As a family of servants of God, we seek to Glorify Him by offering our lives as living sacrifices, being intentional about engaging people with Christ and the Gospel, and using the talents and training He has given us through grace to proclaim the Gospel of Grace to those near and far.
It has arrived. The day that Valentine's cards become important in a child's life is upon us.
G and I had a special photo shoot where he was sporting his Batman shirt (and in some shots he was holding some Super Hero Squad "Squaddies"). Here is the photo that was the main part of his Valentine's this year:
This I ordered as wallet-sized photos so that we could glue them onto Red Card-stock.
Then, and this is the part that I'm most proud of... Gideon addressed EVERY Valentine. A big shout-out to Nicole McIntyre for the idea of using high-lighter to help him form the words and get the spacing more even.
After he'd addressed all of them (and added a heart to JUST Mia's) we glued a Kit-Kat to each one.
(The adults LOVED his Valentine!)
I signed up to be one of the parents at the party and I took my d40 (my small camera). I got a good sampling of the well-behaved class. As you look through the slide-show at the end, you will notice times when the kids are sitting without a teacher. They responded to musical cues and the teachers were able to get a lot of prep work done while the kids were following musical directions. (I've been in a lot of preschool and kindergarten rooms and I was IMPRESSED!)
This kid LOVES his school!
Mia Claire is a big reason why G loves school so much. ;)
She's really sweet and seems to think just as highly of Gideon as he thinks of her.
The party seemed to be fun for everyone involved. The games... the excessive amounts of ice cream with unlimited toppings, the story...
Naomi's 3rd Birthday Party was "Hello, Kitty" themed. Instead of doing my normal cupcakes, I decided (since I wasn't doing much other decorating for our small party) to make her a "Hello, Kitty" cake.
With the left over cake (left from cutting out the shape) I made Cake Balls with an "N" in chocolate. Naomi loved the cake. And I'm told (by people who went back for seconds) that the cake was delicious.
We got a great surprise when Aunt Claudia
and cousin Kaden showed up for the celebration.
Claudia did a great job documenting the surprise with her camera over on her blog.
Naomi enjoyed all of the attention and the gifts. Since we only invited one little friend for Naomi, I got them matching sunglasses as their party favors. Here Sydney King and Naomi are modeling their "BFF glasses".
This Christmas we have a real tree FOR. THE. FIRST. TIME. EVER!
JR has been talking about how great a real tree is SINCE. I. MET. HIM! (you like my new trend? No? Ok. Sorry.)
This year Christmas Day is with Debby and she agreed to a real tree. Today we went and got it.
The following slide show (71 photos) documents our Tree-getting adventure. Within the next few days I hope to pick out some of my favorite photos, edit, and post them on the photography site. So, if you don't feel like viewing all of the photos... wait for that post. ;)
***UPDATE-- Less than 10 min. after I published this post, JR and I heard a crash. The tree had toppled over and water and ornaments were everywhere. I think artificial trees are easier. ***
This morning, as Kristen and I stepped out to go to the next building to pick up the little kids, we saw that it was SNOWING! The Mosiers, having lived their whole lives in Florida had never experienced something like this. We rounded every excited person up and headed back to the house. We snapped some photos in the "snow" and then went on about our day.
After playing with some adoptable pets, the kids got all snugly while watching a movie.
I took a photo of the 4 kids in front of the tree before the kids exchanged gifts.
And Brian asked me to take photos of his fire. JR and Brian have been playing with the fire and chopping wood all weekend. :)
Family, I have posted these photos to flickr so that you can download and share whichever photos you want. Following the links and prompts. (Go to "view all sizes.)
I saw Naomi react to the hot, sticky weather with all the enthusiasm with which I embrace it. She was cranky and did not smile. (I couldn't blame her.)
Most of these photos are still in the Proof stage. However, when you see duplicates, you can see some of my edit.
This flickr set is for family to identify the photos they would like to display in their home and let me know. Then I'll order a nice image of it. (NOTE: FAMILY THAT PRINTS PHOTOS FROM THE SCREEN--you know who you are--THE IMAGES WILL NOT LOOK RIGHT IF YOU TRY TO MAKE THEM BIGGER THAN THEY APPEAR ON THE SCREEN. E-mail me and I can either send you the file so you can print it bigger, or I'll order you a nice print.) ;)
This was the invitation that we handed out to the people who live around us and a few people from church. The super-hero theme was the major theme for the entire day.
Gideon woke up early (6:30 instead of 8) and his first words to me were: "I put my Iron Man clothes on!"
I convinced him to lay low for another hour, but by 7:30 I was making his requested cinnamon twists with chocolate glaze. (Pillsbury... don't think I'm super-woman or anything.)
After breakfast, he got to open his first present of the day. It was from Ryan and Claudia.
It made him look like this:
He wore it all day.
He ran outside to show Ana.
