Picture of Eden

Since my last post was missing pictures of Eden, here's one of her from just a few days ago. We always check on them when we go to bed and she had her hands folded. So sweet!

Here's their bedtime prayer:
It's time to go to bed, God.
Please keep me safe tonight.
Wake me with a smile,
When morning brings its light. Amen.

Snow Wonder

We've got a serious case of cabin fever. I decided on Sunday that we would get outside regardless of the weather. The boys and I and Eliza ventured out. It did eventually start snowing on us while we were outside. Here are come pictures of the kids. Emmet was cute with the snowflakes on his eyelashes.

Eliza attracts a kitty wherever she goes.

Emmet standing on one of our snow piles.

Here are the boys on top of the snow piles. You can see that the pile is higher than our minivan. And it's a long pile too. We have two high and long piles.

Ephraim with two icicles.

Eliza and Fire the cat.

Taking a break.

Building a coyote den. They were forts in my day but times have changed.

Where are the pictures of Eden you ask? Eden was inside sleeping the entire time. (And Seth was inside napping too.)

62 YEARS!

What a privilege it was to share with Seth's grandparents their 62nd Anniversary! We celebrated with them last Sunday by bringing supper and then having cake.

Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation.
Our gift for them. It was a homemade heart-shaped bird feeder to hang.
Let's see. . .Seth and I'll be 85 and 83 when we celebrate our 62nd Anniversary :)
Careful with Grandpa! I'm not sure who wanted to wrestle more. . . Grandpa or the kids. Yes, Eliza joins right in but Eden stays her distance.

This is one of those "had to be there" moments. But the kids were getting ready to go and I told them that they had to say goodbye. Emmet proceeds to yell it at the top of his lungs!

Who's stronger?

I'll end this with portions of a prayer for grandparents adapted from Powerful Prayers for your Children.

Blessed Savior,

Today I pray that You would help my children learn the importance of extended family, especially Great Grandparents.

I know my kids don't always grasp the value of grandparents . . . and sometimes they're uncomfortable around the aged . . .

Open my children's ears, Lord. Help them to realize that their youth and vitality can really make an older relative's day. And use them to bless our children with stories, wisdom and unconditional affection.

Finally Lord, help our whole extended family to show the same kind of loyalty to each other that Ruth and Naomi shared . . . . By Your grace, use us--from the oldest to the youngest--to carry out Your spiritual plan of redemption in our family.

Amen.

Valentine Boxes

This post is for my co-workers who graciously used a lot of Kleenex tissues in order for me to have the square tissue boxes I needed for a craft. I found this idea for Valentine boxes in Family Fun Magazine. The girls needed Valentine boxes for their day care Valentines. All we did was cover the Kleenex boxes with construction paper. Made a tail, face, and head. Pretty simple and pretty cute!

Disappointment

We were all set for a night out with Grandpa Arlin and Grandma Donna. We started with pizza at Pizza Ranch and then we left to catch the 7pm movie in a nearby town. The tickets are only $2.50 so that's the perfect price when there are a lot of you! We got there in plenty of time to get seats for all of us. The theatre was sold out by 6:50. At 7pm, the lights dimmed and the boys' excitement was hard to contain. This is actually their first time to watch a movie in the theatre as a family. But then it was obvious that there were technical difficulties with the movie. The lights came back on and there we sat. And sat. And waited. And waited. By now the natives are very restless and Seth and I are looking at each other with looks that said "This is why we just buy the movie and watch it in our own living room."

At 7:30, we've been in the theatre an hour, we've eaten the jumbo popcorn that Grandma bought and we've chewed or spilled all of Grandpa's Skittles. They announce that "someone is on their way to help fix the problem." I'm starting to think that we're not going to last much longer. And I'm mentally figuring up the time that the movie could be done if it would get started right away. And it's not looking good.

They do get the movie to play for a few seconds and then it disappears again. Seth and I decide that at 8pm, we've had enough. We can't start watching a 90 minute movie at after 8pm. We make the painful decision to leave (and at this point, we were joined by about half of the other patrons).
Ephraim was the most disappointed and it almost had me in tears to see how bummed he was. It is an awful feeling as a parent to prepare for a fun evening as a family and then to have the plans changed due to something beyond our control. But, disappointment is a hard lesson that kids need to learn, too.

To make matters worse, we were in the lobby getting our coats on and we could hear the movie starting up. But, at that point, we knew that could only be temporary. It was 8pm, we had a 40 minute drive home. There was no way we could have stayed to watch the movie (which did continue to have difficulties throughout the showing).

All is well at this point.

Enjoying that popcorn, Eliza?

Eden and I

Ephraim hides his disappointment by standing by the Chipmunk poster.

Needless to say, we won't be venturing out to a movie theatre any time soon. And, in case you were wondering, we were able to get a full refund.