Pictures in the cold!!

The other day I spent some time outside taking pictures of our back yard (I was outside so long I took over two hundred pictures and my hair, which was slightly damp, froze!!). These pictures are a small portion of what my nearly freezing myself produced. :D


That's all for now!! ~Sarah

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Indeed we do have a White Christmas. I cannot remember the last time we saw snow at Christmas time. The snow has made it an exceptional time this year (I'll see if I still feel the same in a couple of months, if this keeps up!!).

What a wonderful Christmas Celebration we have had already. It started last night as we had our traditional "snack dinner" for Christmas eve. It is something we started many years ago and always enjoy, just a bunch of different treats to make the evening easier. We had a beautiful candlelight service at church where we considered what Christmas should look like for believers in the 21st Century. It was a great devotional time of considering the past, what the church fathers considered as they began this celebration and what our focus should be today. Then we returned home and finished our annual reading of one of our favorite family books, "Tabitha's Travels". We highly recommend it to any family, young or old, as a way to focus on Christ throughout the Advent season. Then, as is our tradition, we opened an "allbodies" gift and enjoyed some family time with that. This morning began with a reading of the Christmas Story from Luke chapter 2 and then on to opening the gifts around the tree.

As I sitting there thinking about the "things" of Christmas I began to think of how fortunate I am this year to be here instead of some far off location like so many of our friends facing the many unknowns that they face each day. We pray for them frequently and ask our Father in Heaven to protect them and their families. If you are one of those families know that you are in our thoughts even more than normal today. I was also thinking about the events of this past 12 months. This year of transition has been unique, one year ago today I was still jet-lagged from the trip home from Iraq. I changed careers, kind of, and we relocated again. What a difference a year will make. By the way, when it was -8' the other day Josh asked when we were moving again!?! I can't imagine why. I guess 9 years in very warm climates make you like that kind of thing. You do forget how much trouble cold weather clothing, snow and ice and the rest can be. But we are glad to be here and enjoying the weather for what it is.

We feel blessed to know each of you and to have so many friends around the world. Thank you for making a difference in our lives.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! May God, the Creator of All Good Things, bless you all as you continue to seek and serve him.
Kevin

We don't have to dream around here......

We already had snow on the ground, but we got a few more inches over night. It will be a white Christmas for us!

Our plans for the day: Kevin and Josh will be working. Josh till 2 and Kevin till about 3. The rest of us will be finishing up the cookies and getting dinner ready for tonight and breakfast & lunch for tomorrow. I like to have as much done on Christmas Eve so I can relax and enjoy Christmas day.
Kathy

What it's like around here

This is what is going on around here:



The 2nd photo is of the thermometer on our patio. The first pic is of weather.com saying that it is 8` out and wind chill of -9` ! (I know that is nothing to you friends and family in MN and WI, but to us folks that have lived in Florida and Texas for the last 9 years, this is a bit chilly) . And to think that is at 4:30 in the afternoon ~ usually the hottest time of the day.

Other than that, Kevin is fighting a nasty cold. I didn't think he would go to work on Friday, but he toughed it out. He is napping right now, after watching the Chiefs lose their 13th game of the season. :(

Josh couldn't stand to watch all of the Chief's game today so he left for about 1/2 of it. He watched the beginning and the end, and once again was disappointed in them. He did brave the cold to run to the library for a bit.

Sarah has been holed up in her room all afternoon reading. She just got some new books.

Zach came home from church and had something hit him. He was fine one minute and less than 5 minutes later he ran for his room. He ended up going to bed and sleeping for several hours. (something my children NEVER do unless sick ~ Sleep in the middle of the day) He got up a while ago and was feeling better. Maybe it was a 4 hour bug??????

Becca is fighting boredom. She watched a movie, read for a while, played dominoes with Kevin and I and helped make Christmas cookies. The ones that we made when Ann and Riley were here were gone within a day (but we did send a lot home with them). We will still roll them out, cut them out and bake them yet today. She can be my one handed cutter outer of the cookies. :)

I have watched some football ( on the couch under a quilt), read a magazine and made those cookies. I will get downstairs yet today to do some scrap booking. Sarah and I have committed to getting some scrap booking done over the Christmas break. We set up a temporary table in the family room downstairs for additional work room. I'll take a couple of pics later.

That is all for now, I need to go find a quilt as I am FREEZING!

