Un-Birthday Sleep-over!

Christmas break is a great excuse for spending time with friends. The kids have enjoyed two sleepovers away from home already (once with friends and once at grandparents). Tonight, we're enjoying hosting a great big "un-birthday slumber party" with a houseful of friends. The fun began with 'open gym time' at the gymnastics center where Daniel's team practices . . . then we came back home for trampoline fun, American girls, Hot Wheels, Webkinz, Nerf wars, dress up, chasing each other around the house, watching Mythbusters and telling silly jokes at dinner. The evening has been fun! . . . an ice cream extravaganza is next! Our kids have great taste in friends, what a sweet bunch of buddies to play with!

Christmas 2010

"Helping Ham" . . .

We enjoyed a family adventure this morning that the kids have dubbed "Helping Ham" (I think it's a play on Helping Hands . . . but I'm really not sure). It started out as "Operation Lunch", so we're still not sure if the new name is an improvement or not!

We turned our dining room table into an assembly line and packed about 20 paper sacks with sandwiches, clementines, Christmas cookies, pretzels, juice, Hershey kisses, Wendy's gift cards, and an encouraging note. Then we donned our Santa hats, prayed that God would guide us and set out to deliver them to the homeless in Denver. It's a very mild Christmas Eve in Denver, so (along with handing some out the car window at various intersections) we walked around in the park and handed out the rest. The bags ran out quickly and as we walked back to the car, there was happy chatter about how fun the morning had been, requests to repeat the event and talk of making it an annual tradition. Emily said "next time, we should do 200 bags!"

The kids are beside themselves with excitement that tomorrow is Christmas! They are singing with the "kids' choir" at the Christmas Eve service tonight (and Emily is greatly anticipating her solo!). I'm cutting this short, because a family ping pong tournament awaits!

Merry Christmas!

Our big Anna girl!

Since Thanksgiving, Anna has been eagerly counting down the days until her special outing with mom and dad (she finally reached the golden age of 4 1/2 where half birthday celebrations begin). Last Saturday, we got to enjoy a special time with our Lil' Miss Anna girl! (while our amazing Emily held down the fort at home)

We had lots of fun playing at Chuck-E-Cheese and having her beat us at her favorite card game, "Army" (known as War to the rest of the world!). Usually our outings involve a treat of some sort, too (like going to an ice cream shop). She voted, instead, for going to the store and picking up a cake to take home and share with everyone else. She's such a sweetie!

Gymnastics

Daniel enjoyed his first gymnastics meet. That boy rocks on the rings! I don't think I have the upper body strength to do a single thing he did on just that one event, much less the coordination to do all the others. So far, it's been a good experience and he is enjoying it lots!

Silly kids

We spent Thanksgiving in the mountains with my sister and her family ~ we played lots of ping pong and foosball while we were there. After winning several games of ping pong against his cousin (Tommy) and his uncle (Chris), Daniel declared "I dominated the Murray men, now I just need to conquer the Murray women". My sister asked him if he was a conquistador . . . to which he replied "no, I'm a ping-pong-ador!"

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I'm regularly reminding my kids that we need to "dwell together in unity" (and I often begin the sentence and let them fill in the blank). In the car a few days ago, I started the familiar reminder, "dwell together in . . . " Before anyone could fill in the blank with "unity", Samuel chimed in with "our underwear"!

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Our old, faithful van . . .

It was mid-summer 2002 ~ I was pregnant with our third child, Kevin was working at Open Door and I was working at Joy House . . . we didn't have much income and with the arrival of Daniel, we would soon be outgrowing the car we were driving.

I prayed for a mini-van . . . and since my favorite color is green, I made a special request for a green one! (it never hurts to ask!). About a week later, someone called to tell me that her friend was wanting to donate their mini-van to someone in ministry . . . oh, and it just so happened to be green!

Isn't God fun?!

A few days later, two really excited kids climbed around the inside of our "new" van! It was nine years old, but it was new to us and still had lots of life left in it.

