Fa-La-La some more!!

We were blessed this year to celebrate Christmas multiple times with our families. This year, our Christmas morning was spent with Shawn's side of the family (Nana and Papa, Aunt Leiana and Aunt Margaret). The kids were spoiled like crazy....who am I kidding, Shawn and I were spoiled too! I didn't have to cook dinner, clean house or grocery shop for a solid week!

     We went to a Christmas Eve service at their church with the family, and the next morning woke up to the excited children waiting to TEAR INTO PRESENTS!!

Haleigh and her Polly Pocket traveling gift

Ava loved to explain all of her gifts to us...just in case we didn't know exactly what the toy was!

Caleb's theme this year was NINJAGO. He got so much fun stuff!

Nathan just wanted what everyone else had! He was so much fun this year and loved opening all of his presents and sampling (oops) some of the Christmas wrapping paper! 

I thought this was a cute pic of the two of them waiting patiently for their turn to unwrap. We started out unwrapping one at a time and after a few rounds of it, realized how long that was going to take. Then, we just decided to have a free for all and let them tear into it! Too much chaos to take pictures of that! 

One of my favorite treats... Girls lunch with Nana! All of the girls (except Aunt Margaret, who wasn't feeling well) went to meet Nana at a yummy restaurant after she taught a water exercise class. We sipped yummy drinks and the girls got to split a super chocolate-y dessert. What a treat!

Ok, I'm in this one!  

Christmas Day with the Bone's

Some fun pics of the family with my (Michelle's) side of the tree! 

I absolutely love this picture of Joshua with my Memom. She is one of my most favorite people. 

Mimi and the little princess!!

Me and my honey cuddling on the sofa! 

Mom and Dad loving all of the craziness!

I loved this pic of Haleigh smooching Nathan, and the fact that Haleigh's hoodie has cat ears!

My sista', Stephanie, and the sweet necklace she gave me!

Mom, Dad, and all the "grands" including little Claire who will be arriving this April!

My sis-in-law Amanda, and I posing with the pretty scarf she gave me!

The original 5 of us Bones!

Always something to play with at my mom's house!

Christmas Wrap-Up (hee hee)

I wish I could spend hours blogging about our Christmas celebrations this year! It would take that long to fill in all of the details that made this a truly wonderful time. I'll try to do this in phases, beginning with some fun family traditions! 

     Each year, we put the kids in their jammies and pile into the van to drive through the lights display at a local park. It's always fun to see what's new, and the kids love being able to unbuckle their seat belts in the van (it's the little things, I guess!)

A cute dino in lights!

A favorite of mine :)

      This year, I spent some time with a couple of my best friends making Christmas cookies! This was so much fun and I came away with DOZENS of yummy gifts for neighbors and friends. We laughed and baked and sampled (of course!) I love so much about these two special friends and am already teary-eyed thinking of being so far away from these gals soon.

These candy cane cookies looked cuter BEFORE they were baked, although
they were nice additions to my cookie gifts!

Love these ladies!!

We make it look easy, huh? 

      One of the kids favorite traditions is to sleep by the Christmas tree one special night. Usually, our tree is in our family room and the fireplace is on nice and cozy. But, our house is on the market right now, and the "look" of the house is important! So, they had to make do in the school room. No complaints here, though! The fun and excitement of sleeping by the tree made it difficult to get to sleep that night!

Hittin' the road....again!

The past couple of months we've put more miles on our van than any other time. Since our trip to Hawaii in September, it feels like we haven't slowed down one bit! A large part of starting a church, for us, is traveling to fellow churches, letting them know what God has called us to, and inviting them to be a part of it. Thankfully, the Lord has placed many people in our lives that have allowed us the opportunity to do just that. At the end of Sept., a couple we love, Ray and Katherine, invited us to their church to participate in their Global Awakening Conference. It highlighted several missionaries and the ministries they are a part of. We were blessed to take a beautiful drive to Pennsylvania and enjoy their fellowship(that's a separate post altogether!) Also, we were able to visit Liberty University as potential partners in their church planting network. It was more of an interview/get to know you process, and resulted in positive affirmation! We are so thankful to the Lord for the partnerships He has begun and for the Gospel, which drives everything we do.  Here are some fun pics of our latest road trips!

 The drive to Virginia was so beautiful. I'm sad that my camera couldn't capture all of the amazing colors in the mountains.

This campus, and the Thomas Road Church campus, made me speechless. Seriously, if I were contemplating colleges, I would want to go here! 

 We drove about 16 hours in 2 1/2 days. Thank the Lord for portable DVD players!! 

 The kids were great sports about all of the traveling we've done, and Nathan, did pretty great too!

