Happy Thanksgiving!

To all my American friends, may you have a blessed and joyful Thanksgiving Day! It is good to give thanks unto the LORD! He has blessed us so richly and so fully!

Seattle Children's Museum

We are back from our Oregon trip to see my family. It was a great time, and the hotel stays really were fun. Full of busy activity but we got some down time with Grandpa and Grandma B, which was nice. One of the highlights was going to the Children's Museum in Seattle. It's definitely geared for children 10 and under, so the girls were the perfect ages to enjoy it. There's a lot to see and do, but it wasn't overwhelming, and we left feeling like we had actually seen nearly all there was to see. It was nice and relatively quiet, since we went on a weekday.

We visited Cog City, the science and gears area. Lots of hands on stuff in here.


And life size exhibits featuring popular storybook characters. Below is Arthur and D.W's room.


Don't remember what this one was, but it was a full kitchen with table and chairs and aprons and measuring cups and food...it was right down the girls' alley!


And we played with drums in the African culture exhibit...


And rode a subway in Kobe, Japan...


And pretended we were Japanese sitting at a low table in a Japanese living room...


And visited the art and creativity center...


Painted pictures....


Made things with clay (Beth did the Space Needle)....


And visited Sesame Street, the temporary exhibit...definitely a big hit!


Sesame Street's theme was all about the human body


And the girls loved the huge nose which sneezed at them! You can't really see it in the video, but yes there was real spray that came out these huge nostrils...yuck!

Including digestion...yep, all the stages, much to the kids' amusement!


What a fun place, I definitely recommend it if you have kids and you're in the Seattle area! It's right in the Seattle Center near the Science Fiction museum and Space Needle, etc.

Speak O Lord - Keith and Kristyn Getty

A Message To You

I saw this somewhere a while back and thought it was really cute!

To: YOU

Date: TODAY

From: GOD

Subject: YOURSELF

Reference: LIFE

This is God. Today I will be handling All of your problems for you. I do Not need your help. So, have a nice day.

I love you.

P.S. And, remember…

If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do Not attempt to resolve it yourself! Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for God to do) box. I will get to it in MY TIME. All situations will be resolved, but in My time, not yours.

Once the matter is placed into the box, do not hold onto it by worrying about it. Instead, focus on all the wonderful things that are present in your life now.

Roadtrip!

Apart from unforeseen circumstances, we'll be heading down to Oregon this afternoon/evening after Microchip gets home from work. We're staying in a hotel tonight and tomorrow (with our air miles rewards) - the girls love to spend the night in a hotel away from home and play in the pool/hot tub. It's a fun experience we like to do a couple of times a year. We will probably cruise around Seattle- there's always lots to see and do there - before heading down to Oregon. God willing, we'll be spending Saturday celebrating the American Thanksgiving with my family! I'm hoping to work on a new crochet pattern and do some reading and planning...and relaxing. :)

Meanwhile, for those of you hosting Thanksgiving dinner (or just for an excellent example on being prepared for any big hospitable event), have a look at Flylady's schedule for her Thanksgiving dinner. It's truly all about forethought and preparation. The (few) times I have used forethought and prepared well ahead of time, things have gone so much smoother and I don't feel like the harried housewife who is always running behind! I think the single most valuable piece of advice I've received that applies well to keeping home and hospitality is "Don't put off til tomorrow what you can do today." My revised version is, "Don't put off til later what you can do right now!" Speaking of such, I need to get packing! LOL!

Spa Night!

Oh yeah, we can really get into doing this more often! We held a spa night for the ladies in our home last night. It was a ton of fun! We did face masks, hair masks, soaked our nails in a horsetail tea, ate chocolates, got paraffin hand treatments, footbaths, scrubs, did shoulder massages, got nails painted, sat in a heated massage chair (borrowed from Chasm downstairs), ate chocolates (did I say that yet?), and just had fun concocting weird things to put on our faces and hair! I haven't done this kind of thing since before I was married!

It was at our house, so the little girls got to be a part of it too! Here's Beth applying a clear peel-off mask in the bathroom.

Miss LeAnne soaking her nails - oops, the champagne sparkling juice got in front of it.


Joyful got really into the whole homemade stuff! She made microwaveable bean bags to use as heat packs for sore muscles, fancy bottles of various concoctions to use on the skin or in the bath.


Everybody got to take a few things home from the giveaway table!


Joyful donning a hair mask! Ewww! Avocado, eggs, and who knows WHAT?


We had enough ingredients and supplies for 10 spa parties! Eggs, avocados, oatmeal, yogurt, shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil, jojoba oil, rosewater, epsom salts, olive oil, dried herbs, an herbal mixture for steaming the face, and ingredients you've probably never heard of! LOL! We even had a whole case of essential oils for aromatherapy!


I really didn't want to put this in, but gotta be fair! Don't I look just disgusting? This is a yogurt/oatmeal face mask that was far too gloopy and runny! Hee hee! It got many jokes!


With her feet soaking in the foot spa, a homemade facial mask, and cucumber eyes, Joyful is the ultimate spa icon!


Bashful (this sounds like the 7 dwarfs) looking at the printouts of spa ingredients


Chatty looking perfect! She didn't go for the whole gross concoctions on her hair and face!


We had 3 foot baths available. I bought one new, and Joyful bought 2 used ones.


We'll have to have more spa parties to make good use of all the stuff!


My "keepsakes" - an ylang-ylang body scrub, rosewater face cream, and an olive oil hair moisturizer!

Thanks for the great time, ladies!

Abigirl's new look

Today my daughter had her hair cut. Waaaaaaaahhh!! God has blessed her with some beautiful hair, and she grew it out for a long time. But I told her it was high time she took care of her own hair. Getting three girls hair ready every time we go somewhere always takes a while. So, although she really wanted to grow it very long (down to her knees even), I finally told her it was either cut it or I would not do it anymore for her, no matter how tangled it got. So she thought about it, and finally made the decision to cut it. I think the final factor was that I told her she could donate her hair to girls who are sick.

Here are some "before" pics taken from the summer. It's probably grown another inch since these were taken!

She didn't want her picture taken here, can you tell?


An after photo!


I felt very sad when I first saw her hair being cut off. (sob, sob) The total length was about 11 inches.



It's a little too short for her liking, but I think she's pleased with her new look. A change can be nice once in a while!