Beautiful person.

Let me share with you the wonderful idea that was shared with me by one of our Youth Ministers.  It is a book of bible verses that you personalize yourself for your family.  (You write them by hand and decorate the book, etc.)

I will not bore you with the details of the story of going to Target to buy books to do this projects only to leave Target because the customer service agent was MEAN to me and made me feel somewhat like a criminal.  

I wrote a note to my Faith and Friendship group (where we started this whole project), asking for prayers because my bad feelings about the Target episode left me unable to make this wonderful Bible book.  (I think I may have said something like "the devil must have been at Target")  I wondered and wondered what I was supposed to learn from the bad experience.

My friend and co-religious ed teacher (A.P) wrote back right away and said.  "this can't be - tell me when you can get together - we are making you this book"

Well today at Faith and Friendship, A.P. showed up with this special Bible book-making kit that made for me.  I couldn't even believe the wonders it contained.  Well my friends...the book has been started and will be a life long treasure for my family.  Thanks A.P.

I can tell you what I learned from my bad Target experience.  God can take even a bad experience and make something wonderful come from it.  The beautiful people in our life are from God and are stronger than anything else that comes our way!

Please leave in the comment section your favorite Bible verse so that I can include it in my book.

Ice cave

Have I mentioned it has been a cold, snowy winter?  Yes COLD and SNOWY.

This year the snow from our cul de sac has been piled in front of our house.  The kids took advantage of this and the fact that this weekend was less cold than the last month and made a snow cave.  (ok - tunnel is the more accurate word)  

Matthew hadn't "played in the snow" in years, so that was a photo worthy event.  They made the first cave yesterday (Anna trying very hard but not getting very far until Matthew showed up).  Then today Carolyn and Joel joined the fun and they made additional caves/tunnels.  Carolyn didn't last long, but she was willing to go back outside to take these photos.

Doll-quilts

Remember some of these cutie blocks? You can look at links HERE and HERE They are from the quilt of the month club that I participated in long ago (October 2010).

They have become doll-sized blankets.  The blanket with the flowers has been adopted by Anna.  It was meant to go with one of the others to the daughters of our youth ministers.  Their mother is in the hospital waiting for the birth of their brothers.  Anna loved it so much she asked (and asked) me to make her some flowers.  I decided that if she loved it that much, the girl who didn't get the flowers might be jealous.  (I also have no idea how to make the flowers - they are 3D.).  Therefore I made a third and am letting Anna keep the flower blanket.

Carolyn helped me get the dolly-blankets ready for their new owners.  We also have made bigger blankets for the brother who will be born in March.  I will post them after I bind them!

I think I am going to make a small quilt with the remaining blocks...after I finish some other projects.  I must say that dolly-quilts are fun to make.....esp. since someone else made the original blocks!

Joy

I just looked at saw that my word of 2012 was Thrive.....oopps I must have skipped 2013....

We had a long discussion at Faith and Friendship about the difference between Happiness and Joy.  My word for 2014 will be joy!

Christmas vacation FAMILY FUN and FRIENDS

We had a really nice Christmas.  We went to Burlington on Monday (delayed a day due to the weather).

 We got to see about 1/2 of my family!  We played a game called "heads up" and it was a laugh fest.

This is me with my God-children 

 We came back home Christmas Eve and Carolyn sang in the choir.  Christmas Day was lovely and quiet.  The kids got the game Life, which we played with the kids in their PJs. They also got Risk, which Ken played with them the next day.  That game isn't my cup of tea!

I worked on Friday and Ken stayed with the kids.  Saturday morning we finished cleaning the basement because we were expecting company on Monday and Tuesday.  Around 11 we drove to Kansas City.  We met my sister and brother in law for church and they took us out for ice cream.  They gave the kids $10 each to get a special treat at Lego-land.

 Just yesterday Anna said, "I need a picture of Aunt Mary and Uncle Gary" after looking at her album that contains mostly baby pictures.  (in my defense there are other scrap-booked pages that are just not in her album as they would be out of order!)  This picture gets us 1/2 way there!

We rarely have a family shot!  Mary took this one.

We went back to the hotel and the kids went swimming.  The next morning we had a great breakfast at the Embassy suites and headed off to Lego-land.  We were a little early, so we went to Crown Center to look around.

Lego land was great.  We actually ran into one of the interpreters and a surgeon from Blank Children's hospital.  It is really a small world.

We then went to my sister's for dinner and they gave the kids their Christmas gift, which was more money to buy a treat for our next day in Kansas City.  What a fun idea!

We were able to see my sister's girls too, with was nice because we hadn't seen them at Christmas.

Mary is Matthew's Godmother

The next morning we went to the Federal reserve museum (free) and then to the aquarium.  The free museum was pretty cool, but the aquarium was a bit disappointing- but we had pretty low expectations.  We then went to a cool restaurant where they deliver your food by train and headed home.  

We quickly finished cleaning and about  2 hours later we hosted our service fraternity (from college) friends for dinner (one family was visiting from Florida).

I worked the next day and Ken stayed with the kids and got ready for our next party.  Ken's best friend was visiting from South Carolina and another family that Ken has known since kindergarten (and college) joined us.  The family from South Carolina stayed the night and the next day we went to the other friend's home to watch the Outback bowl.

The next day (Thursday) was our anniversary and celebrated by going to the Waterfront restaurant on Friday.  During that day the kids had their friends over and it was a mad house,

Now back to "normal" life.  I much preferred all the celebration and seeing friends and family!

Sorry to be so wordy- once I started I couldn't stop.

Betsy

This and That

This weekend we had our annual Diocesan Youth Rallies.  Here is Carolyn (on the left) at the middle school event that I was able to attend.  (I took the picture.)  Wasn't it nice that the Pope could attend?  Ok - not really - but what a great picture!  The Bishop did say Mass and Carolyn was an Alter Server.  Matthew attended the next day with the older kids.  Our Youth Ministry team is amazing.

 So I am back on the "eat healthy wagon".  I had rolled under the wheels for over a month.  Here is Joel helping me make hummus!  Thankful for such good helpers and good eaters.

 Just had to document this picture somewhere.  These are 3 of my kids golfing in my parents living room.  (My brother sent this golf kit to my Dad after his hip surgery.)  It just makes me laugh because the older grand kids weren't really allowed to play in the living room and now kids can golf there - ha ha!!  I said several times, "are you sure you want them to do this in the living room?".  I guess you worry less about your living room when you are 80!

 Anna lost her first tooth.  It really deserves an entry of its own, but alas here she is.  It has been a very exciting couple of weeks with a wiggly tooth.  In the end I pulled it out because it was getting stuck in an "owie" position.  She was happy to have me do it.  She wants me to pull out the other wiggly one, but we are giving it some time.  She plans to write a note to request to keep tooth 2.