Sunday Six(12/31/06)

I'm doing my Sunday six a day early tomorrow we have church and a cookout at my grandparents and then a new years party of sorts to go to so this might be my only chance to get this posted. here is what Kelly had for us this week.
Sunday, December 31 - "New Year"
1. Why do we start the new year on January 1?
2. What is a New Year's Resolution?
3. What do you do to celebrate the New Year?
4. Do you think you can stay up all night to greet the New Year at Midnight?
5. What will you miss most from the old year?
6. What do you want to do this year?
(and bonus - tell us your wish for Jack on his 6th Birthday - he is a New Year's Baby!)


Mr Man (age 7 years 1 month old)

1)because they wanted too
2) something your trying to do that year
3)go to the rec center
4)yes
5) the earth will get older and the days go shorter which means we won't get to have fun anymore
6)go to the rec center
bonus) who is Jack, I don't know what would he like, how about a real pet monkey.

Sweet Pea (age 4 years 11 months old)
1)cuz it's Christmas
2)opening presents(think she is still stuck in christmas)
3)go to the rec center
4)yes
5) Christmas
6)get more presents
bonus) i wish he gets to watch fireworks

Princess(age 10 years 11 months old)

1)I don't know, because
2)do something different to help improve you or something like that.
3)have friends over, go out and do something, i don't know watch the ball drop
4)duh, YEAH!!!!!!!
5)Pluto
6)have fun
bonus) I don't know have a good birthday whatever.

Little man(age 19 months)

1) Car(holding up a hot wheel car to me)

2) No (shaking his head no)

3)screams at me and runs away.

4)Yes(sounds more like S and then he throws the hot wheel car at me)

5)Throws himself down on the floor with his face laying in the carpet and starts to cry

6)Looks up at me screams again and then places his face back into the carpet to cry some more, (guess it must be nap time for him. )

Happy New Year and don't forget to let Kelly(Sunday six) and I know if you played.

Last christmas trip down memory lane.

I know you all must be sick of hearing about my past Christmases, but this will be the last one I Promise. for this year anyways ;)

I had just a few more photos I grabbed from my moms house so I thought i would blog them also.

1974 Santa pic. Yes that is me flipping out and trying my hardest to get away from that man. I think my 2nd, 3rd and 4th Christmas pic with Santa was me doing this.

This was also 1974 At home, I posted other pics from Christmas 1974 from my grandparents houses in Edit to my holiday meme and in more childhood Christmas memories. But this was when i opened my gifts at home. I got my table and chair set which i didn't get ride of until after I got married and it went though a flood. my bowling set, my tea set, mickey mouse gumball thing, Mr potato head and more. The doll i was holding name is Donna, she was not a Christmas gift, a nurse at the hospital brought her out to me at the same time another nurse brought my baby sister out to my dad after she was born.

The above pic was Christmas 1976. It was at Church during my very 1st Christmas program that i had a speaking part in. My part was to stand with my arms open like angel wings and to say "once a tiny angle came from heaven above, he promised God would send his son to show us love"

Jumping ahead many years to Christmas morning 1991 these were some of my gifts that year. my favorite perfume and a wonderful Estee Lauder make up set. this was what i mentioned in my Holiday meme

1994 OUR 1ST CHRISTMAS

not our 1st Christmas together that would have been 1989 but our 1st Christmas married. Here I am with my new husband(we were married 10/29/94) and my mom's new puppy Reggie.

I'm done, no more past Christmas memories for me this year.. maybe next week I'll get this years Christmas pictures online and I'll blog a bit about Christmas 2006..

If I don't get back on to blog, you all have a safe and happy New Years Eve and a wonderful 2007

more childhood christmas memories.

