Wherever You Are, My Love Will Find You

For those of you who do not know, our family is going through a pretty big transition.  Cory has worked in vocational ministry for over 10 years, but he recently began feeling like God was calling him to step away for a period.  We were overwhelmed with thankfulness when God provided a secular job for Cory almost immediately.  He is always on time.  The job is going well for Cory.  He's learning very quickly (I can shamelessly brag on my husband, right?).  The downfall of this new job, however, is that he is traveling a lot causing him to be away from our family for long stretches of time. This is very difficult for a Dad who loves to be involved in every part of his children's lives and for a wife and kids who love to have Daddy around.  So, we are thinking of creative ways to keep Cory involved in our day to day lives even though we are separated by miles.

Now, I must confess that most of my good ideas or stolen borrowed from other people.  There are some stinkin' creative people out there, and their ideas are just too good not to use.  However, sometimes, just sometimes, I get a stroke of creative genius (ha!), and come up with an idea all by myself!  I'm pretty excited about this one and I wanted to share it because I think other people could use it too, even if your loved one is not away from home.

I made these books and gave them to Cory for Christmas

The quotes on the kids' books are from a book by Nancy Tillman.  I thought they were very fitting.  The idea is that we will write letters to one another in the book and mail it back and forth.  A lot of times we mean to write letters, but in the busyness of our lives, the thought slips our mind.  Also, what an amazing keepsake this will be for our family to treasure in the years to come.  I still well up every time I read a special note from my parents.

This was the first page in Landry's book.  She worked harder on this drawing than I have ever seen her work before.  Can you spot Daddy in the grass?

We were so excited, Monday, when we arrived home to find packages from Daddy in the mail. Here is what he wrote:

I'll spare you all the mushy, gushy details of our letters ;)

But here is a video of Landry receiving hers

And, just for fun, here are some pictures of Cory and the kids the day he left for training. They had such a good time playing and loving on each other!

Skype is also keeping us going!  Landry and Daddy wouldn't know what to do without their "big lips kisses"

Happy 4th Birthday, Landry!!

Dear Landry,

It seems like I was just writing you a letter for your third birthday.  Wow!!  4 years old.  I am so thankful for four years God has given us with you.  You are simply amazing!  Creative, Strong-Willed, Thoughtful, Sensitive, Expressive, Ambitious, Intelligent, and Fun are a few of the words I would use to describe you.  Possessing such characteristics, you can do anything and go anywhere you'd like.  I pray that you follow Christ.  I pray that you use these amazing qualities to bring glory to Him!!!  I am thankful that He has given Daddy and me the responsibility to raise you and point you to Christ, and that He is right beside us sustaining us the entire time.

Mommy and Daddy Love You Sweet Girl!

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Our Christmas Card

Better Late than Never, Right?

Tis the Season to Decorate

We always try to decorate our tree on Thanksgiving or the day after.  We want to it up as long as possible.  It just adds a certain warmth to our home.  Since we were in the decorating spirit, we did cookies as well.  You can never decorate enough Christmas cookies :)

The first thing we had to do was pry the kids out of the Christmas Tree Box.  Turns out it's true what "they" say about kids and boxes!

 Then Landry dressed herself up!  She chose a leotard and tutu and adorned the neckline with Sparkly Star Barrettes.  I think they add a nice touch ;)

Eli is pouting in this picture because he wants his turn

 I love her intense focus!  Tongue out and all

 Me and my little loves

 We tend to always get a picture of Eli screaming while we are baking.  Poor little guy can't understand why he doesn't get to dump the whole jar of flour. LOL

 Sneaky, Sneaky

 Now it's tree time!

 "Hmm, what to do with all these balls?"  So glad I have switched to shatterproof balls!

Landry thought that all the matching ornaments should hang together as a group.

 I love this one of them together :)

 And Landry needed a little help from Daddy to put the ornaments just where she wanted them

After the trees and cookies, Eli decorated himself a bit.....

What fun memories!!!!

Anyone miss Thanksgiving?

Just in case you are, I'm taking you back.  

We spent our Thanksgiving at my parents' house.  For the last few years, family had come to us, so it was nice to shake things up a bit.  

The first thing we did when we got there was picked a pumpkin from PawPaw's pumpkin patch.  The pumpkins were just gorgeous and it was so much fun going to a real pumpkin patch right in GiGi and PawPaw's yard!

Of course, no trip with Landry would be complete without a little dress-up.  This was her costume of choice

 And for some reason, it prompted her to say the pledge over and over.

 We got to visit MaMa...

 And to top the trip off,  we drank a little eggnog (without the alcohol, of course)...

And trimmed the tree!!

Sing, O Sing!!

Gosh, I've been a bad blogger lately, and it's driving me crazy.  Seems I can't catch up with the craziness life brings.  No worries!  Next week, I plan on being a blogging fool.  Seriously!

However, today I'm getting a head start (even though it is out of order).  Landry had her very first Christmas Program today at school.  She sang so beautifully!!  No screaming for this girl, she can carry a really nice tune :)  Since Daddy is out of town and had to miss it, I wanted to post the video right away.

Here is Landry doing a solo at our house a couple mornings ago