A Repeat Post...

This is one of my favorite poems that I posted a few months ago. I must however quote a Scripture passage to go along with it. Yes, I choose to live my life as a wife and homeschooling Mother....but the reason I chose this way of life is because of this scripture passage. My husband and I believe that this is God's plan for man and wife. Notice, I did not say woman. I said WIFE. We are women, but when we marry, we take on a whole other role in life, which is the wife, and this is what God's Word says...

Titus 2:1, 3-5 "But speak thou the things which become SOUND DOCTRINE: The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers AT home, good, OBEDIENT TO THEIR OWN HUSBANDS, THAT THE WORD OF GOD BE NOT BLASPHEMED."

I'm free THE MOVEMENT says,
I can be whatever I want to be.
I don't have to spend my life mopping up spilled milk,
getting out ring-around-the-collar,
hunting for lost cufflinks,
matching up socks - or even scratching somebody's back.

I can write the great American novel or hawk my macrame plant holders at craft festivals(wearing a gypsy scarf on my head and dirty tennis shoes on my feet - or maybe no shoes at all.)I can be a lady executive and try not to worry about whetherI took the roast out of the freezer.(THE MOVEMENT wouldn't like that!)
Or I could run for Congress -(That can't be much harder than presiding over the PTA or figuring out my own income tax. Or brilliantly coordinating my returnable pop bottles and newspaper coupons to buy 53 dollars worth of groceries with only 42 dollars and 28 cents.)

So I'm free, am I? Then I choose...I choose the "promise to obey" part of the marriage vows,the nose-wiping of a two-year-old,the bargainings with my teenagers to use -the car, the computer, the telephone, the bathroom. I choose the endless precession of bag lunches, peanut buter sandwiches, dirty dog dishes, potato chip crumbs, and yesterday's newspaper. I choose the warm curve of his back on a cold night, the precarious pleasure of an empty bank account when all the bills are paid, the promises of European tours when the children finish college. I choose to make his toast (dark) and his eggs (easy over). I choose to listen for his car turn in the drive. I choose to nudge him when he snores. No matter what THE MOVEMENT says: I choose him!-Jessie Rice Sandberg

Fall Festival

Wow! What a great weekend we had. Saturday was bus ministry as usual, but we had fall festival for our bus kids and they had a great time.

Sunday we had fall festival for our church kids and they had a great time too.

I did face paintings those two days. That was fun. I always like doing that. It's fun to interact with the children and see their faces light up when they're doing something that under normal circumstances would never be allowed. LOL

Saturday was also spent at the KIA Dealership because they were having an all day family thing where you could enter in different contests. Our church secretary had entered the bus children in a scarecrow contest and so we went to see if it won. It didn't. But I think Autumn Patches was the prettiest scarecrow up there. Even if she wasn't so scary. :)

I also took Harrison and met our youth group up at the Corn Maze. That was funny. If you've never gone through a corn maze it's a lot of fun. I didn't get any pictures of that though. I had the camera in my car, but ended up driving the church van and left the camera behind.

OK, so here are my pictures from our weekend. ENJOY!

I got carried away with my frame and cut off the top of Autumn's head. Oh well! Each of the patches you see how the name of a bus child on it.



The bus children ate a hotdog lunch before the fun began.


Making sandart necklaces. Our youth group minded the tables and passed out the candy.


This child was letting Jamie spray his hair a crazy color.


The timed stacking game. You had to stack and unstack them as fast as you can and the best time won the game to take home. A very NI$E prize. LOL


Balloon Dart Popping


Bottle Wipeout. You had to knock down the bottles with a baseball.


Cork Shootout. You had to shoot the gun and knock down the plastic cups.


Sis Janet bought one of those blow up jumping things for the children. They were like little jumping beans in there. LOL


Before the bus children were allowed to have their festival, we had church with them. Mom and Dad came. Mom played the piano.......


...and Daddy played his trumpet while the children were coming in off the busses .


The Faith Baptist Puppets came out to sing with the children.


My Sweet Mommy got up and did the chicken song in front of all those children and some of their parents. What a brave soul!!


This is one of our bus kid's daddy. He jumped in on the fun too. A great sport, wouldn't you say?


My babydoll, Celine, doing her impression of the chicken.


This is Jathen and Lathen. They were our ushers for the day, getting ready to take up the offering. They are such sweet young men.


