Gettin all caught up-

Let's begin with amazing news!
In October, our church holds a fall retreat for the teens. This year the theme was Hide and Seek. Teaching the kids about people groups throughout the world that have to "hide" their faith (such as hosting underground churches or being undercover missionaries) and "seek" the Lord during persecution, for protection and for boldness.
I really did want her to attend, but had to get over some mama issues about her going. I took the weekend to Him many times and was really hung up about the church leaving at 10pm at night and driving hours in the dark. Over and over this was the only thing I could think about. Once I laid that down and started to focus on how much she would learn about the Lord and how the seeds of Christ would be planted, Adam and I decided it would be wonderful for her to attend the retreat. This was spiritual warfare because...
We are thrilled to say that on October 22nd, our sweet Beautiful accepted Christ as her Savior. The next day at church, she went forward on her own to follow through with baptism. We talked her through this being a symbol of dying to herself and being raised with Christ. The joy was overwhelming to see our One True Love pursue her into a relationship with Him and for her to respond to Christ's redeeming love.
(I have readers that do not understand our love for God or our relationship with Jesus. And by all means I want you to keep reading our blog, but I want to share that this is our life and my life is nothing without the sustaining Relationship with the Lord. I am proud that our daughter will have His Light in her life and protect her from the darkness of the world. Trials will come, but His Hand will never leave her.)
October brought lots of events. We celebrated a handful birthdays (including mine- 32) and made costumes for Halloween.
Nehemiah, my little Rock n Roll star, "Like yo'. Hope you got backstage tickets to my show. Catch ya later. Peace."
Avi Joy, our hot pink flamingo. Miss Beautiful was Pocahontas- she looked amazing. Too bad you can't see the pictures, frown.
Handsome boy...
Who yells a lot.
We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving with Adam's family. It was also Adam's birthday (33). Here is his mama and our niece Annabelle.
Great grandma Fern, 89 years young. Getting some kisses from her grandkids.
Then we headed out for a 5 day trip to MO, to my mom's side of the family. I completed some artwork for my cousin. I love creating special artwork- it warms my heart to give of myself in that way.
A boy playing dress-up. A bucket. (His shirt says, silly banana head. True.)
A girl playing dress-up. Princess dress, twirling, singing and jewelry.
My grand parents. He was SO ho-hum, so I started tickling his feet to get a smile. IT Worked!
On Thanksgiving day we played "Paper Corn." That is the name Avi Joy gave it. The 3 kids cut out corn cobs, made the corn spots with their fingers and glued the husks on the outside. Each person received a paper corn with their name on it. They were passed around the room and as you got each family members corn, you wrote on it what you loved about them. Then we read them out loud to one another.
On my grandma's it actually said, "Good lover." I mean WHAT?! Grandpa, seriously! I look over at him and he gives me a thumbs up. We were all in stitches to say the least. Look at my grandma's face too. Like, oh Harold, 59 years of this man.
Then our whole family (well, half actually, as only half came into town this year,) went outside for our yearly family pictures. All the pictures turned out great, but most of them have Beautiful in them and I just cannot take time to blur her face (well, I did try on one group picture but could NOT figure it out,) so anyway- here is my favorite picture of my cousin and her boyfriend.
One of the highlights of the trip (well, besides the awesome food, desserts, boardgames, late night talks and quality family time) was playing dress-up, grandma style. All the girls (me, Emily-my step-sister, my cousins Jansen and Hannah and Beautiful) all snuck into grandma's closet when no one was looking and got out "grandma around the clock".
Natasha: Grandma in her Ojama's (Obama pajamas). These are her favorite night clothes.
Emily: Grandma going to the Lady's Democratic Luncheon. (Grandma is the woman's Chaplin for MO.)
Jansen: Greatest idea ever- dressed up as Grandpa. His favorite shirt, hat and rolled up jean shorts. No one could have pulled him off better. Seriously funny.
Hannah: Grandma at the beach. Matching flamingo beach outfit.
Beautiful: Grandma going to church.
We headed home and on Dec 1st we started our Advent box. The first day was to decorate the tree. Our first Christmas as a family with Beautiful and our first Christmas in our new home. Future days include making a gingerbread house, crafts, scriptures, movies and more.
We also enjoyed day two where we talked about the scripture, "I have hidden Your Word in my heart." Then we talked about doing that so we can make good choices (not sin against You is the rest of the verse) and then we cut out hearts and hid them around the house and played hide and seek with the hearts. It was big fun, the kids really enjoyed it.

^{Philippians 2:13, "}[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight."

The Perryman's