We had a car wreck!

Our broken car that we towed back to our house to sit there!

We are a bit shaken up and I am a bit bruised up but we are rejoicing that we are all okay. A deer ran out in front of the car that was in front of us and that car hit its breaks and then we hit ours but nothing, it was too late we hit and got jerked around. The car in probably a total loss and we will not be recover any money. Please pray that God will work it out like He always does. I can not explain how grateful we are that we are all okay. Thank you so much for your prayers, I am sure they are what has kept us safe. We have a lot to do this week to get ready to go to the US and we now have not car so not sure what we are going to do? I will try to keep you all informed!

Christmas Cookies

We had a really good family time tonight! We watched Narnia and then made our annual Christmas cookies. This year it was a little more fun because the kids could be more involved.

Here is a finished product of one that I made with extra dough

The "boys" decorating the cookies

of course it would not be family time if someone does not cry!

rolling and cutting out our cookies

Jordan just made a mess and ate the dough! She loved it!

I hope that you are busy making family memories with your children and enjoying every moment of these precious times. Did I mention that Christmas time is my favorite time of year! LOL

Our Tree and some decorations

I hope this post finds you warm and toasty wherever you are in the world. I thought I would show you some of our Christmas decorations and our tree. Notice the fake fireplace/heater next to the tree. It really does keep the room warm, behind all those curtains are windows so it stays cold in there in the winter and hot in the summer, but it sure is a beautiful view to sit and look out at! We made Christmas cookies tonight and they turned out great! I have some pictures to show you and I will send them in the next post.

Thanksgiving Traditions

Well, if you know me then you know I am really big on traditions. I guess that comes from being a part of a family that was big on traditions. It makes you feel like you are a part of something and the memories of the year before can be brought back again because we are doing the same things that we hold dear. Well, this year things are a little different for us. We are an ocean away from family and the things that we are used to on Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving dinner with just us, Jon, and I and our three children. It was really nice. Although I did all of the cooking and it took all morning, I felt accomplished when we sat down to a wonderful meal and my husband says, "this is the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever had". That means so much to me. The kids and I made a Thankful Tree. We gathered real leaves and then made ones that we could write what we were thankful on. This is a new tradition and one that we will be doing again next year! I found a website that showed what pilgrims and Indians would have looked like and lived in and ate. The kids had fun with that. I hope that all of you had a wonderful day and enjoyed old traditions and started new ones.

Catching up

We got a box in the mail today from my mom (thanks mom). She mainly sent it because I needed some thyroid medicine from the states and was running out but she always fills it and stuffs it as much as she can and the kids love opening them.

Jordan sporting her new "priness" stuff from Grammie!

(Notice the pj bottoms and socks) We got the packages this morning!

Logan eating a fruit by the foot he got today!

Hayden showing off the new car that he got in the box!

We took the kids to a duck pond at the base of the mountain to take their pictures today for our annual Christmas card and they loved it. It is cold here so that was funny for us because normally when we are taking out pictures for our Christmas cards it is hot and we are sweating in our outfits!

After getting some good shots (which I will post at a later date) we went shopping for the Thanksgiving dinner supplies! I will be making cornbread dressing for the first time (my mom makes to best ever, it is my grandmother's recipe that we have been having for Thanksgiving/Christmas since I could eat! It will be different this year because it will just be our little family around the table sharing what we are thankful for and eating a grand meal. I think the thing that I will miss most is the day after Thanksgiving shopping sales. I know you say that sounds funny but I am not so sure it is the shopping or the sales but it is the special time that I share with my mom that I am missing the most. We will just have to make up for it when she comes to visit in December!! Yep my mom, dad, sister and Brad (soon to be brother in law) are all coming on Dec. 26th. I am soooooo excited. I really do miss my family a bunch. They are so much fun to be around.

Well anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving no matter where you are in the world. There is so much to be thankful for. I know that I have been blessed beyond measure!

