nature chefs

The kids' favorite show is Junior Master Chef.  We ran across it one night on Hulu and watched the first season and now the 2nd season is on FOX.

With all the inspiration from JMC and Chopped the kids have created their own version...

They found all kinds of stuff to use out in the woods.  The girls each brought one of their "dishes" to the house to show me.

And a little side note:  Benjamin really thinks he is going on JMC when he turns 8!

and Christmas begins

As we have done for the past several years we went to MS for Thanksgiving and celebrated not only Thanksgiving but also Christmas.

Approaching this trip Rusty's mom had surgery scheduled to removed a cancerous spot in her liver and to also have exploratory surgery done to try and locate the source of the cancer.  We continue to praise the Lord for all he has done.  The spot was successfully removed in the liver, the cancer was found in the small intestines and the surgeon removed 18" of it and removed 12 lymph nodes, 10 of which were cancerous.  She had a lumpectomy to remove cancer in her breast shortly before this surgery.  The oncologists has been stumped for 6 years about the source of the cancer in her body.  We are so thankful for this answer to prayer!




When we got back from MS we began a little decorating around here.

We always cut down our tree.  It is a tradition.  But this year we broke it.  Rusty ran by TSC and grabbed one for us.  It is perfect for us and there was no stress and we decorated it, drank hot chocolate and watched a Christmas movies (on a week night).  We all had fun!

And Aubrey celebrated with her friends...

Carter had his Christmas party tonight with his discipleship group and they had pizza and had Jake Locker, the Titans quarterback, as their guest speaker.  It was a fun night for the boys.



Rusty took Carter, Caroline, Andrew, Benjamin and Hope to the Children's Home for the board member Christmas party.  They always love going there and were able to meet the new children and play with their friends they already have there.



And Aubrey, Carter and Caroline have been making ornaments for our Jesse Tree as we read through Ann Voskamp's new book.  I LOVE the book and they are loving making the ornaments for the advent tree!

We are looking forward to time with Rusty's brother and family this weekend.  We will paint ornaments, tour Opryland Hotel and watch a Christmas movie or 2!  We also have a parade to attend and participate in!

And my gift from Rusty (and we normally don't do gifts for one another) but he made me something I have wanted for a very long time...

It seats 12-14 well and we were able to use our old chairs.  He also made 2 benches and IT IS PERFECT!

animals come and go around here

About 2 weeks the remaining 2 kittens from Ann's last litter went home with their new owners, our nieces.  They were fun and playful and Hope really wanted to keep at least one.  Being a sucker for animals I am surprised I held to my "no" but I did.  Here they are a couple of weeks before we gave them away.

Now we have 5 new little puppies to add to our animal collection around here.

Yes, our dog, Daisy, had pups.

So far she is a good mommy.

We will NOT be keeping any of these and I am ready for the "can we please keep just one" to start!

I think we have a cat and a dog that need a trip to the vet!