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On December 2nd we went to a local show called Bethlehem Revisited. A church in Manhattan, KS put it on. We visited this church when we first moved here and really liked it. But the drive was a bit too much in Robert's opinion. Evidently they do this every Christmas and it is free and very popular. We drove out to a park in Keats, KS and from there (after a good bit of a wait) we get on a school bus and they took us to a more remote area. Everyone in this place are dressed biblically and carry lanterns and are standing around fires to warm themselves. As a group of about 30 they take you up into the woods on a slight incline. I wore Deakin on my back and people in our church helped with the other kids. The first stop was Moses. He was standing by a fire and told us about how the world came to be. Basically a short overview of the first five books of the bible. And always pointing toward the promise of the messiah! We went walking a little further to the next station where there was Abraham by his fire telling his story. Further on there was Micah and a few other prophets who told about the coming Christ. All through out this stations there were children every now and then yelling, "He is coming!!" Finally we got to watch the scene of the angel coming to Mary and telling her she would give birth to the waited Messiah. And from there we watched, at several different stations, the Christmas story. Complete with a short walk through the busy street in Bethlehem with people trying to sell us things. Eventually we got to the long awaited stable and got to sing Silent Night around a live "baby Jesus". Then we watched the Priest Simeon bless Jesus and warn Mary of how much sorrow she would feel. And got to see a cross and here the story of Jesus being killed and buried. There was the last station with a grave and a large bolder moved aside. It concluded with a small room built outside where our guide spent about ten minutes laying out the Gospel for the group to hear. It was awesome! And such a great reminder of the amazing gift we have in our Redeemer! I didn't get a lot of pictures but here are a few. I wish I had a picture of the manger but I was video taping at that point. The kids loved this so much. I absolutely loved that the program reminds us that even the Old Testament is about Jesus. At one point when a speaker was talking about the wise men in a dramatic way he fell to his knees talking about how they had fallen to their knees to worship Jesus. Cal was listening intently and went to his knees at the same time, it was such a sweet moment.
I hope and pray that all of you that may read this will be reminded of the amazing miracle of God becoming man as a sacrifice for us. Celebrate this miracle and never forget it. Not too many pictures this week. We been organizing and getting rid of stuff around the house. But here's a fun story. Yesterday morning our Internet went out. So we couldn't talk to daddy without the wifi and I'm not computer savvy and couldn't fix it on my own. I ended up on the phone off and on for 3 1/2 hours with Robert (causing him to stay up till 11pm his time), him looking up all sorts of issues that could be wrong. Me communicating horribly what the computer was telling me and him trying to dumb down his instructions so even I can understand! Finally after trying things I never even knew existed on computers he said we had done everything imaginable and it still wasn't working. So I just needed to call the company and pay the arm and a leg to get help. But at the last minute he told me to make sure the cable was still connected where he had spliced it half way across the room. I went and looked and the cord was undone, just laying there in two pieces where a child had unscrewed it. Ha! Oh man. Such is life! He told me to tape it so its harder for them to get apart and hide it. Which ofcourse, I haven't done yet. (He would've done it that very moment!). I gotta remember to do that.
We bought a new tree. Robert said to get a big fat one that we can have for a good long while. Knowing the absolute horrific persecution being done to Hobby Lobby by our governement I decided to show them our family's support by shopping there. It was a great hardship and sacrafice. *sarcasm* But I will definitely be looking for anyway to give any support to Hobby Lobby for standing up for their right to refuse to pay for others' abortions. And to be honest, a part of me can not believe that I just had to make that statement! That we are even in a place as a country that people are being FORCED to pay for the death of a stranger's child is absolutly brain exploding, right?! I'm just.... obviously so niave to be shocked that we have declined to this point. What some would call progress. sigh.... I'm done..... for now. So we bought a nine foot tree, a few new tree decorations and a small tree for downstairs without any decor for it. I told the kids that if they wanted it decorated then they had to make ornaments. Amazed at how big of a deal that is for them. They are all over it! Also I bought two tiny trees for their rooms for a just a few bucks a piece. They have already made many gifts and wrapped them for eachother and put them onder the trees in their room! It's so cute! Cal even wrapped one of his balls for Deakin. And better yet, eveything was 50% off! Thank you Hobby Lobby! I cried after I left. Because they had a nice young boy that helped me load the tree box. I had removed half of the back seat thinking that might be enough room. It wasn't. So we uprooted the other half of the back seat and shoved it to the side. Still not enough room. So we moved one of the five point harness seats up a row and pushed the box up on top of the second bench row. That finally worked! But I felt so sad afterwards, thinking of how Robert and I usually would be the ones manuevering and shoving that huge box. God bless that young man, he was so patient and nice through all that. For our view on Christmas: http://coffmanfamily.weebly.com/1/post/2009/12/christmas.html
