A Beach Christmas

We did a different thing this year - we went to the beach for Christmas! We enjoyed the sun, sand and balmy temperatures so much! We reconnected as a family, and made new friends, too ... it was a wonderful break and a refreshing, relaxing, rejuvenating time for all of us. We were blessed to stay at a free pastors' retreat place - a condo one block from the beach on the white sands and emerald waters of the Gulf coast of Florida. It was heaven ...

Christmas Programs galore ...

We are knee-deep in Christmas programs this year ... I haven't been very good about taking pictures of all of them. We have - Judah's, Micah's, and Isaiah's band programs, Micah's and Isaiah's choral program, Micah's, Isaiah's and Elijah's piano recital and Canah's preschool program! (Did I forget any?) At press time, we have 3 down and 3 to go. This is Canah's program - in the stage shot, he is on the top row at the very end of the right side. He stood up there the whole 30 minutes, singing and doing the motions along with everyone. As he says (about himself!) - "Great job, Canah!"

Happy Birthday, Elijah!

Elijah turned 9 on November 30th ... we celebrated at Luigi's with pizza, cake, games and Laser Tag!

Canah swims ...

Canah learned to swim this summer by default - he wanted to be where his brothers were in the pool, so he started swimming to them! So I decided it's time for Canah to learn the strokes and see where it takes him. He is very fast ... just needs to fill in the other skills and details. He LOVES the water!

Dress-up Fun (aka Halloween!)

I have a lot of fun helping the kids do elaborate costumes, but I've never sewed one until this year. We usually go all out, with makeup and hair and everything. This year I decided to make Canah a Larryboy (from Veggie Tales) costume from scratch because they are very rare and expensive on the internet. A lot of work later, Canah was transformed. (And I made it virtually indestructible so it can be washed!) Isaiah's Mario costume won 3rd place at his school in the 6th grade category (and more importantly, $10!). I'm biased, but I think Micah should have won for 8th grade ...

Veggie Tales Live

I took Canah and Elijah the other night to see Veggie Tales Live. It was a great show!

Canah's Prayer

Tonight at dinner, Canah wanted to pray. So we bowed our heads and he proceeded to pray an original prayer. It went like this: "Lord, thank you for the chickens, and please touch my boo-boo, and thank you for the pirates who don't do anything." Dinner was chicken, he had hurt his foot 30 minutes earlier, and I bought the Pirate movie last night for him. What's remarkable about this is that he is beginning to originate prayers rather than recite prayers he has heard and memorized from other people, and specifically, movies (3-2-1 Penguins has some cute ones!) for example. We feel very blessed ...