Wrestle Time with Daddy!

"Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day."

Genesis 32:34

After we got home from Mama's birthday party, we relaxed upstairs while Daddy wrestled with the boys.  About every week Daddy and the boys have "wrestle time."  Our boys love a good wrestle and Daddy thoroughly enjoys himself too, so together they have fun!   Caleb and Seth love wrestling.  Seriously.  Something about getting tackled, trying to get Daddy on the ground, conquering, failing, etc. is so much fun to them!  I don't blame them...we all used to have wrestle time together until some of us got too big! :)

Anyways, here are some pictures of them wrestling!

After approximately 15 years of wrestling with his kids, Daddy is really good!  It's so much fun watching them wrestle together.  Daddy is so much stronger (not for long!) than them but it's still fun watching them get tossed everywhere, smile, get up and go for another round.  Such a manly activity! :-D  I believe that God made men to be active, conquering, building, working...taking dominion in other words (Genesis 1:28)!  By wrestling and "conquering"  Daddy they feel invigorated and ready for another swing, even if they were just thrown off his back...... again!

I don't want to keep talking but Daddy is really good at wrestling.  I can't go into detail about all of the twists, turns, loops, tackles, etc. that he can accomplish within a matter of minutes but I hope these pictures will give you an idea.

One of his tackles(the pancake).  Caleb and Seth can't move til Daddy gets off of them...but it's really funny watching them try to squiggle away! :)

Seth.

(He's the wrestle man in the family...and he loves every chance to tackle Daddy)

Another of Daddy's moves(spaghetti legs).  Both of the boys can't get away now!

Chewin' on some toes.(a great breaker of the manly will)

Now, I hope I haven't scared you to death...Daddy really doesn't chew on their toes.  He just "nibbles"...enough to make it tickle but not hurt at all.

Caleb enjoying himself.

Hardly a dull moment in our family! :) 

All for Jesus,

Kimber

Lydia's Christmas Pictures

"So they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed."

Acts 16:40

 

When Mama and Daddy went on a date Monday night (for Mama's birthday) I decided to take pictures of Lydia.  Last year I took Christmas pictures of her in the schoolroom.  This year I decided to do it in front of our nativity scene with all the lights as the backdrop.

 

Once she was dressed and all prettied up, I tried to get her to stay on the logs surrounding the nativity, but she wouldn't, started crying, etc. so I just ended up following her around the house.  At the end, closer to bedtime, we gave her an apple before bed and she sat just and ate it while I took pictures.

 

(I also must add that my siblings are very helpful in trying to get her to sit and smile!)

 

Little baby fingers!

(I took this picture before she got all dressed up!)

Baby feet!

This is probably one of my favorites of her.  I just love her eyes!

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Anyways, we're supposed to be getting a winter storm sometime tonight and throughout the weekend.  I hope we don't lose electricity (it'll be a cold night!) and that it doesn't snow too bad so we can do this children's singing at church, take pictures for my Uncle Kevin and his family, and get to Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas.

Today, we've been cooking cookies to prepare to give out for our neighbors.  (We're hoping electricity won't go out!)  Hopefully the weather won't be too bad tonight so we can do our annual Christmas pass-out to our neighbors! :)

All for Jesus,
Kimber

Silly Pictures From Last Night

"Ephraim also is like a silly dove..."

Hosea 7:11

There was a myriad of funny pictures from last night that I thought I'd share with you!  Most of them were taken at Friendly's during Mama's birthday party but the last two were taken when we got home.  Enjoy!

Paw-paw

Our cousin, Collin.

Collin's brother, Mason (another cousin).

Josiah lookin' like a turtle

Seth and Caleb

Caleb and Seth

All three boys!

(I hope you got a smile out of those!)

All for Jesus,
Kimber

Mama's 39th Birthday

"Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her:"

Proverbs 31:28

Our wonderful Mama turned 39 on December 16th.  We celebrated by letting her sleep in, take a shower, do 30 minutes of Bible time (she was excited about that), and just relax.  She came downstairs, when breakfast was ready, as we sang "Happy Birthday."  We then sat down to breakfast...eggs, biscuits, and fruit!  Mama opened her few presents from us (we gave her some later but we were not prepared!) while we ate.

The breakfast table.

We were really enjoying Daddy's eggs since our chickens have stopped producing abundantly (plus we've lost a couple) and we hardly get 5 eggs, I think, a day.  We eat 2-3 dozen in one breakfast, so 5 a day doesn't work!

Reading her card.

Lexi made her initial "M" from a book she has on rainbow painting.  She did a really beautiful job!

After breakfast and everything, Mama took Alexis, Eden, Josiah, and I to the store.  So, her birthday was sort of "over" until Thursday.  Thursday night we went and celebrated her birthday with her family at Friendly's!  Mama loves Friendly's ice cream so that was the restuarant she picked.

