Stridor

Apparently, Stridor is an inflamation of the esophogas (Sorry about my spelling). Stridor causes extreme difficulty in breathing and is quite scarry at 2:00 in the morning. And, the only thing that relieves the inflamation, besides going to the emergency room, is cold air. So, here is a picture of us saving ourselves from a monsterous medical bill. Cheyne and I took turns holding this little guy all night long. Happy to report Levi is doing great....we are still trying to recover.

Fall fun.

Today we discovered the joy of falling leaves.

Isaac in the leaves

Andrew in the leaves

Levi in the leaves

The best family night yet!!

WE have been talking about kindness and why we as Christians are kind to people. We are kind and loving because Jesus is kind a loving to us. So, for tonights family night we made carmel apples. It was sooooooo fun. We turned up the music, snacked on a few of the candies, and made beautiful apples. Then we got all bundled up and delievered them to our neighbors' across the street. Talk about out of my comfort zone. It took bravery on all of our parts, but it was so fun to see their faces when we handed them a big plate of those beauties. Our original idea was to make 10, give 5 away and have one for each of us, but after we delievered the five we decided it was so much fun, we kept going. We walked 1 over to our bachelor neighbor, then we marched another 3 over to a family we had never met before. All of our neighbors were delighted and very friendly. After all of the deliveries we came home, sat at the table and sliced up the remaining 1 apple. As we maunched our delicious treat, Cheyne opened up the Bible and read about generosity. It was very meaningful. This so far was my favorite family night. It will be hard to top.

Levi Helping

Andrew Helping

Isaac helping

Yummy!!

Off we go.

We delievered our carmel apples to a few of the neighbor families.

Our family is together again

The goats came to live with us on Saturday. They are doing fine...adjusting to lots of grass and lots of kids. The neighbor kids are loving them and I am considering it an answer to prayer. I have been praying for a way to further relationship with our neighborhood friends. Now they are over everyday after school to pet our exotic pets.

Daddy's Little Helper

Here is Cheyne Building a gate to keep the goats off the porch. Levi was eager to help.

A picture says a thousand words

This is our Andrew!! Not much more to say.

When did he grow up?

So, I'm in the kitchen...minding my own business....when I turn around and see this!!! A little boy standing up at the counter talking to me!! When did he grow up? Wasn't he just a little tyke just yesterday?

What a big boy!

More of the cute

Family Night

Chenye stepped out in faith this year and said "no". He said no to extra cirricular activites, including church "ministries" to stay home and nurture his family. He has decided that now is the time to be investing into the diciples God has placed in our home and make that his primary ministry. One of the ways we have activley persued this is by establishing a weekly "family night". We chose Sunday evenings. This is a time where we turn off the phones, put off the dishes and chores, and have a fun purposeful time with just us. We felt this was important for a number of reasons. Just a few are: 1.) we want to model Christian truths. Spiritual imput should not come from just outsiders. We want it to be normal in our daily living.
2.) Spiritual imput doesn't have to be boring. As someone put it, "Christian truth can be alive, effective, and can blend with other forms of family sharing. It doesn't have to be closeted off in a holy zone of formality." 3.) We want to develope relationships and keep influence. As the kids get older we see a battle for their affection. Either the world can have them, or we can fight for them. We want to be a fun family where they are comfortable sharing themselves and secure. We want to have a solid foundation of trust and respect by the time they reach the teen years.

A few rules we have put on the Family Night is:
1.) It has to be just us, and all of us.
2.) The activities have to be fun, and fun for everyone.
3.) All conversation has to be interesting to everyone. (Parents not discussing politics at dinner, etc.)
4.) There must be short purposeful spiritual topics peppered through out the evening.


I have to tell you. It has been tremendously fun. We have enjoyed our family more than ever before. And I believe we have already seen spiritual fruit. Isaac is taking more of an interest in the bible and spiritual things. The motivation seems to be that he is interested in what we are interested in. "Daddy likes it, and so do I" mentality. Another benifit is that the kids are more imaginative. Because we have spend time playing with them, they learn more ways to play on their own. Another thing is that the family relationships are sweeter. Since we started, Cheyne has made many comments about how neat his kids are, how much he loves them, how fun they are. He always loved them, but taking the time to get to know them more and have fun with them has just made it all the better.

I highly recommend this to any family with kids in the house. The blessings are many!

Family Night #1

Our first Family Night, we ate Pizza! Then we built airplanes and spaceships out of leggos. After that, we got the kids into their p.j's and had story time. Daddy read about the Creation and how all the animals were made. We learned that God is powerful, creative, and good. Then we had family prayer time. It is awesome to pray as a family. After lights out, Cheyne and I retired to the sofa for a nice cup of hot cider and relaxing conversation. Wonderful.

Family night #2

Here we are being entertained by two of our upcoming stars!!