1st and 2nd Days of Advent

1st Day of Advent November 29,2009
JOHN 1:1-5 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

We kicked off Advent and the Christmas season BIG this year! We got a hotel and took the kids into the city!!!!! Downtown Seattle has an amazing way of really getting you into the Christmas spirit! We rode the monorail into Westlake Center, went and saw Santa at Nordstroms, visited a rather spectacular gingerbread village created by Seattle architects and of course had hot chocolate and cookies at Starbucks! Their red holiday cups are just too festive to ignore!

2nd Day of Advent November 30,2009
JOHN 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Tonight was a quiet peaceful scripture reading by Tage, and peppermint suckers while we listened! Can't wait for tomorrow! We're unveiling the Advent calender and the 25 day count down....WOOOHOOO!

Happy Thanksgiving From The Beach!

We are so very thankful for Brant's mom(aka: Beach Grandma, Gram Pam) and her willingness to serve us over the holiday weekend! She made a fabulous dinner, lives in an amazing place, and has been loving the kids to pieces! We are having a blast! Here are some things the kids said they were thankful for during dinner...

Ben: Breakfast and Milk.

Violet: Thankful for Grandma and for our lovely dinner.

Simon: The colors that God gave us and for the blue sky.

Tage: Thankful for God. He is happy he made humans so that we can live. He also is thankful God gives us rain so we can have plants!

Brant: Is thankful that I love and married him despite his LOVE for flannel PJs.

Rachel: I am thankful for Gods abundant kindness on my family!

I Run For Life With A Smile On My Face And A Cheerful Heart!

Here goes my public announcement that I will run the Seattle half-marathon on Sunday without whining, fussing, or complaining about how bad it hurts, how cold the weather is or any other thing I usually come up with during a race! My dear friend Jenny who (on the right with the purple bandanna) is in the hospital with her 5th occurrence of leukemia NEVER and I mean NEVER complains or crys about her circumstance, therefore I will endure this race in honor of her with a smile on my face and hopefully a whole lot of bounce in my step as I pound the pavement for 13.1 miles! I will keep running for life....

This Is What We Did Today!

Now it can snow...

Being Mrs. Under Appreciated Is A Good Thing!

Wow! Being under appreciated or overlooked for a good deed or hard work is not something I ever thought would be a virtue. However over the past few weeks I have been studying Esther and while I have learned a lot about being a woman of strength, I have taken much away from Mordecai's character. Mordecai was a wise man. He was intentional in his actions, not acting out of rage, anger, selfishness or deceit. He was a content man who possessed a great deal of humility. After saving the King from murder by his own eunuchs, he was never given a proper reward and or recognition for such a noble act. He was overlooked for five years without saying anything! He continued to be faithful to the King and did not have that burning flame of bitterness brewing in his gut. How many of us can say we would be quiet and calm in a similar situation? Think about your life and all you do. Do you seek worldly gratification? Do you want people to honor and recognize you? The question is this: What are you doing? and Why are you doing it? I have been pondering this a lot lately as I continue to juggle my four children, my husband and various other activities we are involved in. I need to remember that I serve a faithful God who promises to love me no matter what as long as I seek to please and honor HIM in all that I do. The worldly gratification is like refined sugar, it is sweet to the tongue but holds no nutritional value.....

T R E A T I N G 2009 !!!!!

I like to call it TREATING because that's really what happens! Our kiddos go door to door in our neighborhood and get little bits of treats and blessings from our neighbors who look forward to seeing them dressed up in their little make believe costumes. Some of our neighbors have special treats set aside for our children to make the evening extra-special. I love that we are able to go out and share our wonderful children and their imaginations with our neighbors. It's hard to reach out and fellowship with your neighbors during the week, but days like this allow for us to knock on doors, say hello, share a smile and sometimes a story and make that eye contact that we so often forget is important in our neighborhoods. I'm certain that our neighbors were impacted by the sheer number of kiddos that came TREATING with us, AND by their sweet smiles, abundant cheerfulness and their ability to love their neighbor in the meantime. After TREATING we had everyone in for movies, charades and caramel corn! It was a blast and ending the evening with piping HOT caramel corn was truly one of my personal highlights!

Quite the group! We had two parents dress-up. Castillia Cava was Cat-In-The-Hat and Beth Olson was Raggedy Ann. Good job ladies!
Ben was a pirate, Violet was Maid Marion, Simon was Martin Luther, and Tage was Commander Rex .

Tage and Ben were in serious character mode all day! It was awesome!

"The Corn"