Decorating for Christmas

Saturday afternoon we began decorating for Christmas. As we started pulling out the boxes, Catherine was right in the middle of things:

Right after taking these pictures, Catherine got sick and missed out on the rest of the day of decorating, spending her time sleeping or being sick, poor thing!
Here's the family in front of the tree after Tom put up the lights. Adam is being a character as usual:

Here's the tree after we decorated - it was a fun family time for everyone!

Playing in the Snow

Thanksgiving night it snowed some and then it snowed some more on Friday night. Sue and Debbie woke up early Friday morning to try and catch some shopping specials and decided we were never missing anything by staying home on Black Friday - we will remember that for the future! Also, Debbie was in a minor fender bender with another car on the icy roads Friday - thankfully no one was hurt and the kids weren't in the car! Anyway, on Saturday, the kids wanted to dress up and go play in the snow, so we uncovered all of the cold weather gear to let everyone go out. Here's Catherine's outfit (she was VERY excited to get dressed up and go outside!):

Here are Jack & Adam with Catherine
The boys enjoyed pulling Catherine around on the sled, even thought there wasn't that much snow and she loved the ride around the yard!

Tom went out to play with them too - they had fun making snowballs and riding in the sled.

Here's the snowman that Tom & Jack made with the little snow that they had:

Thanksgiving Thursday

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Our neighbors, the Flanegins, and my sister joined us for the meal at about 4 in the afternoon. We cooked a 21lb turkey and had more than enough food for the 14 of us in our house that night. We began the meal with everyone saying one thing they were thankful for - many blessings were talked about - the food, family, wonderful neighbors, jobs, normal things that we take for granted that others don't have. Here's a picture of the "kids" table with our three boys and 4 of the Flanegin children - Kyle, Kevin, Lada & Katya:

Here's the "adult" table with Rob, Tom, Sue, Tresa & Anastasia (Catherine ate with us):
Here's everyone after the big meal enjoying a little relaxation. We watched some "Punkin Chunkin" - a first for our family. People create machines to see how far they can shoot pumpkins - very entertaining.

We are all very thankful for so many things and that we had a wonderful Thanksgiving day with terrific friends and family!

Thankful Thursday

"Joyful, joyful we adore thee
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,
Opening to the sun above.

Melt the clouds of sin and sadness,
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day." Henry Van Dyke

I keep singing this hymn over and over in my head - I love it!

Today I am thankful for many things:

1) My Beth Moore group of ladies studying Believing God. This is an amazing group of women and I love sharing Thursday mornings with them. We also shared what we were thankful for today in our group - I could only share one thing there, but I can share more here!

2) Friends & Doc Sue who help out in big and small ways when my husband is out of town - especially for the dinner tonight that we will enjoy courtesy of Tammy.

3) Facebook - I know a very silly thing that can also become an addiction, but I am very thankful to be able to catch up with people that live so far away (and some that live just down the street). I am thankful for all of my many relationships that I can maintain in a small way with Facebook.

4) The Path small group - a WONDERFUL bunch of people from our church who can get together and laugh, cry, share, study God's word, decorate Christmas trees with less than stellar decorations, and share our many blessings with others as we give Thanksgiving dinners to two families in our community who would not be able to have a big dinner on that special day. I m very thankful for this group!

5) The beautiful weather that we have experienced here in Colorado this fall.

6) My friend, Angie, who had the wonderful idea of starting Thankful Thursday and inviting others to join in!

As Anna said in the Pioneers teaching last night - "When you look for the good in people, you'll find it." I think we can choose to look for the good that God gives us every week - some weeks may be more difficult than others - but we can CHOOSE to find the good & joy! No pictures this time - perhaps next week for Thanksgiving on Thankful Thursday!

Visit With Old Friends

We have dear friends from Okinawa that we have not seen since we left there in April of 2004. Nick & Christi Seaward came to Colorado for Nick's AFA reunion so we were able to meet with them and some other friends at Fargo's Pizza. The last time Tom and I had been there was about 16 years ago when we were still cadets and were able to go on frequent dates. Here are Nick & Christi:

Here are their beautiful daughters Isabelle & Elise. Elise wasn't feeling too well at first, but after some finger puppets and conversation with our boys, she started feeling better.
Here's a photo of all of the adults there. The Seawards knew Peggy Skattebo and we know her from our church. Also, their friends Felix & Amor are Navigators and it turns out they live in our neighborhood and know many of the same people we know - very small world!

Here's a photo of all of the kids - they had much fun together visiting in this cool booth at Fargo's:

Here are all of the Seaward's right before they left. It was wonderful getting to visit with them again after all of these years and we hope that our paths cross again in the future - "Friends are friends forever if the Lord's the Lord of them" - Amen!

Thankful Thursday

A friend of mine started having a "Thankful Thursday" entry on her blog and encouraged others to join in. I LOVE the idea, so here's my first Thankful Thursday entry. I'm very thankful for Operation Christmas Child and all of the children touched by this ministry. It is amazing to me the stories of how God uses each box for a specific child. The children are amazed when they open their box to reveal what they had wished for or better. Here's a few of the boxes our church filled:

I'm thankful for my three handsome sons who each picked out special items to go in the boxes they packed for three little boys (Catherine & I packed two for little girls, although she had a hard time parting with the new little girl things that were going to others). I love how great their minds are and how they're learning with each other and friends and strangers to try and think of others - not that they have that lesson learned yet, but that they're getting there.
I'm thankful for a beautiful little daughter who is so much entertainment. I love to hear her say "clean" when she gets out of the bath. I love that she poses for pictures like this one:

I'm thankful for a wonderful husband of 15 years that is willing to stay with the kids while I go on a retreat (I am also thankful for a wonderful retreat packed with Christian fellowship with some awesome ladies of God and for God's words to me regarding risk and moving to England), stay home to help with sick kids, loves me unconditionally & grows closer to God and me every day - he's the best!

I am thankful that my sick kids are getting better, my son's broken tooth will get fixed by the dentist today, and that we have wonderful extended families that love us and send us wonderful gifts & love us even when we're so busy we don't get to call or write them very often. I am also VERY thankful for our church family - Covenant Presbyterian Church - they are such a blessing to our family and they are family to us while we are so far away from our relatives - yay!!

Catherine's First Haircut

Today Catherine went to get her first haircut. We went to Joanne Huddleson's house - she is a lady who goes to our church, lives in our neighborhood, and is a hairdresser. Here is Catherine before we went wearing her "Bad Hare Day" shirt and all of her hair is in her eyes:

Here is Catherine sitting in my lap waiting for the haircut to begin. Joanne had many wonderful distractions for Catherine and she never screamed and cried, though she was a little leery of the whole process.

Here is Catherine after getting bangs - what a difference!

Here's Joanne and many of the combs Catherine enjoyed holding:

All done! It's great to see her eyes without looking through all that hair!