John and Joshua's last week in Michigan!

This last week has been a wee bit hectic but very fun and exciting! As the time of the boys visit shortened we were able to have many people over, to see the them (and us) before they departed.

Wonderful food, and no less wonderful fellowship and friendship, were a huge part of our last week.

We enjoyed an evening with our old friends the Shepherds eating, having good Biblical discussions, playing taboo and empire (a new game John taught us) and...

being shown how to make proper paper airplanes and...

perform mysterious card tricks.

We had a wonderful evening!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Sunday evening we held our own premier of..........

"The Mysterious Islands" !!

The Hayse family and Mr. Rechie all piled down into our newly renovated basement, to enjoy the movie and refreshments with us.

We all enjoyed it very much as it was not only very interesting but informative as well.

I don't know if this happy little baby got much out of the movie, as he spent most of his time crawling around to different people asking to be held:)

We had a wonderful time getting together with brothers and sisters in Christ. John and Joshua lived through 3 more gatherings of friends and family. Pictures of those will be upcoming on the next blog posts.

~Chs

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards

(These resolutions were made by Jonathan Edwards during the years of 1722-1723 when he was about 20 years of age.)

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the aforementioned things.

3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. July 30.

9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

( to read the rest of Jonathan Edwards resolutions, he wrote 70, please visit this site)

Sledding!!!!

It was a cold and dark night, as part of our family traveled to one of the most famous sledding runs in the county. The Reiche run! A very good friend of ours, has for the past 4 to 5 years created an ingenious sledding run right in front of his house. As soon as weather turns cold he ices down the 300 foot long run with his hose, then gives us a ring to let us know its is ready.


The run starts on a ramp at the top of a small hill, goes across his driveway and past his house, then dives down a second hill and shoots into a path that takes you through a sparsely wooded area.


This section of the run has always been lit in interesting ways, from floodlights to kerosene lamps, but when Mr. Rechie called this year, he told us that the lighting was quite different this year.

This is what we saw!

He had strung Christmas lights all down one side of the run, hanging them from the brush and branches.


The result was breathtaking.

Faith calls this shot, "The Aroura Borealis". =)

We had piles of fun zooming down the ramp past the house, shooting into the "tunnel" and watching the lights flash past in colorful array!

Here's a video I took riding behind Josh on the "silver streak" the fastest sled around. Sorry its a wee bit fuzzy.

So if you are in the area and have not been to the Reiche run this year, or at all , give us a call and we'll take you over. This is something you don't want to miss!

~Chs

Remodeling the Basement.

I don't know about all of you but around our house projects never end. It's been from one thing to the other with barely a break in between, ever since we moved to this house! First was a bathroom down in the basement for the boys, next came removing the pool in the deck and creating of the garden. Painting our girls room and building a custom bunk bed was one of the many little projects squeezed into our spare time=) We had a breather during our first winter but were back at it the following year with filling in the deck, and remodeling our little shed into a chicken coop. Of course the last project was the backyard makeover which is still in its final stages.

The next enterprise, that of remodeling our basement, had been in idea stage for a very long time, before finally emerging a couple weeks ago when...

...we began to tear down the wall. You see the former residents of our house had partitioned the basement into two separate rooms, by throwing up some paneling on top of the carpet.

Our plan was to create a bigger family room and gathering place by taking down the wall and putting the boys (who at the moment were residing in one of the two rooms) into another part of the basement which was being used as Dad's office, and moving Dad's desk and bookshelves into the larger family room.

And the wall comes tumbling down!

We took down the entire wall in one afternoon, but that was just the beginning.

We had to move all the boys stuff as well as Dads office equipment. Then the walls had to be painted, and the strip of missing carpeting filled in.

Ta da! We were blessed to get a professional carpet installer for a reasonable price who did an incredible job filling in the gap.

It began to look a little bit like we wanted, but we were still debating on how to finish of the walls to make it look like one complete room.

We began to move in dads shelves and books anyway, and slowly the room began to take shape.

We finally decided to leave the top of the wall cream, have a white chair rail, and paint the bottom (over the wallpaper on the one side) a chocolate brown color that we happened to have a full bucket of.

The result!

I think it turned out really nice with the two tone, and it is ready just in time for all our gatherings we will have while the boys are home.

~Chs

A frozen world.

One cold morning, before John came home, Josiah and I ventured outback to check out the pond and river. This is what we found.

A frozen world.


We were thrilled to find the pond completely frozen over!


After playing around with the camera for a little while, Josiah gave it to me and began to blissfully "skate."

"The Waltzing Skater"

So the next morning Faith ran out with Josiah and I to go ice skating!


First though we had to clear off the snow which had fallen on the pond during the night. As soon as both of them had stepped on the pond, ominous cracking sounds were to be heard coming from the ice beneath their feet. We therefore decided to only allow one person at a time on the pond to minimize the danger.


So skating was disqualified at our pond but two of us were able to skate some at our neighbors and enjoyed it immensely.

I promise to post some more soon about the things we have done with the boys, and there will be a lot to tell, I assure you. I will try not to make you wait to long;)

~Chs

Family Complete.

He's Back!!!!

For 1 and a 1/2 fun filled weeks our family count is 9 again, a very wonderful number in my humble opinion. One of the MANY things we are doing in this very short time is taking a complete family picture. Something that does not happen very often. Sooooo, you will be seeing a new and improved Family picture on the blog. Stay tuned!

~Chs

Josh is Home!!

The long awaited for day finally arrived. Josh was coming home!!!! We all packed into the van with high excitement, and traveled down to the airport.

There he is!!

We are so thankful for God for bringing Josh home safe!


We were also blessed to be able to meet Aunt Carmen at the Airport as she was flying down to Florida.

Welcome home Josh!!!!!!!

~Chs

Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

As the weather turned colder the last few weeks and a few snowflakes started to fall, Josiah and I decided it was high time they started to descend in the house as well as outside.

This tradition started many years ago, when Charity found someone on the internet who created patterns for paper snowflakes. Every year after that we have printed them off cut them out, and fixed them to the ceiling to create our own winter wonder land. It was only a day or so after we started "gathering snowflakes" indoors, that it began to snow with a purpose outside that evening. The flakes were coming down thick and furiously, but when Josiah looked at the weather report, he was devastated to find that the snow was supposed to turn into rain in the early morning! :(


So at 6:25 the next morning (yes, 6:25 AM) I was woken by a boy already dressed in overalls, and rearing to go outside and make a snowman before the snow all melted. It was already raining when I dragged myself outside following the over eager boy, and wondering whether a snow man was really worth it all.


Despite the cold and dark, Josiah and I had a blast rolling the ball of wet snow around the yard and trying to figure out some way to get the huge bottom ball onto the picnic table. Well we tried about 3 different ways (I won't go into all the details now;) nearly breaking our backs in the process before we finally managed to get it to the top. The other balls were quickly assembled, and piled on to created this charming young snowman!

Josiah had pure genius when it came to it's facial features. Acorns for eyes, the normal carrot for a nose and a banana peal for the mouth.

I am so thankful for Gods creativity when it comes to the weather. Snowflakes, are one of the many things that never cease to amaze me. One slightly funny but very true quote that I came across the other day, went like this; "A snowflake is one of God's most fragile creations, but look what they can do when they stick together! "

~Chs

A Limerick

There was once a young seamstress named Flo,
Who's impatience while stitching would show.
All her seams turned out wrong,
And she learned ere too long,
In the end you will rip what you sew.