Happy Turkey Day! ...from my Turkey to Yours!

I couldn't resist snapping few pictures of my little girl all dressed up for Thanksgiving. I can't believe she is so BIG. It says "Thankful"...and we are!

How could I not be thankful for this smilen face. She is such a helpful, sweet, smart, giving, loving, funny child. I am so thankful that God picked me to be her mommy.

Gobble gobble everyone!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

PS. Thanks Jill for the wonderful idea! It was so fun!

Our VIsitor

These came up in the wrong order and I am too busy to try and fix it so here it goes in a weird order. Argh.....

Stephen came to visit this weekend. The guys hunted ALL day Saturday (as you can tell from my previous post). So on Sunday we had to rest. But when the resting was over we went to a local restaurant for dinner. The kids love this place because it has a really cool play set, a basketball court and usually a band or karaoke. This is Elisabeth on top of the play set. I thinking she should not be up there. At one point I looked up and both of the guys were doing this. Josh and Stephen are so much a like and this reminded me of that. They both were walking around on their cell phones talking about their hunt from the previous day.

Stephen, Hogan and Josh waiting for the food. All my kids love Stephen and wont leave him alone the whole time he is here.

Silly Gates! I had to get a picture of the two of them. We named Gates Reno after Stephen and I want to make sure Gates always remembers him and all the things they do together.

Miss priss. Who is way too big for that swing. You can tell she is officially too big because she is bored with the play set and finding all the ways to do something different with it instead of its intended use.

Little bit. Thought it was just his size.

Hogan has mastered the monkey bars

There's a sweet face filled with pure joy. I love it!

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you have a great start to a fabulous week!!

The Slaughter!

WARNING!!


The pictures on the rest of this post are of dead animals from a BIG hunting trip.


Josh went with 9 guys out to the "land cut" to go hunting. They had a blast and lucky for me, brought home lots of meat. The guys shot 7 deer and 1 nilgai. They were so happy. It is funny how guys get so excited about killing things. It must be in their nature. My boys wanted nothing more than to watch the guys clean all these deer.

I like getting the meat but there is something un-natural about killing animals to me. I could not do it. I am glad my husband does because I do like to cook it.

I had to take some pictures because I thought it was histerical how they had all the deer just piled up in the boat. The hooves were hanging out the back and the top.


These are couple of the huge buck.

Pile them high!

Nilgai hanging out the back. This thing was huge!

The guys walking around checking out their slaughter.

Dot to Dot

We have this family at our church that is awesome. They have five kids. Four of them are girls and one is a boy. Their kids are much older than mine. In fact they are awesome babysitters. I wish the parents would give Josh and I a lesson on how to be great parents. Anyway, their son is a junior in high school. Most juniors in high school are just concerned about themselves and could care less about the little kids at church but this guy is great. He is great with Hogan and plays with him at church and talks to him. Hogan wants to be just like him when he grows up. I hope he is just like him when he grows up. So tonight at small group, I was talking to his mother and she said she had to tell me a funny story about Hogan. I was scared. She said that when they got in the car after church Sunday that her son said he got dissed by a five year old. She said that Hogan was playing dot to dot with her son. The paper they were using was running out of room. Hogan looked up at the boy and said we could play dot to dot on your face you have dots on your face. While the mom laughed and thought it was funny. I felt terrible. She said Hogan did not mean it rude he was just matter of fact. She said her son was going to start on Acutane Monday. I feel so bad. He is such a great teenager. To make matters worse, this is the same family who Hogan asked their oldest daughter if she could kiss. (She is in college at ACU) When she told him no he asked her to baptise him instead. They probably think Josh and I are terrible parents.

Gates' Big Truths

A while back when I was on Amazon looking for a certain childrens Bible, I came across this book. It's titled Big Truths for Little Kids. It has lots of questions about God and the Bible and their answers. The kids have been learning these questions and their answers at school. I wish I could take the credit but their teachers are the ones who do such an awesome job teaching them the exact answers. Today in the car I heard Gates saying the questions and the answers. I was so amazed at how well he knew them. Here's a video of Gates answering some of the questions. Ok I know ya'll are probably sick of seeing Gates but he is just so stinken cute when he does it. Elisabeth and Hogan know the answers, too but it is just not the same when they say it. There's something about this little voice. Anyhow, I highly recommend this book. We really like it.

Your Know you Have an Ironing Problem When....

...you tell you child to put his soccer uniform on and he says..."It hasn't been ironed yet."

....just to clarify....I don't iron the kids soccer uniforms. However, I do iron most everything else so Hogan must think that the soccer uniform gets ironed, too. I have got to quit.

One of those weeks!

