Christmas tree time!

Steve "trimming" the tree.

Nathaniel decorating his tree. He was putting jingle bells on it.

A thumbs up for the right tree. This one is called a Leeland. 

The last one should have been first (oops!) We went tree picking today and have started decorating! The house smells great!

He's home!

Hooray, Flat Stanley made it back home, and he brought a friend with him! The Small's oldest daughter, Madison, made a friend to travel with Stanley and she (Madison) wrote the nicest letter. Also, they sent some yummy goodness from Japan - thanks Small's!

You'll notice, Stanley had a boo-boo when in Japan, so he now is sporting a band-aid on his left shoulder. :-)

Domino Delirium

Nathaniel and I had fun building with Dominoes this morning. I did the building and he did the filming (all by himself!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great time visiting with my parents who came up yesterday and my sister and her family today.

We also had an early Christmas last night, Steve, Nathaniel and I opening presents from my parents.

This morning, Nathaniel had a good time playing Dominoes and Uno with my parents.

Thank you God for family, friends, food and Your mercy, grace and love.

Nathaniel opening his gifts from my parents

Nathaniel snuggling with my dad, Grandaddy

With my mom, Grandma

Putting together his Legos, wearing his new jacket

Playing Dominoes

My sweet mom

More Domino action

Me, my sister and our mom

My nieces Kendall (on left) and Courtney with their boyfriends

Place-cards Courtney made for everyone

Nathaniel with his

My mom, dad, sister and I

Courtney helping Nathaniel put together his turkey craft she  had for him.

Nathaniel, Courtney and his turkey

One of the cars Nathaniel put together from his Lego set he got from my parents.

Nathaniel's cool dance moves

This morning, Nathaniel came to me and showed me his new dance that he made up. He did it for me and I loved it, so we decided to do it to music. Here it is and a picture of the dance moves he had drawn out.

Girls Getaway

I and about 38 other ladies from Sovereign Grace Church have now returned from a wonderful weekend spent being pampered and worshiping our God. The Getaway was held at the Wyndham Hotel in Glen Allen, a place I highly recommend visiting. It was gorgeous, not only the hotel, but the scenery around the hotel and the underground tunnel with photos of places in America from "sea to shining sea".

We ladies were welcomed in the lobby by two SGC ladies handing out a lovely bag with not only our agenda (which I'll get to in a minute), but a SG CD, chocolate, hand sanitizer, a book and many other definitely thought out and deliberately placed items. The folder that contained our agenda also had lyrics to all our worship songs (including a great new one), a welcome kit from the Wyndham  and a personalized letter welcoming us from our pastors.

When we entered our room, we were greeted by a lovely note welcoming us, telling us we have been prayed for and for us to enjoy our stay. In addition to this beautiful note were Hershey Kisses and an elegant vase of flowers! So much attention to detail, and this was only the first few minutes!

After dinner, I and my 3 roommates, Chris, Sally and Janina went to our first of 3 conferences. Each session was begun by an entertaining segment, never disappointing!

We were met by the LORD in worship each time, with each song being very carefully thought out and by our  worship leaders after much prayer. This was a sweet time that I looked forward to, and occasionally I stopped singing so I could hear all the beautiful women's voices lifting their voices to God. We were introduced to a new song, Never Once, which sings of the marvelous fact that we have had "scars and struggles on the way, but with joy our hearts can say...never once did we ever walk alone, never once did You leave us on our own".

The theme of the conference was "Faith Through the Seasons". Sharon Hawkins did a fantastic job of sharing her heart with us as she walked us through "Faith in the Unchanging One", "Faith for the Unexpected" and "Faith for the Unknown". God met us every time as we learned about Him - there were too many precious moments for me to list the things I learned from each session.

For each of the first three sessions, before Sharon spoke, we had a time of prayer at our tables that was sweet and truly brought us closer together. As well as this, there were three precious women who so bravely came forward with testimonies of how God has worked in their lives. Also, we had time together Thursday and Friday night to fellowship with each other in which current friendships were strengthened and new friendships made. Time was allowed in between Friday's two sessions to SHOP, rest or sight see (can you figure out what I did?!)

This morning, there was again a time of worship followed by a time to make an altar showing where God had met us in each of our lives. After this, there was a great Q&A session. A panel of four shared trials in their lives and answered questions about being Godly mothers, wives and women.

This weekend will be a time for me that I will always remember, a time of laughing, learning, sharing and praising God. I want to thank Sovereign Grace Church for doing this and for the women who put many hours and much prayer into this. I truly came away refreshed.

This is really more or less just an audio clip of us lifting our hearts and voices to God.


Family Feud was one of the just plain fun things we did

Playing Family Feud

Uh oh - a wrong answer!

Our Altar 

Belvedere Plantation

On Saturday Marcia, Steve, Nathaniel and I went to Belvedere Plantation and had a blast! Between riding on the hay ride, picking pumpkins, sliding down the slides (boy is the slide that goes under the hill hard on the backside!) and eating the kettle corn, it was great. The weather was fantastic, at least until the sun went down, brrr! Nathaniel and Marcia also did the Maize Maze and didn't get too terribly lost :-)

Nathaniel going down the slide and he and I racing down the smaller one

Hayride to pumpkin patch

Picking pumpkins

He made it to Japan!

This morning Nathaniel received an e-mail from Japan saying that Flat Stanley had made it there. Wow - it took almost a month! My friend, Amy and her family are hosting him there;she sent a picture of him with her two sweet girls, Madison and Zoe. You can see in the picture that Madison is holding him up.

