I’d love to share the wonderful pics I took today, but someone stole my camera. We went to the Battleship Texas (they opened a new deck for us to explore) and then we went to the San Jacinto monument. While I was wrestling with Hannah and Bethany’s cup and balls trick my camera in its case fell out of my pocket. We got up to leave and less than 5 minutes later came back inside to see if the bag was still on the bench. Nope. Swiped. Turned in? Nope, the guard said, who’d turn in a brand new 12 mp digital camera? I guess no one. I looked at a few people sideways as they took pics, but the thief never showed my camera in plain sight. So all the pics I took, plus of course the camera, are gone forever. I hope the person who stole it feels GUILTY as they stared into the smiling faces of my children on the disk before they delete them. I hope someday soon they have something of great value stolen from them; not very Christian of me I know, but I am pissed.

Also on the way out my wedding ring got stuck on the door. My ring is now twisted and turned and out of shape in both directions. So James said don’t worry we’ll get new rings when you come back home.

My wonderful husband is shipping me a new camera by Thursday. I am so grateful to my loving Schnooke. I am very happy that he works hard to afford things like this for me, very hard. Right now he is trudging through the snow in the bitter cold from Tattered cover where on his day off he was working on the computer. Every day he climbs on the bus in the cold and then walks down the hill to work at a very boring (but very nice) job. He collects his paycheck and then continues to work at home on 3 other jobs. I can’t say how much I love this man. He provides us with a home (in Highlands Ranch), a car (that we take while he rides the bus) and allows me the luxury of staying home to teach our children. I just wish I hadn’t added to the tab by losing the camera, sigh.

Oh yes, and Happy New Year.

I left this cat to protect my homestead, beware thieves, he can stink up a litterbox in record time!

The natives were tired. So tired that they missed the hotel breakfast. No matter. I herded them into the car and we resumed our trip.

They were dirty and desperately needed a hair brushing, but I needed to get to Houston.

So we popped in our 2nd Artemis Fowl book on tape and headed out. I missed a turn and ended up going to Dallas before catching 45 south. I think I made us late by an hour, not too bad, but when the kids are on the second day in a car……we stopped in Huntsville to see the Sam Houston statue.

We have lived in Houston all our lives and passed this statue many, many times; but this was the first time we stopped. So here is the statue and the kids.

I got to my Mom’s house about 6 pm and I’m already mapping out the week. Do this, do that. Pics to follow.

12 hours in the car
doesn’t get you very far
way into Texas

Got into Witchita falls (TX not KS, maybe that’s just Witchita in KS) at 8:30pm tonight (9:30 local time.) I wasn’t 2 miles down the road when Hannah said, “me throw up!”, but she didn’t. I think it was just the thought of being in the car for 12 hours. Bringing her beads to play with in the car wasn’t my best idea, they’re all over the floor now. We had great weather on the drive, just a bit of snow pack on 287 just outside of Denver, but it wasn’t too bad. I think the worst thing was eating at Mcd’s and Bk for 3 meals today, ugh.

Getting into Houston by 4pm tomorrow, yeah!

Hannah got a good report. Most of the burn is healing and the part that we thought was really bad looks great. We don’t have to go back to the burn clinic, she can have a regular bandage on it and it will probably heal with no scarring (or very little.) All this is great news since we thought we’d have to come back to the clinic for OT on the arm. But, it looks like she will just have a little scar and some pale skin on the arm for a few months. We saw about 8 wrecked cars on the road on the way to the clinic, but the roads were really well plowed. I guess just too fast driving. We got home and Hannah helped shovel the snow in the yard. Total is about 8-9 inches, pretty good. I have a get together at White fence farm tonight with some moms from our HS group and now I have a camera that will take pics in the dark, yeah!

It started snowing this morning and continued all day. We dropped Bethany off at the theater at 4:45 without incident. The roads were pretty good on the freeway, downtown was rather slushy. James was watching the performance tonight, so I took Grace and Hannah downtown with me. We had hot chocolate in the bookstore to warm us up then we went to the courthouse.

Ft. Collins can argue all they want about nativity scenes and property, but here is a courthouse with Merry Christmas, Peace on Earth and Jesus.

Grace sang ‘Light of the world’ to the baby Jesus and we watched the snow fall. The reindeer on the other side were snowed in.

Hannah and Grace ran around while I contemplated the silent night. The falling snow muffles everything, so it was pretty silent. It was probably 13 degrees out, but it didn’t feel that cold. I know, how can 13 not be cold? Well, it felt like 20, so it wasn’t that cold!

We walked around by the Greek theater and then rode the shuttle to Union station (mainly to dry off.)

