May the JOY of HIS season fill you with PEACE and JOY all throughout 2009!

As we look back over 2008, this blog gives a reflection of some of our year under LINKS: ARCHIVES

Darin in CHINA

Jasmine's Prom and Graduation

College Beginnings

Sarah's new job

Trip to Canada

FLL days

Other highlights are:

             Darin has stocked our freezer with wonderfully delicious bass, trout, crappie, bluegill and lots of Coho and Chinook Salmon. He is perfecting his smoker skills and we enjoy his delicious experiments on ribs, roasts, bacon, and soon a turkey.

             Sarah received a long-awaited answer to prayer. She was diagnosed with TMD in March and received a retainer/splint in April. There has been no vertigo and very few migraines since she began wearing it daily. She is feeling almost back to normal most days. The Thoraxic Outlet Syndrome still bothers her if she stresses too much or overdoes the heavy lifting. She still struggles with insomnia at times.

             Jasmine's milestones were life changing this year. Colleges classes, prom, graduation, getting accepted to colleges, receiving a scholarship to her favorite one, moving away from home plus balancing friends, extra curriculars, and 17 college credits while maintaining a high GPA.

             Ben got his braces off, grew taller than Mom and sister, shaved for the first time, and started piano lessons. He is writing his own music too. He still loves to draw but he now loves to read novels. He really enjoys his time with FLL - FIRST LEGO League (www.firstlegoleague.org). His team won the TEAM SPIRIT award at regional tournament in Nov. Darin and I are the team coaches so it was a family sport every week from Sept. 5 through Nov. 16th.

             Kenny is our new no-stop talker now that Jas has moved away. He is always in motion - his feet and his mouth.   He joined the FLL team this year and did a great job in the research presentation, but decided at the end of the season, that FLL is not "his" thing. He loves Star Wars of every kind and shape. He could watch the 6 videos every day if we let him. This summer with Mom working, he matured into becoming a big help around the house.

           Our church just celebrated 20 years and it was wonderful to remember all of GOD's goodness and blessings. HE is Jehovah Jireh - our provider and HIS grace is sufficient for all of us each day.

            As I review this year, I remember all of GOD's blessings that HE has so graciously given to us. Even the difficult times give us pause to acknowledge our great need for HIM and His grace and love. May you find HIS love to be real in your hearts this year. HE is the reason we celebrate this season.

Blessings to you from the 5K's.

I hosted 6 friends this week for my first Cookie Exchange. I served mini egg rolls, mini broccoli and cheese quiches and BBQ meatballs, a chocolate covered strawberry dip with crackers. We each brought six dozen cookies so everyone went home with a different variety of six dozen than they brought.

           We had Mexican Wedding Cookies, Very good cookies (yes that is the name of them), Yuletide Kisses, Hidden Kisses, Star studded cookies, Peanut Butter tarts filled with chocolate stars and a delicious Orange/Cranberry/Almond Chex mix for entertaining.

         I could not decide which cookie to make so I made the peanut butter tarts, Tiger Butter candy and Peppermint Creams to share. I cut out 8 dozen butter cookies and we had a hilarious time decorating the butter cookies. I had visions of the beautful cookies we would create without children distracting us and with expensive toppings and royal icing. My two cookies were in the shape of a Moose for my Canadian loving man. My first one looked like a shaggy puppy so the next one I made very plain so you could still tell it was a Moose! We all had a very good laugh at my  not so pretty decorated Moose. But K ate it today- and he called it a dog cookie!

         Now we are starting to make up our Christmas platters that go out to the Youth Group leader, piano teacher and neighbors. They are looking pretty but just needed something more. A dear friend of mine had told me early in the year that Aldi sells Truffles at Christmas time. So today I stopped by and got a few boxes- it was just the right touch to finish our platters. Soon our cookie exchange cookies will be gone!!!! . . .  J comes home in 5 days and we will begin baking again with her. Fudge and reese candy and no bake cookies are calling to me . . . can you hear them? . . .

I really thought I would have time to update this blog more often but the days are full! Since I last wrote here . . .

         We celebrated Christmas with G/G Kojis over a delicious breakfast. It was so great to just sit and talk, share many of the little things one doesn't over the phone. The boys enjoyed choosing their own breakfast meal. K had 2 pancakes, bacon and sunnyside up egg. B and Gpa chose Kiebasa sausage, eggs. D and I had omelets. Gma had the healthiest meal of granola, yogurt and dried fruit. It looked good!

