Busy Week....but very Thankful for family and all that God has blessed us with!

Sorry that it has been so long since the last update.  Funny I was getting on here to report how it went making 24 pies with Jan this week.  The youth did a great job helping, but I have to tell you it was awesome watching all three of my kids working so hard.  They truly enjoy baking and working in the kitchen.

Nattalie is getting really good at rolling out the pie crust....I am so proud of her.

Johnathan also did a great job at following the directions and rolling out a crust or two....but wow he got a lot more flour on him than Nattalie did. :)

Daniel was feeling left out since this was a youth function so Jan made sure that he got a chance to try to roll out a crust.  The crust that he rolled out is the top for the pie that Grammie and Pop bought and he cannot wait for them to see it tomorrow.  He has such a soft heart....I love it.

The kids and I have been at the church most of this week, but we have also worked hard on school.  They are doing so good.

Tomorrow is the big day for the newspaper....it has all the Black Friday ads.  The paper is always bigger than a normal Sunday paper and they add extra people to the route with a free paper to entice them to sign up for the paper.  We are dragging John with us in the morning to put the papers together....Thanks John for being willing to come with us!

Off to head to bed and we will update later on how paper delivery goes in the morning and of course about our family Thanksgiving.

Pie Baking with Jan Douglas

Nattalie and I got a private lesson tonight with Jan in pie baking.  She will be helping our youth department with a fundraiser this coming week and wanted to make sure how the ovens at the church baked.

We enjoyed to one on one time with Jan on how to make the crust and the pie.  We made a cherry and a pumpkin pie.  John tasted a piece of the cherry tonight and said that it was great.  Tomorrow the kids and I will have a piece of pumpkin for breakfast.  I know that it is not the best breakfast in the world, but every now and then it is time to break rules and enjoy something fun together.

Here is a picture of both of the pies that we baked tonight....

Pumpkin

Cherry

Nattalie was so excited at how the pies turned out.  I know that Grammie and Pop have asked for a homemade pumpkin for Thanksgiving since they knew that we were getting this lesson tonight.  It will be fun for Nattalie and I next week to make a pie by ourselves....hopefully it turns out as nice as these ones!

Pictures....

We got Daniel's first two rolls of film developed and it looks like he has a knack for taking pictures.  He still does have a lot to learn, but he is doing good.  Here are some of those pictures.

Fantastic posed picture!

Johnathan and his guitar

Nice picture of Nattalie

Another picture of that photogenic guitar

Outdoors fall play....nice shot of Johnathan in mid air

These next pictures are from his lesson today with a wide angle lens.  Daniel is so loving photography!

Johnathan on Carl's trailer as he was helping load branches from church clean up day

Picture of the church with the wide angle lens

As always school at church.  Before we finished the boys saw Carl Jackson out loading his trailer with the branches left at the church after clean up day.  They went out and helped him the rest of the day.  After their load was full they rode with Carl back to his house to unload.  And of course they started burning it right away and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner.  Then they came back to church for AWANA.  They are tired tonight!!

Monday is Here Again!

Friday night we had small group and really enjoyed it!  We have been doing a simple study of reading one chapter of the Bible per day and then answer some questions you have about that chapter.  Then we meet every two weeks and go over the chapters that were for that week.  This study takes great discipline, but it going GREAT!  We will be finishing up on the book of Acts in two weeks.

We got right on school this morning and it went good.  Working on having the kids read aloud.  They are not big fans of reading out loud and when they do they either leave out a word here and there or they add words here and there.  Being able to read aloud is a skill that is very important so we will be doing more and more of this for the rest of the school year.

Then on to one of my least favorite chores....the kids and I went to the grocery store.

Now, it is house chore time....and laundry is definitely on that list.  The kids are matching socks and can not wait to be done.  The boys cleaned outside a little bit.....those leaves still keep falling.

Thursday...nice Fall day before the weather is supposed to change

Nice day.  The kids worked hard....main focus today was Math and Art.  They did a great job.

John and I enjoyed a great lunch with Carl and Becky Jackson....thank you so much for inviting us.  We had a great time!!

Then the kids went out and raked up all the leaves...they are finally falling off our trees.  Here are some pictures of there fun!

Johnathan and I sitting in the leaves!

Johnathan and Daniel just jumped it...this was one tall pile of leaves.

I wasn't out there for this one, but it looks like Daniel may have hit hit head on this one.

Johnthan loves jumping in the leaves!

Nattalie decided to go out and join in the fun

After all this Nattalie had tons of leaves in her hair.....long shower for her!

Another picture of the boys together!

Wednesday!

Went to church as normal this morning.  The kids worked really hard on their school.  I am enjoying the progress they are making with the English that we have been working on.  We have been working hard on creating outlines from different paragraphs.  Then after some days away from the original paragraph the kids write a new paragraph using their outline.  Now we are adding more things to the paragraphs...using at least one "ly" word and a which/who clause and then we have what are called banned words.  At this point in all writing they can not use the word see/saw, go/went, and say/said.  I am loving how it is changing their writing so much.

After school today Bob Nandell meet us at the church.  Daniel has been very excited about taking pictures for a while now.  Bob brought him a nice Nikon camera.  This camera is amazing and will be a great teaching tool for Daniel as he explores photography.  This camera is a film camera and has an nice lens on it.  I have a feeling that we will be spending a small fortune in film and development to his rolls.  He got the camera early this afternoon and we have already went through and entire roll of film. 