It seems like the last couple of weeks have been so crazy for us. Nothing exciting just really really crazy. Since a couple of you have contacted me asking if I was a ok, I thought I'd give you a quick update. We are doing good just busy. We are ready for a break. The kiddies play their last soccer game of the season this weekend. It will be sad to stop but good to have things calm down. Four practices a week take up lots of time. The kids school had their annual golf tournament fund raiser and I worked the registration. It was lots of fun and pretty successful. Josh's dad came in town for it. It was good to see him and visit. The kiddies just don't seem him enough. He sponsored a team in the golf tournament and they each won a $50 dollar gift card to the pro-shop. Way to go guys!

Gates, Beck and I had the following conversation in the car today:

Gates: mom, right there is only one God and one Jesus
me: yes there is only one God and one Jesus
Beck: no there not. there two Jesus
me: No Beck just one
Beck: There are five Jesus
me: No Beck, there is just one Jesus and one God
Beck: yes....see...Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus

I think that kid is going to bring me much grief. He is a stinker. Very cute, though.

Then later today he told me: "Mommy, can I do something for you? I want to make you happy." So sweet. No wonder he is so rotten.

Elisabeth lost a tooth at church on Sunday. The tooth fairy must have been really busy this week because she didn't come pick up the tooth until today when Elisabeth was at school. (Bad mommy! very bad mommy! She's the first kid you would think I'd still have my game on. Not so much.)

Last and certainly not least. The kids have been doing Awana the last couple of months on Wednesday nights. In case anyone is interested, I highly recommend it. Our church does not have wednesday night service. We still enjoyed the idea of meeting midweek so we meet with our small group. It was hard to keep the kiddies occupied while we were meeting so we looked into something for them to do. Awana has been great. They do lots of fun things and lots of scripture memory, too. Elisabeth thinks it's great and is highly motivated to finish her book. She seriously learns seven or eight versus a week on her own just to get jewels for her badge. It's good stuff.

I hope to be back with a little more exciting stuff. Sorry for the long catch up post. Have a blessed week!

Defeat

As the results for the election came in I could not help but feel sick. I woke up this morning feeling sick to my stomach. I knew today was going to be so important. I prayed all day for God to intervene; to pull a miracle. Of course that did not happen. I know God has a plan. His ways are better than our ways. I know God has plans not to hurt us but to prosper us. The Bible tells us all of these promises. But my faith is week. I am scared. So scared. I received an email earlier this week that was comforting and I thought I would share it here to encourage any of you who are having trouble swallowing what has just happened.

These facts are still true:

1. The Bible will still have all the answers.
2. Prayer will still work.
3. The Holy Spirit will still move.
4. God will still inhabit the praises of His people.
5. There will still be God-anointed preaching.
6. There will still be singing of praise to God.
7. God will still pour out blessings upon His people.
8. There will still be room at the Cross.
9. Jesus will still love you.
10. Jesus will still save the lost when they come to Him.

ISN'T IT GREAT TO KNOW WHO IS REALLY IN CHARGE

A message from Gates

I heard Gates singing this in the car Friday! I thought he was singing "I'm a Little Tea Pot" so I proceded to sing along. He quickly informed me that I was not singing it right. He said his teacher taught him this song. I believe it! She is aWeSomE!! As I began to listen I realized he was singing a much better version of that song. I couldn't help but tear up. If only I did lay ALL my burdens at Jesus feet. I always think I can handle it and take care of it all. I am so wrong. Life would be so much easier if I didn't worry and just let Jesus take care of the hard stuff. I love how God's messages come in even the smallest packages. I had never heard this song before, but it touched me and I hope it touches you.

I'm a Little Christian

I'm a little Christian

saved without a doubt.

I love my Jesus

Raise up and shout!

When I lay my burdens at his feet

he picks me up and he carries me.

Dinner in a Pumpkin

For Halloween, last night, we decided to start a new family tradition and it turned out great. We made dinner in a pumpkin. A friend of mine said that they do it every year and love it, so I gave it a try. We thought it was really yummy and plan to do it again.

You start off with a medium sized pumpkin. You cut a wide hole in the top and clean out the seeds and the pulp. YUCK!

In a sauce pan, you make the casserole that goes in side it. There are lots of recipes on the the internet, I'll put the one we used on the bottom of this post.
Put the filling in the pumpkin and place in the oven. Bake at 350 for one hour or longer if your pumpkin is bigger.


When you pull it out it looks like this.

...and this.

We served it like this and it was sooooo YUMMY! You scoop out the meat part and some of the pumpkin. I have never had pumpkin plainly cooked like that but it was really good. I did think it needed salt.

ENJOY!!!!

Filling Recipe:

1 onion chopped

2 T vegetable oil

2 lbs ground beef

2 T soy sauce

2 T brown sugar

1 (4 oz) can of mushroom pieces

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 1/2 cups cooked rice (I used long grain brown rice)

1 (8 oz)can slice water chestnuts drained

salt and pepper to taste

Brown the onion in the oil and add the meat. Drain drippings. Add the rest of the ingredients and heat through. Then put in pumpkin.