Well, I have now been "tagged" twice!

And I didn't even know it because I haven't checked anybodies blog for so long, probably not since my last post! That's pretty bad! Sorry :) So, here are some highlights of how things are going since my last "real" last post (I'm not going to go into great detail because I'm sure you don't want to read a book about my life! :) :

• School is going good - most of the time! :) We are pretty much finished with the ABC's with Ace and Christi. We are now doing review and polishing up on our writing skills until Christmas break then in Jan. We will be going back to finish up first grade. And of course we are always looking for new books to read...Luke gets so excited when he reads something new, and also has the opposing tempertantrum (sp?) when he can't figure out a new word! That gets a little tiring after awhile! Jozie loves to read (a girl after her mom's own heart!:) but doesn't really care for writing - hence the next week of review! :) We haven't been on any new field trips lately.
• The kids are both still enjoying AWANA. They are in different groups with different kids but they do most of the class stuff together. Luke is almost done with memorizing the books of the New Testament and Jozie has started learning the books of the Old Testament. I like this program even more now that I see how it builds on what the child has already memorized and helps them to learn not only how to memorize but what the verses mean as well. I look forward to many years to come with the AWANA program! :)
• We have been having "Christmas Class" every afternoon this week and will continue through next week. We have been doing somekind of Christmas craft and or activity everyday and talking about what Christmas really means (though they do know who Santa is, Amie, though the also know that he isn't real! I thought it was cute and great that Isaac didn't know who he was!). We have done snowflakes and cards, decorating the Christmas tree, Christmas Cookies, and today we started our Gingerbread house (ok, I will admit, this being our first gingerbread house, I did buy a kit. I didn't want the kids to put all the time and effort into baking it and then have the disappointment of it not working out so I broke down and bought a kit. BUT it will NOT look like the box. I also bought a bunch of different candy to decorate with so it won't look like the one on the box.) We will be finishing that tomorrow because Sami is helping us with it and she went to her first semi-formal dance tonight with some of her friends from school.
• We no longer attend KCC Outreach Ministries. For those of you who don't know, that is the ministry that we moved here to be a part of. That's all I am going to say about that for now but it's part of the reason that I have been so quite on here lately. It's been a pretty stressful time for my family the last couple of months. If you want to know more, you can email me and I will tell you what happened. So, that said, it brings us to my next point...
• We have recently started attending South Lake Worship Center. I have really enjoyed being back in a church body and just being fed. The kids love going to children's church and call it "the church of the three crosses" because there are three crosses in front of it. The first day I took Luke he was reluctant but went and when we went to pick him up he was so excited to have so many new friends that the said he forgot that I was coming to pick him up! I was glad to hear that :) It makes me happy to know that I am at a place where my children can also be fed.
• Which brings me to my next point. Jozie and Luke are going to be in their first Christmas Program this Sunday! We never really had anything at our church in MI for the kids since there weren't too many people willing to help out with it so this is their first opportunity to Join in on the fun. They are singing and signing Silent Night and they will also be singing Hark! The Harold Angels Sing.
  
• Well, now that we are here in Indiana, people have told us that we aren't supposed to have snow that stays until like late Jan. or early Feb. I think they lied. We got our first snow a couple of days before Thanksgiving. The kids thought they were in heaven because, to prepare them for the winter to come, we have told them that they wouldn't have much snow to play in this year. So, they were out to play in it the first thing after breakfast. It was wonderful heavy wet snow so I showed them how to make a snowman (in MI our snow was always too dry to make much of anything unless it was spring and it was melting). They made a small one and then Luke had the bright idea to see how big of a snowball he could make. He made a big one. I took pictures but don't know where Bob put them right now. Well, it was a good thing that they went out to play when they did because it was pretty much gone by noon. Except for the big snowball which sat in the yard for about 2 more days. So now, about this time last week we had a small snow storm. People were nuts and just making fools of themselves on the roads. BUT it hasn't gone away. People PROMISED me it would! I was looking forward to a relatively mild winter and here I am, in the coldest winter on record for this part of Indiana! I think the snow must have followed us here. Oh well, at least I won't have to worry about having a green Christmas! :) And it also makes me feel more like I'm at home, because as much as I hate to say it, I miss Michigan! :(
  