Sheep Shearing Contest

Well, what more can I really say!! They have an annual sheep shearing contest and we happen to know a top sheep shearer in Slovenia. His name is Ron Metts and that is him in the middle in green in the picture shearing a sheep. They had sheep and goats for the kids to look at and pet and music and cotton candy that we paid 3 Euro for. We had a good time with fellow missionaries and our Slovene friends.

Oh and the picture at the bottom is just our resident clown Hayden who thinks he is looking pretty cool with his spiky hair, too cute!

pictures

I forgot to post the pictures that I wrote about, so here they are!

Fall Colds

Well, all three of the kiddos have colds. It started with Jordan. One morning we went to get her out of bed and with mouth breathing she pointed to her nose and said, "my nose broke". We had a real long laugh at that. She could not breathe through her nose and she saw that as her nose was broken. Then the other two started getting stuffy. Just a regular old cold but Hayden has had fever for the last two days. He is the one that always gets a fever. Logan is coughing a bit at night. It is funny how the same germ can affect them all differently. I took the above pictures a few weeks ago. We were having our noodle lunch and this bunch loves them. Of course Logan did not want his picture taken while eating.

On a different note, our dryer is broke and we are having a repairman look at it. We are not sure how much it will be to fix. If it is too much we will just have to buy a new one. We do not want to pay a large amount to pay for a broke one when we can buy a new one for about the same. Pray that this all works out. I like having my dryer and not worrying about the weather to hang clothes in and waiting for them to dry. Just little things but they make life a lot easier on a homeschooling mom.

Homeschooling is going a lot better. We have reward system that if they accomplish tasks at certain within a time limit they get a bean and at the end of the day they can use their beans to trade for candy. Logan loves it and was done with school before lunch and is begging me to let him to schoolwork on Sat. Hayden was sick so I am not sure how it will work with him when he is well. He watched tv on the couch all day.

Fall is here and with it is such lovely weather. My Slovenian friends however think that my children are sick because of the weather and my children not bundling up like snow bunnies all the time. Just a cultural thing around here. It is funny though. :)

Hayden's Birthday

Hayden had a wonderful birthday and a very big birthday party. We had a mixture of American missionary friends and some Christian Slovene friends and some non Christian Slovene friends. We have made new friends that do not know the Lord personally. They know of Him but do not know Him. They are very Catholic and worship Mary (Maria) very heavily. Mateja and I have become fast friends. We spent last weekend at their home for their 8 year olds birthday party and they came here this weekend. Next weekend we have been invited to their home again. I am very glad to have met them because their son Zak (Jauque) and Logan have become fast friends also. This is the first friend Logan has made. There really have not been any boys his age up until this one. They seem to play very nice together as well and are already talking about sleepovers. I hope you enjoy the pictures that I have left you. Tomorrow I will put a slide show up with all of the birthday pictures. For now I am off to bed. It has been a very busy and hot day.

Jordan's 2nd Birthday

I thought you would enjoy seeing pictures from Jordan's 2nd birthday. She enjoyed her presents very much and did not enjoy us singing happy birthday (hmm I wonder if it was our singing)! She is a precious gift from God and a delight to have as a child. God sure knew what He was doing by putting her on the end of our little family (it is like the cherry on top). I am really tired after a very long day of homemade cooking and decorating and wrapping presents, plus the heat is getting to me (the news said that it was going to be an "Indian Summer" the next few days), so I am going to head to bed right now and try to cool down and get rid of this never ending headache that I have had for several days now. It really was a great day and I am so glad that I get to share the pictures with you.

KIDS

This is what I found one day when the boys had been playing in Hayden's room, not to mention the bathroom, the rug in Hayden's room, the wall downstairs where someone had touched it. It is fake blood and it was very difficult to remove! Needless to say I was not happy but I had to laugh and take a picture to document it. They are so silly and very messy sometimes.

