CDBL Kick-Off

Tonight was the kick-off for the Concord Developmental Basketball League (CDBL) at the high school game. This program is for 3rd-6th graders so this is Quinn's first year to participate. They shot baskets at the half-time of the JV Boys game as a way to introduce them to the community. : ) They start practices/games on Saturday mornings now. From 8-9am they have practice and from 9-10am they play a game. I'm not sure about that 8am start time for me. Hmmmmm. Quinn's team are the "Wolverines" and his friend Tate from school is on it. That's Tate in the picture above with Quinn. He is already stressed that Nate isn't on his team and that means he'll have to play against him. He doesn't like to do that! Anyway, you'll be hearing more about this league.

Aunt Leah's Towel Drawer

I think these pictures of Jade are so cute! I got to watch her for a few hours a couple of Saturdays ago so Aunt Michelle could take Madison out for her pedicure and lunch (for her birthday). I wanted to make some chili for the crock pot and Jade found the towel drawer while we were in the kitchen. It brought back many memories as my kids used to do the same thing over and over and over. She unloaded the drawer and then we practiced folding for a bit. She finally just laid down amidst the pile, covered up and pretended to go to sleep. Now her mama doesn't like her in the kitchen drawers but at Aunt Leah's house they aren't off limits so she can just unload away! : )

Ox Bow 24, Westside 6

We finished our season 6-0. It's on to the tournament next week. I'm not too worried....

Hanging of the greens

Amy, Jeff and the girls left this morning for Iowa. I'm glad they got an early start. It's sleeting tonight and I know A LOT of people traveling tonight. I've been praying for safe travels for all of you! I told Tony I am so incredibly happy that we aren't out there too.

We decorated the tree today and "hung the stockings by the fire" ... it feels so good to have all of these Christmas traditions started and under way. I did something very brave today. I got out my Precious Moments nativity set. I haven't gotten it out for several years because of all of the balls that have been flying around my house (and really still do). I gave strict instructions to Quinn about no ball throwing.... we'll see!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and I'm sad that it's over so fast. I hope you feel as blessed as we are and that your weekend was a celebration of these blessings.

I count each of you dear family and friends among my richest blessings!

Love to all, Leah

Visit to Santa

On Saturday we went to cut down our Christmas tree
and also to see Santa. We've seen Santa Claus at the tree
farm for years now. Quinn asked for a new football (like he needs one more!) and Madison asked for an iAlarm (an alarm clock that she can dock her iPod into).

The Great Tree Hunt

One of our family traditions is to go to a Christmas Tree Farm and cut down our own tree. This year it was fun to take Amy's family with us. (Mom and Dad left this morning for Iowa) Nate came along too. We've been out there in all sorts of weather. This year it was pretty cold (30's) but dry. The picture in the lower right corner is Tony as he gets the tree measured. It was 7 feet tall. Madison, Quinn and Nate actually worked and worked at it and this was the first year that they actually got it cut down all by themselves. All 3 of them were under the tree at the end, trying to get a good push/pull action on the saw. TIMBER!

Christmas Cookies

And as if the adults hadn't had enough commotion for one day, we decided to make Christmas cut-out cookies Saturday night. The cousins (+Nate) had great fun rolling, cutting, frosting and eating. Amy and I use the sugar cookie recipe that my mom used with us when we were growing up.

Jenna and her snowman. She collects penguins and so was disappointed we didn't have a penguin cookie cutter... do they even make a penguin cookie cutter???


Mikayla shows off a creation. The more frosting and sprinkles the better. She took it easy on this cookie for us.


Haley and her masterpieces. She enjoyed layering the frosting on her cookies with different colors. There was a lot of finger-licking going on in that corner... in spite of Mikayla's reprimands to stop licking! It's just about impossible for a 4 year old isn't it??

Black Friday

We woke to a dusting of snow on Friday morning. Amy took these pictures of our house because she thought the yellow leaves mixed with the snow looked so pretty. The pictures don't show how pretty it really was. Our trees have been holding onto their leaves for a long time this fall.

Mom, Amy and I took the 4 girls shopping for a few hours today. We aren't the 6am type to save a buck. We are the sleep-in-on-the-one-day-you-can type and left around 10:30. Ha! Tony worked but Grandpa, Jeff and Quinn went shopping to Menards. We brought the girls home in the afternoon and then Mom, Amy and I went back out for a few more hours. It was a lot of fun. Amy got almost all her Christmas shopping done and mine is started.

