I Heart Faces- Bust A Gut

I came across this photo contest today and immediately thought of this picture of Gua Er Gua from Bring Me Hope Camp in Xian, China.  Gua Er Gua will be Joy very soon when she meets her waiting family.

Swimming in November

Hey dad, don't forget to scroll down because I am actually blogging 2 days in a row.  :)

Great Wolf is known primarily for its indoor water park.

It was incredibly entertaining and at points, frightening.

Since I couldn't carry my camera on a water slide, I snapped a few here.

It was a lot harder than it looks.  I told Trent I am pretty sure I broke up all the scar tissue in my body with my effort to cross.

Sam crossed 11 times, and Jack was relieved with once.

Ruthie bounced her way across like a frog.

Fun Times!

Great Wolf Lodge

We spent our Thanksgiving at Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine.   We had heard great things about it from our friends and neighbors so we decided to check it out for ourselves.

It was really nice to have a few days off to just spend with my family.    

One of the kid's favorite parts was a built in hotel adventure called MagiQuest.  Basically, you purchase a wand that has a computer chip in it and it sends you on adventures through the resort.  It is quite impressive.  Sam wouldn't let us leave today until we earned all of our stones and killed the dragon.

A big bonus to spending Thanksgiving in Grapevine was that we got to spend it with my Aunt.  She met us at the hotel for lunch.  God bless that woman for enduring a Thanksgiving buffet with my kids.  

Sam visited the dessert table with her and returned with not 1 but 2 cupcakes.

Great food.  Great company.  Great day.

More in a few days on the water park.

Thanksgiving Round 2

Sam also had a Thanksgiving party this week. While the moms were setting up, dad took a few minutes to read to the peanut.

Then it was time for the party to begin.

We decorated Sam's vest last week to be Super Sam the Indian.

Always the clown.

Here is his Kindergarten class thankful list.  Do you see the one in the middle? The one with S.H beside it for Sam Henderson?  I am so thankful that my boy is thankful for his God.

Thanksgiving Round 1

A week ago I was having trouble making the mental shift from Halloween to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Well 3 Thanksgiving feasts and a trip to Toys R Us later and I am re-oriented and in the spirit now.

On Thursday we had Thanksgiving Feasts for Jack and Ruthie.  Sam's was today and I will post those pics later because truthfully they are still in my camera and I am too lazy to process them right now. :)

We are thankful for you too sweet girl.  We are thankful for you too. 

Catching Up- Soccer, Surgery, and Ruffles

Oh I know I have been a very bad blogger.  I am in the middle of my 2nd Christmas photography season and I am pretty sure I have developed a love hate relationship with my photography business right now.

So let me catch you up first on miss Ruthie.

She had her last soccer game of the season last week.  On the way to the car she asked me when we could play again.  It looks like this might be her thing for now.

On a health note, she had an MRI last week that showed she has a really good tricep and nothing for her bicep.  I have always thought that she had a small part of her bicep and had hoped that we could build that enough to allow her to function better.  She is undoubtably functioning more independently but the MRI revealed that it is all through compensation.

So we have decided go through with the tricep tendon transfer.  She will have surgery on Dec. 21st to move one of the heads for her tricep around to make a bicep.  This will help her do things like brush her own teeth, fix her hair, and dress herself.  

Okay and to wrap this up, I have a confession.  I have fallen in love with ruffles on little girl clothes.  I think I have always liked ruffles but didn't realize how much until I saw a friend's little girl in the cutest ruffly dress from Persnickety.  So now I am on a hunt for ruffles.  Big 'ole Texas sized ruffles. 

Well that is about it.   

