Okay, I admit it, Facebook is taking over. It is just so easy to post pictures and stuff, it seems that my blog has become neglected. I will try and catch up a bit.

This last month seems like a blur. Christmas eve eve service at the Orchard was AWESOME!! Mike's team did such an incredible job. Loved being there with my extended Mitchell family and getting to see all of them.

Christmas morning was so much fun, the kids opened the gifts from Santa, and Nana and Papa, granny and papa, aunts and uncles. Mike surprised me with my new-to-me Macbook! I love her and am quickly becoming a Mac addict. Then we packed up and were off for three days, two nights in Gurnee, Il!!! We went to Key Lime Cove a brand new indoor water park there and had such a great time. This is our second year skipping gifts for the kids and doing a trip instead. The kids had a blast and so did we. It was so cool to spend individual time with each kid and just relax as a family.

We came home on Saturday night and Mike and I left on Sunday evening for a fabulous anniversary over night in Chicago. Mike planned the whole thing and wouldn't tell me a thing till we were almost there. He booked a night stay at the Hyatt in Chicago on the magnificent mile and we had dinner at Aria, same as last year. We loved it so much last year and it doesn't disappoint. We had a great time. Next morning we went to our favorite Lou Mitchells for breakfast and gorged ourselves on some delicious fresh baked doughnuts, omelet and potatoes. Yum!!!

And today, Mike goes back to work and I pack away Christmas.

That about does it. I will try and give the blog equal opportunity, although with school starting for me and the kids I am afraid the blog maybe put on hold till I am done....Maybe go down to monthly updates. Don't know yet.

Here is a video from the waterpark, off of Kylee's new camcorder. I snagged it and took this priceless video. Things to look for in it- sneaky guy who appears in everyone's frame, a sharing moment, and mommy attempting to duplicate Kylee's sign off. Enjoy!!!

Okay I admit it, facebook is taking over. It is just so much easier than blogging. I am ashamed.

I just posted a ton of pictures of our fun cooking decorating time together with Ms. Jen and Mr. Brad. But I will post them here too, for all of you who are not on facebook yet.







Ms. Jen set up a great assembly line with rollers, flatners, and sprinklers.









Like a fine oiled machine.








Then came the rice crispy treat houses! Yummy! Much better tasting than ginger bread houses and much, much easier to work with!





Kylee's finished house!







Seth asked Mr. Brad to help him with his house. This house had everything from a car port with a monster truck, to a satellite dish up on the roof top.











Here is the completed creation. It was very, creative.







Daddy and Joshi worked together on their winter wonderland.






Great job guys!







Faith worked alone. She did a great job. Love the logs on the side of the house!






Putting on the final touches on the roof.







And of course, Jasmine was ready and available to lick the frosting off of any one's hands when they were done!




Kristen

Thanksgiving Photo Essay

So, when I got up Thanksgiving morning, I decided I was going to document our day in photos the best I could. I tend to start out with good intentions, bring the camera but then never take it out of it's case. This became very evident when Todd passed away and all of the holidays and vacations our families spent together were left just to our memories, because we forgot to take pictures! Pick up the camera people and take pictures of today!!!!! I did a little better this year. So here it goes. Enjoy!!


Faith and her dog intently watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.







Kylee and Seth intently watching the parade.










Josh, intently watching the parade.









Daddy, still in bed. Yeah, I am probably going to be in trouble for this :)





Monkey Bread!!!!!!








Jasmine, waiting for daddy to get up.












Mike making eggs to go with our monkey bread. I tried to get him to take a serious picture, but not so much.







Kylee and I making cranberry relish, with the Magic Bullet. And when you use the Magic Bullet you must always do the info-mercial that goes along with it.






Got to the Mitchell's house and was greeted by a huge hairy spider!! I think I have grandma Jo to thank for that :)








Paula busy at the sink in preparation for our big meal.










Seth and Jackson playing some Playstation before dinner.







Jackson and Seth deep in conversation during our feast!







Our family eating. Man we missed Todd. I think we all made a choice to focus on what we were grateful, thankful for this day, but there was definitely a big Todd sized void.





Joshi chowing down!







Josh and Sam clinking cups of apple cider.






Faith and I posing for a picture.








Mike and I posing for a picture.








Kylee posing for a picture during dinner. How did I miss the hat at dinner???












Mike, our wine steward.









Then after dinner was over Mike took my kids home and P.'s mom took her kids home and we got to work on the ads. As you can see it is very hard work.



Paula, also busy at work.









We wanted a picture together but we were alone so here is our attempt.




