Help Us Win Saddleback Leather (Again!)

Rob here. You may remember how Gabe won the awesome Saddleback Leather "Beast" for me with her funny video about using Saddleback Leather straps. Well, they're having another giveaway. Look at all the loot!

Please click through to their homepage using this link (opens new window). The counter resets each Wednesday for three weeks. "Click early, and click often!" to misquote Mr. Wrigley.

-Rob

Thanksgiving visit with Nana!

My mom came to visit us for Thanksgiving!  Nana brought some fun little goodies for the kids and it seems it was just enough to help Mr. K warm up to her.

The kids were having so much fun hanging out with Nana and Rob was doing well enough, that we thought we would take the opportunity to go out.  We went to see a movie.

 

On Thanksgiving we enjoyed a light brunch (or was that Elevensies?) before heading over to spend the day with friends.  Miss J had set it up as a sweet little tea party.  She is getting so good at putting together tea parties for us.

*We were not sure how Rob would do getting out, but he was doing well enough to go spend a few hours on someone else's couch by then!

 

We didn't take many pictures, we were having too much fun eating all of the yummy food and enjoying the blessing of fellowship.  I did manage to take a picture of Mr. K after he had polished off his first plate of food and was starting in on his seconds.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our family to yours.  May your day be filled with much love and joy as you reflect on all you have to be thankful for in the past, present and future!

"Oh give thanks to the LORD for He is good, his mercy endures forever!" Psalm 107:1

knee surgery

Rob had knee surgery this week.  It was an all day affair, and since Mr. K is still nursing he had to spend the day with me.  Mr. M came along to help.  It was great to have both of these guys along with me.  After getting daddy settled in  right away we were off to play the waiting game.

Since the hospital was in an area we were very firmiliar with we took a walk.  Half an hour later we were seated at starbucks enjoying drinks while Mr. K napped in the stroller.

After lunch we headed up to the waiting room.  We wanted to be there early so we would not miss the doctor coming out to let us know how surgery went.  Mr. K enjoyed the little table available in the waiting room.

 

When we were called back Mr. K enjoyed checking out the area while keeping quiet and avoiding pushing buttons or pulling cords.

The kids have been happy to hang out with daddy and get anything he may need too.  He has been listening to some reading lessons and cuddling too!

*Oh, if you are wondering what he did to need knee surgery.  It was an on duty injury.  He had a bad landing (he is in the AirForce you know)....during a game of volley ball.  It was a team building game of volley ball.

 

Current events and politics

Our family spends quite a bit of time discussing religion, politics, history and current events; usually around the dining room table.  Even the little ones catch on and get involved.  Daddy was out of town on election day and it seems that Miss C was concerned that he had missed out on some information he needed.  Mid meal she informed him....

"Obama won"

"'dat's bad"

She had more to say on the subject, but we'll leave it at that for now. ;)

Happy Birthday Miss C

Miss C turned 3 this past week.  She has been very excited about her birthday for quite some time, and slightly obsessed with her cake.  She has been going back and forth between ducky cupcakes and a hello kitty cake.  She finally settled on hello kitty and little over a month ago.  Then she informed me she wanted hello kitty walking a ducky on her cake.

She had a great time celebrating her birthday and it seems she was happy enough with what I came up with for her cake.

Miss C is such a little talker and keeps us smiling and laughing all the time as she lets us know what she has going on in that little head of hers.  She is quite the thinker.  More than anything Miss C loves to play mommy.  She is a good little mommy taking great care of her babies, and enjoys helping me around the house as much as she can.

Operation Christmas Child

Christmas is coming up; even so it caught me off guard to find that the Operation Christmas Child boxes are due next week!  This is a great way to show Christ's love to a child in a tangible way.  It is also a great project to do as a family.  My kids had a great time shopping; then we came home and dumped it all out on the table.

Then we sorted it all to make it easy to split up into the boxes.

 

Boxes are all filled, labeled and ready to be dropped off on Monday.

There are loads of ways families can serve others during the Christmas holidays.  This post is to get you thinking now.  What are some ministries that you could help out near or far?  Friends or neighbors that you could minister to?  Get thinking!  Don't get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season and forget what we are celebrating.  It is Christ.  His birth.  His life.  His sacrificial death, and more importantly his Resurrection; the gift of salvation that he offers all who believe.

Apples

Its apple season around here and we have quite the stack here to process.  The kids have been great helpers in getting through all of them.  All of them enjoy manning the peeler/corer/slicer on down through Miss J.

