The unexpected party guest!

Saturday evening was our annual friend Christmas party here at our home. It's a good thing that our group of friends all live close by because as you can see, It was cold, windy and snowing. All this over some solid ice covered roads. We still had the party and had a great time. Each year for over 10 years, our party has had a theme, this years theme was "THE SOUND OF MUSIC" The theme for next year would have been more fitting, "LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW "

We had a lot of food, everyone brings a special treat and it turns out very tasty.

Since 3 of us from our group have had a new granddaughter this past year, we were thrilled when one of those three could be with us for the party. No, she was not the unexpected guest. Just scroll down and yes, you will see the true unexpected guest and the life of the party.

It was a sweet Basset Hound. He had been following someone outside in the snow storm and that person ask us if we could keep him safe from the cold and snow and possibly call his owners or the Animal shelter. And of course we said we would take care of him.
You can see he made himself at home. We figured out real quick he understood the word TREAT! and so he got a treat. He knew sit, outside and down.

When we read his tag it had his name, BUDDY, and a home ph# to call. His people did get home from another party, where BUDDY had escaped from their friends fence
, and came to retrieve their dog Buddy about 9:30 PM.

We always have a gift exchange to fit our theme and these kazoos were used to figure out how those anonymous gifts would be opened. Each had a number on it and when your number came up, a Christmas carol would have to be played and guessed by the other guests before they could chose a gift.
Here you can see our practice kazoo warm-up. It was quite the sound of music!

Here are some of the music gifts.

And more sound of music gifts!

And still more sound of music gifts!


This is the traveling gift that has been changed to fit many themes and birthday occasions. I think this original yellow bee has been traveling around for over 10 years now. There was a music box inside the body for this theme of Sound of music.

This is the third year for this green one eyed monster. When you lift its eye and press on its head it played JESUS LOVES ME! It came with a note that read,

Please accept me the way I am, I may look different than you

and you may not like the color of my skin or that I only have the use of one eye.

Try to find comfort in having me around.

If you gaze deeply into my eye and even pat me on the head,

you too may find comfort in the song I sing for you.


Below you will see a few pictures of us dotting grandparents.
And yes, I had my turn to hold and spoil this sweet little thing!

NOW THIS IS THE REAL GRANDPARENT ENJOYING SPECIAL CUDDLES WITH HER 5 MO OLD GRANDDAUGHTER!

IT WAS A GREAT TIME WITH FRIENDS EVEN IF THE STORM CONVINCED US NOT TO ATTEND THE SPECIAL SCHOOL OF MINES CHOIR "HANDEL'S MESSIAH"

We did take time to reflect on the reason we celebrate Christmas and the names of Jesus.

Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:

and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called

WONDERFUL, Counselor, The Mighty GOD,

The everlasting FATHER, The Prince of Peace.

Christmas Preparations

As most of you know, My husband and I both work on school bus's. He has many children that ride, like over 70 and I am a Bus Aid with approximately 22 children. Each year around this time of year, my husband gets busy, comes up with some figure to cut (saw) out of thin 1/8" wood. This year he is cutting out lambs for each student as their Christmas gift. Last year it was bells, one year it was Christmas trees, camels, school bus's etc. I help out by tracing them on the wood and helping with the thin ribbon ties so they can be used as tree ornaments.

We also help out with a mission church at the Reservation. This year he cut out over 60 of these wood ornaments. I stamped them and will put the thin red ribbon tie on each ornament. This will be the craft for this Sunday. The children and sometimes adults too, can color the manger scene with either colored pencils or markers. This will be a lasting reminder of the true meaning of Christmas and can be used to witness to others.


And here is our 16 1/2 yr old cat. I don't know why but every December He thinks the tree was put up just so he can lay under it.