We went out for pizza to Milanos in the evening and then we went home and watched Christmas with the Kranks.

Silly Haley

Silly Haley got into her Mom's lipstick in Meijer's.

Too bad you can't hear the giggles to go along with these pictures!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It was great to have Mom, Dad, Amy, Jeff, Jenna, Mikayla and Haley here this year! We missed you Doug, Jen, Amanda and Jay... but thanks for calling! A few explanations about the pictures...Madison made the place cards. That's her little tradition. We played games with the kids such as Family Feud (a lot of Family Feud). Grandma is the endless game player and the kids take advantage of her graciousness to play game after game of their choice with them. Jenna & Madison combed the store ads to make out their Christmas lists.

Our menu:

turkey

mashed potatoes

sweet potato casserole

dressing

green bean casserole

cranberry/apple salad

broccoli salad

relish tray

butterhorn rolls

pumpkin pie

peach pie

blueberry pie

strawberry/rhubarb pie

It was all delicious! We ate about 1:30. We went to the evening showing of Fred Claus which is a cute Christmas movie. When we came out of the theatre it started snowing. It was the perfect transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. : )

Give Thanks in All Circumstances

1 Thessalonians 5: 17- 18 says "Pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances." This can be pretty hard at times can't it? What about when we are going through hard times? Do we have to feel thankful during these times? I have a dear friend who has a broken heart from a broken relationship this Thanksgiving weekend. Is it really possible to feel thankful??? The Bible doesn't say, be thankful when things are going well and life is good. It is pretty clear isn't it?... give thanks in All Circumstances. Now I don't think that this means we have to be thankful for the hard things we go through...I really don't think that feeling is part of being a human. BUT through the hard times, perhaps we can find things to be thankful for. Cheering our own souls up as we give thanks to God for He really is good.

During this Thanksgiving holiday weekend we often find ourselves making a list and checking it twice of things we are thankful for. I've been trying to live in an attitude of thankfulness to God. Besides all of the "obvious" thankful stuff... here are some of the things I've been able to look back on today and recall that I gave thanks during my "attitude of thankfulness."

• I'm thankful for my co-workers who make my life so much easier at work by working together. I'm thankful I can ask Randa if I'm being mean (about a difficult pain decision) and she gives me her honest opinion.
• I'm thankful for an Internet site that helps me make difficult math calculations when working with high doses of pain medications (oh so thankful!)
• I'm thankful that my family isn't traveling this holiday weekend, and that family is coming to us.
• I'm thankful that I'm not at the grocery store today with the mad rush for last minute things (I've been there 3 times this week already!).
• I'm thankful for a washing machine and dryer that work and are dependable when I keep them oh so busy.
• I'm thankful we are "rich enough" to serve turkey tomorrow...one of my patients told me she wasn't.... (I really didn't know that was part of the definition of being rich).

Those are just a few examples. I hope and pray that you all will be able to find special things... little things... to feel thankful for this holiday.

Pictures from Splash Universe party

Here are a few pictures from the birthday party. If you dbl click on the collage it will make it larger for you. The party was a huge success. There were may be only 10 people in the whole place when we got there and it never even felt busy by the time we left. They had a great time on the slides, lazy river and climging jungle-gym type of thing. We brought home some tired kids around 7:15 Friday night. It was one of the easiest partiest I've ever planned and Madison gave it an A+ so I would recommend it to others for sure!

Front row, L to R: Nathan, Nate, Quinn, Peyton, Heather
Back row, L to R: Alexa, Katie, Maddi, Madison, Holyn, Kiley

Madison gives a sly look to her friends while they sing happy birthday to her. Jade is happy to help blow out the candles.

Splash Universe

In less than 2 hours we are headed to Splash Universe for Madison's 11th birthday party.... and taking 11 kids!! They get out of school early today (1:05) so we are hoping it won't be too busy. Here is a picture of the newly completed cake... a triple layered Fun-Fetti Cake.

Indigo on 17

Tonight I had the opportunity to eat at the new restaurant, Indigo on 17, with my colleagues from work. I would describe it as a fancy restaurant with a really neat modern atmosphere. I did not see one child or even a teenager there in the 2 hours we were there. The food was gourmet and delicious. I had shrimp with pesto and these red and white stripped ravioli's with butternut squash inside. There was no sauce on the outside but they were really good! If you go with an open mind to try new things you'll do well. The highlight was the apple crisp for dessert. Wow... was that ever good. Jeremiah is bussing tables there but I didn't get a glimpse of him... he must not have been working tonight.

