Traditions

Our holiday traditions are putting up the tree together, setting out our handmade nativity set, and in more recent years has been reading the Jotham's Journey series. We started with Jotham, read Bartholomew the second year, and now are starting Tabitha. These books weave a fictual character through Israel at the time of Christ's birth.

One tradition of Christmas pasts was to make 'reindeer' aprons with the children. Kim, Josh, and Joe each let me trace their hands and feet, then paint them brown to form the reindeer head. They would wear these aprons as we made sugar cookies and when we set up the tree.

The little girls were so excited to find these aprons in the Christmas box. They wondered who they belonged to. I said a special 6 year old, 4 year old, and 2 year old made them...They just can't imagine that their 'big' siblings were ever that size! Now they would like to make some for themselves...

((Remember these??))

Another tradition we've had for the last 5 years was 'Dirty Santa'...I mean real Dirty, trash pile Santa Exchange. We would gather our trash up, wrap it, and gift our dear friends the Elliott Family with it. Thankfully they didn't mind and were wrapping their trash up for us. We each brought our unmarked, wrapped gifts(a rusty old boat, wild pregnant cats, broken computer monitors, and even a few indescribably weird things). Next, we would draw numbers, choose gifts, then steal the 'best' ones for ourselves. All this in the name of Christmas(!)

This year we have decided the game needed new rules AND a new name, thus the Nutcracker Exchange was born. A much more dignified name, don't you think?? We will be exchanging food items, junk food, homemade food, yucky food, and delicious food! It should be a lot of FUN! The best part for us moms?? When Christmas is over, there won't be stuff to store. We'll enjoy eating all the presents, unless it's yucky, I guess.

The girls and I enjoyed another new 'tradition' this year. Our Keepers of the Faith group made pillowcases for the residents of the Sterling House. Each young girl ages 5-15 made one to share. We went and sang 4 songs, starting with "Jesus Loves Me" and ending with "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Each girl went around visiting with the residents and giving them their gifts. Our girls were even asked to sing again...Miss K, Miss M, Miss A, and I gave an impromptu concert with "Higher Ground". The residents just cried and hugged the girls, saying this was the best program they had ever had.

Our family has a few more fun upcoming Christmas events, then after settling down for a long winters nap, we'll start looking toward 2012...

May your Christmas Season be Jolly and may you remember the true meaning of Christmas. A babe in a manger who died for you, a lowly sinner. We are blessed!

Resourcefulness- just an introspection...

This is not one of those post on what is going on with our family or what we've done lately. This is one of those 'just because' I got inspired kind of posts.

Resourcefulness has a nice definition from Character First: Finding practical uses for that which others would overlook or discard. My definition: Being too cheap to waste anything.

Just this week I was making no-bake cookies and used all the oatmeal up. The empty bag was a thick waxy paper...which with the use of some scissors quickly became a huge sheet of wax paper. I LOVE saving a dime or dollar using what I already have. I seriously should have been born in the depression era with my saving tendency. I so enjoy it when groceries are a few cents a piece, hence my great excitement for couponing.

I also love the feeling of remaking something to be useful. Just this week my dear friend Steph and I remade skirts to outfit her kiddos by following Tamy's instruction. On that note, Tamy is one smart lady ((thank you friend for all you teach me!)) She is a very resourceful person using up what she has on hand all the time. She's shown me how to make gifts using scrap fabric, so we are using up our fabric to make pillowcases to take to the 'old-erly people', as my Miss M calls them, for Christmas. (Each year our Keepers group blesses the nursing home residents with pillowcases). My obsession with being resourceful includes using fabric passed on from others ((thanks once again Cheryl!)) for this worthy project.

I'm trying now to think what I can do for Christmas while being thrifty...last year I gave my girls a basket of groceries (even though my dear friends laughed at me saving trash!) I saved various boxes and containers, taped them shut, and we've played grocery store all year with this free gift.

I've spent sometime this week patching clothes up for another friend too. Trying to help her be resourceful. It's been awhile since I had hand patched denim jeans. My little guys used to wear their pants patched, but not now...

I save all my printer paper and print my coupons and junk on the back of the used sheets. Surely this saves on our paper bill.

The opposite definition of resourcefulness is wastefulness...which I never want to be guilty of. It is important to be a good steward of all God has provided our family. However being a good steward also means passing some things on. I can NOT horde every item that comes through my door any longer. I am letting things go...even things I might use again. I'm ok that I shared my newborn baby girl clothes with a young single mom or my maternity clothes with a friend. When I need them the Lord will provide more of what I need, that I am confident of.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite little poems:

Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
or do without!

Another October....

October was a busy month with no time to blog...not that November is much better I'm just up early today with a few spare moments to catch up.

We had three big things happen in Oct and a lot more little ones that escape me.

~~Family Camp 2011!!~~

We went on a week long camping trip with the Elliott and Chatham families to Big Sandy. We were very blessed to have Abbie and Charity join us. With all the trip craziness, we're just glad they are still our friends afterwards! We ate TONS of powdered doughnuts, learned to like iced coffee, had a great time at volleyball and rapelling, rock climbing and relaxing...you can figure out who did what!?!

We had sickness and sunburns, saw a few bike wrecks, lost more things than I care to remember, then found a few in the strangest places. Over all we were very blessed to have a week of FAMILY AND FRIENDS~~

~~ Fall Break~~ We took the opportunity of Josh being out of school to have his wisdom teeth removed...ouch! He's recovering nicely now. I forgot to take any pictures of his chipmunk cheeks, however a nice mom wouldn't post those anyway.

