Christmas 2010

I will do a summary of our Christmas all in one post.
I am even including a nice little video.
It includes a few of the Christmas activities such as

• making Rudolph puppets after attending the puppet show
• attending a little girls 'Christmas Tea'
• Christmas with family in Kentucky
• Christmas with family in North Dakota
• being snowed in at friends house in Fargo due to a blizzard (BTW, a thanks to the Sunderlins for let us stay extra time at their home during the blizzard!)
• Stopping in for breakfast with the Williams family in Lexington, KY before they went to church Sunday morning and us driving back to Atlanta, cutting our visit short to beat the snow before it hit Atlanta.
  

But what the video does not include is

• Me doing my moms and sisters Christmas shopping, then forgetting and leaving part of the presents in Georgia! ....So a lot of gifts handed out on Christmas Eve were "note cards" written on there what they will be receiving when I send the gifts up. ....But when I told mom, Jen, and Kris that I had left them in Georgia.....you know what? They did not complain. They were all very gracious and forgiving. They were kind and comforting with their words. I am very appreciative of their gentleness.
  

• Chad spending Christmas day driving from northern KY to Atlanta, GA and back again, by himself to pick up my passport. (yes that was the day we were suppose to be flying to ND from Cincinnati) Christmas Eve night I discovered my license was missing. After speaking with Delta for some time....the solution within our price range was to move our itinerary forward a day and pay the difference for flying out on the 26th instead of the 25th and for Chad to drive in the snow and some ice to ATL and back with my passport. Not having my license caused family in North Dakota to have to push their Christmas plans back a day, my husband spend his holiday on the road for 15 straight hours...and you know what, no one complained. Not once. How gracious is that?
  

I am very grateful to everyone responding to my mistakes with such love and kindness. It is such a blessing to me to experience such kindness. I have such a wonderful family that loves the Lord and shows His love through their lives. I am very blessed in many many ways.

Enjoy the video:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Rose gets baptized

Here is a video of Rose's baptism. She accepted Christ as her Savior back in April. We kind of put off her baptism. Then in the fall she was asking everyday....when will she get to be baptized.
We were thinking about our options, when she asked to be baptized at Grandma and Grandpa's church in Kentucky. How could I say no to that! It is the church I was baptized in...the church Chad and I were married in. We love the pastor there, besides it was too cold to put her in the river down here, anyways. So it worked out lovely. Plus when her cousin, 9 year old Timothy, heard about it, he decided to get baptized with her. He had been putting off his baptism due to a fear of water. It all worked out nicely.
At the end of the video is a fuzzy picture of my whole family after the church service.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

House Guests

The three weeks between Thanksgiving and coming back up to KY for Christmas, my sister, Jennifer and her three kids came to stay with us (Tyler - 15, Tori - 11, and Tim - 9). We had a lot of fun having them down.
Here are the kids (and Andrew and Lily) with their finds from our nature hunt/walk.

Tori got to join in our Keepers Club fun. The girls are making a peach cobbler.

Tori and Rose playing...

Tim and Rose reading...


We went to Christmas activities at Johnson ferry Baptist Church.
here is Rose at part of the live petting nativity...

In front of the live reindeer...

taking a reindeer sleigh ride...

Rose and Tim in the Nutcracker ballet room...

playing games...we also enjoyed a play, snacks and cocoa, crafts, caroling, hand bells, etc at the church.

We had a lot of fun these 3 weeks. Here is a video to show how much fun (Rose laughing while eating icing with Tori)
(Facebook people click HERE to view video)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thanksgiving 2010

Well it is New Year's Eve and we are stuck in a blizzard in Fargo, ND. Thankfully we are staying with very gracious friends, as we are having to extend our visit with them. Sara and I are having fun stamping and making cards, Rose is having a blast playing with Isabelle (and occasionally with Max as well), and I often hear laughter from Chad as he and Marti are having fun playing video games, games with the kids, and billiards.

But you know me, I must blog in chronological order....so this post is about Thanksgiving! Who knows, maybe I will get my posts caught up during this blizzard.

Here is Rose with a fraction of her Thanksgiving crafts.

We were able to spend the week of Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Irvin's farm. They had a little bit of snow to play in!