Well, that's what I did... what did you do???

Ox Bow 28, East Side 12

Madison's basketball team won this afternoon. She played very well and scored 14 points and was 7 for 7. Tony didn't get to go to the game but I've got her points on my new video cam. Some day I'll learn how to edit and combine my scenes and then put the short clips on blogger... then watch out! ha!

Quinn had his CDBL (Concord Developmental Basketball League) evaluation tonight. Basically they put you through different stations to measure some of your basketball skills as a way to fairly divide up the BB teams. Upward BB does the same thing. This is Concord's version and it starts in 3rd grade. He looked so nervous out there! This was the make-up night and I thought there might be 10 kids there and it would be in/out in 30 minutes. Boy was I wrong. There were about 40 kids there and it took almost 1 1/2 hours.

Aunt Michelle helped Madison with her homework tonight at home while Q and I were gone. Here is a good one for you. Madison is writing a report on a state. Peyton "stole" the state of Iowa so she chose Minnesota to learn about instead. In her report she stated that there were Mayo brothers who started the Mayo Clinics. Now... under the section where she was asked what kind of souvenir she would bring back if she were to visit Minnesota... she drew a nice big jar of mayonnaise. Hmmmm... where did that come from? She thought that the Mayo brothers started a mayonnaise factory and called it the Mayo Clinic. Made us laugh!


Here is a Quinn's quip for you...
As we were driving to the BB evaluation he said out of the blue, "I just can't wait to go to heaven!... but I want to live a lot of years on earth with you and Dad... but I don't know about Madison... she's pretty outrage(ous) at times."

My computer is really slow tonight for some reason. It must be telling me to go to bed so... good-night!

Hawkeye Fun

We had a great time during our fast trip to Iowa this weekend. The Iowa vs Minnesota game was great and Quinn was especially thrilled that Iowa won and got "Floyd" the pig back. Madison decided not to go to the game so Grandma Jo went with us instead! That was quite a treat to have my mom go with us. It was a crisp fall day but not uncomfortable. We took the the Hawkeye Train in to the game... my mom hasn't ever done that before and of course Quinn is always up for a train ride. After the game Tony and Quinn poured down onto the field with another 20,000 people or so. Quinn picked about 4 blades of grass as a souvenir.

Last night we were at Amy & Jeff's house for pizza and today after church we left to come home. Short but sweet.

Off to Iowa...

We're heading off to Iowa for the Iowa vs Minnesota football game. Help us cheer on the hawks tomorrow at 12pm (est)!

Becky Tirabassi

Several years ago I had the wonderful opportunity to hear Becky Tirabassi in Chicago. She was recently at my alma mater, Olivet Nazarene University, and spoke at their chapel service. She gave her testimony. I just wanted to point you to her podcast that you can click on and listen to on-line or download to your iPod. She has a wonderful testimony that will surely be inspiring to all of you. Just scroll to October 11 and click on Play or Download. If you know someone who might be less-than-perfect, point them to this podcast!

What I've been up to...

Ok, Ok, Ok... I've been reprimanded... by email... "why aren't you blogging?" and I was met with the hands on the hips this morning at work..."why haven't you been blogging?" (which totally cracks me up since I see them the most regularly out of everyone in my whole world I think!!).

Over the weekend I was gone to our annual scrapbooking weekend. It was great fun and I got 30 pages done! (except journaling yet to do). Blogs are more fun to read if there are pictures so scroll down for a few pages that I completed of our Smoky Mountain vacation this last Spring Break. I'm sure you'll have to dbl click on them to even see them. I sure wish I had more time to scrapbook more often!

The last few evenings I've been using my free hour of the day to read through the instruction manual of our new video camera. (So SORRY, I haven't been blogging!) I learn so much better with a demonstration so I have to read everything so carefully because there isn't anyone to show me the ropes on it. This camera has way more bells and whistles than our old one. It will take some practicing...

So, really, that's about all the excitement around here. This is the month-end week for Tony so he just walked in the door now. The staff accountant that works with him is leaving as of this Friday. We've been praying for a fast replacement but so far they haven't even had applicants they are interested in interviewing. If you all could say a prayer about this, we would appreciate it.