Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving and that your are able to enjoy time with family and friends during this holiday.

Gone Fishin'

The other day Marc mentioned how when he was a kid he used to love to sit in laundry baskets and pretend they were boats. We'll this got my and the boys attention. It wasn't long before we had two fishermen in their own boats complete with window-stick fishing poles, painter's tape black fish, & paper bag life vests.

Another Field Trip

Andrew went on another field trip last Wednesday and AJ and I were able to go with him this time. He was a big helper.

In fact, the Monday before, his teacher said something to the effect of they should exercise a lot the day before so they would have strong muscles to bring to help move all the food... because Andrew was bound and determined to 'exercise' all day Tuesday by running the length of our house over and over so he could carry lots of food.

They delivered the food and got to see where it was stored. They saw how much food was there and learned that all that food would only last the pantry one week. We were even there during a 'distribution time', so they were thanked by many of the people that the food goes to help.

It was a short field trip and since it was practically in our neighborhood, we just drove home early vs. going back to school for a few minutes. But I think it was a good learning time for the kids.

Cheap Fiber

AJ recently lost his winter hat, so we were doing to the Dollar Store to get a new one. However, waiting by the door, was a bus driver for a city bus. He stopped me and practically whispered, "The Dollar General (located right next to the Dollar Store) is moving and everything is a dime".

We weren't in a hurry, so we checked it out. There were no signs or notices of any kind, but sure enough everything was a dime. It was pretty picked over already, but we scored a few items including the boxes above and some Hershey's dark chocalate candy bars. Sweet! Thank you Lord for placing that bus driver at the door.

Every house needs...

...a picture of your door on your door, "so everybody will know what our door looks like."

-courtesy of Andrew

God, you are bigger than this...

...I AM.

Christmas Getting to Know You Meme

FarOutMom tagged me and it looks cute, so I'm posting it. As she mentioned, feel free to steal it!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Paper mostly.

2. Real tree or Artificial? We have a fake one. I confess... it's just easier.

3. When do you put up the tree? My goal is the weekend after Thanksgiving, but it's been
as late as the weekend before Christmas.

4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime in January.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, but I hardly ever have it. I never seem to buy it and never have everything on hand to make it.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Probably a pair of 'bibs' I bought myself, then practically convinced my parents there really was a Santa.

7. Hardest person to buy for? My dad.

8. Easiest person to buy for? The boys. Like FarOutMom said... it's not like they don't drop hints all the time.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Every year I think, this year I will do Christmas cards. And every year, I don't. I even have a Christmas Card List in Excel, but I've never sent out cards.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Hmmm.... not sure.

12. Favorite Christmas movies? How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We already have it DVR'd for this year.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I try to have ideas by October, but we do one side of the family's Christmas at Thanksgiving... so I need to be on top of things a month early.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Oh yes. Probably something that should be listed under number 11.

15.Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Shrimp Cocktail on Christmas Eve (not even sure how that started). Hot Coffee and something warm & gooey for breakfast Christmas morning. I miss Keiffee Cookies.

16. Favorite Christmas song? O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

17. There was no number 17.

18.Travel at Christmas or stay home? A little of both.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Yes, I know the song. But can you say the 7 drawfs? (Oh wait... that's not Christmas-y)

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Actually neither. Not on purpose, we've just never found one we like.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning, of course. What kind of foolish-talk is this Christmas Eve present opening???

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The Christmas music starting SO early that by the time Christmas comes you swear if you hear Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree one more time you'll pop Rudolph in his Red nose.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? No favorite... our tree is very hodge-podge and beautiful.

24.Favorite dinner food? Doesn't seem like a very Christmas-y question. But let's see... Probably homemade macaroni & cheese made with shells.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? To listen to both boys recite Luke 2.

So, should I tag anyone else? I tell you what... if you want to do it, post it and let me know in my comments, so I can check it out. :)

Unplanned weekend.

This was our first unplanned weekend in a very.long.time. Seriously, since early September. All of our weekends have been good and fun, but planned. We were either gone, or had company here.

But this weekend we've been able to do whatever. Not that what we did was earth-shattering or anything, but so far it's been a good one.

