Our First Children's Trip!!

I have no doubt that God is moving and working in our little church.....but sometimes it takes a long time to see the fruit of that work. After being here 2 years, we finally have a children's group!!! Praise God! We have tons of kids that come through the church (especially in summer) but this little group has been coming on Sunday mornings for the past couple of months and it finally feels like we have a real group! We've had 7 or so up until this fall that were consistent but we've added about 7 more. So we went on our first children's outing this week so eat pizza at AJ's and then to do a little bowling.......

Here's some shots from AJ's.....

Haven had fun bowling with the gutter things up.....

And here's a group picture of our precious little crew.....

Now, a silly shot........

I have such great memories of my church's children group going place and I hope to create this for my kids. We still need youth leaders in our church and are still praying for that. We are looking forward to doing a "Christmas Comes Alive in Vallecito" live nativity reenactment on Dec 18th for the area and all these kiddos will be a part of it. Can't wait!

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!!

Hello all and I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving! Our church hosted another community Thanksgiving meal held at the the community center and we had a great turnout. The only good thing about not being with our family on Thanksgiving is that it is challenging us to learn to cook our own Thanksgiving food. We have the dressing down (learned that 2 years ago) so this year I made a sweet potato casserole and sweet potato pie for the first time ever and yum yum!!!

However, no one ate it here and I was told by someone from Colorado that they have never heard of it until a few years ago. Guess it may be a Southern thing! Or people did eat sweet potatoes during their meal and may have opted for something different for dessert. More pie for us in the end and it is already gone from this house!

I wanted the kids to learn a little about serving others so they took a turn in the serving line BEFORE they got to eat. Haven was so adorable serving her rolls! She was so excited about serving others and asked multiple times that morning if it was time for her to "serve" yet.

Landon serving sweet potatoes....

Mason tried to get out of it by paying Landon to serve in his place! Ha! He was only kidding and served his time well

We met many new faces this year......

It was great day and what a blessing to have people to spend the day with. I'll have to say that the food was good, but it didn't compare to Pat Richardson and Kaye Owen's cooking!! Can't wait until Christmas!!!!

7th Grade YAFL Trip to ABQ

Well this trip to Albuquerque (ABQ), New Mexico, turned into a series of unfortunate events. Mason played football for Bayfield Middle School and that ended the first of October. One of the assistant coaches then got the idea for us to keep practicing and go down to ABQ for the 7th grade state YAFL tournament, even though we did not play in the YAFL league this year. We played school league and YAFL is independent of school ball. So because everyone else was in on it, we had to be to! So the tournament was this past weekend and while it was fun to get away, here's where the disaster started......

1. We are all staying at a very nice Marriott hotel. We check in and instead of getting the double beds that we registered for, we were given a king size bed.......for 5 people. Many other families were done like this as well so there were no roll away beds either. We had a pretty miserable Friday night but slept well on Saturday because we were so tired from the lack of sleep on Friday...

2. Once down there on Friday, the coach wants to know if everyone brought their birth certificate which is needed for everyone to be able to play. While he told some of them to, others did not get the message. We didn't have Mason's but had someone coming to the house for the dogs anyway and they scanned it and emailed it to me. The coach was going to have to make the 3 1/2 hour drive back to Bayfield to round up the BC's that were not there so we could play. However, because he was willing to do this, the tournament director agreed to accept what we had and let the others slide. So now we can play.....

3. We play Rio Rancho, an ABQ team that creamed us last year in the 6th grade tourn and hung with them well this year. We end up getting beat by 5 points and were 2 yds from making a touchdown close to the end. Very disappointing.....

4. We go to check out, and our room has been charged $25 extra for Wi-Fi (Wireless Internet).......MASON!! He used it on his Ipod. Wi-fi is free everywhere we've stayed! Now we are at one of the nicest hotels ever and we get charged per day.....UGGGGG!! I will start a campaign against that hotel. I mean, if you don't have enough double bed rooms when people make the reservation, tell us only king is available so that we can find another place to stay comfortably. But no, their philosophy is let's get them here so they're stuck with the bill whether they stay or not....BAD BUSINESS!!

5. Sunday's game scheduled for 1 pm....the team forfeited. Now what? It was up in the air for a while, but one of our players had a cousin on the El Dorado team and they agreed to play us after their game. So while the game didn't count, we were thankful for their willingness to play a 2nd game and get home later.

6. We lost that game as well by 5 points and 2 yds away from a touchdown when the time ran out. UGGGGG!

So football is officially over now. There were some good things that came out of the weekend like a little shopping, Mason made 3 touchdowns, and the celebration of Mike's 42 birthday!! We ate out and he got steak and a free dessert and got sung to by the staff!

Here are some pics of the weekend....... I LOVE THIS SHOT!

There was a time that we never thought we would ever see a picture like that! Mason has always been good at baseball and basketball, but because of his heftiness when he was younger, he was not a fast runner and being a wide receiver was out of the question! Now he's thin and is the fastest runner on the field! Amazing!

Here he's fixing to catch a pass and make a TD!

Miss Haven got to go to Build-a-Bear and this is what she picked out....

It's Clarisse, Rudolph's girlfriend! Thanks Nuna and Mama Kaye!! (This is where your birthday money went to)

If you have never been to Albuquerque, it has this beautiful mountain/rock over to the left and the city was formed around it. It is so gorgeous and this picture does not do it justice but here is the view from the field we were on......

Too Cute!

OK this was too cute not to post......this is Haven's horse balloon she ordered for her birthday

She was pretty proud of it.....the night after her party, we caught her like this.....

