pictures!

Christmas is coming! We've had a cold snap (ha ha! laugh with me here!) recently. The boys threw our pumpkins in the dumpster and we pulled out our bins of Christmas decorations.



Santa properly introduced himself to Havilah by dancing while singing a goofy song about all his many names: Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, and whatever else came to my, er, his mind.

Lights! John's room has a few strings of colored lights, which he's enjoying.

John's Playmobil nativity set--complete with camel, lambs, wise men in turbans, and the largest shooting star in recorded history.

John really loves motorcycles...but for now, he'll settle for his Radio Flyer quadcycle.

Banana muffins on a cozy November evening:

Like mother, like daughter...? What do you think, does Havilah look like my baby photo from when I was approximately her age?

Family picture day was Friday. These aren't even the best shots (those we are saving for Christmas photos/presents). As you can tell, the kids were more interested being photographed with their dad than with their mom. Oh well.

Vacation plans...

is there anything better? I just bought tickets for us to be in Portland January 16 through 25 (we leave early on the 26th). Ten whole days. aaah. (-:

unlock the fullness of life

Like receiving the same piece of advice from two separate people, reading the same quote twice in a day--in two unlikely places--makes me wonder... coincidence? Here it is:

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." -Melody Beattie

Funny. I was just talking to the Lord about this last night...about contentment. And then, today, he brings me this. And if contentment is the key to feasts, homes, friends, and peace, what else do I need?

p.s.

Billy's back to blogging again....

a living exchange of ideas

I recently came across this quote as I was working:

W. H. Auden said "I have met great and good men in whose presence one was conscious of one’s own littleness; Charles Williams’ effect on me and on others with whom I have spoken was quite different: in his company one felt twice as intelligent and infinitely nicer than, out of it, one knew oneself to be. It wasn’t simply that he was a sympathetic listener—he talked a lot and he talked well—but, more than anyone else I have ever known, he gave himself completely to the company that he was in. So many conversations, even good ones, are really several monologues which only now and then and by accident relate to each other, for the talkers are more concerned with their own thoughts than with a living exchange of ideas, but any conversation with Charles Williams, no matter how trivial or impersonal the topic, was a genuine dialogue" (David Garrett Izzo, W. H. Auden Encyclopedia, 275).

I don't know who Charles Williams is, but I love this idea of conversation being a real dialogue. And also of it being an opportunity to affirm and build up the other people in the conversation--not directly, but by affirming their words and building upon those words to create a living exchange of ideas. It's something to aspire toward....

twice the fun

Do you like Hava's hat (that is, her pjs getting stuck on the way off)?

What a big girl! Check out those Honeycutt legs....

Whipped cream!!!

going...

going...

gone!

Only in the Northwest

The desert has it's own beauty...

but there's nothing like the good old Northwest.... (These pictures were all taken by us in Oregon and Washington).