Friday afternoon we took a nice walk/bike ride with our neighbors before heading over to the Sischo's for pizza. After we put the kiddos down to bed, the guys watched the Pistons game and us girls watched "Somewhere in Time". Oh, a good movie. If you haven't, you should see. It's set in the Grand Hotel in Mackinaw Island. I try to go there once a year with my friend, Jill, and it was fun to see it throughout the movie.

Saturday morning was lazy, but we spent the late morning cleaning up the yard. Marc mowed up the leaves while the boys and I washed and packed away all the outside toys, washed the deck, etc...

We warmed up to homemade chicken noodle soup. I'm kinda proud of how good it was (I'm not really a soup maker).

After naps, we fed a boys a large snack and took them to the cheap seats to watch Wall-E. This was a risk since my boys are very picky about their movies and we haven't had great luck trying the theater in the past. But, the boys did pretty good.

The theater wasn't very crowded so there was wiggle room which was necessary for AJ. He only asked me to 'turn it off' once. Andrew stayed pretty glued, however, when all was said and done and we asked him what he thought of it, he told us that he didn't like it. None of it. Yet, both he and AJ talked about the movie quite a bit today.

We finally made it church this morning, the first Sunday in quite a while. Man, I missed it. It was a great service. We had an easy crockpot roast dinner before naps. I love Sunday naps. Marc went to play football with the guys from church, so the boys made a CVS run with me before using up the last of our Burger King free fry coupons. That's disappointing. It was nice to feed us for $3. Maybe too nice - as we became BK regulars when we had those coupons.

The boys got tubs and put to bed. I worked around the house a bit, did a little laundry, and made bread. Now, I am vegging with the laptop, the TV (do I dare confess that Hannah Montana is on it?) and warm, fresh, right-out-of-the-oven sourdough bread with honey. Good weekend.

Flying Squirral

I know this is coming late, but I want to tell you about when we got to do "The Flying Squirral." My aunt lives near a camp and we were all able to take a turn flying Peter-Pan Style. The pictures aren't fabulous, but I'll share a few. However, it was amazingly fun and higher than it looked. Both boys flew as well and both Grandmas.

Andrew taking off (no flying pictures turned out.)
The Muscle Men that made flying possible.

AJ all geared up and ready to go.

Me in flight.

(look how hard those muscle men had to work)

My Mom soaring.

A Video of AJ flying. (Ignore my voice.... it's lame.)

Isn't he sweet....

Andrew came upstairs from the toy room the other day asking me if I wanted my coffee, because he had made me a coffeemaker.

Impromptu Family Picture

Andrew has his 2nd homework assignment this week. They are learning about families and he needs to attach a family photo to his paper. We really don't have much of a recent one, so we quick gathered, set the auto timer and on our second try we got this one. Good enough - even with Andrew's "smile".

Errand Day

It started at 8:40 AM...

• Pick up Neighbor/Classmate
• Drop Boys off at Preschool, AJ stays with me.
• Shop Aldis and load the cooler with our cold groceries in the back of explorer.
• Hit Bank
• Buy Coffee Mate creamer at Walgreens - $1.48 for 4-16oz bottles! ($.37 each!)
• Hit the Bread Outlets for 100% Whole Wheat Organic loaves on the cheap (and throw in reduced powdered sugar donuts for the boys, I swear.)
• Shop CVS. Got $20.91 in merchandise for $.96 that I put on a free CVS gift card! And received $4.49 back in CVS money!
• Hit Goodwill and scored winter boots for Andrew for $5!
• Picked up boys from preschool
• Dropped off Neighbor/Classmate at his home
• Went to Staples and got gifts for Andrew's two teachers for free after coupons!
• Hit Meijer for the few items we couldn't get at Aldi
• Forgot to stop at the gas station ($1.97 Gas!!) and came home.

1:00pm.

• Feed boys a late lunch of rotisserie chicken and potato wedges from deli, while I try to put all my bags of groceries away.
• Get boys down for a nap (or attempted nap).
• Put frozen food away in freezer and decide to clean out upright freezer and update my freezer inventory.
• Receive a call that we might have someone stop by the house and do a mad-dash pick up.
• CRASH on the couch with the laptop listening to the boys not nap.

2:30pm

What a blessed errand day - even in this November rain. But I will be ready for a little night out tonight. Dinner with my friend before off to Bible Study. Phew.

Can't really punish them for that.

