Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful visit with my family during Thanksgiving. It was such a blessing to be able to get together with everyone for the holiday. After a long trip, filled with lots of traffic, we finally made it up to Nashville to begin a relaxing weekend.

We began by celebrating Kalyn's and Xander's birthdays with my parents. Xander received all kinds of fun boy dress up clothes and cool pajamas. He can now be anything from a Power Ranger to a skater to a wrestler to many other things. After two girls of her own and two granddaughters, Mom had lots of fun shopping for little boy stuff!! Kalyn was blessed with tons of books for her Story Reader. She loves any chance to sit down with her book and listen to the stories. My sister gave her a shirt just perfect for her that reads, "I'm a glamour girl"

The turkey day filled my parents' home with family - my sister, Ashley and her husband, Jeff, Jeff's mom and stepfather, my grandmother and my aunt. We had a wonderful visit with everyone. Mom made a truly delicious meal.

Ashley and me with Nanny

Waiting for the yummy food

Nanny took some time to read to Kalyn and Xander

My dad carved the turkey.

Kalyn "set" the table.

I did my annual opening of the canned cranberry sauce.

During our weekend in Nashville, we had couple of opportunities to spend time with Jeff and Ashley. Unfortunately, our schedules are crazy enough that this doesn't happen too often so we were very thankful for the dinner out we got with them.

Xander got to "ride" on Papa's motorcycle (i.e. sit on it while Dad spun it around in the garage). The funny thing is that as soon as my dad put Xander on his motorcycle, Xander asked for his helmet - not just any helmet, his new helmet that he had just received for his birthday. Safety first!!

Saturday morning, we all went to a nearby theater to watch a play of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day". It was wonderful!!! The screenplay added in songs from the book (by the same author) If I Was In Charge Of The World. The kids loved it and stayed almost perfectly still the entire time, their eyes glued to the stage.

It was a great ending to a great weekend. That afternoon, we loaded up the car and headed home. Thankfully, it was a much faster trip home!! I hope that you had a wonderful and thankful holiday.

Harvest of Thanks

Our church has an annual event called the Harvest of Thanks that happens the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It is a blessed night filled with delicious food, great fellowship and inspiring testimony sharing. The night begins with a "family meal". Everyone brings either a dessert or a soup. It is a great smorgasbord of yummies. We got to sit at a table with our friend John and his son Asher.

Afterwards, we all move into the sanctuary where we are all given the opportunity to share what God has done in the past year. The staff usually talks to a couple of people to "prime the pump" for the sharing. It was special to hear how God has been moving in people's lives. There were a number of people talking about our church family and how special that is. Craig spoke about the blessing of Trinity's decision to follow Christ and the privilege he had of baptizing her. He also reiterated how intertwined the church body is as everyone ministers to everyone in one way or another.

We love our church family!!!

Kalyn's Family Birthday

We had so much fun celebrating Kalyn's birthday as a family. Unfortunately, I had handbell rehearsal that night, so we were under a little time constraint, but we made it work. We grabbed some coupons and headed to Chuck-E-Cheese for some tasty pizza and games galore.

We had tons of token and with every game being only one token, we were set!! After a bit of playing, we stopped for some dinner, presents and cupcakes. Kalyn was so excited about her gifts. Trinity picked out Kalyn's gift all on her own - a little stuffed puppy dog with its own carrier. The break was just right.

Craig was a great dad! I had to leave before the kids were done playing and Craig was willing, even volunteered, to stay with the kids all on his own. Chuck-E-Cheese himself even came out and Kalyn got a big hug from him. Trinity and Kalyn had fun playing with just the two of them while Craig and Xander enjoyed some boy games.

What a great way to celebrate!!

Shoebox Fun

We love shopping for our Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes. We love the opportunity to remind our children (and ourselves) about the importance of giving to others. We spent one evening a few weeks ago at the Dollar Tree picking out all kinds of goodies to pack into our shoeboxes. The night before the collection day at church, we pulled all the boxes, the presents and began packing.

We began by packing candy into our personalized mugs. We found the "decorate-you-own-cups" and included a picture of our family on the mugs. Then we began the assembly line. We had all the goodies divided out into piles and had the kids fill their boxes. We took one pile and passed it from child to child with everyone picking out one of the items for their boxes. It worked pretty well, after Xander got the hang of the process.

After the boxes were filled, we took some time to pray over them, their trips and the children who would be receiving the boxes. It was precious to hear all the kids pray over the shoeboxes they had filled.

It took a little finagling to fit everything into the boxes and be able to close the tops. We're trying something new this year - we payed the "shipping costs" for the shoeboxes online. This allowed us to print out a shipping label with a bar code. The bar code can be scanned so we can see where our boxes arrive. We can't wait to see their destinations. We turned in most of our boxes to our church, but we kept three out for our trip down to the shoebox collection facility. We are really looking forward to that visit. What a blessing this night was for our family!!

Kalyn's Party

Usually, we have a great party with family and friends to celebrate birthdays. However, this year - since our house is still in "dishelveness" from the flooded basement - we can't really have our normal gathering. So, we decided to throw a small party for Kalyn with three of her closest friends last Friday while Trinity was in school. I knew that Trinity would be very upset to miss out, but I knew that Kalyn would be more excited about having some time with just her and her friends. So I didn't make too big a deal about it, in fact Kalyn found out about the playdate about 5 minutes before her friends started showing up.

