Christmas At The Ranch

**GUEST BLOGGER**

 ~ Eric Hendrickson ~ (my husband)

Since last spring, a few of my friends and I have been going to spend time with the young men at the Youth Horizons Boy's Ranch.  We had a special Christmas celebration about a month ago.

Damian, the closest bearded fella,(pictured above on the right)  had the original idea to start visiting the Ranch.  Jonathan the bearded fella (pictured below on the right, sitting at the table) and his wife with a group of guys at his table.

In the background, you can see presents that we had for the 14 guys.  Months ago, I had asked Brian, one of the Ranch counselors, what would be a good Christmas present for the guys.  He said he would love it if all the guys had a nice set of clothes to wear to church.  Our church helped make this wish come true.

JD, (pictured below, beard and hat) with his family and our buddy, Jaz.  Peace to you too brother.

My nose and receding hair line (also pictured above).  My excited kids (pictured below).

We have been visiting for months, but this was the first time our families got to meet the guys.

Present time.  Shoes and clothes aren't the most exciting gift for teenage boys, but the guys were very thankful.

Jonathan and JD, my two Antioch brothers, thank you for your faithfulness to this ministry.

  Jonathan has a talent for entertaining young kids.  He is telling a story to my daughters with his hands.

Carl has started coming out with us the past few months.  His gift of music has been a great blessing for us all as also has been his passion for the Lord.

Davi, (pictured below holding the guitar) at the time was a few weeks from graduating the program as was Andrew (in the light blue shirt a few pictures above).  These two have been with us since we started.  They will be missed and we wish them the best.  We will keep in touch.

Zachary, Chris, Jaz, Deante, Andrew, Davi, Tyler, Markiest, Malachi, Anthony, Jeramiah, Trong, James, and to those who have moved on, we want you to know what a blessing it has been to be able to get to know you and share our lives with you.  We look forward to continuing our ministry with you and  being blessed with your ministry to us.

Please click on the link below to learn more about Youth Horizons and the Boy's Ranch and what they are doing in Wichita everyday to help youth and their families.

Youth Horizons  -  please click HERE Youth Horizons

The Kinloch Price Boys Ranch  -  please click HERE The Kinloch Price Boys Ranch

Gingerbread House Building

This year's Gingerbread House building.... The Kit was a mini village kit so that meant Sarah and Phoebe each got two buildings to decorate.

Popee, Silas and Nanee got all the pieces ready.

Popee and Nanee icing glued two of the buildings together.

Eric icing glued the other two buildings together.  Next we split up.  Popee and Phoebe decorating two houses and Sarah and I decorating two houses.  This is when it turned into a friendly little competition....

Look at those serious faces.

Below are the sides of the little A-frame house Sarah and I decorated.

And, here are the four finished houses and all the house builders and decorators for 2013.  Great job crew!

Christmas With Family

We shared a wonderful weekend with my parents, brother, and Aunt and Uncle the last weekend in December.  Ernie and Judy brought along their yellow lab, Toby.  Sarah and Silas especially loved following Toby around and petting him.  I am not sure how much Toby enjoyed Silas, but he sure did tolerate him well... the hard patting on his back petting, the person laying on top of him hugs, the tail and ear pulling petting, and the constant little person looking for him and running along behind him.... What a GOOD DOG!

Looking in our stockings and opening gifts....

Silas got a BIG racetrack from Nanee and Popee for Christmas.  He instantly forgot about Toby and contently raced his cars for a significant amount of time before realizing that he had been distracted from his self-appointed job of petting and following Toby around.  (Since bringing the racetrack home - Silas LOVES to race his many cars on it.  He has it in his room, and races cars with his sisters many times throughout the days.)

While there that weekend, Silas also started to do this funny little lip suction thing... If you look closely in the two pictures below of him and his dog-buddy Toby, he has some pretty silly faces going on.  From the side, he almost looks a little like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons t.v. show.

I made my parents a t-shirt quilt.  I used all the extra t-shirts that my Dad had saved from the ALS walks that he and Mom have participated in and helped with, in honor and memory of their friend, Jeff McCloud.  It turned out very pretty!  I love the colors that I used in this quilt.  The back fabric is also the blue that is used on the front.  Each time I make a new t-shirt quilt, it becomes my new favorite.  Dad and Mom both loved this gift that I made for them.

We played some games that weekend too.

Phoebe wasn't too sure about the "Don't Spill the Beans" game.  She was a little frightened of the bean can spilling over and was very hesitate about placing any beans on the top.

What a great weekend.  On the way back to Mom and Dad's house on Sunday after church, Silas fell sound asleep.  He even let Eric carry him in and lay him on the floor in the living room.  Then stayed asleep for another forty five minutes there!  Thank you Mom, Dad, Matt, Uncle Ernie and Aunt Judy for a fun weekend!  It was so good to be together again.