As a foster family with little ones ages 2.5 to almost 5 years old, devotion time has radically changed from previous years, when we were a family of grown ups! Our morning devotion routine starts with gathering the family and getting the little ones seated quietly on the couch. Honestly, this is probably the most difficult part! Some mornings are finally almost effortless, but some mornings way more time is still spent on obedience than on devotions. Not to worry, this is both normal and extraordinarily valuable for the children. In fact, they may benefit as much from that training...

As a foster family with little ones 1-4 years old, devotion time has radically changed from previous years, when we were a family of grown ups! Our morning devotion routine starts with gathering the family and getting the little ones seated quietly on the couch. Honestly, this is probably the most difficult part! Some mornings are finally almost effortless, but some mornings way more time is spent on obedience than on devotions. Not to worry, this is both normal and extraordinarily valuable for the children. In fact, the toddlers probably benefit more from that training than from the actual contents...

The Wreck Report for the SS Slavonia concludes that: "The Court having carefully inquired into the circumstances attending the above-mentioned shipping casualty, finds for the reasons stated in the Annex hereto, that the stranding and loss of the 'Slavonia' was due to the default and error of judgment of the master in setting too fine a course and navigating at too high a rate of speed in such weather as prevailed when nearing land, and in placing too much reliance on two admittedly poor bearings for compass error, which were not taken by himself." After over 16 months of uneventful...

One of Our Family Christmas Traditions One of the Christmas traditions our family has done for over 20 years now is reenacting the Nativity story.  Our reenactments have taken many different twists over the years. Beginning in the early years we toddled door-to-door amongst homes of relatives asking for lodging and of course being turned away, "No room. Sorry." As we grew older we used puppets which we took to the homes of older relatives and retold the Story again. But when Pearl was almost a year old we began reenacting the Story ourselves "authentically" arrayed in various sheets, oversized...

One of Our Family's Christmas Traditions If you know our family, you know we have some odd family traditions including limiting our Christmas decorations to a nativity theme (we don’t even have a tree!) and putting off gift giving to New Years. Of all of our traditions though, Camel Bags raise the most eyebrows. “Camel what?” And so we launch into this explanation, which seems to get weirder as we go. We want to celebrate Christmas without making it about presents, but we love presents too. 🙂 That’s why our gift-giving takes place on New Years Day. Camel bags allow us...