Autumn Scavenger Hunt

Nathaniel and I went on an Autumn Scavenger Hunt this morning. It all started when I found a small bird's nest in our backyard and I remembered I had seen a pin on pinterest for the scavenger hunt (you can see the site for the scavenger hunt here: http://imaginationsoup.net/2010/10/autumn-fall-scavenger-hunt-for-kids/) . With the air feeling so "fall like" this morning, I thought it would be a perfect day for it.

I called our friends, the Whittemores who live in a great area for a scavenger hunt, in a wooded area by a pond. They said, sure, come on over, so we did (thanks Whittemores!)

We found all the items on the checklist!

Nathaniel showing the smooth and the rough tree bark

What a beautiful flower! This filled two things on our list: a flower and a beautiful thing.

Checking things off of his list

VA State Fair

Definitely a perk of homeschooling is that you can have a field trip day any day you want - so with me being off on Mondays, we decided to go today. God showed His sense of humor today or maybe He was just demonstrating to me that He is in control:  it has been threatening to rain today, so I prayed that God would hold off the rain for us. It didn't rain, except for a second or two when we got off the Doswell exit (the exit to go to the fair)...no other time except that. So, praise God, it didn't rain on us while we were at the fair, and it was nice and cool.

We all had a great time, eating, shopping and seeing the sights.

Enjoying a funnel cake. Yum!

...and he's off!

Having done two Flat Stanley's for my nieces when they were in 2nd grade, now that Nathaniel is in 2nd grade, we are having him do one. So, this morning, Flat Stanley was created in our house and he will be sent off to Japan (thanks Amy!) tomorrow morning.

Having fun staying home

What a good time we have had so far this weekend. This weekend, my goal was to not go anywhere (except church on Sunday) and so far, I have succeeded. I generally am a type of person who has to go somewhere every day, but this weekend, I just wanted to stay home and enjoy my family.

As I was playing with Nathaniel last night, I looked at him as only a mother can do and remembered how small he was when I first saw him (just a few weeks in utero) - how big he has gotten. And, how can someone choose to take life away from something so precious? To show you how small he was when I first saw him, I took a picture of one of my first ultrasound pictures:

In this picture, he is about 2 cm long. 

Nathaniel wanted me to put a picture of us on here as well, taken just a few minutes ago. He was so sweet - I was complaining about my double chin, how I didn't like it in pictures. For one of the pictures, he started to put his hand up by my face. I said "what are you doing?" - he said "blocking your double chin!" Out of the mouths of babes...

A Weekend in the Past

Our weekend spent in the past (meaning we went to Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown) actually started in the present, doing something I've been wanting to do for some time - visit Bass Pro Shops near Richmond. It was huge! All that I had heard about with the life size animals, live fish and restaurant, where we had a late lunch.

This is one of the bears we were greeted by

I love how Nathaniel is looking up in this one. It also gives you a sense for how big the store is.

Nathaniel doing his imitation of a bear

Steve target shooting with a gun that only shot lasers and made a very quiet noise.

Me doing the same.

Nathaniel plugging his ears, just in case it was loud.

After we had had our fill of food and all the outdoor things a girl could want, we traveled to our destination, checking in at the Historic Powhatan Resort. We were greeted by a very tame rabbit with a "cotton-tail", no less at our condo (later that weekend, Marcia and Nathaniel had a little too close run in with a skunk in the same area!)
As we were checking out the things the resort had to offer, we heard music so we went over to check it out - it was two men dressed in period clothes playing a drum and fife! In between songs, they would answer questions from the crowd. We found out among other things that they would rather play in the heat than the cold, that the drummer played other drums too and had a band. Also we found out about the meaning of some of the items on their clothing. (Sorry the video is sideways! I have got to learn to video the other way!)

The song they were playing in that video was an authentic song to that time period, but we know it as "He's a Jolly Good Fellow". After listening for a while, we checked out the putt-putt golf course where I am glad we didn't keep score!

Getting a lesson

Playing on his own.

Marcia arrived on Friday so we headed over to Jamestown Settlement. We were impressed by the set up of the settlement which illustrated how hard life was in 1607 and later on. Nathaniel liked the movies we saw and loved his VERY long pencil he got from the gift shop. I liked seeing everyone in period clothes and listening to their stories about Jamestown life. Friday night we had dinner at Shields Tavern, where we saw more people in period clothes and had some fantastic food.

In the house where the weapons were kept. Each man at Jamestown had to  participate in this function.

One of the beds. I showed Nathaniel that they were made of straw and not very comfortable at all!

Nathaniel on one of the boats

Replicas of the boats the Jamestown settlers came over on.

At Shields Tavern - the tables were only lit with candles!

Nathaniel and his VERY long pencil!

Saturday it rained. And rained. And rained. We were scheduled to take a trip on one of the Yorktown Schooners, but, as I said - it rained. So, we rescheduled for Sunday. We were, however, able to visit the gift shop in Yorktown. It did clear up enough Saturday night that we were able to check out the outdoor pools. Nathaniel had a blast!

The only picture I took at Yorktown on Saturday!

Sunday, we eventually made it to the Schooner, which was well worth waiting for and I would recommend anyone who goes to the Williamsburg triangle (as it is called) to try it. We ended up having to do the Pirate Tour (which was geared more towards kids) but loved it all - except for the last 5 minutes...when it rained so hard that by the time we got back to our cars, we looked as if we had gotten in the shower with clothes on! I  have to say that the crew of the Alliance did a fantastic job the whole time. We had a blast the whole weekend, even with the rain. It was a trip where many good memories were made. :-)

Our Schooner, the Alliance

Me helping to raise one of the sails - that was fun!

Insert beautiful music here. Girl looking over river with her hair blowing in the wind...

Resting from the very rocky ship.

Nathaniel taking his turn at driving the Schooner.

Steve learning how to tie a knot

Nathaniel learning how to tie a knot.