8th Annual Meahl Family Scavenger Hunt

I uploaded the pictures for this post 2 days ago, and I just haven't had a chance to type anything. I'm exhausted now but doing it anyway.

I can hardly believe we have been having our October 31 Scavenger Hunt for 8 years now! Where has the time gone? We started in our old house, in fact. We kicked off the evening with dinner at CiCi's with our friends, the Pillsburys and the Rooks. That was a great time as usual.

When we got home, Carys thought we were getting the pumpkins. (She had seen them ready to go in my closet before I hid them.) She had trouble getting into the spirit of the hunt.

The first sign and clue are always on the door going into the house from the garage.


Chase did the majority of the searching on her own this year as the boys are getting too old and helped me think of places to hide the clues anyway. I use the business card sheets that go in my printer for the clues.


Every clue prompts you to read a Bible verse which gives you a place to search.


This Bible verse said something about sand and the clue said to "Find the only place Mom lets this in the house." There is a bottle with sand in it that was a co-worker's clever way to send a wedding invitation. We keep it in our pool bath, which has the beach/fish theme. You can just see it on top of the cabinets.


This clue was Proverbs 3:3 which is our family verse: Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." The clue said to find where we store the modern-day version of this item (meaning the tablet). Chase found the wrong tablets - the dishwashing tablets! (I meant the spiral notebooks in the school room.)


Gerren ended up giving a few hints.


Carys collected the clues along the way, even though she didn't understand the delay!


She was thrilled to finally get to the chocolate. I'm not sure how much she ate before we got it away from her. The girls in this family get their sweet tooth from their mom!


Greg tries to steal Gerren's candy. I had a bag set aside for him in the closet. I used to set aside one bag for the two of us to share. However, he would eat all the candy before I got a piece. Now, I set aside separate bags with our names on them. He KNOWS not to touch my chocolate!


The sweet ending to a fun evening!

Braces!

Gerren and Chase took the plunge today and had braces put on. Chase only has top braces at this time and not on all her teeth. She still has some baby teeth, but we are trying to make room for some of the permanent teeth to come in. The two upper teeth that replace the molars she had pulled last week are twisted 90°, which is why we got started early with her. The whole procedure will be more complicated and multi-stepped for her.


Gerren's care will be much more straightforward. He has all his braces on now and will be in them for 18-24 months.


They're both thrilled--NOT! And of course, we are thrilled to pay for two sets of braces at once. Sigh!

Promised Pictures

Finally some pictures! Chase's ballet costumes have made great dress-up clothes for Carys. Here she is "dancing".



In September, Chase's friend, Sarah, stayed with us for a few days while her parents were out of town. She and Chase had a good time dressing up their live doll!



You can see that reading comes naturally in our family. Carys is actually reading out loud in these pictures. She says, "Our Lord, our Savior, Jesus [babble, babble, babble]." Those are the only words we can actually figure out. We're studying the history of the church this year in school. I guess that's obvious! LOL!

No Pictures but a Prayer

I have a few pictures to post, but I'm on the wrong computer!  I did want to tell you about a God thing today.  I read the Living Proof Ministries blog pretty frequently.  Beth Moore and her daughters write this blog.  Today I was reading a post Beth made last night (I believe).  At the end, she asked for prayer for herself and the ladies she is ministering to this week in New England.  Then, she said, I'll pray for you, too.  Here is what she wrote:

My faithful Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Ruler of Land and Sea, I lift Your elect to You. I pray this week for You to grant them clarity in a very specific area where they are confused and not sure what to do next. As You said through Your prophet Ezekiel, You have put Your Spirit in them and You will MOVE them to follow Your will. Remind them that they are not stuck. Not without choices. Not without leadership. Whisper in each ear, "this is the way, walk ye in it." Cause them - and me - to cease beating on doors that are closed and walk through the one that You Yourself left open even if it's not our personal favorite Door #1. Bring confessions to their lips - and mine - of Your gracious providence and Your worthiness to be trusted and praised. Tend to their hearts. Where they feel battered and bruised but too busy to stop long enough to be healed, hem them in Your faithful hands, hold them still, and rejoice over them with singing. Tell them again how You love them. How You've called them. How You don't make mistakes. Grant them - and me - spirits of wisdom and revelation that we may know You better and recognize You when we bump smack into Your Presence. And more than anything else, circumcise our hearts to love You and to love that frustrating person in our lives as we love ourselves. Teach us what the Apostle Paul meant when he told the Galatians that all that matters is faith expressing itself in love. We want to be Godly women, Lord. We cry out to You for help. We cry out to You for You. 

In the saving, delivering, empowering Name of Jesus, 
Amen 

Can I just tell you how this spoke to me this morning?  It was exactly what I needed to have prayed over me, exactly what the cry of my heart was!  Isn't God awesome?  You can read Beth's blog here.  Also, you can watch many teaching sessions Beth recorded for Life Today here.

What's Up?

Well, I've decided I need to spend a little more time keeping my blog updated. I like Facebook for keeping up with what my local friends are doing in little snippets of time without having to read long paragraphs. However, it's not a great way for my family members and homeschool loop members to keep up with the details of our lives, pictures, etc. We had a family meeting about fall activities today and how to get it all done. One of the things we've decided to simplify this year is Christmas cards. For years I've written and published a newsletter. For the last two years, we did a fun Christmas quiz. However, these are a LOT of work on me. Most of the information in the newsletter is stuff I wrote about in detail on my blog. So, I found this place where we can order Christmas postcards, put a picture on the front and a message on the back. I can even upload my address book and they'll print those on the cards, too. Much less time consuming. I plan to refer everyone to my blog on the card. This way it won't be a long, boring newsletter filled with old information for our local friends and family who already know what we're doing.

Not much exciting has been happening here this month. In September, we attended an event at the boys' Civil Air Patrol squadron. An artist had given them a new painting he did after 9/11 called Wings of Freedom. Gerren was promoted to Cadet Airman and Landon had his Cadet Honor Society induction announced to all present. Here is a scrapbook page I made of the event for Landon's album. This is a Smilebox layout, by the way.



It's been an emotionally tough month for me because of some half-truths told to manipulate me by a leader of a ministry I'm involved with. The funny thing is that, even though I have told details of this situation to almost no one, many others at church have noticed that I've been hurt and have been an incredible source of love and encouragement to me. What a dichotomy!

We've been running around like crazy trying to deal with medical issues this month, too. My left foot is really bothering me now that the right foot is better, of course! I really believe this plantar fasciitis is exacerbated by my thyroid issues. Anyway, I've been running to the chiropactor 1-2 times a week for this. It helped my right foot immensely, but I'm not getting any relief for the left one. Chase had 2 baby teeth pulled last week (under anesthesia) to prepare for braces which both she and Gerren have put on October 20. I have been referred to an endocrinologist probably to have a fine needle biopsy of a thyroid nodule I have which has grown in the past 6 years. I am being torn between traditional and alternative methods of dealing with my thyroid. I would have thrown over the traditional methods long ago if it wasn't for this nodule. So, it is a source of worry.

Of course, all these medical issues bring a big financial burden, too. We really like our insurance policy/HSA. However, all these expenses are just too much for any family to bear at one time. We're only allowed by law to put $5800/year in our HSA. This is $483/month and $330/month of that goes automatically to braces. $153/month isn't much for a family of 6 for medical, dental, and vision care. We were putting $416/month and basically spending all of that before orthodontics. Help, Lord!

Well, that's the nitty gritty update for now. I will try to take some pictures and get more regular about posting again!