Happy New Year!

Well, I'm sitting at home relaxing (kind of) with 5/6th of my family at home. I'm still waiting for my 16 year old to get home from a youth retreat and the roads are terrible so I'm not quite fully relaxed. :) I will be once she gets home.

Today, December 31st is a special day for our family. It's the day the final addition to our family was born. My little daughter is 6 years old today! She's what we consider our "bonus baby" since I struggled with infertility for so many years and worked hard for each baby I conceived but this little one seemed to just sneak in and I didn't know about her until I was 10 weeks pregnant. :) She's such an amazing blessing and an absolute cutie pie. I love my Chicky very much and thank God for her daily. Happy birthday Bean!!

In other news, my wonderful Christmas bonus has been spent. I was looking to maybe buy a Kitchen Aid mixer - or some other great thing that I can't afford (my bonus was just shy of $200) but what did I spend it on? A sick 2 lb. rabbit. Yep. Gohan is sick with a double ear and sinus infection and is on antibiotics and a probiotic. Lovely. But hopefully he'll be doing better soon.

Well, I'll finish this post with a wish. I wish you all God's greatest blessings in the new year. I pray that you will seek Him and grow closer to Him each and every day. God is good. He's not only the Creator of the universe but our own Daddy. How wonderful is that?

SIGH .... Boys

So some of you know that we've had a new happening around the homestead. We've been visited by a teen boy. "Boy" is interested in our 16 year old and told her so about 3 weeks ago when they went into the city with the youth group. I had already told her that he was interested because he came here to watch a movie with her and I saw. Daddy saw too. She denied it and said that they were just friends but we knew better. She came home from the city and told us that he told her that he liked her in Rockefeller Center at the tree - just as it began to snow. :) I asked her if she liked him and she said "I think so." So it began.

Last weekend, we had a group of her friends come over to play games and hang out and hubby and I hung out with them. "Boy" was here too, of course. We had a fun time getting to know everyone (some we knew already, others were newer friends) and when it was time to go, boy asked DH if he could come to his office to speak to him about DD. Uh-oh. So DH borrowed the pastors' gun (the one that goes around to the pastors with daughters when boys start circling) and met with boy on Tuesday. They had a nice talk, boy was very respectful and honest. DH told him that we like him and see no reason to have to use said gun (LOL) but that boy and DD don't know each other that well since they only met 6 weeks ago so while it's not "no", it's "not yet". He asked boy what his parents thought - and they had said the same thing. So now intentions are given, boy and DD are told to wait and continue hanging out and getting to know each other. We'll have boy over a bit, we'll encourage them to get together in a group. And sometime we will have to say "OK" if the interest is still there and we haven't seen anything going on that we don't like. Honestly, this boy is a doll and has done some things that have not been in the spotlight but I've been privvy to that I really respect him for. So this is the first boy who's being given a chance. The other two were shot down hard and fast. LOL

Oh the joys of having daughters. But if boy turns out to be what he seems to be, I'd be happy to let him be a part of my daughter's life. He's a boy I'd be happy to have raised myself. That says a lot because I can be quite critical of other people's kids. I know it's not good but it's who I am. But I like boy. :)

It's almost here!!

Whew!! Christmas certainly has a way of sneaking up on a woman, doesn't it? Of course, if you're like me and a major procrastinator, it's even worse. Right now I'm making my Christmas jam so DH can bring it to church tomorrow to hand out to everyone. Yeah, I could have done this back in November but why do it then and relax instead of doing it last minute? Last minute is SO much more exciting! Atleast it's not midnight like last year! I guess I'm getting better!!

I still also need to finish shopping for the littles (the rest of everyone else is done) and I need to do some cooking for my dad. I usually make up 3-4 recipes and package them in smaller containers so that he can have some good homecooked food that he'd not normally make for himself. He's alone and in his 80s so cooking is not really fun for him. I'll also make a larger meal since my brother and sister-in-law are coming into town with my little nephew and it will be a help to all of them to have a full meal fixed for them.

So tomorrow I'll take DH to bring his car in (needs oil change and inspection) and then head out to finish shopping for the littles. I then have an appointment with my breast surgeon (everything is OK - but I had a severe case of mastitis almost 6 years ago and it damaged some ducts and a lymph node so he's staying on top of that regularly just in case...) and then it looks like I'm seeing the dentist. I hate the dentist. But I haven't been in so long and I have a tooth with a big chunk taken out of it for some reason. I made an appointment for my 16 year old but she's going to be working so I guess it's mine now. :( We'll see how it goes.

Well, if I don't "see" all of you, have a wonderful Christmas! May God bless your family and your time together as you celebrate His birth.

Great Book Giveaway!

I'm SO in on this one!! Kingdom People is giving away a set of 10 great books as well as an ESV Study Bible (which my hubby got for Christmas but I'd LOVE one of my own!!). Check it out!

Oh the (not always) joyful busyness of the season

I always say things will be better next year but they never are. LOL MAN this holiday is crazy! I had a LOT of work this weekend thanks to the play at church. Yesterday I was at church for 8 hours split into 2 different times (came home for that short time to post yesterday). Today I'm trying to work on finishing up school for the week so we can be done by Friday but the kids are just not cooperating. They both are singing Christmas songs right now. LOL I still need to finish my cards, finish shopping, make 3 batches of my Christmas jam, wrap stuff for our staff Christmas party on Thursday, clean the house and set up Christmas at home! We have NOTHING set up yet! I'm hoping to knock that off my list by Wednesday. I can't go to a Christmas party that DH and I were supposed to go to tonight because of no one to watch the kids, and I"m not going to the Woman's Bible Study brunch tomorrow (DH leads worship for them) because I NEED to get school done. SIGH.