Then we ate at Mcd’s. All of the homeless guys were in there hanging out and it was the only section left to sit in. So, after we were done eating Grace handed out hamburgers to the guys sitting in there. Then we went back to the bookstore to play and read.

We caught up with James right as the ballet ended. Then we picked up Bethany.

She had her shoes signed by some of the dancers in the ballet, very cool. I’m just glad they could reschedule the dance. We got home late and went straight to bed. Tomorrow is Hannah’s appointment and I have to leave early because of the snow. Then I have to pack and clean up before leaving Sat. for Houston. Busy, busy!

Here are Grace’s whales:

Playing with my camera:

Hannah’s boo-boo is looking better.

Grace got her pins out this morning. I didn’t know they were that long. The doc had to grab it with the pliers and then twist and then pull them out. Each pin (there were 2) was about 3 inches long. It actually went all the way through her arm and came out the other side. I don’t know why they can’t give kids meds to counteract the pain, all she had in her system was Tylenol and that wasn’t enough. She eventually calmed down and asked for a pink cast with green stripes. So, she now has a neon pink cast with neon green stripes and green glitter on it.

You can definitely pick her out of the crowd!

Hannah is doing ok, she has a burn clinic appointment on Friday and they had better give her something better than Tylenol before thy start scraping off the dead skin. I had little time at home to rest before getting Bethany ready for the Nutcracker performance. Yes, the Moscow ballet made it into town even with the snow.

I had to take her to Cherry creek for a 30 minute rehearsal and then to the theater for a full rehearsal, costume, photos and stuff. James dropped me back at the theater before the performance and I took some pics of the theater outside and in.

After I took the video I noticed the battery low symbol on the new camera. I think that’s why stuff was coming out blurry at this point. This is all the video I got because the camera went dead right then, boohoo. (Bethany is 5th on the left in line, then I pretty much put the camera on her in the middle.) That’s ok I taped the rehearsal and I got this bit. She’ll get a DVD of the performance too. She also had one of the ballerinas sign her old ballet shoes, how cool is that?! They got a standing ovation at the end and took 4 bows. I was surprised at the number of people there who came to see the ballet (and not because they had a child in the play.) We had people sat the front say to Bethany, “Did you get to dance tonight? I saw you, you did great. You were so wonderful up there!” Bethany said she was nervous, but she didn’t look it.

I noticed they changed some of the dance routines at the last minute; so add to all of the fuss about costumes and getting ready to learning a few new things and trying not to bump into the ballerinas and wow! I’m impressed!

Tomorrow I have to have her there at 4:45 and James bought a ticket to see the performance. He’s going to need tissues galore; I keep tearing up when I watch the video! We’ll go see the nativity scene when we drop him off. We saw it tonight, but my camera was out of batteries.

Let’s see….

Christmas day,
Sweet potatoes on flambé’.
Lots of paper on the floor,
Open presents, now some more.
Snow outside,
Fire within,
Too much candy
In the den.
Baby Jesus rests in quiet,
Always just within our sight.
Took a nap then woke up,
Saw a movie, coke in cup.
In search of Christmas lights we roam,
Then we head back to home.
What a wonderful Christmas day,
(except for the potatoes on flambé!)

The marshmallows on the sweet potatoes weren’t browning, so I decided to turn the broiler on. Then I forgot about them until…..’What’s that smell?’ We opened up the oven and they were on fire! We could barely blow out the flames because we were laughing so hard. Grace came in and said, ‘What smells crunchy?’ I know she meant burned, but they were crunchy! We read the last Advent day on our list and put baby Jesus under the tree. Then we opened (or tore into) presents.

The kids got lots of stuff, purses, mp3 players, clothes, scooters, stuffed animals, suduko, knitting machine, candle maker, stickers, beads, beads, beads and so on.

I got a video/DVD burner so I can hook up my video camera and burn a DVD, also we can move all the video tapes to DVD. The best present was my new camera.

I’m still working with it and it ran out of batteries at the Nutcracker, but so far it’s awesome. I can take pics in the dark and what you see is what you get. James went all out and got me the easy share pack, so I have the printer, camera, charger, and bag. WooHoo!

We watched the snow fall and ate dinner.

Later we took a nap

and then shoveled the driveway so we could go see National Treasure. It wasn’t as good as the first one, but it was still a good movie. It had a few unconnected spots, but the kids liked it. We got about 6 inches of snow so our phones were out all day. It was a very pretty white Christmas.

Here are my nativity sets:

Here are my snowmen:

Flowers:

I usually write a CHRISTmas poem and this year is no exception, despite the craziness around here. So on this day of our Saviour’s birth I give you a little poem.

