Bethany made a thank you Smilebox to send to the friends who came to her birthday party on the 11th and I'm posting it here. We did something a little different this year. In the past, and for Anna and Katherine's party this year, we have asked for food shelf donations in lieu of gifts. The girls always want to invite lots of little friends to their parties and I'm all for that. I'm just not interested in THAT many new toys entering our house. We have enough stuff already. So, I told the girls that they can have a small party and invite just a few friends who can bring them gifts, or they can have a huge party and their friends will bring something for someone else, i.e. a food shelf donation. A friend from church put me onto the website CheerfulGivers.org. You can read the founder's story here: http://www.cheerfulgivers.org/about/founders-story/. (For some reason my links aren't going live so maybe you can copy this into your browser if you are interested...) They encourage school groups, businesses and families to host Birthday Bag parties where everyone attending the party brings items to put into birthday bags to be delivered to the local food shelf. Then, instead of parents searching frantically for a certain box of food to give their child on their birthday, they can choose one of the birthday bags. I was hooked on the idea instantly and Bethany got really excited about it, too. We had 19 kids at the party (including my four) and together they brought enough stuff to fill 24 bags! The White Bear Food Shelf was thrilled and so were the kids. It was a really fun and rewarding experience for everyone. Plus, we had coconut bowling and hula dancing - who can ask for more?

This picture slideshow customized with Smilebox

Hey friends! Here I am again (almost two months since the last post...oh well). I'm trying something new today. I enjoy making Smileboxes because it's a fast and fun way to get pictures out to friends when I don't have time to arrange them on my blog. So, I thought I would try posting a Smilebox on my blog to see if it works and if everyone can access it. I think it's working but would love some feedback if anyone gets a chance. Now to explain this Smilebox... At Thanksgiving, we had the pleasure of having Mary and Zion Willitts, four-year-old twins of Joel and Karla Willitts - dear friends from our time in England who now live in Chicago - at our house. Karla is a flight attendant and had to fly on Thanksgiving Day. The hope was that Joel could accompany her on her two-day trip and they could get a mini-vacation together. (In the end, Joel, flying stand-by, missed getting on the flight by ONE seat. They didn't get the time off together but had some nice, restful time on their own which was very timely.) Anyway, some friends of theirs in Chicago were driving to MN for the holiday anyway and were willing to bring M and Z to our house! So, six kids under the age of eight ran crazy in our house for about 48 hours and had a blast! We were so sad to see them head back to Chi-Town that Saturday morning and can't wait to do it again...

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I'm baaa-aack...(or am I really?)

Well, it's been forever since I updated this silly blog of mine and I finally succumbed to the internal pressure I was putting on myself and decided to AT LEAST update the pictures on the main page! Truly, I would love to start blogging again but am just not sure if I'll have the time or energy to do it. Just bein' honest here. But I'll give it the ole' college try and see what happens. In the meantime, enjoy what you can from the few new pictures I added!

What motivated me, really, was the super fun day the kids and I spent with Joel's parents, aka Bill and Lynna, aka Grandma and Granddad. Joel left for Ukraine on Thursday for a missions trip with some folks from church and Bill and Lynna accepted my invitation to come rescue my lonely self for a few days. They came mainly to celebrate Anna and Katherine's 6th - yes, I said 6th - birthday which is on Monday. Shortly after they arrived today, they were treated to a fun little play involving, if I remember right, a narrator (B), a dancer named Emily (A), a mouse named Squeaky (K) and a skirt-wearing cat named Furry (M). It was quite the hit and Hollywood has been calling all evening, as if we need more chaos in our lives....

After the applause died down, we saddled up and went out to Country Sun Farm, one of our favorite fall things to do here in MN. They have lots of animals to feed, a corn maze to tromp through, a hay ride and, of course, pumpkins. Micah and Bethany were pumped to do the corn maze while Anna and Katherine (much to Grandma and Granddad's shivering delight) opted to ride 50 cent rides in the heated pumpkin greenhouse. Once reunited, everyone chose a pumpkin to paint (another tradition we have around here...I'll have to post a picture of B's Gonzo pumpkin from last year...) and one large one to carve.











































After that, we joined the throngs of people who think it's a good idea to eat at Red Robin on a Saturday night. In spite of quite a long wait, we had a lovely, relaxed meal together, complete with free sundaes for the birthday girls (it was Grandma's birthday today).








































































It was just one of those days that one could call delightful. Yay.