Some of my favorite scriptures are in the New Testament in Romans.

Romans 8:38-39

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. "

So beautiful. I read this once when I was feeling really down and it raised my spirits so much. It made me realize that no matter what I am in life, where I am, or how unloved I feel - God is always there and His love is sure and perfect.  He loves me always. 

This has been a powerful scripture in my life too. 

Knowing God is on my side gives me the strength of an army, the power of angels, and 

the confidence to do all things.

Its about time for an update wouldn't you say...

First a funny story from Mason this week...

We were talking about Valentine's Day and how many Valentines 

we needed to buy for all the kids at school. 

Ellie said, "Oh and mom I want to get two Valentines for the tutors I have that help in my class."

 All of a sudden Mason said, "What?!" 

and seemed quite astonished at what Ellie had said.  

He then said, "What is a tutor mom?" 

I had Ellie explain what the tutors do in her class.  After Mason listened and soaked it in he seemed relieved.
 

He said, "Oh good.  I thought tutors were people who just tooted and tooted and tooted." 

Pretty funny - Such innocence! I was glad we could clear that up for a very confused little six year old!

 Little 100 year old man Mason
He just celebrated 100 days of school and dressed up like a little old man.
He really enjoyed wearing the fake glasses, and I enjoyed all the cuteness!

Here's some pictures from the last two months... 

 This was taken in our back yard right before Christmas

 We FINALLY got a dog! Lilly was looking for a home and since we've always told the kids

we would get a dog someday, we finally did it!

She's an outside dog (I wouldn't be able to do it any other way - I'm too much of a clean freak!)

I've always thought having a pet is a good way to teach kids about responsibility, chores, and respecting all life. 

 I'm happy to say that in our situation, I was totally right! 

Lilly has been a great addition to the family!

We had a great Christmas. We stayed home this year and didn't do any traveling.

Kinda nice actually. Grandma Bradshaw surprised us and we got to 

spend a little bit of one on one time with her, which we really enjoyed!

(I just wish I would have taken a picture!)

 

 About a week before Christmas my parents invited us and some of my other

family to an amazing dinner at their house.  We sure had a great time!

Christmas morning ... running up to see what Santa brought!

 

 Mason looking a little less than enthusiastic with his new book!

Ellie was happy for her books. We usually have one gift of books or a learning/science toy.

Good news is - its now February and the race track is still working!

Ellie got three pillows from Santa that she decorated herself with little pieces of material. 

She really had fun with it. She had two of them finished by the end of the day!

We had sooo much fun at the monthly scout activity in December. 

We arrived to find that Sis. Crystal (the Den leader) had made about 60 or more of these gingerbread houses.  

The kids got to decorate their own houses with candy and frosting!

I was AMAZED at her generosity and dedication to scouts!

It was a great experience and so much fun!

I loved having the kids home for a nice Christmas break. 

We tried to make the most of the Christmas holiday.

Sledding, movie nights at home, playing together with new toys,

sleeping in, playing in the snow and with Lilly. 

 Mason had an eventful Christmas break - he had his 3rd eye surgery and hopefully his last! (Tear duct laser surgery).  He also turned 6 which was a really fun celebration but also sad for me because my youngest is growing up WAY too fast!

 Note to self -- remember to clean kids faces before pictures. He has pizza all over his face and so do the other kids! 

We played pin the nose on the pumpkin!

 Sledding at Ucon pit (about 10 minutes from our house!)

 Mason is pretty much fearless when it comes to sledding! Even after a bloody nose, he didn't seem too worried about having fun and going down the hill!

Our winter wonderland backyard! I love the snow even though I'm starting to look

forward to spring!

Every cub scout lives for the Pine Wood Derby! 
Oscar definitely enjoyed the whole car making process and racing against his friends!

 He sanded and sanded and sanded.

 He picked out the design on google and wanted to put a Lego warrior inside. 
We added weight on the back to increase the speed!
Dad was a HUGE help of course in putting this all together. 
 

  Ta...da... he did really well this year and was in the top 5 overall!

  We've had some great times here at the Bradshaw house the 
past couple of months! We look forward to what the next few months bring! 

The Joys of the Fall

Even though there is snow on the ground here in Rigby, it is still fall until December 22! 

My son informed me of that yesterday.  So crazy because it totally feels like winter here. 

I realized I haven't posted in quite a while so I decided to 

take some time and tell the wild Bradshaw fall adventures.

Yep, we are going to have some fun here today.

First of all, lately when I ask Mason to smile for the camera he gives me his 

super crazy smile.  He thinks its funny but I have WAY too many pictures with crazy smile.

Hopefully we can move past this phase quickly. I was able to get some decent pictures, so I will share those this post.  I would hate to scare away any kids that might want to see our blog!

Now that we have tons of space and trees - fall leaves was even bigger and better than ever before!

 Oh yeah! Let the good times roll...

 Ellie took turns riding her bike and coming and jumping in the leaves.

Same with Oscar - except he would have all the kids build up the pile of leaves

and then ride his bike as fast as he could through it all.

Turned out to be super fun for everyone!

  

 

Oscar - age 9

Back to school pictures always happen in the fall.

Is it just me or have the prices become outrageous for school pictures?!

I decided it definitely wasn't worth the money. 

I use to get the pictures because I liked how the kids got the whole class picture - 

(with their classmates and friends)

they don't even have those anymore! At least not in Rigby!

So, we took some pictures at home.

I think I got a few keepers.

 

 Elaina - age 7

Mason - age 5

Thanksgiving is a huge part of fall. And so we continue with our list of fall adventures....

Our plans for Thanksgiving weren't quite as we had orginally planned,

but we were determined to have the best Thanksgiving ever!

It was after all our first Thanksgiving in Rigby, in our new home.

One of  the first things we did was decorate for Christmas the day before Thanksgiving.

Super fun and a bit challenging. We had to figure out how to keep our tree from literally 

falling over (a little bit of string attached to the curtain rod)

No disasters yet!

I suppose we could have paid some money and tried to get a new tree 

but where was the adventure in that? Or better yet, we could have cut one down
ourselves somewhere on a big mountain, but since Mike wasn't available to help
with that, we will be saving that adventure for another year!

Once we figured out the tree, we built a small army of cookie turkeys!

I guess it just seemed like the right thing to do when I suggested it to the kids.

 Mason had so much fun that one of his turkeys went missing the very first day!

The kids watched the whole process of cooking the turkey. Oscar was in awe.

Who knew it could be so exciting?

He also helped with the pies and the potatoes. 

I was so happy when we got some good snow fall and the kids had the BEST time

playing and building the biggest snowman ever!

Oh yeah! It was a feeling of victory when it was finally finished!

It took some muscle to get that snowman built & a little bit of teamwork and we made it happen!

The kids are excitedly awaiting the next big snow fall.

It has been so fun to have a huge play field of snow.

They have been talking about what they will create next!

These have just been some of the fall memories we have made this year. 

Definitely to add to the list would be biking and scooting all over the neighborhood, making best friends at school and at scouts and church, having cousins Savannah and Chase come and play, and 

seeing Grandma Bradshaw at Thanksgiving time, having grandma and grandpa Anderson over for FHE,

becoming even better friends then they were before, and the list goes on ....

Finally, to get ready for actual winter, we had some fun with our Santa hats ...