Countdown to Christmas

 I wanted to do something fun for the kids leading up to Christmas and this was what I came up with. Next year I will be more colorful! :) I had to get it together quick so the white index cards were what I used. Maybe you can see the "tree".

I took an index card and folded it in half. Then on the inside I wrote something fun for us to do each day as a family, then tape it shut. Then on the front folded side I wrote each day and the child's name who would open that days card. On the back side of the folded card I wrote a scripture about the Christmas story to be read when the card is opened. The kids are loving it!! They get so excited to see what the next day is!

Some of the things I included for us to do are....
*Read a Christmas book
*Watch a Christmas movie
*Bake goodies and give to a family
*Drink hot chocolate around the Chirstmas tree while telling about Chirstmas memories
*Sing Christmas carols
*Make gingerbread houses
*Pray for others to know Jesus in a personal relationship this Christmas
*Give a piece of "Christmas Chocolate" to another family member and tell them why they are special

Hope this helps to inspire others to celebrate the True meaning of Christmas....JESUS!!!!!!

Christmas Card 2012

 Merry Christmas to all our family and friends!!

This year has been full of blessings!! In January our baby turned 1! I am amazed how time flies! In March we celebrated our 2nd year at SMBC! We love our church family and all that God is doing in our church. In April Timothy turned 3! He is such a funny boy and makes us laugh all the time! In May Bryan graduated with his D. Min. and we took a fun family vacation while we were away for his graduation! Also at the end of May Elijah turned 5! He started Kindegarten this year and is learning so much! In June Bryan and I celebrated our 16 year anniversary!! I love him more each day and am so very blessed to have such a godly husband! In July our Sarah turned 9! She is growing into such a beautiful young lady! In August our oldest, Isaac, turned 11! He is becoming a young man so quickly! Of coarse along the way Bryan and I turned another year older! :) Now here it is Christmas and will be 2013 very soon! This year has passed so quickly and it reminds me that we need to make each moment count...for eternity!!

With Love,
The Camp's
Bryan, Cantina, Isaac, Sarah, Elijah,
Timothy, and Joanna

Thanksgiving at the Camp's 2012

 We arrived at Bryan's parents house right after lunch on Thanksgiving Day. It is always so good to see everyone and our kids love being at Pop and Gigi's!!

 While we were there I took pictures of everyone. I just LOVE pictures!! This is a picture of Sarah and Peyton. Joanna didn't want her picture made with the "girls". :) Hard to believe that Peyton is 16! It is so fun to see the kids together.... Peyton is the oldest out of the grandkids, but Sarah always loves being with her. Then Isaac and Riley are the same age, so of coarse they are always together. Then Elijah and Timothy have Jameson to play with....those three are going to get into something! :) Then Joanna and Levi are only a couple of months apart, they are cute playing together.

 This is Craig and Athena, the newlyweds! :) Athena is so good with the kids and just jumps right in to help. We are so blessed to have her in the family.

 Aaron and his family...Stephanie, Peyton, and Riley. Peyton and Riley have grown up way too fast!!

 Rusty, Candice, Jameson, and Levi. I think Jameson looks just like Rusty and Levi looks so much like Candice. Such a cute family!

Have no clue where this BIG family came from....oh yeah, that's my crew! :) LOL!!!

We spent the night at Bryan's parents house and the guys went hunting the next morning and got a few squirrels. Sarah and the little ones got to go and play with Jameson and Levi...always lots of fun!! It was nice to spend some time with family!!

Thanksgiving 2012 with the Roughton's

For Thanksgiving last year we started off with a trip to see my cousin and her family. It was so great to visit with them that we planned on going back this year and we are so thankful that we got to.

We arrived at their house Wednesday at lunch and spent the night that night. The weather was BEAUTIFUL and the kids had tons of fun outside and inside!! I think we will make it a yearly tradition!! :) Here are a few pics of our time with them!

The boys were being "cool" on the trip!! I LOVE this picture!!

We all got to enjoy being outside and the nice weather!!

Elijah playing outside

These two (Ella and Sarah) love each other so much!! They played dress up and had lots of fun together!!

Leah pulling Timothy in the wagon! She liked pulling all the younger kids.

They have two dogs and Isaac was having so much fun playing with the dogs. He wants his own dog...maybe one day!

Here are the girls playing dress up.

Leah did such a good job of "reading" to Joanna and Joanna enjoyed listening. :)

Thanksgiving!

