New Paint for our House

Sam is moving furniture around and taking down the lights from the ceiling in preparation for painting our house this week.

Our little monkey perching on the entertainment center in the middle of the livingroom, eating--what do you suppose?

All the children were such willing helpers. Here they are helping to tape plastic up over the cupboards in the kitchen. That first day, I cooked a pot of beans and another pot of sloppy joes on the woodstove, because the kitchen stove was covered with plastic! What adventure!

Timmy taping.

I only managed to get this one picture of one of Jonathan's work guys taping off the wallpaper border while the other is rolling paint with a long-handled roller onto our ceiling. As you can see, things were not exactly picture perfect!! I fled to my room every once in a while to be quiet and preserve my sanity. We were so grateful for the three guys' help in painting. All our living area, kitchen, two bathrooms and laundry room were painted, besides the boys' bedroom. The ceiling is swiss coffee white, the walls are an ivory, and the other rooms were light green. How nice everything looks now! And the biggest praise is how smoothly everything went. I was grateful to the Lord for His grace and help. Also for a big, tall angel with the first name of Steve, who came by on the second day of painting and helped us move heavy furniture back in place. He also helped the boys the next day, filing and sharpening our chain saws, and sawing and splitting more wood so we could get the big mess of wood sawed, split, stacked and raked up. I never thought of Steve as an angel before, but those particular days, he was. Little miracles like that which I wasn't expecting happened to keep us feeling God's care and help in the middle of a very tough job.  

A science experiment the children did with cornstarch and water. In the bowl, it looks like liquid. But if you squeeze it, it feels like a solid. Weird!

Just this 'n' that

Playing games one evening while watching Iva's children 

Mom clipping Blueberry's fur (I just did a better job today!)

Sammy refinishing an old school desk we got for $1 at the auction. He scraped, sanded, sealed and varnished the wooden seat, and then Jonathan showed him how to spray paint the rest. Now Rose has a desk with a lid that will stay up when she lifts it! Thanks for the good work, Sam!

One Saturday the girls were away having a good time with cousins and cookies, and the three little ones decided to have a tea party in front of the wood stove! Timmy was the mastermind while I was catching up on a family photo album. Thanks, Timmy, for so royally entertaining the little ones so I could have time for catching up.

The next Saturday Jonathan was able to stay home all day. He and the boys built this sawbuck (saw horse) and then sawed wood again. 

We enjoyed a quick family outing just down the roads to our favorite ranch store, Big R, to buy grain and feed and wood chips that were on a one-day sale. The children love to ride the big cart of supplies out to the parking lot.

Getting ready to load.

From there, we headed to a garage job Jonathan and his guys built, only a few miles from our place. It has been nice to have a nearby job so that sometimes Jonathan can take the boys. Here is the lovely garage they built in the last few months, along with many other jobs they were keeping up with. 

The project was to shovel up leftover sand from the job to take to our sandpile! Everyone pitched in and helped, even Mom, though at the moment I was taking a picture.

Christmas 2011

We had a white Christmas!



Friday evening we had our Christmas Eve, including snipping and freezing most of a big box of fresh green beans we got for just 67 cents a pound! They were the nicest beans we'd ever gotten and made a nice contribution to the Lucas clan's Christmas meal on Saturday. The boys and even their dad snipped while I helped freeze and bag. 



Danny is a big helper, too!

Danny is very happy with his "new" bike, since his old one, rescued from the dump, got run over accidentally a few days earlier. Sam found this one on Craigs List. 

Hannah with the new nightgown I sewed for her and finished just in time!

Carrie, Rose and cousin Vanessa and others tobogganing down the garden area at Grandma's and pa's in town on Christmas Eve, Saturday.



One Christmas tradition of the Lucas clan is taking family photos in front of the Christmas tree. Grandpa likes us to hold some of our gifts. They gave our older children several Bible games. As you can also see, Crystal, Carrie and Rose made their own dresses out of angel fabric we'd gotten at a yard sale many moons ago. One of my Christmas gifts to them was taking time in the weeks before Christmas to help them with sewing. I really don't enjoy it all that much, but it is an important skill. We can alter many clothes and make them wearable or sew new clothes if we know how to sew.

Jon and Esther McVey, with Stacy, Vanessa, Rebecca, and Ryan. Esther always contributes a delicious cranberry jello to the meal. 

Rob, Julie, Danielle and Cassidy

Julie usually brings a salad plate of fresh vegetables. I told her I appreciate something healthy at Christmas! There are always so many sweets (including the pumpkin rolls, and chocolate mint whoopie pies our family took). 

Jonathan's youngest sister Barb with her new husband, Chad, from Idaho, and her friendly, quiet little dog, one of the few I could actually almost like. Chad and Barb contributed some smoked goose he had shot! Chad makes a wonderful addition to the family. He and our boys heard that the church sidewalks needed to be shoveled better for Sunday, so they took off with Jonathan to get them shoveled properly. I appreciated seeing a man doing something besides sitting on a couch playing on a phone like so many do nowadays every chance they get. Barb had said she wasn't marrying a couch potato, and she didn't. Way to go, Barb!

