Addition to previous post

As we were in church yesterday, I look beside me to find Emma's backside up in the air with her dress hanging down. This is not the first time, we have seen that view in church, but I thought it was funny since I had just written about it. So we are still working on how to sit properly in church.

I have a headache.

Emma enjoys very much being on her head. Garrett on the other hand, as some have found out, becomes terrified when he is upside down. Emma will just randomly run to a chair or couch and do her head stands....after leaving the table, bathroom, or anytime she feels like it. But she did admit to Rob today that while doing that she had a headache, maybe she is onto something.

Stone wall

We have been preparing for few months now to have my brother Caleb come and help us install a stone wall and platform, to put a wood stove on. Caleb was a stone mason for about a year and a half, so he offered to help us put up stone.

We had a wood stove in our old house and we figured with a new house we would not need to burn wood since we would have an "efficient" furnace and windows that are tightly sealed. It did not take us long to realize that a big house takes a lot of gas to heat. Rob does really enjoy cutting/chopping wood. Since being a pastor is more of a sedentary job, he likes being able to come home and throw is axe around, and get a few blisters on his hands.

You can see the wall before we started yesterday and then this afternoon when it was all done. Caleb does an awesome job and he was great at teaching Rob how to lay the stone also. Emma, Garrett, Sharon, and I all were able to put some stone up too. In a few day we would be able to put the stove on the platform, when the cement is set, but Rob will be out of town so it will be at least a week (he is going to be at Denver Seminary starting his first class working toward his Doctorate in Ministry), and then we will need to have it all inspected too. So hopefully in the next couple weeks we will again be burning wood to help heat our home.

More Christmas

Rob and I have had a tradition of making lefse (lef'-sa) "a traditional Scandinavian potato-based, soft, flat bread. It is made by combining potato, flour, butter, milk, salt and water. The dough is rolled very thin and baked on a hot, dry griddle. It is a Scandinavian delight and very versatile. Spread it with butter and roll up for a quick snack. If you have a sweet tooth, sprinkle one with a little sugar and add a dash of cinnamon. Serve as a bread with meals, a coffee-time snack or roll-up with your favorite lunchmeats and cheeses." ......we almost did not this year, but having heard of my family making 3 batches last week and knowing that Rob will not be here to do it with me next year. We decided to do it on Christmas day. So as soon as the kids were down for a nap we started. Of course we were not able to finish it all during that time, but they really enjoyed helping too.

Then we had some friends from church come over and they brought a drum set for Garrett. Emma stated that the drums were "her" favorite gift. Naturally we do not have any drum sticks lying around, so they have been using wooden spoons.

Christmas

We spent this Christmas with just the 4 of us in Casper. Even though I was a little sad this morning that we were not with any extended family, I am glad we had the opportunity to do be in our home. Because our lives become so busy it is nice to have the relaxing time together, and appreciate it since we know Rob will be gone to Kuwait next year.

Since we did not have any picture to send out in our Christmas cards I thought we could share our Christmas eve picture. We had our Christmas eve service at church, full with children's pageant and all. That is the first time we have done any kind of Children's program since we have been here. We has almost 20 kids there, and about 60 people in church, the first year we were here it was about 15 people and the second year it was about 20 with with 6 of them being my family. It was a blessing to see, even though we do not measure God's work by numbers. It actually threw Rob off having so many people. We were very blessed to have our new neighbors, Brooke and Cody come. Cody told us the night before that he had only been to church maybe 5 times. So we are excited to see if in this next year we can share with him more who Christ is and how he can be saved.

The new wagon that Emma and Garrett received from my sister and her husband was a big hit. They spent about 2 hours in it after Rob got it set up. I don't know if you can tell or not but it is windy out here today, and for the last several days it has been too. It blew all our snow away. So no white Christmas.

But we are very blessed with how God loves us and cares for us, and for the gift of Jesus Christ and eternal life through his death on the cross.

Christmas blessings to you all!!

Rainbow over a "big rock"

A friend of ours took this picture near Independence Rock, which if you did not know is about 70 miles from Casper. Those who were privileged enough to grow up playing Oregon Trail on the old Apple Computers in school, will remember it was beneficial to make it to Independence Rock by the 4Th of July so you could make it through the mountains before the snow began to fly. Whenever we have visitors they usually get to go out to "the rock" on their first visit here. Seems like we have not been out there in a long time, guess we need some new first time visitors "lol". But to sum it up this is not a picture of Independence rock, but it looks similar and is near by, and has a really cool rainbow coming down over it. Some time when I can find one of our Independence Rock picture I will post it too.

Just sharing pictures

Life has been good. God is always blessing us and with us. I have not put much effort into my blog lately, but I did just get my Christmas cards send out. So I thought I would share some photos. The first one is Emma and Garrett with their cousin Jackson, Jared's little boy. Then the next one is Thanksgiving day and the kids with Rob playing some annual Thanksgiving day football. Then Emma and Trisha, making some cookies Finally Garrett getting his hands in the dishwater, he just loves to do this and I had to finally capture it. It is adorable how he rolls up his sleeves as soon he gets his chair up to the water.