Brain Usage Skyrockets!!

Yup, besides being sick for nearly two weeks this is what we have been doing.

And pulling colossal amounts of weeds...

 And the littles have been listening to recorded stories they received for Christmas and coloring pictures side by side.... (Aren't they cute??!!)

 And recently, now that the weather has turned nice, there has been lots of book reading in the tree house together! (They're not just smiling about the chocolate they smuggled up with them...truly, they both absolutely LOVE books, sweaters, and cool weather! Well,okay... and combined with chocolate it's a girls' paradise!!)

Food, Family, Friends, and a Yard Sale

A quick recap of the month of November.

Thanksgiving at Aunt and Uncle's:

Which of course includes football. Watching football, that is. ;)

 Yeah, you might just be a hick if you can't figure out how to use the whipped cream. :P

It was great to be able to spend our Thanksgiving meal with family after so many years. 

We said goodbye to two very special families. On direction from God, our church sent out the M family as missionaries for the Lord to a tiny town in Mexico. It was a bitter-sweet goodbye.

Pastor M sharing a little with the congregation about the people there in Mexico and what his family's goals in reaching out to them are.

 The father and three of his daughters singing a beautiful song together

Praying over them as we sent them off. We miss you, guys!!

The second hard goodbye was to our best friends from Oregon who visited down here for a month. We've known them for a very long time and highly enjoyed getting to hang out together again. So sad when their stay ended. :( 

Ever since we were really young our families and personalities have just clicked, and we've built many priceless memories together. 

 ...Including silly ones. :)

 We walked to the park so the guys could play basketball like in the old days, and everyone else had fun playing, taking pictures together in the cool lighting, and catching up after so many months. 

 The girlies. :)

And of course you've got to take pictures of your toes with the awesome lighting!! 

And of course, whenever these two are in the same vicinity (for more than two hours) a war always breaks out. Axis and Allies, a board game depicting the second world war between the world powers. Sadly, there wasn't the kind of time they needed to resolve their differences before we had to leave, but there's always another chance. :) :) :)

Can't wait to be with you goofy people again!!

We attended a super wonderful wedding of two longtime childhood friends!! Praise the Lord!

Yard Sale!!

 Wow! Hold your breath everybody, and pray!!! :P

And that was our November! Looking forward to what God brings our way during 2016!

Committee Stories-What's That?

I want to encourage y'all to do this crazy, random, fun, writing challenge which is the perfect thing to do on cold, indoor evenings. Grab a couple siblings (they can be really young or really old-they only need to be able to put words on paper) and a piece of lined paper and pencil for each. Then sit in a circle and start a timer for, say, 2 minutes. Everyone writes a few lines to a paragraph of the beginning of a story. Try to leave a bit of suspense or mystery at the end of your section when the timer goes off. If you’re in the middle of a sentence go ahead and finish, and yes, semicolons are legal. ; ) Then everyone around the circle- pass your paper to the person to your right, wait a few seconds for everyone to read the section, and then start the timer, and WRITE! Do this until everyone has their own story starter again and the story has come to some sort of conclusion. Read the whole story in front of you and give it a name. Make the stories as weird and funny as you want and have fun! 

This is one of our favorites--

   

Shane’s Adventure

(Emma) Vroom, vroom! A black car sped down an alley and disappeared behind a corner; a red truck raced after it. It turned the corner and stopped. A man got out and saw, to his astonishment, a row of men dressed in black holding guns.

(Anna) He clenched the truck door handle and took a quick step backward, his eyes quickly taking in the scene. “Shane Matthews,” an accusing voice spoke, and he saw a dark figure step from the black car still smoking behind the blockade of agents. “Why are you following us? We are nothing of your concern, little cowboy. And yet you persist on making a scene,” he growled.

(Perry) “Well," Shane drawled, still grasping the truck door handle, “as long as you are real agents, I don’t have to worry about a thing. But I happen to have a hunch that you’re not real agents.” He grasped the door handle more tightly. “And,” he added, “that you’re not real people either.” He pressed a hidden button on the door handle and light short from the front of his truck.

(Kate) The “agents” disappeared completely, and Shane sighed. “I wish they’d stop sending holograms to try to scare me. What I need is some real action.” An impossibly deep voice spoke from above, “You have you’re wish.” He tipped his head back to see out from under his hat and saw a gigantic black helicopter. His heart stopped, and he tried the button again. It didn’t work.

(Pearl) Dozens of black birds came swirling out of the hatch in the bottom of the helicopter. Shane took action right away. He threw a rope into the sky and fortunately it hooked to a sky hook. Then he climbed and climbed. The birds did their best to knock him down, but he had his hand gun ready. “Help!” he heard a soft but scared voice plead. Shane reached the helicopter and pulled himself inside. The birds were about to attack the earth bellow, but then Shane saw a button that said “destruct all fighting units”. Shane pressed it and instantly the birds floated into a passing mist. Then Shane saw a bad guy in the driver’s seat. Beside him was sitting a beautiful girl all tied up in ropes. He knocked the man out and shoved him out the window. Then he flew the helicopter down to a little chapel in Pennsylvania where he and his fiancé wanted to get married.

The End

Life: a post by Aimee

So my life is pretty much over. I lived a good long life, had a son and a
daughter, a little red car (I was always speeding) a nice house, and now
I'm sitting around with my fellow Lifers enjoying my retirement at
Countryside Acres. At the end of my career I  had a large list of
accomplishments such as winning a Nobel Peace prize, saving an endangered
species, and inventing a better mouse trap. I know, the world really really
needed a better mouse trap. You're welcome. Well, I asked my siblings to
expound upon the accomplishments and tell exactly what I did so here they
are. Be amazed. I invented Doritos flavored ice cream. I designed a
complicated mousetrap I can't describe that uses the mouse's psychology
against him. I cured the common cold by having creepy Miss Frizzle from the
Magic School Bus go inside my body and find the cure. I saved the
endangered Purple Ant Eaters by inviting them over to my house to clean up
my ant infestation. Free lunch for a week. Created a new teaching method
where the student smacks his head on the back of his chair while saying
math facts. Pounds the information in, I guess. And the biggie...won the
Nobel Peace prize by paying Paul (he became President in the game, way
outdid me) a fortune to get everyone to give up their guns while he was in
office. Sounds pretty useless. Verses from Ecclesiastes come to mind. Can
they make a Christian version of this game?! Evangelism would be more
awesome. -Aimee