Almost a good time...

One of my favorite people in the world my friend "S" came with her 3 children yesterday.  "S" lives over 3 hours away, we don't get together as much as we would like.  We plan and plan and the day comes and usually one of her 3 children or one of my 3 children become sick and we have to cancel.  Yesterday we were in the clear, not one of the six combined children had any type of illness not even a runny nose.

"S" arrived about 2 yesterday afternoon, we talked for 3 hours strait, which is simply wonderful.  Face to face talk is so valuable when most of our talk is over the phone.  Let me add now that we hugged no less than 10 times!  HD came home at 5 and by 6 we were all ready to go out to dinner.  At dinner "S" mentioned how cold it was, funny thing it wasn't cold....

She was very sick all night, I won't give you details you get the picture.  We had plans to make soup and pie today, let the kids play and visit all day.  She left at 11 only after she finally stopped getting sick long enough to leave.

We almost had a great time.  I am pretty sure a few of my kids drank after a few of her kids so you all know what that means.  

Now we wait!

Hope you all are having a great weekend.  I think when HD comes home we are going to go to the toy store and write down everything the kids want.  And then  the shopping can begin!

Sincerely Fro Me To You ~ The view home

A few weeks ago when we went away for the weekend to the neighboring state that we thought we were going to move to.  I was so unimpressed with the place we went it ruined the weekend.  I let there so upset.  When we drove across the state border this is what we saw and I started to cry.  I started praying differently and believing that God would keep us right where we are.  Thankfully he has, and we don't have to move!

Check out We are THAT family for more picture fun.

Works For Me Wednesday~ Christmas shopping

Its time everyone, its only a little over 40 days until Christmas, time to shop!  I think this is my most favorite time of year hands down.  The food the smells the decorations.  The birth of my Savior.  I wanted to share with you how I shop for my children.  First I will tell you that we don't "do" Santa and you can read all about it here, we love the big round guy we just treat him as he is fictional.

Since the kids know the gifts they receive are gifts from us and that it is all a celebration of Jesus and his birth, we want to have them choose wisely.  Its easy this time of year for the kids to tell us they want every single toy that comes on tv.  I understand I want a lot of things I see on tv too!

What we do is right around now the first or second week of November we take the kids to the toy store sometimes together sometimes alone and we have them choose 10-20 toys they think they would really like to have.  At the end of the trip we ask each of them which toy do you want more than any other toy.  There is nothing worse on Christmas morning than opening up the gifts and the kids not really getting at least one thing they really wanted, especially after we have spend so much money.

I have found this to be a great way to get my kids what they really want and they understand that we can't buy everything they want but we love giving to them and to others that's what makes this time of year so special, giving, just as God gave us the greatest gift of all, his son.

We are going to Toys R Us this weekend and I will have my list ready.  I do find that Walmart normally has everything that Toys R Us has and if it's not in the store it is usually on the web site and Walmart does free shipping to the store its called Site to Store, and this has been a great savings to me.

Happy Shopping!  For more WFMW go to Rocks in my Dryer.

I love the Orchard!

We have been going to this lovely orchard every year for our Anniversary for the last 5 years now.  We love making apple bread, apple muffins, apple pie, apple cake, apple sauce, apple butter do you feel like your watching Forest Gump?

We also love this orchard because it's nestled in the mountains and has breath taking views.

When we found out that my Grandpa had cancer we decided to go to the orchard for our Family photos this year, we planed to go this last weekend.  We had no idea that he would die only 5 days after his diagnosis....

As a family we decided to move forward.  We did go to the orchard this weekend and we took family photos, it feels strange to all be together without him, but yet we are still here, still a family and as hard as it was to take family pictures, I still want to capture those moments we are together.

News and Halloween

We received news late this week that HD's company withdrew the mandatory move!  We are so happy, thankful and blessed!  I can't even begin to tell you how much I disliked the place they wanted us to move to, or how thankful that we are that God has blessed us and is allowing us to live right here.  We are still going to put our house up for sale so that we can build on the land that we bought earlier in the year, which was our plan all along.  Thank you for your prayers!

We had a wonderful Halloween!  We carved pumpkins from our garden on Thursday night and we had Twice Blessed Mommy and Family come for the trick or treat fun on Friday.