Summer Birthdays

Rhema turned 2 on July 15! This was the day we woke up in Colorado for the first time calling it HOME! We stayed with Grandma J the first few nights, then drove to the Springs to prepare to move into our new house. Grandma got an ice cream cake, which Rhema heartily enjoyed.

We have two birthday boys in August: Seanin turned 4 on August 14, and Zaden turned 6 on August 24. We had a joint birthday party at the Focus on the Family birthday party room with some new friends we met through mutual friends who live in Texas. Wendi is a kindred spirit, and I know she and I will get together often! With 7 kids of their own, the B family also homeschools and has much in common with us. We are grateful to have been connected so soon after both of our families moved to the Springs. Charis made the minion cake, which the boys requested!

On August 28, Verity turned 6 months old! We celebrated her 1/2 birthday with a half cake, also made with love by Charis. Verity is writing her own special story, as her cake reflects.

And since she wasn't thrilled in the above photo, here is a happier shot!

Thanksgiving 2016

A peek at our low-key Thanksgiving at home. We were blessed to have my parents spend the week with us. After traveling to San Antonio and back the week prior, we didn't have much time or energy for fancy stuff, but we enjoyed a wonderful meal and quiet time together as a family. (We will pass over the sad fact that Ted learned the hard way to wash past his wrists after preparing a raw turkey...thank the Lord for our Young Living DiGize oil which helped him recover in time for a birthday date over the weekend!)

Following our friend Shauna's instructions, we prepared our first-ever (but definitely not the last) turkey-in-a-paper-bag! Sooooo easy, and sooooooo incredibly yummy!

Oops...accidentally picked one of the blurry shots of us...perhaps someday I'll go back and upload a different one, ha!

My little turkey!!

Ted calls drumstick!

Grandma makes her famous turkey gravy!

Zaden rests while Grandpa naps!

This is us!

Ted normally isn't a huge turkey fan, but this...this was incredible!

The girls are chilling...waiting for food to settle so we can enjoy dessert!

My birthday date--the Omaha symphony playing the soundtrack of Raiders of the Lost Ark live while we watched the movie on the big screen! So incredibly fun!

I loved watching the musicians and picking out which instruments were playing during the various parts of the movie. We could see the visual cues for the conductor to keep all of the timing spot on.

October Birthdays

We had two really big birthdays in October: Charis turned 16, and Arden turned 13! Since Arden got a big party last year (an Amazing Race run by 4 teams of 2 each throughout our small town and ending at the house), it was Charis's turn for a big birthday bash. (Not to worry, though...Arden got a party the following weekend doing what he requested: swimming and football with friends at the Y before chowing down on pizza and chocolate cake!)

For Charis's sweet sixteen party, we borrowed an idea from friends who did a murder mystery party for their daughter, Charis's best friend, when we were in Italy together. The party was such a hit that the moms later had a moms' night out to do our own grown-up version! I tucked away the idea for later, thinking it would be fun to do with teenagers at our house sometime. Charis agreed, and together we picked the theme "A Knight of Murder" from an online mystery party service. Invitations were issued, costumes were found (hooray for a dress-up party close to Halloween, lol), and arrangements were made for our younger 5 children to enjoy an evening with friends so we could focus on serving Charis and her guests, who included Tobin and Arden along with a number of friends from youth group and our homeschool circle.

It was such a fun evening! I honored Charis's request for a pasta dinner, even though we agreed it wasn't terribly medieval, but the homemade ragu and Bolognese sauces were a hit along with French bread, grapes, and apple cider punch. Only one person guessed the murderer correctly...Arden was our victim, and the murderer was none other than Charis herself! It was so funny...she and I had discussed who should play which character, with neither of us knowing any details until after I began looking through and printing the hostess materials. (I dressed up in my Renaissance festival dress, which has gotten much use since purchasing it in 2008, but I did not play a character so that I could focus on the details of the party.)