 We ate out SO MUCH!! Here we are at Cici's pizza before hittin' the road again. You may notice that, "not again" face in Nathan pics.

Fall Happenings

Here are some fun things we've been up to lately!

Happy Fall, y'all

We've never really carved pumpkins before, but this year, we thought the kids would really enjoy it. Little did we know that they are still a little too young (for the most part) and it ended up being a mommy and daddy job. But, we ended up with some pretty cute pumpkins!

Joshua wanted the cross and fish, Ava of course wanted Dora. I was pretty impressed with Shawn's carving ability (with no template to go by!) 

Caleb and I worked on this one together. I thought the candle really made it look great! 

Haleigh did this one almost completely by herself! Loved the grin on this guy :)
 

I was worried using that knife. I kept telling the kids to "watch out!!" The tools we got from the store ended up being a huge waste. Ah, well, lesson learned!

Alright, get ready for some serious CUTENESS!!!
Nathan as "Boots" the monkey from "Dora the Explorer!"
I made this costume on the fly as we had just gotten home from a long trip. I think he made a pretty adorable monkey!

I 

 Ok, I had to show this...I was so proud of myself! I'm NOT artistic, but apparently, I'm pretty good with felt! Ava wanted to dress like Dora, so I used her purple backpack and went to town! I even made "Map" with a drawing on the inside to show how to get to the church from our house. Fun times!!!

Hawaii: Our new home-Part 2

While we were in Hawaii this time, I experienced a couple new things! Our sweet hosts, Harlan and Dana, and some of their family, treated us to a home-made Japanese dinner. They had thin-sliced meat, shrimp and some veggies already cut for us. We cooked them on the griddle in the middle of the table and then used dipping sauces to finish it off. I am no whizz at using chop sticks, so thankfully, Harlan fashioned some "practice chop sticks" for me and a couple others. It was so much fun! It gave us a chance to try new things and really get to know each other as we sat around the table. 

Doesn't this look amazing??

 Shawn is a pro with the chopsticks. Me....not so much :(

What's a Japanese dinner without a little football in the background?

I completely DEVOURED this meal...and then some!

The other cool thing we got to do while we were in Hawaii is visit the beach! Nathan is the first of our kids to ever see the ocean. And for the most part, he liked it! While we were there, we spotted three sea turtles. Honestly, they reminded me of Crush in "Finding Nemo". There was a large one and at least two smaller ones. They'd poke their heads out of the water, and ride the waves in. Honestly, they were so close, I could've jumped in and touched them (I didn't, by the way...do those things bite?)But it made for a neat story and sweet pics to show the kids at home. 

 Aloha! 

Hawaii, our future home Part 1

I have SO many things to write about since our last trip to Hawaii, that I'm sure it'll take more than  one post. Shawn, Nathan and I took a short (kind of) trip in the middle of September to Hawaii hoping to accomplish a lot of things. We headed out with the goal of looking at potential housing, meeting some church leaders in the area and getting Allie settled into her home for the next year. The Lord used the trip to, again, teach me that my agenda must be surrendered to Him.
     One of the things that I saw right away was that an entirely different perspective is needed when visiting a place you KNOW you will be moving to, instead of visiting with a "mission trip" mindset. Some positive things we accomplished included: finding the local library, getting a feel for the community, meeting a local pastor and worshipping at a local church that seems to be doing what we feel the Lord inviting us to do as well. Some of our frustrations were mostly involving spiritual warfare, but also were the hangups with us looking at potential housing. It rained a lot while we were there, and the challenge of meeting people and building relationships with them seemed to SLAM us in the face. That being said, Shawn and I knew this would be a GOD sized task. We knew that if everything came easy to us, that we'd likely depend more on self, less on Christ. I saw how much I'd be out of my comfort zone in Hawaii as a church planter. In the small townhouse we looked at, the Lord showed me I'd need to give up my "Ohio life" and realize that I can't pick it up and plop it in Hawaii and expect things to go on as normal. Things are very different there, like another country! Different food, housing, routines, completely different TIME ZONE!! However, God is the same. In Ohio, in Hawaii, in Uganda, He is faithful, He is good, He is all I need. I am reminded that "Faithful is He who calls you, He will also bring it to pass."1 Thess. 5:24.
     Please continue to pray for fellow laborers to come alongside us in this journey; as prayer support, financial support and a core group of believers to plant themselves in the middle of what God is doing in Hawaii.

Some familiar sights the kids were happy to see! Notice the amazing mountains in the background :)

Nathan's first trip the the ocean. He liked it, for the most part!

Our good friends, Jason and Roni (and baby Jacob, due in Nov.)