I don't remember how many miles were on the odometer when that wonderful family gave us their hand-me-down van, but we personally put LOTS more on it. We took it on several cross country trips, into Canada twice and around town more than anyone wants to think about! It has served us very, very well over the past 8 1/2 years. About 3 weeks ago we found out that the transmission has finally gone "kaput" (and on a 17 year old car with close to 200K miles, was probably not worth it for us to replace it)

I poked around on Craigslist and found two vans that looked interesting and affordable (though neither one was green!) One of them happened to be for sale in the same mountain town where we had plans to spend Thanksgiving. Long story short, we drove to the mountains in one car and came home in two! That particular van turned out to be very clean, very well kept, seven years newer than our last one and in great shape . . . and cost us less than replacing the transmission would have!

The Big Brothers/Big Sisters organization came today to haul our "old green van" away. There has been some sadness, especially for Daniel, about "saying goodbye" to the van that has been in our family for his entire life (he still doesn't really understand why we can't "just keep it in our back yard"!) Nevertheless, we are thankful that God has, once again, provided for our needs.

Strange . . . and stranger!

Our little dog, Suki, recently had a birthday . . . so we made a 'dog friendly cake' and special peanut butter doggie treats and had a small doggie party!

That's strange.

Stranger still is that our 'dog loving Emily' decided a few months ago that if dogs have seven birthdays each year that we should be able to figure out exactly when Suki turns (doggie equivalent of) the "big 5-0" ~ and we should certainly mark the occasion with a big party (she hasn't mentioned anything about celebrating her dad's 50th birthday, which is only a few months after that . . . we see how he rates!)

So, according to Emily's mathematical calculations, January 6th is the big day. If one of Suki's little "dog friends" happens to live at your house, be on the look-out for an invitation! (or not)

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Taylor turns 25 years old today . . . which just doesn't seem quite possible (he was only 6 when I met him!) I remember babysitting him one night in 1992, while Kevin was busy doing something at the coffee house (an outreach, to the homeless, which he was running at the time). We were trying to be really quiet, but Taylor had a case of the unstoppable giggles! . . . after many failed attempts to be quiet, he finally looked at me and explained that 'the crank on his giggle box was broken'! (and then he erupted into another fit of giggles). . . what a cutie!

Admittedly, we haven't been able to have as much time with him over the years as we would have liked . . . but I have great memories of Christmas visits and plenty of camping and fishing trips with him (here in CO). We also enjoyed lots of drives to Nebraska to visit him ~ and almost always stayed in the same hotel, with a really fun indoor pool. He has grown into a remarkable young man who is a friend to many and is very well loved. We're looking forward to another big event in his life (his wedding) in approximately 194 days . . . but we don't know anyone who's counting!

Midwest Road Trip

We returned home yesterday from a six day road trip with the kids, the dog and our travel trailer. We set out on Daniel's birthday, our eyes fixed firmly on one goal ~ to sleep outside of Wal-Mart at least once!! Okay, that wasn't really the main goal, but it was the part I was, oddly, most giddy about!

Our first stop was just outside of Omaha where we visited Taylor and (his fiance) Kelsey. We got to see Taylor's house and Kelsey's college, had lunch at Taylor's favorite restaurant, visited with his grandma and other siblings and even got to play on the big slides that we used to take Taylor to when he was younger. But perhaps most importantly, we finally beat Taylor and Kelsey at Spades! =)

After Omaha, we went south to Oklahoma City to visit with my great aunt and cousins. We ate way too much really yummy pizza and then toured the recently completed Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. The memorial was creatively designed and very memorable. The kids enjoyed the reflecting pool and the area where they could leave messages in sidewalk chalk.

From Oklahoma, we drove back to central Kansas and played around in the town of Hutchinson. We visited a space-themed swimming pool and an underground salt mine . . . both were very fun!

Our drive back home was made most memorable (and prayerful!) by some whopping Kansas winds! Let's just say that it isn't fun to haul a big 'boxy' trailer down the highway when there are strong gusts of wind relentlessly blowing at you from the side. Our drive was much slower that day, and we ended up spending an extra night on the road (yeay for "boondocking" at rest areas!)

We arrived home safely, a bit tired, but thankful . . . basking in a contented state of triumph and satisfaction having finally (drumroll please . . .) slept outside of Wal-Mart . . . not just once, but twice! Mission accomplished!