Peelin' Apples

Free Ticket!

FREE! One free ticket to next weekend's Beth Moore Simulcast at the Winkler EMMC. Ticket includes a coffee & muffin breakfast as well as lunch. The first woman to contact us gets it!

The Decision

This evening I told Justin and Kaitlyn that they could stick in a video for a few minutes before bed. I told them that I didn't want them both complaining about what the other picked. "You guys agree on something and we'll put it in." I told them. As I was working in the next room I heard "We've watched enough girl movies this week!" and a lot of resistance from the other party. "You guys are going to have to work together if you're going to watch anything at all!" I shouted from the other room. Finally it became an all out fight. Of course it then came down to the unreasonable dad...who promptly closed all movie opportunities for the evening. I'd like to end this by saying that they both learned a valuable lesson about co-operation...but time will tell if they did. -CP

Is he crawling?

So, after a few weeks of pushing himself around backward and getting stuck under furniture, Dan is starting to move forward, but would you say he's crawling or not?

Zucchini Pie

5 cups Zucchini
3/4-1 cup Sugar

2 Tbsp Minit Tapioca

1/2 Tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400F.

Combine zucchini, sugar and tapioca in a pot. Stir. Let stand until juice starts to be released. Stir as you bing it to a boil over medium heat. Boil hard for 1-2 minutes. Mix in cinnamon. Pour mixture into pie shell. Place the top layer of rolled out crust over the filling. Bake for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 350F bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Enjoy!!

Katie's New Look...

A few weeks ago when Kaitlyn was asked what she wanted for her birthday, her reply was, get her ears pierced. So today we took her to Shoppers Drugmart to get her birthday present early. Here's her new look:

Human Nature at Work

This is a video taken just over a year ago, keep your eye on Charity.

Daniel

Decided it was time to introduce Daniel to the Blogging world;

Daniel James Abram Pauls

December 29, 2009

Daniel at 7 months

Time goes so very quickly!!

Tribute to Uncle Ben

I grew up living a half mile from Uncle Ben and Aunt Joy’s place. Uncle Ben is the uncle that we had the opportunity to get to know well. I think we often took him for granted because he and Aunt Joy farmed together with my parents and so he was always around. If Dad wasn’t around we’d just pick up the two way and ask uncle Ben. Some of my earliest memories of him include the bachelor pad that he and Don Gerbrandt shared in Purves, that green sprinter that he used to drive and a lot more hair than he was sporting recently. Uncle Ben taught me to wink and he taught me to spit.

Uncle Ben always enjoyed both building and playing games. One day when I was quite young Uncle Ben was lying on the floor playing a game with someone and I was busy going back and forth, climbing over him to go upstairs. He then informed me of the bears that live upstairs at grandma and grandpas house. My trips upstairs and over him were over for the evening.

When Uncle Ben and Aunt Joy built their house on the farm in 1986 I was still young but able to help too. I remember the day that Uncle Ben badly needed a tool from my parents place a half mile away so I got on the mini bike and drove home. When I described to Dad what I was looking for he laughed. Apparently Dad didn’t have a board stretcher to lend out.

Mike and I were both surprised the day that Uncle Ben told us that he was a pilot. We’d never known that before. Then he explained to us that with his backhoe he could pile it here or pile it there.

Uncle Ben loved Aunt Joy and his children: He was fascinated with Anthony and Nicole when they were born; he delighted in his little “skippy” and you would often see Eric with him in the tractor.

Uncle Ben was always inventive. He built a rope swing for the pool and a nice play structure out of a large hydro spool. As a steel worker I’ve always been amazed at Uncle Ben’s ability to look at assemblies in two completely different pieces of junk and amalgamate them into one big useable piece of junk. After every election he was sure to cash in on the wealth of election signs that were littered around the country. He used them for everything from go-carts to sun visors as long as the Liberal and NDP signs were not pointing out where people could see them.