And here I am after a couple hours of sleep at, 3:30 in the morning, ready to depart with our ads!

That is it, I wasn't about to leave my camera in the car while we shopped, but there is a camera phone picture out there somewhere of me in a Shiatsu chair enjoying a free message at one of the stores :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

November! Yikes!

Lots on my mind so hold on to your seats.

Having a hard time adjusting to the winter temps. Partly because we were having lovely fall weather and then all of a sudden had a weird warm front come in and then went from 70's to 40's in just a day. Yuck.

Busy week this week ending with Feed My Starving Children on Friday. I am excited about it, even though the set up of it was not that easy. I am finding that, unfortunately, setting up field trips for home schoolers isn't always easy. But the people at the actual center have been fabulous and very kind. The kids are really looking forward to it. We have really been wanting to get more active in the community and volunteer more, but it is hard to find a place that will let little guys volunteer.

Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away!!! Weird. Paula will be out with the boys before Thanksgiving so I will be doing the thanksgiving dinner shopping alone. Sad, but so glad she is getting away. We will be cooking and eating together. It is going to be a sad day for us all. But I am so glad we will be together.

Still hoping our annual Black Friday shopping extravaganza works out. Paula and i love to plan and stratagize, and have such a good time dodging and weaving through the crowds! Very fun. We never go into it thinking we have to get anything, just some fun ideas of stuff we would like to get our hands on and if we get them, cool. Whatever. And how fun is it to price match every item you have at Walmart? The cashiers love us :) Oh and another fun thing is calling across the country and to other states to our friends and family who are doing the same thing as us at that very moment! It is a true bond.

Mike and I are planning relational gifts again this year for our family. The Orchard started this last year and it is such a great idea. Instead of spending so much on toys that break and garbage that no one really wants we were encouraged to put thought into our gifts and buy relational gifts. Things you can do together as a family. It means so much more! Then with the money you save do something meaningful for the community or the world.

So last year on Christmas morning, our kids opened up gifts from relatives and Santa. Then Mike and I had booked a stay at a water park in the Dells and spent Christmas and a couple of day after, there with the kids. We swam and played, ate and played and swam. It was very fun, and none of us had any regrets. It was the best, and the kids want to do it again this year.

And what happened to the money we saved in not buying a bunch of garbage toys? We donated to help drill wells in places that needed clean water. Very cool.

Okay, that is it for now.

Kristen

Halloween 2008

What a beautiful Halloween day we had!!! Mike has been super busy lately so we took the day to catch up on some stuff that had to get done! We almost ran out of time for carving pumpkins, but scaled down our design at the last minute and got these out on the porch.












Punk rock girl, was sad it was too warm to wear the black leather coat that Ms. Karen lent her from her rocker days:(

Yeah, I said too warm. Do you think we have lived her too long when high 50's- 60's is too warm for a coat?








Kylee went with the old blow up polar bear costume. Always funny.











Seth is always the challenge. He wanted a scuba diver, so I made his costume. Not too hard. It turned out pretty cute.










Joshi also went with one of our old blow up costumes. He was pretty excited to be wearing the shark this year. Also, loved the fact that he was a shark and Seth was a scuba diver :)








Hope you all had a great night!!

Kristen

Easter!

What a super fantastic weekend!!



I have to say I am in awe of Mike, Scott Hodge, the ENTIRE children's ministry, and every staff member and volunteer that participated in this weekend's services.



One of the cool things that I hear over and over again from people, about the Orchard, is how there is never any fear in inviting friends to an event at the Orchard. You don't have to worry that they will be offended, feel unloved, or that they will be pointed out and embarrassed. You also know that when you come to an event that it will be done really well.



Mike and his awesome team ROCKED the house with some great praise and worship, fabulous lights, smoke, and even some live rain. Yes, they made it rain in the building. Excellent. And who knew Mike could rap? Along with some great worship tunes the team also did Linkin Park's Easier to Run and Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten. Hence the rain.



Scott's message on pain, like always, was relevant, biblical, and applicable to everyone. I love it that you can walk out of a message and apply it directly to your life. It is awesome to hear what God has to say about things that everyone struggles with. You can listen to it on-line here.

And the 20,000 egg, egg drop was huge! The kids were all so excited. I have to say though that I think it has changed Easter for my kids forever. Last week when Josh was drawing an Easter picture it was of a huge helicopter dropping eggs. Too funny. I wonder if he thinks that is just how you have an Easter egg hunt!!!

Well it was all awesome and I am grateful to be part of such an awesome community.