I'm sure that I have mentioned this before, or if you know us at all, you know that my boys have an issue with staying in bed at night and keeping quiet. It's a regular battle both at nap time and at night time.

The other day during nap time, after already telling the boys that they needed to settle down and be quiet, I could hear the boys giggling and AJ yelling out, "NO!" over and over.

So I practically stomp upstairs, ready to lay down the law, when I pause long enough to listen in.

What I hear is Andrew reciting Luke 2, but substituting a regular word every phrase or so with a silly nonsense word. When the nonsense word is said, AJ yells out "NO!" (among lots of giggles) and gives Andrew the correct word. They were practicing their Bible verses in the same way I taught it to Andrew last year.

Needless to say, they didn't get in trouble... for that instance.

My New Book

One of my lovely 20-Something ladies, Miss Emma, offered to give me her copy of Redeeming Love when she found out how much I loved the book. It was very sweet of her and now that I have it... I am very excited about it and wishing for time to read it again already. Thanks Emma!

Our Halloween Weekend

It's coming a little late, but here is how our Halloween weekend unfolded.

It started out with a parade at preschool.
Then we made pumpkin cookies after naptime.

My Superman and Spiderman were ready to pass out candy and wait for GIDEON (and family) to come visit!! We had a great visit with them, with the kiddos running around Friday night.

Saturday, the daddy's went fishing, so we packed up the kids to head to the Gardens... but we got sidetracked when Krispy Kreme's Hot and Now sign was lit up.

Hot, free donuts. Perfect.

Grandma Fred and Grandpa Lena Meijers.

What a fun weekend.

Preschool Field Trips

His most recent field trip to the fire department. Aren't they adorable.

His trip to the Orchard.

And the blonde little girl he is sitting next to in the top picture on the firetruck....

....is his girlfriend.

Who Won?

I snagged this from my friend, Shannon's, blog.

So – Did Your Guy Win?

As of the writing of this note, the new president hasn't been chosen yet but by the time you all read this the choice will be made. Did your guy win?

If he did, what do you do now? Pop the champagne and taunt the opposition? Throw a party? No - you pray for him and his administration.

If the other guy won what do you do now? Shake your fist at the news, throw the remote at the TV and swear never to vote again? No - you pray for him and his administration.

The Bible tells us that leaders are set up by God, it also tells us that we, as followers of Jesus, are to pray for those in leadership.

Today as we go about our day may we all stop and thank God for our country and then may we all pray for the safety and wisdom of the incoming president.

-Written by Kelly Hegi

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and
thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we
may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

1 Timothy 2 1:2

Only took 90 minutes.

And believe it or not, I am looking forward for tonight after the kids go to bed and I can watch the coverage.

...I'm also waiting for my friend Jen to leaving a comment rooting for her canidate. :)

Who am I and what have I done with Kelli?

This week's preschool theme is spiders. (Not sure who's brilliant idea that was.)

Andrew's Spider Hat

A spider that was on our garage door that I caught!

(You read that right.)

I'm not sure it (or I) will make it long enough for Andrew to take him to school next Wednesday. Plus, I don't drive on Wednesday, so I'd be asking our neighbor to trasport the spider to school.

Andrew made sure the count the legs (like he learned to do in school) to make sure it was a spider. The boys have named it "Spiderman".

Update on AJ: PRAISE!!

I know I was vague before, but I wanted to let you know that AJ seems fine. Thank you, Lord!! Man, I prayed over that kid last night. His throat is bloody and looks sore, but he is eating and talking this morning. He even let me look at it with a flashlight. Something I couldn't really do last night and therefore wasn't sure the extent of the damage. But it looks minor. We will have to have him avoid salt until it heals, but over all - he seems fine. He even slept decent.

If you had a chance to pray for him - thank you. Praise God.

Pray for AJ

We about had ER trip numero dos tonight. And of course, Marc is in another state.

I really don't even want to go into details about it. I'm not far enough removed yet and I'm still in the 'shaken' state, but it involved the 'stick' that open and closes the blinds and the back of his throat.

He is sleeping now, thank you Jesus. It just might have been the worst 20 minutes of my life. Please pray that he sleeps tonight and that I can sleep tonight (he will be in my bed all night so I can keep an eye on him). Pray that his 'owie' is minor and I made the right decision not to take him in. Pray that he heals quickly and is back to my happy AJ tomorrow.