A good joke or story never went unnoticed and he never wasted his energy stifling a laugh. He usually made sure that they were better the 2nd time around though.
My brother Mike spent a summer hoeing trees, and in payment received a Honda XR 80 which he drove for a lot of years. Uncle Ben and Aunt Joy had a lot of trees to hoe.
In the way they farmed together Dad and Uncle Ben taught us the ‘ours’ concept. Dad and Uncle Ben worked really well together. As we discussed this together Beth commented that with some of the equipment, she didn’t really know who’s it was, Dad’s or Uncle Ben’s. It seemed that Uncle Ben held all that he owned in an open hand. Both his time and possessions were free to be lent out and free to be used by God. This was evidenced in the hay that went to camp, the commitment he had to working at clubs, the camp workdays that he participated in and the many times that he lent us a truck, a trailer or other stuff.
I’m so glad for Uncle Ben that he’s in heaven now. I’m so glad that we don’t need to worry about him, but rather about ourselves and how we’re going to do without him. So what about heaven? Isn’t that just something people say at funerals to make themselves feel better about their lost loved ones? What did Ben Pauls do so good that he gets to go to heaven? The answer is quite simple: nothing. Uncle Ben was a good man to be sure but Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That means that all of the good that Uncle Ben did wasn’t enough to buy him a ticket to heaven, he still fell short of the glory of God. In Ephesians 2 we’re told that our salvation is a gift of God given to us through our faith in Jesus. Uncle Ben isn’t in heaven today because of the good man he was, he’s in heaven today because he accepted that gift from God as a youngster at Winker Bible Camp. The good that he did was his response to the gift God had given him. If you haven’t put your faith in Jesus Christ then you’re not prepared to die. I don’t believe that Uncle Ben knew it was his time to die. His tractor door was open and the radio was on. It was a routine type of day but Uncle Ben was ready. Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? Are you ready?

The 2010 model

5+1=6
That's the email we sent to our friends recently. Yes we are expecting. Hope to meet the next edition in Jan 2010.

Wordless Wednesday

What a blessing....

They're growing up.

I'm not sure how God accomplishes this, but our kids are growing up. It's fascinating to see them develop, learn and change. It's fun to watch their excitement and hard to see them learn in their dissapointments.

Justin is 6 now, in grade 1. He enjoys school...I never liked school. A few weeks ago we were listening to CFAM to see if school was on or off. "Is my school closed?" he asked. "No. School is still on." "Yessss!!" he replied. (If I had done this, my parents would have rushed me to the hospital to have me checked out). It's fun to see Justin enjoying his friends and classmates. He's very social. Justin is a little man with agressive play habbits but with a soft heart. I love to listen to Justin pray. I'm always amazed at the depth of his prayers, prayers that are not copies of what we pray but prayers that reflect his own gratitude and concern.

Kaitlyn is 3 going on 15. She's a girl. She likes to dress up, she likes to be cute. When she get's dressed up for church on Sunday she likes to present herself to Dad. Dad enjoys approving of his little Cutester. I think people view Kate as being older than she is because her speech is very advanced for her age. Though she pretends to be shy sometimes, in reality none of our kids are. Katie is very bold and has a powerful personality. We're excited to see how God will use her in the future. In the present it creates regular showdowns when deciding "who's the boss". Dad vs Cutester can look very similar to planets colliding.

Charity is our resident 1-1/2 year old goof. She's at that stage where she's either sleeping or "on the move". For quite a while we've noticed that Charity has a twinkle in her eye (I can never figure it out, she's got very dark brown eyes that are...bright) and a smirk in one corner of her mouth. Over the past two months or so I've heard Charity say "Daddy" to her mom (when I was out of sight), but she would never call me Daddy to my face. "Can you say "Daddy"? I ask. "Mama" she replies...every time. When we're praying together, often she'll say "Amma" (her version of "Amen") a few times before we're done. I guess she's not a fan of long winded prayers.

I'm blessed that I can honestly say that I like my children. I like talking with them and being with them. I enjoy their characters and personalities. I find it exciting to watch them turn into something new...daily. In the past I've been scared of praying for faith because with faith comes trials. I'm seeing that the benefit of faith far outweighs any trials that God may put into our lives. My prayer for my kids is that they will become people of faith and people of prayer.

CP

Our long weekend

This last week I took some time off of work and we headed to the Winter Fair in Brandon on Thursday. The kids had a good time with the "Through the farm gate" portion of the fair, petting animals etc. We were happy to be able to spend some time with Grandma Pauls, Grandma Irving, Trevor, Jamie and Brooklyn. Thursday evening we made the second leg of our trip to Saskatoon to help Netties sister Anna move back to Manitoba. Since everything was full in Brandon anyway we spent the night in Virden. As I was checking into the motel I asked about the "Infestation Warning" with a picture of a maple bug that was on the wall. The lady cut eye contact and then said something about how good it is that they die in Winter...I decided not to tell Nettie until we left the next morning.