She had the horse (balloon) covered up and lying down beside her in the floor, just talking away to it!! So cute!!!

We had our first snow last week

It's gone now......(.temporarily!)

VSL Party

I'm not a fan of Halloween, but we let our kids dress up to go to the Vallecito Service League Kid's Party so this is for the grandparents to see.....our little Cowgirl, Landon is an alien, and Mason was....well....Mason!

Haven running over to the party from our house.....

Interesting food.....

This is Haven's friend Brady who is a boy but dressed up as Tinkerbell as a joke! He sure was a pretty Tinker! And he won the funniest costume award!

Haven's "Cowboy Swim" Party

Haven's request for a party this year was a Cowboy Swim Party. This meant she wanted cowboy plates and cake at the Durango Rec Center. I prayed for nice weather and her birthday being in November, you never know what the weather will be like. But God answered my prayers the way I needed Him to and it was a nice day, except for a little wind. So we started the party out on the playground next to the Rec Center.

Mrs. Joy Brooks from our church made Haven's cake again this year and didn't she do a great job!! It was so cute!!

The kids had a blast at the playground......below is Haven with friends Brady and Maddie Mae

More friends...Gwennie and Tommie Jane...

Haven had 9 friends at the party....aren't they all sooooo cute!

Present time!!!

After cake and presents, we all went inside the Durango Rec Center for a little swim....

Below is Annie, Alaina, Haven and Maddie in the fun kiddie pool

Jack, Gabbie, and Annie

The boys had a blast as well because many of the siblings of Haven's friends came along. Here they are playing some water basketball...

They have a rope swing that looks like so much fun....



I'll be the first to admit that I am not good at hosting a birthday party. It was a little hectic but Haven thought it was the greatest ever. It was such a blessing that everyone invited was able to come. When your family is not around to come to a birthday party, I tend to worry that no one will come and I worry about inconveniencing people. But despite my worries (which helped nothing!), people came out and it made us feel loved and I thank them for that. Haven's friends are so special to her and she really cherishes time with each one of them. I felt so blessed that we had that many to invite. So my little pumpkin is 5 now and I've got one birthday party down and 2 to go in the next 2 months! Thanks to all who came out to share Haven's special day with us!

Ask, Seek, Knock

There have been many aspects of living in Colorado that have made it a tough transition, but I'll have to say that the hardest part is when a family member is sick. The distance is just so far, and trying to determine whether to try to be there or not is heart wrenching! I felt this way when my Aunt Gail was dying back in January, when my mom was in hospital recently, and this weekend when my Dad was facing an amputation. Last minute tickets from here to there are $700 per person or more. I struggled with wanting to be there for my daddy for this surgery. He was told that they would try to get the infection under control and talk Monday about the surgery. Therefore, we didn't know when the surgery would be. I had planned Haven's birthday party for today, Sunday the 7th so I knew I could not go on Sunday because the only flights out of Durango on Sundays are early morning flights. So then, if I flew in on Monday, what if they did the surgery on Monday and I totally missed it anyway. My fear was that he might not make it through this, that the infection would take over and I'd be 24 hours away. So I had to just turn it over to God, and ask Him to make it very clear to me what I should do.......

When I got out of church this morning, there was a message on my phone from my Daddy's wife, saying that he came through the surgery fine. What???!!!! They had already performed the surgery? Indeed they had because Daddy had been in so much pain last night. What a relief to know he had come through it fine. Then I realized that God clearly answered my prayer. The surgery had already happened and Daddy did well. Praise God!

Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

He plainly tells us to ask, seek, and knock and His will will be revealed. Daddy has a long road to recovery and will go through the process of grieving the loss of his leg. He does not have diabetes but a poor circulation problem that caused this so please continue to remember him in your prayers. Love to you all!

Lori

Prayer for my Dad

This is my dad, James Richardson. Over the past 6 months or so, he has had 3 surgeries on one of his legs. His circulation is poor and they have replaced veins to improve that. Unfortunately, he continues to have problems and a severe infection has formed, causing the need for amputation from the knee down. He will be facing this at the beginning of next week. Please pray for him, that the infection will be contained, that one day he will be able to walk again, and that the joy of the Lord will strengthen him and prevent depression. Thanks you!

Happy 5th Birthday to Sweet Haven!

Today my baby turns 5! Happy Birthday to Haven who was an answer to prayer because God knew the desire of my heart to have a little girl! And she got her new "Hello Kitty" bike because she loves cats and changed her mind on what kind she wanted!

And she can go fast!

We made cupcakes with sprinkles this morning to celebrate.....

And her party will be a "Cowboy Swim" party at the Durango Rec Center on Sunday (Yeah, we planned this around a football and basketball game on Saturday and then they called Monday to say that the football game had been changed to 1 pm on Sunday...oh well...Haven comes first on this one!)

Landon's Basketball

Basketball for the Bayfield Rec has begun for Landon and his Dad is his coach! He wasn't going to play this year because he didn't like his coach from last year so Mike gladly volunteer to coach a team this year and this made Landon soooooo HAPPY!

We played our first game Saturday and you could just see the self-confidence oozing out of Landon like never before. He played 100% better than ever before. What a difference a coach can make!

We lost by 2 points and Landon was the high scorer on our team. While he has never really enjoyed sports like Mason, he is LOVING it this year so I hope his confidence continues to build and he can really feel good about the effort he is putting forth!

They got to dress up at school last Wednesday and Landon was "Struck by Lightening"....so funny!