what my children have been up to these last few weeks while I've been completely absent from blogosphere- here's a good summary
I have been truly grateful for the warm sunny winter weather. My days have found themselves to be very long as Philip has found himself in the position of contractor for the remodeling work at the church. He's gone from way before sun up to way past sun down. My kids have found themselves relegated to the outdoors more than usual for it being winter.
Ryan has been spending the last few weeks setting traps and planning for bird stew. He's torn between cooking his captured birds or keeping them as a pets. He's still hoping for a dog but I think realizes that he might need to take matters into his own hands. He faithfully checks his traps throughout the day and unloads bird seed throughout the yard.
Peter has joined in on the bird hunting ventures but is taking a different approach.
He's going for the David and Goliath method. He did get to go squirrel hunting with a church friend recently. Amazingly, they sat in the cold for 3 hours without ever seeing a squirrel! Thanks to all the bird seed Ryan's been spreading and the warm temperatures the birds are flocking to our yard.
Nathan's happy to follow along in his "cowboy boots" and his soldier stick. This particular occasion he was given permission to carry the bird net. Yes, it really is a fishing net but that's all they had at Walmart!
As for Emma she happened to be inside at the time of these pictures reading a book.
We celebrated the consecration of the new building with snow! It hasn't snowed all year and it snows on the evening of the consecration service. None the less, it was a beautiful time to celebrate God's goodness and be challenged to live into this new oppourtunity for ministry. There are times in our families lives when it's hard to identify where our family stops and church begins. The lines are intertwined. This project has blurred those lines even more. Just today, the kids were pretending to be architects and builders using terms and phrases that they had been overhearing for months. 
There wasn't much snow but enough to build these snowmen. It wasn't long after the snowmen were built that the snow cream was made and lunch was served picnic style!