Aunt Kelli, Rachel, and Simon called to sing to him. Rachel sang in English, and then sang the Polish birthday song. And Simon mooo-ed for us. The cousins are getting pretty excited about seeing each other.
We web-cammed with Gigi and Papa Dan who are in Greece. The kids asked what was in Greece, to which I said, "A lot of old rocks." But it confused Gideon and Naomi, b/c all they could see was the office in which my parents were web-camming. :)
While we were on the computer with my parents, JR's mom called.
We spent a busy 45 min. chatting with people all over the world. (Just in case you aren't keeping up, that is Poland, Greece, and Florida.)
Then Gideon and I got ready to go out for our birthday date.
He chose Burger King. It is currently his favorite restaurant. And he was hoping to get an Iron Man toy. (He got a Marmaduke toy instead.) We laughed throughout our meal remembering funny things that happened last year on his birthday.
When I asked him what he wanted to do for dessert, he said he wanted to pick out some candy. So we went to Fresh Market and I let him pick out whatever candy he wanted. He chose (surprise, surprise) 2 different shades of blue jelly bellies.
After coming back home, the kids requested taking a nap on the couch.
I snapped this picture really close to the minute of his birth 4 years ago. He's so much bigger now! :)
The rest of the afternoon, we spent getting ready for his small get-together. I was blowing up balloons, which we didn't even include in the party. But G and I love this picture b/c we think he looks like a Muppet.
At around 4 we got to web-cam with the Mosiers.
Can you see Madison and Hudson?
For dinner, G has requested BBQ Chicken pizza with pineapple and black olives.
Here is G waiting for JR to finish up with the dishes so he can open his gifts:
The cards...
Naomi's gift to Gideon is a figurine of J'onn J'onzz the Martian Manhunter. This is a great gift SHE picked out for him. We read the Justice League books aloud and Naomi is always asking who J'onn J'onzz is. Gideon thinks it's pretty funny. Here's how the gift-giving went down:
Gideon got a lot of other great gifts. He is super excited about all of them. And if you know Gideon, you know that I'm not exaggerating about that.
Since I already posted the link to the photos of the party on the last post, I'll just type out about the rest of the day.
We had a good turn out at his party. Even some people from church made the trek out to celebrate Gideon. Gideon picked out s'mores cupcakes and assorted super-hero plates and napkins. And for our purposes, Transformers count as super-heroes. We even had Optimus Prime masks for those guests who showed up without costumes.
Fun was had by all while we were visiting outside. And by 7:30 we brought the kids in for bath time. During our cuddle time, Claudia and Ryan web-cammed. When Uncle Ryan lowered the camera to Claudia's belly, Gideon (unprompted) began talking to Kaden. He called him his special nick-name (Keathan) and talked to him about how he was going to teach Kaden to play with Transformers and that he was going to love on him when he comes out of Claudia's belly. (SO SWEET!)
It took G a long time to settle down after such a full day. But by 10 he finally stopped trekking down the stairs to make up questions to ask us.
He's such a big kid now.
Within the week I hope to get an interview with him to post here on the blog.
It's here again. Baseball season! And our annual Sheets Family Holiday.
2008:
2009:
And this year:
See how much the kids have grown? Kelli and I decided that all 4 kids would have black shirts this year. If you have the password to her blog, check them out at www.kelli9.blogspot.com
The kids were being so uncooperative with their photos today that I took my camera to the library and had JR take several. Argh. We've been having battles today. But enough of that... it's a "holiday" after-all. ;)
Gideon has been praying for snow every week since he found out we were moving away from Florida, and today, when I pulled back his bedroom curtains he said, " I prayed for snow!"
We all ate breakfast, got layered up, and headed out the door.
This was the kid's first experience with snow. (I mean, our apt. complex brought fake snow to the parking lot when G was 19 mon. old, but that doesn't count. --and apparently I only took a video of it and never got it up on the blog--)
So, back to today...
We used the box from the photos I ordered (see post below, or check out www.DLifeful.com) as a sled. It worked ok... But then JR remembered his snow board. And, boy, was that fun! I even got on it myself.
**I've been bitten by the snow boarding bug. If any well-to-do family would like to send me and JR on an all-expenses-paid snow boarding trip (we'd prefer Loon Mt. in New Hampshire where JR learned), we will be willing to accept your generosity. :P**
We had a great time goofing off in the dusting that for us was a "big snow". After Naomi had had about all she could take, we came inside for hot chocolate with marshmallows and sat in front of "Transformers". (G got the old-school first season on DVD for Christmas.)
Fun was had by all... I'll let the very long slide show show you.
Below is the slide-show from some of our holiday activities. I really didn't want my camera to come between me and being a part of the holiday, and I think that I did a pretty good job. :)
The first few photos are from when just the Sheets went to Harding's campus to check out the lights.
