What a deal!~by Beth

Today I am wearing one of my thrift store finds. This top was from Cold Water Creek and never worn. You can see the original price tag, and then the thrift store price I paid. God is good. (photo by Charity)

Holocaust presentation~by Beth

There is a small Holocaust museum in Naples. They have a mobile museum exhibit that travels around the county. It is a box car that was in service during the Nazi regime in Germany. It has been refurbished, but most of it is original. This week it is on display at the church where Jon teaches. We attended a presentation in the church on Tuesday about the Holocaust. My older students sat with some home school friends right behind students from the Christian school, and I sat in the back with our little people, who colored and did not participate. Afterwards we went outside to where the box car is on display and walked into it. The children had a chance to see how small an area that many Jewish people were stuffed into on their way to concentration camps.

Basketball 2011~by Beth

We are in the thick of basketball season. We have 5 players on 4 different teams, however, all in our league so their games are on the same days for Varsity, and the same days for jv. Caleb and Zach play on varsity. Here are some photos of a few of our jv games. This is the last year David will play on the jv team. Next year he will graduate to the varsity team. Christiana plays on both varsity and jv because she is 12, which is the overlap age for the teams. She is number 22. Charity is on the jv too, but is very much a learner. She doesn't get much play time but she always has a cheerful attitude and nearly always a smile on her face. She did play in a game two days ago. We all come to watch the games. It is great to see the Varsity come and support the younger players at their games. Here is Caleb watching the jv games. Our team is LCHS which stands for Lee County Home Schoolers. The boys are 3-3, and the girls are 3-2.

Cool Dude Stephen~by Beth

He is just so cute!!! We are so blessed that God sent him into our family. This was after his bath one night.

Caleb takes his last trig test~by Beth

Here it is. The last math test Caleb has to take for high school. Now all he needs to finish before graduation is his Faith Journal (he is behind in this) and continue at the Tech school working in the culinary department. Of course we also want to get an SAT test in too so he can apply for the Bright Futures scholarship. All of this, along with games for basketball, including watching his siblings on the JV teams fill his time. Oh, and then there is reffing soccer games and playing for church. He is a busy guy. But he still manages to keep his sunny disposition and his Caleb grin.

Christmas Eve 2010~by Beth

Here are most of us on Christmas Eve after returning from our church service. Made the children wait to change for the picture before they ripped into their gifts. Our camera had one shot left as the memory card became corrupted, so we are very thankful that it came out so well.

The Days of our Lives~by Beth

Another week of Advent candle lighting. Here are Johanna, Christiana, and Charity. One week till Christmas.
Next we went home and celebrated Johanna's 7th birthday. Yes, there are 7 candles in that cupcake.
This past Friday Johanna and Abigail got to go do a young child's open gym with Katie. She took a few shots of their fun.
We managed to finish school, put up more of our lights for the house, and I have all the gifts wrapped and all my ironing done. Hoping to get get our Christmas letter out this weekend too.