When i was a little my dad parents lived in PA. So for the first 6 years of my life our Christmas was spent traveling to PA. Now i know many of you think traveling during Christmas is awful, and that Christmas morning should be spent at home. But as a little kid it was exciting it was an adventure and it was just all out fun to go to grandma's house.
Our game plan back then for Christmas was to have our Christmas gathering with my moms family on Christmas eve and as soon as that was over we would hit the road, us kids would sleep the whole way there(after looking to see if we could see Santa flying though the sky) and mom and dad would carry us into our beds at my grandma's house in PA once we got there. In the morning we would wake up to total magic of not only gifts under the tree from Santa but also getting to see Grandma and Grandpa. Not just your old run of the mile grandma and grandpa either these were the ones who eat, drank and breathed for us grandkids. You see on my dad side of the family Me, My sister and My brother are it for grandkids and my grandma and grandpa LOVED just LOVED being grandparents.. I would dear say everything they have done since the day i was born(me being the oldest grandchild) has been for us grandkids. Yes I know I'm just a little spoiled by them ;) They are both still alive and live 5 minutes from me and still LOVE and Live to spoil the grandkids, ONLY now the grandkids are the Great Grandkids there are my 4 and my sister 2 and I think they might get spoiled more then the grandkids did :) Mr Man and Sweet Pea are over there right now spending the night.
OK what was my point LOL..
Oh yes.. we would wake up Christmas morning and open our gifts and such and then spend the rest of the week with them and come back home on New years day.. True i was just a little thing back then but I always thought it was the greatest.

Christmas 1974 was really the 1st Christmas I can say I have memories from, I seen pics of my 1st and 2nd Christmas but I don't really remember it, not like I did this on. I had just turned 2 years old about a month before Christmas and just days before my birthday I became a big sister, so having a baby sister was a wonderful Christmas gift.

This year we also didn't do a Christmas eve gathering at my moms parents we did it a few days before i showed pics of that in the post Edit to my holiday meme
So this Christmas we were in PA, for Christmas eve also and we went to Grandpa's church for the Christmas eve service. You know i don't recall if I ever mentioned that my Grandpa is a Baptist Pastor here on my blog or not. Anyways if now well now ya know.(for that matter he is the Pastor of the church we attend now) The picture above was taken after church that Christmas eve.

Stuff i remember from that Christmas is thinking Grandma had the biggest tree i ever saw in my life, and I remember coming home from church Christmas eve and wondering why Santa hadn't come yet. Grandpa likes to tell that story. Of me running into the house and bending over where all he could see was my little baby bottom sticking up in the air looking under the tree and saying "nope not yet"
The picture above is me and my sister under grandma's tree.

These next pictures are from the next year 1975
They were taken Christmas morning.

I was 3 years old and my sister was 1

One think i remember from this trip is that i had a pretty fur like coat with matching hat and oh what are they called some sort of muff purse like thing to put my hands into. I also got a wagon, and sometime during that trip I was being pulled in my wagon I thought It was down a sidewalk on the way to my very 1st movie at a movie theater, but when i shared that memory with grandma a few years back she told me I must be wrong, i got a wagon and she did pull me down the side walk in it but we drove to the theater to see the movie. (yeah way to mess with my perfect Christmas memory of being all dressed up in a fancy coat being pulled in a wagon to go to the movies LOL) The move we saw that year was Disney's Snow White, I remember it all, and really remember being scared out of my mind at the witch when she was in her black outfit not as the little old lady

Here is a picture that wasn't Christmas morning but still was from that visit I remember thinking that day that Grandma, me and my new baby doll all had matching shirts on LOL, well I guess they were close enough for my little 3 year old mind to thing they were matching. I also remember my baby, don't remember what i named her or what she was called but I got her that year for Christmas and she did somersaults and cartwheels, My sister got a baby doll also but all it did was pee when you feed it a bottle of water LOL.

We continued driving to PA every Christmas and spending the week with Grandma until They moved 30 minuts from where we lived when i was in Kindergarden.. It was wonderful having them so close to us, but I also sort of missed spending the whole week after Christmas with them. Now i live 5 minutes from them and see them pretty much ever day.

