~ faith like a child ~

C
onstant Praise and Worship
singing, a laugh that will
warm a cold bitter heart in a
second, and a beautiful heart
for her precious Lord and Savior.

Those are just a few things that you get

wrapped up so neatly in one little sister package.

Now that we have a kid in the house that is in school...

WE got to go to a Christmas Program!

She actually had two Christmas programs -

One for church

and one for school.

We were able to make it to the one for her school...

and for that,

she was appointed to be

THE Angel.

Now granted there were about 50 "angels".

BUT

she was listed in the program as "THE Angel".

And my oh my what a beautiful angel she made.

We were so proud.

They sang about 10 songs and they were all precious.

It is a pleasure to watch Casi be a parent.

She is such a good mama.

She had Sis in a beautiful black and white Christmas dress,

her hair was perfectly twisted into a little

halo on the top of her head,

her ends were neatly trimmed and curled,

and her face was lightly glowing from a dab-or-two of

mama's body shimmer.

Her little legs were in warm black tights and she was wearing pretty little

patent leather black shoes...

she reminded me of the little fairies on Sleeping Beauty when they were flying

through the air and how they looked like little electrical outlets.

I was sure if Sis could

take flight she'd look exactly the same as those little fairies do.

When we were at her program, and the program had just barely began -

Sis couldn't see us.

She couldn't find us for a little over 5 minutes.

We were sitting pretty far in the back and as she made her way to "THE Angel" spot...

I watched as her little round face searched over the audience.

She looked left

to right.

Over and Over.

Looking for us.

The lights were bright on the stage and as many of you know,

that makes it even harder to see people in the audience.

But she was brave.

She was courageous.

SHE

had faith.

Now after a little while, she spotted us and she got

that huge beautiful grin on her face and was waving and singing

even louder than before

but I couldn't help in my heart to gush with pride as I watched baby girl

be so very brave in that frantic moment when she couldn't quite see us.  

It is almost daily that this little girl teaches or reminds me

about God's unconditional, never ending

faithfulness and love for me.

Already, at the age of 4 -

she has such a testimony to share.

God is always there - even when we can't see him.

We are his sweet little babes performing up on this stage of life.

We are all in our awkward, adorable, silly costumes,

and we all have distractions and lights blaring in our eyes

 and we are all frantically searching the audience

for just one glimpse of our Abba Father.

We need just a glimpse

to feel secure.

To feel confident enough to carry on another day.

In the mean time,

He is sitting so proudly but quietly,

just waiting for us to decide

not to focus on everything else and

to see Him.

If we can dodge the distractions and have the faith of a child,

 and never give up our pursuit

to see him - to feel his presence...

He WILL reveal himself to us

and

we will see Him more clearly.

Matthew 18:3 (NIV)

³ And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Distractions come in all shapes, sizes, and sounds.

We just have to be aware of their presence and abilities to fog our vision.

Well - today I'm off to pick up Christmas Cards.

... I can't wait to see how they turned out and

I imagine there will be plenty of distractions for me to ignore.

I can handle it. I'm ready. And as my Mama says,

"My gun is cocked and loaded."

Happy Friday, Dears.

~ I love your socks! ~

S
o this year I really wanted to
something super creative for
Advent. I looked on blogs,
Pinterest and Google for ideas
and a really fun idea I saw using

socks!

So I gathered up all those silly holiday socks that we don't wear too much,

and I went to the thrift store for the remaining. I gathered together 25 total.

I wrote down from 1 - 25 ideas for family activities, verses and gathered

a few fun candies for here and there...

I have to admit I didn't stuff them from day one

and I definitely should have because I tend to forget... in fact, I should just stuff the rest today

so we can finish up strong.

::sigh::

Raise your hand if your getting a bit overwhelmed...

[waving both hands in the air]

The types of things I stuff my socks with are little messages

that have a family activity which have included:

* Paint Christmas Pictures and hang them in the windows

* Go as a family to pick out Christmas Tree

* Family Game Night

* Decorate the House for Christmas as a family (including all of our bedrooms)

Kitchen Window

(that is not a chalk board fyi - I took poster board, painted it black, and drew on it with white crayon)

Sister's room!

Boys' Room!

I surprised sister one night when she got home from work with her whole bedroom decorated!

She loved it!

I put a touch of greenery in a vase so she can get a daily whiff or two of Christmas! ♥

Her room is very shabby chic so I went with gold and vintage looking apples in there.

She got that giraffe from Africa -- she's spoiled rotten. baaaha!

Me and My Loverboy's bedroom.

 I adore blue and silver - these were all on my Christmas Tree last year actually

* Picnic on the floor for dinner

* Bake Cookies together

that is just a few ideas that we have done and then

every other day or so I add a verse to go along with the Christmas story

and also randomly add in a little candy for the kids.

All the kids take turns opening the socks - they really love it

and I love thinking up the ideas. We don't open them till after nap time because

we wanted to wait for sister to get home from school and all the activities are for the

whole family pretty much so we do them after dinner.

For tonight: We are taking a drive as a family to go see the Christmas Lights.

Wishing you a fabulous day

and

Don't forget to wrap a scarf around

your neck cuz Baby - it's cold outside!



~ to the trees!! ~

W
e went as a family to go
pick out our Christmas
tree this year. We went
to our church tree lot, it
was so much fun!

Everyone was all bundles up

with fabulous hats,

scarves,

 puffy coats

and cheerful smiles!

 Oh - and some of us had our

GIDDY

smiles on!! Lol!

