Wind Cave hike

We ended our year with a wonderful hike at the Wind Caves. It was a great one, we hadn't done it before. Pepper joined us and he was a trooper. The scenery was just breathtaking.

Christmas at the Rays

We had a very quiet and cozy Christmas this year. It was my parents year to go to Colorado and be with my sister so it was just the five of us. We enjoyed a candlelight dinner on Christmas Eve followed by some games. Christmas morning was wonderful, it's always fun watching the kids open their gifts. I have a ton of pictures so here they come starting with Christmas Eve Eve (church service), then Christmas Eve, and finally Christmas morning/day...

Advent

I wrote about our Advent 2013 plan here. Here is a photo diary of what we have done so far...

Day 1- make Christmas cookies with friends.

 Day 2

 Day 3

 Day 4

 Day 5

 Day 6

 Day 7

 Days 8, 9, and 10

 Days 11 and 12

 Day 13- Roasting marshmallows

Day 14

Day 15 and 19

 Day 16- Go on a family walk at night

 Day 17

 Day 18 (we did day 19 earlier in the week, see above)

 Day 20, reading the Biblical account of Jesus' birth while celebrating an early Christmas with my parents.

Day 21

Day 22- family dance party

Day 23- Make tin can luminaries (this ended up being a more difficult project than we thought so we have no pictures to show for it. 

Day 24- We had a very special Christmas Eve, at the beginning of 2013 I felt called to pray for each of my kids daily but pray very specifically for them. God showed me some verses for each child and those are the verses that I prayed. It was an amazing experience to see how God answered these prayers and seeing our kids grow in their walks with the Lord. On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed a candlelight dinner and I gave each of the kids these framed verses so they can see what was being prayed for. It was a very special moment indeed.