Since he was a kitten he seemed to enjoy this quiet, under the tree spot. See that pretty shiny ornament? He also loves to bat that around a little and watch it spin. This is a old colorful plastic ornament from when I was a child. Not to give away my age but the ornament is well over 50 years old!
Every year I have a Christmas party with a theme. Last years theme was Let Your Light so Shine, this years theme is The Sound of Music. You can notice that this years tree has music notes and symbols to help keep with this years theme.

One job I normally only get done around this time of year is cleaning my light over our kitchen table. About 10 years ago, I just had to have this light and My husband bought it for me as a Christmas gift. Well, this light has many, many Chrystal balls, about 44 to be exact. As you can tell in this before picture, they do get dusty and dull throughout the year. At first I had planned on just skipping this time consuming job but tonight I thought better of myself and got to work.

You can see quite a difference. Even if my guests might not have noticed,

I would know and now it is done.

Here you can see how bright and festive it looks. The Chrystal cross was not a part of the light, but was a gift from our Daughter and I thought it would be a nice addition to our light.

Here's wishing you happy preparations for

a very special occasion! JESUS BIRTHDAY!

We go through many preparation hours, planning time, and thought when we celebrate our family's birthdays, so why not go all out as we celebrate Jesus Birthday. I think it is absolutely wonderful how most of the world celebrates Jesus Birthday even if many do not realize it.

Oh Come Let Us Adore Him! Christ The Lord!

It's Advent season or is it FLU season

Hey ! What is this? Anyone recognize this stuff? Well we sure do! NO, Its not Advent stuff!

My husband and I have both taken our turn with the creeping crud! The flu! We both missed a couple days of work due to bad head ache, temp, achy muscles and bones and the worst cough and Flem that we have seen in awhile. So to all our friends and loved ones, get a lot of rest, drink a lot of fluids , take vitamin c and please stay healthy. It seems to drag on and on. 3 to 4 weeks is not exaggerating.

Yes it is the Blessed time of year, Advent. Last Wednesday, my worst day of the flue, our dear friends, missionary mentors, Rev Utecht and his wife stopped by to visit and give us this beautiful wreath. It really helped to cheer up my day. They had no idea that I was under the weather. I certainly didn't want to spread the virus but was so happy to see them. They didn't stay long but it was a high-light of my day and I thank them for that, oh, and also the wreath that will adorn our most used doorway until well after the New Year.

I have managed to get some of the house decorated for Christmas. These are my 10 year old carolers that I purchased at a after Christmas sale when I was still employed with Spiegel.

I love this caroling family and can almost hear them singing "glo-o-o glo-o - o - ria ,
in ex-cel-sis de-o. In the past 10 years, these carolers have been know to mysteriously move around. The boy would be in one room, the mother on the TV, the father on the end table , etc.

This was a cute little joke my husband played on me and almost daily when I would get home from work they would be relocated somewhere in our home.



This gorgeous Angel will join our Christmas decorations this year. It is a gift from my husbands sister from WV. http://wwwwestvirginiaredhen.blogspot.com/ She is a very crafty person and always doing or making something beautiful.

This Angel was a gift from my parents. It is a fiber optics lite Angel. I have many many more angels and maybe next week I might share a few more pictures of angels or Christmas decorations.

I had a little trouble setting up our pre-lit artificial tree. My husband took over and you can see he got it together. I got it decorated on Saturday. I love doing that part. I am resting a lot and taking my time doing things around the home. I certainly don't want the flue to hit hard again. I am on the mend with still much coughing. The new natural cough medicines that our oldest daughter recommend help a lot but certainly doesn't cure it.

I try to look at the plus part of having the flue.

A. Thankful for the health we so often take for granted.

B. Time to relax and reflect the true meaning of this Advent season. Jesus birth!

C. Hopefully by getting this flue now, I will build up immunity and thus not get it at a older age when it is much harder to fight off.

Come to Bethlehem and see

Him whose birth the angels sing,

Come adore on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King.

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

GOD Bless your Advent season.

