scenes of winter part 2

~an "odds and ends" kind of blog post~

A hill in the front yard of our cousin's home serves as a perfect tobogganing hill. He takes snow and builds ramps, sides, complete with lights strung up for night time sledding. What a great time for kids!

Me to Kyle:

"Kyle, you have a charming smile! Who loves you?"

"my dad, mom, grandparents....lots of people."

"Does your older sister love you?"

"Probably not."

Snuggling after nap time.

A family gathering during Christmas.

"my husband rocks" t-shirts!!

Our dear aunt M. created hard cover books for two of our boys. One was filled with poems that she wrote and the other book was an "a b c" book. She filled the books with pictures that are familiar to our boys. We have all enjoyed reading and looking at the pictures. But best of all, the books reminds us of a special aunt who spent many hours creating and sharing memories.

Our middle guy spent the past two years sleeping in a nook in the upstairs hallway. With a solar system dangling above his head and a skylight to look out of; it was a cozy little place for him. Now with all of the boys two years older, it was time for doubling up and for the middle guy to get his own space. We switched everyone around and thankfully it has all worked out. The boys are happy with their new roommates.

scenes of winter: Part 1 - skating

Some serious pond skating happened during the month of January. The weather conditions were perfect, so great in fact we hardly spent time inside. When the boys came home from school we would all skate till after dark and when the hunger pangs became too strong, we would reluctantly head inside for supper. Friends joined in on the skating action making wonderful memories for all of us.

Having issues with most sports, I had decided while growing up that skating was not my thing but last year I managed to skate across the pond with wobbling legs and a thumping heart. This year I became confident and even took up playing hockey. It kind of shocked me. But the pond had a huge problem. Earlier this year beach flooded and froze over making a ramp onto the pond. While the boys loved tying their skates and taking off down the ramp onto the pond, I abhored it. The thought of gathering speed and my legs flailing out from under me, causing a face plant on the ice, was very real to me. Every time I went skating I would have to slide on my knees to the edge of the pond and then some how try to get up on my skates and look graceful while doing it!

Three days after I took this smiling picture of Adam, he did a spectacular fall on his newly sharpened skates. He came inside holding his hat under his eye, just covered with blood. It was a shuttering sight. After we determined where the cut was and tried to clean him up he headed off to the hospital for stitches. His eye turned into a dark crimson purple and swelled right up. By Sunday it looked like he had been in the fight of his life. He skipped wearing his contacts and put on his glasses to disguise the horribleness of his black and purple eye but it didn't deter the enormous amount of comments. We both heard, "hows the other guy"  and "what did your wife do you this time" more times then we thought possible. Adam and I just smiled and did a half- hearted chuckle each time. What else can you do?!

We did get a good laugh out of: "are you trying to keep up with your boys Adam?!"  But we thought the funniest comment of all was: "your family really needs to consider making your barn into a ER!" 

Watching dads tie skates reminds me of dads taking their children fishing. It is a lot of work for them!

family day fundraising breakfast

Every-other Sunday evening, young people from our church called the "college & careers group" come over to our home for Bible Study. Last February, as Family Day was approaching we thought about hosting a pancake breakfast to raise funds for Elisha House. Elisha House practices Biblical Counselling for families in relational difficulties; they counsel woman who have crisis pregnancies, and they provide post-abortion counselling. Elisha House is very dear to our church.

Our group was overwhelmed by the support of our congregation last year so we decided we had to keep up a good thing! We set out to organize another Family Day Breakfast.

 We arrived early to church, ready to set up and serve breakfast to a couple hundred people. This group of young people know how to work and serve! Immediately they found "their station" and went to work. Thankfully the whole breakfast went smoothly...meaning, we didn't run out of groceries and have to find a store opened on Family Day!

We went through 75 pounds of bacon, 70 dozen eggs, and hundreds of pancakes. Wow!

Family Day is a great day to enjoy breakfast and fellowship with one another. It was such a wonderful atmosphere and again we were thankful for everyone's support.

Red Rover never grows old!

When the last pancake was eaten and the clean up complete, we were eager to see how much we raised.
We were grateful to raise $3100 for Elisha House!
Until next year...