:-)

I'd tell you about Saturday but as usual, I can't remember anything about it.

This picture reminded me of how yesterday started out. I sometimes wonder if I'll EVER be able to stop dressing the children. This is how Joe looked yesterday, "ready" to go to church. Ri-i-i-i-i-i-ight. How can he NOT KNOW that he's wearing Sam's size 5 jacket instead of his own size 7, nevermind the fact that it's a blue jacket with black pants! ~sigh~ I fear there's no hope... We had good Sunday School. We talked about Jericho being destroyed, all but Rahab and her family. We talked about how God can save anybody and how the power of God working among His people will draw others just as it did Rahab. And we built little Jericho's with cornbread, honey, and graham crackers and had little gummy bear Israelites marching around. :-)

Our Teaching of the day was actually two teachings. Brother Chris preached on holiness, "It's a Heart Thing," and then moved right into tithing and giving. It was interesting and enlightening to join the two subjects! He passed out dollar bills to everybody and then said that we could either keep the money or pass it to the person next to us. As we passed the money around he passed out more money and pretty soon the bills got larger, from ones to fives, then tens, then a twenty... Everybody kept willingly passing the money around except for Sam. When the $10 hit is hand he wasn't budging! And he already had held on to two ones... Brother Chris was illustrating that God blesses those who give (not always with more finances--though often He does--but in some way or another He opens the windows of heaven and floods our lives with blessings) and that God's resources are limitless. It was very good. Toward the end of the service everybody put the money into the offering basket to pass back up to the front. All but Sam, of course. He'd just made out with twelve bucks! Ha! When church was over James and I made him give it back. Sure, Brother Chris had said that we could have the money if we wanted it, or pass it on. But it just didn't seem right for the illustration be that God will BLESS you if you GIVE... and Sam to be the only one who didn't give and also the only one to walk away with $12! Ha!

After service the time had finally come: THE GIRL PARTY!!! Katie has been sooooooo excited to have Naomi and Sadie up to the house and host a "party." So we had arranged it with the Clarksons that we would bring the girls to our house for the afternoon and they would take the boys. The girls had worn some of their favorite "party dresses" to church and James thought it would be fun to surprise them by taking them out to a nice restaurant. I told him they'd be thrilled with McDonalds, but he chose Olive Garden. :-) We let the girls have their own table so they could feel all grown up. And it meant that James and I had the closest thing we've had to a date in a long, long, long time! Ha! The girls had a lot of fun and it was great watching them pretend to be little ladies. One of them in particular is a far cry from that at this point! Ha! Hilarious.

After lunch we came back up to the house where it was time for the tea party Katie had prepared before we left for church that morning. Cupcakes, Airheads, and Pixie Stix. And yes, the tea was sweet. Can you say sugar rush?! Ha! For some reason, this is the only picture I took of the "Girl Party"...

After tea, I think the girls read books together for a few minutes and played in Katie's room. Then it was time to make cookies. They had decided they wanted to bake some cookies to take to church to sell for Missions. We took the left-over cupcakes, too, and ended up making $21 or something like that! :-) Anyway, after the cookie making, the girls headed outside to play on the trampoline. It started hailing lightly after a little while, but when it turned to a rainy snow sort of mix I called the girls inside. There wasn't enough time for a real "girl movie" like they'd hoped, so they watched the new Veggie Tales, Pistachio, instead. Then it was time to go back to church, but Sadie couldn't find her shoes. We were REALLY needing to get going and it finally occurred to her... She'd left them outside. They were out by the trampoline, filled with wet, heavy snow! Ha! So she wore some of Katie's shoes. Very big shoes, but dry. :-) The girls had great fun together and I'm so happy we were able to do this. I think we ought to do something like this once a month for them. Minus the fancy lunch, that is. ;-)

It was Sister Shanda's VLB service last night and it was very, very good. She talked about worldliness and we had lots of good discussion.

As we drove home last night we were amazed at how gorgeous everything was. We've had several good snowfalls this year, but the consistency of this snow was so different (so heavy and wet) and just clung to the trees, the signs, the cables--everything. It was sooooooooooo beautiful!!! We got home and were shocked that there was probably 6" of snow on the ground! Whoa!!! Who knew?! It took quite a while to get the gate open because of all that gorgeous, wet, heavy snow--and because the wheel on the gate had frozen to the pole. We finally got it open and James was able to back up and then floor it and get the van all the way through the gate, though there was no chance of making it up the hill.

This morning when we woke up, this is what our world looked like...

Isn't it just soooooooo pretty?! I e-mailed that picture to the news station and they aired it this evening. :-) I just love how cool and crisp and clean everything looks covered in heavy, fresh white snow.

And I LOVE the contrast against the blue western skies here...

James' cute little office...

See the pond down there? Ha! James was hoping to get it set up sometime soon. Apparently it's still WINTER here and the pond will have to wait a bit longer.

More gorgeous sky and snow. :-)

And look--it's our new van! Not that you can really see it... But it's inside the yard, so that's what matters. :-)

This picture's not crooked, just the tree. That's how they grow here.

The kids, of course, all headed outside to make the best of a partial snow day--though they did have to do some late afternoon schooling.

I looked outside after a while and each kid had rolled up a HUGE snowball, bigger than any or all of them would be able to handle. So I figured they'd need a helping hand to build a really terrific snowman. It took an hour or two, but this is the end result. Katie wanted to name him Bert.

He was just under 8' tall. I had to use the ladder to put his hat into place. And, yes, we had to have James' help heaving the middle section and the head into place!

Here's Katie with the little dog she built. She wanted him to look like Dug from Up. I think he's adorable!

Isn't he just too lovable???

Rumor has it you can only truly appreciate his nose from the side. Ha!

~sigh~ Sorry. I just couldn't stop taking pictures of him!!!

Good thing, too, because in about an hour he bit the big one! This was such a WET snow and once the sun came out real good it melted soooooo fast. So I'm really glad we took pictures as soon as we finished him! It was great fun and we've got great pictures to remind us of it always. :-)

Sam did some good bookwork this afternoon, Katie did really great with her math, and Joe moped around forever working on his book report on Harry, the Poisonous Centipede. Tomorrow we'll get back to a regular school day, but it just wouldn't have been right to miss out on the snow play today! Winter will be over all too soon and it would be a poor investment indeed to sit in front of books all day instead of enjoy what we have while we have it. :-)

This, of course, means that House Cleaning Day was a flop again this week. Ha! But if ever I had a good excuse... ;-) I did manage a nice, hot dinner of Hamburger Pie... something I haven't made in YEARS because of all of the gripes. I figured it had been long enough nobody would remember it. James did, and that's all it took. The kids took their cue from his lack of enthusiasm and made up their minds ahead of time it must be terrible. But they all liked it in spite of themselves and a couple of them even had seconds.

We ended the night by sitting and reading library books together. It's one of my most favorite things and I dread the day when the kids are too big for me to sit and read to them. I somehow picture them being 14, 16, and 17 years old someday still saying, "Hey, Mom--would you read us Arnie the Doughnut, ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease???" Ha!