Star Spangled Banner, Six-year old style...

You can tell the girls attend a lot of sporting events, as they have been obsessed with the Star Spangled Banner lately. They ask me to sing it on a regular basis, but I don't oblige when we are in public. However, I ham it up well when we are home. Here is their version of what a six year old hears of the Star Spangled Banner...



I especially like "last dreaming," "rockets mooshing down," and the key change!

Postman's Creed...

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night could keep us from getting our Christmas tree! We made the decision to wait to get our Christmas tree on Sunday, because that was the best forecasted day for the weekend. Instead, this is what we saw as we pulled in to the lot....

Then it turned to this...

Finally we got out of the van to visit with Santa (under cover, of course). The girls brought the Christmas lists they brought for Santa. Well, actually Kaia's was pages from Walmart and Target adds stapled together, favorite toys circled...

After stalling as long as we could, we decided to just go for it...

Here we are all wet (I was the only one who stayed dry by actually using my hood), but feeding the ponies helped make it worth while....

Despite everything it was good family fun. It wasn't until we got home and set the tree up (for 24 hrs to dry before decorating) that we decided that maybe we were a bit too anxious and just grabbed the first tree we saw to get out of the rain. It was worth it though, and not even the weather was able to stop us!

One Tired Girl....

Here's what you get when you mix sledding, tryptophan, and a six-year old after a long day of Thanksgiving...

White Thanksgiving....

That's right, we had a White Thanksgiving, and I would love it to be a new tradition around here, but I don't think that's very realistic where we live. We got a fresh batch of snow while we slept, on top of what we already had, so we began the day by having family snow time...

My crazy family....

sledding...



Once again Mike rotisseried our turkey and it turned out wonderfully. Fixing Thanksgiving dinner reminds me of so many friends and family. My Sweet Potato recipe came from my friend Bonnie, the bowl for my fruit salad belonged to my grandma, the mashed potato recipe from my sister-in-law Lorrie, and my pumpkin cake recipe from my friend Chris. Despite our family being alone this holiday, we reflected on how grateful we are to have so many wonderful people in our lives.

We are also thankful for our country. While it is not perfect, we are so blessed to live in a free country. On a lighter note, we are also thankful for the new couch we got delivered yesterday (our previous one we bought in our first year of marriage)! Guess that goes for the new dryer we had to unexpectedly buy too (after we had already bought the couch). I'm not going to whine though, because so many people don 't have the means to do so...

Snow Days....

So it has been a crazy week of wind, snow, and ice. On Monday I was sent home after 1/2 day of parent/teacher conferences due to unexpected snowfall, which immediately stuck and froze to very cold roads. This made for a treacherous drive home, turning what normally takes me 15 minutes, into a two-hour white knuckle trip home. The first photo was while I was stuck in a standstill, with a rare snowy view of Penn Cove. The second photo is what was causing that backup, two stuck semis and three cars in the ditch. This is only a fraction of what I came across.

The wind kicked up that afternoon, so the kids didn't even get to enjoy the snowfall. Yesterday no one had school, and they spent the morning sledding down some local hills. Conferences were again canceled for me, as well as school for the kids, as the roads are too slick. However, there's not much accumulation to play in, so we have passed some of the time by completing puzzles. We are on our fourth so far, with four more to go....

Orphan Sunday...

November is Orphan Awareness month, and today is officially Orphan Sunday. How can you touch an orphan's life???

For God So Loved - OS from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Want to go to China With Me....For Free???...

That's right, you can go to Chaoyang, China with me to work with the orphans, for free! Okay, you don't have to go with me, and I have nothing to do with the "free" trip, but it is one of the options you can choose! Follow this link to enter the drawing, and you can earn a free Visiting Orphans Mission trip to one of many places around the world. Don't wait, as this opportunity ends Nov. 11!

This video clip explains more...

Visiting Orphans Mission Trip Giveaway from Amanda Lawrence on Vimeo.