Christmas!!

Christmas is upon us again!! Such a wonderful time of year. Even with all the craziness of picking out presents, I just love seeing them under the tree Christmas morning. I don't put ANYTHING under the tree prior to bedtime on Christmas eve. Even if it is a package that comes in the mail, it simply goes in the closet and waits for the appointed time. There have been many years where Christmas was "small" due to financial circumstances, but due to the generousity of relatives and friends the morning of Christmas always has had LOTS of gifts under the tree. ~~ well, at least it has seemed to the kids since there was NOTHING under the tree when they went to bed! One year, my brother came and stayed the night with us so that we can have all the kids be together on Christmas morning. There were so many gifts!! At midnight we were bringing present after present out. WOW--what a feast for the eyes come morning!
Have a blessed season this year! Relax, love and enjoy your family!!!
Praise the Lord for the blessed life that you have been given!

Snow

Snow!! This storm that passed through Monday and Tuesday, brought us about 7" of new snow on top of the 3" that we already had. It is beautiful out. We have been blessed with no wind so the pine trees are heavy with snow. The other blessing of no wind is that the house stays warm!! We have so many windows in our home, that it cools down quickly if given proper conditions. The bummer part of the whole snow thing is that during our gale force wind storm we lost our sled!! We have hunted for it, but to no avail. So we are in the market for one, so to speak! :)

Thanksgiving was spent here at home with just the 4 of us. Our friends were unable to join us. We did knock off one of our turkeys for dinner. Good thing it did end up being just us because it was the SMALLEST turkey on record! A whopping 9 lbs! It was quite yummy though and we did get a bit of leftover sandwiches made and I made a turkey soup too.

The day after was spent putting up our Christmas tree (yes, it's a fake....) and getting everything decorated. Trevor is spending most of this next month with Bill and Leanne while he has audio therapy. I will go over next week and help out a bit with driving. Well, with him being gone, we wanted to make sure that he was apart of getting that tree up! Trevor LOVES Christmas!! Well, so does Jack, so needless to say there was a lot of crazy energy about!

We are still traveling to Twisp for church. We are looking forward to see what God has in store for us regarding a 'home' church. In the meantime we continue to pray for direction. We have not received a phone call as of yet for a foster child placement, but know that it will come probably sooner than later! We are attending a foster Christmas party on December 7. Gifts are provided for all foster kids and parents bring gifts for your biological kids. There will be a santa to pass out presents; food; games. We are all excited (especially Jack!) about meeting other foster families. (well, I think Jack is actually more excited about attending a party!)

That is it for now--

Have a blessed day!!

Thanksgiving

Well, I'm back--at least for a time. Dealing with internet servers is really not my idea of a good time. We are looking into getting faster internet, but cost is its own subject!
We are well here. The end of October we became offically licensed to be foster parents!! We have not had a call for a placement yet, but are looking forward to the opportunity!
Currently we are getting ready for Thanksgiving. We really were not paying a whole lot of attention to the prep for the meal since Clay, Veronica and Tristan were unable to join us this year. But we are (weather permitting) getting together with our dear friends Ken and Sabrina and their clan!! Sabrina has a couple of Pioneer Woman recipes that are going to be on the table for sampling this year!
Trevor starts audio therapy this coming Monday. It will be in Bellevue, so he will be staying the majority of the next month with Bill and Leanne. I'm going over at some point the second week of December to help with driving Trevor.
Have you started Christmas shopping yet?? I have got a few things and am hoping to actually start wrapping BEFORE Christmas eve! I just read a short article in Guideposts magazine about a family that decided to buy all presents for their family from second hand stores. She says that everyone really enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and things were actually affordable and kept everyone out of the busy stores. Fun idea......
The artic blast that was predictied for around here has begun to strike. Since Saturday, we have had 30-50 mph winds along with single digit temps. With wind chill we should have negative double digits tonight and tomorrow night. THEN it should warm up to almost 32. Ah, and its only November! We are looking forward for the wind to stop so that we can work on getting the ouse warmed up. It's craziness trying to keep it warm with all this wind. The animals are cold, but so far seem to be doing ok. We just have to bring water out to them a couple times a day since it freezes so fast. Life on the prarie! It's an adventure! I'm so thankful that we do have a beautiful house, a wood stove and LOTS of wood. How did people survive these winters back in the 1800's and early 1900's???? It's truely remarkable what a human can with stand!
Give thanks for the beauty and warmth around you. Give thanks for the beautiful family of yours and let all know how much they touch your life.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday

Our home visit went awesome! We are so excited! We just need to get the banister and hand rail up in the stairway; baby gates; one more fire escape ladder; move Trevor and Jack to the downstairs bedroom and set up the crib (we are on the list with a preference for babies). Such minor stuff! Oh, and Jeremy needs to get his first aid/cpr class done. We could be licensed as early as sometime in November. Could be some extra fun around here for the holidays! Now if the tiredness I'm feeling from fighting this cold would go away, I'd be set!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Monday

We had a wonderful surprise Saturday night! We got a surprise visit from our dear friends Adrian and Rebecca! It was so wonderful to see them, though our visit was VERY short! Now we need to get over to Bellevue to see their new house!
Tomorrow morning we have our first home visit. So today I'm working on making sure we have most everything done that needs to be done and cleaning house. Please pray that all goes well and we can finish the last of our licensing process quickly.
Calvary Chapel Okanogan Valley is starting back up again as a bible study! We will be meeting on Sunday evenings at 7pm starting on Oct. 17! We are all excited to get going again. Had a wonderful prayer meeting last night with Ken and Sabrina. Would you be willing to pray for us and our bible study? We have a blog set up that will be updated hopefully once a month or so--
the address is: kinzle.blogspot.com
Back to cleaning......... :)

Soccer and Awanas

Here is our little adventurer from the last couple of days. Jack had his first soccer game on Tuesday night. Their team lost, but I don't think anyone cared. He spent the whole time smiling! Wednesday night at Awanas, Jack said his memory verse, which was John 3:16 and in turn, earned his Sparks vest and moved to book 1! Life is so good for this little 5 year old! :)

We're Back from Dino Land

We have returned and things are now back to normal! It was a beautiful trip. The picture of all of us here is at the top of one of the hikes we did. Saw lots of beautiful scenery and cool dino bones. The first campsite we stayed at was so nice. It was totally like camping at a resort. CLEAN bathrooms with HOT showers! We camped next to the covered group kitchen. This 'primitive' camping kitchen was covered and included: 2 refrigerators; electric stove; wash sink w/ hot water; microwave; coffee pot; toaster.......you get the idea. Oh and we also had the whole place to ourselves! We stayed here for two nights then on Wednesday, we headed for Biggs, OR which is on the Columbia River (Oregon side). Jack caught two fish with his Spiderman fishing pole and Jeremy actually picked one up with his bare hands--yes, we are impressed! LOL We stayed at a state campground there and then headed home on Thursday. We were blessed to have Tristan and his friend, Dale come and stay at the house and care for the animals. I was so happy to be able to see them, though it was a short visit. Also, Saturday after we got home, Clay and Veronica came over to see Grandma and Grandpa too. Everyone ended up leaving on Monday, including Trevor who left with Clay and Veronica. All of a sudden we were down to only me, Jeremy and Jack. VERY quiet!! :)

So now we are in our routine of soccer game on Tuesday; Awana on Wednesday; soccer practice on Thursday and soccer game on Saturday. Luckily it won't be for long since soccer is done before Halloween.

Life is awesome!!!!!!