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Sydney

   

 

 

 

Thirteen years old.   Seems like only yesterday that we welcomed this sweet girl lady into the world.  At the time she was a chubby baby girl, long awaited by her first-time parents who thought she was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to the world.  5 siblings, 2 moves, and several animals later….she’s no longer a chubby baby, but we still consider her the most wonderful 13 year old that has ever happened to the world.  She still likes her parents!  She will even still hold our hands in public places!  She is helpful, creative, compassionate, fun, mature, beautiful,… and yesterday she turned 13.  

You are such a blessing Sydney Kaye Colvin!  We look forward to walking with you through the next stage of your life!

2Timothy 4:12 “Do not let anyone look down on you because your are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in  love, in faith, and in purity.”

A Time For Everything

 

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

“For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.”

 

This verse has been brought back to my attention as I look over the past year.  Sometimes when you are caught up in life you forget that there’s a time for everything….and He’s got it all figured out.  As we prepare for elections, the holidays, the new year may we be reminded of this.

I haven’t been around my blog in awhile, mostly due to the busyness of life.  I hope that this will be the beginning of my return to keeping track of my everchanging life.  See you soon! 

Mission Impossible???

Ok, so maybe not impossible:)  But the mission I am referring to here is our Family Mission Statement.  Not too many months ago we challenged (and were challenged) our small group to write a Family Mission Statement.  It's a great way to figure out the priorities and foundations of your family, giving you something to base your family decisions off of.  It helps get the entire family on the same page, kids included...helping you all to know where the family stands and therefore keep each other accountable. 

So, with that said, we are currently working on ours.  We have talked about one for several years now, never officially putting it down on paper.  Well now is the time.  We were particularly challenged when one of the couples in our small group showed up one week with a formal, typed, mission statement... AWESOME!  So we decided it was about time for us to get ours down on paper.  Have any of you done something like this?  Any good church, organization, business has a mission statement, so why not the family?  I write all this as an attempt at accountibility.  I figure if I blog it, then I have to stick to it and do it, right?  Hopefully within the next few weeks I will have something formal.  Next week is the Homeschool Convention which always helps keep us on track and spurs on a lot of thoughts in regards to our family unit.  So I'd better get writing!!!

Happy New Year!

 

Ok, so maybe February is a little late for most to be saying Happy New Year, but not for our family.  To us our “new year” kind of starts following our vacation.  Our January vacation is our chance to get away to warmer weather and sunshine, to renew and refresh our minds and bodies so that we can return ready to take on life again, until the next January.  We have found over the course of our marriage that we need this time and it can’t be done in under two weeks.   The first week is spent unwinding and the second begins to draw our thoughts back to things of home including church, small group, house projects, work, homeschooling, etc.  By the end of week two we are all missing home and eager to get back to “normal”.

Taking our travel trailer  is the only affordable way for our ever growing family to spend two weeks, every year, at our favorite vacation spot, Walt Disney World.

Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground has come to be our family’s favorite resort.  With a large swimming pool, waterslide, baby pool, kid’s splash pad, and hot tub (Joe and I were able to enjoy this on a couple evenings:)) we spent a couple days just enjoying the water and sunshine.  Every evening the resort offers a singalong with Chip and Dale around the campfire followed by a Disney movie on the big screen.  The kids enjoyed watching some old favorites under the stars.  We enjoyed watching the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom from the Fort Wilderness beach, just walking distance from our campsite.   Traveling to the various parks was simple on the in-house Disney transportations system using the buses, boats, and monorail.

Ok, so I’m beginning to sound like  I’m reading a sales pitch straight from Disney’s marketing department…but that’s how it was for us.  Warm weather, cool evenings, peaceful days, and restful nights.  That’s what we needed.

So on to what blog readers enjoy most…pictures!!!

The kids with Dale at the Chip-n-Dale singalong.

Little Ireland hanging out at the pool (strategically shaded by a pool chair and her adorable Minnie Mouse hat). 

Mickey’s Philharmagic show in the Magic Kingdom

Jackson “helping out” at a street show in Epcot

Feeding the stingrays at Sea World

Shark exhibit in Sea World…this shark is perfectly placed BEHIND the glass!

Tea Cups, thank you honey for taking one for the team and riding this every year with the kids!

Feeding the Sea Lions…

You’ve got to admit they’re cute!

We went into Orlando a couple of nights to try out some local favorites.  Hot N Juicy Crawfish was a new one for us…we like to try different things:)

    

Although very apprehensive at first, the kids really enjoyed the experience.

    

We made a couple trips over to Downtown Disney stopping of course to take pictures at their Lego Store.  These creations were made entirely out of Legos!

And this one too.

    

The kids always like to try on various hats found in the shops all over the parks.

                          

Definitely too big:)

          

We finished the trip off spending our last day in Downtown Disney.  I throw this picture in because we saw the Dugger Family (America’s most famous large family) surrounding this Lego family for a picture.  Sydney happened to be waiting to take a picture of the Lego family on her camera when she had given up due to the large group surrounding the family.  I quickly realized who they were but we never did get a picture with them in it. 

So we are now home and life is back to, well, what it should be.  The weather is cold, like it should be.  Joe is back to work, like he should be.  We started back to homeschooling, like we should be.  That’s the way…..it should be.

Christmas

 

I’m back!  It seems like forever since I’ve posted.  So long in fact that I was asked if I was still blogging!!!  I am, and here’s a recap of a very busy week.

As you may know my side of the family is spread from Texas to New Jersey.  This Christmas the entire family was able to gather together here in Indiana.  Grandma, who will be 98 in a few weeks, was even able to join us for a day.   We were able to get some family pictures, minus my 1 year old niece as pictures happened to fall right at nap time.  Coordinating pictures with a large group is never easy, but we did our best. 

 

               

We started our Christmas morning worshipping with our church body where we shared breakfast together and they had face painting…it was awesome.  We enjoyed the afternoon at home opening gifts, eating a traditional Christmas feast, and relaxing before the rest of the family rolled in the next day.

One day the weather was nice enough for a game of football…

The next morning we woke to this!!  This was especially exciting for our Texas family.  So we somehow managed to scrounge up enough hats, gloves, coats, boots, and snowpants for 10 extra people and off they went to sled before the wet snow turned to slush…or at least while there was still snow on the hill! 

 

   

These two sweeties stayed home during the sledding:)

My brother and his sweet family.

My mom and sisters:)

Siblings…right to left, oldest to youngest.

While the crew was here we managed to squeeze in sledding, two trips to the bowling alley including a game of blacklight mini golf, one trip to Notre Dame to skate at their new hockey facility, $1 tacos at El Paraiso, a visit to the HealthWorks museum, dinner at Red Robin (their sweet potato fries are delicious), and the kids stayed up over the course of the week to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Whew, I’m tired.

Then, in a moment, they were all gone.  Crazy how you prepare and anticipate something and then it’s over in the blink of an eye.  It was a great time, I’m sure all were glad to return home to some sense of routine.  It doesn’t seem that our family has quite fallen back into a routine yet, but in time life will be back to normal.