The little girls love eating the peels, and since these apples are organic I'm more than happy to let them!

 

We've dehydrated many of them.  The dehydrator is the one my dad made nearly 30 years ago.  My step mom very kindly offered it to me.  It is so cool to see it in use so many years later in my own home serving yet another generation.

We have a few jars of applesauce.

 

Mmmm....apple butter!

I've even got some Apple Cider Vinegar going using the peals that we would be discarding anyways (at least I hope I do, I've never tried this but I hear this works).

Walking!

Mr. K has been capable of walking for quite some time.  Every once in a while when he thought no one was looking he would take a step or two, but that was it.  On our trip to California I was noticing that he was getting bolder and steadier, but still not really wanting to walk.  The day we got home he just took off and has been toddling around here like a pro ever since.

 

This is how Mr. K has done just about everything.  He practices.  We can tell he is working on it, but he will not show us what he is truly able to do until he thinks he can do it very well.  He is a perfectionist, I can already tell.

He is looking and acting more and more like a big boy.  I'd say he is a toddler now, except this big baby just does not want to quit nursing (and really shouldn't given his dairy issues).  He is still our baby for now, but don't tell him that!

All done?

 When we arrived back at the hotel some of the kids were already sleeping, some laid themselves down still dressed and did not wake until morning.  Everyone was tired and ready for sleep and seemed ready to be done with Disneyland.  Having had some great naps in the park Mr. K and Miss C were the first to wake up in the morning.  To let the others sleep I took them down to breakfast.

Mr. R joined us soon after we got down there.  In conversation it came to my attention that Mr. R had not been able to ride a ride that he had wanted to go on. We had three day passes.  Should we go back for an hour or two?

 

Yep, after checking out of the hotel we headed back, but just for an hour or two.

Mr. R had been wanting to ride the rocket ships and then go into the innovations building, so that was what we did.

Daddy wanted to revisit Autopia, so we did.  I had lunch with the little kids while the big ones practiced their driving skills.

 

We were right around the corner from the Alice in wonderland ride, and the line was short.  Why not?  I took the little ones while Daddy and the big kids had lunch.

 

Miss J making a face like the snotty caterpillar 

 

Somehow we had missed riding the train the day before and everyone wanted to ride.  Mr. K was so excited once he got to see a train come through the station.  I think it may have been his favorite line and ride!  He even tried to get through the bars a few times. ;)

Miss J thought for sure the Winnie the Pooh ride needed to be done again.  That one is a short line too.

 

Mr. K was still thinking that Mr. M's hat was great and since he was on my back for this go round it was within easy reach much of the time.  It seemed that every time Mr. M was close he was grabbing that hat and laughing, he was good at putting the hat on himself as well.  We can already tell this little guy has a great sense of humor, we may be in for some big trouble are looking forward to some big laughs with him.

So much for an hour or two in the park and then getting on the road.  We ended up spending nearly a whole day there!  After we finally had dinner and got to the van it was about 6:30.  We drove through the night arriving at home around 3:30 am.  Whew!  What a trip!

Disneyland evening

Check out the rest of our trip to Disneyland in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3!

Miss C had missed out on the cotton candy earlier in the day because she was sleeping, so while we were waiting in line for the submarine ride we got her some (she shared very nicely).

 

Mr. K liked the lines.  He was able to get out and stretch his legs a bit and even practiced taking a step or two.  He really liked Mr. M's hat and kept swiping it.  I wasn't sure how much fun Disneyland would be for a 1-year-old, but he seemed happy enough the whole time.

The submarine ride was a nice little break.

 

I was impressed that all of the strollers all over the park were lined up so nicely.  While waiting for the gang outside Autopia I saw a Disney worker re-arranging and organizing all of the strollers.  I think it is this sort of attention to details that helps makes Disneyland such a nice place to be.

As we were figuring out what else we needed to try to get to before the end of our visit Miss E and Mr. M talked me into taking them on Splash Mountain.  I'm not quite sure what I was thinking, it was dark and cooling off and those two kept talking about how wet they wanted to get on the ride.  Fortunately their plans didn't quite workout and I escaped fairly dry having had a great time with those two.

 

The line for Small world was one of the longest, but we made it back there right after the fireworks when it was not too bad.  It was Miss C's favorite, she would have done it over and over again, but the line was just way too long.

I did one last ride with the big kids (Pinocchio) while Rob hung out with the little ones.  Some had hit their breaking point and we ready for bed, but the park was closing in 15 minutes anyways so we figured we should enjoy one last ride.

Ah, bed at last!