We still feel good about how we do Christmas. It's fun. Our first son was born on December 4th at 1:19am after 6 1/2 hours of labor in the comfort of our home in Springfield, MO. We named him Cal David Lee because we weren't sure if the Lord would bless us with another son and wanted to get a bit of both of our fathers into the middle name. He was a big 'ol boy at 9 pounds 10 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long. He was such a calm baby and the girls adored having him around. He's still pretty big but thinks I can still carry him around and cuddle with him like a newborn. Today he weighs 41 pounds and is 42 inches tall (he has grown an inch and a half since October! And, interestingly, his weight in pounds has always been almost the same digit as his height in inches!) He has weighed about the same as Bryse since he was 9 months old and has been just a couple inches shorter since he was two! He has a hard time communicating because of being behind on pronunciation but that doesn't stop his amazing vocabulary! The other day I was sorting through some dinosaurs for the party and said, "I think this is just a trex." to which he responded, "No, that's an allosaraus." He knows many dinosaur names! We do a short little bible study at breakfast every morning and he always, without fail, says at some point during the study (no matter what we are talking about): "Jesus died on the cross......for our sins......and he came back to life!" This annoys Bryse to no end but Darby and I think it's awful cute! Him and Deakin sword fight a lot, using whatever they can find. They chase eachother around and play very nicely! Cal has been sharing his room with Deakin for several months now and he does SO well with that. Never had a problem out of him with waking his brother. If he wakes before him in the morning, he quietly gets up and leaves the room shutting the door behind him. Such a sweet big brother. We have so much fun with him. Thank you, Lord, for this little man. We had a super fun party on the first for Cal and Darby! Darby wanted a baking party and homemade pizza. Cal wanted dinosaurs. So I decorated and set up dino games and art down stairs for the little boys and got baking stuff ready upstairs. I baked six large pizza crusts and nine personal sized crusts two days a head of time. Baked the cakes the day before and decorated the night before. So that morning all I had to do was put toppings on the pizzas and decorate the cakes. We had seven adults and thirteen kids. The big girls made their own pizzas while the boys played. It was a beautiful day outside so they played some outside as well. We ate pizzas and then the girls made sugar cookies with cookie cutters and while those were in the oven we cut into the cakes! While the cookies cooled we ripped into presents and then the girls iced the cookies and decorated them! It was a blast with little stress for mama because of all the prep work. Daddy called while we were fixing to eat pizza and talked to a few people on facetime. He was very blessed to see so many people at the house (most he hadn't met) and was glad that I had such good fellowship with so nice people!
Today our oldest turns nine! She was born on Thanksgiving day in 2003 in a hospital in Batesville, Arkansas after roughly 24 hours of labor (12 in the hospital) and 30 minutes of pushing. She weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long with a head full of dark hair. She was identical to my newborn pictures. The Lord has used her in mighty ways in Robert and I's lives. A constant reminder of our need of grace as the first born and guinea pig. And bless her heart for her sweet disposition and compassionate heart that is straight from the Lord. Her middle name, Eleora, means "God is my light", which is our prayer for her life. She is in the third grade and is one of Deakin's favorite people. She loves to cook. Every Sunday morning she makes Jiffy corn muffins for breakfast all by herself! She enjoys reading very much! Daddy bought her the Narnia series for her birthday and she is attacking The Magician's Nephew right now. In other news and random family stories: Cal is currently very passionate about being "tough". If I say he's funny, cute, handsome, sweet, basically anything besides tough, I get an ear full! "I'm not _____, I'm tough!" Which I usually say, "Yes, ofcourse you're tough, but you can be (sweet, handsome, cute) AND tough at the same time!" So the other day he asked to see my thumb. The left one. My right one is healing nicely from the violent smashing but I cut my left one with a knife a week before Thanksgiving. So he asked to see my left thumb. When I showed him he said, "Awe.... that hurts, huh? Did you cry when you cut it?" I said, "No." And he responds, "Yeah! You're tough and pretty!" And gave me a hug. Day made. Bryse got her ears pierced while we were in Springfield, MO. So here is a picture of that. She's only been begging for a couple of years! She said, "Ow." on both sides but that was it! The other day while playing outside and racing with her brother and sister she tripped and plowed face first through the grass. Leaving dirt and leaves up her nose, a swollen lip and nose. But she bounced back quickly. Deakin is running everywhere while, strangely enough, windmilling his right arm. Seems he can run faster if that arms is rotating in large circles. He started saying, "Boo!". He has been in a bit of a mood lately with teething molars and some other things. So he is either really fun or really not fun.
And hopefully I will have lots of pictures of our double birthday party on Saturday. Pray for us with that! Gonna be a full house and lots of kids. Things get crazy when all the friends your kids have also have 2-3 siblings to come along too. ; ) Can't complain, we are one of those families too, so the more the merrier! Here's a recent picture of Robert! He traveled a couple times last week and sent this today of where ever it was he traveled.
I also heard (from what I consider to be a reliable source) that mail stops on the first of December. So if you want to get your soldier anything for Christmas then you have to have it mailed by November 15th! So me and the kids are kicking it into gear in order to get him some treats for Christmas. So if you wanted to try and get something in the mail for him for Christmas, do it soon! In our last package (for his birthday) I tried homemade goodies again. I did puppy chow and it made it fine without getting stale. Also I tried sending a frozen loaf of banana bread. I wrapped it in a gallon ziplock bag, and then a towel, and then an old reusable freezer bag. It took longer than usual for it to get there, 10 days. He said that banana bread looked good and was still cold! He hasn't tried it yet because he says the puppy chow is the greatest thing he's tasted in forever so he can't put it down! We will have to make some more of that. I will also try some peanut butter truffles that he likes and maybe some other frozen baked goods. We will see. |
LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
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