After I "helped Santa" fill the Stockings on Christmas Eve. Si and Em crept out of bed and added a few decorative touches. They hung paper snowflakes all over the living room ceiling. It was a beautiful surprise on Christmas morning!!!

 

Merry Christmas!!

Who needs a star on top of the Christmas tree when you have a cat around. With glow in the dark eyes!

I'm as hungry as a monkey!

~Soph

Yesterday we started our second round of Chickenpox. This round involves Em, Ad, and Soph. From the looks of things Em might be our grand champion with the most spots. She is only a day and a half into it but has more spots than anyone has had at this point. Perhaps she will not get many more, not likely.

They should just be out of the contagious part by Christmas but still have all those awful scabby spots. Poor babies.

Friday afternoon I ran from my room to screams in the living room. Soph was holding her face. As I went to inspect the damage I asked the other two, Si and Ad, how it happened. Soph was jumping on the couch and fell, face first, into the coffee table. All of a sudden Soph blurts out Addey made me. At this her hand came down and the amount of blood shocked me for a moment. I quickly recovered and sent kids to get the usual stuff. I got the blood under control relative fast. And realized she had a nasty gash on the upper corner of her mouth. Now the hard decision, does she need stitches? It was about 4:30 so by the time I got to the town the Clinic would be closed and I’d need to take her to the ER. Combined with the fact that it was on the corner of her mouth, gapping pretty bad and the amount of talking she can do. I wasn’t she I could mend it, so we drove to the hospital. She ended up with two stitches and a couple of shots, and a stuffed bear from the nurse.Not to mention a Happy Meal with a milkshake from me. All better.

Today I found her standing on the edge on the couch preparing for a jump. Yikes, apparently lesson not learned!

Well it has finally happened. One of my kids has contracted the chicken pox. None of my kids have had them, not even Tirz or Em. Silas has mad it through but poor Tirz is right in the thick of it. The other girls have not shown any signs … yet.

Happy Thanksgiving four days late!!

I have been so busy this last week and weekend. We had a great Thanksgiving Day. We had a total of 26 this year. Our party grew too large for our house so we celebrated at a neighbor’s house who was gone visiting their family. We had loads of food and lots of laughs. A few die-hard football freaks fans in our group were even able to watch the game because our neighbor has satellite TV. We all had a great time.
We continued our celebration to the next night having a couple of families over for dessert. Rick built a huge bonfire outside and the adults sat the fire while the teens tried to sneak up on us in the dark. Nice try kid-os!!
Rick and I continued the celebrating one more night. We went over to a neighbor’s for a Texas Hold’em Party. We stayed until about 2:30 in the AM. It’s a really good thing Church starts a 2:00 in the afternoon.
I’d say back to our ordinary mundane life but we had a truck load of snow dumped on us, seven inches to be exact. That much snow always adds a twist of “fun” to the mundane!!

I am sitting in my chair!!

Well, it happened. It’s just good it happened later in life. It would have been difficult to handle at the tender age of sixteen. It’s just so embarrassing. It’s rarely seen. Well maybe in a movie. Of course, Hollywood is so dramatic. Today there are all the safety measures in place. It’s a wonder what they did in the past. I suppose it spewed everywhere and all present were faced with the possibilities of fire and a final explosion. It’s everyone’s fear at some point in life. It would have been nice to glimpse it happening to someone else. None the less, there it was the gas nozzle still hooked up to the car, the other end disconnected from the pump, dragging about three feet behind. All that could be done was to lift the nozzle from the car, scoop up the other end, take it to the attendant, and simply say, “It broke, sorry.” And walk away!

Summer Time

Summer is the time of year for science. Well life science anyway, specifically the study of insects and a few amphibians. We currently have two Pacific Tree Frogs, one green and one grey ; two Praying mantis, a boy and a girl; a California Root Boerer, he's a big one and he hisses too; and a Tree Cricket, a very loud "singer." The frogs are going to need to go back to the wild soon. We are feeding them flies but this is becoming a weary task. I’m not sure they are getting enough food either. The Hissing beetle (what some around here call'em) needs to go very soon, he is just plain creepy. A bug should not be that big! The cricket will probably become food for the frogs or more likely the praying mantis. It was fascinating to watch it move his wigs to make the chirping noise. It came in the house uninvited and interrupted our Jerry Lewis movie. We are keeping the praying mantis for a while. I just fed the male a bunch of moths. The female has a grasshopper left from yesterday. I would like to see if the female would lay an egg sack. It would be so intriguing to watch it hatch in the spring. It could be a little creepy too because there could be 20-400 little babies. Then we can let them go in the garden to eat the bad bugs.

