A Fun Christmas "Tree-dition"

One of our favorite family traditions is letting the kids decorate their own Christmas tree.  They have lots of fun hanging their crafts and special ornaments wherever they like.  On Friday, November 25th, exactly one month before Christmas, we spent the evening listening to Christmas music and watching the kids decorate their tree.  Here is the tree before:

Jonathan's favorite holiday is Christmas and he is so good at putting up the trees...ornaments and all!  He always wears his Santa hat as he's decorating.

Our *5* blessings!

The finished "Kid" Tree:

Our early Christmas present, Miss Josey Hope:

She is definitely loved by all!

What are some of your favorite Christmas Traditions?

And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.

Leviticus 23:40

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Josey celebrated her first Thanksgiving at 9 days old!

This cute, little outfit belongs to baby Ezra who is now one year old.  He and Josey share birthdays!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Jonathan's Grandparents' home.

Gramps fed Josey her Thanksgiving meal.

Our 4 older ones ate at the kids' table.

I am so thankful for my family! 

Hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving!

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.
1 Chronicles 29:11-13

We're On a Mission!

Our church, FBC Powell, chose to do Vacation Bible School differently this year.  Instead of holding a church-wide VBS on campus, we chose to do VBS in the form of Backyard Bible Clubs.  These clubs would be held in various neighborhoods or communities.  The name of our VBS is “Mission 19”, which is a 3-day club that focuses on Creation, Revelation, and Salvation using Psalm 19 as the framework.  I chose to lead a team at Gamble Mobile Home Park this year from June 27-29.  Our team was made up of our family, the Hodson family, and Debbie Jones.  We had the best time and God was definitely at work that week!  He blessed us so much through this VBS.  Our first night we had 4 children from Gamble, and the 2nd night 3 more came! 

Here are pictures from our club:

Brent designed our T-shirts!:

 Sweet girls:

 Joshua from Gamble:

 Kayla from Gamble and our Katybug:

 Jonathan had a blast doing games with the kids:

 Amber from Gamble praising God during worship time.  We taught the kids hand motions to "God of Wonders.":

 We planted seeds during craft time:

 Debbie did the lessons each night.  She was a huge blessing to all of us!:

This water game was a favorite!:

The kids made treasure boxes to hold their greatest treasure...their Bible!: 

 Edan and Parker did so well at the club.  They joined right in like big boys!:

 During Investigate time, the kids played "Get to Know You" Bingo:

Our last night we invited the families to join us for pizza at 7:30.  We were so happy that they all came early at 6:30 with their children to do the entire VBS with them!  To God be the Glory!!!
Jonathan led the Investigate time in which the kids put together a "Ten Commandments" puzzle:

We had a total of 26 our last night and Debbie did a wonderful job teaching them all about Salvation!:

 Game time!:

 Pizza Party!:

 We ended with a water balloon toss and ice cream!

We all agreed that we enjoyed this type of VBS so much more!  We were able to really get to know each of the kids that week and were sad that it had to come to an end.  We are definitely looking forward to doing it again next year. 

The instruction of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise.
Psalm 19:7