This sweet boy...

asked Jesus into his heart last night!  We are absolutely thrilled.

 

It came on the tail end of a devotion we had been doing with the kids which is pictured below.

It was a series of 7 devotions for Christmas with a box to open each time that had a character in it about the story of Jesus' birth.  It kept building up to the 7th day.  Each day's devotion kept referring to what you would find in the 7th box that you could offer to God.  In the 7th box was a mirror signifying that the best gift of Christmas you could give to God would be your heart.  It was a natural lead in to talk to Ezra about making the decision to accept God's offer of salvation and give his heart to Jesus.  He prayed with Tim and I on the couch.  It was a very special moment. 

Ladies Christmas Tea at church

Our church has a wonderful event every Christmas for women.  Its just a fancy dinner and program.  Each table has a hostess who decorates the table with beautiful things and china, fancy silverware, and gifts for everyone.  Its nice to feel pampered for a night!  There are a group of men who dress up in white shirts and bow ties and act as servers.  I don't often get to do "girl" things so this was a treat for me.  I invited my friend Kelema to go with me.  She made me laugh as I picked her up.  Language barriers prevented me from being able to describe the event ahead of time and what dress was appropriate.  I know Kelema loves to dress up and she has some beautiful African dresses she wears to church.  When I got to her apartment she had on jeans and a casual shirt but through a conversation with one of her kids I was able to suggest she put on one of her "fancy" dresses.  She just giggled about that and seemed worried that we had enough time for her to change.  It was so cute to see her get giggly and silly.  She looked beautiful in the dress she chose and I think it was a special night for her too.

 

Confused Seasons

I've been meaning to post these pics for a few weeks. The leaves take forever to come down in our neighborhood. We finally got the big raking and cleaning up done Thanksgiving weekend. Even still there were trees that still had their leaves.  The 2nd picture is my daffodils and crocus bulbs start to come up.  I think they started to come up early last fall/winter too and then they just "stalled" until February and then came out fully.  Hopefully that will happen this year too.  It just is a still a bit strange to me that we could be trying to rake leaves with spring bulbs appearing. Just another example of how I always describe Seattle weather - from spring to fall to spring to fall...

 

 

Happenings

I haven't posted in a while...I think its because I don't feel like there is that much to report that is exciting.  We finished soccer and are now in a bit of a lull for activities, which is nice.  When it isn't raining hard we have been playing in the backyard still.  Ezra loves to climb this tree and shake it and make a "leaf shower".  Our hummingbirds are coming back to our feeder now that a frost killed off a lot of flowers. 

 

We did trick or treat.  It was a fun year for it.  Ezra was not shy and could keep up with the older kids better.  They really went for it!  We went to some friends' neighborhood and went around with them, so it was a pretty good sized group. 

 

This is a picture of the part of the door to our van that locks the door closed.  Christian thought it would be interesting to put a dry erase marker in it and we had to take the piece off the van in order to get it out.  It fit quite snugly.  Needless to say the marker did not survive the experience.

 

A recent trip to the reptile zoo. 

 

This cutie has been asking for his hair to be put in a mohawk recently...

 

This is a HILARIOUS book Austin brought home a recommendation for from school.  We got it from the library and I read it too.  And laughed my head off.  It is all about a family of 6 boys and their experiences growing up.  A must-read for any mother of boys!  Its by Jon Scieszka.

Pumpkin carving

Sounders practice

Tim entered and won a drawing to attend a Sounders practice and meet some players afterwards.  It was a pretty awesome deal.  It even worked out that the practice was on his day off last week.  Otherwise I guess I would have been the one to go and I would definately not have appreciated the opportunity to the degree Tim did!  He got to take Ezra since it was a school day.

Our new goalie, Michael Gspurning.  The only disappointment of the day was that they didn't get to meet Ezra Hendrickson, an assistant coach (who we are a fan of because of his name!)

One of the publicity people took these pictures but I can't get them to expand and not be blurry.

