Happy 8th Birthday Allyson

To celebrate Allyson's 8th birthday, she chose to invite 2 friends and go roller skating.  So, the next day (after ice skating) we picked up her friends and went out for pizza for lunch, then roller skating.  

 Emily, Krynn and Allyson

The girls had so much fun skating.

Cupcakes after skating finished the celebration

While dropping Emily back at her house, we had to pose in front of the igloo that her family built.  

8th Birthday - Caden

For Caden's birthday, he chose to celebrate with some friends.  They went for pizza and then ice skating.  

They had a great time.  

Caden spent most of the night like this - but it didn't stop him, he enjoyed the night!  (It is only his 2nd time ice skating)

Allyson helping Caden up...

Caden and his friend Will

Caden, Will, Thijs, Drew in the penalty box

a quick pic with mom

Allyson found her good friend Krynn at the skating rink, so she had someone to spend the evening with.  

The ice rink was closing and the boys were taking off their skates.  The Zamboni started to clean the ice.  Well, somehow he found out that it was someone's birthday - so the birthday kids got to ride on the Zamboni around the ice.  

Look at those smiles - so proud!

Then the kids got to see where the slush goes out of the Zamboni - opps~ they got a little wet!

Cupcakes to finish off the night of fun!

Gingerbread Cookies

This pretty much sums up my afternoon - baking gingerbread cookies.  YUM!

Picnic in December

On December 4 @ 4pm - we met Grandma for a picnic.  We had chips, juice boxes and cookies.  What a beautiful day.  Hard to believe that it was nice enough to be outside with only a sweatshirt on.  

Breath of Dawn Review

Breath of Dawn 

by Kristen Heitzmann

This book is a Christian fiction with a little mystery and a little romance under one cover.  

The story starts out with Morgan, a father of a small child, learning to adjust to living a life and raising a young child on his own, after his wife dies in an accident.  Morgan has family support to help him in this transition.  To help ease the transition, and putting his child's needs first, he chooses to live on a ranch near the mountains  near his brother and family for help with his child.  

Quinn is a single woman who makes her living buying items from estate sales and listing them on ebay.  RaeAnne is the daughter of an elderly woman who has passed away, and RaeAnne is left with settling the estate.  Quinn offers to work on the estate and get it ready to sell.  RaeAnne takes her up on the offer - with the understanding that if/when Quinn finds a locket with a picture of her father (whom RaeAnne has never met) that she will call right away.  Quinn spends days going through the items in the house, searching for the locket, and sifting through the estate.  

Morgan lives near the estate, and decides to purchase the estate as a transition for him and his daughter to live on their own, but still have his brother and family close by.  When he stops by the house to take a look, he meets Quinn.  Quinn gets some help from Morgan in clearing out some large unwanted items from the basement.  Discovering this house was once an asylum is an interesting twist to the story.  In the cellar are items used when the asylum was in use.  Quinn is invited by Morgan's brother and wife to Thanksgiving at their house.  Morgan, his daughter and a few other close friends enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration.  A snowstorm causes them all to stay there overnight.  Quinn's past comes into the story and Morgan offers her a solution to overcome her past.  Quinn takes him up on this offer, and the story only gets better from here.  You don't want to miss out on this excellent story by Kristen Heitzmann!  

Oak Grove Sunday

Fall Sunday afternoons spent with family are always a great time.  

We had a wonderful picnic lunch, then played some kickball.  

A few pictures to share of our day.  

 Carly and Great Grandpa

 Allyson, Hannah and Uncle Milt

 Caden guiding the way on our hike.

 Some of the group on our hike.

We have to make a stop at Crystal Hill to gather some treasures.

 Throwing some leaves

Charlotte's Web Day

 Allyson dressed as the character Wilbur the pig

Caden dressed as Charlotte the spider.

Leaves

 The kids have been enjoying the fall weather.  They love to rake the leaves into a pile and take turns jumping into it.  

Inescapable by Nancy Mehl

Inescapable by Nancy Mehl

Road to Kingdom - Book 1

This book took me a little while to get into the story, but once I did - I couldn't put it down.  There is some mystery wrapped up in the pages of this Mennonite story.  

This book is about a young mother named Lizzie.  She grew up in the Mennonite community, but left this lifestyle to give her daughter a better life.  

5 years after leaving the Mennonite community, Lizzie feels like she is being followed, and has been receiving threatening letters.  When there are problems that cause Lizzie to loose her job, she feels she has nowhere left to go, but to return to her hometown.  As a single mother, Lizzie wants nothing more than to settle into a routine that gives her daughter stability and love.  

Upon returning home, she has to face all the people she ran from when she left Kingdom.  After re-uniting with her mother, Lizzie is directed to a small restaurant and its owner, Cora.  Cora helps Lizzie with a place to stay, and a job working in the restaurant.  Lizzie is beginning to enjoy working at the restaurant and finds herself liking the small Kingdom community, that she ran from years ago.  Back into her life walks Noah, a good friend, and Clay, the father of Lizzie's little girl.  

Forced to seek God's direction on the relationships with the men in her life, and the future of  her daughter,  Lizzie learns to seek direction from her heavenly Father.  

This book has great characters, and also a great story.  I enjoyed this book and look forward to the next book in this series.  

Thanks to Bethany House Publishers for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.  

Kitten Adventure

It has been an extremely dry summer.  The first weekend in August, I volunteered to help at an outdoor event.  I took the kids along with me, as they would also be able to "help".  

Well - it was a rainy Saturday morning.  We certainly didn't want to complain about the rain - as we were very much in need of it!  

The kids and I were standing outside our car under umbrella's during this event.  The kids thought they heard a kitten me-owing.  Well - a little later they found the kitten crawl out from underneath our car.  It was one of the kittens from our house.  This little kitten must have crawled underneath the car to get away from the rain.  

It rode about 15 miles there and stayed safe.  

Of course it couldn't ride back home in the same place it rode to our destination...so - the kids found a bag and some cardboard to help keep the kitten contained, and also protect in case of an accident.  Allyson is a pretty good pillow to this kitten.  It slept most of the way home - until about 4 miles from home, then it was ready to get out and run!  It made it home safely.