Lydia Jeub has done it again, this time with the help of co-editor and big sister Cynthia Jeub. The two put together clips from the 2007-2008 competitive season in the NCFCA. Great job girls!

If you are interested in getting involved in this fantastic community, consider coming to Training Minds Ministry’s Debate Camps. Click here for more information.

Lydia put together a video of PE PLUS Field Day. Special about this year is the introduction. Dave Kemp, friend and phy ed teacher of hundreds of kids in his PE PLUS program, has been doing this for over 20 years. His mom, Pat “the clown,” recently came down with cancer. In fact, on Field Day, she was going in for her second chemo treatment, but took the time to thank everyone for their prayers. She’s full of life and has a huge heart (as you can see from her clown outfit). We’re still praying for Pat the Clown!

When we spoke in Minnesota, one mom asked how we afford extracurricular activities (the question is at the end of our Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen CD ROM). We choose one “activity night” for the entire family, most years being AWANA on Wednesday nights. With such a large family, we aren’t able to cart the kids around to individual activities all over town all at different times.

However, when a child shows considerable talent in a particular area, we are drawn to give that child the special attention needed to develop that talent. In fact, we rushed home from Minnesota to get Noah into a special gymnastics program offered by our phy ed teacher (Dave Kemp of PE+). It was a 4-day class of 2 hours each, consisting of students of all talents and years of experience.

Noah has never taken gymnastics, but in these four short days developed a routine that was a head above the rest. He truly has a natural talent. Check out the Google video below. He makes every move look so incredibly natural, and remember, he had only four days of training…

“Train up a child in the way he should go” - Proverbs 22:6a

Isaiah, my oldest son, turned 12 yesterday. I plopped my Macbook on the dinner table and took a video of his blowing out candles (see below). It is so neat to see so many faces giving him their love in the house. Watch how Hannah gives Isaiah big hugs, how Keilah cheeses for the camera, and how Joshua is fascinated with the computer. All so much fun in the family.

Isaiah’s big birthday present was successfully completing Colorado Hunter’s Education Course! Friday night and all day Saturday was spent down in Colorado Springs working through the material. Isaiah studied hard the month before and was very nervous at his first “non-homeschool” exam. There was a lot on the line: limited elk draw is due April 1, and if he failed the test, he would not be able to carry a gun his first year hunting. Isaiah sweated it out and, with excellent teaching from his hunter’s safety instructor, pulled through. Lots of smiles in the Jeub home last night!

Well, the first kid is up this Easter morning as I type out this post. Easter eggs pepper the living room and each has a bowl of candy hidden for them to find. May God bless your day reflecting on the greatest gift to mankind: Jesus the Christ. He displayed ultimate love by voluntarily submitting to the scorn of men, all for our sake. Jesus has made more of an impact on the Jeub household than any person. He is alive and well, and He is the reason for the smiles in the house. God is love, and may you experience His love on this “Son Day”!

Over 600 speeches took place at the NCFCA Open Tournament in Colorado (one of three in the nation). Approximately 300 students gathered at Colorado College for a chance to qualify to the National Tournament in June.

Lydia earned an invitation to Region 3 Qualifier by breaking to semi-finals in expository speech. Her speech on amateur video making was “risky” in the respect that she depends on a video camera and our Macbook to operate correctly. She even films the judges at one point, an impressive feat.

We are very proud of Lydia and her hard work perfecting this speech. We were somewhat disappointed when she didn’t break to finals, but then we watched the final round together. There were phenomenal! We were very impressed, and we took notes for improvement. Lydia will be working hard to improve the speech in time for Regionals in Seattle. Go Lydia!

We had all these kids (only four families represented) over for a New Year’s Eve party. You’ll love this video…

The kids and I worked on a photo montage yesterday reflecting on the events of 2007. This is typically how we plan our Christmas letter. We lay out all our photos that we gathered and then come up with stories on what we did in the past year. We’re putting that Christmas letter together this week (have you sent us yours yet???). For now, enjoy the montage!

All day Saturday we attended the Colorado Junior Speech Tournament. Approximately 100 kids and their families gathered in a Colorado Springs Christian Church to compete in this small, yearly tournament. It is run totally by NCFCA students who compete in the “big league,” and the competitors are between ages 5 and 11. We had six of our kids (Isaiah, Micah, Noah, Tabitha, Keilah and Hannah) compete. We had the most children from any one family.

None of our kids broke to the finals, but that’s okay. We barely had enough time this year to memorize our speeches. Though we weren’t as prepared as we would have liked, we had a great time fellowshipping with the other families and observing the other speeches. The program of speech and debate, of which the ministry I lead centers on, is a great program for home-school families desiring to train their children for a greater purpose in life. The skills learned are second-to-none.

One of the reasons we weren’t as prepared as we would have hoped is that we just finished sending 9 kids through the Chicken Pox. Along with work and Wendy’s 9th month of pregnancy, we only had so much time for practice. Lydia was the only one without the Pox, for she wasn’t exposed until we returned from elk hunting. That was 14 days ago, so guess what happened? When we returned home last night, she had pox all over her body. According to medical professionals, the most contagious time is right before breaking out in pox. So, we exposed lots and lots of people!

