Harvest Festival

Here are some pictures from the Harvest Festival at our church. The kids had a blast on "hay mountain" and the inflatable slides. This one child, who I'm related to but will remain nameless, decided that her costume was cramping her style, so she took it off while in the bounce house. It was too funny.

A Man's Swing

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Trick or Treating

This year we had a "Bad Fireman," a pirate, and a penguin. They boys thoroughly enjoyed trick or treating. I can't remember a year where there were so many other kids running around from house to house. It was a lot of fun to see so many neighbors all out together. They both got more candy than they could dream of, so that should make for an interesting next few weeks.

They also had a blast handing out the candy to those who came to our house. Ben was kind but firm to anyone that tried to take more than they were allowed. He isn't afraid of big kids.


(Unfortunately we had a flash problem with the first picture - finger in front of the old flash.)

Family Bible Night - Haste Makes Waste

No, you won't find a verse that says haste makes waste, but you will find the principles of hard work, patience, and doing your best in the Bible. First I had them make a tower as tall and strong as they could in 30 seconds. They got frustrated real quick as I counted down, especially Ben. He practically begged for another chance so that he could do the tower like he invisioned. We looked at the final product and measured their height.

Then I gave them as much time as they needed. Both built larger towers and talked about how much less frustrating it was. We talked about how haste makes waste (and defined both haste and waste - Caleb thought I was talking about his mid-section!). They understood though as we talked about some examples of racing through deskwork at school or brushing our teeth at home.

Career Day - Caleb's School

Caleb's Kindergarten had a Career day where each child got to dress up however they wanted. Then they all lined up and went from room to room showing off their costumes in a parade. Caleb chose to be a fireman, but if you ask him he'll probably tell you he is an evil fireman. I guess that means he makes fires instead of putting them out. Pretty scary isn't he?

I thought it was interesting to see what the different costumes were. A friend from church who is a policeman was also there watching his son, and he was probably bursting inside with pride at all the kids dressed up like policemen. His son had the coolest swat team uniform on (I wish I had a picture). There were also lots of doctors too. One girl was dressed up as Hannah Montana, wig and all. I even saw one girl carrying around her baby and car seat, a future mom in training.

There were no kids dressed as CPA's though. Go figure.

Luke and Ben

Wing Suit

Keys to Living - Family Bible Night

This Family Bible Night was one of the best yet. I took a bunch of luggage locks and put them on a puzzle we had. Then they got to choose keys to try to unlock the puzzle locks. This took a long time for them to figure out what keys went with which locks. They had a great time though.

Then we talked about how the Bible contained truths that were the keys to living. We named as many of those keys as we could (like the 10 commandments).

Political Ads

In the spirit of the political season, Emily and I put together these spoofs for the Sunday school lesson on Sunday. We were covering 2 Samuel 1-4, and David and Saul's son Ish-bosheth are both jockeying for control of the kingdom after Saul's death. Hope you enjoy.

Guess Who?

We got this game for the boys and they love it. It's the super heroes edition, so it has required all four of us to learn what the names and stories of each of these marvel heroes is. I was surprised how well Ben understood the concept of the game and how to narrow down your choices.

Daddy's little boy

Luke sure is a sweet boy. He rarely cries, and saves his cries for when he truly needs something. He loves to be rocked and held while he sleeps. He's a great baby.

Motorbike Recovery

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New Lovie

Ben got his first lovie a few weeks ago. Emily picked it out. Apparently it's getting harder to find blankets with stuffed animal heads on them anymore. I guess we need to get about 4 more now in case Luke loses this one.

God's Creation - Family Bible Night

While at the beach we had Family Bible Morning, not night. The boys wake up at 6:30 regularly, and the vacation at the beach was no different. One morning I took them out to watch the sunrise. We watched it come up and talked about how God made it, the ocean, and all we could see. "The Heavens Declare the Glory of the Lord" was our theme. Unfortunately it was pretty chilly and we left the boys jackets back in Raleigh, so we just took turns wearing my hoody sweatshirt. It wasn't the prettiest sunrise because of the clouds on the horizon, but hopefully the boys will remember it.

Gameboy Parasite

One of the highlights for Caleb and Ben while at the beach is getting to play their cousin's gameboys (and Kathryn's gamegirl). When they aren't playing, they are hovering over someone who is.

Family Pictures

It's a tradition for us to have a family picture each year on our beach trip. Here is the gang from my side of the family as of 2008.

Traffic Stop Incident

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Ben and His Kite

This was one final installment of beach photos. Ben got to fly his cousin's airplane kite and thought he was such big stuff. He just walked around in the beach and carried that thing with him wherever he went.

Honesty - Family Bible Night

This Bible night focused on honesty. We each had two coins, and we could put one, two, or no coins in our hand. Then we told the person next to us a number. They decided if we were being honest about the number of coins we had in our hand, and if they were right they got the coins. Sometimes we all told the truth, and sometimes we lied.

Then we all discussed how it felt when we were lied to, and why it is important to be honest. We followed this up with a song the boys knew called "you must stop telling lies."

Patio Project

The final major project of 2008 is our new back patio. Our deck is pretty small, so this will give us some more outdoor living space. I was surprised by how easy it was to build, but also surprised by how much sand it took. 75 bags! That's approximately 3,500 pounds of sand. Needless to say my back was a little sore afterward.

We gave the boys some time to play in all the sand before we started covering it up. They loved having so much sand at their disposal. It was like a beach in their backyard.