One more snow pic

I forgot to show you my favorite snow picture of all! When we left Conway, Mikayla had made the base of a snowman without being able to finish it. When we returned, my brother had parked his car on it. :( My thought was, 'Oh, well, guess you'll have to start over.' Mikayla's thought was, 'Let's finish it anyway!" And came up with this:

 

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The rest of the story!

Well, we woke up at 6 the morning after Christmas to a cold house! The electricity had gone off around midnight. Thankfully, Mom has a fireplace AND an iron wood-burning stove, so we built up the fires, wrapped banana bread in foil and set it on the stove to warm, and even used our camping percolator to make some coffee! We had ended up getting close to a foot of snow, and I had brought some snow gear, so the girls suited up and went out to play. It was too powdery at first to make a snowman, but they would go out and get cold and come in and warm up just like the old days in Idaho. :) We also played more of our new games and made snow ice cream and kept the fires going and generally tried to stay warm. For lunch Kelli fried an egg and the rest of us fried up some left-over Christmas ham and rolls. By afternoon Jason and Kelli's power had come back on and they went home, but when Mom called they told her it could be a WEEK before hers was fixed! She and I remember when the house was still on a well with an electric pump and we couldn't use any water or even flush the toilets, so we were thankful for city water! We put some of that water in big pots on the stove for hot chocolate and washing dishes, and even boiled chicken in some, melted Velveeta with Rotel in a crock, and had chicken nachos for supper! It got dark again by 6, and we pulled out the candles and flashlights for a rousing game of Apples to Apples, but the charm of the dark and cold were beginning to diminish. And so was the woodpile. I don't know why we didn't all sleep in the family room by the stove, but we went to our beds and slept...until about 4:00, when we woke up freezing! I didn't look at the thermostat, but my mom said it was about 30 degrees. In the house. It was 17 outside. After we got the fire going again, we had 4 logs left. The banana bread got a little TOO done, we all wanted--no, NEEDED--baths, and worst of all, the percolator didn't work for some reason. It was time to go. My van was stuck, so we piled into my mom's 4-wheel drive and went to my house in Magnolia, which was warm and had hot water and lights and felt like heaven. My mom's neighbor called that night to say their power was back on, so we took her home a couple of days later. Phew! It was an exciting end to the Christmas season, and one we will definitely always remember.


Warming up the first morning

Lunch time!

The girls were even able to watch a DVD until their battery died.

Snow ice cream!

Apples to Apples fun

Blue sky behind snow is one of my favorite things. :)

On the 10th day/moment of Christmas!

10. Christmas morning!! At our house, Christmas morning is madness meets mayhem. All three girls jumped on our bed at 5:30. A.M. In the morning. But that's okay, because honestly, I get as excited as they do, and had been awake since 5. (sheepish grin)

Stockings!

Presents!

Mike looks like he's got a star coming out of his mouth!
 

11. As soon as we finished opening presents and eating my Aunt Melody's Christmas Morning Casserole, we loaded up and started driving to my Mom's house to celebrate with her and my brother Mark and his family. It was raining and windy and cold, and as we went further north we noticed the rain was starting to freeze to the antenna and mirrors! We got to my Mom's and hugged everybody and opened more presents, then ate a nice big meal. We got lots of games this year, so we played one, and the next thing we knew it was sleeting outside. My brother had some house guests and the little kids were so excited, saying, "It's really snowing!!" But it was really just ice--making roads dangerous. So my brother and his family, nephew and his wife, and Mike all left. (Mike was leaving the next day for NYC to do disaster relief with his students.)

I had been skeptical of the weather forecast for a white Christmas, because it had been stinkin' 70 degrees all week. But lo and behold, within an hour or two it really was "really snowing!" And it snowed and snowed and snowed. Jason and Kelli ended up coming back because the electricity was out at their house, and they have no fireplace. We had power, and extra beds, so it was all fun.

I love this picture.

"I can't put my arms down!"

The girls went out in it, because they knew from experience that in the South, it could be gone by morning.

I worried about Mike all evening--he called me every now and then and was pretty worried himself--but he made it home safely. 12. That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, I looked out the kitchen window to see how much snow had fallen, and I saw this.