Kristen

A Relational Christmas

After a crazy week last week with Mike preparing for the four services on Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve arrived and it was awesome. I was only at one of the services but it was great. What an awesome night of life change and celebration. The staff at The Orchard never stop amazing me with their creativity and skill.

We decided to take the Advent Conspiracy to heart and gave relational gifts this year. It was really a fun thing to do. Mike and I skipped gifts for the kids this year and we decided to take the kids, on Christmas, to an indoor water park. Santa did visit the house and fill our stockings and after the kids opened their gifts from their aunts and uncles and grandparents we packed everyone in the van and headed for the Dells. What a great time!

It was awesome. I have to admit that I wasn't really looking forward to putting a bathing suit on this ultra white body after so many months of not being exposed to the sun, but it was a blast. Mike and I both got some great one on one time with each of the kids, whether it was going down the tube slide, sailing down the lazy river or playing a little one on one at the pool basket ball hoop, priceless bonding times were had by all. We brought the movies that Santa brought and watched those in the evenings, ate bake potatoes and ice cream sundaes at 10 o'clock at night and laughed a bunch.

I think we may have just started a new tradition for our family. The kids loved it and didn't miss the cheap toys that break the next day. Mike and I loved it and didn't miss the cheap toys that break the next day. I am sure the kids will always remember this Christmas.

I wish I had pictures but there are only a couple and my sweet man has them. And no there are none of the actual water park. You have to know I wasn't going to be having cameras in the bathing suit vicinity!!!!

And the best part it waited to snow until today!!!

Kristen

Black Friday

Had a great Thanksgiving holiday. Mike and I started a tradition with the kids last year. Since we are away from family we make a little thanksgiving dinner than go to a first run movie. That is a big deal for our kids because we usually wait till they are at the dollar theater.

This year we had the added pleasure of having our Thanksgiving meal with our great friends the Mitchells. Mike and I took the kids to Enchanted and then went to the Mitchell's and Paula and I whipped up an incredible dinner, followed by Paula and my annual tradition of preparing for our Friday shopping. This is our third year together getting up and conquering the crowds on the biggest shopping day of the year.

We schemed and planned and then parted agreeing to meet the next morning at 3:45 a.m. to go to Kohls. We usually hit Walmart first but Kohls was opening an hour earlier so we thought we would give them a try.

So after not even an hour of sleep I got up and Paula picked me up for our shopping fun.

It was a blast! We got some great deals but more than anything else just enjoyed the rush of being in the middle of all the excitement and hanging out together. Our Kohls first plan, didn't work out well. They were not prepared for the quantity of people opening an hour earlier would bring and we ended up leaving and coming back later. Macy's surprisingly brought the best deals with jackets the kids need for winter. I got London Fog jackets for Faith and Seth for 11.50 each!! Of coarse Faith's will probably have to go back because it was a little snug.

After seven hours of non stop shopping we wrapped it up and came home. Man I am so tired!! I crashed on the couch for a while but it will definitely be early to bed for me tonight!!

Kristen

Fabulous Fourth

For the past couple of years we have gone to a golf club to see our fireworks. The first year it was good. The great things about it were: free parking, free to get in, lots of space so you aren't crammed together like a bunch of sardines, and a pretty decent fireworks show. The negative: bad parking situation, long walk lugging all your stuff and your kids, and last year the show was really inferior and it was really cold outside. (Yes, I know they can't help the temperature it just added to the discomfort factor.)

So, after having a less than great time last year Mike and I considered just skipping the whole fireworks thing this year. We decided on our walk yesterday morning that we would spend the day working on the yard, let the kids play with friends, then take them to a matinee movie. Maybe that would curb their desire to see fireworks. Besides, the night before our neighbor had a full fireworks show and they got to watch that. But when we presented our plan, they loved all of it except the missing fireworks.

We told them we would think about it. We revised the plan and included stopping for a picnic dinner at Walmart and parking in a parking lot somewhere near the fireworks and hanging out in the back of the van. They agreed to that.


So, we saw the movie got the picnic stuff and headed in the direction of the golf course. To our surprise, there was a new parking lot opened right next to the course and it was just about empty!! So we parked, jumped out, and plopped our stuff out on one of the little golf hills.


The weather was perfect about 75 degrees, the kids were in a great mood, and the fireworks were AWESOME!! Last year they had some kind of technical difficulty I think but this year they made up for it in a big way. It was definitely hands down the best fireworks show I have ever seen. Granted, I have never been to the big city and seen their fireworks I am sure they are spectacular, but for a free show in a suburb town it was great.

So, for an hour my family got to lay on a giant quilt together and OOOHHHH and AAAHHHH at giant lights in the sky. It was a great time.

Kristen