Thankful for my wonderful Husband

Often we spend allot of time at Thanksgiving blogging about all the things we are thankful for and I didn't do that but I want to just publicly say how thankful I am for my husband. He takes such good care of us and he works so hard to provide for us. God has blessed him with so many talents and I love to see how God uses them in his life. Anyways... I could go on and on but no one really wants to hear me gush so I'll just leave it at that. I love you sweetheart and I'm so thankful you chose me!

My new favorite Group - for the Fourman kids!

Ok, well, maybe not my favorite but these guys are fantastic. Remember last year I posted this entry? Well, here's their neat story. These 10 guys sang together in college 10 years ago. Last winter one of the members posted that funny Christmas song on youtube for the express purpose of the other 9 guys getting to reminisisce. Some 8 million hits was a result. A record company rep was one of the 8 million. They were offered a contract with the company and they now have a Christmas CD out with the hopes of more to come! What a neat neat story!!! Here's one of their "new" songs. Thanks to Byron for posting this so I could see!!

Husband Brag

We have this problem of the kids & Byron's boots getting so wet in the winter and then never really drying good and then getting odors, etc. So, Byron decided that he could make a dryer. So, for about 10.00 (plus my hair dryer)



Last night we found this at Gander Mountain:

Now.... see why I'm proud of my man?!!! His version doesn't look as slick but its much heavier duty than the fancy 60.00 one and if the 60.00 one breaks, you have to totally replace it. Ours, you would just have to go buy another 10.00 hair dryer!!!!! The one he is using currently for it is the one I've had since I was a teenager.

It fits all sizes of our boots too. Its wonderful!!!

Family pics 2008

We are currently having Olan Mills design a photo directory for our church. Consequently, we had our pics taken with them this year. I have never been wild about Olan Mills pics. But, we had no desire to go through the agony of "family pics" more than once this year so here's the results. The color didn't come through very well in the scan. So, they don't look quite so weird color wise in real life.

I told the photographer at the beginning of the session that I prefer "non traditional" poses. He assured me he'd do some. After all the family pics had been taken, I got called away to deal with a problem and he proceeded to take this pic to satisfy my "non traditional" pose request. GRRRR. Needless to say, we did NOT buy this one!

Keepville Church Christmas Banquet 08

Last night was our much anticipated annual Christmas dinner for our church. Peg, Tara, Sherry, Ilene, George, Austin & Christian did a great great job of decorating the fire hall and their faithful willingness to help out means so much. The hall looked beautiful!

We had a lovely evening together as a church family. There was some food that had been signed up for that was missing so food wasn't quite as plentiful as usual but no one went away hungry so all was well!! I had contemplated making extra earlier in the day but ran out of time. I was wishing I had by 6:30!! LOL

Byron had a short devotional as well as several short funny stories that was enjoyed by all then we split off into groups and played games. It was allot of fun! Most years we come and eat and then everyone leaves. Byron wanted everyone to spend more time interacting and fellowshiping so we did the game thing and it worked great!!!

Anyways... here's some pics......

Monday's

I'm a pastor's wife. That means I'm a Pastors wife. I have a title all of my own. Because I am married to a pastor I am now not only the wife of a pastor - I am a Pastors wife. One of the many responsibilities and duties that come with this position is that of helping carry my husband's load. Frankly, the devil is making sure the load gets heavier by the day. I have 2 close friends who are also in full time ministry who are under attack more than they've ever been attacked in their churches. I have to wonder if this is a sign that God is about to move in miraculous ways and the devil is doing his best to thwart His plan or if means that God's people are not praying as they should. The thing that absoltuely petrify's me is the means that the enemy is using to destroy God's church. At any rate, I ran across this blog this evening of Rev. Rick Lawrenson's and I felt that it was worth repeating.

But whenever Monday comes...
Charles Spurgeon, the great British preacher/pastor of the 19th century made the statement that every Monday he wanted to quit.

This guy was far from a failure. He was the most celebrated and read Christian of his era. The church he led in London was by today's standards a "mega-church". Every week men and women came to faith under his ministry. But on Mondays he was down.

That's a very common hazard that comes with the job. I know. I often feel it as well. A lot of spiritual energy is expended on Sundays. The "point man" often goes toe to toe in battle for the souls of men with the opposition. And then there's the devil to contend with, too!

In my prayer time earlier God reminded me that it was Monday and prompted me to pray for a number of my pastor friends. Some are struggling today and I know it. Others I don't know, but still need encouragement to keep on.

From the mouth of Babes

Last night here is what Alyssa prayed....

"Dear God.....yada yada yada (my paraphrase)..... and Dear God, please be with Kenton, Vincent, Kendra and me and keep your hand on top of us....."


LOL..... Perhaps if He keeps His hand on top of them they'll behave better????

I'm assuming she's heard people pray that God will keep his hand on them, etc.

Neat Christmas Idea

We are trying to instill in our kids that Christmas is more about GIVING than GETTING so this year we are doing several little things to help instill that. The one thing we are going to do is, "The 12 Days of Christmas". It is a "ring and run" activity to do with the children. Buy the items listed below, make their tags, and have the kids start dropping them off, one each day of course, to a special friend on December 13. We will be doing this with our one neighbor who we would love to see start attending our church!

Do this after dark and don't get caught!

To be printed out and used as tags:

"On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree." It seems that the partridge has flown away & we really hated to cut down the tree, so here are some pears." (canned or fresh pears)

"On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two turtle doves..." We weren’t sure what “turtle doves” were so here are two doves and some turtles." (2 travel-sized bars of Dove soap & chocolate-covered peanut "turtles")

"On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, three French hens..." The French hens are so relieved to hear that you are vegetarian. They sent some French bread with their compliments." (vegetarian family, I think the original called for chicken soup)

"On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, four calling birds..." The calling birds called, they are snowed-in at O’Hare. Please accept this substitute." (either a pre-paid phone card or message pad)

"On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, five gold rings!" Yeah, but have you seen the price of gold lately? We hope you’ll enjoy these “golden rings” instead." (pineapple rings)

"On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, six geese a-laying..." Apparently the geese have flown south for the winter. We didn’t think you wanted a houseful of geese anyway. How about some eggs that were a-laid?" (basket of eggs)

"On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, seven swans a-swimming..." It’s really too cold for swimming so the swans have been taking nice hot bubble baths." (bubble bath)

"On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eight maids a-milking..." We couldn’t fit eight cows on your doorstep so here’s a little something the maids gave us." (ice cream)

"On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, nine ladies dancing..." The ladies have a gig at Rockefeller Center through January but here’s some Christmas music you can dance to if you like." (Christmas music)

"On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, ten lords a-leaping..." Can you believe it? All ten lords a-leaping pulled muscles last year and vowed to give it up entirely. They did kindly send their canes in case you decide to try it." (candy canes) (alternate suggestion: give a tube of Ben-Gay and have the tag say that the lords heartily recommend its use, especially after a hard day of leaping!)

"On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, eleven pipers piping..." One of the pipers thought he spotted Nessie and refused to cross the loch. The other ten decided to cancel since they needed eleven to fly for the group rate. This is to be served “piping” hot." (apple cider or hot cocoa mix)

"On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, twelfth drummers drumming..." We really didn’t think you wanted twelve drummers drumming in your house so we drummed-up some cookies for you. Hope they keep your day from being hum-"drum". Merry Christmas!" (plate of cookies)