A short conversation at Walmart

Upon seeing a single grape in the parking lot in the middle of a huge oil stain a very cute blond four year old shouted with excitement,

"Look mommy a grape."

"Yes," replied mommy, "but we don't eat things of the ground, remember?"

"I know. And we especially don't eat *food* off the ground, right mom?"

"Uhhh, yah."

What else is she eatting off the ground????

Pastel Palm Tree
Our beach doesn't have any palm trees but we enjoy it all the same. We (the kids and I) spent the afternoon at the beach splashing and playing.

I see the Moon, and the Moon sees Me. God bless the Moon, and God bless Me.

New address for Kruse Kreations. Click link on the side bar.

B-B-B-Bees

Look at these large bees! I think they are so interesting. They swarm my chives every year. This is not my finger next to them by the way. I had Tirz do it!! She didn't mind. She "pets" them. Yikes and yee-haw!
Has anyone ever heard of a bee kite? Or "made" one?

Busy, busy, busy! We seem to be constantly on the go.

The girls (Tee and Em) and I went on Monday to Spokane to go shopping for dresses for an up and coming wedding. Spokane is about a two hours drive from our place. It’s a long drive but necessary. There is really no place to shop for nice clothing here.

Tuesday evening we had women’s mtg. We worked on little party favor things for the wedding. Well most of the women did. There were so many of ladies, that I actually didn’t do anything but sit and chat.:)

Wednesday we had to our Contact Day for school. Addey has Speech class as well. Then Addey has her Ballet class and Silas takes Tae Kwon Do in town. I try to get all my town errands done in between. This week I didn’t have much shopping so we spent more time at the Library.

Thursday is our Co-op day. We meet at a little church in the area. I gave my last art assignment for the school year!!! The test is next week. In the evening Si had another Tae Kwon Do session. I take one of the kids out during Si’s class for a “Special time with Mom.” It was Si’s turn so we went to Walmart after he was done. He bought two bulletin boards that were on sale for his room.

Friday is movie night. However Si has a Promotion in Tae Kwon Do coming up (on Sat) so we went to an extra class. During his class I went and had coffee with my Auntie A. Friends invited Rick and I over to their place. I was so late in town with Si that Rick and I meet up at their place. The girls watched a movie at home and Si tagged along with us and hung out with their son.

So that brings us to today, Saturday, the Tae Kwon Do Promotion. These promotions last ALL day! Si is testing for his Yellow Belt. He has to stay for the entire promotion that means watching every student do his test. After which the Master presents students with their new belt. In the evening they will hold a Black Belt pre-test which Si want to watch. I’m taking Si in early. Rick and the girls will come later to watch Si and then go home. Rick and Sophi can’t sit that long.

Sorry I haven't been around.

I've been busy and very preoccupied with a book.

Inspiration from the coffee bean

My farewell to winter, May we not see this white stuff in the trees until November. 

Tag I'm it!

Okay I’ve been tagged by Karen here are my answers.

Four Jobs I Have Had:
1. Frame It (a picture frame shop)
2. R.E.I. Shipping Dept.

3. I mixed glasses of Ice-tea (with lots of ice) and did the laundry for Woody’s Grandma

4. House sat for my sister whenever she went out of town.

Four jobs I think might be cool to have:
1. a jazz lounge singer
2. a full time artist living in the tropics
3. a full time artist in the city (this might combine well with the lounge singer)
4. a full time artist in the country (half way there on this one)

Four Movies I could watch over and over:
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. I just bought French Kiss and I’m in the process of watching it to death.
3. It’s a Wonderful Life (usually a couple of times at Christmas)
4. Braveheart (though I don’t always watch the ending when he is disemboweled.)

Four places I have lived:
1 Seattle, WA.
2. Lynnwood, WA
3. Edmonds, WA
4. Colville, WA

Four places I have vacationed:
1. Oregon
2. Florida
3. California

4. Canada, eh


Four TV shows I watch:
1. No TV reception
2. But I love all the
3. Do it yourself and
4. Decorating shows.

Four Websites I visit daily:
1. Local library system
2. Google
3. Amazon
4. And yes my favorite blogs?

Four favorite foods:
1. I hate picking favorite foods.
2. I like what I eat in the moment

3. I’m nibbling on golden raisins right now.
4. Mmmm, yum!

Four Places I would rather be:
1. My new house
2. No we have no *Money*
3. or *Plans* to
4. build right now.

