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This weekend was a busy weekend for our family.  After getting over 3 weeks worth of sickness—we had lot of time to prepare for the start of the Christmas season.

We had an enjoyable time on Saturday at the local town Hendersonville parade.  We went to this last year when we first moved here and it was sprinkling rain, so it wasn’t as great because you had no music and its wet and rainy.  But this year, it started out with frost on the ground when we left, but by the time the sun started shining, we were taking off coats and enjoying ourselves.  The parade was one of the greatest I have ever seen.  Lots of community floats represented and lots of fun things to see.  We enjoyed ourselves very much.

We then came home and did some holiday baking. We dipped our peanut butter balls that we make every year. 

This year we took a spin on the old school one and added chopped M&M candies to the peanut butter mixture—it is very yummy.

Here was Brooklyn flattening peanut butter cookies.  This only has 3 ingredients—so easy and so good!  The recipe is 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, and 1 egg.  Roll into balls and flatten with a fork.  Bake 350 for 10 minutes.

With our leftover chocolate, we made some chocolate popcorn to give away as treats.

Then I let the children do some dipping of their own.  By the way sugar and young children, do not mix well:)  My children were running wild this day.  After all the candy from the parade and then home to more sugar, it was quite busy:)We also made some ornaments for our ladies group at church.  Real simple from a wood log.

I had my husband cut them into log rounds and then we put clear coat on the back.  I had my girls paint the other side white.We then painted faces on them.  So cute.

I added some hemp rope, a sprig of some kind of bush, and a card with the bible verse that we will be using as part of our message for ladies group, it goes with the devotional series—The nativity, thinking outside the box.

 

It was a busy day we also found time to make some cinnamon ornaments.  These make your home smell so yummy.  You can find the recipe here.

Lauren made these cute Christmas tree ornaments out of sticks and material scraps.  Here she was cutting the branches, earlier in the day.

They look so cute, we took them down to our community Christmas tree that night to decorate it.We went down to share a dinner with our community.  It was a nice time of fellowship together.  Then we walked over, sang some Christmas carols, and Santa lit the tree.

Here Jentzen was standing by his luminary that he put out.  It got much cooler at night time here in the mountains.  The children were wearing mittens and winter coats!!

We also had our church Christmas drama.  All my girls were in it this year.  Here Autumn and Madelyn were waiting patiently for it to start.

Here on the left are Autumn and Madelyn singing, they did such a great job.  You can watch the video clip and see their performance.

We also had Brooklyns 9th birthday!!!  We celebrated by taking her out to Chinese dinner and we went shopping to pick out some things that she wanted.   We then took cupcakes and shared with our friends at church.  She also wanted her hair cut, this is her debut with short hair.We then came home, exhausted and tired.  But it was such a great together weekend.  Enjoy the video clip of parts of the parade and the drama.

Be blessed.

photo courtesy of artur84@@freedigitalphotos.net

With the Christmas season fast approaching and lots added to our “to do” lists, I wanted to take a moment and help you reflect upon this season.  We as women can get so wrapped up in the “doing” that we forget the “being” part of Christmas time.  I wanted to write this devotional to help us identify with each of the nativity people.  This will be presented in a 10 part series–each day signifying a different person.  You can download it here for the complete devotional to use in your ladies group–includes all scripture NKJV.  Or you can enjoy a new person each day through my blog.  Be blessed as we go about remembering the reason for this season.

Day 3:  Joseph
Read scripture: Matthew 1:18-25

Next we have Joseph. Here we have someone who exemplifies being a man who is strong and courageous. When he was told the news by Mary, instead of telling her to “get lost,” he decided not to disgrace her. He was going to just put her away secretly, otherwise if he married her it would show that they had had premarital sex and would have been disgraced together. He could have, according to custom, had her stoned to death but instead he chose, even before God spoke to him to be kind and show mercy to her. Shows much about his character.

Then when the angel appeared to him, he accepted what he was to do. He paid a high price for choosing to stay with Mary. He probably received much scorn from his friends and family. His reputation probably got tarnished among the people and he might even have lost a few friends.
That all sounds like much to endure but let’s keep going, he married Mary. As scripture says, “the Messiah was be birthed from a virgin.” He then had to live with Mary, sleeping next to her for months without knowing her. That would be a hard task, one of HUGE self control of his desires. He was a normal, healthy young man with desires and urges I might think and to do this, would tell much about his character.
Then after giving birth to Jesus, Joseph had the pressure and challenge to protect God’s son. Can you imagine how high of a regard that would be? Especially as scriptures states it was a life threatening time, that was a mighty task to endure.! God knew the type of man required to carry the burden of taking care of his children.

Are you like Joseph, experiencing a time of stress and anxiety during the holiday season? Do you need wisdom and strength to deal with the things of life that you are going through? Joseph is a person to model your life after—if anyone was given a stressful situation to handle, he did it with wisdom and strength that can only come from the Lord. The bible says that when we ask for wisdom he is faithful and just to give it us. The question is….are we ready and willing to receive?

day 4