We follow that up with some Christmas cooking prep, followed by Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This morning we had our traditional Men-Cook-for-the-Women breakfast. And the last few of the pics are of Naomi in her princess/ballerina garb.
Highlights: *Gideon had "instructions" so that he could identify and hand out everyone's presents. As a result, he can now sight-read all of our family's names. *I have yet to take a picture of it, but JR's present to me is a BEAUTIFUL ring to wear on my right hand. B-E-A-Utiful! *Until last night, all the games we played with the family, Mom/Gigi was always on the winning team. However, last night the ladies lost one round of Mental Floss to the men. *We've started a new tradition of singing and dancing the SuperWhy! dance as the start to the Men-Cook-for-the-Women breakfast. (We know, we are weird.)
And on to the slide-show...
It's hard to believe that this is what the kids looked like last year (same pjs).
Back in college, my life was changed when I met Kay Lynn. She is the most geniune person. And she was IN LOVE with Jesus like no one I had ever seen before. And, belive it or not, we had not had the opportunity to see each other since she got in the car that took her away from her wedding reception June 1, 2002. Yes, you read that right, 2002!
But Saturday, since we were already in Dallas, we met in Waco (a half-way point from her home in Austin) and finally got to see each other again.
She's still awesome. :)
The pictures at the beginning of the slide-show is while we were waiting to meet her for lunch. The pictures of the spaceship is what we saw on our way back to Dallas. :)
This past weekend, we visited Claudia and Ryan in Uptown Dallas. Here are some pics of us playing Go Fish! and rockin' it out on Guitar Hero. Gideon rocked out "Joker".
Last week Naomi and I joined G on his first field trip. The slide-show will follow, but first a few "mom-highlights".
-G spontaneously walked up to the owner of the farm and said, "Thank you, Ms. Ruth!" (so proud of him!) -Naomi was an awesome listener. She followed the directions like the big kids and was just superb. -Of his own free will, G shared some of his cookie icing with Naomi. He let her lick some off of his finger. (2 times) The other moms around him all "ahhh-ed" and asked if he was always that thoughtful. -At one point N took off for the distant tree branches on the ground and G's whole class followed her. (and Libby's little brother, Marcus who is N's age) I found it odd that a 21 mon-old was leading a class of 3 yr. olds. :)
Above is the slide-show from our family trip to the pumpkin patch. We had a blast on our family trip. We played everything by ear and went with the flow.
Here are some of the photos I've edited. And you can see more on my photography blog.
I also need your opinions about if you like how I edited some of the photos.
JR and G went on a walk today. G took our old camera along. Sometimes he talks about wanting to be "a photography". And when I handed him the camera, he told me he was going to take a picture of himself like he saw me doing last week. (Did I put my self-portrait up here? ... I don't think I did. It's my new fb profile picture.)
Here's the slide show of G's photos. I haven't edited them at all. They are as he shot them. :)
Is it just me, or are some of his shots really cute? I'm diggin' the one of his shoes (except for the camera strap hanging down in the photo. :)
Last week, after Mom and I finished up round-one of "Scrooge" children's auditions, the whole family headed out to Mike and Vicki Taylor's farm.
This farm lacks for nothing. Good people, good food, horses, gardens, playgrounds, a pool... you name it, it's probably there.
Here are some of the pictures I took. At the end of the short slide-show, you'll see Naomi on a rocking horse. She LOVED it and rode it most of the evening once she discovered it.
(We've got lots of pictures of just the rocking chair, Keith, if you were looking for a project. :P)
Here's a slide-show of pictures from our first week in Searcy.
These are from the 2nd week (when everyone was sick):
And last week, the kids and I went to Alisa Davidson's house to play with her reflectors (photography equipment that will be in my future). So I snapped some pics of the kids enjoying her fresh-picked tomatoes and big back yard.
From those pictures, I put together this story-board.
Hope this helps those of you in acute cute withdrawal. :)
All summer we have been trying to go over and play at with Rachel and Tre and the kids Rachel keeps. But today was the first time our schedules worked out.
The kids had a blast... and Rachel and I got to share some conversation.
This week we've had a lot more playing-with-friends time than we usually do. It's been really fun. Wed. Hudson and Madison came over (like normal), but I didn't take any pictures.
But Friday, the Hughes came over and Lydia brought all 3 boys to play instead of just bringing Dexter. We braved the heat and played in Debby's shady backyard.
3 years ago the Sheets and the Hughes descended on Tallahassee at the same time. And Gideon and Dexter were the only babies around. And this coming week, the Hughes will move to the Nashville area for Brennan to begin his schooling for his law degree. Crazy how life moves us around and puts different people in our paths.
Tonight (Saturday) we had the Landes Family over to view the photos from their photo shoot, and Brian and Hudson joined us since they are having a boy's weekend.
The house was full of kids and people, and fun, and family.
