later today. Right now I need to get some sewing done.If you click on the picture it will take you to photobucket where you will see the entire page.

Another YIKES!

Where has the time gone? My daughter and sister keep asking when I'm going to write something here, and it keeps getting put off. I don't imagine that anyone other them them and my mom are still reading, but I will try to do some catching up. I'll start out with the easiest....just posting my 365 pages, then try to add more soon.

Well....I tried. Blogger won't upload my photos right now, so I'll try again tonight after I get back from work/church. Enchiladas, beans, corn and cake for 120 coming up.

China!

Not really something that we consider worth celebrating, but WOW! they sure know how to put on a show! (You'll want to scroll down and mute the music on the blog.)

China's 60th Anniversary national day - timelapse and slow motion - 7D and 5DmkII from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

We enjoyed a short visit from our friends Dan and Donna from Oregon. It is always so much fun to get together with friends that we don't get to see very often. Our friendship, based in Christ, just picks up where we left off last time we were together.

Time Competition

Everything competes for time. I have the same problem as many of you....I need another 5 or 6 wakeful hours (preferably after the kids are asleep) to get things done. I want to quilt, there are books I want to read, sewing to do, digital layouts and blogging. All that after the cooking, cleaning and taking care of kids and husband. And school.

Here is a bit of what we have been doing over the last few weeks.

Oh, give me a home.....

....where the deer and the antelope play. This is what we saw in front of our house when we got home from school on Friday.

Field Trip

Saturday we went on a homeschool co-op field trip. We made three stops along the way: the Oregon Trail ruts, Register Cliff and Ft. Laramie. I took Janelle, Taylor, LiAnne and Josiah. It was a 2 hour drive, and we traveled in a caravan of 12 vehicles. It was a fun day.

Birthday Girl!

Six years ago a baby was born in China. Through many loses on that end, we received one of the best gifts ever to be given....a sweet daughter. I wonder today what her birth mother must be thinking. I wish that she could know what a beautiful daughter we have, and know that she is loved and cared for. Today we celebrate LiAnne's 6th birthday. She is excited to be six, and please, can I have a white and pink princess cake?

All Ready for AWANA

Awana started last week. Taylor and LiAnne were so excited about starting again. Last night they both passed 4 or 5 sections, and are working on next weeks verses now. Janelle attends the youth Bible study while they are in Awana.

I started a job last Wednesday--cooking for our church Wednesday night dinner just before Awana. We have served over 100 people both weeks so far. It is a lot of work, but I really enjoy doing it.

Still Proud to be an American

Music

Oh man! I changed the music here on my blog a while back, didn't like it and thought I had deleted the changes. Seems that it is still the music that I don't like. So, just mute it for now, and I will try to get back in the next day or two to change it to something better.

911 to the Rescue

August 26th I got up early to read my Bible, have some coffee, and be ready to start our first day of school. Once I heard the kids waking up, I put on a pot of water to boil to make oatmeal, then went into the bedroom to make the bed and piddled around doing some other things. I then heard a popping sound, and wondered what the kids were into, so went back out to the living room. What I found was a nice fire on my stove. What? How could a pot of water catch fire? Took me a while to figure it out, but I had turned on the wrong burner, and heated up the small skillet of oil that I had left from a couple of nights before. I quickly called 911, since way too many house fires are small fires that get out of hand. I put a lid over the one pot, and mostly got the fire out. Carried the pan out the back door, and burned my hand doing it. By the time the firetruck got here I had the fire out. It was a good lesson in when and why to call 911 for our first day of school! Taylor was pretty impressed that the fire turck/men were here. I thought to hand Janelle my camera, so we have some picture of them here.

Thankfully, the damage was just in the stove area and didn't get out of hand. My hand blistered up pretty well, but is almost back to normal now.