After Grandma and Grandpa moved close to us, our family Christmas tradition changed. We started doing every other Christmas with them. One year we would do Christmas eve with my moms family and Christmas day with my dads and the next year we flipped flopped that and spend Christmas eve with my dads and Christmas day with my moms
I continued to do that until Christmas 1994, That was the year I got married.. and we changed traditions again.. but I'll post about that later.

Edit to my holiday meme

Back on December 2, 2006 I posted my Holiday meme but I didn't know what to answer on question #7 and I promised when i came up with the answer I would post it. ONLY i haven't really come up with just one answer to that question. #7 asked Favorite holiday memory as a child?

there are just way to many favorite memory as a child that i have of Christmas.

After taking about a month to think about this. all my memory of Christmas as a child were my favorite. So I'm going to post some of those memory. Starting with the people who have been in my heart a lot these past few weeks.

My Grandparent. Alvin and Mary, my mom parents.

Grandma and Grandpa or as the great grandkids called them meme and Poppy have both passed away and Christmas just isn't the same without them. Grandpa left us in September 2001 and Grandma in September of 2005 and I miss them both something awful. There house just sold a month or so ago but I was out that way in the middle of this month and we drove by it, and it made me cry. I had spent every one of my Christmas there with them, grandma made almost all of her ornaments on the tree and they always had those big fat Christmas lights going around there windows, even when it wasn't the in thing to use the big fat lights. and It was those lights being out of the window this year that really hit me and made me cry as we drove pass there house.

Christmas 1974: I was 2 years old and had just became a big sister

I don't have alot of memory of this Christmas except I think we had Christmas at my Aunts house that year and my little cousin K and my sister P were both babies. I do remember being at my grandma's house around that time playing tug a war with my grandma little black poodle Pebbles and I remember my grandpa helping me to get the Frisbee out of the dog mouth because the dog was a little stronger then my 2 year old self.

These were 2 photos from that Christmas top one is grandpa with something for his CB he use to spend hours on that thing. The Bottom one is Grandma, me and my cousin K

Christmas 1976: I was 4 years old and my sister was 2 years old That year among our gift was a thumbellina doll(think that is what it was called) that sucked her thumb for my sister who was a thumb sucker and a stuff cat that I named after my grandma's cat Teeki. Here are two pics from that Christmas with my grandma and grandpa 1st is grandpa with me and my sister, and the 2nd is grandma with me and my sister.

We had these Christmas parties with our grandparents and cousins every year so I could fill a whole blog with pics from every year but I'll skip a bunch of years and show you some of the things they forced us to do LOL

Christmas 1987: I was 15 years old and my cousin and sister were 13 years old.

I'm the one in the center with the bad perm and glasses cute NO??? LOL. on the floor is my cousin D. who was like 10 1/2 if i recall correctly. This year as you can see we got matching PJ's and like every year we had to try on all the new cloths and model them for everyone.. UGH that was awful and if that wasn't bad enough we then had to pose for this lovely photo LOL

I remember this year to make this fashion show more fun we turned off the lights and shined flash lights on us like we were runway models, my dad got in on the fun by saying stuff like swimwear and evening wear with the accent that was on that popular TV ad back then.

Christmas 1989: top row my brother 11 1/2 years old, my cousin D 13 years old, grandma and Grandpa, bottom row L to R Cousin K 15 years old, Me 17 years old and my sister 14 years old. that big ring hanging from my neck was DH class ring because 8 months before this is when we started going out and have been together ever since.