         K got the camera and took very conceivable angle and people combination. He was a complete ham behind and in front of the camera. Our breakfast lasted way past lunch time!

        We proceeded to a shopping center to Christmas shop with all 4 of us. What an interesting time that was- I knew exactly where to find my guys- either the fishing isle or the boy toy section!!! LOL!

        Our church's Womens' Outreach "NIght of Wonder" was Sat. evening. The church was beautifully decorated with silver painted real tree branches with a multitude of silver stars hanging from them. A local Christian High School Choir came to lead us in a choral of wonderful worship songs.  We had 16 tables of 8 and I was doing double duty as photographer and table hostess. I have to remember to only be photographer next year. Elizabeth M from a local large church gave us a message about Looking but not being able to see because the World is in the way. Very powerful and pertinent message for all us every day. How like King Herod we can be try to be our own self-savior or like the wise men in Herod's temple who knew where the Christ child would come from but were too busy with controlling their own environment to leave to go find the Messiah.    

        Sunday at 2am B came to our bedroom complaining that he was in pain from itching his scalp. As I dragged myself out of bed, I saw that his whole scalp and neck was inflammed with hives. As I checked out the rest of him, his abdomen was covered wih large hives but he said those didn't hurt like the ones on his head. So I gave him Benedryl and Ibrophen and sent him back to bed. I have had insomnia the last week and was so tired. As soon as I laid my head on the pillow, the LORD convicted me to get back up and call the pharmacy. When the pharmacist heard that the hives were on his head, he told me to get B to the ER right away. Since the allergist reaction was manifesting itself in the head already, it could easily move to the throat area which could cause B's airways to be minimized. So off to the ER we went and he was given Prednisone, hooked up to monitoring machines and watched for several hours. Within the hour, B was sound asleep and resting peacefully on the hospital bed. He is fine, no action in his airways and each day the rashes and hives are less and less. He is experiencing muscle fatigue last night and today- this is his last day of Prednisone. We believe the cause for all this drama was a new acne medication he was taking.

       I  got a few deep hours of sleep from 7-11am and then off we trekked to G/G Ryer's house for Gpa's 70th birthday party. We all had a delightful time with family. My brother and his kids had an awesome surprise for Gpa when it got dark. They had set up sparkles in the snow in the shape of "70". Unfortunately it was sooooo cold outside the candles, flick a flames would not stay lite so the beginning sparkles were burned out by the time the rest of them got lite but it was such a great idea! Gpa loved it!

       Monday was a good school day and I was busy preparing for my first Cookie Exchange that night. Then the winter storm approached and it was not safe for anyone to be out driving so we postponed the party to Wed. night. Tuesday was a Snow Day because D stayed home and worked remotely. We started reading about the California Gold Rush and the Pony Express Riders. Just great Boy adventures!

        I will update another day- maybe tomorrow and I have lots more to share . . .

Love-Sarah

A fellow homeschool Mom and user of Tapestry of Grace curriculum, Molly at http://www.counterculturalmom.blogspot.com/ is hosting a blog carnival this month.

She also offers excellent podcasts about "Preparing your heart for Christmas". I enjoyed it tremendously and it challenged me to take a deeper look at my Advent activities, which led me to start the Inductive Bible study.

Her emphasis for this week's blog is Christmas books and music. I already posted about our Advent studies and our miscellanous activities so now I will share our other favorites.

Since D loves the trumpet, Kenny G's Miracles Christmas album gets top billing here. I have all of my Christmas albums saved onto the computer and the one album that gets played by me is All-Time Christmas Favorites, vol. 4. My all time favorite song is Silent Night.

We just finished listening to "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens last week as our Literature selection. Then I got the video from the library, unfortuately there are many versions of this classic and it was the newest animated version from the viewpoint of a pair of mice. So off to the library I went again and got the correct one. It is on the calendar to watch it this weekend.

We are almost done listening to Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter and it is teaches about Christmas' and blizzards of days long past. The last time we studied this time period we did a Laura Ingalls Christmas party with our TOG coop.

One of my favorite Christmas books is actually a series by Karen Kingsbury called the Red Gloves series: Hannah's Hope; Sarah's song; Gideon's Gift; Maggie's Miracle.

Since I have little ones in the house for so many years-- some of our favorite books are kids books.

Who is coming to our House? by Joseph Slate

The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado

Mary's First Christmas by Walter Wangerin Jr.

