A Fun Way Of Learning Punctuation!

 For R's grammar the other day he was working on periods and commas. I always think of commas as being a difficult thing to learn the use of. In his Shurley English book it recommend writing out sentences on something big (poster board, etc.) and then giving the child pennies to use for periods and macaroni noodles to use for commas. I thought this was such a fun idea! I decided to use Sweeties candy as periods and Bugles as commas and then he could eat them making it all the more fun!

We really enjoyed this practice a lot!

Family Christmas Pictures

 This is all the kiddos together! 

 "A" with little sissy B.

 Big brother G with J.

 Baby C

 Baby B

 Big brother R with babies B & C.

 The 4 oldest kids were dressed up because they were going to a church down in the Springs that had a special Christmas hymn sing. Different churches sent musical groups to this large church and had a program. I think that is really neat! Anyway, the four oldest kids sang for it. Unfortunately, Babe was working that night and I needed to stay home with the twins so they could stay away from germs. 

Our good friends took them down to sing. My friend is the one that worked with them on their song and got them ready for this. She is truly a force of good in our family and so is her husband. They had an AMAZING night and came home SOOOO excited. They were THRILLED to see a hand bell choir!!!! The Lord really helped them in their singing and it went well.  That was a big difference for the kids going from our small church to a big one. 

It is such an encouragement to have good friends that help and encourage. 

Our Last Christmas In Colorado

We celebrated our Christmas a little early this year since Daddy needed to work on Christmas Eve and on Christmas day. Although, we had a few hours Christmas morning that allowed our whole family to go over to a friends house for a super yummy breakfast and wonderful fellowship!

The night we celebrated we put the 3 youngest kiddos to bed and read the Christmas story and opened presents with the older kiddos. We had a GREAT time! I heard said "This was the best Christmas ever!"

A opening the present from C.

I took C to Walmart and allowed him to pick out gifts to give the other kids he REALLY enjoyed this and was excited to sneak them in the house! He talked to grandma on the way home and told her what he did and that it was "just Mommy and me." He gave his big sissy a necklace that said "sister" and also gave her some nail polish. She love it!!

A is helping R to open his present from C.

R LOVED his present from C and Angry Bird reading pillow!

Big Sissy made C a hat and mittens in her sewing classes and also a stuffed bear!

He really liked the hat and mittens but he was TRILLED with the stuffed bear!

R is our cardboard kid. He LOVES making crafts out of cardboard.

He was so happy to make big brother a cardboard target which is going to be useful with the real blow gun he and big brother got from us.

My 4 oldest kids are huge Lord of the Rings fans. The two oldest kids have read all the books including "The Hobbit" and seen all the movies. I am sure R who is really good at reading will start that in a year or two. The 4 oldest kiddos were thrilled to go to the opening night of "The Hobbit" this December with Daddy. Anyway, my daughter thinks Shelob the spider is so cool and so Gabriel wanted to get her the Lego Shelob set. Let's just say she was thrilled!

It is amazing what you can get at Walmart for $12 or under! When I took C and we chose presents to give to the kids this $10 table top pool table was there. G had been talking about wanting a pool table. He was so excited to get this one from C!

My sweet A surprised me and made me a hat and mittens to!

They are nice and warm and stitched in love!

R made Daddy a glue/salt picture! Beautiful!

And Daddy really enjoyed it!

A and I with a silly but fun looking gift I found her. It is a bucket you attatch to the end of a blow dryer and you stick your hair in the bucket and it gives it waves! :-)

"A" made me this jingle bell bracket which I think is stunning! She also made 2 tree ornaments and I believe she made one or two ornaments for Daddy too!

"A" made daddy a very masculine set of hat and mittens in sewing class!!

Little C made G a "shape map". You can't see in the picture but the wood triangle has a map drawn on it by C. G was very appreciative for his kind and thoughtful gift!

"A" explaining to R what she made from him.

Here's what she made . . . a bug inspection kit! You put the but you caught into the cardboard corral and then she had a pretend eye looker for closer inspection! Very Creative!

R made C a clay hut! G can use this with his army guys when they play Tactica.

C made Daddy a cardboard bomb. Daddy got a kick out of it! Must be a guy thing!

R made me a beautiful jingle bell ornament!

R colored a beautiful picture for A and then mounted the picture on cardboard!

I thought this was great. R and A worked on this gift for C together. They made a "fishing kit".

It was super cute! I wish I had gotten better pictures of what they made. They used toilet paper tube, duck tape, broken off furniture wooden piece, etc.

                  This was one of the fish!!!

This was a squid.

R cut this verse out as a gift to his twin baby sisters.
How incredibly sweet!!

                      C made a lot for Daddy! He also made him

this card board ship! Daddy appreciated being thought of so much.

Never a dull moment in this house. Never.

The ninja swords ended up being a big hit!

                               R made little J an eel!
                                  How cool is that!  
I think he learned the technique from his Auntie T
who showed a similar way to make snakes with T-shirts.                          

Little C with a doggie from Grandma and Grandpa.

R and A with the foos ball game from us.

We had a Wonderful Christmas with the kiddos!

Ecclesiastes 7:21-22

Ecclesiastes 7:21-22

Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

21 Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee: 22 for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.

Ratso!! Does the Bible really have to address this and not allow me to lick my wounds from those that have verbally hurt me?!!:-) I came across these verses while doing devotions with the kids. I wasn't paying attention and I was reading out of another book of the Bible from what I thought I was. Hmm, obviously the Lord wanted me to read here! The kids and I were able to talk about this which is great and this is an important truth . . . don't try to dissect everything people say and why they are saying it for the truth is don't I say hurtful things too sometimes? 

Ouch, I struggle with over reading peoples words and taking things to heart way to easily. I think a lot of women do struggle with this. Instead of focusing on what others are saying I need to be focusing on what I am saying. Am I encouraging and lifting others up or are my words causing hurt? 

Great verses for a character change in the new year. 

An Old Fashioned Christmas For Our Church Family

When I was a little girl my dad used to put paper bags together for our church family at Christmas time. In the bag he would put peanuts, Old Fashioned Creme Drops, and ribbon candy. He would also have people help pass out either a big orange or beautiful red apple to everyone! Great memories!

This is the second time our family has done this in recent years. I didn't do the ribbon candy

this year because where I was looking it was just to costly but I thought the Sweet Stripes Candy

was a good replacement and fit in with the theme. On the back on the tag I wrote

 "Merry Old-Fashioned Christmas."

My oldest son G wood burned a tree ornament for each family in our church . . . well, we ended up

two short but close!! Our church family is one where there is a balance of truth and love and for 

that we will be forever grateful. They have been a healing balm to us over the last year after

not always having what we do now. God knew we would need their love and support over this

last year and love and support is what they have given us in quantity.