Hannah, Kendra, and Justin getting ready to do the skit. Kendra has become our "sound person." She is faithful in holding the mic and sometimes the skit for Justin and Hannah. THANKS-A-BUNCH, Kendra!


The Faith Puppet Trio singing "Song Of Solomon" by the Statler Brothers.


Mark and Nathaniel being "cool."


This is the grandson of one of our church members. He came Sunday for the festival. Isn't he a doll??


Brother Ted and Sis Rebecca


Some of our church parents.


Levi and Michaela.


Little Isaac getting his candy for playing a game.


Brother Mike and Mrs. Susan. They are Hannah's Patch Teachers and he is our orchestra director.


We had a paintball obstacle set up for anyone who wanted to run through it while they were being shot at. That was so funny.


Sis Liz and Michaela.


Sis Pam let me paint her face. Isn't she purrrrrty?


Cassie being crazy


I've told Monica over and over again she shouldn't wear so much make-up? But does she listen???


This was funny. The children had the opportunity to "milk a cow." The cow is a cut out, of course, but the utters are pink playtex gloves with small holes poked in the fingertips. The children just love this game. LOL


This is our wonderful Pastor!





Sis Amanda. This is Celine and Charissa's Mom.


This is Paige and her baby Jaythen. Her husband will be leaving to go back to Afghanistan in January. Please keep them in your prayers.


Amanda and my sweetie pies!


Celine made a sandart necklace. She was very proud of it.

My Refrigerator

I was tagged by Mrs. B at Be Not Conformed to show a picture of my fridge. There's not much to it. Basically, I have a few family photos and my youngest son's art work.

I used to collect magnets, but haven't done that for a very long time and a lot of them have gotten broken over the years. But the ones you see have survived the times and there are more on the sides of the fridge. :)

I didn't dare take a picture of the side of my fridge. It's sort of my filing cabinet, if you can imagine. And since we weren't supposed to move anything, I decided to just not take a picture of it. LOL

There have been several tagged to do the refrigerator meme, so if you haven't been tagged and would like to participate, please do. I'll be watching for it.

Thank you, Mrs. B, for thinking of me! :)

Cinnamon Baskets

I finally found my camera! So here is a picture of the cinnamon basket. These baskets are really cute and will help to fill a room with the fragrance of Christmas. It's another craft for children to make or for an adult to make and give as a gift.

For one basket, you will need:

3 1/2" X 2" food can
Founder's Adhesive glue
35 (4") cinnamon sticks
1 yard (1"-wide) grosgrain ribbon
Individually wrapped candies

1. Remove the top and the label from the can (DUH!) Wash the can and let it dry.

2. Apply the glue to the outside of the can, covering the sides completely.

3. Place 1 cinnamon stick on the side of the can, making sure the bottom of the stick is even with the bottom of the can. Continue gluing the sticks in place, one at a time until the sides are covered.

4. To decorate, tie the ribbon around the sticks and into a bow. Trim the ribbon ends at an angle. Fill the basket with candy.

This would be cute with the a Christmas colored or decorated saran wrap and homemade gift tag.

Such A Wonderful Day

Our day started out good and ended great!

As you all know, I have had problems getting my car inspected. In NC, if your check engine light is on, it won't pass inspection. Well, we ran the codes and it was showing some things that weren't adding up. There were two men that looked at it and couldn't figure out what was wrong. We were told to just get rid of it, but we decided to wait and see what the Lord had in store for us.

After waiting patiently we remembered a fellow we worked with in highschool that had become a mechanic for a dealership in town somewhere. Turns out he was working at the dealership right up the road from us. He said to bring it on in and he would look at it and if he couldn't fix it he'd tell us to come and get it...no charge. So this morning the phone rings and he says, "Kristi, this is Kenny. Come get your car, it's fixed." Well, I doubted him terribly that it was truly fixed and when I realized he wasn't lying or joking I told him how thankful I was and that I was going to bake him a cake. He found that to be quite comical.

