Christmas recap

What a sweet day we had together on Christmas Day this year!

I don't know if it was because the rest of the month seemed so busy (and full of hard work)

and we were finally able to relax and just enjoy everything,

or because Christmas has always been full of delightful surprises!

The biggest surprise??

We woke up to crashing thunder and lightening with pouring rain,

and by the end of the day, we had two or more inches of thick, fluffy SNOW!!

What a special, memorable gift for those of us in Texas!

On Christmas Eve, we always order Chinese food for dinner,

and this year we played "Christmas Bingo" after we ate.

To cap off this fun evening, we opened our first family gift

and watched the movie "Soul Surfer."

The snow had been falling for a couple of hours when it was time to load everyone up and head to the north side of town for an evening of  fun and fellowship at our very long-time friends' home.

My husband decided it would be safer to take our little two-door, front-wheel drive Honda,

but that required two trips for 9 people and tons of food.

What fun it was to spend the rest of the evening with all of our favorite people!

One of our favorite things this year was watching this little 6-year-old work for a several months to earn this bike.  He had asked to do chores for us, and even went and did chores for a couple in our church

to earn money.  He carried the money he earned in his pocket every day with this goal in mind.

With money he received for Christmas, he was finally able to go with his dad

and buy his own bike!!

Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas this year and were able to share the love and grace of Jesus
with those you surrounded yourself with!!

December Recap

What a busy, busy, busy month this has been!
So busy, in fact, that I just struggled to keep up with everything.
Several things fell through the cracks:

1. The Laundry

2.  Eating healthy and walking regularly

3.  Managing our Type 1 Diabetic's blood sugars well

4.  My blog

I'm already getting plans in place to get back on track with all of these things!!

The laundry issue will prove to be more of a struggle though as my dryer decided to completely "give-up-the-ghost" two days before Christmas.  Grrrr.....

Instead of trying to journal with words all that we enjoyed throughout the Christmas season, I've chosen to use pictures to chronicle our December.

Warning!

Lots of pictures ahead....

Every year we go to a wonderful "living nativity" called "Bethlehem Revisited."

This year some very dear friends went with us!!  Twice the blessing!!

Christmas Parade 2012

Our Abby is on the right and sings the second verse of this pretty Christmas piece
during the Junior Choir Christmas program at our church.

This year, I had the awesome (frightening) opportunity to direct the drama for our church's

Christmas program.  My husband has always been involved in the choir.

This is from the adult choir Christmas celebration after the Cantata.

Our church family is such a gift to us!

Click on this picture above to see a better view of the lovely, large Nativity scene they had on the upper balcony.

We added something new this year to our family Christmas traditions that was just so much fun.

After all the parties were over, the Christmas programs were done, the rush was past.....

 one evening late in the month,

we loaded everyone in our giant van, turned on the Christmas music, and drove

to the fancy part of Dallas where all the big houses are professionally decorated.

It was such fun to hear all the "ooh's and ahh's" from the children

as we saw how differently and beautifully each home was lit up!

Then we treated everyone to some McDonald's french fries as we continued to enjoy

watching the scenes of Christmas in a big city!

What a lovely time of simply enjoying each other's company during the holiday season!

A Happy 4th of July!

(Indoor smores on a scorching hot day!)

(She asked me if she could "paint her face" for going to see fireworks.
In my mind, I thought she meant a little flag or something on her cheek......)

Family activities to make Passion Week meaningful

This week our family has been remembering the road that Christ took to the cross. You can follow through the Gospels and reflect on the activities of Jesus Christ that final week before His terrible death....His slaughter. This event climaxes everything the Old Testament was about......everything the Old Testament pointed to. God's satisfaction for the sins of mankind was permanently, this one time only, displayed hanging on the cross. His death so completely satisfied the debt that the ten-foot thick veil that hung between all believers and God the Father in the Temple in Jerusalem was divinely torn in half signifying that it was no longer necessary to have a human high priest go before God the Father to intercede for our forgiveness for our sin.  Believers in Jesus Christ, Christians, now have full access to our Heavenly Father because Jesus Christ is now our High Priest and we can go before Him ourselves. That intimate relationship with God the Father was restored to us because of the death of Jesus Christ. Our sin that stains us and contaminates our being and prevents us from being in the presence of a Holy God has been covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I wanted to make this week of remembrance special for my children again this year. I'm really not interested in combining this most sacred, holy, reflective time with bunnies, eggs, and candy. I don't really see how the two even relate? I do like to do baby animals, eggs, and candy for celebrating SPRING....but Easter? No. So for the last couple weeks, I've been looking for some great hands-on activities that my children can do together that really pictures what this week is all about. I found some beautiful ideas here.

Then I went over to one of my favorite blogs, Holy Experience, and found lots of great ideas.

Here are a couple things I found that we incorporated into our teaching times:

1. We made candy crosses. "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2. Are you learning how to be conformed to the image of Christ? Here are some pictures of our family's version:

This year I used Katie's recipe and made sugar-free chocolate candy using xylitol.  The recipe here. 

2. We've done these in the past.  Fun project with  magazine pages to make some butterflies.. Talk about new life....new life found in Christ....and the life cycle of butterflies.  The tutorial for making the butterflies can be found here.

3. I LOVE this idea about an Easter Lenten Garden. You must read this tutorial about how to construct one.
I have not yet been able to make one of there, but am so hoping to next year!! Read about it here.

4. Oh my!! The "Family Box of Repentance". Another lovely, profound idea that we've incorporated in the past. See how the Lord speaks to a heart full of pride!! Go see it here.

5.  This week we talked about Jesus, as the Lamb of God, who took away the sin of the world.
We did have a little trouble with our lamb cake.....

........but it was pretty easy to fix.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Several years ago I contacted our local newspaper about telling the story of how my husband and I met.
That was such a special time in our lives, and I was hoping for some way of preserving that memory for my children.
If you are interested, you can read that story here:

True Romance: Church and a big family are central to couple's lives

In other news.....we're having fun at our house today.

My children would like to take the day off of schoolwork, but we really have to do at least 1 or 2 subjects.

No biggie.

But we are enjoying things like these today:

I made some of this yesterday for a fun snack today:

Valentine Confetti!

I can't help think on this lovely day of a definition of "love" that I heard recently on our local radio station.

I believe it was spoken by a pastor named Chip Ingram.

He defined love this way:   "Giving what they need the most when they deserve it the least."

And doesn't that exactly picture what God did for us?

He saw our need of salvation...restoration to fellowship with Him.

And when we least deserved it....He provided the ultimate free gift of salvation by His death on that terrible cross.

He manifested His love for us in a way that we, as mere mortals, could best understand it.

By pulling on skin, coming to earth in bodily form, and paying the price {the wage, if you will} for our filthy, vile sin nature.  Our terribly poor choices......that produced separation from our Holy, Pure Creator.

Have you received that free gift?

"For God so loved....that He gave..."  John 3:16

"God is love."  I John 4:8