Terma Ptuj

Hello again, We were so glad that everyone was feeling better we thought that we should take the kids to do something fun this summer before anyone else got sick LOL! So we loaded everyone up after lunch and went to the thermal water park/spa in Ptuj (the oldest city in Slovenia by the way). we thought that being Thursday it would not be that crowed but we thought wrong. We drove up and there were so many cars and so many people. I do not like crowded places and most of all not crowded swimming places. I have to say though that I did not feel so self conscious here. I was by far the most clothed person there. Not that they were unclothed they just had two piece swimsuits even if they were really old and really over weight. Not to mention the speedos LOL. Poor Hayden could not figure out why all the men were wearing ladies bottoms!!! Ha Ha. We had a good laugh at that one. It was a very good day and we had a lot of fun. That will be a family memory that we will cherish forever. I even went down one of the slides!!! Me being the mommy lathered down the kids with sunblock but forgot about me and Jon. Needless to say we are red and I am a lobster. The kids are fine though. It feels so nice for things to be getting back to normal around here. Thank you for all your prayers. We needed them and they helped.

Park Pictures

Hello everyone, Hayden is better and I have the pics to prove it. We took them to the park Wed. and we had a wonderful time. We walked around down town. I found a bathing suit and it fits!!! Sizing over here is a bit weird and it takes a lot of luck to get the right one! We even stopped for ice cream on our way to the park (we have to walk there). It used to seem like a lot of walking, but now it doesnt seem so bad. HMMM, I must be getting used to all the walking. I was a beautiful day and we were all happy to be out of the house. We also had dinner at McDonalds with a friend that we are witnessing to named Edwin. He is a Columbian who was a Catholic and now is coming to church with us when he can. Keep him in your prayers.

sick kid!!!!

Hello everyone, This post finds me very drained, I hope that it finds you doing well. Hayden our 5 year old has been very ill. Sunday night on the way home from church Hayden said he was really cold and that his head was really hot, "mommy I think I have fever". My response was honey I dont think so. He had been fine just minutes earlier. We got home and I went to feel his head just to appease him and he was on fire. I checked his temp and it was 104! YIKES I had no idea why because he had no other symptoms. I gave him some medicine and sent him to bed. Alot of waking up and a restless night continued. The next day he continued to have a high fever of 104. He now said that his throat was starting to hurt. So I look and he has white stuff on his tonsils. So I think he has strep. However he started to get ulcers all over his mouth so I started to researech online. I came across hands, foot and mouth disease, a virus that starts out with a fever and then you get blisters all in your mouth and then on your hands, feet and sometime even your rearend. So I looked him over and he had a blister on his hand and on his rearend. It has followed the virus to a T. He has had fever of 104 for three days. Today it has started to go down. His throat is horrible and his mouth looks diseased. He is in so much pain it is hard for him to eat. He has been such a trouper though. I am taking him to the doctor tomorrow in hopes that there is something that they can give him for the pain. It is very contagious so I will probably be in the house in quarintine for a few more weeks!!!! I am praying that the other two do not get it and even worse me!!!! I will keep you informed. Also Logan got 26 mosquito bites yesterday and he is allergic so they looked like he had the plague. Even though Hayden is sick and we are stuck in the house the kids are crazy and have a good time.

Cherries!!!

Cherries, cherries everywhere, so many cherries so many to spare!!!! We have several cherry trees in our yard, yummy. We have two sour cherry trees and three sweet ones. The sour cherries are what we use in pies and things like that. This past Sat. it was going to rain again and knock all of the ripe cherries off the tree so Jon got a ladder and picked some cherries. I had to find out what to do with them so, I went on the internet to find a recipe for homemade cherry pie and cherry pie filling. I found what I was looking for and went off to create my newest creation in the kitchen. I pitted the cherries, then cooked them, added sugar and gelatin to thicken it. Yummy pie filling was my finished product, I didnt have time that day to make the pie so I put them in the fridge and on another day I made my pie crust, which was surprisingly easy. It turned our great and I had some dough left over so Logan played with it like playdough. That gave me another idea for another day Ha Ha. I put my pie together and baked it and it turned out great!!! The next day I made the kids homemade playdough and Logan had a blast with it. I never knew how much I would enjoy cooking!!! Really, I used to hate it but I really enjoy making wonderful things for my family to eat.