Kathy

Two Weeks of this!

This is what happened at the doctor today. This will be on for 2 weeks then we go back for Xrays and a recheck. All that for a broken finger. It was quite painful ~ they had to bend the broken finger and hold it there till the casting material dried. Even the man next to her was trying to cheer her up ~telling her to "be strong". All the while that he was getting a cast on his ankle. She has found that it is no fun to be with out her right hand. Even movie watching is getting a bit boring.

Kathy

In case you didn't know

I know that some of you out there are new to reading blogs. So FYI:

If you want to see a photo larger, just put the curser over it and click on it and it blows the picture up very large.

:) Kathy

Winter is here

This is our house after a snow storm. :) It was a good snow week. We got about 3-4 inches of it earlier this week. The bad part is that with Becca's hand she can't get out into it to play. (if you look closely you can see that it is still snowing ~ notice the white dots in the pic)


Zach was able to earn some money shoveling for a few neighbors. He printed out 20 flyers and handed them all out! He learned that shoveling is HARD work.

On another note~ they are calling for "Freezing Rain" today. That will be interesting. Supposed to start this afternoon when Kevin and Josh are at work. Thankfully it is after I will be taking Becca for her appt. at the orthopedic clinic this morning. They are doing more X-rays on the hand and we will find out if she keeps the splint or gets a cast.

Have a great day,
Kathy

COLD

It is 3` right now and a wind chill of -15 ! The high is supposed to be 12`!

Pictionary and BROKEN BONES ?????

Saturday evening when we were playing Pictionary Becca got up to fix some tea and when she came back she swung her arm and hit her hand on the counter. Today she was in more pain than last night. Kevin took her to the ER this afternoon and her ring finger on her right hand is fractured!
Now, don't ya'll feel too sorry for her. Her 2 week Christmas break has just been extended to 3 weeks!

Kathy

Cookies and Games!

Today, my Aunt Annie and my cousin Riley came up for the day. Tomorrow they are going to the Chiefs game out at Arrowhead stadium, so they're staying the night with us and going to the game tomorrow. While they here today, we made our annual batch of Christmas cookies!! We cut, cooked, and decorated lots of cookies!! They'd never gotten to do this with us before and we really liked having them here for it.

Nice face Becca!!!!

Mom, Aunt Annie, Becca rolling out/cutting the cookies.

Zach and Riley waiting to cut out cookies (and then take advantage of all the left over little pieces of cookie dough!)
Here we are decorating!!! The colors we used this year are green, red, yellow, and white. We had many different colors of sprinkles....after all what's a cookie with out sprinkles?



After we got done making cookies we played Pictionary! We hadn't had that game out in a while so it was lots of fun to watch and listen too.

That's all for tonight!!!!
Sarah

Snowball fight

Sarah running from Zach's snowball

If you look closely you can see the neighbor's deer hanging from the tree in the upper left corner.

Can't wait till we REALLY get a good amount of snow!
Kathy

The Look of Christmas

The mantle

The small tree in the front window

Small tree next to the fireplace

Kid's stockings

And the tree!

Have a great day,
Kathy

Fantastic time last night......

Last night we were able to attend this concert. They were performing with the Kansas City Symphony and it was a wonderful show! Becca was thrilled because they had a bagpipe in 3 different songs. You probably don't know, but she has wanted to play the bagpipes for about 4 years now. Anyone have a set sitting around not being used????
Kathy

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr..............

This morning the temp here was 12`
&
the wind CHILL was

0` (yes that is a big fat ZERO )

A Finished School Project !!!!

For the past couple of weeks, Mom and Becca have been working on making a couch for Becca's "Molly" doll. It was a school project that took a LOT more time than mom thought it would. :)

Molly and Samantha are really going to enjoy their new couch/bed!!

The finished product !!!!

One last Fall pic

"Rose" ~ Sarah's bunny :)

Thanksgiving happenings.......

A few things that we did/saw/enjoyed on Thanksgiving Day:

Hanging Christmas lights

Football playing

Dance practice ;)

A little game playing

Being a contortionist :)

Eating with family

Contemplating life, OR how much more turkey to eat.......

Seeing family we don't see often

Hanging out after eating ALL 3 kinds of dessert!!!!!

Thinking about the 3 hour trip back home........

All in all a pretty good day!
Kathy