This was the afghan Christmas LOL.. if you were there this Christmas you were sure to never forget this Christmas. One thing about my mom side of the family is they could pick a fight about the color of salt. My mom has a brother and he and his family lives in AZ. and every year they would send our gifts for us to open and my mom sister would video tape us all opening them and then send a copy of it to them so they could see us opening our gift. This year my Aunt from AZ made all our gifts, as seen in the above photo, my cousin, my sister, my grandma and I all got these vest. my brother and cousin D got AZ sweatshirts, and my grandpa(who was a truck driver and had a very colorful vocab) got the afghan that is so lovingly draped across his lap in the above pic. This was funny as all get out, it was grandpa's turn to open his gifts(we all took turns so everyone could see everything) He opened up the box with the afghan and threw out a few choice words something like what the beep a dee beep beep is this, a beep a dee beep afghan, what sort of beep a dee beep gift is this... OMG all us kids just lost it LOL so did my dad and mom and my aunts husband uncle C(not the aunt that made the afghan this is my moms sister who was at the party video taping it to send to AZ) My Aunt D(moms sister who was at the party) threw her own colorful words out there at my grandpa about how much time it took Aunt M to make that gift and how he needed to grow up.. but if the two of them going at it about that wasn't funny enough, they went and put the wrapping paper back on the gift, took the tape in the camera back to before he opened his gift and did a take TWO of him opening his gift so that they could send the tape to AZ. LOL LOL LOL.. So this time my smart butt grandpa opened the gift and got the biggest smile on his face and went on and on about what a wonderful thoughtful gift it was LOL.... OMG my grandma was something else. He always had me ROTFL when he was around, I miss him dearly. OOPES.. not sure if my cousin M or S from AZ read my blog or not... oh well if they do grandpa is gone now I guess it wouldn't matter because we were all threaten never to share this story with Aunt M, Uncle A or cousin M and S.

Christmas 1990: I honestly don't remember if Aunt M and Uncle A sent us these outfits from AZ or if they were something grandma got us for Christmas but i did really like this outfit but once again after gift opening we all were sent upstairs to get in our new cloths to show them off and get the Christmas pic.

top row L to R Cousin K 16 yrs old, My sister 16 years old Me 18 years old front row l to r my brother 12 1/2 yrs old and my cousin D 14 years old(or maybe 13 1/2)

This will be the last one so i don't put you all to sleep.

Christmas 1991 this was my 1st year of college. and the aunts and uncles stopped buying for us kids when we were out of high school, but that didn't matter Christmas was always still the best. in the pic below L to R is my sister 17 yrs old, my cousin K 17 years old and Me 19 years old the lady in the back ground on the chair is my mom.

I miss our family gathering with my moms side of the family but since Grandma passed my mom and her sister can't seem to speak two words to each other with out it turning into a big fight(they have always done this but grandma was there to keep them from going at it now she isn't) and somehow last month i got thrown into something stupid between the two of them over the color of my cousins new living room paint( you know something so stupid that doesn't matter anyways) and since then I haven't heard from my cousin K which is really odd, she normally sends me a Christmas card and I did not get one from her this year. I think I might go call her and see what is up maybe she just didn't get around to sending them. I sure hope it isn't about the stupid crap about paint that my mom and aunt were talking about..

Wordless Wednesday(12/27/06)

For more Wordless Wednesdays go to Five Minutes for Mom and to Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Six(santa) 12/24/06

Shoot!! I had the kids do the Sunday six on Friday night because I know Saturday, Sunday and Monday was going to be crazy. Then I went and forgot to post it UGH..
Anyways here is what Kelly had for us this week
Sunday, December 24 - "Santa"
1. How does Santa make it to every one's house in one night?
2. What are the names of his reindeer?
3. What does Santa do if a home does not have a fireplace?
4. Does Santa make all the toys, or does he buy them as well?
5. How old is Santa?
6. What are you leaving out for Santa tonight?

Mr Man
1) reindeer's and they go fast
2) Rudolph,comet, cupid, dancer, blitzen, Prancer,dasher, donnor,Vixen
3) he has magic and he can get though furnaces vent things and it turns into a chimney and then once he lives it goes back to a furnace vent.
4)He buys the equipment and the elves use the equipment to make them into toys
5)it depends when the last time someone scarred Santa off the roof and then he puts on the suit and becomes Santa and then the other Santa just goes away somewhere.
6) a big Christmas tree shaped cookie cake thing and hot coco

Sweet Pea
1) reindeer's
2)comet, Rudolph,cuepid(almost sounded like stupid LOL) and Bixon
3)goes though the door
4)the elf's make them
5)I don't know
6)cookie and hot coco

Princess

1) It's almost like there is one for every house
2)dasher, dancer, prancer, vixon, comet, cupid, donnor, blisten, Rudolph the misfit
3)It's like he is already there
4)He buys them all
5)36 and 34 and 10 year and 11 months.
6)cookies and milk and all the stuff I like to eat.