Praying you are all finding ways to celebrate the CHRIST season-

Advent began on Sunday. For years, we have enjoyed reading a Family Advent story series by Arnold Ytreeide. The first book in the series is Jothan's Journey, which we read last year for the third time. J and B knew the story quite well but it was all new to K's memory.

This year is the next book in the series called Bartholomew's Passage. So far the story is seen his village destroyed by Roman soldiers, separated from his entire family, his long walk as a prisoner to Caesarea, sold as a slave to a foul Roman, where through his grief ,he makes a mistake causing the master to order his hands to be cut off.  There is always a cliffhanger each night and a short essay about God's plan of us in times of trouble or distress.
Each night, the boys light the purple candle in the Advent wreath on the coffee table. This week's candle is the Hope candle. Then we read the story and off to bed they go.

The last 2 days of school we have done an Inductive Bible study on the Advent. The first day was on the  prophecy of Jesus being born in the village of King David, Bethlehem. I could see the benefit for K immediately as we read the Scripture verses several times looking for the key words to highlight, circle or draw a symbol around them. There are questions about the verses that we need to search for the answers.

Today, I had both boys do it together and K was teaching B the different symbols to use and special colors for each symbol. It showed me how much he had recalled. We read from 1Samuel 16:1-13 today about the anointing of David and how the LORD chooses not by outward appearance but from the person's thoughts and intentions. Good discussion followed about what GOD considers important.

We have the Playmobil manger scene out for Kenny to re-enact with it. The ceramic manger scene will be set up next week with a new piece finding it's way to the stable each day.

We only have 6 more days of regular school work. Starting on the 15th, we will be studying the meaning of our favorite Christmas Carols in addition to our Advent study.

Last year we played the 12 days of Christmas with our best friend's family. K, S and D have best friends' in their family so each day we would deliver a 12 days of Christmas ornament to their house with a real symbol of that specific day. Like a can of pears with the Partridge in the Pear tree ornament- it got more challenging as the days progressed.

 It was so much fun to try to keep our identity a secret. So we would go at different times of the day and hang it on the backdoor. Only one time, the Dad was home in the middle of the day so we hung it from the side mirrors of his van. WHEW- we almost got caught that time. The 11th day was Christmas Eve and we found out they would not be home Christmas day so we followed them to their car after the Christmas Eve service and sang a few Christmas carols to them- they are better singers than we are so we all sang together. It was a great memory and the boys are asking if we are doing to again-- only we need a new family to surprise!

J will return home from college on the 18th. We will take in the Christmas lights downtown and take photos of all the pretty lights.We will make a Gingerbread House like we did at Aunt Stephanie's house in FL in January. We had never made one before and all of us enjoyed decorating it very much, but not as much as we delighted in eating it.  

We have our puzzle started for the winter season. It is inside of a large school display board, which is easy to move on and off the table for meal times. G/G Ryer started us on this tradition and we love to work on it as a family.

I always bake many dozen cookies. I like a great variety of cookies so bake them all. Last year was my first time making fudge and I have watched several episodes of the "The Food Network" when they were teaching about making fudge. Mine should be better this year. J is our candymaker, she learned how to make it at a homeschool conference and entered candy several years in the Fair.

I am hosting my first cookie exchange in 4 days and I am excited to see my friends for a Ladies Night out. Years ago, when I was the leader of our homeschool support group, we always had a Christmas party and then after that group ended, it was the Tapestry of Grace Coop Christmas party. I like to party with my friends so now we will exchange cookies as an excuse to get to see each other and have fun!

Hope you have learned a little about our CHRISTmas plans!

J and I did the annual Jo-ann Fabric shopping trip today. She got great wool yarn for a beautiful sweater, some beads for her Gospel Choir concert outfit.

We are enjoying the Christmas tree lights! I am glad that we got to put it up all together yesterday.

We started wrapping Christmas presents today too.

I made peppermint cream candy and a double batch of butter cookies. I cut the cookies as snowmen, snowflakes, moose shape and stars.

There is a snowstorm coming our way 3-6 inches in the next 24 hours.

We have the woodpiles all covered, ready for snow. The fireplace is keeping up warm and toasty. I made a delicous, homemade cocoa mix which I enjoy each morning.

We will be watching "A Christmas Carol" tomorrow night.

We will be taking our family Christmas photos tomorrow at church.

Just a few updates on our day-

We are the 5Ks: Darin and Sarah, Jasmine, Ben, and Kenny. We hope your Christmas is full of joy, peace, and love.