When Bruce woke up this afternoon we drove down to pick it up and took it straightway to have it inspected. They always run the emissions test before the safety testing on the vehicles so I just stood there praying it would pass the emissions test. Then, the most beautiful sound I've ever heard reverberated in my ears. It was................my horn. When I heard the horn, I knew my car had passed the emissions test. I was so happy. So now my little friend is back home waiting for me to take her somewhere and I can't wait to start zipping around with her. She and I have a lot of fun going places together. :)

After the inspection was over, Bruce and I rushed home to drop off the car and pick up the kids. We had dinner plans with the Douglass family. We had been so looking forward to the fellowship. Due to the inspection, we were running a little behind and then we got a little lost because the last time we were there we followed them home in the dark. We had a general idea on how to get there but ended up turning on a wrong road. We did figure it out rather quickly and made some fast turn arounds. Mrs. Douglass had her mother in from Florida and "mom" fixed the most wonderful beef stew. It was so good I ate two full bowls of it with crusty, buttery french bread and chocolate chip cookies and brownies for dessert. The evening had turned bitterly cold and the stew warmed me to my bones. It was a welcomed feast and the fellowship was really needed. Thank you so much Douglass family, for your kind hospitality and delicious viddles!!!

We made it home in time for Bruce to get ready for work and then Mrs. Ross came over with their pets for Hannah to pet sit again while she speaks at a lady's thing in Indiana. Pray for her....she's a basket case. (Love ya, K!)

Celine's mother will be having a procedure done in the morning so I'll have Celine and Charissa all day Wednesday. I'm looking forward to that. I have't had them in ever so long. You know I'll have pictures of them tomorrow night.

So that was my day. How was yours?

How Many Of Me

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 18 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

God's Creatures

Friday, the kids and I had gone to my mom and dad's, and on the way I stopped to take some pictures of different animals we pass on the way.

This beautiful guy lives about two doors down from mom and dad and was very photogenic. He was a show-off really. It was so funny. We were laughing at the way it looked like he would pose for us. You could tell he was one of those horses that wanted to be touched and talked to. We couldn't touch him, however, because there were actually two fences between us.


I asked him to pose for me and he turned slightly to the
side and stomped his hoof.


These cows were right next to the road. They were looking
at me like What is she doing??


These next two pictures are the sheep that are just up the
road from my house. I love sheep and have been trying to
get a picture of these for weeks, but they've been on the other
side of their pasture, which is not in view from the road. They
were finally out Friday. I wish I had gotten a closer picture of
them.




More cows near mom and dad's house.


Now these are some funny horses. They live across the street
from the horse above. Everytime we drive by
these horses, they are standing like this or in somewhat of
a triangle. We have never seen them apart. They were standing
here together when we were on our way home from my parent's...



...and here when we were on our way to my parent's. There were several hours
between the times we passed them. I guess they say to each other,
"OK, guys, let's move to the right....now left toward that water hole"
ect.


We enjoy the sites when we travel anywhere around our hometown. It's nice to see and watch God's creatures in action.

Getting Excited

Christmas is, without a doubt, my absolute favorite holiday. It's a beautiful time of year with all the warm lights at night and greenery. Cups of hot cocoa and wassil. Visits with friends and family. But it's mostly my favorite because it's the time of year where we celebrate the birth of a King, born to die.

With just a few weeks before us, I wanted to do several different types of posts on Christmas. I know what you're thinking....But we haven't even celebrated Thanksgiving yet! I know. But I'll be doing some posts on Thanksgiving too. Next to Christmas, Thanksgiving is right up there at the top of my list.

So this post will be a kids craft post. It doesn't have to be just for kids. As a matter of fact, I saved a batch of dough just for me. But I did let my two younger children do it this week and they had a ball. It took us a few days to complete the craft, but only because we had so many irons in the fire this week. So we ended up doing it in spurts.

I got this idea from Be Not Conformed. Mrs. R posted the recipe for ornament making and I must say it was very simple, turning out quite nicely.

The recipe is simple:
2 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water

*Mix the ingredients together.
*Roll it out and cut with cookie cutters.
*Make sure to poke a hole in the ornament with a toothpick, so you can put the string through. We used the flat end of a scewer. They do rise a little, so take that in account when making the hole.
*Bake the dough at 300 for an hour. Turn the ornaments over halfway through baking.


The dough. I doubled the batch so I could make some later.
It's still in my fridge.


Rolled


Harrison cutting.


Harrison painting. He's concentrating hard, isn't he? He is amazing!
I put down an old sheet over the table AND vinyl place mats to work
on. He STILL managed to get paint on the table. It was washable
paint, but Hannah and I couldn't figure out how he did it. LOL


The painted pieces.


Hannah is putting on the ribbon.


The finished products.

And by the way, these ornaments are very hard. Harrison deliberately tried to break one and couldn't. So they should last a few years.