• I think they sold my house!!! >:| I am NOT happy about it!!! The house next door has been my house since I saw it but at the $125,000 they were asking for it, we couldn't afford it. We offered him $80,000 earlier in the summer and he really wanted us to have it but said he couldn't come down that far (understandably). But, as summer came to an end, and he had to take his ailing wife back to their home in FL, he said he was putting it up with a Realtor again but would sell to only us if we wanted to, for only $90,000!!! I was pretty thrilled but didn't want my excitement to show. It's still a little out of our price range but with some interest rate fanageling and a good loan, we could cope. We talked to my mom and John about it because they agreed to buy it through their company and we could rent to own from them and we could get a much better payment that way. Well, since we quit the "ministry" the guy they were working with on this realstate investment stuff pretty much dropped them and they didn't really know what to do. So, it has kinda been put on the back burner because they weren't sure if it was a good investment or not. Well, the last week I have noticed a car coming in and out of there and some trash on the curb. I thought it was the daughter just doing some cleaning out because they had some furniture and other family things in there still. But yesterday I noticed that there was a large moving type truck in there. I can't see the sign and I am scared. The sign is white and my eyes are bad and its some distance away so it's hard to see in the snow anyway, but tomorrow I am going to make a point to either drive by or walk by and see if it's true. If they DID in fact sell it, I really hope that they have some kids my kids ages. They don't have any friends near by like when we lived in MI. And I know that if they did sell the house than God must have something better for me, but sometimes that is kinda hard to believe! :)
• The job that I was supposed to be doing online/at home work didn't work out. They weren't very helpful and we had a virus so Bob had to format our computer, twice, over a period of a week and a half which was the time that I was supposed to start. I didn't finish by my deadline so they kicked me out. I haven't heard anything from them since. It cost me a lot of money too! Figures! I guess you live and learn. It seemed like a good thing but it didn't turn out to be that great.
• We aren't going anywhere for Christmas this year. With Bob just starting this new job this summer he hasn't gotten any vacation time yet and if he takes time off it is unpaid so we can't afford for him to do that. I am pretty disappointed because we usually go to see his family at least once during the year but we haven't been able to do that this year because of our move. But dad has moved to Flint and won't be going home for Christmas either this year so I guess we are just as well off to stay home with my mom.
  
• I had a cousin that passed away the first of Dec. She was on John's side of the family and only 12. She had lymphobalastic lymphoma (I have no idea if that's spelled right) cancer. It showed up suddenly in March and she was in and out of the hospital until she died. His family took it really hard, they aren't saved and had a really hard time understanding why God would do such a thing to a little girl.
• Jozie has joined a arts and crafts class with other homeschool girls her age. They just started last month before Thanksgiving and meet every other Tues. afternoon. She loves it and just completed her first sewing project! She made a little purse out of felt and added a couple of shapes for embellishments. I will have to take a picture of her with it before she gives it away. Next week the girls will be having a doll Christmas party where they will be exchanging gifts that they made for eachothers dolls at our last class. Jozie asks almost everyday if it's Tuesday (we haven't quite gotten down the days of the week!)!
  

I guess that's about it. Longer than it should have been but much shorter than it could have been (I'm pretty good at that!). I haven't been taking many picture lately. I guess the novelty of it has worn off for the moment and we haven't really been doing much lately either. I have also been keeping my hands busy with crafts and sewing and knitting for Christmas! Another reason that I have put my blogging aside! Stay tuned, I will follow up with my two tagged items soon - if I can do them! I did notice that the things on Amie's "Seven Sevens" would be almost identical to mine, can I just copy and paste hers?! :)