Christmas Program Practice

These are pictues of program practice at Grace Holiness Church. My husband was the program director. He did an awesome job placing everyone, coaching them as to when they were to come in, etc. It cut down on my stress a lot. After all of everyone's hard work the service was canceled because of the bad weather. The kids are all hoping to be able to reschedule for another time.

Angels

The Program practice got a little long. Here are two tired angels.

Christmas Tree Farm

Searching for a tree at the Christmas Tree Farm. We walked practically over the whole farm and then went back to one of the first trees we looked at. Getting a real tree was a first-time experience for our family. We enjoyed it immensely. I was so glad it had snowed the day before. The kids enjoyed throwing snowballs and making tracks in the snow.

Cutting down our chosen tree.

Carrying it out of the field.

A little Chilly!!

Trimming the Tree

The girls, trying to decorate themselves instead of the tree.

Adding the beads.

The finished product.

Gingerbread Houses

The boys went to a Sunday School Party today. They each built a gingerbread house. They all looked pretty cool. Since they are edible, I had to talk them out of eating them on the way home. I wanted to get a picture of them before they were devoured. They then told me that they had just wanted to eat them so they wouldn't have to get their picture taken!

It Snowed!

I'll Be Home for Chirstmas

I love decorationg for Christmas. Here are a few of my decorations.

Playing House

Moriah and Melody
Yesterday evening I began putting up my Christmas decorations and moved my furniture trying to find a spot for our soon to be gotten Christmas tree. The girls have found the empty corner a great place to play babies.
Moriah found a platter in the shape of a tree amidst my Christmas decorations. She carried it over to this corner and sat it up against the wall and said, "There, I put up the Christmas Tree. I must be strong." Of course she was giggling and lauging all the while. She can be quite a character.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving Dinner was delicious. It was just our family of seven. My husband peeled the potatos for this feast. A few of the family favorites we had were Sweet Potato Casserole, Sea Lime Jello and of course Pumpkin Pie.

I'm thankful for...

God and grace

home and husband

family and friends

love and laughter

children and chocolate

books and brooms

and on and on.

Exodus 27:20 & 21

"And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil beaten for the the light, to cause the lamp to burn always...Aaron and His sons shall order (tend) it from evening to morning before the Lord." Exodus 27:20 & 21

Two incidents, happening in a short span of time one Saturday evening, brought this verse to mind. Seemingly unrelated, God used these incidents to speak to my heart.

Incident#1
It was October, during Pastor Appreciation month. I had decided to make zucchini bread to place in the food basket I was doing for the associate pastor of the church we attend. As I mixed the ingredients, I was also trying to appease a little girl who hadn't had enough sleep the night before, and straighten up the kitchen. My habit of doing more than one thing at a time often gets me into trouble and this was one of those times, unbeknownst to me.
I got the batter made and placed into bread pans. In the oven it went and then on to bathtime for the girls. After bathtime, while reading to the the girls the bread began to smell done. I got up to check on it and then left it in for a bit longer. The bread soon was cooling on the racks, while I got the kids to bed.
When I picked up the loaf of bread something seemed different. To all appearances it seemed fine, but it wasn't moist and pliable in my hand. There seemed to be no softness about it. As I went about cleaning up the house I puzzled over why this bread hadn't turned out. I had just made it a couple days ago and it had turned out great. As I reread the list of ingredients I realized I had left out the oil. Thre bread wasn't fit to give as a gift and in exasperation I scrambled about in my thoughts trying to think of something to replace the bread in the food basket.

Incident #2
Earlier that day my husband had changed the oil in the truck and brought the empty oil can in the house and sat it beside the trash can. I pitched the can into the trash can and then went about my business. It was shortly after I had realized my bread was missing the oil that the trash bag was taken out of the trash can and sat on the floor waiting to be taken to the dumpster. As I looked down, there was a dark smear of oil "gracing" my kitchen floor. After cleaning up the mess and sending my husband out the door with the trash bag I realized there was oil in the bottom of the trash can. Another mess waiting to be cleaned. To my surprise, though, the oil acted as a lubricant on the dirt and debris stuck to the bottom of the trash can. As I wiped it up, I realized the dirt I hadn't had the patience to scrub out a couple weeks ago came up with little effort.

