Monday, December 28, 2009

CHRISTMAS EVE part 2

Christmas Eve Night: Grandma and Pap came over for dinner and we opened presents, sang songs in candle light, and had a wonderful evening.







Watching The Santa Claus (1)





Look How Exciting!!!



 

Pap opening his presents.



 

You'd never guess what he can pull out of a box this small!!

 

Wallah!! Who knew they could fit such things in small boxes nowadays??





Grandma holding up Amy's present to her.

 

This is now my favorite picture. :) And I'm going to post this one all over my friends Christmas presents. hehe...big joke. My Grandma knows me very well! :)





YUMMM





The table was set beautifully.





I drank more sparkling cider that day than I ever have. We bought so much because we always run out. ::Christmas day yet to come::

Saturday, December 26, 2009

CHRISTMAS EVE part 1

Well Christmas has come around once again. And some may say we did the same old routine. But for some reason this year felt different. I don't know what it was, but it felt so alive; so happy and friendly. No one was rude or selfish, but instead incredibly grateful.

Christmas Eve has always been the day where my family, my aunt and uncles family and my grandparents celebrate Christ's birth. We have breakfast in the morning of pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, and much more. Then once everyone is finished, we head into the living room where the gift exchange between cousins happens. In the first weeks of december, we all draw names to decide who will buy a gift for which cousin. This year there were six of us, and six of them; it worked out perfectly. Then we open the rest of our gifts from my Grandparents. Usually we get a movie and watch it after we eat lunch, but this year, no one wanted to watch any of the educational movies we got. (Christmas Day was the movie day this year) So Amy and I had watched a movie called Though None Go With Me. We both thought it was EXCELLENT! And would highly recommend it to EVERYONE! Well...after convincing Aunt Dawn and Meme that they would love it because it is a real tear jerker, most of us sat down to watch it. It was great, and they loved it. Then we just hung out till dinner, which will be in the next post.





Breakfast..so healthy and yummy!





Fantastic food. The traditional breakfast.





These were the presents for the cousin gift exchange.





Eli had picked Ruby, and he got her a tinker bell nightgown and a wand to go with it. She loves it!





Steve got a puzzle from Meme and Grandpa





I'm reading the classic family movie guide. :)





Ok, so your asking "What is That???" Wizards and Wisemen is a movie/lecture that Bill Jack, one of the speakers at Worldview Academy presents. He is my favorite speaker and has many videos that he has made on Worldview and Evangelism. This summer, we are going on a vacation to the Smokey Mtns. to hear Bill Jack and several other people (Ken Ham, Vodie Bauchman, and more..) in an Answers In Genisis Conference. And a few weeks before that I will also attend Worldview Academy Leadership Camp again, where Bill Jack is going to be the main speaker this year. I'm very excited and await it every day!! So anyways..Wizards and Wisemen is about discerning the good from the bad. It talks about how there are many wizards in movies and yet some of them are portrayed as wisemen, but how can we know which ones are really wise? Well..its over 2 hrs, so I havn't watched it yet. But I"m sure it will be great!





Moving right along..amy got a 1000 piece founding fathers puzzle. It might look like presidents, but its not. We have that one too though!





A Grandpa and A Grandson. :)





After some of the presents are unwrapped, then starts the wrapping paper battle. I prefer not to have my camera out during that time and try to hide from the rapid fire. Yes...my grandparents have found wrapping paper balls weeks after Christmas because of this. But it is FUNNN.





And lastly, here is my wonderful mother. :) She is amazing. I love her sooo much!!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Another Video from the Puppet Show

This is my favorite Christmas Song right now, and there is a scene in the play where they use black lights to portray this song: How Many Kings by Downhere

Here it is:











http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRm3y4wHArM

Video from Deep Creek and the link for the puppet show corrected







Deep Creek In The Snow

We were able to go to deep creek this weekend for Pleasant View Baptist's Puppet Show. It was amazing and I will post about that later. Anyways..we were supposed to leave saturday night, but due to the snow storm we had to wait till sunday morning to leave. We left around 7:30 and made it there in time for church. After church we went to the Week's House for lunch and had a good time. Then they had to leave to set up for the puppet show and the rest of us went to check out our house. There is about 17-18 inches of snow on the ground and it had not been touched, (aside from the road, which you can still see is very white).







On Our Way, Sunday morning...praying that we'd make it!

 

First sight of the lake..not quite frozen yet.



 

This is standing at the bottom of our driveway, looking to the right. Beautiful!





Looking to the left...

 

See how deep? lol





The trees were all so weighted down with snow, the looked soooo beautiful!!





another angle. click to view the sign on the right





The pine tree that marks our property





I would love to decorate this as a Christmas Tree!!!





There's our house. Still there. haha.



Here is a video of the finale of the puppet show. More coming later!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH8U70cO4-w

Friday, December 18, 2009

Christmas Cookie Making

It's the most wonderful time of the year. And baking cookies is much a part of that. Here is Emma making peanut butter oatmeal cookies for the Norwin Chamber Christmas gathering.







Steve and Emma, smashing cookies with a fork.







See..boys can cook!



 



Yumm..









Major YUM! They look so pretty!

 

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Babysitting: Rilian

This is Rilian...he is the most adorable 10 mth old ever. Don't let him fool you with his head of hair...it has been cut a few times! It would be as long as mine if it hadn't been.

Well...I messed with the settings to make the pictures bigger, and now I can't write inbetween the pictures...soooo..Rilian is a very smiley boy. He loves to chew on things, and try to stand up on his own.

Thorin is in the two pictures before the last...he's a cutie.























Gimli..a very loving dog..but can get obnoxious. hehe..




Monday, December 14, 2009

Sherlock Holmes...





is absolutely amazing. Read the books, Watch the movies. The end.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Supreme Court to Hear CLS Student Group

I came across this article on the Worldview page...these people need our prayers. This is amazing in itself that the supreme court even agreed to take on this case. Pray that God would have His Hand in this and that the ruling would be according to His standards.





Here is the press release from the Christian Legal Society:



WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to decide whether a public university can refuse to recognize a religious student group because the group requires its leaders to share its religious beliefs. Attorneys with the Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom represent a student chapter of CLS, which Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco refused to recognize because the group requires all of its officers and voting members to subscribe to its basic Christian beliefs.







“Public universities shouldn’t single out Christian student groups for discrimination. All student groups have the right to associate with people of like-mind and interest,” said Senior Counsel Kim Colby with the CLS Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “We trust the Supreme Court will not allow Hastings to continue to deprive CLS of this right by forcing the group to abandon its identity as a Christian student organization.”







“Christian students have the right to gather as Christians for a common purpose and around shared beliefs,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. Baylor with the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “It’s completely unreasonable--and unconstitutional--for a public university to disrupt the purposes of private student groups by forcing them to accept as members and officers those who oppose the very ideas they advocate.”







CLS Litigation Counsel Timothy J. Tracey, now with ADF, argued Christian Legal Society v. Martinez before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in March. The appellate court refused to reverse a district judge’s decision against CLS, so the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.





There's some buzz, too:

Wall Street Journal Law Blog, Volokh Conspiracy, Christian Law Journal, Mirror of Justice, Fox News

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Paper Snowflakes

All these free patterns and more can be found at http://www.daves-snowflakes.com/