At that moment, I remembered something. At the beginning of December, I was praying and I said, "Lord, I know it's a silly little thing, and I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt, but if You could just send my girls some snow this Christmas season, they would be so happy. It doesn't even have to be on Christmas day, but I know You could send the moisture and the cold at just the right moment. So please give my girls some snow!" I almost cried looking out at the answer to my prayers--a visible sign of God's love for me and my girls. I wanted to share it with someone, but everyone was asleep! I poked my head in my Mom's room and whispered, "Are you awake?" But she didn't answer, so I guess she wasn't. I went to the door of the girls' room to do the same thing, but just then Jessica opened the door, so I took her to the window and we enjoyed it together.

Tune in later for the rest of the story!

On the 7th day/moment of Christmas...

7. For Southern Baptists, Lottie Moon and foreign missions play a huge part in the Christmas season. (For more info. and a wonderful video about Lottie Moon, click here. Seriously, I love this video.) It is even more special when the invited guest missionaries are your very own nephew and his awesome wife! I babysat Jason and his older brother Thomas all day every day for two summers when they were babies and toddlers...and there were moments when I was listening to his heartfelt explanation of their call and the need in Japan, that I couldn't help but picture him as a 15-month-old. :)

Jason and Kelli
 

8. One of the traditions Mike and I started with our girls is our family Advent devotions. This year in addition to our weekly devotions around our Advent wreath and candles, I printed Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree devotions as well, and I enjoyed how they used the whole Bible to point to Jesus' first coming. Next year I plan to use this free printable one I downloaded from DaySpring!

9. Of course, the culmination of Advent, for us, is a tradition I've enjoyed every year of my life--our Christmas Eve birthday party for Jesus. We hid baby Jesus (Mikayla found Him here),

 put Him in the manger, and gathered around it to hear Mike read the story from Luke 2 before singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out the candles on our cupcakes. Always my most favorite moment.

On the 4th day/moment of Christmas...

4. Parties!! This year, after having new flooring installed and new paint on some walls, it was fun being able to open up our home to our BCM leadership team and freshmen, as well as to our local Survivor-watching-friends and some friends of the girls.

The puppies were a big hit. :)

Four on the couch!

5. This year I took Rebecca and her friend Claudia to the Circle of Friends "Santa's Workshop." All proceeds went to support Arkansas Children's Hospital, and they had a lot of fun.


 

6. One of my favorite childhood memories is caroling with friends from my church in our neighborhood in Virginia. I don't remember who organized it, I just remember how I loved the feeling of singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" outside in the cold, dark night. So I was happy when our church organized a night of caroling to some homebound members of our church. It wasn't exactly cold, but it was still a special time.

That's Rebecca on the far right.

 

Twelve Days (or Moments) of Christmas 2012

1. Christmas parade and SAU Celebration of Lights
Still my favorite thing in Magnolia! We met at the BCM as usual, and watched the parade with students. But this year Mikayla and Rebecca were in the parade, on the American Heritage Girls float! After the parade we walked over to campus and listened to the bands and choirs and saw Santa
. As we were standing in line to sit on his lap, Rebecca said, "I really just want a candy cane. I know he's not the real Santa."



Jessica with some of our girls

2. Why is decorating for Christmas so much more fun than UN-decorating? :) This year was so busy with unexpected things that Jessica and Mikayla put our fake tree together, then Mike put the lights on and we were all home to hang the ornaments. We could never get our real tree to stand straight, but I still love it best of all.

 

I like the "glasses on his head" look. :)







 

 

3. The bad news is, my mom had a stress fracture in her heel. Which hurts me every time I say it. The good news is, the girls and I drove up to help her the week that my brother's church had "Bethlehem Revisited!" The last time I went Rebecca was 2, so we went again, just the two of us, so she will actually remember it. They do such a good job, and Rebecca and I really got into the spirit of it. One of the things that made me laugh was when you first get there and register, they call it the census. :)

It was much colder in Conway than we were prepared for, so Rebecca wore my mom's red cape and scarf.

My niece Whitney worked at the butter and cheese shop.

3. One of Jessica's favorite things to do during the Christmas season is bake, and make goodie plates for our friends and neighbors. We make the same things every year--it's tradition!
We make gingerbread first.

We also make sugar cookies-

And red velvet cake balls-

And Ritz-cracker-thingies, and white chocolate covered pretzels and peppermint bark and fudge (which wasn't very good).

TO BE CONTINUED...