Even I'm a day late Let me know if you played and stop by and tell Kelly also Kelly(Sunday six)
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas

Trip to See Santa 2006

Last Saturday night was our yearly trip to a near by town to see Santa and all the fun lights and stuff they have set up down town.
With the lighting being poor and my camera that hasn't been working worth a darn these have to be the worst pictures i have ever seen, but they are what i have for this year, so I'm going to blog with them anyways.

this was an interesting trip with Santa.. All i wanted was a photo of all 4 of my kids with Santa.. (Well I got it but like i said before it is awful.)
Princess hasn't done the Santa thing in a long time now she learned the truth back around the time of Christmas 2003. So I had to talk her into going to see Santa and standing next to him so I could get my pic. She was will to do this for me last year too(when i was trying to get the same thing i wanted this year a shot of all 4 of them) ONLY Sweet Pea is a moody child, you never know what sort of mood you might find her in. If she is happy she is the easiest child but if she is in her mood you aren't going to get her to do anything. Last Year we went shopping for hours before heading over to see Santa and she had fallen asleep on the way there, so there was no getting a pic with her in it, i couldn't even get her to let go of my neck when i tried to just stand her in front of Santa and it wasn't pretty screaming and crying and big old tears.. so we didn't bother, we got Mr Man with Santa and then put Little man in Santa's arms and got his 1st pic with Santa.
Well This year Sweet Pea was more then happy to get her pic taken with the jolly old elf, if she didn't have to talk to him LOL and if Princess would do it too.
My one who took his turn at crying was Little Man he was afraid of Santa and when we walked up into the little house he started trying to climb out of my arms the whole time yelling in fear "Santa clause, Santa clause" put me in shock, i had thought i heard him say that once before, but this time he was repeating it over and over and was clear as could be, and here i thought he couldn't talk much LOL.

He stopped freaking out when he saw his big brother climb up into Santa's lap and tell Santa how he wanted a Razor motor bike, and the hot wheel criss cross crash track, and a roboraptor (what he wanted to ask Santa for was a hamster but i had the little Santa doesn't bring live animals he only bring toys talk LOL)

After Mr Man was done with his what do you want for Christmas the girls stepped in for a photo and i placed Little man in his arms and he didn't cry he just looked a little worried. (not that you can see his face in my photo, ~sigh~ i am going to have to get a new camera soon)
Anyways here are a few (bad)shots from that night.

Christmas Past #10

This is the Last of my Christmas past post. Christmas Past #10 was last year 2005. Princess was 9 yrs 10 months, Mr Man 6 years old, Sweet Pea 3 years 10 months and Little Man was 6 months old.

This would be the Last of my babies 1st Christmas. sort of sad but it was a very good Christmas.

We had a little Sunday school Christmas program this year, it was the 1st year at our new church that we had enough kids in each class to do one, True we only had 3 kids in each class but still it was fun. The candle light service was wonderful as always and it really was the 1st time I thought of the church as OUR church not the "new church"

I think I forgot to mention or maybe i did and forgot(that happens a lot to me LOL) But one of the other church traditions at Christmas is our Christmas dinner and white elephant gift exchange. That is always a blast

Well there you have it all my Christmas past post are done, you have now took the journey though my past 10 years of Christmas since becoming a mommy..

I'm sorry if i put you all to sleep but i had fun doing it :)

replying to a comment.

