Alena's Birthday (Jan 29)

Alena turned 6 years old on the 29th. Hannah gave her some presents that she made and some things that she "bought" at AWANA with her "Bible bucks" (they get them for memorizing scripture). My mom send a truckload of books and the Berrys sent her a cookie/flower thing - it was very cute.

This year, we gave Alena the option of either getting presents, or of sponsoring a child through Compassion International. She decided on the latter and, as we did with Hannah when she was six, we picked a child with her same age and birthdate to support for as long as we're able. I made her choose between the presents and the sponsoring because I wanted her to know that there was a cost and sacrifice that was being made.

We strongly support the program at Compassion. You can check them out here: www.compassion.com It goes beyond simply buying food and medicine for a needy child. You also communicate on a regular basis with them. (Hannah is good pen-pals with her sponsored child, Heidith, from Bolivia.) She gets so excited when she gets a letter from her and writes back the same day. Alena's new sponsored child is Arelys, from Nicaragua. Time to bone up on our Spanish. :)

Christmas 2006 - Santa exposed!

Lots of stuff happened on and around Christmas:

We got a TeePee complements of the Berrys. We joked to the girls that Indian Santa had brought it and they started doing Indian dances like their grandfather taught them. They also gave the girls some hand bells that they're starting to get pretty good at.




My mother, Mark and his mother Jean stopped by and they took us to the Opryland hotel. We had a great meal and enjoyed all the displays and lights they had set up for Christmas. They even had a life-size narrated nativity scene that was very cool.



My dad and Faye stopped by and we had a great time and went to the Bass Pro shop and mall in Nashville.



AND...

Spoiler Warning! If you still believe Santa slides down your chimney on Christmas eve, you might want to skip this part:

Everyone has different ideas about what to tell their children about Santa. We decided to just tell ours the truth. We told them that Santa was really Saint Nicholas. That he lived a long time ago and was a devoted Christian who gave much of his inherited wealth to help the poor - especially children.

So we were in a store one day and a kindly-looking old lady came up and, with a twinkle in her eye, asked our children if Santa had brought them anything good for Christmas. To which Alena eagerly replied: "He's dead!" I thought the old lady was going to have a heart attack on the spot!

Be careful what you teach your children!

Dad visit = New shelves (Dec 1-5)

Several years ago when we lived in Palm Harbor, Florida, Hollye wanted some updated shelving to make more efficient usage of one of our closets. After looking around and either finding the stuff to be too cheep and cheezy or too costly, I said to myself "I'll just build them myself". I built it to use all the space and with a bunch of compartments for small and large items. It turned out pretty nice and Hollye loved it.

From that day forward, in every house that we own, Hollye now expects me to build custom shelves for every closet. I should have remembered my army training: "Never volunteer to learn anything new, because then you will be the one who gets to do it from that day forward!"

So when my dad and his wife Faye came to visit us, Hollye put us to work on the coat closet in our house, which we converted to a pantry.



Of course, Erilynn was more interested in my dad's cowboy boots.

Thanksgiving - The Berrys visit (Nov 21-23)

The Berrys came to visit over Thanksgiving and we all had a great time. Hollye prepared a wonderful feast for us and the children took care of entertaining the grandparents. One of our favorite Thanksgiving traditions is to go around the table before we eat and tell everyone what we are especially thankful for. What are some traditions that you observe?

Erilynn is Three! (Nov 11)

We celebrated Erilynn's birthday on November 11 by taking her and the family to the giant rat's house (Chuck-E-Cheese). Erilynn calls it the "Mouse House".

Cheapskate's tip: Go to their website and they will send you coupons every now and then.

Hollye made and decorated the cool bunny cake. (Jelly Bean eyes/nose/teeth, licorice whiskers, and coconut flake ears)

Grandpa's visit (Nov 3 - Nov 5)

Here is grandpa (the children's great-grandpa) teaching me the proper usage of a cane (with regards to children). 1. You can poke them with it to wake them up. 2. It makes a good whacking stick if they get out of line. 3. If they try to get away, the curved end makes a great hook to snatch them with. All joking aside, the boy's (and girl's) new favorite toy to play with was grandpa's walking cane.

Here is grandpa reassuring William that he won't let daddy use the cane on him as previously mentioned.


Trivia question: How many Williams can you find in this picture? There are four, actually, if you count middle names. It turns out that our little William is the sixth consecutive generation with that name. And to think we didn't even know that when we named him. Good thing we didn't go with "Gideon".