Happy Birthday to Claira! #11

Claira was very clever this year in her old age of almost 11 and decided to have an early party at Bighouse with a few of her closest friends.

It is amazing to me how fast time goes by and how more and more beautiful Claira is becoming inside and out.

With Katie Anne, Miriam, Meghan, Emma, Claira & Jessica we made cards and tie dyed t-shirts.

I have to say I believe my favorite part was the cake she chose. Chocolate cake covered in milk chocolate ganache filled with peppermint ice cream! Wonderful!

She would say here favorite part was opening the presents! (Still almost 11)

Let Snow....& Snow....& Snow!

This February we have had some incredible weather. We had two rounds of snow back to back. We all decided the Lord must have known that we needed a rest even though we didn't. With school cancelled and roads iced over we spend 5 days straight at home having jammie days and soup with the neighbors!

Another great thing about living in the Woodway community is that there are always plenty of people to play in the snow or borrow cooking ingredients from when it is too cold to run to the store!

Little did we know that we would go back to school for a day before we recieved another round of snow that was 2 feet deep!! So, for another 5 days we stayed in our jammies sharing food with neighbors and watching movies!

Thanksgiving Traditions....White Family Style

Grandma & Grandpa White love having all who can come together for thanksgiving. They were so kind to rent a lake house for all of us "Out of Towners" to stay in. The family members that weren't able to come were missed greatly!! It was nice to see all the Aunts and Uncles together again. Baby Reece made his debue and was a great hit. His poor little cheeks were probably sore from all the kisses they received. It iced and snowed on Thanksgiving day but Grandpa braved the weather to sit at the table covered with Blue Willow dishes and delicous food.

Pecan Pie!

Family Photo!

Connie & Jerry with Levi and Jay. We missed you Lori!

Ryan, Nikki & Reece

Thanksgiving "On the Mountain"

We have been snowed in for five days so I am trying to catch up on all my blogging for 2010 so that I can start blogging 2011.

Thanksgiving "ON THE MOUNTAIN" is always full games, food and noisy, mostly happy kids. We enjoy fried turkey, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, chocolate pecan pie, and Nanny's famous chocolate dream pie. I appreciate that my parent's put no presure on us to be at their house on "the day". Most holiday's we celebrate early so that we can all be together. This year we celebrated Thanksgiving the Saturday before. We had great weather so we played games outside. Everyone stayed all day long so we were able to eat lunch and dinner together. Thanksgiving leftovers are the best!

Worship begins...

JT you have been blessed with the ablity to play music!

Recently he has been playing in the worship band at his youth group. He wrote a speech on worship that he gave to his speech class this month. I am very proud of his attitude toward worship and the material he put together for his speech.

What do you think of whan you hear the word Musician? Do you think of a rock star rocking out on a stage: maybe you think of a guy just playing guitar. When I hear the word musician I think of a servant. I was told once that in medieval times musicians were not like rock stars they were just known as jesters. There job was to dance an dplay music as a servant to the king.

Playing music and listening to music are great abilities that God has given us. We use music in all most everything. Music is everywhere! Even if you tried to get away from music you would probably find it really hard. I think if we did not have music it waould be very depressing. So, what I am trying to say is music is a big deal in life. Every cluture has some type of music, but even if you don't like to play music the key is to like what you do and do what you like!

When I was 11 years old I really wanted to start playing guitar, but I had no one to each me so I started to pray, a lot! A year later I went to this church event called Winter Chill and at Winter Chill there was this guy named David Murray. (He was really good at all intruments) After being scared to death of asking him I finally got up the courage to walk up to him and ask him if he would teach me guitar. He said, "Yeah Man!" After a long converstaion he was not only going to teach me guitar but teach me for free!! I was schocked! It was a big blessing from God. it was the best feeling in the world to know that I was giong to get FREE guitar lessons. I thought I was just going to learn guitar but David used guitar to teach me how to worship and what worship really is.

God made music and it can fill the empty space in our lives. 2Samuel 22:50 says,"Therefore, I will give thanks to you Oh Lord, among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name." Also, in 1 Chronicles 23L5 it says, "Four thousand praised the Lord with musical intruments, which I have made for giving praise." When I play on stage at my church it's really hard because I have the temptation to stage dive or do some cool solo. Whenever I am faced with that temptation I just remember that I am a jester to the King of Kings!

Annual Pumpkin Carvin' Party

Pumpkin Carvin'

Games!!
JT is Dewight from The Office

Costumes!!!

What a tradition we have started....costumes, pumpkin carving, soups, hayrides and games!!
We have had so many fun Pumpkin Carvin' Parties...I believe this year was #6.

Introducing...Ibrahim Mazen!

We deiced to adopt an International student from the U of A. It has been fun getting to know Ibrahim who is from Egypt. He is 35 has a wife and daughter who are currently in Egypt. He has an incredible since of hummor and enjoys talking with JT and Claira who are both enthrolled with this man with a funny acent. Along with Ibrahim we are hosting Matt as well. Matt also goes to the U of A and lives at Woodway which is convenient for us. Matt also fits very well into our family so well that Claira picks on him like he is a big brother.

Camping with the Holme's @ Devil's Den

Claira & Mariam on the Cave trail....

Mariam, Daniel, JT, Shelby, Abbi & Claira as we enter the Yellow Rock trail....
Me, Jay, Christi & Jim taking a breather...

It was a great weekend. We borrowed Nonna & Poppa's camper so that we could have conditioning at night since this trip took place in July...my birthday weekend! I turned 35 at Devil's Den that is pretty cool actually since that is where I met Jay for the first time 20 years ago! WOW!