I was reading the comments from my Wordless Wednesday(12/20/06) post and saw that TKW posted this "Also, may I just voice my jealousy over your being able to get FOUR kids to sit nicely for a picture?" I just had to LOL.. if you only knew what we go though to get that one nice picture.. This years I think there was even tears.
The picture I used in Wordless Wednesday(12/20/06) was one of the shots I got while trying to get the Christmas card photo for this year cards. Funny how Sweet Pea could go from pouting to smiling to pouting with tears all in the amount of time I was trying to get the picture.

so just to show you my kids are normal here are the rejected shots from this years Christmas card pics.

Wordless Wednesday(12/20/06)

For more Wordless Wednesdays go to http://www.wordlesswednesday.com or http://www.5minutesformom.com

Christmas Past #9

Christmas 2004 Princess 8 yrs 10 months, Mr Man 5 years old, and Sweet Pea 2 yrs 10 months.

This year for Christmas Princess got a camera as her big gift, Mr Man got his Thomas table for his wooden trains and Sweet pea got a graco set for baby dolls which include a pack n play, a stroller and an infant car seat carrier which hooked to the strollers just the like real ones.

This was also a hard Christmas for me. Back in April of 2004 we lost our baby, I had a missed miscarriage at 13 weeks along. Alyssa Reese was due October 29, 2004, which just also happened to be mine and DH 10 year wedding anniversary. Alyssa was spending her 1st Christmas in heaven with Jesus, and that was really hard on me. I was missing her with all my heart.. I wanted to do something for her like a babies 1st Christmas ornament or something and while looking I found the perfect ornament to hang on our tree. It was a Willow tree Angel called Angel embrace, on the little card that was hooked to it it read, Holding near that which we hold dear. Here is a picture of Alyssa's ornament

Even though I cried a lot at night thinking about how this would have been her 1st Christmas, God used the lose of our little girl, to teach me, bring me closer to him and to show just how much he loves us and how powerful he is.. I don't think I ever had to trust and rest in Him as much as I did during the time of losing my baby. It was a really hard thing to do, but even though my heart was breaking and I missed my baby I learned to Give thanks in ALL things, to thank God for bringing Alyssa into my life if even for the short time she was with us, and the harder still was giving thanks that He is in control and He knows what is best for us and thanking him for doing what was best for me even if that meant Alyssa never getting to be placed into my arms here on earth.

I also had more to Thank God for this Christmas.. Little Man was healthy and Growing inside of me and kicking up a storm.

I don't even know how to explain the emotions I was having this Christmas.. extrema sadness for our lose and yet at the same time extreme happiness for the new little life growing in me and extreme happiness for the 3 wonderful babies I already had.

.

WBW(sleeping shots)

Here is what TKW had for us this week
Sleeping: the holidays bring out the urge to strangle stupid people and take a nap in me (Fa la la la la)...the first theme might incriminate some of you so let us sleep...calling all pictures of sleeping beauties...


This top photo is of me and my dad and my teddy bear, i guess i wouldn't sleep without the bear for the 1st two years of my life. from the looks of me I wouldn't say i was any older then 6 months old so I'm guessing this was in early 1973(i was born 11/9/1972)

This last one is of me and my grandma(my dad's mom) Christmas 1975 I was 3 years old. You can't make it out very well but that is holly hobby on my nightgown.

Did you play, let me know so i can go check your sleeping pics out. don't forget to stop by and let TKW know you played also.

Christmas Past #8

Christmas Past #8 The year 2003, the Kids 7 yrs 10 months, 4 years old and 22 months.(when the pic was taken in November) This was the year we started the traditional fireplace Christmas photo.
You see Sweet Pea all smiling here in this shot, the only problem was she would have a complete melt down every time i took her into a portrait studio to try to get her picture taken. So I gave up and just dressed them up, the girls in there matching Old Navy jumpers and Mr Man in his Old Navy sweeter grabbed my camera and Boom simple as that, no one crying, screaming or trying to run away out of the studio.. Loaded the photo online added a boarder and ordered 100 plus prints stuffed them into Christmas cards and we were done .. Sounds easy no. LOL