Oh and these last few pics were taken with me swinging Ruthie while I had my camera around me neck.  I think next time I will slow my shutter speed more to see if I can catch more of the movement of the background.  It may be a while though because I nearly lost my lunch with all of that spinning the first time. :)

2 Levels of Gratitude

Let me start this out by saying I was SOOOOO frustrated with my kids this weekend.  At first, I thought it was all their fault and then, as the weekend went on, I realized that God was opening my eyes to a valuable parenting lesson.  Basically, it all revolved around a lack of gratitude and a lot of whining about things that they should not have been whining about like picking up after themselves or helping me with their school assignments.

So I vented about how ungrateful they were and marched off to my room to come up with a plan to make them into grateful people now!  My first instinct is always to blame our environment.  How can you be grateful for what you have when your surrounded by a community of abundance?  But then it hit me.  I have already been addressing all of that.  I let them pay for anything they really want that I don't deem necessary. They don't even know what designer clothes are except when they are hand-me-downs and even then they don't know the difference.  They don't own an i-anything or a DS.   Seriously my kids really don't have near the stuff as their peers.  And then it hit me again.  I am missing an entire side of gratitude.

My kids are incredibly grateful for what people give them.  I think we are doing well there.  However, they aren't as grateful for what others do for them.  I have been working so hard to teach them the value of material goods that I have missed the value of self-sacrifice and service.  Does that make sense?  Basically, I am raising little people who think that if they spread it out on the floor that mom will be glad to come behind them and pick it up and that is how it should be.  So without shocking their little systems, I think it is time for some change around here.  I would love to hear how you break up household responsibilities.  I am a mom on a new mission to raise kids who value the service of others and naturally take responsibility for their own contribution.  Any advice?

Intentional Missional Saving- Ugandan Beads

When Trent and I were newlyweds, 10+ years ago, we were living in Waco and working with a college ministry there.  One of our ministry partners shared with us the way he and his family intentionally approached giving.  That story planted a seed in my heart.

Our friend set up a missions fund with his family and made his kids board members of that fund.  When an opportunity to give would come there way, they would hold a family board meeting and discuss if that was the best use of the fund.  This taught his children to plan to give and then to be prayerful and intentional about how they did that.

Fast forward 10+ years later and Trent and I now have 3 kids and the shared blessing of several mission and giving opportunities that we would love to participate in and would love to involve our children in but have been struck by the challenge of how to be financially prepared for those and how to best involve the kids.  So we are going to start our own mission fund and let our kids participate in raising money for that and in distributing that as we feel led.  My prayer is that it will teach my children to make giving a regular part of their budget and that when mission opportunities come our way that our first question will not be if we can afford it but instead if it is the best use of our mission fund.

I am kicking off the mission fund with the sell of Ugandan bead necklaces that were made by an orphanage worker in Uganda named Agnes.  They were purchased by a friend while on mission trip there and returning to Uganda with her is one of my first desires with this fund.

I grouped the necklaces by similarities and named them after children whose lives and families have inspired me.

If you would like to purchase a necklace, you can email me your order at Ginnyhenderson@hotmail.com.  I will then send you a paypal invoice.  
The necklaces are $20 each. 

This group has an abundance of blue and turquoise beads.  It is named after a sweet child who met her forever family a few months before we got Ruthie.  Karleigh Mei's mom continually challenges me to set my desire for comfort aside and ask the question of how I can live a life that makes a difference.  You can see her at : 

http://karleighmei.blogspot.com/

This grouping has more pink beads.  It is named after a precious child who came home right before Ruthie.  Her mom and I suffered through the wait together and rejoiced with each other on our gotcha days.  Lydia's family is adopting again!  You can follow along at: 

http://lydiahope.blogspot.com/

I named this set after Ruthie because it contains more reds and richer colors which are Ruthie's favorites.  

This group contains more white beads.  Do you remember Gua Gua from Bring Me Hope camp?  Well her new name will be Joy and you can follow her family's journey to bring her home at:
http://www.ladybugsandfrogs.blogspot.com/

THANKS!

My weatherman, ninja, and Elmo

Here are a few pics from our Halloween that started with a book character parade at school and ended with a church carnival.  It took most of today for me to recover. :)