Grandma had her Christmas decorations up (thanks to Tori, who did her decorating for her:) And Rose received her first porcelain doll from my doll collection. This was my first porcelain that started the collection.Here is a snapshot of Tyler being kind enough to join Tori and Rose in playing doll house.

Stone Mountain Christmas

The Davis family came down for our annual trip to Stone Mountain Christmas in November. We LOVE spending this day with them!
Enjoy the video.

(if you view this on facebook you need to click HERE to view the video, then click play)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Another hodge podge post

Rose participated in a reading program that earned her two hockey tickets. Daddy went with her to the game. She told me, she enjoyed watching the people more than watching the game.Rose painting with car wheels...a fun art activity.

The next two photos are other girls that regularly come to our home for activities :o)

Ansley working on a blanket for her little brother during sewing class.

Mannayah licking her plate clean after doing cake decorating practice in Keepers At Home Club.

To Halloween or not to Halloween that is the question....

I totally understand when families choose not to do Halloween. I also understand when families do parts of Halloween. I really do UNDERSTAND either way. Some people feel that if they put on a princess dress and go get candy that they will be celebrating the devil, and they don't want to do that. I 100% understand, and respect, that point of view. But as a family we just don't feel that way. Chad and I have had many many discussions about this and I think we have found what seems right for our family. Although we didn't come to this conclusion until late night on Oct. 30th.

We let Rose dress up, but no ghosts or scary stuff.....only fun, cute, and pretty. She picked princess.

We also attended a pumpkin carving party at some dear friends of ours. It was a lovely event. It felt normal to me and Chad. Which was refreshing after spending so much effort trying to decide if we should scrap all things even remotely related to this holiday. We were all christian families, hanging out together, eating, having fun. The conversations were uplifting and encouraging in the Lord. We were glad we went. The next day was Halloween and we let Rose go get candy from some of our neighbors and then we headed over to a local church for a festival with games and candy.
All in all it was alright.

Rose still refers to her candy loot as "our" candy....referring to our family. To her it is all of ours, not just hers.

Here is a video. If you are reading this on Facebook instead of my blog, you will have to click HERE to view the video.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Another Stone Mtn day....this time with friends.....

Here we are at Stone Mountain AGAIN! This time Rose's friend Elisabeth and Elisabeth's little sister, Cate, are with us. Of course we had a great time! Daddy, Rose, and Elisabeth did the SkyHike while Cate and I did story time and the kiddie rope course. She can cruise on that thing! There were kids 3 times her size struggling, but not Cate....she was fearless. We all did putt putt. Then I took Rose and Elisabeth to watch 4D Journey to the Center of the Earth while Chad and Cate watched the parade. We decorated pumpkins, had a ball in the Great Barn and enjoyed the festival.
Instead of photos, this time I have a video for you.
(If you are reading this on Facebook you will have to click HERE to view the video)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I have issues.....

Yes, because I must blog in chronological order. I can't skip around willy nilly.....I just can't do it :) So, yes, I am about a month behind in my posts.

In an effort to get slightly caught up....here are a few random things all modge podged into one post.

First, Rose has been asking to plant something in our yard.....flowers, vegetables.....it didn't matter. The girl just wanted to plant and grow something. Months had past, and the request was still there. Then thankfully our library had a free gardening class one afternoon that finally fulfilled this 'need' in her life. Thank you, Dunwoody Library and Dunwoody Garden Club.Second, In keepers Club we made New Prayer Journals. Here is a cute picture of all four of the girls.
And third, yes, another day at Stone mountain Pumpkin Festival.

Rose playing putt putt. I called her "princess" all day since she was in costume and she loved it. She would regularly stop, run and give me a hug and say thank you every time I referred to her as princess. ......I got a lot of hugs and smiles that day.

We didn't make our regular caramel apples this year, so we ate one here instead.

Rose and I in the Pumpkin Parade.

Thank you Stone Mountain for another great family fun day.

There's A Snake In My Boot.....

Rose and her doll's matching cowgirl outfit. This picture was taken before we went to Disney On Ice - Toy Story III.

We were given FREE tickets and FREE downtown parking!!
Thanks to a friend in our church (who does event parking and can get free tickets to the events). It was very generous of him to share with us. We really enjoyed the evening and had a wonderful time.