K - I think I need to set some realistic goals so I think this week, I will concentrate on:

Finishing school
making jam
getting the packages mailed out that need to go
finishing the cards

I'll have the girls set up the tree and decorate over the next few days so I don't have to worry about that. :) That might help a lot.

Sorry I haven't posted - life is busy!!

This week was so busy and this weekend continues to follow the trend. Today I had to be up at church early to work at the "Welcome Center" (where people can come and get info on the church and it's events) and that took me through 2 services (I DID attend one of them however). :) I ended up staying out in the lobby later than I was planning to and couldn't run the projector today because we had a dear lady walk smack dab into the sidelight of the door thinking it was an open door. Poor thing hit hard and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. :( She's over at the hospital now in capable hands. My prayers are with her.

Now I'm home for an hour and just had lunch - then will be heading back up to church for 3:15 for Welcome Center duty again for the last of the plays. Maybe I'll even get a chance to see it tonight!!

So I'm off to peel and chop some veggies to put in the oven on time bake so the roasted veggies will be almost done when we get home. I'll then toss a pork tenderloin in the pan for the last 30 minutes so we can have a nice hot dinner.

I'll try to post a bit more this week. :) Well, that's my plan....

The body - what an amazing piece of artwork handcrafted by God

Wowza is all I can say. I know that the Bodies Exhibit would be too much for some but it was SOOOOO cool to me! Nicole and I walked through so slowly that we got way behind her class. But what an amazing piece of equipment we live in people! To see the circulatory system of the entire body - a REAL circulatory system - AMAZING. The nervous system and brain? GENIUS!!!

What REALLY had us floored was the room with the babies. Babies from 5 weeks (based on 40 weeks so only 3 weeks gestation) to a full term baby. HOW can anyone say that babies are just blobs of tissue??? We saw a baby with spina bifida along with other birth defects and conjoined twins. We saw a baby in the mother's womb - in the mother's whole body. Wow is all I can say.

How anyone can come out of that exhibit and say that we just "happened" or we were formed by "chance" are idiot - or so deeply deceived. All I could say coming out of that exhibit was "Praise God!! You are awesome!!"

Now I want to go back and spend more time. We only had about an hour and a half. I'd want to spend a day seeing it. If you EVER can get to see one of these, GO. You won't regret it.

YAWN!!!!!

I'm tired. Don't know why. Could it be the early mornings and late nights over the weekend? Could it be that I'm fighting something? Could it be that I had to try to get a 1500 lb. horse to trot tonight in the freezing cold even though he REALLY didn't feel like it?? Maybe it's a combination of all of it. :D

Tomorrow I'm going with my 16 year old on a field trip! We're going to see the Bodies Exhibit in NYC with her health teacher. I'm SOOOO excited. I'm a geek when it comes to stuff like this - I think that the human body is beyond cool! It's worked out well because my college student doesn't have classes tomorrow (it's a make-up day for emergency closings and we've not had any so .... no school!) so she can watch the littles. I'm going to get to bed early tonight so I have enough time to get ready in the morning then go to NYC!! Woo-hoo!! I'll let you all know how it goes.

SNOW!!!!

We're having our first snow. FINALLY! But this is the earliest we've had measurable snow here on Long Island in a long time. I'm so excited to see how the kids respond in the morning. :D We'll be at church from around 8:30 to 1:30 so they won't be able to play in it right away but they can play afterwards - because it's going to stay cold for a few days. :D How fun!!!

What perfect timing too. Tomorrow afternoon is our first of 4 Christmas plays at our church. They're always spectatcular programs and I can't wait to see it. I'm not sure if I'm going to go tomorrow or not - because I'm working the "Welcome Center" for the last 2 plays and the 2nd play is the dinner theater that we don't go to. If I can go in for one of the plays next week, then I'll just stay home tomorrow. So we'll see what happens.

Wanna see part of my church worship?

My hubby is the worship pastor at our church. He introduced a new song this week - Cannons by Phil Wickham. It's a wonderful song and one that the congregation will begin singing probably this week. We also have a group at our church called "DOZ" or "Daughter's of Zion". They are young girls under 19 years old who dance, use tambourines and streamers/flags/etc. in worship. They don't worship every week with the worship team but numerous times throughout the year. They worshipped Thanksgiving Eve and then 3 of the girls danced this past Sunday to the new song. This was done during the offering time which is a "special music" time - not a normal time for the congregation to sing along in worship but DH had them join in towards the end on the chorus. So, that's the introduction. Here's the video. Oh - one of the girls - the tall blonde - has a broken hand and a bright purple cast on it. She put an ace bandage on it so you can't see it but a few times I noticed she had a hard time with the streamer fan. :) The lyrics are below.




Cannons by Phil Wickham

It’s falling from the clouds
A strange and lovely sound
I hear it in the thunder and rain
It’s ringing in the skies
Like cannons in the night
The music of the universe plays

Singing, You are holy, great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I’m so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are

Beautiful and free
The song of galaxies
Reaching far beyond the Milky Way
Let’s join in with the sound
Come on let’s sing it out
As the music of the universe plays

All glory, honor, power is Yours, Amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours, Amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours, forever Amen