Comfort

Homemade rolls, gingerbread cookies, a warm fire, spiced cider, cute kids...its been a nice long weekend and its not quite over yet!  Its been so nice to have Matt home all weekend.  I don't think he's ever had a job where he had paid vacation days.  When we were making gingerbread cookies yesterday I started to think about comfort, gingerbread is a kind of comfort food so maybe thats why.  Anyway, today I feel comforted in my heart.  It's hard to explain.  Sometimes life is hard, we have to go through so many things, so many choices to make. Questions that remain unanswered, friends come and go.  Yet God remains true to us, He remains our comfort in times of trouble.  He is the only one who sees our true heart, knows our intentions and has a plan for us in spite of ourselves and how we get in the way.  In the bible its says that He is the God of all comfort.   Thats cool, the God of all comfort and he is able to comfort our hearts.  So be comforted today my friends, let your hearts be comforted by the Lord.   

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a nice visit with cousin Diane this week.  Since she had to work on Thanksgiving :( we had our Thanksgiving dinner early on Monday.   That day we made pinecone turkeys and placemats with the boys.  It was really fun, my boys had a great time with Diane and so did we of course. Its always nice to have family around! We have so much to be thankful for today. Hope you all have a great day back east today, we love you!

The heavens declare the glory of God

The sunsets have been so beautiful this week.  I couldn't capture the fullness of it in this picture but it reminded me of a Psalm so I thought I'd share....

Psalm 104

 1 Praise the LORD, O my soul. 
       O LORD my God, you are very great; 
       you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

 2 He wraps himself in light as with a garment; 
       he stretches out the heavens like a tent

 3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. 
       He makes the clouds his chariot 
       and rides on the wings of the wind.

I wish it was snowing...

Yesterday it was hot and sunny so we went to the beach again.   Its November, cant it just be cold and overcast and snowing? I guess I'm excited for Christmas and to see my family.  Today I'm sick of this heat though.  But look at those 2 front teeth Weston has now, so cute.

Jack!

Jack won a coloring contest at Trader Joe's for these two pictures.  He worked on them for a long time and we kept forgetting to take them back into the store.  Finally we did and a week later someone called from the store and said that he had won.  They gave him a bag of Trader Joe's snacks as a prize.  He wasn't really excited about the snacks because they were all healthy snacks ;) but he was so proud when we were at the store. Everyone there is really nice, they all asked to see his picture and congratulated him.  Jack also had his last soccer game today which they won 5 to 4.  Jack made an amazing save during the quarter that he played goalie.  Next Wednesday night is his team party at a local pizza shop.  It was a fun season, Jack has really improved on his skills and it was fun for us to go every week and watch him and get to know the other parents.  We will definitely have to do it again next year!                

Weekend

Here's our carved pumpkins! The boys drew their design on an I cut it out by the way, I like how there's a big knife in the middle of the table. :)

Weston got to use the Barker family Santa suit for his costume this year.  I doubt it will fit by Christmas though.
Jack was a Star Wars Clone trooper..
Caleb was an astronaut.   Then we went to our church for a Harvest party with games and food and candy and such.  We had a lot of fun! 
These are from the next morning...yes I put Weston to bed wearing the Santa suit!  Matt let me sleep in and took the boys outside for an early morning photo session.

Field trip

We went to the Avila Valley Barn for a field trip today with our homeschool group.  It was fun, except that Weston had a runny nose so he was a bit grumpy and tired.  The boys had fun riding the tractor down to the somewhat sparse pumpkin patch and picking their own pumpkins.  We had lunch there and then they ran through the hay maze for a bit.   It was hot today but fun.