The fun started out with some fun present opening. Kalyn received a Birthday Barbie, a make-up set and an adorable purse and rings. Then we loaded up the cars - my friend Jennifer joined us with her son Gavin. She took the boys and I took the girls and we headed to Play for some serious playtime. They jumped, they squealed, they laughed, they seemed to have a great time. Xander had a blast running around with his buddy, Gavin. After about an hour in the playrooms, we headed across the hall to the craft room. Here, they kids made macaroni necklaces and paper plate pizzas and spaghetti.

Presents Time

Ansleigh, Kalyn, Ivey and Callie - ready for some Play

Jumping in the jump house

Xander and Gavin having fun without the girls

Trampoline laughter

It was so much fun to be thrown into the foam pit

Craft room fun

The girls in the foam pit!

After all the excitement, we loaded back into the cars and headed for lunch and the delicious Chick-Fil-A. The girls all did a great job eating their lunch! Afterwards, we took their toys from their kids' meals and traded them in for some cups of ice cream. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Kalyn and gave everyone one of the cupcakes we brought. A great yummy end to a very special celebration!!

Happy Birthday Ben

One of our good friends have a little boy, Ben, who's birthday falls only a few days off of Kalyn's. Last week, we got together for a little celebration for his fourth birthday. The kids had lots of fun in the jumpy house - a great way to burn off a lot of excess energy they always manage to have! Then we had fun with the traditional song and cake eating. It was also enjoyable watching him open his special gifts. I had lots of fun shopping for his gift and hope he'll have fun playing with it. (Unfortunately I can't do too much shopping with the kids because they are still grasping the idea of "keeping a surprise".)

Happy fourth birthday, Ben!!

Thanksgiving Program

Last Thursday was Kalyn's preschool musical program. We love these. Now in our fifth year of these programs, we know how special they are. I am so glad that Craig works for such an understanding boss that allows him to come to any special school event that occurs!

The schedule of the program is such that each age does their own few songs. The youngest classes of two are absolutely adorable and the oldest groups of fours are usually the loudest. It's fun to see other children we know during their sections of the program. It was also fun to watch Xander - he knew a number of the songs that the two year old class was singing and he just sang right along with them.

Kalyn actually seemed a bit tired during her part of the program. Thursday are always hard on her since she's up late with AWANA the night before. However, she sand her little heart out and did most of the motions.

Isn't her class cute?

Singing out loud!!

This is what I meant when I said "most of the motions"

I treasure these performances because I know next year will have many more parents and many less close views of her.

Leaves Video

Before I blog about any more activities we've been doing, here is one more post from our leaf fun. Craig does some wonderful work with our videos. Below is our video that he collaborated from the videos and pictures of our excitement. Enjoy!!

Kalyn Turns 5

Wow!! I really can't believe that Kalyn turns five today. Five years ago, we were "strongly encouraging" our doctors to induce me and not send me home from the hospital with contractions on a medication that made me pretty much useless. Five years ago we were just entering the realm of more than one child. Five years ago, we welcomed Kalyn Raine into the world. Wow - five years.

I have to say, that normally I am not too emotional of a mom. I was excited when each of my kids hit a new milestone. However, Kalyn turning five seems a little hard for me to fully grasp. I'm not sure why. I guess four still sounds like a little kid and five seems so grown up. Crazy.

Whenever someone says something about Kalyn, I always say that she is a "trip and a half". She lives in an amazing little world of her own. She loves to sing, dance, twirl and generally go. She can make me smile with just a glimpse of her huge grin. She gives great big hugs. She also is advanced in her teenage emotions - she's already said, "You don't love me" and "I want to be a part of someone else's family". She is always trying to keep up with Trinity - whatever Trinity can do, Kalyn has to at least try. Kalyn carries her emotions on her sleeve, not hesitating to shed a tear when her feelings are hurt. She loves her friends and loves her family. She keeps me laughing.

Enjoy our montage of the last year. It's been such fun looking through our last year of pictures and trying to pick out my favorites. What a trip down a short memory lane.

Just in case you missed it last year, here is her montage of the first 4 years.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KALYN!!

We love you very, very much!!

Leapin' Leaves

We have a wonderful leaf tree in our front yard. Technically, it's our neighbor's yard, but it's right on the line and they don't have little kids, so we commandeered their leaves for our leaf pile. We had so much fun jumping into the pile, running around the yard and tossing leaves into the air.

Craig is our resident leaf-pile maker. He does an amazing job. He took his blower and made a HUGE pile!! I think he gathered all the leaves that had fallen from the tree. Check out what we had to enjoy.

Craig also is our resident toss-kids-into-the-pile-person. The kids got tons of air. Kalyn was so cute as she kept asking Craig to make the leaves "extra fluffy" for her landings.

My favorite part of playing in the leaves is seeing the enormous smiles on our kids' faces. It is completely priceless!!!!

We spent close to an hour and a half in the leaves. We only had to leave due to darkness and some much needed baths. We even got to invite our neighbor's nephew to come play with the kids. It was a great afternoon!! What a great way to spend a fall Saturday.