Birthday Morning

We have a tradition at our house. Birthday boy or girl gets to choose his homemade breakfast... anything they want. In past years we have had chocolate waffles, oatmeal, cereal, pumpkin doughnuts, shaped pancakes, etc... This year Rachel wanted Daddy to make waffles. He was flattered and even put off his planned morning run to make birthday breakfast for his oldest little girl. We served the waffles with homemade berry topping, apples and cinnamon, yogurt, maple syrup and even chocolate syrup. Better than Denny's! What a great way to start the celebration! After breakfast the birthday girl got to open her gifts from mom and dad and from her grandparents. She was pleased with all of her gifts. The following video is of Rachel opening her gift from Melissa's parents. Since you guys couldn't be here, I thought you would enjoy seeing it on video.

My oldest girl turns 11!

Happy birthday to you...
Today is actually Rachel's birthday, but she had her campout slumber party last weekend so her closest friend could come. We had planned to campout near the woods at the Cornerstone mission base. However, rain forced us to improvise. We set up the tent in the newly built sunroom. We decorated the table and built a rock "fire ring" for our electric grill to be our camp fire. After the guests arrived, we sang happy birthday and ate the camping themed birthday cake. As a side note, the cake was a lot of fun to make. Other birthday events included gifts, roasting marshmallows over the "fire," watching a movie and playing wild horse. In the morning the girls made pancakes together, then went out in the chilly air to play. Rachel really enjoyed her party! Thanks to all who had a part in it!

Our newest pet

Meet the newest pet in the Trimble home: a praying mantis. We are enjoying this unique creature that God made. We caught it at Cornerstone after prayer one day. The girls have fittingly named it "warrior." A week before catching it, another prayer missionary found a mantis eating a baby snake. We thought it was a good prophetic picture of the "pray-er" or one who prays having victory over our enemy, Satan, symbolized by the snake. We don't know if we caught that same mantis or a different one. Anyway, we brought the mantis home and have been taking care of it for a week or so. We catch flies and put them into the cage live. Then the mantis hunts it, catches it and eats it. It is gross but fascinating. The following videos are rare footage of the actual hunt and eating of the prey. The first video is of the mantis hunting. He misses in this video but you can get the idea. I wasn't quite quick enough to film him actually catching the fly. The second one is him eating that same fly. The videos are not National Geographic quality cause I am still learning to use this crazy camera, but I know someone who reads our blog will like them.

video...finally

This video is of Silas playing chase with Keenan. The boys love to play together. Silas is already learning "boy stuff" from his brothers. As I was starting this blog, Silas was grunting (his way of asking for something) for a sword. He goes to the fridge where we keep them and points to the top and grunts persistently :) He also likes to wrestle. Beware lying on the floor. He will run (as best he can, which is cute in itself), smile a big smile and jump right on you!