After the characters had cast their votes for who they thought the murderer was as well as best costume and best actor/actress, we awarded prizes and enjoyed ice cream cake, and then Ted went to pick up our littles and hustle them to bed while the teens hung out for awhile. I think it was a very memorable experience for all involved, and Charis seemed to have a wonderful time. Hard to believe our "baby" is Sweet Sixteen now! We are so very proud of her!

And as an aside...she finished her online driver's ed course and we jumped through all the hoops so that she can finally take her driver's test this coming Tuesday. She is very excited and has been a bit impatient as you can imagine to hurry up and get through all this red tape!

Here are some party pics...

Tobin found this hilarious banana costume at Goodwill...we thought it was perfect for his jester character, "Joking Jerry!"

Wyatt as a baron and Charis as Lady Diana

Ted's character was Willie the Watchman, which he played up as a Secret Service kind of a guy!

Two characters have a private conversation! (These girls are twins in real life!)

Charis with two of her BFFs

Poor Sir Rufus! He met an early demise...

Lord Taylor speaks with Queen Genevieve

Examining the evidence and casting votes

Lovely ladies!

The whole "cast" of the evening!

We printed a number of signs like this for decorations...that's about as decorative as we got, but it worked!

Hee!

Summer Summary

Oh, Summer, where art thou??

I remember...back in the day...when we first began homeschooling, we lived in Las Vegas. It was stinkin' HOT in the summer, and so we happily took our "summer" break in March or April, when it was pleasant outside and we had easily breezed through our school materials. We'd order the next core early and begin another round of school when it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. With a couple of babies born during our 4 years in Nevada, plus quite a bit of traveling to Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, we enjoyed our free and easy and flexible schedule, pretty much doing school "year-round" but taking breaks whenever we wanted.

But our next few moves happened during summer months (2009, 2012, 2015), with babies also arriving in summer months (2011, 2013, 2015). So it just made sense to keep a more "regular" school-year calendar.

With last summer bringing us back overseas PLUS a new baby, this summer was bound to be less...stressful, I suppose. But it was busy nevertheless! Here's a rundown of some of our summer highlights:

* Charis, Tobin, and Arden attended the Christian Youth in Action training camp the first week in June. Run by Child Evangelism Fellowship, this training prepares teens to share the gospel with children during 5-day clubs held throughout the summer. The kids learned how to completely run a club by themselves, from leading games and songs to teaching Bible and missionary stories, Bible verses, and review and application activities. It was a lot of work, but they all agree they are glad they did it!

* Immediately after this intensive training week, Charis left for a week-long missions trip to a reservation in South Dakota along with a team she has accompanied 4 different times now. She loves those kids and got to specifically use the skills she had just cultivated the week before as she interacted with kids and shared the gospel.

* Kenna, Lucan, and Zaden had swimming lessons the first two weeks in June. Seanin and Rhema and I enjoyed some quality hang-out time.

Zaden loved getting rides in the boat!

Seanin braved the big slide by himself at the park!

* Tobin enjoyed another great week at Camp Cedars with the Boy Scouts! This year was even more fun for him since he actually knew boys in the troop! Unfortunately, he missed out on a family visit...

* We got to spend some time with our CO family when Joel and Sarah and their boys came through for a few days' visit on their way to a family reunion in Kansas (or maybe Missouri, I can't remember). We especially enjoyed an outing together to see the train park and then get some ice cream in the Old Market.

Charis, Anders, Zaden, Arden (before his summer haircut!!), Cade, Lucan, Kenna

* I flew to Salt Lake City (alone! Without children!) to attend the Young Living Convention. I met up with some friends and had a fabulous time learning more about essential oils and the incredible opportunities available to us. I pumped while I was gone, and while Rhema wasn't thrilled about the goat milk she got in a bottle, she did fine and resumed nursing without missing a beat when I returned.

