Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas

Thanks to Keith for finding and posting this great video. Carol of the Bells is one of my favorites, and the light display is gorgeous.

Mr. Chubby's new socks

We've had a hard time finding socks for Stephen because his legs are so chubby. Either socks will not stay up, or they'll squeeze way too tight, or both. So the other night, I decided to go extreme, and I tried on some socks that are labelled "Fits 4-6 1/2, Shoe Sizes 5 1/2 - 8 1/2."

Crazy, but true... they work! They're long in the foot, but they work.



This also demonstrates that I'm not always on the ball enough to keep the boy in cloth diapers. And that's okay! :-)

Sledding!

The Blessings and I had fun today sledding. We don't have any super hills on our property, but we made the best of what we have. :-)

Short but steep - this one gave a nice ride down the driveway.

The older kids were sweet about taking the little girls with them...

Unfortunately, B. was already inside when I got the camera out for pictures, but he had a blast as well.

Thank you, Lord, for the beautiful snow!

Ice and Snow

On December 10 (last Monday), everything was covered with ice. It was beautiful, though I realize it can also be deadly. It was surreal to have so much ice and not have any snow.

Then on Friday, Dec 15, after all the ice had melted, the snow started to fall.

I LOVE snow!!

Here's the bottom step of our front steps... I thought it was cool that the snow came right up to the step.

This shot gives a bit more perspective... and a reminder to rake those leaves before the snow falls!

Christmas Card '07

Praying for Kate

I've been praying for Kate all day, as she had her second brain surgery today. But I haven't gotten it blogged about so that you can pray too! If you haven't started reading her blog yet, you really should! You will be both blessed and used.

Surgery apparently went well today, though Dave's last post was this:

Urgent Prayer Needed
Kate is in the post-op recovery room. We just met with Dr. Forget and he said that she is awake and responsive and can follow simple commands (counting on fingers,etc). However, she is very weak on the left side of her body. This is either do to swelling at the surgical site in her brain which is affecting the adjacent area that controls motor function, or it is due to the aggressiveness of the surgery.
Please pray that it is the former and will improve as the swelling subsides.
Dave

Please join us in our prayers for this dear lady of God! See this post for more specific prayer requests.

Mr. Smiley

Stephen was sitting on the floor in front of the couch tonight, enjoying the freedom that sitting up (mostly steadily) is affording him. It was fun to watch him, and very sweet that every little bit he would look back at me on the couch to see if I was watching him and to give me that sweet grin. See?

Thanks G'ma Byrd!

Mama found this sweet outfit for Grace and sent it home with us last month. I was thinking I would save it for next year, then I realized I should really see if it would work now. It does, and she loves it. :-) J got a picture of her this evening.

The Little Drummer Boy

Stephen discovered the wonder of making noise by banging today. You can tell the girls thoroughly enjoyed his fun!

More Dining Room Work!

Here's the outside wall of the dining room stripped to the studs at the end of September. When Papa and Jonathan put up the staircase to the attic a couple of years ago, the only option was for it to cross the dining room window. Like so:



The plan has been to put in a window over the the landing, but window's aren't cheap. Usually. :-) Jonathan found a 32"x66" window at Lowe's - it was a special order window that hadn't worked for the customer for some reason or another. The regular price of the window was $176. It was marked down to $55! Yay for Jonathan the bargain shopper!

So last weekend, he cut open the wall and installed the window. I absolutely LOVE having all that light in the dining room now. When he brought the window in the house, I jumped up and down like a little girl and exclaimed, "Light! Look at all that light!" And it definitely lives up to my expectations.



Notice the clever way I've camouflaged all that light I'm so excited about by taking a picture of the window at night. What a great sense of timing.

Next up... drywall, mud, and paint on that wall!

Rainbow

On Tuesday night, on our way into St. Louis, the sky was gorgeous. We had a lovely view of an entire rainbow, and the effect of the clouds on the rainbow was something. I took several pictures, none of which truly captured the beauty of the rainbow. This one seems the best to J and I:




As I was struck by the beauty of the rainbow, I tried to imagine what Noah and family must have thought as they saw the first rainbow. As lovely as this one seemed to us, the first rainbow surely put this one to shame. How full of awe that moment must have been! A promise that God would never again destroy the world with a flood. And a reminder of the picture the ark gives us of our own way of escape - the Savior who was born to die to save us from our sins.

A neat thing about God's timing is that the next day, we talked about Noah, the ark, the flood, the picture of the coming Savior, the rainbow, etc, as we got ready to make and put up Wednesday's ornament for our Jesse tree. God is good.

Stowaway

When I met my dear friend Sue last week for dinner, one of our cats hopped in the van with Stephen and I, and I was well on the road before I realized it. Thankfully, "Brownie" found a comfy spot to ride, and didn't jump out any of the times the door was open. Since our cats are outside cats, this was Stephen's first close up.

A Button for Kate

Kate is a friend of mine that I have known since we staffed together at Turkey Hill Ranch Bible Camp in our teens. I was blessed to reconnect with her last fall at a bonfire/hayride. Within a week of that event, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. God has done amazing things in Kate's life over the past year and it has been a blessing to share in His work by reading her blog.

Recently, testing has shown what looks to be a regrowth of the tumor. My desire to increase the army of prayer warriors praying for Kate and her family has finally resulted in a "blog button" for Kate. Please consider adding Kate's button to your webpage and/or blog.

Here is the html code for the button -
<a href="http://katesnodgrass.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" alt="Learn about Kate" src="http://www.shammelle.com/shared/KateButton150wide.jpg"/></a>

or if you want a wider version -
<a href="http://katesnodgrass.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" alt="Learn about Kate" src="http://www.shammelle.com/shared/KateButton200wide.jpg"/></a>

It is relatively simple to add elements in blogspot, but if you have questions or if you work with a different format, I'll do all I can to help make it work for you.

Here I am

I've been a bad blogger lately... just busy trying to get caught up on everything after being gone for a couple of weeks, being in a wreck, etc.

So, you're probably wondering what moved me to actually post.

Here it is -

My wonderful hubby brought home our first Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD. And I just have to say that it is fabulous. Truly.

I've only listened to it once, but I'm looking forward to listening to it over and over.