On Friday we headed out to Saskatoon with a 3 hour lunch break at Chuck-E-Cheeses in Regina. The kids had a great time playing games though we'd all had our fill by the time we left.

We had a good time visiting and packing stuff up with Anna, our van was full to the ceiling and we had some extra stuff roped to the top. We left on Sunday after the farewell lunch at Anna's church. We'd done a 4 part drive to Saskatoon which we did in one shot on the way back. The kids were good the whole way back (the movies helped...Thanks grandma P). Nettie had to talk to me to keep me awake toward the end of the drive. We arrived home shortly after 1am. Even though she was asleep we could hear Charity quietly giggle as we put her into her own bed. I didn't blame her, I felt the same.

CP

Raising your kids without raising your blood preassure

This weekend we went to a wonderful weekend parenting confrence that was hosted by the Winkler Ministerial at the EMM Church. The fee was $15 per adult, childcare was free and lunch was provided. What mennonite could resist? When Charity rejected the childcare option, grandma and grandpa Dyck along with auntie Sara stepped in and took her with them on Saturday. And Auntie Barb spent Friday evening with Charity.

The speaker this weekend was Christian commedian Phil Callaway.

He spoke very much to our situation. We have some very lively kids and we often wonder "what are we doing wrong? Why do those parents ignore their kids and they sit still while ours run and run...." We were encouraged to hear stories about how there is light at the end of the parenting tunnel. Actually, I laughed until I ran out of air a few times.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

If we'd had the camera out

If we'd had our camera out this morning, our blog would be something like this.

This is a picture of Nettie and I waking up this morning. This is Nettie telling Chris to remember that it's garbage day.

This is a picture of Chris, hearing a low rumble from outside.

Here I am without a jacket running down the ice covered lane after the garbage truck. (note the -22 degree temp on the thermometer in the foreground). If you look closely on the left side of the picture you can see the people in those cars behind the garbage truck are staring at me.

Here I am walking back up our lane carrying a full garbage can and a bag. (notice the slumped shoulders and the defeated look on my face).

Wordles Wednesday

Please Pray......

Chris' friend Charles had a liver transplant on February 12. All was going well till last night when he started to bleed, so please remember him in your prayers. Here is the last update from Christine (Charles' wife):



Quick update from the hospital: Charles is still stable enough that people are not panicking--which is good, but they still have not found out where the blood is coming from, and it IS still coming, though more slowly--which is not so good.
He's been transferred back to the Organ Transplant Unit, which I had thought we were finished with...if he has to be in the hospital at all, this is a very good place to be...sigh. They are figuring out right now what they need to plan and prep for next, since the gastro scope did not show anything useful--again, both good and not great in that they need to keep looking. Please pray that they do a good job of managing his condition while they figure things out, and that they WILL figure things our as soon as they reasonably can.
A bonus for us: quite a few of the med staff are away at a conference for a few days, but our lovely coordinator is still here--too bad for her, since the conference is in Banff, but good for us/me, since she could probably talk me through pretty much any crisis I needed to navigate! The young physician who is mostly in charge of Charles's care seems to be doing a good job in his own way...
I think Charles is most discouraged by the news that he will probably not be allowed to eat for a while...somehow that's tangible, personal, and hard for him to hear.
He is working on his loom knitting, though--two projects on the go already! =)
More later...



If you would like to read more check out the journal entries here:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/cschroeder

Valentine's Day Party

On Saturday Feb 14, we held our 8th annual valentines party. Every year we invite a number of our un-attached friends for an evening of food and table games. This year the turnout was good.

Making the heart treat boxes:
Look Janet peeled an orange............

In the past the meal has generally been chilli on a bun, but this year Nettie, Sara, Barb and Mary put together a mystery meal complete with options like "Farmers Friend" (water), "Rippers delight" (a knife) and "David's Geometry" (our main course, shepherds pi...I mean pie). The meal was served in three courses which people ordered in advance. Some people had courses of the meal that were mostly composed of cutlery and no food, and then later they got food without cutlery.

(Nettie eating her salad with crackers as her utensils

Catherine, eating jell-o with a straw. Nobody could suck hard enough to get the stuff up the straw, so it's sort of like having one chopstick.


Mary "drinking" her jello from her plate.