ADVENT, Christmas By Candlelight

Advent! Awaiting something special, preparing for something coming! Advent to a Christian is the 4 weeks preceding Christmas, awaiting the coming of our King, Savior, and awaiting the second coming when Christ will come to gather all who believe and trust in Him to to live with Him in heaven forever and ever. Above is the welcoming centerpiece as we entered our church this evening, the first day of Advent for Christmas By Candlelight. What a special way to start our Advent season. This was a night of scripture, song, candlelight, fellowship and desserts.

The Praise Team from our church led the music. Many Christmas songs were song with scripture and other short narrations between. Silent Night, Away in a Manger, Angels we have heard on high, Mary did you know, Manger Thrown, and many others were sung very professionally by the praise team. We had certain songs or verses that we sung with. The big screen was used to help us with the words and also had very beautiful Christmas scenes.
Here you can see the dessert table. There were many, about 20 tables decorated and prepared by a volunteer host. Each table done by a different person or group. Below, you will see several of these tables or at least the centerpiece. We had desert, coffee or water before the inspirational program began.

This was the table we sat by. There were 3 trees, white and glistening with special meaning of The Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The white reminds us of the pure, holy, sinless Christ Jesus. The purple reminds us that He alone is our King.
This picture didn't get too good but lets you see how elegant this was in the dark candlelight.

This was another table behind us.

I believe this wood carving of the escape is from Germany, or maybe this is from the Holy land, olive wood! It sure is a beautiful piece.

This table was adorned with Willow Tree
Nativity figures.

This uniquely decorated table captured the attention of many. It was called the MAN TABLE!

Notice the decorated Elk antler with fishing, camping things and even a small air plane. It had bright garland on it, flashing lights, a camouflage table cloth and nothing else matched.
And yes, all men sat at that table. What a cute idea!

This was the view by candlelight as the Praise Team sang and read.

Now this was so beautiful on the baby grand piano. The picture below shows it more detail.

The final song was O'Come, O'Come Emanuel

Let us all remember as we prepare, rush around, buy gifts, bake cookies, decorate, what the real reason is that we spend so much of our time and energy for!

Let us take time to worship and adore HIM!

Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a Child is born,

unto us a Son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:

and His name shall be called WONDERFUL, Counselor, The Mighty God.

The everlasting Father,

The PRINCE OF PEACE.

Bath Time

Just to let you know before you look at this Bath Time blog, there are 12 pictures. I have been having trouble reading blogs lately.
Only a few of the pictures show and many times the comments section is missing.
So give it a little extra time to upload and maybe you will even have to hit refresh or the blog title: Bath Time again.

Our youngest baby granddaughter just turned 7 weeks old and we were blessed to spend a couple days with them. One of the fun things about spending a few days rather then a few hours is that I get to see every aspect of their lives. From waking up, to breakfast and devotion time to night prayer time, bath time and tucking into bed time.

Mommy is giving her a bath. She never gets any pictures of bath time since she is very occupied and busy while bathing the baby.

ALL CLEAN! and mommy wraps her in a soft clean towel to keep her warm. You can see she talks to her all the time. I have witnessed this with all five of her children and I never tire of watching her tender, caring love.

Kisses and hugs to comfort her crying baby.

6 yr old sister just can't resist giving her little sister a kiss on her forehead.

She is certainly one loved baby!

Here mommy is putting on the cloth diaper. Lucky little girl! This brings back so many memories of when her mommy was a baby and I used cloth diapers as well.

Big sister shows up to talk to her baby sister.
She loves it when one of her siblings talks to her or sings to her.

Now that feels so-o-o good! Mom rubs good smelling baby lotion all over her sweet baby girl.

All dressed for bed time! MOM! please pick me up!

Mom and baby ready for bed! They are both so So-o-o cute.

Mommy rocking her tired baby.


SOUND ASLEEP! Looks like mom is tired too and ready to get some much needed rest herself.

Thank You for sharing your beautiful family with us when we visit.

We certainly remember to give thanks to God for our loving family.