Ryan just brought home a paper from school called Showing Kindness.
“Most faily members show kindness toward eac ther every dya. List some members of your family. You may include the people you live with as well as other relatives. Then tell how these family members help other family mebers with their kindness.”
So here’s what he wrote:
Kevin – Teaches me about Gameboy
Dane – Plays with me
Dad & Mom – Give me a skateboard
Nana – Loves Me
Papa – Wrestles with me
Grandpa – Makes Walls
Grandma – Makes me stuff
(not sure what happened to Christian – not on there…)

So there you go. What Ryan thinks of our family.

My mom is a 5th grade teacher in Moses Lake, WA and they are trying to get as many visitors from as many different places as possible to their website. The website is: http://www.swiftclassroom.com/longview/nhanson/index.php All you have to do is visit real quick and you will get a little dot on their map. THANKS!

It has been busy – TOO busy around here. The good news? We’re all healthy again – yea! My cold only lasted a week not six this time. The weather has turned cold – it was 26 this morning when I got up. We finally had to pump up the heat this morning when Dane went and put on his winter coat because he was so cold. (Of course he refused to put socks on…)

Matt went deer hunting for the first time this morning – got up at 5:30 a.m. and was ready to go. He went to some property a familiy from church owns. They evn had a tree stand for him. It took him about an hour and he had himself a 7 point buck. He hit him in the leg, so he had to chase him down or quite awhile to finish the job. I’m no into hunting (AT ALL) but i was a good wife and went with him afterward to take his picture with it while it was hanging from the rafters all gutted and gory at the friend’s farm. BLECH. At least he got it on opening day so we don’t have to endure early mornings all weekend.

Tomorrow I get to escape for a few hours with a couple girlfriends. We’re going to a craft fair. Should be fun! I need to go to the grocery store too – which I dread as I am sure it will be swamped the Sat. before Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving we are going to the huge famliy gathering we went to last year. It is potluck style, with designated people bringing the main Thanksgiving dishes – you know turkey, stuffing etc. It was a lot of fun last year and makes it easy for us. The main thing I remember was that Dane had a broken leg last year it was one of the only days I actually got to go out and do something for those 8 weeks. What an ordeal that was!

Last night the boys had a big long arguement over who was going to be the tallest when they grew up. Then they run around the house naked for a bit talking on walkie talkies – too cute.

Ryan today said one of the little girls in his class lost her dad last night. I am not sure what happened yet – haven’t heard the whole story, but I don’t think he was sick or anything. Very sad. That will change the dynamics in the class for a bit I am guessing. I was just thinking about the whole death and kids thing tonight. Being that Matt is a pastor, our kids just kind of grow up being around it a lot I guess.

So what have I been so busy with? Go take a look at www.dinewithoutwhine.com I am giving it a makeover! However, that has left me in front of this crazy computer for hours on end… I’m ready to be done with it!

Next week is appointment week. I have an eye exam, yearly gyn. exam, and hair appointment. M, T, W, then Thanksgiving on Thursday. I can’t believe it is Thanksgiving in 6 days – that is just crazy – I feel like we just had Halloween. I better start thinking about Christmas I guess…

Well, I’m off to work on the site some more I suppose… Tomorrow is clean house day, outside of my little get-away. I am always amazed how messy it can get in one week! Have a great weekend!

C-

Sing along to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas… 11 loads of laundry, 2 sick kids, and a big boy at a slumber party. K, that pretty much sums it up.

I have been doing laundry the last two days – 11 loads to be exact… and for those of you who have seen my LARGE washer and dryer, that is probably more like 22 normal loads. The bad news? I’m not even done yet. How sad is that? I still probably have about 4 loads to go. We didn’t run out of clothes because we went from summer clothes to fall clothes so we had extras when we pulled out the fall. Oh well… it is almost done now.

Both Christian and Dane have colds. Matt, Ryan and I have little ones, but those two ended up getting the brunt of it it seems. So between all those loads of laundry I have been wiping Dane’s little nose.

Ryan is at his first slumber party tonight. He was soooo excited! I can’t believe my “baby” is off on his own tonight. Hopefully everything will go well. I’m sure he’ll be fine. They said if worse came to worse they would bring him home at 2:00 a.m., but I don’t think he’ll have any problems. Meanwhile, Christian decided to take advantage of the opportunity and sleep on the top bunk.

We get to set our clocks back tonight… Unfortunatley we had a little snafu last week with the whole clock set back thing. We have one of those atomic alarm clocks that magically sets itself. WELL…. it thought last week was daylight saving’s time…. So Sunday morning the kids get up at “5:30″ and I’m yellng at them to go back to bed because it was too early to get up. Later I get out of the shower at “8:00″ like normal and look out the window. I say to Matt (who is still in bed) “Why are there so many people at church already?” He says “I don’t know… Maybe choir is practicing.” I’m thinking… no there are too many cars for just choir, and they don’t usually practice at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. So we grab the cell phone and disover – it is really 9:00 – and soon after the church bell rings. So I made a mad dash to find someone to cover Matt’s Confirmation class while he showered and got ready for church. Thankfully we have Sunday School before the service or we would have really been in trouble. Oh well. Made a good story for Matt to tell in announcements.

I’m sitting with my laptop in Matt’s office and he is telling me Ole and Lena jokes in his Norweigan voice. Cracking me up. He is trying to get ready for the Thrivent Dinner “known as lunch to most of us” tomorrow. He is on the program for entertainment.

The kids had Friday off from school – conferences. Ryan is doing well except for his periodic desire to socialize instead of listen… Grades are good and his teacher said he doesn’t cause her any problems. Christian has some areas of improvement. He is a weird one as one minute he seems to know something and the next minute he can’t remember. Not sure what’s up with that and his teacher was a bit perplexed as well. I am pretty sure his learning style is NOT auditory, which is what we mainly use to try to get him to memorize things. It took him almost a month to learn his phone number and birthday… we haven’t made it through the address yet. I think he’ll get there… (maybe we’ll try writing it out) he is also one of the youngest in his class. We’ll just have to see as the year progresses.

We’ve been keeping busy as usual. Hopefully everyone is well.