Puyallup Fair 2012

We got to enjoy a beautiful day at the fair this year (mid-September).  We discovered some new things we hadn't done before and got to go back to some of our favorite activities too. One of my favorite things at the fair is the mutton bustin'.  We thought Christian was too old for it, but found out that he and Ezra both could participate.  Austin was wishing he could do it too but he was a good sport about supporting his brothers. 

 If you don't know, mutton bustin' is a kid version of a rodeo where the kids are trying to stay on a sheep for 6 seconds as it runs across the arena. 

When it was Ezra's turn he did get on the sheep and was holding with his arms around the sheep in the right place but he did not have a good hold on the wool so the workers lifted him right off as soon as he took off to prevent a big crash. 

This is the beginning (below) of Christian's ride.  He stayed on almost the whole 6 seconds and made it almost the whole way across the arena.  For at least half his ride he was hanging on sideways on the sheep!

Christian won 2nd place and a nice medal as an award.

Fun on the rides...

There was a new rainforest exhibit that was surprisingly cool.  Lots of really neat decorations and animals.

Anyone that wanted to try could hold this scorpion.  Not me!!  It is alive but apparently not venomous.

First day of school 2012

1st day in the 1st grade...

 New 4th grader

At the bus stop (we love to throw the football around while we wait for the bus and now Christian gets to join!)

  It was a pretty smooth start to the school year.  Christian was super excited the first day and was way ahead of the schedule/time table we set up for getting ready and out the door in the morning.  He didn't want me to take him to school.  He wanted to ride the bus and have Austin take him to his class.  Very sweet.  Austin seems to like his class and his teacher but the thought of all that school work ahead gets him down a little.  I think this year will be a challenge for Ezra.  We will have to plan some more fun activities.  He is a little lost without his brothers, especially now that Christian is in full day school.  We are looking into preschools again.  I had tried to get him in the one Christian went to 2 years ago but they have changed their program to  5 days a week so I am now belatedly looking into a backup plan.  In the meantime, we are doing some Spanish lessons at home and some other preschool type activities that have been fun.  He loves games too.  Its all an adjustment, as I went back to work this week too.  The 2nd day of school we all came home tired and grumpy.  I look forward to the days when the adjustment period is behind us.  I am also looking forward to being able to volunteer at school a little and to get to know the teachers and other students better and watching these boys grow and learn this year!

Austin's 10th birthday trip

3 years ago as we were driving around our area we started seeing this cool Amtrak train drive by every so often.  It was called the "Cascades Amtrak" and the kids asked if they could ride it. I told them I would take them on the train when they turned 10.  Austin just hit that milestone so we decided to go for it!  We rode the train from our area to Portland.  Super fun adventure!  What a blessing to get to go with just Austin and I.  We had a great time together.

After arriving in Portland, we found the light rail station and only had to ride for 10 minutes to the stop for our hotel.  Everything was downtown and close together.  One of Austin's favorite things to do on vacation is swim so we did a lot of that.  He was trying to dive the way the Olympic divers did with no splash.

 This first picture is not his best entry...

 This next one is much better...

There was a Red Robin right across the street so we had dinner there.  What a great find that was.  I had no plan for dinner so it was nice to not have to search for a good place.

The next day we went back by light rail to the zoo.  It was surprisingly easy to use the public transportation and fun.  Portland's system is very well laid out and easy to figure out.

This was the first time I was able to see ALL the animals in one trip to the zoo.  It was so easy and quick to get around with no stroller and just one kid!  Our feet were tired from all the walking though so we rode the zoo train...

We had never been to this zoo and it was amazing.  Definately worth visiting.  This is a pic from the lorikeet exhibit where you can buy a cup of nectar and the birds will come and sit on you to drink it.  Austin also really enjoyed the fact that we bought food at the zoo (we usually never do that) and bought snacks/dinner on the Amtrak on the way home.  It was fun to splurge a little!

Beautiful train station in Portland.  This trip was such a blessing.  A wonderful opportunity to celebrate and spend time with this special boy.