Pictures from Flagstaff

Eric created a slideshow of pictures from our trip to Flagstaff that you can access here.

The first few pictures are of our room, then we switch to our snow play, followed by our trip on The Polar Express. One of the pictures show John laughing and me with a funny face. At that time, we were playing a game where he blew a kiss at me and I pretended that the kiss landed in my eye, blinding me. Elizabeth was determined not to smile in any of the pictures. I will have to say that the servers on the Polar Express really enjoyed themselves the whole time (or at least put on a darn good show). I told Eric that when we retire, I want to be a server on The Polar Express.

Enjoy!

Elizabeth's work

This semester, I have added a new "school lesson" relating to the building the life skill of good relationships. Some of you might say that that is like the blind leading the blind, but isn't parenting a lot like that anyway? At a one day, small workshop in Wheaton, Illinois several years ago, the keynote speaker, Dr. Rob Reinow, who is pastor of Wheaton Bible Church, made a comment that has really influenced my approach to homeschooling: "Our most important job is to disciple our kids because no one ever got divorced because they failed in math." Another inspiration came from Respectful Kids, which talked about the importance of coaching good behavior at times other than in the midst of bad behavior and of course, modeling good behavior, which is SO-O-O-O difficult under stress. Since the Bible has a lot of great things to say about relationships, we are using it as a primary source. We started out talking about what our primary jobs as human beings are. According to Matthew 22: 37-40, Jesus said that it is" 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

But love is a very general term, with a lot of different connotations, so now we are focusing our time on 1 Corinthians 13, also known as "The Love Chapter". We spent two weeks on "Love is Patient", because we all need more patience. We watched "Abe and the Amazing Promise", which had a lot of fun with confusing the word "patients" with "patience". We looked up the definition of patience and we practiced it. We are still practicing it, but have moved on to "Love is kind", which by the way, is still part of 1 Corinthians 13:4. This week, I had the kids start making posters to put around the family room to help us remind us to love each other. Below is Elizabeth's poster of "Patience," which, in my mind, demonstrated a lot of patience. But she also managed to include the joke about patients, too. She used templates to form the letters and the drawings and spent a lot of time coloring in the letters. My kids constantly amaze me.

Christmas pictures

Because our extended families live so far away, I thought I would post pictures of our Christmas. Our Christmas tradition involves everyone getting dressed before coming downstairs to see what Santa delivered in their stocking. The story goes that when Elizabeth was born, Santa asked us what type of presents we wanted him to give to the kids. We told him that filling the stockings was enough. We wanted to be the ones to give the really cool gifts. Then we made sure the kids got big enough stockings. Thanks Nana Lambert and Grandma Sue for providing stockings that only Paul Bunyan would be able to wear. At this point, bread for sticky buns in in the process of rising. The kids aren't hungry anyway. They are too preoccupied with figuring out what Santa gave them.








This year, we took turns opening presents for six rounds, letting a different person go first each time. All the kids took turns passing out presents too. It was nice being able to ooh and aahhh over each gift. While each child was waiting for someone else to unwrap their presents, some of them got creative. Isn't she lovely? BTW, can you tell what she likes best next to gymnastics and dressing up?








It was a Lego Christmas this year, with each child getting at least one Lego. Interestingly enough, four or five adults (including Santa) were involved in choosing different lego kits for each child and we didn't have one duplicate! Thank you, God! Of course, now our basement floor is littered with little lego pieces. This afternoon, the kids ran out of space and started putting together a big lego set in front of the stairs before my dh and I made them move the 10,000 pieces to another area. It will take weeks to pick up the basement again.





The kids were excited to get rocket kits from Grandma and Grandpa K. We started rocketry last summer, after Daddy got a rocket kit for Christmas. We had successfully launched and retrieved his rocket four or five times until he decided that he wanted more power! He bought bigger rockets and instantaneously lost his rocket and Elizabeth's brand new gold rocket.







After roughly eight years of waiting, Daddy got what he really wanted for Christmas--a train set to put up under the Christmas tree. When our oldest was a baby, he talked about getting a set. At the time, I reminded him that between the baby and the cat, the train wouldn't last long. The cat is long gone and we finally do not have a baby around at Christmas. So the kids and I pooled our resources to get him a train kit. I wrapped each component separately, so he would be able to unwrap several presents, instead of just one or two.





These are some new ornaments we got for our tree. Nana bought an ornament for each person in our family and Grandma K. cross stitched an ornament and finished it (the big square one). I put them all together so that we could take one picture showing them off. Grandma K has more ornaments stashed away somewhere until she has the time to finish them. We love new ornaments.








What a MESS! We spent the rest of the day putting together legos, napping, eating and watching a movie or two. It was a complete and total day of rest. Beds were not even made. However, the next day, we decided to spend fifteen minutes or so picking up until...









...it looked like this again! The basement, however, is still littered with legos, as it will be until all lego kits have been totally assembled.









Merry Christmas everyone. We missed seeing you! We love you.