Funny, last year at this time we had Whooping Cough. Everyone stayed away. This year we have Chicken Pox, and everyone wants to come over and play Twister with our kids. Our midwife brought her son over last night and did a housecall for Wendy, and he and Lydia shared the same straw from a drink.

Anyway, here’s a good capture of Hannah (5) doing her speech from Junie B. Jones:

A friend of mine and partner in ministry, George Escobar, is revving up to release a ground-breaking video. As leader of Advent Film Group, George has pulled together a crew of Christian students and film leaders to create a movie: Come What May. This movie is about a moral conflict a champion debater faces, and his struggle to choose what it right. Watch the trailer…and I’ll be posting more information as the movie becomes available!

Lydia (13) has done it again. Following her debut video of her little twin sister, Havilah, comes the montage of her little twin brother, Joshua (1). The video is put to “Made to Love” by Toby McKeehan (used with permission from TobyMac). Watch the video and let Lydia know how you enjoyed it. She appreciates the feedback. Enjoy!

Lydia, who just turned 13, is enjoying cinematography. She just finished a video portrait of our 18-month-old Havilah. It is quite good…

We climbed Mt. Herman last week. I took Cynthia, Lydia, Isaiah, Micah, Noah, Tabitha, and Keilah…and left Wendy home with the rest of the kids. The trip was beautiful. There is a death-defying shot that I got on the camera…about when we are at the top. Quite exciting!

I’m going to be posting soon about Speech & Debate soon, the country’s only nationally recognized home-school extracurricular activity. The activity–espoused by the National Christian Forensics and Communication Association–brings out the best in young people. The ministry of which I lead, Training Minds Ministry, hosts debate camps in the summer to train young people in the skill of speaking and debating.

I am jumping the gun a little (I am planning to post about this more in a couple of weeks), but I just received an email from a home-school debate family in Minnesota. They put their creativity to work and created a video using Chris Rice’s What a Heart Is Beating For. You will be amazed at their ingenuity. They blend humor in with truth, giving great value to Luke 6:38. Great job, Froemmings, for a grand 4-minute video!

We sure are enjoying our new MacBook. Why didn’t I leave the PC world years ago? I am now an avid Mac user, and the following video is proof of it. After spending the entire day filming the kids with my compact camera with video options, I spent perhaps two hours with Lydia creating this movie. Show me a PC program that can do that! I love iVideo. Enjoy the show!

I took six of the 13 kids skiing yesterday. What a blast. Though I personally spent the entire day on the bunny hill training our first-year skier, Tabitha, I wouldn’t trade it for an entire week on the slopes. I captured a great video of all of us skiing down Loveland. Check it out…

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The camera crew left last night after 8 days of filming the Jeub Family for The Learning Channel. Tracy Chaplin, the director, and his crew of two cameramen, a sound technician, and assistant director, will (contrary to most people’s expectations) will be missed. Tracy, Nate, Doug, Ian, and Derek have become nearly “part of the family” as they shared in a mutually convicting and growing experience with us. I can’t tell you how honoring it was to reflect on our life with 13 children for a camera crew who honestly wanted to know. I will post more on this in my next post, but I want to give this serious thought.

Till then, here are the final video shots I will be posting of our Learning Channel filming experience. The episode will be run January 15, 22 and 29. Be sure to tune in to watch our family in action…

The Birthday Bash is a yearly celebration we host at our home. We typically have 120-150 dear friends and family join us for horse rides, popcorn, face painting, games, treasure hunt, a pinata, gift opening and a meal. The 2006 Bash was extra special with a camera crew from The Learning Channel ready to take hours and hours of footage for a January 2007 special on large families. You won’t be able to see that footage till January, but for now, here are some videos from our own cameras…

Wow, what a good time we have been having with The Learning Channel crew. Yesterday, Tracy and the crew came to work with Cynthia and me. They captured a lot of great captions about what I do for a living. Meanwhile, Wendy was working hard herself at home to prepare for a birthday party, and the kids were getting many chores done.

Below are two video clips. The first is of Wendy and some friends who came over to help get things done. The second is of the kids folding laundry. See how a family of 11 children at home do it!

Yesterday was an exhausting but fun day. We took the bus to Denver and Castle Rock to shop. We went to US Toys, Sam’s Club and WalMart. We believe God blessed our shopping, keeping it within the budget we set out to keep. We almost missed our evening appearance to AWANA. The bus ended up breaking down in our driveway and we needed to run to AWANA in the van. The camera crew were extremely gracious and understanding…and they put in an incredibly long day.

Below are two clips that we captured. The first is Wendy in Sam’s Club explaining some tricks of the trade when shopping for a big family. The second is game night at AWANA…

It is a good thing Isaiah said he likes everything about school. =) Check out today’s video…