Daniel is so excited that Bob has offered to teach him about the camera and about taking pictures.  John and I are happy to see that Daniel so excited about something and pray that he works hard and studies photography.

Church went well and now we are home relaxing before bed.

Monday is here again!

Last night Johnathan went over to spend the night at Grammmie and Pop's so that he could work with Pop on the Rhino....or as Grammie calls it the "Hippo".  Their goals was to work on things like changing the oil and just standard maintenance.  Johnathan was excited to get to do this. 

So, this morning we were one shy when we went to do the paper route.  Nattalie and Daniel did a great job without Johnathan!

For school today we did more life lesson type things instead of the standard books and lessons.  The kids like these days, but also realize that they end up being a lot of work.

Then this afternoon, even though the weather outside is nice, we put the plastic on the windows.  This really helps with the electricity bill in the winter months.  The first year we did not do it and then we have done it ever since and we see a huge difference from the first year in a bill....well worth it.  I am glad that it is worth it because it takes such a long time to put it up....but we are DONE!

Late night for John at the church and I think easy dinner is in the plans....frozen pizza. :)

The Birthday Party

Everyone had a great time at the birthday party.  They started out with pizza for dinner.  After done eating everyone started to share little tricks that they could do.  I have to say that Kallie won.  Here is a picture, but you really have to see it.

Kallie McMurphy and her silly "human" trick

Then it was games and cake....and after that they made bracelets.  Their bracelets turned out GREAT!

Happy Birthday Nattalie!

All the girls making bracelets

The bracelets completed!

Now making anklet friendship bracelets

Thank you Grammie and Poppie!

And again...thank you Grammie and Poppie!

Thank you Knudsen family...and thank you for the pizza you brought over too!!

 

Thank you Kline Family!

Thank you McMurphy Family!

Everyone was out by about 1:00AM....and so Mom is very tired today!

Now here are some pictures of the boys....they had fun raking up some leaves and playing in them on Thursday!  At least those leaves are good for something!

Brothers having a great time playing outside!

Busy Week and More to Come

We finished our school early today and the kids are busy picking up the house.  Nattalie is very excited because she is having 3 friends come over to a little sleepover birthday party.  We have lots of fun planned.  The cake just came out of the oven and wow it smells yummy!

We will be picking up the girls later this afternoon and then stopping off to get pizza for dinner.  Pizza....the perfect party dinner.  I think Nattalie has a movie, games and jewelery making planned.  Hopefully bed time won't be too late :)

The boys are not too excited about extra girls being at the house.....I think we will quarantine them to a room to watch movies and stay away from the girls!

John will be headed to a visitation this evening and then to a funeral tomorrow.  Please pray with us for this family in their time of loss.

Will post pictures of all our fun later on!

Tuesday...at home today!

We surprised Nattalie with a movie last night.  She and I went together and had a fun girls time watching a movie just the two of us for her Birthday.

We got up as normal to deliver our papers.  And yes this is the day that the kids really don't like since all the people that do not subscribe to the paper end up getting a free smaller paper.  It is a lot of work.  Half way through delivering them Daniel said that we was not feeling good.  His head was hot, then his head hurt, and then he said he felt sick to his stomach and his face started to turn very pale.  We were almost home when he ended up getting sick.  So glad that we had an extra newspaper bag in the car...it was great to help keep the car clean in this fun ordeal.

When we got home I had them all go back to bed.  I then waited for Daniel to fall asleep to make sure that he wasn't going to get sick again.  I then sent out messages to everyone to cancel our normal Tuesday music stuff.

After we all got up Daniel was feeling ok, but his head still is hurting.  We did finish school and he was a trooper!  Now Daniel is resting again on the couch, Johnathan is practicing guitar and Nattalie is helping however she can for Dan today!

John is on his way home to pick me up so that we can both go and vote!  Then I will head of to second service worship practice.  While I am gone I think that John will enjoy a movie with the kids!

Monday Again!

This weekend was a busy one.  Friday night we went to our small group fellowship.  Saturday we left the house a beggars time and met the McCarl's at Chuck E. Cheese.  The kids had a good time playing games together.  And we even have tokens left to go back another time. The kids are happy about that!  Then Sunday we went to church of course, but we ended up staying there until 5pm.  After service we ate a quick lunch and then back to church to prepare jar gifts for youth fundraiser for summer camp.  I know that summer is far off, but we have a significant about of funds to help our students raise.  Also from 3-5 John participated in a a pray for our upcoming election. 

By the way....don't forget to vote on Tuesday!  If you live in Warren county don't forget to vote for Kent Sorenson.

Today we worked hard on school.  Talked about the story of Abraham and Issac.  What obedience Abraham showed to God.  I pray that I could have even a portion of this obedience to God.  The kids have heard this story, but we talked alot about total faith and trust in God.

And....yes today is Nattalie's Birthday.  She is 12!  We will be having a favorite dinner of hers tonight.  Then she will be having some friends spend the night on Friday.  I know for sure that they plan to play games, watch a movie, make some braclets and of course I am sure that they will be staying up late. :)