Four people I am tagging with this meme:

1. I’m not tagging anyone
2. And I rarely pass on
3. e-mail forwards too

4. Sorry :)

Tirz took this last weekend down at 'The River' (Lake Roosevelt) which is about 5 min. from our house. I love it.

Perched on a wire.

Hmmm

What I've been doing. Almost done.

All done

Rick and I

Chirp!

Sunset
Taken by Tee

WBS Doodle

Church Doodle

Twilight Snow

1-2-3 GO!

Faster, faster!

Oh no, wipe-out!

2006

What do you see in the trees?

Warp Speed, Captain? Make it so.

Tee's favorite ornament, Be-Ha-Ma (My Mom) gave this to her.

Em's favorite ornament, her Grandma Marge made it for her.

Si's favorite ornament, His Daddy gave him this after a trip to "the coast.' I think Rick picked it up at Pike Place Market.

Ad's favorite ornament, it was given to her by Great Grandma Ruby.

Soph's favorite ornament, I think she likes it because she can touch it and love it.

The kids

Favorite Christmas Ornaments Tag - My Grandma made this ceramic ornament for my when she lived up in Alaska.

Christmas Cookies decorated by REAL children!

Frozen Snow

Swing Dancing! Go Tee

Whoo! T irz during the last night of Swing Dance class!

Church Doodle

The first snowman of the year. He's a little bit snow and a little bit dirt. Tirz, Ad and Si made him on top of freshly plowed soil by the sled hill. (Emily is missing from the picture she was with Rick.)

Tirzah's snowman.

This according to *the boy* is his warrior snowman. His "hands" are raised in the air in victory.

And here is the other warrior snowman. He is obviously on the losing side of the fight complete with "blood" from his wounds.

Concerning Halloween

This is from the October edition of Epistula sent out by Veritas Press. It is different from what I have read or heard most about Halloween. What do you think? Anyone?

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter.

"Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows' Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint," in that "hallow" is just an alternative form of the word "holy" ("hallowed be Thy name"). All Saints' Day is November 1. It is the celebration of the victory of the saints in union with Christ. The observance of various celebrations of All Saints arose in the late 300s, and these were united and fixed on November 1 in the late 700s. The origin of All Saints Day and of All Saints Eve in Mediterranean Christianity had nothing to do with Celtic Druidism or the Church's fight against Druidism (assuming there ever even was any such thing as Druidism, which is actually a myth concocted in the 19th century by neo-pagans.)

In the First Covenant, the war between God's people and God's enemies was fought on the human level against Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. With the coming of the New Covenant, however, we are told that our primary battle is against principalities and powers, against fallen angels who bind the hearts and minds of men in ignorance and fear. We are assured that through faith, prayer, and obedience, the saints will be victorious in our battle against these demonic forces. The Spirit assures us: "The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly" ( Romans 16:20).

The Festival of All Saints reminds us that though Jesus has finished His work, we have not finished ours. He has struck the decisive blow, but we have the privilege of working in the mopping up operation. Thus, century by century the Christian faith has rolled back the demonic realm of ignorance, fear, and superstition. Though things look bad in the Western world today, this work continues to make progress in Asia and Africa and Latin America.

The Biblical day begins in the preceding evening, and thus in the Church calendar, the eve of a day is the actual beginning of the festive day. Christmas Eve is most familiar to us, but there is also the Vigil of Holy Saturday that precedes Easter Morn. Similarly, All Saints' Eve precedes All Saints' Day.

The concept, as dramatized in Christian custom, is quite simple: On October 31, the demonic realm tries one last time to achieve victory, but is banished by the joy of the Kingdom.

What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan's great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan in a ridiculous red suit with horns and a tail. Nobody thinks the devil really looks like this; the Bible teaches that he is the fallen Arch-Cherub. Rather, the idea is to ridicule him because he has lost the battle with Jesus and he no longer has power over us.

(The tradition of mocking Satan and defeating him through joy and laughter plays a large role in Ray Bradbury's classic novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is a Halloween novel.)

The gargoyles that were placed on the churches of old had the same meaning. They symbolized the Church ridiculing the enemy. They stick out their tongues and make faces at those who would assault the Church. Gargoyles are not demonic; they are believers ridiculing the defeated demonic army.

Thus, the defeat of evil and of demonic powers is associated with Halloween. For this reason, Martin Luther posted his 95 challenges to the wicked practices of the Church to the bulletin board on the door of the Wittenberg chapel on Halloween. He picked his day with care, and ever since Halloween has also been Reformation Day.

