Holiday Favorites

Celebrating Christmas in the DR....

Hugging Cristina.....

Family time at the Grandparents....

Cousins.....

Bulldogs....

Home sweet home....

Holiday Hustle (or Hope)

While we celebrated family time with Wallace’s in the mountains celebrating Thanksgiving week, the Bison’s won their division of the Cancun Challenge. We were all thrilled to reunite on the homefront with an unseasonably warm day to celebrate Thanksgiving coupled with lots of outside play!

December started out under control.....



After a wonderful season of precious programs and parties for PK and 2nd graders, Willie and Ruby were headed to Mississippi for some grandparent time.

Jay was working hard and so adding in a quick trip to the DR to personally deliver Christmas gifts to Cristina and her 150+ sisters:) seemed very doable. I’d probably now characterize as back breaking after you start factoring a bit of unexpected here and there..... but well worth it I can say now that I’m safely here.

As many of you know, we collected DVD’s to give them a decent library of over 80 DVDs. They sat in a circle and cheered as we read each movie title....extra loud for Hannah Montana, Harry Potter, New Moon and Barbie…..the picture tells the rest of the story.

One unexpected opportunity was to visit house converted orphanage for about 30 boys. I was with a SCORE missionary and we were delivering gifts to the boys who had SCORE sponsors. I was totally dumbfounded to learn that only a handful of the boys have sponsors. (So, I’ll be going back there before I leave to deliver some games or something that they can ALL play with. It was sparse as you can tell from the stark white walls below.) If you are interested in sponsoring one of these boys, just contact SCORE.

info@scoreinternational.org
Phone: 423-894-7111
http://scoreinternational.org/programs/sponsor-a-child


These are boys without a sponsor that were there tonight.

Compared to boys with a sponsor...



Once again my eyes get opened...

LipscombSports.com - Scripture at the heart of Sanderson's walk

LipscombSports.com - Scripture at the heart of Sanderson's walk

Halloween 2011

Jay is Elvis every year he gets to dress up!

Our crew---Walton's & Martin's---the sweetest witches I know. Willie's objective was to be SCARY--accomplished. Ruby was a Greek Festival dancer.

Oh, here's Ruby as a ninja--pre-Halloween party!

And, Willie went to the pre-Halloween party as Robert Boyd- one of our players.

Life goes Fast!

Whoa! It's been a minute since I've been able to document the Walton's happenings....well, okay almost 2 months. Since Willie's football tournament is postponed for the weather this weekend, I have unexpected time on my hands to post some pics and update this family's blog.

Lots has been happening and I wish I could pour every little detail here of all that the Lord has been teaching and showing our family. One day we'll be able to share it all. In the meantime, I've got to fill the gap in our family blog or when we're old we will just wonder....what in the world were we doing:)

The last 2 months have held some of the most precious memories for our family with Cristina in Nashville. What a beautiful privilege to have her here in our home. She's back in the DR now looking forward to hopefully coming back soon for her studies. May it be fast!

Willie has spent most of his time on the field for FLAG football field or soccer. (Or chess club!)

a little defense...

quarterbacking....

and with Ruby, you never know what she is into, she will get away from you fast! I thought she was downstairs the other day. I went to check on her and she was in Jay's car unpacking the console and Shizzle was in the car with her...

One beautiful Sunday afternoon in October, she was dancing in backyard watching her shadow and slinging her hair in this sweet dress. I don't want these times to go fast.

Honestly, she's not fast enough on soccer field yet but Daddy was the perfect coach.

Next......Basketball season is upon us and Bisons promise to be fast! They play Tuesday night in an exhibition game.

And, while life goes fast, there's also the waiting....Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding and he will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6.

Cristina in Nashville!

Many, if not most, of you know that Cristina is in Nashville! While her journey from her life-long orphanage in the DR here to the Walton home is unfinished story, we trust in God's sovereign plan for her and rejoice daily in the blessings we are experiencing through the journey. Hope you'll enjoy some of the these fun snapshots of her first days and a her first holiday weekend in the US.

And check our updated family photos....

http://networkedblogs.com/miuYT

Please keep us in your prayers!

End of Summer in the States

In addition to Jay and I having time of our life on our DR trip (see previous posts), end of summer got hot as usual in the South which means 2 things......

1) stay in A/C and get creative. As you see, Ruby has no problem coming up with something to do even in the dog days of summer. How about just dress up your dog in a cheerleader suit???

2) or stay in the water!

Annual trip to Lake Martin to visit my dear friend Wendy and family.

These are legs of a 4 year old!!!!!



The big kids....
and baby B!

And a perfect summer day with our friend Montreal at a local splash park.

With school back in session and flag football practice starting, we welcome the crisper days to come. Summer 2011 was full of blessings!