Leading up to Christmas

As many of you already know, the end of November brought quite a surprise.  I got a call from my Dad one Saturday morning saying that Mom had fallen off of a ladder while watering plants on a high plant shelf inside their house.  I knew that it was serious when they told me that she was being taken by ambulance to the hospital for x-rays.  My parents don't EVER call 9-1-1.  They had. 

 

Mom spent a week in the hospital and at a rehab center trying to get her pain under control and learning how to get in and out of bed, get to the restroom, etc.  She had broken her pelvis in four places. (OUCH!)  It was hard to watch her go through so much pain and I know that it was difficult for her to learn to depend on so many people to help her with basic needs and chores.  Our church family was such a blessing as they provided medical equipment for her when she came home, brought meals, cleaned house, and prayed, prayed, prayed!

 

Mom was able to attend the luncheon at the end of our Bible study series for the fall semester.  It was wonderful to have here there!  She is such a blessing to so many people and her testimony even during this trial was an example of complete trust in a sovereign and loving God.

 

During the same time that we were running back and forth to the hospital, we were also having new carpet installed in our own home.  That meant that EVERYTHING had to be moved out of the bedrooms and living room.  EVERYTHING.  Thankfully, Marc had the week off for Thanksgiving break, so he took care of everything for me.  (Oh yeah - Mom spent Thanksgiving in the rehab hospital.  Yuck.)  When we moved our furniture back into the house we also switched rooms with the girls.  They now share the big master bedroom and we have one of the smaller rooms.  We all love the new arrangement.

Also leading up to Christmas, we had our first big snowfall.  The temps dropped below 0 for a couple of days and Marc still rode his bike to work!  He makes such sacrifices for our family.

Although we missed Susie's annual cookie day, we still had our traditional peppermint bark  mess party at home.

The girls (minus Valerie) participated in our church's Christmas program as beautiful angels.  Valerie was more of a fallen angel who refused to get up on stage this year because (in her words) she is "too embarrassing."  True dat.

 

Valerie was more than happy to participate in our homeschool Christmas party, though.  All of the kids made cards and brought goodies to share with some of the elderly people from our church.  After lunch, we delivered the goodie bags and sang some carols.

 

We even made a stop at Grandpa and Grandma Obenchain's house!

Our family Christmas celebration was held at Mom and Dad's house a little early in December.  Mom got a good home-cooked turkey meal to make up for the Thanksgiving feast that she had missed in November.  We all just exchange stocking gifts this time because the REAL Christmas gift was yet to come ....

Fall Fun

I keep hoping that one of these days I'll be caught up on everything and have time to sit down and blog about life again...but it's just not happening.  So - here's another photo recap of the last several weeks...pumpkin patch and petting zoo, carving jack-o-lanterns, and our family Halloween party.  We decided to try a new tradition on Halloween.  Rather than going out for trick-or-treating, we bought the girls plenty of their favorite candy, rented some movies and set up a grand slumber party in the living room.  Valerie has been terrified of anything related to witches, goblins, skeletons, monsters, etc. lately so this was the way to go.  Pumpkins and spiders!  The girls dressed in simple costumes and enjoyed handing out candy to people who came to our door.

Just some pictures.... (for the Grandmas!)

It has been WAY TOO LONG since I have been here on the blog to post anything.  My apologies to the "far away" grandmas who rely on this means of keeping up with our family.  Here are some snapshots of the last couple of months.  I fully intend to get back into a more regular posting schedule ... one of these {crazy} days!

We thoroughly enjoyed our season passes to the local water park again this summer.  All three girls are little fish!

We were able to watch this cute little guy for a few days in August.  The girls liked the idea of having a little brother ... but I liked sleeping through the night after he went back to his own mama. :)

We watched the hot air balloons lift off from Ann Morrison Park again this year - it NEVER gets old!

Eating corn on the cob has proved very difficult this summer.  I think that between Sierr and Ally there have been about 10 teeth lost in the last 3 months or so.  No joke.

Oh, yeah!  We started school again a couple of weeks ago.  I am just now starting to get back into the swing of things with lesson plans, photocopies, grading, etc.  Piano lessons and AWANA have also started back up.  Our weeks are getting full!

** Uhg!  These are so out of sequence - but I'm too lazy to fix all that right now. **

We had a very fun visit from the Cooks and Clarks as they drove their way accross the USA visiting their supporting churches and friends.

The girls got to wear their western duds for the Owyhee County Rodeo again this year.

AND - here's Valerie challenging Grandpa to a game of box hockey up at the cabin.  Isn't "The Snuggery" in the background a cute little place to get away?  Dad converted his old tool shed into a great little bunk house.

That's it for now!  Ta-da.

Marc's Second Sermon

Marc was asked to preach again while Dad was away this month for his doctoral program classes in California.  This time it was a morning service with a much larger audience.  If you know Marc, you know that this is WAY out of his comfort zone.  He worked like crazy to understand and apply the passage of Scripture that he had chosen from Ephesians chapter one.  He did an amazing job!  It is so neat to see God use him to speak truth to other people.  If you are interested in listening to the full message, you can find it here:  http://mfbcsermons.weebly.com/morning-sermons.html

The Vault of Spiritual Blessings

Ephesians 1:3-14

1.  In Christ, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing...

2.  In Christ, we are chosen...

3.  In Christ, we will be made holy and blameless...

4.  In Christ, we are predestined in love...

5.  In Christ, we are adopted as sons...

6.  In Christ, we are redeemed...

7.  In Christ, we are forgiven...

8.  In Christ, the mystery of God's will is given to us...

9.  In Christ, all things are unified...

10.  In Christ, we have obtained an inheritance..

11.  In Christ, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit...

12.  In Christ, we are given a pledge...

...ALL TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY!

      "We may have as much of God as we will.  Christ puts the key of the treasure chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want.  If a man is admitted into the vault of a bank and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor.”  

                                                                                                   ~ Alexander MacLaren

2+2=12

10 years ago there were just two couples who enjoyed spending time together.  Now there are TWELVE people who enjoy spending time together!  (Actually, 13 if you want to be completely accurate.**)

The Stimac family drove up from California to spend a week with us in Idaho again this summer.  We spent a couple of days at the cabin doing this:

And then we came back down to the valley to do this:

(I got a kick out of this sign up at the snack bar at Barber Park.)

Besides playing in the rivers we also visited Bounce, the Discovery Center, Powell's Sweet Shoppe, Settler's Park, watched Despicable Me 2, played games, etc.  It was a fantastic way to spend a week with friends.  Thanks for making the long trip guys!  We'll see you next summer.

(** NO!  I am not pregnant!  It's Janella that's expecting baby #6 in December.  Gotcha.)