Father-Son bake off part 2- the competition!

TheBake off was Sunday night. Our boys hard work paid off with 3 ribbons! Ty received a 1st for presentation and 2nd for taste. Danny received 2nd for taste in his category. Tyler made the "fire Log" You can see the 1 picture of Danny holding a marshmallow over the "fire". Rick was able to hot glue a stick that he positioned just right on the plate so that the marshmallow could be "roasting" over the log during the competition. Danny made a "no-bake cheese cake" They tried to make it look like a cheese wheel and then put the 2 mice in feasting on the cheese. The little hedge hog wasn't ours but I thought he was cute so I included him. Hedgie won 1st place for presentation in his category.

Father-Son Bake Off part 1 baking day

This weekend marked the annual Cub Scout Father-son bake off. My boys worked very hard all afternoon on Saturday to make their delicious creations! They had a wonderful time with their Dad. How fun it was to watch Dad make not only 1 dessert but 2 so that they each had an entry in the contest. They even cleaned up the mess-most of it anyway!
Thanks Rick for taking the time to do this with the boys.

Sweet moments with Danny

One night last week before bed, Danny came to me with a handful of change. "Mom, how much money is this?" I counted, "$1.05" "Okay." he said and then asked if he could put it in an envelope and take it in to school "for a boy in my class who is very poor." I asked why he thought he was poor and he relayed a story another boy had told him. I praised him for his desire to help another and for the evidence of God's grace in his heart that lead him to be so generous. The boys had deduced that this other boy was poor because he would never buy lunch at school-"he always packs his lunch." So I gave him permission to offer to buy this boy some ice cream at lunch time.
The next morning, Danny emptied out all of the change in his piggy bank and asked if I would put it in an envelope so he could give it to this boy to take home to his parents. Then he said he was going to tell all the other kids in the class that they had to bring in $0.86 each to give to this boy. This was getting a little out of hand rather quickly so I suggested that we pray first about what we should do then we will wait to see what God leads us to do. After he headed off to school, I put in a call to his teacher to let her know that the children were talking in this way and also asked if she would arrange for Danny to be able buy ice cream for this boy.
When Danny came home from school that day, the first thing he asked was "Did you get an answer from God yet?" I explained to him that Yes, I do believe God was faithful to give me direction and we proceeded to discuss how this all came about and as I encouraged him for his generosity I was also able to talk to him and warn him about gossip as this story about this boy was not true at all. I love Danny's heart in this to help these people and his desire to rally others to help as well. I pray for the wisdom to help guide him in these things in a God honoring way, and that one day he will be rallying others to help those in need.

This next story somewhat flows out of the first in that when I told Danny we would wait until we heard from God, that brought up many questions about how do you hear from God etc.
Today when Danny came home from school he didn't come right inside. Instead, after taking the trash cans in from the road, he went to his favorite climbing tree. Nothing out of the ordinary. Tonight, however when I was putting him to bed he said to me "Mom, while I was outside today taking the trash cans in and sitting in my tree, I was counting God's blessings. How he has given me food and clothes and things and it was fun." "Well Guess what Dan?" I said, "All of those thoughts came to you from God. God was out there with you and He wanted to spend time with you today out in your tree!" He was so excited and then he was going on about how he could picture Jesus sitting next to him on the branch and talking to him. And then as he started to say his prayers he stopped and said "It's like being with God when we say our prayers too because we are talking to him." Amen, Danny and shouldn't that motivate us all to be more often on our knees! Thank you Jesus for the sweet time with Danny today. I pray that there will be many more!!!
Oh and guess what story we came to in our Bible reading tonight? It is actually a combined story which contains Matthew 18:1-4 and Matthew 19:13-15.

Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew19:13 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” 15 And he laid his hands on them and went away.

Catch up

Okay so I have a few minutes now so I will get a few pics out. The first Picture of Ty is when the first ice storm came through and the kids were sent home early from school. You can tell by the look on his face he was pretty disappointed! It was a treat to have the boys home! We had fun decorating foam Christmas trees with glitter glue.
The next picture is from the next and harsher ice storm that came through. It sure was beautiful but there is a lot of damage to trees that we are still cleaning up! Our power was out for 4 and1/2 days, but I cannot complain at all as we hardly felt it. The generator is a very handy thing-thanks Rick for going out in the cold each morning to get it started!
The third is one of my favorites! The 3 kiddos were out in the ice for hours breaking icicles off the fence and their swingset and sliding on their bums down the driveway!
Then there's my handsome husband. I know he is making a funny face, but I still thought it was cute. He is cutting up 1 of the big trees that fell across our driveway.
The last picture is our New Years Eve dinner. We had just come in from shopping at Sam's Club. Our intention was to go out to dinner, but Rick was feeling sick and fading fast so we came home instead. We whipped up a smorgasborg (Or however you spell it since the computer is highlighting it and obviously doesn't like my spelling of it) of many appatizers that we had just purchased from Sam's. The kids thought it was great fun and Kate even tried an Eggroll AND Salami-go figure! She even liked them! We all took turns sharing how God had blessed us in the past year and some of our favorite memories. Kate's was Ballerina baseball with her cousin Melissa. Ty enjoyed going to Ocean City MD with our friends the Schell family. Dan enjoyed playing hockey with our other cousins Ben and Sue from Colorado whom we haven't seen since Danny was 6 weeks old! Our family trip in October to the beach was another favorite.
God has been so kind to us! I must say that for me, 2007 was a time to re-connect with many in my family whom I haven't seen in a while. The cool thing was-they all came here! I love that our kids were able to see many of their cousins-some whom they have never met before and now they have some very fun memories of them. So even if it is a while before God brings us together again, they still have warm feelings and fun memories of family!

I have to admit I am technologically challenged-much to the dismay of my electronic, computer designing husband. I do not know how to add pictures in any particular order, nor do I know how to add captions to them so I am at the whim of this unfeeling metal machine that hums in my ear to do what it will with my pictures. You will see that there is a picture of Kate that I hadn't mentioned before now. Well, that's because I forgot to put it in when I added the others. But the story behind it was too cute to not add it in. This was taken while we were de-decorating our Christmas tree. She was walking around with the angel "Gabraham" on her head and telling me the whole story of how "Gabraham" came to Mary and then Mary and Joseph went to "Beth a hem" and they were "riding on a donkey or a camel or something."

Ta, ta for now.....