Dad's new assistant (maybe...)

This week I told Dad that I REALLY  want to help him with his work if at all possible.  He took me seriously, and the next day got me in on the access to Trendex's computer.  Today I had my first lesson in writing reports.  Dad has always felt that with all I have to do, it would be quite a few years yet before I could help.  And I guess we will have to see how it goes.  I sure hope that I can!

And by the way...Thank you, Ruth and Rebecca for keeping such EXCELLENT records!!  They are extremely helpful!!

A Very Puzzling Puzzle

Last night Amy and Edie came over to visit, and Edie brought her Christmas present from Uncle Bill, a 108-piece 2-sided puzzle of macaroni and cheese. One side has the mac and cheese uncooked, and the other side is the mac and cheese cooked.


It didn't take us too long (maybe 1/2 hour) to do the border of the 6x8 inch puzzle.  But we were not able to even finish the border doing the 'cooked' side.  So we flipped it over because at least the uncooked noodles were more defined. 

Here is the final result!

As Amy and I mostly visited, Edie quietly and patiently worked on piece after piece of the puzzle for about an hour and a half.  At that point, she had added about 7 puzzle pieces inside the puzzle.  But we had to remove all but about 3, because upon closer inspection, the noodles did not match up. FINALLY, Edie was willing to stop to do something more exciting.


  








About then, the guys got home from their Friday night Bible study, and we played some Dutch Blitz and Scattergories.  


Edie did say that sometime on her own she intended to re-do and finish the macaroni and cheese puzzle.  I truly am amazed at her patience!  As for me, there are a lot of things I'd rather be doing!!

What is This?!?

One night last weekend when everyone else was getting into bed,  Joseph was figuring out a new invention to use up the rest of his stored energy for the day before he could sleep.  

It was a strobe-light ball (I think it would be called something like that, anyway!).  He wadded up a ball of Wall-Street Journal newspaper and attached a string. Then he carefully glued broken CD pieces all over it with their shiny sides out.  Dangling from its string, he attached a pen light shining down on the ball.  You just turn on the pen light, spin the ball, turn off the room lights, and it's pretty awesome looking! 

John at Home

It has been SO wonderful to have John here at home after having him gone so much for 4 years.

Having our own In-Home tutor has come in very handy for Joseph and Daniel in their math and Spanish.  The greatest thing about it is that John is a willing teacher!  

As you know, John is job seeking presently.  And besides tutoring, the large majority of his time is spent in seeking for, applying for, and interviewing for jobs.  You can see from the picture below (which was about the 20th picture I had taken to update his job profile), he sometimes gets a little tired of it all.  However, at present there are still some positive possibilities on the horizon.  John continues to be his fun self...and we are ALL glad that he is here for now!!

Happy Birthday, Daniel...AGAIN?

 Some of Daniel's faithful friends joined him to celebrate his birthday by going to a tubing hill near Hudson, Wisconsin.  To help save their parents extra time in travel,  we had 3 of them overnight after Sunday evening church, and then the LaBarres met them in the morning at the hill.  They had a blast!

See that cake with the special candles?
Joseph Shir made it for him.  So Daniel got another round
of "Happy Birthday!"

New Year's Eve 2011

   Even though the weather turned bad just as our New Year's Eve party was supposed to start, and even though it was a Saturday night (Sunday in the morning!),...it turned out to be a great party!


The first to show up (at about 8:30), and the first to go home (about 9:30) was our beloved Luke. It really was fun to have him here even briefly. We had a chance to visit before the rest arrived!

 The first game played once people got here was "King Elephant".  Within about an hour, that room was at least 20 degrees warmer than the rest of the house!

 Since it was rather lively, James Dickey decided to watch from the sidelines and be the referee!

The next game was "Open that Gift", the game we learned at the Alzen's earlier in the week.  The person needs to roll a 6 on the die, then don a silly hat and thick gloves or mittens and try to unwrap a gift.  Inside the big gift is a smaller gift to unwrap.  This keeps going and if someone else rolls a 6, they have to stop and he gets a try.  It is really fun! Joseph and Daniel wrapped the gifts very challengingly, but no one seemed at all disappointed that the final gift was a pack of gum!  It got passed around the room for all to get a piece.

Jed

Libby

Bernard

Timothy

The winner-Libby!

Michael and Ryan went to the New Year's Eve service with us and then stayed with us until after midnight.  Can you see Timothy's black eye developing from a crash earlier in the day when they were playing outside?  It doesn't look too bad here, but it got worse! (His right eye)

Then until the countdown, we all played 4 on a couch, white socks against the black socks, since there were only 4 girls (including me) in the whole group.


The snow had stopped, and it was beautiful outside!

Of course, there are always some shirkers!

 P.S.  John and Esther were absent for the bash attending a wedding in Wisconsin.


Happy New Year Y'all!!