And the Winner is.....

Melanie Haymond!! True Beauty will be delivered to your door, Mel. Congratulations to Melanie and thanks to all who entered!

Happy Birthday Micah

Micah, my baby, is six years old!! How can it be? Wow. What would we ever do without Micah? We definitely wouldn't laugh as much - she cracks us up all the time. Micah has a great sense of humor and she is so much fun to be around. She is as smart as a whip, ready to jump into anything, has no fear, and can be a little bit of a tom boy. I worry about her a little, because she has that dancing on tabletops kind of personality; she is kind of crazy. She bosses around her older siblings all the time (well, she tries) and she has a very tender heart. She cannot stand being in trouble for anything (but that doesn't seem to stop her) - one cross word and she falls apart. She has lots of nicknames - Bubby or Bubby Girl (Josiah made it up), Schmoopa, Stinky, and Magoo to name a few. Micah is in Kindergarten and enjoys school - she is doing really well in her reading and she loves math (which is more than I can say about the rest of these kids that live here!). Micah is as skinny as a rail - she always has been, and now she is getting really tall too. That girl of ours is a doll and we all adore her. We are so thankful that the Lord saw fit to bless us with her. We look forward to the future and watching her learn, grow, and become the woman that God created her to be. She fills our hearts and home with joy! :)

Bubby's a rock star!

FREE Jonathan Park Download

Through Friday, anyone with a Behemoth.com account can download the entire Jonathan Park: The Adventure Begins set FREE!! This is a great deal - it would usually cost you $17.95 for the download or $25 for the CD set if you were to buy it. It is free to sign up for a Behemoth account and easy as anything to download. If you have not heard of Jonathan Park, Vision Forum's radio-type creation adventure series, by all means go and check it out. We love them. Let me warn, you, though, your kids will become addicted and will want to disappear for hours to listen.

In order to get the series, you must use the coupon code: JONATHANPARK. Here's how you do it:
Go to Behemoth.com
Click on the "cart" link in the top right corner
On the cart page you will see a field on the right underneath the "Redeem a Coupon" Heading
Enter the code: JONATHANPARK
The downloads will appear in your cart....you click on download and save to your computer!!

The free download is for ANYONE with a Behemoth account. Also, Behemoth offers daily freebies, so be sure to check back frequently for those.

Kim C. is holding a drawing for a $50 Behemoth gift certificate on her blog. So, after you go to Behemoth.com for your free download and see all the great things they have to offer, you can scoot on over to her blog for a chance to get some of it for free!.

Vision Forum Drawing

Vision Forum is introducing five new conference audio sets featuring a number of family visionaries and Christian cultural reformers. These sets are on sale until February 23rd. As an affiliate, Vision Forum is graciously allowing me to hold a giveaway. To enter, just post a comment stating which set you would like to win. If you have a blog, post a link to my contest on your blog and send me that link to receive a second entry. All entries will be placed in a hat and the kids will draw one on Thursday, February 26th . If you are the winner, I will contact you for your address and Vision Forum will send you the set of your choice. Follow the link below to pick your favorite!

Happy Valentine's Day

Shooting with the Sibs

We had the most glorious day last Sunday - truly, it was amazing. After church we went out to the Siblerud's house to shoot skeet. The view is amazing from their house (as you can see in the photos!). The day was sunny and warm -Isaiah is the only one of us wearing a coat. Paul started a little bonfire for us and Elizabeth came out with marshmallows to roast. They burned the Christmas tree and we all had a great day. It ended with an alpine glow over the mountains above which you could see the moon - before the sun even set. What a day. I am so sorry for the rest of you in the world who were not here to experience it.

Bison - It's What's for Dinner

Many of you are wondering what happened to that bison in the garage.....well, he is now in the freezer. After the kitchen and garage were prepared and bleached and after we had our morning lattes, the fun began. The Fabulous Millers came with their robo meat grinder, knives and happy selves. Our friends, Scott Paul and Jay Rickel (Jr.) showed up and even my sweet friend, Tracy Rickel, couldn't stand to miss out on the fun (yep, that really is what she said). The meat was beautiful (if such things can be so, but we all agreed that it was). In the end, we now have meat in the freezer and we learned a few things:

1. Just because you know where rib eyes come from, does not mean that they will look

anything like rib eyes when you are finished.

2. Anything that you aren't sure about is round steak.......we have LOTS of round steak.

3. With a little imagination, anything can be a chuck roast.

4. Even when T-bones LOOK like burger, they really aren't - but they CAN be.

5. A bison is a lot larger than, let's say, a deer....now, shouldn't we have already known that?

6. Leave the butchering of large animals up to the professionals. Butchers are amazing and

we ought to appreciate them a lot more. Really.

7. Next year, in order to more fully understand the process so that we can better

serve our bison customers - we are going to take a field trip to the butcher instead!