Jake & Jo Jo Visit

Earlier this month my sister Josie and her boyfriend Jake came to stay with us for the weekend. We always love when they come. We didn't do anything big, mostly just spent time together. On Saturday Josie went to dinner with Regan so we got to see her for a bit. Regan is one of our all grown up girls from youth group- and we love getting to see her too. Saturday afternoon Josie needed to work on some photography homework so we drove around Hannibal looking for things she could take pictures of. I had been wanting to take a picture of the Grace St. sign for awhile so I enlisted her help, I am hoping to make this into something artistic for Gracie.

I love how in this one you can see the church in the background.
Then we went up to Lover's Leap to take some pictures. You can't really tell in the photo but both of the girls have their cameras too.


This is an old gas station Jeremy and I have always loved. I think Josie ended up using one of her photos of this for her project.
That weekend was also the P3 conference at our church. My job was to make a room look like 3 girls' bedrooms and then switch it over to 3 boys' bedrooms. It was a big project...but fun. I ended up being a bit short on help due to illness and was VERY thankful Josie & Jake jumped in to help. They are always so helpful!!

We ended Saturday night watching a documentary on Disney World. I'm not sure the boys were too excited, but us girls loved it. We are saving to go to Disney in 5 years & have invited our family to come along. Josie is totally on board!

Grocery Store Activities

I got to plan a grocery store themed play group at the beginning of November. It was a lot of fun and a bit crazy!

I finally brought some toys and my "fence" to set up a baby area- this worked a lot better.
My friend Karen had the great idea to bring aluminum foil to make the conveyer belt.

I brought store ads for the kids to cut out items to make their own shopping list. Grace had several things of ice cream on hers.
I am so thankful for our playgroup!

L is for Lincoln?

The other day I was reading this book to Grace. She picked it out last time we were at the library. When she choose it I thought, "Great. We are from Illinois and I would love for her to learn more about our state." I got to about letter F when she said, "This book isn't really answering my questions about magic." At first I was so confused! Then I remembered she wanted to get a book on how to do magic tricks..... I asked, "Did you think the man on the cover of this book was a magician?" I flipped to the cover of the book. Yeah, I totally get how she thought this was a book about magic. From my perspective I just saw Abraham Lincoln. But, when I looked at it through her eyes I could totally see a magician.

This was such a powerful illustration to me of something I am working through in my relationship with God right now. Through the circumstances of my life I have started to doubt my ability to discern God's direction in my life. I'm so afraid I can't see past my own selfish desires to see his leading. My desires are so plain, so engrained I don't want to miss God's perspective. But, I also know God doesn't want to hide from me. If I ask and seek I know God will show me things through his viewpoint. Because just like Grace had a totally different perspective I know God sees my life in a much different way.