Into this world He came,
A little babe in a manger lain.
Beneath the vast and starry sky,
Love so great that He would die.

But, for now, a babe behold
God’s greatest gift long foretold;
From ancient prophets truth foretold
The son of God we behold.

A little babe in a manger lain,
On a cross one day to be slain.
For every tribe and every nation,
This little babe was our salvation.

He was fully God and fully man,
Not one of us can understand,
The depth of love so great for one,
That God would send His only son.

Once a babe in a manger lay,
Our salvation on Christmas day.

-Liese

Here is a CHRISTmas photobook.

Make a slideshow - it’s easy!

Link to 2007 photos.

Taste and see that the Lord is good Psalm 34:8. One might look at all the bad things that have happened to our family this year and be like Jobs’ friends asking ‘What sin we committed to deserve God’s wrath.’ One might even become a Job and say, ‘What have I done to deserve God’s wrath?’ But, I prefer to look at each incident and see the hand of God on it. I look at our car accident in January where all the girls in house got hurt to some degree and I think, ‘What if we had hit exactly head on? What if the back seat (which came undone from the floor with the exertion of force) had come out all the way and crushed Bethany? What if the air bags had deployed (Grace was in the front seat.)’ See the hand of God on that as guiding the car to the exact spot where it would do the least damage to us. When Grace got her fingers crushed in the door I thought ‘what if they had been a little further in?’ They would have been broken. When James fell down the last part of the stairs and severely broke his toe, I thought ‘what if he had fallen down the whole flight?’ When Grace fell off the counter and broke her arm, I thought ‘thank God she didn’t land on her head.’ Finally (we hope) when Hannah burned her arm on the fireplace it could have been much worse. It could have been her face and it could have been a bigger third degree burn. All that sounds awful, but God is good. We are healing and he has provided wonderful doctors and (some) hospitals to care for us. So, you see, He is with us always. But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint Isaiah 40:31.

On a lighter note we had some neat field trips this year. We got to see behind the scene stuff in Denver at doors open Denver week. We saw the room the Beatles stayed at in the Brown hotel as well as the President’s suite. We saw the model train in Union station and some really old buildings, and we got to go to the top of the Daniel’s and Fischer clock tower (once the tallest building in Denver!) We saw Gypsy Spring at the Fox Theater and went to the Horse show at the Western stock show arena. My mom came to visit and we took her to Buffalo Bill’s grave and some other spots around town. Bethany started Worship dance again. She dance to ‘Holy, holy, holy’ and loved every minute of it. We went to a Shakespeare festival and the ‘Mike the headless chicken’ festival (no, really we did!) We took a trip to Champaign, IL to check out the radio station James started working for this year (contract basis.) We passed the arch and Mississippi river, which we had never seen before. In May James and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary by dressing up and going out to Z’s cuisine, it was, ‘a verrry nice.’

We went to the Rhubarb festival, pioneer museum, money museum and saw fireworks at our favorite spot at Marcy Park. We went bowling, to the beach, the amusement park and played in the creek in the summer. We camped at Reynolds’s park and used up about $100 worth of free firewood (sorry ranger for all that chopping!) We went to the rock show, living history day, art walk and Joel joined CAP in the fall. We camped at Picture canyon and saw the Indian petroglyphs light up in crack cave at the dawn of the Fall solstice. We had a field trip to Boulder to see the celestial seasoning factory, history museum and Dushanbe tea house. We went to the school of mines, the zoo and listened to a lecture at the college about the USS Indianapolis. For Thanksgiving we made a quick trip to Houston and then came back in time for the Golden candlelight walk and the parade of lights. We went sledding, went to the candy cane festival and Grace and Bethany danced in worship dance to ‘Better is one day in Your house’ and ‘Awesome love’. Last on the list is that Bethany has worked hard for 3 ½ months to dance as a snowflake with the Moscow ballet in the Great Russian Nutcracker at the Paramount theater in Denver. It has been rescheduled for 12/26-27, so hope nothing happens to delay the Russian again!

Add to that mix home schooling: Joel in 7/8th, Bethany in 3/4th, Grace in K and Hannah in ‘Hanny school.’ Stir in friends and a dash of co-ops (like the bone, cells, China, juggling, farm, beach, theater shows, etc.) Throw in a handful of field trips and outings for good measure. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Add in a heaping helping of grace and mercy and that was our year in Highlands Ranch, CO!

The Carberrys
James and Liese
Joel (13), Bethany (8), Grace (5), Hannah (2)

John 1: 10-18
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ” 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

A Youtube video about the wreaths at Arlington.

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