being thankful

Every family has lots to be thankful for each day of the year. So we've decided to start doing bedtime a little different at our home. We were reading a bible story and then a short book and then praying before we put the kids to bed. But with 4 people on a twin bed that doesn't leave much room for paying attention to the story when the two little people just want to climb on top of daddy.

So we've moved our bible story time to 7:00 pm in the living room and it's worked so much better, the kids are paying attention and asking questions about the story and Jesus. Yeah! We've also started keeping a notebook of the things that we are thankful for each day. I bought a cute notebook from Target and each night after the bible story we talk about what we were thankful for that day. Caley gets to write down her own with a little help from mom and dad. She can do that now since she's a big girl in Kindergarten she tells us. Blake tells us what he wants us to write down and then he makes a few marks on the page because he's a big boy and can do it himself.

It's been really neat to listen to what the kids are thankful for each day and takes the focus off ourselves and we can focus a few minutes on Christ and show the kids that it's important to think of others and not ourselves. I'm looking forward to keeping track and then in a few years going back and reading them with the kids and watching them grow through being thankful.

pizza family night

This past Friday we did our first "official" family night, except that we did it at lunch because we had plans later that day. So we decided to make pizza for lunch and pizza cookies for dessert. First we made the cookies so that they would be cooked and cooled so we could decorate them after we ate our pizza. Caley and Blake were excited that they were going to have pizza cookies. I just bought the Pillsbury shortbread cookie sheets and we used a cookie cutter to cut them out.

We made 4 large pizza cookies and 4 small pizza cookies. They wanted to make more but we ran out of dough.

Next we played the "Pizza Game." For this we had 6 different colors of felt that were cut in the shapes we needed for pizza. We had crust, sauce, cheese, olives, green peppers and some meat. We assigned numbers 1-6 for each item for the pizza and then we took turns rolling the dice to try and get the 6 pieces that we need to make our pizza.

Blake ended up winning the game but we all had a lot of fun playing it. And we've played it through out the weekend.

Here are our pizza's once we finished the game. The picture is kind of hard to see so here's the list of the numbers that we assigned to each item. 1. crust 2. sauce 3. cheese 4. green pepper 5. olives 6. meat.I also wrote the items in the same color so that it would be easier for the kidsespecially since they can't read yet they could figure out what they needed by the color.

Next we moved on to making our pizza's. We let the kids make their own and they got to choose what they wanted on top. They both just chose sauce and cheese. Then I made a pizza for David and myself and we cooked them and then had lunch. Caley's pizza is on the left and Blake's is on the right. After we ate them we decorated out pizza cookies. It was really fun and no too were the same.






Caley's pizza cookie had some candy corn on it.

Blake's pizza cookie included a big blog of icing and lots of chocolate chips.




Needless to say this was a fun and creative way to spend time as a family. Keep posted for the next Hinkle Family Night.

(Like my friend Starr said in her blog about their families night. Just because all the pictures have smiles and everyone looks have and that we are having a great time. It wasn't without a few arguements and kids getting upset with each other.)

Peach Crisp

This is a great recipe especially with the holidays coming up very soon.

Peach Crisp
1/4 C sugar
2 Tbs. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
7 C peaches or apples
2 Tbs. honey
2/3 C crushed graham crackers (about 5 squares)
2/3 C brown sugar
1/3 C flour
2 Tbs. oats
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 C butter

Preheat over to 375 degrees

Filling: Sitr together sugar, flour and cinnamon; Add peaches; toss to coat. Spread in a 2 qt. dish. Drizzle with honey.

Topping: Stir graham crackers, brown sugar, flour, oats and cinnamon. Cut in butter until it forms coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over filling.

Bake uncovered for 40 minutes.

memories

This morning the kids were looking at some photo albums before Caley had to get on the bus. They were the pictures from when Caley was about 22 months old. She was asking how old she was and then telling Blake the answer. She looked at one picture and then said to Blake,

"That was back in the old days."

halloween

Halloween 2008

Caley's class at school. They all looked so cute.

Caley's new teeth.

So this year we all dressed up for halloween, it's was really fun.

Our neighborhood has a parade each halloween and we went this year. It was really fun and the kids thought it was cool to walk down the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk.

Caley was a cheerleader.

Blake was a football player.

David as "Dave the band guy"

I had to include one last picture in this post. This is of David and our friend Bob Turner. There are really no words I have to express for this picture, it's pretty self explanitory