Four weeks ago the kids started a Thanksgiving Unit Study. So we have been talking alot about Thanksgiving and this past week we did some extra fun activities that got our creative side moving! :)

For our reading aloud time we have been reading a book about Squanto. The four older children made Indian and Pilgrim hats. Here is Elijah in his Indian hat.

Sarah would have loved to dress like a pilgrim. She wore her hat alot that day and even wants to make one for others. Just have to love her!

Timothy loved making his Indian hat.

For our homeschooling I try to have a "together time" each day, so for the four weeks of the Thanksgiving Study we created a blessing tree. During our "together time" each day I would give the kids a leaf and we would write something they are thankful for on the leaf. Then the kids would color the leaf while I read our book about Squanto to them. After they were done with the leaf they would place it on "The Blessing Tree". It was so much fun for us to watch our tree grow!! Loved this!!

Here is the "leader" of the Pilgrims!

Then one day we used play dough to create something about Thanksgiving. This is Isaac's Mayflower. I thought he did a great job! He spent alot of time on this.

This is Sarah's Wampanoag house. That is an Indian tribe we learned about.

Here is her Indian head dress and Pilgrim hat she created!

These Indians came and spent the day with us! So friendly!! :)

This is Elijah's Mayflower!

Hope you can see we had lots of fun! Another thing that Isaac did was he sent a letter to the Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, MA and asked for information about their museum. He received a packet yesterday with all kinds of information! They even sent two coloring sheets! Isaac was so tickled to get the packet! :)

Pumpkin Muffins

I need to post this before fall is over so you all can enjoy these very delicious pumpkin muffins!!

First let me say that we are not a pumpkin eating family! Bryan and I have never been crazy about pumpkin anything. So I was a little hesitant to try these but I am so glad I did!! :)

For Halloween I wanted to do a fun fall day with the kids and throw in as much education as I could. One of the things I wanted to do was to get a pumpkin and cut it open for the children to see what one looks like on the inside. We have done this before with Isaac and Sarah but not with the little ones. I called and asked Bryan to pick me up a pumpkin on his way home from work.

He called me from the store and said all they had was these smaller pumpkins and wanted to know if that was ok. "Sure", I was a little disappointed that they were not bigger. The next day the kids and I set to cut the pumpkin open and look at all the "yuck" on the inside. I noticed that these pumpkins were "pie pumpkins" so I thought it would be neat for us to see the "goody" in them too. 

We could make some pumpkin bread with this. But how would we get the "goody" out? So I got on the internet and began to search (I really didn't know). I found a website that gave step by step instructions on how to cook a pumpkin and then be able to scoop out all the "goody".

It was supper easy and the kids and I were learning something together!! We cooked the pumpkins and once we scooped it out we had this bowl looking shell (see top picture). The kids had so much fun taking turns scooping out all the pumpkin goody.

Then I took my Banana Bread/Muffin recipe and added pumpkin instead of banana, I added 1 Tbsp of Pumpkin Pie spice to the dry ingredients, and then I added 1/4 cup of chocolate chips to half the batter. Below are pictures of what the end results looked like.

I hesitantly tried the first bite....oh my these are supper delicious! Everyone loved them and I will make more with some of the pumpkin I had left over. I also went to the store and bought another pie pumpkin so I could freeze some pumpkin and make more muffins/bread later!!

We have muffins on Sunday mornings and so now I can freeze these and we just pop them out on Sunday mornings for a yummy breakfast!!

Pumpkin Muffins

2 cups of flour (I actually did 1/2 whole wheat and 1 1/2 white all purpose)
1 Tbsp. of Pumpkin Pie spice
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 heaping cup of pumpkin (fresh is best :))
2 eggs
1 cup of sugar (I actually used 2/3 cup)
1/2 cup of oil (I used 1/4 cup of applesauce and 1/4 cup of oil)
3 Tbsp of milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of chocolate chips (or 1/4 cup if you are doing half plain and half with chips)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all the dry ingredients (first 5) in a bowl and set to side. Then combine all the wet ingredients (except the milk and vanilla) in a bowl. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla (and chocolate chips) and mix well. Pour into greased muffin tin or greased bread pan and bake. 15-20 minutes for muffins and 45-60 minutes for bread (dpending on size of bread pan). Cool for 5 minutes and then remove from pan and ENJOY!!!

Building Fun

We have went crazy lately over Legos! All the kids will probably get a new set of Legos for Christmas. SHHHH! The boys love building different things with the Legos. I thought I would show you a couple of pictures of what Isaac and Elijah built.

Then Isaac built this with his cards! I love it that these kiddos have an imagination....even at 11! It also makes it special when they work together to create something!! Maybe we need to have a "Building" school day! :)