*T*H*R*E*E* MONTHS ARE GONE ~ THREE MONTHS REMAIN....I think we should have a 1/2 way party......maybe I'll do that this afternoon.....hmmm....These spur of the moment ideas is why we have trouble making much forward momentum!

MONDAY RECAP

The day began with several long distance calls. An exciting one was from my friend Julie, whose twin boys have responded to a work of grace in their lives and asked Jesus to be their savior. What an EXCITING way to begin celebrating ADVENT...the coming of Jesus into our daily lives.

Since couch school had been delayed so long, I bundled Nolan and Stacia up, and we headed for the base. We picked up more toys and ran an errand for Mike.

Back at home we did some couch school in the afternoon. We continue to enjoy TOG - but *I* am missing our typical Christmas School schedule. I really think it is best for us to continue. Yes, we can school year round, but Josiah is graduating in May and so school must reach some sort of conclusion for him on schedule. LOL We want to be able to enjoy guilt free time with Mike when he comes home...so we'll persevere. We may take off when the public school children do....I'll have to check and see when that is. I'll probably break with Arielle and Nolan and give the boys the option. They are fairly driven. Jamin asked me yesterday if I could find more school for him. Yikes.

I paid for six pages of Jamin's book to be critiqued by Christian Writer's Guild (Jerry Jenkins group). He worked so hard to get his sample below 1500 words. It was cheaper if it was below 5 pages (1500 words). He had 6 pages but our computer counter showed 1491 for a word count. They charged us twice the amount for 6 pages. I called them and she had it pulled up on her computer her count was 1890 words.....so we couldn't argue, since it was SIX pages on our computer. This could explain the comments he keeps getting from his writing mentor about word counts. I have no idea how or what to fix to get the word count to be accurate. LOL

Shop Natural (TCW) co-op was last night. A HUGE thank you to Heather, who came early and helped us sort. Things went fairly well. We had 3 of the wrong bags of chips - someone ordered black bean and we got "salt and cracked pepper" and we had an extra box of "organic" co-co puffs". I decided it was simpler to keep the items than mess with getting the credit. It took me THREE MONTHS to get the credit for a bag of wheat that we had to send back. ::snort:: Nolan and Zander were thrilled to try a new food - co-co puffs. Arielle said it looked like DOG FOOD - but that didn't deter them in the least. Krista loves all manner of chips and if no one wants to eat them we'll send them back with her to WA.

Stacia fell asleep in the sling for about an hour during co-op. The end result is that she was up most the night. I think her ear was hurting her....the stinker wanted me to STAND with her...not sit or sleep.....finally I simply set down and let her scream. Sunday night was great - we both went to bed at 7 p.m. and woke up at 7 a.m. I needed that. It beat last nights down at 4:30 a.m. and up at 6:00 a.m. I'm ready for teething and colds to be gone!!!! The other children all seem fine.

I picked up the sign up sheet for the Ladies Tea. Numbers are way down this year...there are only 8 signed up and two of them are Arielle and I. I'm thinking it would be far easier to have the tea here than at the chapel. I have the house decorated, I wouldn't have to transport decorations or china....I could set things out while the children played.....I only need to figure something out for Jamin, Jared, Nolan and Zander. Josiah would take them bowling, to the movie or Mr Gatti's, but he is working. We'll see. There has to be a good solution.

Jamin came in and asked me to go take a nap. It's not even 8:30 a.m. !!! I told him that if I lay down I won't be able to sleep anyway....my mind will be whirling about school and such. I promised to try to take a nap this afternoon. Goodness....am I getting to old to mother a big family? I seem to be taking lots of naps this month...and I'm certain I'm NOT pregnant. ::snort::

Winter Finery

My children all insist they are ALASKANS and have no need of coats in TEXAS....but let me tell you when it is 15* outside it doesn't matter to ME what state I'm living in. LOL Stacia, is a TEXAN (much to the chagrin of the boys who wanted her to be born an Alaskan) and so she needed some winter finery. Here she is.....

She loved this.

She immediately began to sing and dance.

Here she has the gloves and hats TOO and the clapping, twirling and singing commenced.
She ran to find her brothers. She danced, twirled and sang for them. Josiah told me last night at 11:30 p.m. that she was "so cute" in her coat this afternoon. Mike, beware! I think she is practicing to sweep her Daddy off his feet. You'll never KNOW what hit you!!!

ENTERTAINING STACIA

Stacia LOVES to sing. It's hilarious. If I'm leaving, or she is fussy, or I need to divert her attention, I begin to hum or sing and she INSTANTLY sings along. (She also loves to
dance to Cy's rap music.) Here, I was getting her ready for bed. She began to sing, grabbed the brush that someone had left on my bed, and KNEW it was a microphone. She hammed it up for a long time, long enough for Jared to run to the library, grab the camera, and take 6 or 7 photos.

Statement as of 07:15 am CDT on December 04, 2006
... Record low temperature in "our town" this morning... The low temperature in "our town" bottomed out at 13 degrees this morning. This broke the old record low temperature of 17 degrees set in 1929 for this date.

It was 14* when I attempted to go biking...not a chance....

For Mike and all my military friends who may see the blog....let's remember to pray for our troops....deployed and stateside around the world.

PARENTING IN PROVERBS - CH 28

28:3 "A poor man who oppresses the lowly is like a driving rain which leaves no food."

28:16 "A leader who is a great oppressor lacks understanding, but he hates unjust gain will prolong his days."

~In any area of leadership we must avoid leading by oppression or simply strutting our authority.

~In parenting - my children WILL respond to pure powerful authoritarian methods...but am I oppressing them? Are they learning to obey or to comply? (Previous parenting blurb - click parenting and scroll if you want to hear more thoughts on this). Are they learning to make independent choices when I'm not around? At what age do I expect them to magically be able to make godly choices if I make all decisions now? At 18? 21? 38?

28:21 "To show partiality is not good, because for a piece of bread a man will transgress."

~We must NOT show partiality with our children.

~For a scrap of our love our children will be led into sin..... be that harboring resentment towards a sibling, lying to earn our favor, think Cain and Abel, Joseph and the 10 older brothers...

~Be generous with love to all our children.

28:23 "He who rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with the tongue."

~A loving rebuke will be more beneficial to our children than oodles of false praise.