Jesus Love Me ~

Blessed and Thankful ~

Thanksgiving morning I asked Ruthie what she was thankful for and she replied, "Nae Nae and Thanksgiving!" She was excited to eat dinner that day. :)
My mom covers her car at night to avoid frost on her windshield...Ruthie noticed it one day and warned Grandma, "Grandma! You have a wrapper on your car!"
Naomi's been talking a lot lately. I love hearing her say, "I love you Woofie (Ruthie)."She's now sleeping in a big girl bed too. I thought she might be hard to train but she's been so easy. I guess she likes sleeping with her big sister.
Nae enjoys having us pray for her before she sleeps/naps. I think it's her manipulative way of avoiding naptime but once we pray for her she'll scream "pray over me, pray over me!" We have no choice but to pray over her...how could we not? :)
Grandma Shilloy and Ruthie were role playing "Church Time." This is when Ruthie brings her baby to nursery (nursery worker = Grandma Shilloy, a trustworthy servant in the church body) and attends the sermon. When Grandma came to get Ruthie out of church (her number was called due to an unconsolable crying baby), Ruthie replied calmly, "No thank you. I'm learning about Jesus."
I overheard Nae as she tried to get over the chair in her way calmly saying, "Excuse me chair, excuse me chair."

It's not a good sign when you hear this conversation over the baby monitor:

Ruthie: Nae Nae, you better get down from there.

Nae: No.

Ruthie: You're going to get in trouble Nae.

Nae: No.

Ruthie: How you goin' get down?

Nae: Not know.

Ruthie: You goin' get discipline Nae.

Naomi had climbed the dresser and was standing on top of it...hmm...still not sure how she did it.

This year I did the Thanksgiving meal by myself. It was enjoyable. Ben and Elizabeth came over and it was fun just hanging out with them.

The next two pictures are of Naomi and Ruthie licking the beaters from the mashed potatos I made. I think they thought it was going to taste like frosting or whipped cream because both spit the potatos out. Hey, maybe this will stop them from begging for the beaters when I do make a delicious dessert topping...means more for me! :)

Ben and Elizabeth...our Thanksgiving trial taste testers. I passed the test.

We put up our tree yesterday. The below zero temperature and winter blizzard encouraged this year's early Christmas decoration timing.

This is Jeff's (Brad's brother) AMAZING whitetail buck he shot with a bow.

Anchorage Church Meeting ~

A church in Anchorage paid for Brad and I to travel there and "interview" with them about support. The girls stayed with my mom. Above: Brad and I enjoyed some alone time together...we had an apartment we stayed at for four days during our time there. One night we watched Little House on the Prairie (my choice, Brad was patient) while sharing ice cream.
Can you see behind me in the above picture? We were blessed to be able to borrow a fifteen passenger van. I never drove...a litte too nervous about killing ourselves or others.
I think Brad was nervous about our meetings. :)
Apparently the girls got into some A&D ointment during Grandma's watch. When we came home Ruthie was excited to tell us about this mischievous act.
The missons pastor took us out to eat at this great restaurant, Gwennies.
We were SO happy to be back home...we missed the girls a lot. When I asked Ruthie what Grandma fed her while we were gone she replied with a face of self-pity, "We didn't have anything!"
During out stay in Anchorage we also manned a SEND booth at the church on Sunday. Notice I am sporting my winter coat...we were right near the doors and I was cold.
Ruthie liked showing off her latest feat.
We apply Aquaphor on the girls at bedtime. The night we returned from our trip Nae came up to me and said loudly, "Aquaphor me!"

Mad's Buck ~

I finally got a buck! It was such a fun day. Brad, me and Leroy (Brad's friend from high school) went out and it ended up being a warm day. I was a little overdressed with snowpants on but I would rather be hot than cold anyway.
This buck just stood there as if to say, "Just do it...but kill me fast." So I shot it right in the heart.

Below: Leroy. He has a beautiful ranch.
I'm glad the guys were there to do the hard and dirty work. All I had to do was shoot...they had to clean and gut the deer, drag it to the pickup, etc.
Brad videotaped the whole event so the girls were able to witness the whole thing. Ruthie kept asking to see it again. They definitely won't be timid around hunting moose and caribou in Alaska.

Fall Family Pictures ~

Above picture: We were exercising and afterward found Ruthie as above...she said she was baking muffins. She had taken all the spices and dumped them into the muffin pan, added water, etc. It took awhile to clean the mess up but we're happy to know Ruthie enjoys baking. :)

Below picture: Family picture with a flying duck? It was an attempt to get the girls to smile and look at the camera. As you can tell, I was late with the duck toss.

Tonight during dinner Brad asked Ruthie, "Aren't these the best noodles you've ever eaten?" Ruthie's response, "No." Brad replied, "Who makes them better?" Ruthie declared confidently, "God!"


Sisterly love.
While walking in town Brad mentioned street preaching...to which Ruthie stood on the sidewalk and declared loudly, "Jesus is the God of my salvation! Behold, behold, I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock!"
My three favorite people in the world!

Grandma Cheryl said Ruthie went street preaching (during a make-believe time) and said, "Jesus died and rose from the gravy."
I like this picture (below). Both parents are cleaning faces before family picture.



A country church had a harvest party.

They had a craft station which Naomi liked a lot...I tried to get her to move from this station because all the others gave out candy. She finally gave in and we traveled to different stations. I think we need to teach the girls about the importance of chocolate...every time they won a candy they chose suckers, while the yummy chocolate candy bars were left alone in the candy dish. Eventually I had to participate and get my own candy so the girls would follow my example on candy selection.