Viking Ships, Video Chats, and Other Thanksgiving Joys

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!  I know it was yesterday, but we continue to give thanks today.  In fact, I have a rather severe chest cold, which meant that I am not participating in Black Friday this year.  I'm SO thankful for the excuse to stay in my jammies all day, blogging and watching football.  It's cheaper this way, too.  :-)

There are a few fun stories from this week.  The boys have been learning about the Vikings in history.  On Monday they spent time coloring pictures of Viking longships.  I confess that I started the Christmas music on Monday also.  My chest cold had started and I needed the pick me up.  At least that's the excuse I'm using.  The results were the multi-cultural experience of listening to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass while coloring pictures of ancient Viking sailing vessels.  Educational fusion, people.  It's the latest thing.  Okay.  I made it up, but it sounds good, doesn't it? I made a video, but it won't upload.  Perhaps I'll post it on You Tube and share the link...

In addition to the picture of the Viking longship, Luke also made a cut-out paper version.  It turned out pretty well.  Luke was especially excited to learn that the Vikings sometimes used gold to cover the scary dragon heads on the bow of their boats.  A bright yellow colored pencil took care of that business.  Check out the results.

A boy and his boat

The boat's permanent home on Luke's dresser

 On Tuesday, the boys were able to do a video chat with Grandma.  She read to them and showed them the cacti in her Palm Desert garden.  They had a blast.

Chatting with Grandma

 Thanksgiving was a great day here.  We started with the creation of the traditional Bangsund Thanksgiving Tree, a process that begins with the cutting up and crumpling of MANY brown paper grocery bags.

This guy likes to cut and crumple stuff.

As does this guy.

 Once the tree begins to take shape, the leaves begin to appear.  Luke finished his first.  You can't see it in the picture, but this leaf says, "I'm thankful for my brother" in super sweet seven-year-old handwriting.  It also includes a stick figure drawing of Paul.

Nothing sweeter

 And I'm pretty sure you can clearly see that this leaf says, "Paul is thankful for Super Mario 64."  Yes, it's a video game.  And yes, he's holding a bowl of Chex Mix.  I love Thanksgiving.

I'm saving this leaf forever because it cracks me up.  :-)

Our tree continued to collect leaves over the course of the day, but my favorite addition was the bird's nest in the crook of the lowest left limb.  In January of last year, my friend Betsy gave me a jar with some pretty slips of paper and a pen for recording and keeping answered prayers.  The slips of paper in the nest are all the prayers I remembered to record the answers to from our little lives.  Many shared God's provision for homeschooling, Roots, and BSF, some showed His comfort given in difficult circumstances, and one shared the Lord's hand over Erik's job, protecting him from layoff this past January.

"Praise be to you, Lord,
    the God of our father Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting.
¹¹ Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
    you are exalted as head over all.
¹² Wealth and honor come from you;
    you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
    to exalt and give strength to all.
¹³ Now, our God, we give you thanks,
    and praise your glorious name."

1 Chronicles 29:10-13 

Our lives are filled with answered prayers nestling in the branches of our Thanksgiving tree.  We are grateful.

 Here we are ready to eat our Thanksgiving meal together.  We used paper plates because I found these turkey plates in my bin of fall decorations.  Love it.

Yum!

I took this because both boys had turkey and cranberries on their plates.  After the click, I saw Paul's face.  LOVE IT!

 Later in the day, we Skyped with my sister in New York.  It was crazy.  Imagine my boys plus Nikki's boys (Joe, almost 6, and Rory, 3) all in the same room and able to see themselves on screens.  Oh. My. Goodness.  All four boys spent most of the time interrupting each other and the parents.  It's not really about the conversation, is it?  It's about Joe sharing his passion for trains and Paul joining in while Rory runs around in the background and Luke makes faces at himself.

Three-fourths of the Lansing Fam with the Bangsunds teeny tiny in the corner.  :-)

We finished our day by heading to the Willseas for dessert eating, game playing, hymn singing and hard laughing.  It was awesomely awesome.  We were there until just after 9pm and the boys were absolutely stellar.  No arguments.  No fussing.  No whining.  Paul did not want to leave at the end, but other than that, he did great.  What a huge blessing!  The boys really love these people, and I can pretty confidently say that these people love them.  At one point, the 8-year-old girl led our boys and the 3-year-old boy through the dining room wearing animal hats.  She is clearly a very capable zoo keeper.  Meanwhile the adults played games, including a new favorite called Suspend, sang hymns, and enjoyed great fellowship.  I shared with John and Holly as our evening drew to a close that this is one of the only houses on the planet where we are able to extend our evening like this.  Our friendship with them is simply one of Jesus' sweetest gifts to our family.

Today we continue to be thankful for all we have.  We awoke to a rather cold house because the furnace had stopped working sometime in the night.  It was about 62 degrees in the back half of the house.  BRRR!  This turn of events made me crazy thankful for my warmest sweater and the fact that we are not homeless, out in the cold and the elements.  We have all stayed bundled all day, and Matt, our personal heating and cooling expert from Petra Heating and Air Conditioning, is coming by in about an hour.  Pretty awesome.