The Lord, then focused my thoughts on oil, the missing ingredient in my brick-like loaf of bread and the oil needed to keep a vehicle running smoothly, which also acted as the cleaner of the stubborn dirt in the bottom of my trash can. Oil, I remembered had also played an important part in the tabernacle. These thoughts led me to search the Scriptures till I found this verse, as well as others.
The Israelites were commanded to bring oil for the lamp, to burn continually. The priests were then to "order it" which means to tend it and care for it.
In Scripture, oil typifies the Holy Spirit. If we fail to meet with Him daily, our lives will become hard and not fit for service for our King. We are to be a lamp continually burning for God. A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. It is our duty, to bring the oil into our lamps by seeking the Holy Spirit's daily cleansing. He can give us a softness in our lives and a pliability in His hands as we daily meet with Him. Without the oil of the Holy Spirit we cannot keep our Spiritual engines running smoothly.
In the New Testament we are likened unto priests of God. Just like Aaron was to daily tend the lamp, we too, must tend to the business of receiving the oil of the Holy Spirit to fill our lamps. With this oil in our lives He will continually work to cleanse the buildup from the daily dirt of life. The Holy Spirit will be able to keep up us clean from bitterness, unforgiveness and wrong attitudes as we let Him lubricate our lives.

Thank you, Lord, for reminding me of the importance of daily meeting and communing with You.

Thanksgiving Homeschool Get-together

On Friday, We met at the ICHA Cafeteria for our Homeschool get together for the month of November. The kids were to dress up as Pilgrims or Indians. Here are my two pilgrims and two of my Indians. My camera was not working well. That is why David's picture is not on here. He was an Indian, as well.

Cousins

Last Sunday, the 4th, Tim and Connie Archibald, My husbands' sister and husband and kids came to our place. They are on deputation. They are preparing to go to Turks and Caicos Islands as missionaries. They had some free time between services so we had the privilege of hosting them from Sunday to Friday morning. We had 9 kids here, ranging in ages 12 - 4. Their oldest and my oldest are both 12 and were born the same day. Joshua was the 1st grandchild by a couple hours. Their girl and the twins are a couple months apart. They look enough alike to be triplets. The house was quite energized with all these kids. We had a good time. On Tuesday evening we watched Tim and Connie's kids so they could go our on a date. On Thursday, they watched our kids so we could go on a date. Also, on Thursday, we went to the zoo. The picture above, was taken at the zoo. I think they all enjoyed it in spite of the chilly weather.

Yummy!

I couldn't resist blogging this picture. Moriah was sitting on the counter licking out the bowl after I had made a chocolate cake. She looks like she's is enjoying it to the last lick.

Quiet time

Six of the nine kids giving Connie and I some quiet time after they got a "little" too wound up.

Birthday Boys

Caleb and David both have birthdays in November. The 3rd and the 13th. Caleb just wanted a pumpkin roll for his B-day cake. Of course, David wanted a John Deere cake. I did my best at putting one on the cake.

Fall pictures

Melody

Moriah

Picture I took and enlarged for the bulletin board at church.

Update

Well, I'm back once again. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog a little more frequently from now on.
Not a whole lot happening in my life. Just taking it one day at a time.

We finished the first 9 weeks of school. The boys did fairly well considering the upheaval in their lives lately.

I was asked to take care of the Children's Christmas Program at Grace Holiness Church. We started practice and I think it will go well. We are doing "The Innkeeper's Son" Written by Heidi Echols and edited and expanded by myself.

As I was getting the girls' clothes out for today she said, "I don't want to wear a turtle head."
Referring to a turtle neck. I got quite the kick out of it. So we made up a song about wearing turtle heads.

Last Friday evening, Lyndi came over for the weekend. On Saturday, Lyndi and I left the house at 9:45am to meet Dixie at Castleton Mall. We went Christmas shopping. We didn't get home till 9:30pm. That is truly "shop till you drop". We were all ready to drop into bed. We had a great time, though. Thanks to my wonderful husband who watched our kids all day. Had them all bathed and in bed by the time we got home. Thank you, Jeff, for watching all your kids so Dxie could come, too.

More canoeing pics

Tim and Moriah

Caleb

David

Joshua

Thanks, Lord, for making this time spent with family possible.