More Christmas pictures

Kailyn and all her ballerina stuff.

Christmas Jammies.

Christmas Eve family picture.

Kailyn's version of Silent Night.

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Christmas Festivities

There is so much to share today that I am not sure where to start. We started off the Christmas weekend with Javin getting sick. So that put a damper on a few things. He ran a low grade fever for several days till I finally got him to the doctor's office. Only to discover he has strep! Boy, was I surprised! It must have been the world mildest case. Hopefully he didn't get anyone infected. I opted for the shot in light of our past experiences with Javin and medicine. Better a few minutes of pain than 10 days of torture! He is on the mend now and we even managed to have our Christmas celebration along with lots of Germ-X and hand washing!

What else...We had a fun Birthday Party for Jesus with a bunch of kids. They acted out the Christmas story in an impromptu play, ate birthday cake and played party games! It was fun and hopefully memorable for them. The kids also had their Christmas program at church this weekend. Javin was in the choir and a wise man. He also made an appearance as a dancer with his solo break dancing stint! The crowd went wild. He was quite nervous when it came time to go on stage and remember he did all this with strep! Kailyn got to go up front to sing a few songs and I helped get the 5 and 6 years going on an angel dance.

Then came the presents and lots of 'em. They kids were blessed abundantly. And so was I. We stayed up late watching Shrek 3. Then the kids and Molly piled into my bed for our Christmas Eve tradition of everyone gets to sleep in mom's bed. Such good memories!

Christmas morning I served brunch for 10 at my house. It was so much fun to come up with some interesting new recipes. I was brave and made all untried dishes and believe it or not they all turned out good! Thank goodness. We had crab quiche bake, spiced almond peaches, and french toast fingers, and lots more. Te day was filled with lots of visiting and friendship.

Our Christmas was a busy time but full all the stuff that good memories are made of!

Launching Out

I am so excited to share my latest news with you. I am going to Burkina Faso in March to minister to widows and orphans with Acts Ministry. A small group from our church (including my mom) is going over for 10 days. You can checkout their web site at http://www.acts-burkina.org/php/anHome.php Burkina Faso is a landlocked, western African country located above Ghana that is in a state of great poverty. The ministry we are working with seeks to help widows learn a vocation to support themselves and helps orphans to get an education and daily meals.

Grandpa and Grandpa Peck have graciously agreed to come up and stay with my kids so that I can go. All I can say is that I am really, really looking forward to this. I know it is the next the step for me and that God is going to speak to me during this trip. I just have this feeling that it is going to be one of those turning points in life. Please pray with me for God to direct our family. He has really been burdening my heart to get involved with the poor and forgotten ones in greater way. So we will see where this next step leads.

Holiday Kitchen Fun

We love to make Christmas treats at our house. One of our latest traditions has been the Cookie Exchange at my Grandma's house. Kailyn and I busied ourselves in preparation of this fun cookie filled day. We made Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. They are easy to make and a sure favorite! We got on our cookie-making gear, it's just more fun in an apron and baker's hat! Kailyn helped a bunch with unwrapping the peanut butter cups. She even was a big help rolling the dough into little balls. I have included the recipe for you to try out yourself.

• Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
  INGREDIENTS
  1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  1/2 teaspoon salt
  1 teaspoon baking soda
  1/2 cup butter, softened
  1/2 cup white sugar
  1/2 cup peanut butter
  1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  1 egg, beaten
  1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  2 tablespoons milk
  40 miniature chocolate covered peanut butter cups, unwrapped
  DIRECTIONS
  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda; set aside.
  Cream together the butter, sugar, peanut butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and milk. Add the flour mixture; mix well.
  Shape into 40 balls and place each into an ungreased mini muffin pan.
  Bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press a mini peanut butter cup into each ball. Cool and carefully remove from pan.

The next thing on our list was gingerbread men. My kids love the gingerbread man story!! I cheated this year by buying the ready made gingerbread cookie dough. It was so easy and tastes really good. Thanks Pillsbury! They rolled and cut out the little men. We have a running gingerbread man and regular gingerbread man. Javin entertained us with his retelling of the story and the many variations he has heard. Later in the day we decorated our men with icing and mini M&M's. Yum! The green and blue one that Javin is holding is his depiction of me.

Then we moved on to constructing a gingerbread house for our men. In the past, we have bought the kit from a store. That was always fun, but I never let them eat it, who knows what they put in those things to make them last so long! So this year we tried making the house out of graham crackers. The challenging part was making the royal icing to hold it all together. It is supposed to be really stiff when it dries. I don't think I have that part down yet. It was a little runny and adding more and more powdered sugar wasn't helping. But they stayed together. So now our men have houses! Fun times!

