It's Shoebox Time!

One of our family's favorite - if not THE favorite - activity of all of Christmas is doing Operation Christmas Child. If you're not familiar, OCC is Franklin Graham's project to spread the Gospel to remote countries of the world by sending gifts to children at Christmas. It's super easy: you just get a shoebox (we happened to get the free ones from Family Christian Store this year), fill it with small toys, health and hygene products, school supplies, etc., pay about $7 for shipping, and then drop it off at a designated location in your area. OCC takes the boxes all over the world and distributes them to needy children....along with the Gospel of Jesus. Tons of little ones and their parents are getting saved through this project. And it's A LOT of fun for our family to make the boxes! Thursday night, we chose to make a box for a boy and a girl, both ages 5-9. We went to the store and stocked-up on as much as we could fit into our shoeboxes, and then came home and packed them. It's a challenge! Really, we would love to put much, much more into those little boxes, but you have to get it all in there. This is always such a good lesson for our children, who can hardly understand that we are giving gifts to children who have probably never received a gift before, and may never have even heard of "Christmas" or "Jesus." As we started putting things in our cart, John said, "Mommy, we're going to need a couple of boxes for my little boy. He seemed shocked when I told him that his little boy can only receive one box. The really cool part now is that if you pay your shipping on-line, OCC will actually track your box and send you an e-mail of where the child lives who you helped!

Anna shows-off the Disney princess dolls we chose for our little girl. I would love to tell you that all three of my children have a big heart for Operation Christmas Child, but.....well....you'll see below that one of them wasn't so sure about giving these wonderful toys away!

4-year old Anna Jean did NOT want to put those dolls in that box! She said, "But Mommy, we don't even know that girl!" Ah, the lessons of life... Above, our finished boxes! Included in each were a stuffed animal, matchbox cars/princess dolls, jumpropes, pencils, a pencil sharpener, rules, a notebook of paper, toothpaste and a toothbrush, a bar of soap, bandaids, bouncy balls, and and hair barrets/hair picks/combs.

So here's the deal. If you would REALLY like to feel like you've celebrated Christmas in a special way that honors Jesus this year, there's still time to do Operation Christmas Child: Collection Week is this coming week! Here's a link with all the details.

http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/

Read With Your Child Night at MCA

The kids and I enjoyed "Read With Your Child Night" at their school last week. It was a time to check-out their rooms, enjoy their artwork, and spend some time hanging-out reading. Above: Christopher is super-psyched about his new hairdo, which is "spiked." He is learning how to take hair gel and fix his own hair now. He told the hairstylist that this is going to help him....and I quote...."Get the ladies."

Below, John shows-off his picture of Jesus rising from the grave. I was proud!

John's Spelling Bee

In addition to Christopher winning the school spelling bee, we were also super-proud of John, who finished 4th in the 2nd grade bee. Way to go, John!

Trunk or Treat

Tim was Yoda, Christopher was General Grievous (a Star Wars character), John was Darth Vader, and Anna was a butterfly. The boys tried to get Anna to go with their Star Wars theme, but she would have none of it. Way to hold your ground, Anna Jean!
In the picture below, Tim and I were tickled by how the sun came down through the clouds on his head, just like in Dagobah! (You have to be a real Star Wars geek to understand what I'm talking about.)

Jeff Smith did hayrides around the church property.

People were actually asking to have their pictures taken with Yoda.

We had well over 400 people at Trunk or Treat this year! There were so many people, infact, that we could not get an exact count. When it came time to line-up for the trunks, people were wrapped around the building. Praise the Lord!

Caraline Klick and Anna.

Tim and OB1 (Mike Cooley).

Al and Janice Adams.

Below, Anna and her friend Emma.

A new trend at this year's TOT was people bringing their dogs. Below was Palin, who belongs to (our very politically conservative friends) the Cherrys. Palin is dressed-up like the Little Mermaid. True story: During Trunk or Treat, Palin actually chewed through her leash and ate her tiara!

My favorite costumes of the evening belonged to Dorothy and the Good Witch, with real-live dog Toto.

John with his friends Bryson and Josiah Robinette, below. Kaylee and Jenna Davis, the boys' friends from school joined us.

OB1 couldn't help himself from fighting Darth Vader in our yard.

Andrew, Stacy, and Ayden Graham.

WINNING!!!

After winning the 4th grade spell-off at his school, Christopher went-on to beat the 5th and 6th graders and became the 2011 Milford Christian Academy Spelling Champion!

We are so proud of you, Christopher!!!

We met Christopher at dismissal after school with a bunch of balloons that said "Congratulations" and "You are awesome," and then we let him pick any restaurant (ooh! restaurant is one of his spelling words!) where he wanted to celebrate. He chose the Olive Garden, where he opted to forego spaghetti (ooh! spaghetti was one of his spelling words!) to have pizza.

Christopher said that Friday was the happiest day of his life.

So now we're learning the same words the National Spelling Bee kids learn (the process goes State Bee, Regional Bee, and then National Bee). Here are a few of our favorites:

sukiyaki

megalopolis

homogeneous

mahal

fastidious

obsequious

eiderdown

koholrabi

inselberg

pitchblende

realschule

jeremiad

Panglossian

asthmogenic

contrapuntal

Two things make it hard to study these words with Christopher: (A) I don't know how to pronounce most of them, and (B) I have no idea what they mean. Even with a mom who used to be an English teacher, the big-time spelling bees are a challenge!

Can I have a definition for that word? Can you use it in a sentence, please?

PRAISES!

• Both of my boys were finalists at their school for the big school spelling bee tomorrow! The top 5 spellers in each class wil compete tomorrow for a chance to go to the BCA multi-school spell-off. Good luck John and Christopher!!!




• Jeff Smith had a staggering 16 first-time visitors in youth group at our church Wednesday night: praise the Lord! Most of those teens had never been to church before, and we were so glad to have them.

Thanks to the Berean Spirit class for inviting our family to their yearly Harvest Party/bonfire at the Thornberrys' house. Mrs. Thornberry was so gracious (and courageous) that after we ate, she turned her dining room into a pumpkin carving station for all the kids. They had a blast! And thankfully, after it was over, I didn't have to clean-up the mess!

Anna said she wanted to carve an "angry pumpkin," and I think she got her wish. I asked her to make a face like her pumpkin, and this is what she came-up with.