Uncle Kevin and his family, Aunt T.C. and her children, and Na-naw and Paw-paw came! 

My adorable cousin, Justus, playing with some glasses.

Cadence - another of my adorable cousins!

(Lexi took the 2 above pictures!)

Cadence was sitting by Alexis and I during dinner...she would laugh and smile at practically everything!

Now back to Mommy!

After we finished eating dinner, Mama opened her presents while we waited for ice cream.

From Uncle Kevin, Aunt Mae-Mae, Cadence, and Justus she got the book The Vision by Debi Pearl.  She was excited to get it because Aunt Mae-Mae and other people had been talking about it and said it was a wonderful book. 

From Na-naw and Paw-paw she got a Pampered Chef stone muffin pan!

She was also excited about that because we don't like using Teflon because of the harmful phfalates that leak out into your food.  (So we've been wanting to switch more and more to glass and stone instead of plastic and Teflon.)

Aunt T.C., Uncle Chris, Collin, and Mason got Mama a wonderfully smelling candle.

Mama loves smelly candles!

Sometime during the night, Uncle Kevin put his hat on Justus.  As I took pictures of him, Justus just sat there in a daze.  It was so cute!

After the presents were opened we ate Friendly's wonderful ice cream.  Everybody got something different (to some degree) and all of it was yummy!

Josiah laughing at something.

Daddy

Na-naw eating a make-your-own sundae.

Lexi immersing herself in all of that hot fudge!  I think she enjoyed it! :)

Today Daddy gave Mama a bread cutter!  Ever since we went to the Whitsons and used theirs we've wanted one.  We can't wait to use the one Daddy got for us!

Thus, ended our wonderful Mama's birthday!  I'm so thankful for all that Mommy is, and continues to be, to us - she really is a gift from God!

All for Jesus,
Kimber :)

End-of-the-Year Homeschool Report Night

"The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, And a good report makes the bones healthy."

Proverbs 15:30

I'll get to the homeschool night in a second but first of all here's a picture that has nothing to do with homeschool night:

Seth made a huge pancake for Daddy for breakfast the other day and he wanted me to take a picture of his masterpiece.  There you go!

Now, to the homeschool night that occured last Thursday.

We have a homeschool night about every 2-3 months.  Since the end of 2009 is approaching we decided to do another homeschool night, including our folders, with Daddy and Mama.  "Our folders" consist of our school records for the year.  Everyone gets about 30 minutes of special time with Mama and Daddy talking about school that year and the things we would like to add to our school schedule.  We also get to talk to them about our goals for the year or whatever.  It's a special time together!

But, before we did that we did our group reports with everyone.

Seth, Eden, and Josiah were the first to give us their report.  They had made some crafts with leftover Christmas cards that went along with the account of Jesus' birth found in Luke.  Mama would read the Bible and each of them would hold up their paper with some card pictures describing what Mama was reading.

Seth

Mama reading Luke's account with Caleb looking on.  :)

Josiah showing off his paper.

Lydia being silly.

(She stayed in Hannah's lap 3/4 of the time and did fairly well!)

Eden's paper.

I just love how sweet Josiah looks when he's tired! :)

Daddy looking at one of the projects Seth, Eden, and Josiah made.   (Mama told them to go make a craft so she could get the Christmas letters done :-D)

After Eden, Josiah, and Seth were done their little show then Seth read us some of his Bible verses.

Caleb was next up...playing his guitar for us.

Yes, that was his attempt at a smile! :)

Playing one of his beautiful Christmas songs.

Lydia "reading" a Christmas book.

Watching Lexi read her report.

(Sorry - the picture of Lexi was on the "Coming soon" post)

After Lexi finished reading her WriteShop paper I read mine...

...and then Hannah read hers.

Since Hannah was the last person to be reporting, we all headed upstairs and watched a Veggie Tales video along with some others while the individual special time with Mama and Daddy began.  We did youngest to oldest again so Seth (I think) was the first to get his time with them. 

Before we went upstairs I managed to get a picture of our principal and teacher, along with our mascot...

Mascot

Principal and teacher.

After Lexi had her special time with Mama and Daddy we ate some yummy homemade coffee ice cream       ( thanks Whitsons)  before going to bed.  (If you're wondering, Hannah and I got our special time with them later on another night).

Thus, ended our end-of-the-year homeschool report night!  School is over for all of us now so we're busy making presents, signing cards, etc.

Today we occupied ourselves with rearranging our fridge and freezers along with our computer desks, books, etc.  It was a very dusty process.  I helped Daddy with moving the appliances and underneath all of them were loads of dust and stains.  Yum! 

Anyways, tonight Mama and Daddy are going on a date for Mama's birthday (December 16th).  We'll be watching the younger ones and right now we have no plan, but I guess we'll think of something soon!

All for Jesus,

Kimber :)