Our Snowman's Short Life

Saturday the weather warmed up just enough to make the snow perfect for packing. The snow balls were flying everywhere! We built a huge snowman. I should say, I built a snowman. Kailyn made her own little one and Javin worked on building a snow fort with his snow brick molds. The big snowman needed to go on a diet because his middle was bigger than his bottom part. Ooops. He began to lean over rather quickly and looked like he was bowing.

It has warmed up considerably by now and this is all that is left of our dear snowman.

It's Enough

The weather has been so cold up here. It seems especially cold since we were just in Florida, I think. We got a few flurries on Monday but nothing much. My opinion is that if it has to be so very cold than snow would make it much better. Well we were pleasantly surprised on Wednesday when we got up and the world was covered in white and still coming down. Molly started barking and woke us all up. Then Kailyn looked out and and started yelling "It's enough! It's enough!" The translation on that would be that she is so excited that it's enough snow to build a snowman and go sledding and make snow angels. All the things she has been wanting to do. It was so cute! Here is a picture of Kailyn wishing there was enough snow on Monday.

Javin's school was cancelled and Kailyn was outside with snow clothes on over her pajamas by 8 am. We enjoyed a day at home together. We did try to go away but my battery was dead so we just forgot about it and let it charge up. The kids had fun sledding, even got mom to go a couple of times. Did you know there are 2 ways to go down a hill of snow? On the sled and off the sled! Here is a clip of them coming down the hill ON the sled and one of Kailyn coming down SANS sled. We love snow!!

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Orange belt

Javin has stepped up to the next level in his Tae Kwon Do training. He is now officially an orange belt! Way to channel all that energy into something productive, Javin!! Here he is at class getting his new belt.

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Seven Mountains Gift Catalog

Well the Seven Mountains Gift Catalog project that I have been working on is finally at the launching stage!! We have overcome some major hurdles. I am still amazed that God brought this all together in such a short amount of time. Wow! God is good and has all the resources we need. It was amazing to see all the talented people God brought in to help us. It was stretching at times, like Sunday when I was designated as the one to share the vision with the whole church! I was so nervous but then when I got up to speak I was so relaxed doing what I knew I was supposed to be doing. Javin even came up front with me and shared his wishlist with the congregation. This is just the beginning of something great and we are so excited to see where God takes us from here. So jump on over and check out the new Seven Mountains Gift Catalog web site at http://www.sevenmountainsgift.com/ and BECOME A MOUNTAIN MOVER!!!

What's it all about? You can now give a gift this Christmas that will keep on giving all year long. Go to our web site to see the list of opportunities that are ready for you to purchase. We have goats to purchase in Burkina Faso, guitars for churches in Nepal, food for orphans in Kenya and much more. This gift catalog is designed to give you the leverage to actually change some one's world. We have selected country representatives from 9 nations who are involved in the message of the 7 Mountains. Simply put, you are influencing church, family, education. government, media, entertainment and business. Seven of the mind-molders of society. Each project is designed to sustain itself so your gift reproduces again and again. The exciting aspect of the project is that we have tried and true relationships built with each country representative and they are dedicated to completing the purchase of these gifts for you. With each purchase you will receive a gift card to give to someone telling them how you bought these gifts in their honor. All gifts are tax-deductible. We are promoting this project digitally and therefore have no printing or mailing costs.

Join me as we make the world a better place this Christmas and throughout the year. And invite all your friends to check us out as well!

Florida trip review

We have finally returned to the land of cold, wind and sleet! Florida was sure a nice break from our "lovely" Ohio weather! It was in the 70's and 80's everyday. We were definitely blessed with great weather during our trip.


We had a wonderful time visiting with the Pecks and enjoying Florida. The kids did great on the plane ride.




Highlights were our windy trip to the Fort DeSoto Beach in St. Petersburg and our 2-day Sea World excursion in Orlando. Javin even got to feed the dolphins!


We packed 2 holiday celebrations in as well - Thanksgiving and then Christmas a few days later! Now that's a lot of celebrating!

The kids went swimming at the pool every chance they could.

They also went to a Children's Musuem. Fun times!

The most exciting time I had was getting locked out of the house. I had to have a neighbor pry the screen off a window so I could crawl inside! What an ordeal!


I also took the opportunity to experience Black Friday shopping since I had babysitters available. I have never gone really early and experienced the crowds. I was quite amazed at the amount of people that were up at 5 am. I didn't have anything I really wanted, it was just interesting to see all the people lined up with their bargains. Later in the day I did find a good deal on shoes for Javin and waited in line for an hour to buy them. That was crazy! But that kid goes through shoes like you wouldn't believe. He's on his second pair of sneakers for school!


It was fun to take a break from the old routine and soak in the sunshine.