Grandma is not a couch potato, either. Instead, she cooks the potatoes, sweet potatoes, Christmas turkey and ham, and various and sundry other dishes. No wonder she looks a bit tired in this photo. 

Grandma and pa with the grandchildren except one who wouldn't cooperate. Hey, Crystal, what is so interesting over there?

Youth Project for Our Suffering Brethren

The National Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church was in November. During that month, our children were involved in a youth project to make parachutes for delivering the gospel by air to a very restricted country, and to fill ten bags for needy and persecuted Christians or their neighbors in another restricted nation. Here Crystal is helping a few older folk who pitched in as well. We ordered kits from one of our favorite organizations that works to help families of martyrs. I am being careful how much I say on the blog because anybody could read this.

Sis. Naomi is marking exactly what items are in each bag. Approved items included jackets, sweaters, blankets, T-shirts, soap, a nerf ball, and towels. Later the bags will be vacuum sealed before shipping.

Here are the ten bags lined up by the church altar, so that special prayer can be made for the recipients, that they would be blessed and encouraged by the gifts of love.

Some folk from our church practicing for the prison service we had the first Saturday of December. Jonathan is the one on the far right, playing the big baritone horn. Next to him is a man playing what is called a pocket trumpet. 

Sammy's Birthday!

In our house, the children get to choose what cake they want for their birthday. AND they get to make it! Sammy is chopping up four cups of diced apples for an apple walnut cake. I forgot to check it when he spread it in the pan, and it turned out rather lumpy and humpy. It is supposed to be lumpy, but not humpy! So the humpty dumpty cake, at which I was a little embarrassed due to my negligence of not supervising better, got hidden away till time to serve it with icecream, at which time it was pronounced beyond success by the company and grandparenst. The way I know it is beyond success is when they ask you for the recipe! Despite the humps, it was one of the best cakes any of us had ever tasted, and so full of apples! So, good job, Sam!

Sammy invited a boy from church named Michael, and his parents, and of course Grandma and pa Lucas to enjoy the birthda with us.

There were lots of gifts, including a Guinness Book of World Records from Michael, and plenty of other things.

Hannah spent Sammy's birthday evening finding hats for everyone and putting them upon their heads--usually backwards!

Grandma got a hat AND a scarf!

 Jonathan reads the Christmas story to Danny at bedtime...

...while Timmy goes to bed under the Christmas tree, their favorite spot during the Christmas season.  Something about the cozy lights makes it warm and cozy.

The girls set up the bell set our church Sunday School has, in order to figure out songs for the Christmas program.

The children coaxed Daddy and Mommy into playing a game of Monopoly Deal, that Sammy had been given by Michael for his birthday. Mom won! She said it was because she knew how to obey! She did everything Rose told her to because she did not have the least idea how to play at first.

Guess who we found in the cupboard!

The boys with their blocks.

Jonathan lifts Hannah up to hang an ornament on the tree.

The children help put away the Christmas figures of the flannel graph set that Mom used for teaching Sunday School.

Of course, Danny likes to put away the animal figures!

Now it is Crystal's Birthday!



Sweet sixteen!



She made a mint-flavored, cream filled chocolate cake. Mmm.

  Sixteen Blessings for Crystal's "Sweet Sixteenth" Birthday

All of us present at her birthday mea expressed the blessing she had been to us or prayed these blessings on her.

1. That just as the morning she was born was bright with crystal light on the new-fallen snow, God would bless her with the "crystal" brightness of His presence.--Mom

2.That the Sun of Righteousness would rise like the "Dawn" in her life.--Mom

3. Crystal is a blessing because she is a good cook and made such a good cake!-- Hannah (age 2)

4. Crystal has blessed us with her good cooking, and

5. I pray God will bless her with a good hubby to perfect her cooking on! --Daddy

6. Bless her with wisdom. --Carrie

7. Bless her with patience. --Grandpa Lucas

8. I'm blessed that Crystal gives us presents for our birthdays and Christmas, and may she have the gift of God. --Timmy (age 8)

9. Crystal is blessed with cheerfulness. May she always have the joy of the Lord. --Grandma Lucas

10. Crystal has blessed us with her helpfulness. May she have the ever present help of the Lord in time of need. --Rose

11. Crystal is the blessing of a good example.--Grandma

12. Bless her with thriftiness.--Grandpa

13. And may that be balanced with the blessing of generosity. --Mom

14. May she be blessed with hope.--Stacy (a cousin)

15. And glory!  --Danny

16. May she have good friends. ---Grandma finished the sixteenth blessing.

Crystal below, with her gifts. Everything from new ear muffs to a pretty pink outfit to books, yarn, a sweater and other little gifts from all of her loving family and cousin Stacy and both sets of grandparents.