Nintendo DS for Christmas

A classic Christmas show of excitement!

Socks for Christmas

Every kid's nightmare.

12th Day of Christmas

On the 12th Day of Christmas my Savior gave to me a great day to celebrate the Gift of Himself. His sacrifice and love and plan of Salvation are all wrapped up in this celebration. We had a great time today celebrating with our children, who woke up at 4 a.m.! Wowzers. Enjoy the photos and the videos. One fun note. The dog (named Tracker) that Tanner is holding is from Blake. When Tanner was born, Grandma and Grandpa Huene took Blake to get a present for Tanner and he picked out Tracker. Tanner has slept with this stuffed dog since he was a baby. He took it to summer camp this year and lost it. Well Blake bought another one on Ebay for him for Christmas this year. Tanner said it is his favorite gift.

11th Day of Christmas

On the 11th day of Christmas 2007 my savior gave to me the excitement of getting to move into a new worship room in the very new year! The room should be ready to move into on January 13th! We are going to call it The Cove.

10th Day of Christmas

My Savior has given me this Christmas the peace knowing that my mom is with Him in heaven. This is the farewell slide show we played at her funeral.

9th Day of Christmas

Well I missed a day - yesterday I was exhausted and just forgot! So I'll post two today. On the 9th day of Christmas this year I am especially thankful for my whole family. This is my first Christmas without my mom, and at the funeral this fall it was so nice to share time with everyone, both my family and so many friends from years past. God really helped with some healing in a couple of relationships during this time too. I love this photo. Everyone is there but my mom (it was taken just before the funeral) and my brother-in-law Matt who is serving our country. All of Patsy's family has been so great during this time as well! We love you all!

The 8th Day of Christmas

On the 8th day of Christmas my Savior gave to me Snow! This morning we woke and the ground was covered with snow! OK so it was all gone by noon but it was still pretty. The boys built this snowman. More like a snow hobbit or snow gnome!

7th day part b

Yes Tanner got one too!

7th Day of Christmas

God gave our boys a great Aunt Chris who gives them fun stockings for Christmas! He has given us so many great family members who we love and cherish.

The 6th day of Christmas

This is our elementary Children's choir. They sang this song on December 16th in "big church". The preschoolers also played the bells that day. I am grateful this Christmas that my savior gave me a great staff (Robin, Sharon, Pattie, Paul and Becky) leots of great volunteers and especially tons of great kids at church. "My other kids!"

5th day of Christmas

On the 5th day of Christmas I am reminded of the talented, beautiful, funny, outgoing, supportive wife God brought into my life 13 Christmases ago! I was lucky then just like I'm lucky now!

4th Day of Christmas

On the 4th day of Christmas my Savior gave to me 4 great sons! All boys. I am so proud of Blake and Tanner and how they have opened their home and hearts to David and Chace. sure there are brother moments but far and few between. They look after them and play with them and love them. What a great Christmas gift! They even pose with Santa with them, to "help them feel better" about him. I love this pic!

3rd day of Christmas

On the 3rd Day of Christmas my savior gave to me two new sons, David and Chace, who can have a truly Merry Christmas this year. BTW - we meet with the adoption agency this Friday!

2nd Day of Christmas

On the 2nd day of Christmas my Savior gave to me plenty of food, desserts, a great (and pretty) cook and spacious kitchen! :)
You gotta love guilt free eating during December!

1st day of Christmas

12 more days of the Christmas season left do I am going to do something a little crazy. I am going to attempt to post a video or picture each of the 12 days. Each one will have something I can say my Savior gave to me this year. So the first day my Savior gave to me David's first ever christmas performance, a great preschool, a great staff that works for me wassial! I do have a great recipe for wassial (which I doubt I will share).

Merry Christmas from your Awana leaders card

Click on the title of this post (above) for the "Christmas card" we showed on December 12th to the kids in Awana! It was a great party!

Elf time

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1174841740

Hit on this link for some holiday cheer from our family!

The Bridge

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=13a4a045cd290bc2ae2d

We started our new series in Kid Kove Sunday called the Gift. Sunday's main idea was that God gave the Most. I showed this clip from Godtube (see above link). We had a fairly emotional response from some kids - including my two oldest. I had some good conversations with Blake and Tanner afterwards, which led me to feel good about my choice in showing this video. The room was very quiet when we showed the video- pin drop quiet. My feeling was that sometimes the true story of Jesus gets so sugar coated and we take it for granted - even kids do. This was a real reminder or picture of what God actually did. It is unsettling, but sometimes even kids need to be "unsettled". In perspective I would say we showed this clip to the elementary aged kids and had surrounding discussion both before and after the clip. We had a lite and funny skit and a magic trick and a power point so it wasn't all "heavy". Needless to say this was not without controversy. Parents have been supportive yet concerned, which I appreciate. I am interested in the constructive comments you might have in my choice to show this clip. Also I urge anyone to watch this to bring back the true meaning of Christmas to all of our hearts! Any parents attempting to clean up after a children's pastor can also watch it and get a good idea of what we watched.
One other God thing about yesterday and this clip. Pastor Ott and I never talked but while I was showing this clip in Kid Kove he was telling the story in the adult service! It gives me goosebumps!

Monster tree

We cut down our tree Sunday as we are in the process or transforming our home into a Christmas wonderland. This has been our tradition for 14 Christmases (or is it Christmasi?).

We cut down the biggest most garantuan tree we have ever gotten this year. Of course we had to hall up hill to our van. Thanks to Blake, Tanner and even David for helping me haul it. It is a full 8 feet tall and very full. Patsy is standing next to here, although you can't see the bottom.
After we set the tree up star, our cat found a comfortable and sweet smelling place to sleep. She didn't appreciate the flash though.

