This was just one of the many projects we worked on this weekend.

Here is ds learning how to pressure wash. Dad says it won't be long before he can handle alot more!

Here is Peyton's birthday gift from us. Dad picked it out. We gave it to him the day after the party, because we felt that it would be better to wait until all the commotion had settled down. It would be more appropriate without all the kids around.

This way dh could take time and site it in, and go over how to use it etc.

He was so excited! He couldn't believe he got a real gun! 

 Dad is going to work with him on target practicing at home. Dad also plans to take him to a gun safety course so he can get his certification.

We celebrated our son Peytons' birthday this weekend. We are grateful to God that he is part of our lives.

We had a party and some of the boys camped overnight. Since dh had a cold this week he thought it would be better to take the tent in the basement. (A few of the kiddos were coughing too.) So it was just as well. They had a great time.They stayed up past 3 AM , then dh finally told them they needed to get a little sleep.

When it got dark we gathered around the fire and roasted marshmallows for Smore's. Here are the boys gathering around for Pizza.

The gifts The girls making silly faces.

Here are my scrapbook pages I made about my birthday.

I am having them printed and will add them to my scrapbook album.

Dh suprised me with a surprise party for my birthday. Which I must say was surprising. Since it is so unlike him, to go through all the pains of planning etc. Plus he is not into "Special Days".

He gave a couple df one days' notice. (And they helped pulled it off.) My friend Tammy made the cake and her husband wrapped the presents. My other df- Lisa brought potato salad and baked beans.

It was a really nice birthday. I am glad I got to celebrate with friends and family! 

He got me a Cricut Expressions, and My mom got me

the Cricut Essentials.

And it took me a day to find room for my laminator!

But can you believe in less than 2 hours I found more room for this! 

Coloring in this Felt Cross was one

of our Lent activties.

We have been doing them, but I have not been faithful to

post every day what we are doing.

Saturday we prayed for someone.

Sunday we made pretzels.

Monday we sent flowers to my mom.

Today we spelled cross and discussed the resurrection and what it means.

Ds drew today's activity. It was to take a nature hike and collect things that would remind you of Jesus. Example two sticks could be a cross, etc.

Unfortunately it was pouring down raining. So I told him, we would save that for a prettier day.

So dd drew an activity. It was to pray for the persecuted church. So we did that.

Today we drew an activity out of the jar. The activity was to "do something hard."

Since we have Co-Op classes on Thursday we get up an extra hour to an hour and a half early.

So that WAS our "do something hard " for the day. I also helped clean the church during the last hour of Co-Op which wasn't real hard but was an act of service, I also teach 2 classes. So that was plenty hard enough.

Glad Jesus was willing to do things much harder for me...

Today we read through the Childcraft Book on Holidays. We read about Ash Wednesday and how

people would put ashes on their heads, representing a time of humbling themselves, repenting and fasting before God.

 DD did a coloring page on Ash Wednesday.

For our activity today we prayed for a missionary friend of ours.

We normally do not observe Lent. But this year, I thought is would be good for us to learn about Lent and about taking some extra time out of lives to focus on God, his sacrifice for us and the 40 days that preceed Easter Sunday.

Here is a free activity guide.Lenten Tree and Activities Book   http://miikogibson.com/easter_devotionals.htm

  Once you complete the activity each day, you color in a fruit. We are actually using a different sheet to record our activities.

It is listed in the next link.

I printed off some of the 40 activities and cut them into strips and put them in a jar. We will pull one activity every day and do it. (I sorted through the activities to find what I felt would be appropriate for us to grow spiratually and also some things that would help set our flesh down.

This is another simpler set of activities that might be more suitable for younger chidlren.

So this is the Lent map we are using to show what we do each day.

(Since I had already printed this map out before I found out about the Lenten Tree.

http://www.cqsb.qc.ca/svs/434/pdf/lent1.pdf

 I liked the simplicity of the activities.

There are only 5, pray for someone, share, help someone, give up something and be extra kind.

So we will probably do an activity we pull out of the jar and then another one like be extra kind today or pray for a missionary or lost family member, etc.

Here are some other coloring pages and activities. This site has a ton of stuff.  http://www.catholicmom.com/kids_lent_activities.htm

I will list some of the activities we are doing daily as we go through the season of Lent. This is not to

be showy....It is just so I can keep up with what we are doing on our blog, and also to share with others that might be looking for interesting things they can do to observe Lent.

These are my tulips for Valentines' Day. They are live and in soil, so I can replant them outside and enjoy them for years to come. The picture really doesn't show it, but they are bright pink and white/ Gary and I celebrated last night. The kids had a party at a nearby Dance Studio.

So we were able to get away for a couple hours by ourselves to eat. The place we wanted to eat at was overcrowded, so we went to Ruby Tuesdays instead. I am glad we did. We were not rushed, and the food was excellent. I had the Lousianna Talipia snd Rice, it also came with steamed brocolli. After that we shared a Chocolate Tall Cake dessert. So much for my diet. Oh well Valentines' Day is for splurging.

So with my extra free time this week, I decided to make some more digital scrapbook pages. I have been playing with the software quite a bit. I still need to finish going through the tutorials.

Here are our Christmas Eve and Morning Pages.

I made this scrapbook page with my new Scrapbook Factory Deluxe software.

My parents got this for me as a Christmas gift.

I am starting to get the hang of it. There is so much you can do with it.

Even if you still love traditional scrapbooking there are billions of alphabets and embellishments you can simply print and add to your pages.

It is really great having so many patterns, papers, etc. at your immediate disposal.

I plan to print this and add it to my album.

Mute the FineTunes First

Tonight we went to church for Christmas Eve Service. DD didn't make it through all of it. She took a catnap. But we woke her in time to light the candles.

We came home and let them each open one gift. DD chose the gift from Sissy. (It was a build a bear car for Danci). Ds chose the gifts from Nana and Papa. It was a Obi WonKanobe Light Saber. They were both elated.

We were surprised today by some Christmas Carolers.

Aren't they cute! 

Our friends stopped by to sing us a song and visit a few minutes today.

I have a freebie version that I just found out comes with my printer. It is ArcSoft Scrapbook Creations.

It is pretty limited in what is has available. So far I can only make 3 pages in a category.

But I thought I would try and post the pics here.

Page 2

Page 3

I have a request in for Christmas for a real scrapbook software program.

Scrapbook Factory Deluxe. I can't wait to try it out.

So what do you think of my pages?