Besides being the 1st Christmas of the traditional fireplace Christmas photo, it was also our 1st year in our New Church. It was sort of a hard Christmas that way and a good one at the same time. Our old church had a falling out in Aug of 2003 and the church sort of split. It was hard not being there for Christmas because our old church was the church i grew up in I was 6 years old my 1st Christmas there and this was my 1st year not doing a Christmas not program there,being with all the people i grew up with. BUT at the same time, I knew that was NOT where God wanted us, and he had lead us to a wonderful church, full of wonderful people, and a Pastor who preached the truth. The New church was a small church our old church had about 100 to 150 people our new one ran about 25 to 30. So there really wasn't a big big Sunday school to do a Sunday school program. There was an opening as a Sunday school teacher for the preschool age class though so I was still able to teach, though I only had 3 kids.
The tradition at our New church is to have a candle light service, where we sing Christmas song, read the story of the Birth of Jesus, sing more songs, then turn out all the lights and one by one everyone in the church comes up lights there candle and tells what Christmas means to them, which normally starts that way and then turns into a I'm thankful for sort of thing, it is really wonderful. Its a good time to praise God for all he has done, but also to talk about Christmas and family traditions and it is just a really meaningful time, and now that we have been there a few years, I look forward to that just as much as i use to the big Sunday school Christmas programs. We normally have the kids in the church get up and sing a song or two during that service also. but there are only about 9 kids from 1 to 11 years old and about 6 teenage kids.

Christmas Past #7

Post #7 in my post of Christmas Past is Christmas 2002. This Was Sweet Peas first Christmas,and our 1st Christmas as parents of three kids.

I had this photo taken middle of November and it went in all the Christmas cards. Princess was 6 yrs 10 months old and in the 1st grade(Mr Man is a 1st grader this year) Mr Man was 3 years old, and Little Sweet Pea was 9 1/2 months old.

I think in my last Christmas post that I was due with Sweet Pea on Feb 14,2002 but my baby girl thought January 29, 2002 would be a better day to be born.

The Church Christmas program is what I remember the most about this Christmas. It was a little different then in the past, us Sunday school teachers didn't have to pass out parts and such, they did it more(they being the ladies who took over the duties of putting the program together) like a children's Christmas cantata where the kids just stood on stage singing and a narrator read. Except for Mr Mans 2 and 3 year old class they did there normal little finger play and song. if I recall correctly it went like so

A Stable

A Manger

with animals all around

The Baby is sleeping

Let's tip toe

and not even make a sound

Who is that Baby

Sleeping in the Hay

It's Jesus

I guess it was a good thing that I didn't have to be on stage or taking care of my class that year because Sweet Pea was in major mommy mood and was having a melt down every time I even tried to pass her off for a minute to get a good pic of the other 2 doing there parts.

Little did I know that was going to be our last Christmas at that church and that next Christmas we would be starting new Christmas traditions with a new church family.

Faith Builders 12/18/06

Discussion:Where is Christ leading you? Have you traded your ashes in for beauty? Have you replaced your mourning with JOY? Do you wear forgiveness like a crown? He wants you to lay every burden down- He died so that you would have a place to lay it- at the foot of the cross…..

I think Christ is teaching me each and every day, what it means to trust in HIM. Some days I traded ashes for beauty, other I want to hold on to stuff, but then he deals with me and speaks to my heart with a gentle reminder, or a brick upside the head.. that He is there, He is wanting to give us the Joy in our life, that kind of Joy and Peace that can only come from God.

I read in Our Daily Bread last Monday 12/11/06 "Because Christ died for all our sins, God promises to forgive us and never bring up our sins again" also in there was "To enjoy the future, accept God's forgiveness for the past".. That is just one example of ways God can change ashes to beauty. He is not only there for our sins, but also though our trials and testing.. if we all could just learn to give our trouble, worries, fears and everything to God we would all be much much happier people. No Matter what is going on around us we would have peace and Joy inside of us and be happy even in times of trouble.

Faith builders today was a good reminder to take our burdens to the Lord and leave them there. At the site is a really pretty song called Ashes to Beauty here is the link to the site.