* On June 28, Ted and I celebrated our 19th anniversary! Actually, I think our date night was the next weekend, but we DID get out for a date. And now I can't remember what we did...pretty sure we went to eat at Sinful Burger...oh! I think we saw Finding Dory! And then Ted took the kids to see it during the discounted matinee show the following week.

Charis made this darling baby Dory for me after seeing the movie!

* We had friends come through and stay with us the night of July 4 on their way back home from a trip. We had a relaxed visit over some yummy grilled food and somehow failed to see any fireworks.

* On July 15 our baby Rhema turned one! Charis made a fabulous birthday cake for her and we had a simple family celebration.

* The last week in July Charis attended a Bible camp with some of the kids in the local youth group. Aside from sleeping in a bunk the first night that had bed bugs in it (!!!!!!!)...she says it was a great week. (Mom is trying to refrain from further commentary here...)

* The first week in August our backyard hosted up to 16 kids during the last 5-day Club of the summer. Charis, Tobin, and Arden all taught 4 clubs, which kept us busy several weeks in a row as we drove to Omaha and Bellevue to other host homes. So it was nice that the last one was right in our yard with kids we knew, mostly from church but also a few from the neighborhood.

* On August 8 the kids took the online Bible Bee test, the culmination of 8 weeks of study over the summer, working through their Discovery Journal to dig into John 13 - 15 and also 14 different memory passages.

* August 10 - 14 I took another trip, this time to San Diego for a "Naples Reunion" with a number of ladies who were stationed there at the same time. It was SUCH a blessing to go! I stayed with my dear friend Joyce, co-founder of Missione di Luce with which I was involved during my time in Italy. She, like many of the ladies I met up with, now lives in San Diego. It was a joyous, refreshing few days as we caught up on each others' lives, prayed together, laughed together, and definitely ate good food together. I'm thankful for the opportunity to go.

We spent all day at the beach, people coming and going as their schedules allowed. Sooooo nice to relax and talk!

Sheri opened her home for sushi-making at lunchtime and lots of hang-out time through the afternoon.

I think this is almost everyone who was able to make it!

* August 14 was Seanin's 3rd birthday! Charis made another amazing cake, and we had a family celebration at home.

* We had a local Bible Bee celebration in our backyard August 20. Nine families had registered for the summer study, and while not everyone was able to complete everything, the feedback seemed overwhelmingly positive. We rejoice that kids spent time in God's Word, learning how to study the Bible and memorizing verses that will renew their hearts and minds! Also, we praise the Lord that Charis was able to qualify for the National Bible Bee Competition again this year.

Kenna receives her certificate and chooses a verse to recite (John 13:34-35).

* On August 24 Zaden turned 5! We had a family party for him since his birthday was on a Wednesday. We had to work around a friend's schedule, but we did finally have a friend party on September 2. Hooray! Two cakes, lol!

I took Zaden to get a haircut a couple of days before his birthday. Everyone was very sad at how short his hair is now, but I still think he's a cutie-patootie!!

We have generous friends who let us borrow this inflatable water slide for the friend party! It was a hit!

Brothers and friends!

Aaaaaaand that's the story of our summer! All good things must come to an end, I suppose. We actually kicked off our school year on August 29, so I will try to be better about keeping more remembrances on our blog as the school year gets underway!

August Birthday Boys

Whew...still catching up on 2015...I hope in heaven we get to review all our precious memories from life here on earth, because time is speeding by WAY too fast down here!

We have two birthdays in August. Seanin turned 2 (on the 14th) and Zaden turned 4 (on the 24th). We had a simple family party for Seanin. Our cousins from Omaha had homemade pizza and cake with us. (Charis made the cake!)

Then on Zaden's actual birthday, which coincided with the first day of public schools in our area, we decided to go to the Omaha Zoo! We got a military membership, and it is a fantastic deal! We had his birthday party the next day, since on Tuesdays there was a discount at a local bounce house play place. We spent about an hour and a half letting the kids bounce off the walls there (ha!) and then came to our house for lunch and cake. Charis made this cake as well--from scratch, and it was amazing!