With creative sons, I don’t always ask too much when I see them in costume. I just pray that they honor God in their art, and look forward to their YouTube releases.
Month: November 2018
A WHAT?
After doing some face painting at church last night, the girls were eager to do more of it at home today. Johanna created this animal on Katriel. Katriel directed her to make her into a “yellow and blue dot creature I call pepperoni” and ended up less than enthused by the results.
“I look like a drooling doofus.”
Ingathering 2018
Our church celebrated Ingathering this year. It is an annual celebration of an offering collected to bless a ministry selected by our missions team based on the Lord’s leading. This year our church purposed to educate the congregation on the work being done by Kindle Orphan Outreach in Malawi, Africa. When this organization learned of our desire to come along them financially, they itemized a very specific outline of every piece they needed to establish a new section of their ministry geared toward vocational training for young people. They determined it would take about $14,000 to get it both off the ground and running and to provide operating costs for the first three years. Our pastor “challenged” us to blow them away and come up with $20,000. Our collective donations came in at just under $25,000. This is SO exciting!
We had a bit of a “carnival” atmosphere with face painting and crafts and trying Malawian food. Then we enjoyed worship in the sanctuary.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
It’s all God, you know.
I post here on this blog long after blogging was cool. I love that a handful of you friends read here, but I mostly post as a record of our lives. I already catch the kids glancing through from time to time, and I hope it remains a viable source of family history as the years go by.
Last night, around 5:15 P.M. Stewart came in the living room to tell me the car had lost electrical power a few miles from home like it had done two other times since we had owned it. Though we know it is a relatively inexpensive fix, it was literally the straw that broke my back where “Skrt Skrt” was concerned.
At 6AM today, I was online and by 11:30AM we were test driving a car in Orleans County.
It was all God. This car has about 11,000 miles on it for $11,000, and it is a 2016 still under warranty until April. I ended up leaving John out there at 2PM so I could get home, change, and get to work by 3:30PM. I was late, but had called ahead to warn them. John did not get home until 6:00 PM, but when he did, he had a new Butler Family Commuter’s Car for the family.
It represents some humility on our part. We’ve been blessed to live debt free for many, many, many years (save the mortgage) and getting even this small loan hurts just a little. But we have been easily paying a hundred or more dollars a month on repairs for the little red one, so it makes more sense to have something younger and less worn out.
I hope the kids remember how God made this sweet little car possible for us, and I pray that it gets more than a few kids through their early college years at local schools.
Winter found us
Winter found us. It is a little bit early, IMO…
There was a lot of snow. John got Stewart cleared out enough for him to get to work, and then John worked at it about an hour longer before he left for work.
What keeps me from lamenting too strenuously, however, is that Camp Fire is ravaging Northern California. Snow seems docile in comparison to the beast that is consuming that area. I stayed properly chastened, and just made more coffee.
Though our schooling is lighter on Friday, the days themselves get sort of wild. It was late in the afternoon before the kids finally had a chance to get outside.
We are woefully lacking in proper snow gear, but we pieced together enough to get the four girls outside for a while.
Marie and Johanna made this pair.
I actually like them.
We got the second of our two trees up. The trees look a little sketchy this year. But it fits. I feel discombobulated these days.
Katriel committed
Katriel was bored. Like REALLY bored.
I suggested she find three books and read them, and I would reward her with three chocolate chips.
She found fifteen books.
She worked so hard on reading them.
She read them for almost two hours, taking a short dinner break.
I was so blessed.
Family photos JCP 2018
Once upon a time, I always had our family photos taken in January. Then last year I decided to wait until the summer so we wouldn’t be so January-pasty…
So we went in September.
I expected we’d do it in the summer again this year.
And I never made time….
So – here we are in November – and I was determined to fit in the photos. Wasn’t it great that I picked the busiest weekend possible to squeeze it in?
They were running an hour late…. we hung in there knowing if we left we’d never go back.
We looked at Christmas things, and toys, and Johanna played registration clerk with this one dad who was also waiting. She was a hoot.
Finally, we had the photos taken, and they were really good.
I do regret that I didn’t have them take a separate photo of each kid, but I decided not to lament it for too long…
I love the color combo we did.
Scarlet Knights Banquet
I asked Marie to take some photos.
Hmmmm.
At some point I got the phone back, but honestly, I wasn’t much more successful at trying to capture the evening via pictures.
What do I want to remember?
Tabitha was excited all day long.
Katriel cried that her friend Asher didn’t get there at the dot of 6:30, then she was far more excited to play with him than watch the proceedings.
Stewart did the AV booth.
Marie was voted most Christ-Like by her teammates.
Nigel was bored, but a good sport.
Johanna was astonished that “Dr. V” (from VBS) was there. She excitedly told Dr. V. how she had been praying for her.
The girls got photos, and trophies, and new beanie hats.
And they got one last party with their awesome team mates.
Dayspring Disciples 