Since the tree is too tall for our star this year Blake decided to be a be the star himself!

Mysteries of the Realm Part 10

The last and final Mystery of the Realm! Great job Richard! Thanks to my wife, Blake and Tanner and Slidey!

We had a very nice time

My sister Rachel and her four kids came up for Thanksgiving and we had a great time.

It was pretty decent outside so the older kids played outside in the leaves and in the fort and on the trampoline. We sort of did "Black Friday", but not too much.

Patsy went to K-Mart at 6:30 for one particular sale and at 9:00 a.m. I went to Lowe's and Home Depot and AC Moore for Christmas decor. I thought I would post a few fun pics from the day.

Luke was all dressed up as a little pumpkin!

David and Chace got into the Historical nature of the holiday!

What I am thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I am thankful for so much including my savior, my family, my health and my job! Bu this Thanksgiving I want to say thanks to the troops who are fighting for our freedom! Thanks to my brother-in-law Matt who is serving in Afganistan

Mysteries of the Realm Part 9

The end of Grogon

Awana Grand Prix 2007

A view of our track. We have a pretty nice one and the metal always works nicer than wood. You can hear a "competetive parent" getting into it! :)

1st and 2nd place

We held our third annual Awana Grand Prix today. It was fun although a bit anti-climatic for me. Our participation was way down. Maybe it was too close to Thanksgiving. We may move it to February next year. Anyway Blake came in 1st in design and Tanner 2nd in design in their age group. Tanner had the fastest car of the two and finished fourth overall in his age group, but 4th doesn't get a trophy. The best thing about it they have two more cool cars to play with. Tanner wanted a Sponge Bob car and Blake wanted Luke's Sandspeeder from Star Wars. They came pretty close I think.

Three years of grandprix racing - all six trophy winners.

Blake's Sandspeeder next to the model (A Burger King toy).

Does he really think he is cool? C'mon!

Sponge Bob Square Pants!

Such a great smile!

Bug Night

Last night was Bug Night in Awana. We have never done this them night before and it's a little more difficult for today's busy mom, but overall it was cute. Not as many participated as some other nights we have done. I am messing around with a new program so enjoy the collages.

Mysteries of the Realm Part 8

Drako was a big hit in this one!

De ja vu' all over again

It's funny how little things hit you after you have lost someone. We showed this picture of my mom and us three kids during a video at my mom's funeral. Then a few days alter we are going through the Swiss Family Robinson tree house at the Magic Kingdom with my own family. Blake and Tanner were up ahead a little and looked down and said hi Dad! I snapped the shot and felt this wave of both sadness and joy come over me. It was a nice memory. Like a gift from God saying you have the memories Marty, now be a great dad! Please no comments on my socks!

Mysteries of the Realm Part 7

Week 7 of 10. Our snake Slidey got a little hyper in this epidsode. No fears though, he does that once in awhile when you hold him and then settles down.

Mysteries of the Realm PArt 6

From October 28th. There will be a total of 10 in the series. Remember these are supoosed to be hokey and non-professional.

The Real Pirates movie

The new Veggie Tales movie comes out January 11th. I have to admit it, I am really pumped to go and see it! We are kicking around the idea of doing a private Parkway screening for this like we did The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Stay tuned and check out the teaser from Kidology.

Trunk or Treat

I know I said last year I didn't want to do a Trunk or Treat, but we did it this year. What can I say October 31st is on a Wednesday. Well it was a big hit! We had over 50 cars there which was nice because we had lots of kids. We also had a costume contest and the student ministry sold eats so overall it was a good night with low amount of work and money invested. Anyway the Martins went as Star Wars characters. No pictures because our camera's batteries were no good but we have some from our Disney vacation when we went trick or treating at the Magic Kingdom.

Mysteries of the Realm Part 5

From October 21st

WDW Pictures at last

I finally got some pictures up on the blog from our Disney trip. Sorry it has been a little crazy since we got home. The weather was really nice - no rain and in the 80s and we had a terrific time. It was nice to get away and nice to come home after 16 Days! We totally loved our condo down there though.
Also Patsy had her birthday yesterday - so be sure to wish her a happy day!

Mysteries of the Realm Part 4

Part 4 of the series shown October 14th

Mysteries of the Realm Part 3

Part three from October 7th

Mysteries of the Realm Part 2

From week 2 which was actually September 30th thanks agian to Richard Maddox for the diting and for my family for providing voices and props!

Mom's funeral

the oldest 7 grandchildren sang at my mom's funeral. All 11 of them gathered in her room and sang Jesus Loves Me and Awesome God in her room on her last day as well. It was all so sweet.

Stick bug

Check out the bug Patsy and the boys found. Homeschooling 101!

Haircut day

We had haircut day at our house this week. It was actually Chace's first haircut. At our house all the men have our own personal hairstylist. Poor Patsy has to leave the home. It has gotten so bad that Blake has made these standards for a future wife: Someone who likes him, someone who can cook and someone who can cut his hair. Enjoy the photos.

Mysteries of the Realm Part 1

This was our first video in our Mysteries of the Realm series. We had a great first week. We need to get a better camera though!

Newest family member

Last week our family welcomed our newest member to the world when my sister Rachel had her fourth baby Luke. The really cool thing about it was my brother-in-law Matt, who is in Afganistan as a chaplian in the army, was in the States here for leave. God really worked it out for him to be here for the birth! Anyway Luke is prabably a better name for my nephew than Chewbacca or Darth Maul. Good choice guys!

New series

We start a new series in Kid Kove starting September 23rd. It will be themed with knights, castles, ladies and dragons. We will have a plaything parable each week. We will be using some of Blake and Tanner's Imaginext Toys. Hopefully we will post them each week here!