Bah Humbug!

The whole family took a jaunt to the mall this evening to see the right jolly ol' Saint Nick. Remember, the one made famous for spreading cheer across the globe, whose little round belly shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly?!?

Yeah, Santa. That's the one. Ho Ho Ho.

We stood in the long line. It's Santa afterall. Worth the wait, right?

10 minutes in--the kids are antsy. Stacey takes Levi on a walk. I make Luke and Abby pose for photos from the back side of the Isle o' Santa, the children positioned right in front of the booty of a 12 foot tall reindeer. One of the elfs, or is it elves? chastises me for taking illegal photos of their display, committing the unpardonable sin of using my flash.

25 minutes in--The people behind us don't understand issues of "personal space". I get rammed a baker's dozen times by their stroller...no apologies.

40 minutes in--Stacey's back. Levi's crying. Abby misbehaves and after a swift correction she's in tears as well.

55 minutes in--We finally make it to the front of the line. All 3 of our kids are making snowballs out of confetti and chucking them at each other. Levi grabs an enormous handful of cotton from the display and enters the fray.

58 minutes in--the kids who were on Santa's lap before us exit, and our kids storm Kris Kringle, and--get this--he says, "Hold it right there. A guy's gotta have some space already. You don't understand. It gets 110 degrees in this suit." The kids are speechless. I'm dumbstruck. After a minute, 45 seconds of oscillating fan up his sleeves, Bad Santa invites the kids onto his lap, smiles dutifully for the camera, asks what they want for Christmas, and doles out coloring books, until we exit and he takes another minute 45 aeration pitstop.

On the ride home, Luke says, "There's no way that guy was Santa. He was mean, and his belly wasn't fat enough." I chime in, "His beard was way too short and scraggly." Abby adds, "Not puffy enough." We all agree the fake Mr. Claus was probably the Grinch dressed up in a Santa suit. In the end, however, at least we got the overpriced studio quality photo out of it.

Friday Funnies

Some of my friends sometimes post "Friday Funnies" and this morning Levi gave me some prime material...

We were sitting at breakfast just eating and talking and I was asking him some questions like his name, how old he is and when I asked what his favorite color is...without missing a beat he says,
"Bob the Builder yellow"...I about choked on my breakfast! He doesn't even watch Bob the Builder.
Usually I can figure out why is says certain things, but this one came out of no where!

He is too funny!

WE HAVE NEW TEAMMATES!

Our hearts are overfilling with joy and thanksgiving tonight...as God has answered our prayers for teammates! The "unnamed couple" :) that we asked you all to pray for, has been officially accepted by World Harvest Mission as missionaries to Vienna. We can hardly wait to tell you more about their family, but first they must announce it officially to their home church. Be patient, we promise to fill you in on all the details after the first of the year!

Thanks for praying for all of us.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

We love this time of the year...and this weekend was filled with all sorts of special memories.
Saturday morning started with dancing in the kitchen (a family tradition) as we waited for warm sausage bread to come out of the oven. After we devoured the bread, Brad and the kids went to SNOWFEST 2006 (click here to see a short video), while mom and I stayed home to make "cracked sugar cookies" and almond bark pretzels.

This morning we went to worship at Uncle Rick's church and then this afternoon we had our Hunter Family gift exchange and dinner.

















The day ended with the St.Andrews Christmas concert...Luke, Abby and Neena were all part of the choir. It was a much different holiday season last year with both of our moms recovering from major surgeries...so it was such a treat watching Neena sing praises to our King. After the concert, we drove around to hear the children say the "oohs and aahs" of seeing Christmas lights and we topped off the night with Farm Stores Egg Nog and more cookies:)
Doesn't get much better than that!

Viennese Dessert

Last night our great friends, Dan and Julie Smith opened their home up and hosted a Viennese Dessert party for us. It was great to see old and new friends...share about what God has been doing in our lives and present our vision for Vienna. We were very encouraged by the turn out, the questions that were asked and the prayers that were lifted up on our behalf! The desserts were really yummy too! :) A special thanks to the Smiths and all who took time out of their busy schedules to be with us!