~~Birthday Fun~~Then the last week of October I celebrated my 37th birthday. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time does go by. Somewhere between being a 'young' mom and today I must have blinked...and now I have grown children! Although I never planned to be young forever, I didn't plan on it going this fast either.

I am so incredibly blessed by each of my children and a husband who is wonderful! I praise God daily for them...

Joe's 15 now...time to celebrate late!!

I think this post was much longer, but somehow it disappeared into cyberland.  All in all Joe had a blessed 15 birthday!


Eat, play volleyball, and fellowship where high on the list for Joe's birthday party. Here's all the girl attendees...what did you do with all the guys??? They had a great time with great friends! Thanks to all who came.

A Dog-on good birthday party - Miss A is 4!!

Miss A was very blessed on her 4th birthday. One of her gifts was her own black baby...wonder who gave that?? Why our very own triplet friends! I love the expressions as she opened it from all the girls. The conversation was pretty humorous too... Clay "that baby looks dumb" not much into babies is he?? Camie and Emma" she has pink lipstick on...wonder why she's wearing that?" You have to be a black kiddo to think up all those things,  Miss A thought she was perfect! She's become the new favorite around here!!

This was another special gift (they all were!!) She got a new pet shop from her brother Joe. She looked around expectantly to tell him thank you. She is Joe's best buddy!

We played pin the bone in the dog's mouth.

All our friends who made it to the party...

Elliott, Smith, Lowe, and Toombs families, plus Fairy's niece Leelee.

Playing Doggie Doggie where's your bone.

We also played Musical Paw prints (like musical chairs!)

We ate dog treats and puppy chow (chex mix). We had a bone cake...strawberry, chocolate, and sprinkles. Each flavor made by a different girl at our house. I iced it and made it to the party without ruining it. I was impressed!

Grandma Mary Moves to Georgia

On September 22, 2011 Grandma Mary moved to Georgia to live with her oldest son (My beloved's dad) Dwight. These are some going away pictures we snapped with the girls. They loved having their grandma here and they kept her young with all their activities! Daily they would have her doing an exercise video "Walk away the pounds" with them or have her lined up on chairs with a hymn book having 'church'. They enjoyed this special time to get to know grandma better!

Grandma and Miss M

Grandma and Miss A with her new birthday presents from Mary.

Miss K and Grandma, whom Miss K was named after

All the girls...what a job to get everyone to smile at once!

Grandma and precious Princess SJ. Mary sure enjoyed this little girl!

Oklahoma! and the Oklahoma State Fair...

We spent an enjoyable, rainy day attending the Oklahoma! presentation by Lyric theater and the great state fair with the L family. How blessed we are to have good friends!!


The girls wore their shirts and bonnets that we sewed last spring so they could pose for pictures with the cast.

We found a hands on art room where the girls enjoyed making projects

and us moms could rest for a few minutes.

Melissa took a turn cuddling Princess SJ.

Miss M and Melissa completed the challenge...

make a tall marble works that really WORKS!

Mrs. L shows Miss M and Miss A how it's done!

Even though it rained on this opening day of the fair, we had a great time. We visited the cinnamon roll stand, the corn dog stand, the cotton candy, lemonade, and Dippin dots stands. We were stuffed but enjoyed every bite! (All 7 of us shared each treat lest you think we are piggys)

Princess SJ is a Cutie at 2 months!

Princess's 2 month old pictures. Walmart specials, but cute none the less!

Miss M gave princess her first piano lesson.

There's nothing like starting them early!

Big Sister Miss A loves to cuddle the baby.

Sweet baby faces. Nothing can compare!

Princess SJ has two deep dimples that I've yet to get a really good picture of.

What more can a mommy who has been blessed as much as I have say. Each of our children are precious. There is just something about being little that just makes you want to take pictures of them...lots of pictures!

Labor Day 2011

Labor Day was peaceful this year. We spent the Sunday morning at the local nature park hiking, eating doughnuts and giving Daddy an opportunity to share GOD's word with us while enjoying nature. Jojo was the family photographer for the day. He did a great job taking photos of all of us and the natural beauty of the park! Due to the drought the water was almost gone. Pools where there were water had signs posted do not enter toxic water. Sadly, we couldn't go wading like we do in wetter years.

After a 2 hour hike to the nature center, these guys graciously

volunteered to go get the car in a more timely fashion.

What a blessing it is to have two sons who love the LORD and their family!

Joe's 15 now...

My dear second born son and last of my older set of children turned 15 this last week. In many ways Joe is so easy going...he didn't really have a special meal he wanted or a special dessert. He was happy with the gifts he got. His acceptance of life without me having to bend over backward to make him happy is a blessing to this mama's heart!

How we celebrated...we got up early and drove 30(!) miles to a popular doughnut shop. When we arrived it only had 2 tables, six chairs, and one was occupied. That wasn't quite going to work for a family our size. So we took them to go and headed to the National Park located across the highway. We found a picnic table and had a nice leisurely Sunday morning breakfast...a little too leisurely I guess. After hurrying home to pick up Brian, Grandma, and the potluck meal we were about 20 minutes late for church. We came in the middle of our missionary friend Rebecca  sharing what her life is like in the country of Belize. We so enjoyed the part we heard and the pictures she shared!

That afternoon we had our parents and Leelee over to help us celebrate. Cooking on the grill...well intending to...we were out of propane! Burgers on the stove, opening gifts, and fellowship. We plan to have a bigger 'outdoor' party if this heat wave ever breaks. I pray Joe was blessed this year like I have been every year he has been in our life.