The Holidaze are here!

Yesterday's Thanksgiving at mom and Steve's was good stuff. I was so excited to have some turkey, that when I finally was able to grub on some I had about six slabs of some turkey breast! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! People say that the white meat is too dry, but I love it even so. Mom made her usual veggie stuffing which is good (sorry though, mom, I like StoveTop better, but hey, how many dishes do you totally annihilate the competition otherwise?), some potatoes and veggetarian gravy, sweet potatoes (PUKE!), some cranberry/orange dessert, and of course the awesome rolls. I made the green bean casserole (which seems to be my staple at any gathering), even though mom bought the ingredients and wouldn't let us. Grrr. I got my fill, and made sure the kids did as well. We had a nice time with mom, Steve, Steve's kids, and a friend from our old church. Belinda had to miss out on the gathering because she had to work. She was sorely missed, but we made sure she had a plate of some real Thanksgiving food. She said they fed her a Turkey day meal at work, but I don't know how it could compete with a homecooked one. After the meal, the kids all played in the toy room, while Evan sat on my lap and the rest of us watched football. Turkey and football...is there a better combination?????? Yes there is...add cold weather to mix, which we actually had, and it was perfect! The nap made it even more perfect when Evan and I snoozed on the chair. Again though, it still wasn't complete without B there. I hate that she had to work on a holiday.

Speaking of Evan...that boy is on the move! HIDE THE BREAKABLES!!! He is army crawling, and even crawling like normal some times, all over the house now. He's reaching up for things higher than him. He's trying to get into baskets and toy bins. He can sit up on his bottom all by himself as well. He'll even stay there and play with toys for a long while if he's interested. He is getting so big so fast. I don't remember any of the other children growing so big so fast. He's 7 months old tomorrow, and he's in 18 month clothes because he's so long! I think he's almost out of them as well, unless the clothes we have are just shrinking in the wash a bit. Who knows. I just know I have another big boy! :)

Poor lil' Evan and Braden have been sick the past few days. Evan is waking up a TON during the night, so B and I are getting next to no sleep. Braden is sleeping, but has a bad cough and his voice is coarse. I guess this happens a lot down here because of the fast cold fronts that come through...where it's 70 one minute and then 40 the next (which was the case Wednesday). He's still a trooper though. I don't know what it would take to knock that kid out!

Avery had a school play last week, where they saluted American troops. It was so cute to see him sing the Navy anthem, among the rest as well. He was the main flag bearer who held the American Flag in front of everyone as we sang the anthem, then he switched to the Navy flag when they came down the main aisle saluting each force. That was pretty cool. A did such a good job. And the boy can dance! He got that from the soul in me. I told him he needs to get into some dance squad or something. It's crazy how well he can do it, and we don't even watch Mtv in our house!

Jaelyn is working on her attitude lately, and for the most part doing really well! We started doing a "star" system, where she gets one star a day, and if she can get at least four stars a week (for now, soon to be upgraded to five, six, until we get to seven), she'll earn something special for her and possibly all the children. It will be a non-monetary gift for the most part...like a trip the cool park that is a few miles from our house, one on one get away time with her mom or myself, maybe a trip to the zoo, etc. Her first week started great, then had a rough patch, but she ended up with enough stars! Her second week has gone even better, with already getting five stars and having two days left in our week! I'm so proud of her! Her class at school had a "Thanksgiving Feast" on Tuesday at noon. I went and was shocked, because they said it was after their lunch, and I was told they would be eating their lunch, so when I got there and saw that an entire Thanksgiving spread was there to eat, including turkey, 'tatoes, etc, I was shocked to think how they could do that when those little children's tummies don't have any room! I had even eaten lunch, thinking it would just be something small, so I apologized that I couldn't eat much more. It sure looked good though, and Jaelyn was beaming from ear to ear when I showed up! She told us the night before, so I wasn't sure if parents could actually come, and if I could even come. B had to work, so I really wanted to make sure she had a parent. About half the kids had parents who came, and you could tell the kids who's parents didn't come were a little sad. I tried to goof around with them and bring a smile to their faces. It was hilarious though...I walked into her class and even though J hadn't seen me yet, all these kids were like "HI MR SHELDON!!!" Funny! And it was cool to hear how many of the kids listen to KSBJ!

KSBJ has been amazing. We partner with a Christian satellite radio company called Sky Angel, which is like a Christian version of XM or Sirius radio, where they have tons of formats to listen to. There is a child who listens to us up in Kansas named Logan. We call him Logan the Sky Angel Cowboy. He's got such an amazing heart. Anyway, he called in and talked to our dj's a few weeks ago and said something that God laid on his heart, and it blew the dj's and listeners away. The clip was recorded by some other listeners and stations, and has been replayed all over the world in the past few weeks. So much so, that get this...our website averaged over SIX MILLION HITS DAILY!!! We were getting so many hits that it crashed our website, and crashed several other HUGE radio station sites that linked to us. It even crashed our website host, and the server cluster that was attached to ours, thus affecting even more companies! It's an unbelievable conversation and lesson from this young child. Someone put it to a video on YouTube. Follow this link and check it out and let me know what you think. God is good.



Well, I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving! It's Friday morning, and with Evan getting up so many times, I decided to head out early today, grab a Starbucks, and give a shout to all my web peeps. Stay warm, eat some leftover turkey, and give thanks for all you're blessed with. I thank God for Jesus, for saving me, for my wife Belinda, for my four amazing children, for my parents, and for my friends. Thank you all for making my life that much better.

If you want to listen to some Christmas music, some Adult Contemporary Christian music, or some Praise and Worship music, check us out on the web. www.ksbj.org is our web site. Enjoy!

LOVING THE COLD!!!
E