"C's" Good Joke!

We have gotten a big kick out of "C's" budding humor! Just a very short time ago his joke humor consisted of rhyming two words together and he would think that was just hilarious! And we would think it was hilarious because he thought it was so hilarious. :-)

Well, today "C's" jokes seemed have to gone up a rung! His joke today was
"Who knows the best that Noah built the ark?  ARKeologists!!!!!"

We thought that was pretty good!!!! So fun to watch the kids grow and learn and see their personalities show more and more.

Thankfulness of the year past

Top 5 Things I am Thankful For this New Year:
1) My Salvation and the love of my Saviour
2) My husband, who is one of the most genuine Christians I have ever met and a loving husband.
3) My children, who although not perfect just as their parents aren't, desire to honor their parents and right in the sight of God. Of course, this is a daily choice that they and everyone must choose each day.
4) I am not a hero person but I must say I hold very high my parents and our last church family who are much a like, probably because they came from the same generation. These people are rare and few any more, this I know. I so want my children to reflect their grandparents generation.
5) My pastor, whose preaching of the Scriptures is always done in love with truth. His messages have been such a huge source of encouragement.

Grandpa with his award and Big C

My Dad was awarded recently the Defender of the Scripture Award from an organization. He is the 2nd recipient to get it. After hearing about Grandpa's award "C" quietly said 

"If King James were still alive he would've been proud of you." 

That was so cute and sweet. We are proud of Grandpa and his stand for the Scriptures for which he has paid a big price. 

Our churches today are confused with all different translations. The big problem with this issue is that it is confusing for the typical person and so many people either do what is easy or what the crowds do. Some do enough study to see what they want I suppose:-)

Thankful for my dad's stand for the truth of Scriptures. An interesting read would be about Hobby Lobby's accumulation of Bible manuscripts and which Bible they hold dear. This year they are opening a Bible Museum 2 blocks from the main mall of Washington D.C. After reading the article and why they were building this museum I was even more impressed with the company.

Over this Christmas break Grandpa started teaching "G" on this topic and "G" loved sitting and listening to Grandpa's words of wisdom and experience. It is a lot for an 8th grader to process but little by little he can learn.

The Simple Things

"A" and I went to the thrift store today and found this old type hammer toy. I bought it for CG pretty sure she would love it. She did and so did the other littles! I got some cute clips of them playing with this together this afternoon!! Glad I have this on video for my memory bank.

Beautiful Gift

This is a gift my G brought to me on Friday after taking the trash out he found this on the bush. He has appreciated flowers since he was a LITTLE boy (reminds me of his Grandpa J). Anyway, he put it in water and brought it to me. Very Sweet. Thankful for him and the cheerfulness he brings to our home.

G is a serious student of history especially military history. He loves to tell me what he learns and has expanded my knowledge from his stories! He told me yesterday after telling me more stories that he noticed the successful military men were the ones who were kind, humble, or those with character was the jist  . . as compared to and he named men I have never heard of in military history that were full of arrogance. The Bible should be our most important text book but history also teaches a lot and I am glad he pays attention to the lessons of history.

He and I were laughing the other day because in one of his classes from Veritas Press (we love Veritas Press classes) the teacher was lecturing about friendships in a certain literary classic. Anyway, he told the story about he and his two kids and they were all play sword fighting. His daughter was the "good guy" and he and his son were the "bad guys". All of a sudden the teacher's 6 year old son turned on him and started fighting against him! He asked his son why since they were on the same team and his son's reply was "bad guys don't have friends!" So true!! We got a good laugh from that!!!

Monticello

 The day after Thanksgiving we went up to Monticello to see Thomas Jefferson's home.

We REALLY enjoyed this trip. It was a BEAUTIFUL day and very interesting history. 

We LOVE history!!!
R's favorite room was a room with big windows and a desk that Jefferson would sit at and would write letters. He spent about 4 to 5 hours a day in that room. He was an extraordinary individual with writing the Declaration of Independance at age 33!!!

Beautiful day with great memories. We were concerned about the little ones making it through the tour at the end of a long day but prayer was answered and they made it. I kept taking B to the windows during the tour and telling her to look for rabbits!:-)

 Thomas Jefferson decided what he wanted on his grave stone. Interestingly, he did not have mentioned that he was President at one point!

 The garden was absolutely BEAUTIFUL due to the setting. Monticello is on top of a hill and it is so beautiful to look around the garden and see down on the surrounding area. The only garden that I have seen that rivaled this one in beauty is Beatrix Potter's garden in the Lake District in England. The Lake District is as close to what I have seen to heaven on earth. But this too was so beautiful.

 We did have to wait a LONG time for our tour but the kids had fun playing around and seeing the surrounding area.

Sword fighting between brothers.

Our Thanksgiving

 The above 2 pictures were taken on the day before Thanksgiving as we were having

our school Thanksgiving party. We read "Squanto" by Eric Metaxes, watched "Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving" which we loved, and watched a history DVD on the first Thanksgiving by a children's history production. Leading up to this day we read "Voyage to Freedom" by David Gay which we have now read at least 4 times! We read some pieces out of Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation". It was extremely inspirational to read from chapter 9 and a little past about the Pilgrim's response to hardship and sickness. How they cared for there own and those that persecuted them.

 Thanksgiving day was relaxed and wonderful. Just what we needed!!!

We took some of the littles (Big sister wanted to come too) to the playground and

they had a grand time on a perfect weather day!!

 Big sister to the rescue

 Adventurous B

 Above is our Thanksgiving meal which Daddy made rib roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, and I made our traditional Cranberry Fluff Salad.

Even though this year has truly been a year of hardship we have much to thank our Heavenly Father for that the list could go on and on.

We had Kiya and Reebah which for our meal showed up as

an indian and a pilgrim for our special meal!!!