More from Thanksgiving

The kids' project for Thanksgiving afternoon.

Pet shop game

Jasmine!

Watching Polar Express and having hot chocolate

Hanging out together

I didn't win!

The dogs get the turkey gizzard!

Caspian's first Thanksgiving

Jessica has several papers to write

New rule: If you go the wrong way on purpose (pretending you don't understand which way to go) you have to start over. Counting ability increased greatly after that rule went into effect.

Dinner

Building the gingerbread village

The girls worked together and the guys worked together.

All done!

Tyler tried to teach Kaleb how to build with Legos. Ty was amazingly patient.

The holiday went pretty well. Tyler got home Wednesday evening and is on his way back to college right now. The younger ones had all week off. Jessica skipped Monday and Tuesday for our trip to Disney.

The twins have come up with some new and unacceptable behaviors but when they occur, the offender is removed from the fun as to not take away from the fun for the others. Unfortunately missing out wasn't enough of a deterrent for one and she is at this moment in her room writing, "I will speak politely at all times."

They both came up with a new and very rude phrase they say to others when I'm not around. They know that if they wouldn't say it when I'm in the room, then it's wrong. Also the week before vacation I received about six notifications by phone or parent alert from the school about bullying, injuring others and having to be removed from class due to kicking over a desk and throwing books when asked to pull a tag for behavior. This has become a daily habit. The bullying and injuring others has resulted in no basketball this year. I've explained that if they cannot treat others appropriately in the classroom, how can they be trusted to do so under a competitive situation?

I am remaining consistent in the rules, privileges and loss of privileges. We are going back to a behavior chart Monday due to increased inappropriate behavior at home, on the bus and at school.

Jasmine is doing pretty well. She is coping with the stress of 5th grade better. She has more homework than Adam, who is a junior. She has both a church concert and a school band concert coming up.

Adam finished cross country and is in wrestling just for something to do until track starts since he did not make the soccer team. This is a picture of him with his date for the homecoming dance a few weeks ago. He just got the picture from a friend on facebook.

Tyler and Jessica both have finals coming up and Jessica has several papers to write. I think they'll both be ready for the semester to be over.

And that's it from our end.

I'm thankful for

my guys who do the cooking each Thanksgiving

my hardworking gingerbread village builders

pumpkin pie with no crust

my faith, family, friends and lots more....

What are you most thankful for not just during this season but year round? Leave a comment if there's something you're thankful for.

Disney Weekend

We drove down to Kissimee Friday leaving after school. We decided to drive all the way through and got a hotel room around 1 a.m. Finally got settled down at 3 a.m. I was starting to wonder if we were just going to stay up until time to go to Disney!

The first day we went to Hollywood Studios, which used to be called MGM. We didn't do lots there, but this is one of the most crowded weeks so it took us all day to do what we wanted to do. You can see those pictures a couple of posts back.


Sunday and Monday we split between Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Saturday we left the park about midnight but left at 11:00 on Monday because we were driving home on Tuesday.

It was really, really crowded so we chose what we wanted to do carefully knowing that since we have year passes we'll be back.

The girls didn't get these shirts until after we'd had our picture taken with Mike. I got mine a couple of years ago.

The lights at Magic Kingdom were amazing.

Only three of us went this time, but we're looking forward to the rest (who are here at home) going in January.

The Twelve C's

For those who asked what the twelve Bible C's are, they are:
1. Creation
2. Clan
3. Confinement
4. Covenant
5. Conquest
6. Court
7. Crown
8. Captivity
9. Construction
10. Christ
11. Church
12. Completion

Here's a way to describe the Bible in 50 words:
God made
Adam bit
Noah arked
Abraham split
Joseph ruled
Jacob fooled
Bush talked
Moses balked
Pharaoh plagued
People walked
Sea divided
Tablets guided
Promise landed
Saul freaked
David peeked
Prophets warned
Jesus born
God walked
Love talked
Anger crucified
Hope died
Love rose
Spirit flamed
Word spread
God remained

I did not make up either of these, they are the work of other people. If you know your Bible well, they make sense, if you don't, they don't.

Hollywood Studios

Here are more pictures from Hollywood Studios Saturday. We waited in line almost two hours for Toy Story Mania, so we took about 50 pictures to amuse ourselves. I'll spare you from having to look at all of them.

Another Toy Story photo.

Mike from Monsters Inc.

Soldier from Toy Story.

Jasmine and I with the cars from Cars 2.

It's hard to decide what all my favorite Disney movies are. When Tyler and Jessica were little they watch 101 Dalmatians over and over. Twice a day. If you have kids you know I'm not kidding. Then it was Lion King. Cars, Cars 2, all three Toy Story movies, Monsters Inc, Princess and the Frog and Tangled are other favorites.

Feeling Sad

The little boy I just started sponsoring at Real Hope For Haiti died today. This is the report I got about him:
This is Alma’s second time in the Rescue Center. He has suffered with kwashiorkor for several years now (that's why his body is all swollen up with water). This makes 8 times he has been through this. His body is very weak, he is turning yellow and is not doing well.
Alma’s parents tell us that when there is food that he eats well. But many times they do not have food to feed him. He needs a lot of protein in his diet right now. He has been eating a lot of the medika mamba and lots of chicken.

But this morning he took a turn for the worse. And then he was gone. I know he's totally healed and waltzing down the streets of gold with so many other Haitian children, but I was praying he'd grow up to make a major impact for God in Haiti. But God's way is always better and heaven is more grand than anything we can imagine.

Random thougths from the Web

I need to switch eating and sleeping.

Haha. And this is only the first volume guys!

Teaching about the Bible

Tonight I taught a group of 3rd-5th graders about the Bible. It was less organized than I'd liked. We had to move quickly because we only had one hour start to finish. I left out a couple of activities I usually do and that threw me off. Crafts

Bible authors. The Bible was written by ordinary people- a doctor, tent maker, tax collector, kings, fishermen, shepherds and a cupbearer.

Yep. They had to hold a spoon in their mouths and move the frogs from one plate to another . This was from the ten plagues.It was easier said than done.

The boys won.

I have Jenga blocks with the books of the Bible on them. The three grades raced against each other putting them in order. Fourth grade won.

My biggest helper.

One thing we taught was everything that's in the Bible using twelve C words. I didn't make it up, but I borrowed it because it's a good way to cover everything in the Bible. Anyone know the twelve C's?