Good Morning to all!

Good morning! I trust that everyone is having a good week so far. We had a good weekend. Friday night we had our teen girls over for a pizza party. That was a lot of fun! There is nothing like hanging out with a group of eight 12-14 year olds! We were planning on possibly 12 girls, so we bought enough pizza and pop for that, but its a good thing we did not have that many! Those girls ate SO much food! We had only about 4 pieces of pizza left over. And they drank almost 3 cases of pop! Let's just say they were quite hyper. But it was a lot of fun. Then, Saturday and Sunday were pretty normal days. Yesterday we did our usual shopping, filling the van up with gas, etc. We usually go over to Maine to do all that, but not yesterday because the exchange rate is terrible. Our Canadian dollar is only 70 cents to the American dollar. So, it is definitely not beneficial to us to go there right now.

Last night we had a family over for supper. They have two teen girls who are in our youth group. Matt has known them for a while - since the girls were in VBS at ages 4 and 6. The mom used to be Matt's boss when he worked at KFC before college. The mom has received Christ, but the dad has not. We are trying to reach out to them, so we had them over. It was fun. They just love Liam and Leila. They actually fight over who gets to hold Leila. It is funny to watch. I made the famous Cinnabon cinnamon rolls that I got off the Internet for dessert, which were very yummy, as usual.

Liam is now all about Frosty the Snowman. I think we sing that song about 10 times a day, as well as Jingle Bells. Matt's mom bought him the original Frosty cartoon, so he likes to watch that too. What a character Liam is. His speech seems to get better every day, and it is so much fun to see what he will say. He will repeat EVERYTHING he hears. Like just a second ago, Matt was getting ready to leave, but I needed something from the van, so I was running to the door saying, "Matt! Matt!" to get his attention. Liam was running behind me saying the same thing, "Matt! Matt!" Hehe. I need to remember to say "Daddy."

Leila has been a little fussy. I am thinking it might be an ear infection, so we are going to get that checked out. Other than that, she is great. Almost sitting up on her own.

We have a huge blessing coming this week. There is a food company here in Canada called McCain Foods. They do a lot of frozen foods like veggies, pizzas, french fries, orange juice, punch, etc. Well, they have a program called Minister's Donation where they give the families who are Pastors that live in this area 12 cases of frozen food for free each year. We knew about this, but did not know how to go about to get it. So yesterday one of our church members called and got the info, and we now are getting 12 cases of food tomorrow morning!!! Not all of it is something that I would buy on a regular basis, but will definitely take it for free! Each case has around 12 packages in it. So we are getting cases of: frozen carrots, corn, peas, pizza, pizza pockets, french fries, orange juice, fruit punch, and a few other things. I am so excited! I mean, things like orange juice are so expensive here, I never buy it! So that is a huge blessing. What we don't use ourselves, we will be able to give to someone who may need it! Now my only problem is to find a place to put our chest freezer which has been in storage since we moved here. I really don't have room in the house, but we will make room!

Oh, and also, we have a dairy farmer who is a member of our church. Well, every year they kill one of their cows for meat for their family for the year. Now, one cow gives a ton of meat. The cow they killed this year weighs over 900 lbs. Last year they gave us some steaks and ground beef. He told me on Sunday that they killed their cow last week and are dressing it this week, so they will give us some next week. Another huge blessing - some free, good ground beef. It is nice because when I use that meat, I know exactly where it came from, what it was fed, etc. so I don't have to be afraid of what strange things may be in my meat! I tell you, being in the ministry is sometimes so hard and discouraging, but then there are times when God gives you that extra encouragement, like He is right now for us. God sure takes care of His children!
I guess I have rambled on long enough. Have a wonderful day!

Until next time...

Here is our house Sat. morning with the light snow we had.

We have gotten more snow since then.

Matt LOVES lobster, and had 5 fresh lobsters given to him on Thursday. Liam was quite intrigued by them.