 Any tree lot that has a warm cozy camp trailer

with Christmas Lights on it

and blaring Christmas Music

is definitely the right place to go! 

It smelt like Christmas goodness!

 We all walked up and down the little tree-aisles and

picked out our favorites.

The kids were running and dodging through the trees!

I have to admit I was dragging my feet to pick out one because it was

just too much fun just being there together.

I mean -

this is where the memories are made and I knew we were in the middle of a memory...

I was trying to savor it as much as I could...

you know, that precious moment of memorie-making-ness...

We finally got one picked out and I paid the lady

while Daddy loaded it up in the Buick.

 Even our little princess found one for her very own bedroom!

 We got it home and Daddy put it up for us...

the next day we decorated it.

I had little vintage red apples that my mom had given me that we used,

strings of wooden beads,

old straw-like snowflakes that were my first decorations I ever bought,

and I topped it with a pretty cross that my mom had also given me,
and I attached it to a bow that had some berries, greenery and pine cones.

These are the great little snowmen decorations that my Grandma Sally sent to my boys.

And this little nativity ornament was to Ben and I.

I love it!

Our little tree turned out really cute this year...

not quite what I had in mind originally as I had hoped to do something a little different with plaid and handmade little blackboards -

but there is always next year for that.

And I'm oh SO thankful for this sweet little tree chalked full of precious memories of little boys and dogs rearranging things for me.

It's glow at night is perfect.

What more could a girl ask for?

~ izzy takes flight ~

I
zzy is playing dress-up already!
These are some of Sis' butterfly
wings that I put on Izzy. She
loves them and prances around
just knowing that she is simply
adorable.

Isn't it amazing how animals can be such a blessing to our hearts.

What a precious gift God gave to us in animals.

Izzy keeps things hopping around the house. She chases the kids, she barks to alert me when anyone is opening the back door which is both helpful and a tid bit annoying... but mostly helpful.

She is a full-blown garbage hound and has pushed me to rig-up an altered trash can that will fit underneath my sink just so she can't get into it... this was actually something Daphnie had a

hard time with also - so the new garbage situation, as Martha Stewart would say, is a "Good Thing".



She is also a huge fan of any type of small stuffed animal/toy of sorts...

She loves their tails - if you know what I mean. I currently have a stack of about 6 stuffed toys

that Pauly-boy is pretty sure I need to get busy on asap and give them all new tails...

Yeah... ... I'll have to figure out just how to tackle that one.

Izzy is a huge cuddle-girl and loves to curl up for a good nap about twice to three times a day.

As I type this she is napping by my feet... BUT

as soon as the boys wake up she'll be on the go and waiting for any crust

of bread she can get from underneath the table since William

has figured out a new trick on how to clean his plate so good. Lol!

I go to scold him and she just looks at me like - Get over it lady!

He feeds me,

he loves me and I love him. So get over it!

I just had to through these last two pics in the mix of this Izzy post.

This one of her peeking over the backseat is so precious.

We were headed to eastern Idaho to go see my mom and dad and she sat up there all

the way there (4 hours each way) and all the way back without ever jumping over the seat onto Pauly.

Very. Good girl.

Daphnie and Izzy get along as if they've always been together.

Truly - Soul Sisters.

They both have amazing stories of both being saved - as Izzy was found by her previous owner at

a pound in - Arkansas - I think it was...

she had mites in her ears, she tugged at their hearts and let's be honest - how could she not?

... And Daphnie was my 21st birthday present. My mom and dad gave her to me -

I can remember the day my mom brought her to me. She had a huge red ribbon around her

neck and I.

Fell hard in love with her from the first second I saw her.

I had just moved into

a new apartment. I was alone and having a hard time living by myself.

She was and has been such a joyful addition to my life...

they both are.



"Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds."

Psalm 148:7-10

~ outage ~

A
few weeks back, our power
went out for about two or
three hours. We had already
had dinner and I had just got
done making rice crispy treats.

The timing of the power outage worked out perfectly.

It was still daylight out so we all got our shoes on and took some cookies
to the newer neighbors across the street and then when we got home and after the kids played for about an hour, the sun had went all the way

down and the house was pretty dark.

One of the best things about the power going out is
lighting candles and doing things by candle light only.
::sigh::
LOVE it.


When we were little girls, mom would round up the candles and we would get them all lit up and then we would play games, visit or sing.

As it got dark the kids pretty much had to stay in the same room as the candles
and then I remembered that our lab top probably had some battery left in it from being charged up before the power went out - so I set the kids up with 'Finding Nemo'.

One of my all time favorites.

The kids were so excited to watch a movie on the laptop as if it is more special -
more fun or something.

I  can remember thinking that way when I was little, can't you?

 (the pic above was with no flash and the one below was with the flash - crazy huh!)

All three of their faces in this picture cracks me up  - especially Sweet Pea's. Lol!

 Casi serenaded me on the guitar - she is getting so good at the guitar!
So proud of her!

Isn't it weird that we can enjoy this kind of thing every night but far too often,
we get caught up in what's on the tele, and we send our kids to go play with their toys in another room
or set them up with a cartoony away from us when really we know the good memories and precious family time is just a light-switch away.

Why do we wait for the power to go out to spend this type of quality time together?

Ben has a sister that once a month - they have "Amish night".

They turn out all the lights

and play games by candle light.

Good idea, huh!?

I think it is time our family adopts some type of tradition similar to "Amish Night".

What kind of fun things do you and your family do during a power outage?

or just to be together?