Happy Anniversary to Us

Doyle and I will celebrate 13 years of marriage on the 17th of this month. I wanted to take this opportunity to give tribute to the man of my life that has made me the happiest woman in the world. When we look at our lives, it truly is a miracle that we ever met. I have never doubted that he was the man for me. He loves me so much, and tells me every day that I am beautiful. I told him that I might start to believe him pretty soon. I admire his close walk with God. He usually gets up and goes to church to pray before I wake up. He provides for us and loves his children.
We had a Christmas wedding and left for our honeymoon in a hot air balloon. When we watch the video of our balloon floating away, Johnny Mathis song "Give Me Your Love for Christmas" is playing softly. It is one of my favorite songs. When I first met Doyle, I asked God to let me get to know this man. I will forever be grateful to God for allowing him to become my husband and best friend.

An Early Family Christmas

Our family celebrated an early Christmas Tuesday night. Since we will be with other family members on Christmas day, we gave them some of their gifts while we are here in FL. All 4 had asked for bikes, and they were beyond excitement waiting for their dreams to become reality. I cooked homemade noodles with chicken for supper, and we had a nice time together. Of course, they were itching to ride their bikes, and we let them--even though it was dark outside when we finished opening gifts. Merry Christmas to all my family and friends in blog land.

The Singing Christmas Tree

Last week was the Singing Tree production put on by our church and other ministries. If you have not seen this event, it is hard to put into words all that actually happens on these 4 evenings. Everyone is pretty tired when it is all said and done. There are hundreds involved in the activity and this year the crowds were huge. The traffic was backed up for blocks. I somehow was talked into walking down the aisle with all these cute little elves and waving at everyone as I wore a big red hat. Lydia was dressed as one of the snow girls and walked behind the sleigh. Julianna wore Christmas colors and carried a gift as she went through the crowds. Julianna, Samuel, and Lydia all sang in the children's choir. When they ran down the aisles to sing, Joseph was dressed as a horse and joined the manger crew. One of the songs the kids sang was,"Come and See What's Happening at the Barn." It had a country flavor complete with guitars, sting bass, and fiddles. During the tree numbers, Doyle directed the prelude number and jumped in the orchestra to play whatever instrument needed to be covered. He never saw the rest of us do our thing, so I videoed some of the last night. I thought it was necessary for him to see what really happened at the barn. There was the "horse" giving straw to the "sheep." He was also making some crazy faces and singing right along with the rest of the kids. It was quite interesting.
Dr. Peak and his crew did an excellent job this year and I am so excited about the number of people who heard the gospel.

Christmas Parade

On Saturday our town had the privilege of having our annual Christmas parade. This event is one that the Marching Band participates in, which means that my husband keeps pretty busy preparing for. It is unbelievable what has to be done to get this many kids outfitted and ready to go. We had 65 kids marching this year so we had to make sure that there was a uniform for everyone and, of course, that they had their music memorized. Two other moms and I ironed at least 65 skirts and pants the night before. We had hoped for a cool day, but did not get it. We absolutely baked during the parade. I was not able to get pictures of the band during the parade because I was on the float with three of our kids--Julianna was in the band playing the cymbals. Mary Ellen was able to get a video clip as they marched by, so I am thankful to her for making this available to me. My heart swells with pride when I see our school so well represented in the community. The float was a patriotic theme. The banner on the side said, "True Freedom was born on Christmas." Huge packages were wrapped in red, white, and blue. The packages were down the center of the float with people sitting on either side. There were angels and a manger on one end, and military personnel on the other end.(This included little people dressed up as military). First, there was a school banner, followed by two big banners which proclaimed, "Jesus is King of Kings" and "Jesus is Lord of Lords." Next, was the band followed by the float. I feel so blessed to be a part of the exciting things that are happening at our church and school. Doyle had lots of drinks ready for the group when they nearly collapsed after marching all the way. I know it is hard for some of my northern friends to believe that it was that hot Saturday, but if you had been there to help the kids change out of their sweaty uniforms, you would have believed it. We have had a break in the weather, and we are so thankful. Our Singing Christmas Tree started last night and it was packed out. This is a huge event that puts on 4 nights of performances that all of us are involved in. I will post more about that next.

Happy Birthday Samuel!!!

Samuel celebrated his 9th birthday Saturday, December 1st. Since both of our boys' birthdays are within 6 days of each other, we do not have big birthday bashes each year for both of them. This was Samuel's year to have a family birthday. I took cupcakes to his classroom on Friday and gave him a football he had been wanting. Joseph went shopping with me the day before, and he decided to share the football news before it was time. Samuel thought this was great--he said that Joseph was fun to have around. Somehow we started a tradition of putting streamers on the birthday kid's door before they get up. I made sure that Samuel's door was decorated Saturday morning. We gave Samuel another gift in the a.m.--a Mr. Potato Head Transformer. He enjoyed playing with this until it was time to load into the van to go to the parade. Because we were on the school float, he spent some of his birthday sweating and waving to people along the route. When we had said "Merry Christmas" a thousand times, we came back home and prepared to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for supper--this is how Samuel wanted to spend the rest of his birthday. We had a lot of fun eating pizza and playing games. We then came back home, had cake and ice cream, opened up his last gift (a nerf gun), and fell into bed. All of my kids are special, but Samuel was born the same month I lost my Dad. Every time I remember my loss, I also remember my gift from God in the form of a precious son.