Similarly, on All Hallows' Eve (Hallow-Even – Hallow-E'en – Halloween), the custom arose of mocking the demonic realm by dressing children in costumes. Because the power of Satan has been broken once and for all, our children can mock him by dressing up like ghosts, goblins, and witches. The fact that we can dress our children this way shows our supreme confidence in the utter defeat of Satan by Jesus Christ—we have NO FEAR!

I don't have the resources to check the historical origins of all Halloween customs, and doubtless they have varied from time to time and from Christian land to Christian land. "Trick or treat" doubtless originated simply enough: something fun for kids to do. Like anything else, this custom can be perverted, and there have been times when "tricking" involved really mean actions by teenagers and was banned from some localities.

We can hardly object, however, to children collecting candy from friends and neighbors. This might not mean much to us today, because we are so prosperous that we have candy whenever we want, but in earlier generations people were not so well off, and obtaining some candy or other treats was something special. There is no reason to pour cold water on an innocent custom like this.

Similarly, the jack-o'-lantern's origins are unknown. Hollowing out a gourd or some other vegetable, carving a face, and putting a lamp inside of it is something that no doubt has occurred quite independently to tens of thousands of ordinary people in hundreds of cultures worldwide over the centuries. Since people lit their homes with candles, decorating the candles and the candle-holders was a routine part of life designed to make the home pretty or interesting. Potatoes, turnips, beets, and any number of other items were used.

Wynn Parks writes of an incident he observed: "An English friend had managed to remove the skin of a tangerine in two intact halves. After carving eyes and nose in one hemisphere and a mouth in the other, he poured cooking oil over the pith sticking up in the lower half and lit the readymade wick. With its upper half on, the tangerine skin formed a miniature jack-o'-lantern. But my friend seemed puzzled that I should call it by that name. `What would I call it? Why a "tangerine head," I suppose.'" (Parks, "The Head of the Dead," The World & I, November 1994, p. 270.)

In the New World, people soon learned that pumpkins were admirably suited for this purpose. The jack-o'-lantern is nothing but a decoration; and the leftover pumpkin can be scraped again, roasted, and turned into pies and muffins.

In some cultures, what we call a jack-o'-lantern represented the face of a dead person, whose soul continued to have a presence in the fruit or vegetable used. But this has no particular relevance to Halloween customs. Did your mother tell you, while she carved the pumpkin, that this represented the head of a dead person and with his soul trapped inside? Of course not. Symbols and decorations, like words, mean different things in different cultures, in different languages, and in different periods of history. The only relevant question is what does it mean now, and nowadays it is only a decoration.

And even if some earlier generations did associate the jack-o'-lantern with a soul in a head, so what? They did not take it seriously. It was just part of the joking mockery of heathendom by Christian people.

This is a good place to note that many articles in books, magazines, and encyclopedias are written by secular humanists or even the pop-pagans of the so-called "New Age" movement. (An example is the article by Wynn Parks cited above.) These people actively suppress the Christian associations of historic customs, and try to magnify the pagan associations. They do this to try and make paganism acceptable and to downplay Christianity. Thus, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, etc., are said to have pagan origins. Not true.

Oddly, some fundamentalists have been influenced by these slanted views of history. These fundamentalists do not accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of Western history, American history, and science, but sometimes they do accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of the origins of Halloween and Christmas, the Christmas tree, etc. We can hope that in time these brethren will reexamine these matters as well. We ought not to let the pagans do our thinking for us.

Nowadays, children often dress up as superheroes, and the original Christian meaning of Halloween has been absorbed into popular culture. Also, with the present fad of "designer paganism" in the so-called New Age movement, some Christians are uneasy with dressing their children as spooks. So be it. But we should not forget that originally Halloween was a Christian custom, and there is no solid reason why Christians cannot enjoy it as such even today.

"He who sits in the heavens laughs; Yahweh ridicules them" says Psalm 2. Let us join in His holy laughter, and mock the enemies of Christ on October 31.

James B. Jordan

Mr. Jordan writes several newsletters including Biblical Horizons, Biblical Chronology, Open Book and Rite Reasons. The above article appeared in the August, 1996 issue of the Open Book Newsletter. For more information on Biblical Horizons please visit www.biblicalhorizons.com.

This was reprinted with out permission I hope he doesn't get mad.

Pumpkin contest! Addey won 3rd place in the 6 to 12 category. It's second from the right with the big happy smile.

A 1st place winner! Tirzah won 1st place in the pumpkin contest put on by the local newspaper in town.