2 days till Christmas

I have four beautiful nativities on my buffet in our dinning room. The large one was bought by us at hobby lobby. The have nice sales on nativities before Christmas and my husband thought we needed a larger one for the house. The tiny glass one was given to me about 11 years ago by my sister. I have a nativity Advent wreath (on the left). It was given to my by my Mother, she is very good at catching my little hints that I toss around. I do not have any blue candles in it because I have looked at three stores for them and could not find them. This item will now be on my list every time I go to town so that I will have them for next year. We do have a white Jesus candle in the center that we will light after our Christmas Day Divine Service. And finally, I was just given the Nativity snow globe by my husbands Grandmother. I have a few other snow globes but have not posted the pictures of them yet.

On our piano in the dinning room I have two German Christmas pyramids. The one on the left was bought in Germany by my Mother. We lived in Germany from 1989 till 1992. My Father was in the Air Force and was stationed over there while I was in high school. I miss those lovely Christmas markets that they had there.
And here is the infamous "large red candle". I do not like, let me say it again. I Do Not Like The Red Candle! My husband teaches Sunday school at our church and he got this two years ago from one of his students. I was making fun of the thing even before it was unwrapped. I really believe that it will be a part of my Christmas decorations forever. It is the thorn in my flesh.

Now folks you really must understand that I am kidding. (A little) Now I may not be able to post again before Christmas because I am having a house full of people over for Christmas Eve day. I wish everyone a most Blessed Christmas. And to my Mother and Father who will read this, I Love You!

six stockings

These are my children's Christmas stockings. I finished little Wyatt's yesterday. I had lost my pattern to them so I had to free hand Wyatt's and I think that it turned out just fine. Each of the kids have a snowman on theirs because the kids always make everything fun. I also made the boys stocking green and the girls red to help keep track of them. The girls also have stars on them because girls like to make everything pretty.

Here are the grown up stockings. Mine is red and with a star and my husbands is green. I put two trees on ours because the two of us together keep all of our "little snowmen" in line.

Muddy Mess

What fun for a young puppy. Rain, and a flower pot full of potting soil can make a big muddy mess. This was what I found outside my back door yesterday afternoon. Toby had so much fun digging in my flower pot. Needless to say he became a huge muddy mess.

And here is little Toby. His nose is usually pink with brown spots but I guess the mud took care of that. My husband took the dog straight to the tub upstairs and gave him a bath. I have mud splattered on the walls around the bath tub so after I am done posting this blog I will washing the tub.

A week before Christmas

The Crismon I made for church turned out OK and at least it is finished. It took a lot of work, time, and patients on my part. Maybe I will be able to two next year. It was fun but just hard to try to find time to sit down and make it.

This is my little snowman collection. The one in the center is a music box the plays Frosty The Snowman. The kids love it when we play the music and sing along. We got three of the little snowmen for free when we bought our dinning room set. The candles are very homey looking when they are lit.

My husband bought me this willow tree nativity last Christmas. I love the simple lines it has and the humble look of it. It helps to remember the humble beginnings of our Savior.

I also love snow babies and this in the only free standing figure that I have. I have many little snow babies hanging on our Christmas tree. My Mother started to give them to me when I was 18. My husband bought me this little figure.

We also had a 4-H Christmas party this past weekend. The kids wrapped the gift that we bought for some area angle trees. We were able to buy six gifts and they had fun wrapping them. After we did a craft we all ate to much food and then caroled for a little while. It was a beautiful night for walking around town.

A Christmas stocking

This stocking crocheted for me by my Grandma. My sister has a matching one and we used them every Christmas when we were at home. I have only one like this so I decorate with it in my little downstairs bathroom. My parents were not planning on having stocking for us when we were children. I do not think that it was a tradition that they celebrated. As a little girl, I had another idea. The idea probably came to me while I was watching a Christmas special on TV. I was two or three and on Christmas eve, right before my sister and I went to bed, I ran to my Father's dresser and got two of his socks. I used magnets and hung them on the fridge in the kitchen. My Mother asked me what I was doing and I told her that Santa would put toys in the stockings. She looked at my Father and they both thought oh oh. I believe my father ran out the nearest gas station after we were tucked in bed and bought a few little things for our stockings. One item was a tiny stuffed bear that we had for some time. I am sure my grandmother thought it would be better to have a Christmas stocking them my father's socks.

Christmas 4

Each of my children have a Christmas bear. This all happened by accident and was never really planned on my part. When my first daughter was born, she was given the first two bears for Christmas. It turned out that a son was born to us 16 months after my daughter. I then went a bought a bear for Constence when she was one years old. Each of my children also receive a rocking chair from my parents for their first birthdays. So the bears of each child then sits in the appropriate rocking chair. The kids and I just bought Wyatt's bear this past week. They help make the house very festive this season.

The lace that is on the mantle was given to me by my Mother. My husband and I put it away so well the first year we had it, that we could not even find it in our house. This is only the second year that it has been in place for advent and Christmas.

Hen Christmas 3

We use the same advent calendar year after year. I like it because everyday one of the doors is then opened and we hang part of the nativity scene onto the background. The children take turns hanging the little ornaments onto the back ground.
The Merry Christmas wood decoration was given to me by my husbands grandmother. My kids are always hiding the snowman and Christmas tree from me. They usually are not to far away from the base.
Finally, this is a little cartoon nativity that the kids like to play with. I have had to glue the star back on top, but otherwise it is holding up well. I arrange the little figures as you see them here. But my kids like to have everyone crowded around the little manger or else they are all in a big circle. Every now and then I find that a few of them have wondered over to Advent calendar.

Hen Christmas 2

This is a Nativity that my Grandmother gave to me after I was married. It was the first Nativity we had and now it is placed on our mantle every year. It reminds of one that we had when I was a child.
Here is one of our family's favorite Christmas tree ornaments. It was given to me from my Mother after I had told her about it. We keep the little doors closed until after our Christmas Eve service. Then before the children go to sleep, we let one of them open up the little doors so that everyone can see baby Jesus.

On another note, I just figured out how to post all of the comments. I apologize to everyone that posted, I just found them today. I guess beta blogger is just a little different.

Scenes of a Hen Christmas

During the Advent and Christmas seasons I will be sharing scenes from Christmas within our home. I bought this cute little figurine when my third child was a baby. At that time I had a girl who was 4 and boy who was 3 and a little baby girl. The kids just loved that it fit our family. When you pull or push on the little blue stick it moves the older kids so that they are rolling a snow ball. The older ones would laugh about Constence being in the snow ball. Now every year when I get this little figurine out all of the kids have to take their turn "rolling" the snow ball. I am sure that this will be one of the things that they will always remember from Christmas time.

A secret

It seems that my little son, Wyatt, has been keeping a secret from us. He sucks his thumb. I had been wondering about this for a few months but never really caught him. Every few weeks I would see him sitting with a family member and his little thumb would be in his mouth. Just the other night he was drinking his milk out of his sippy cup and he was trying to suck on his thumb at the same time. After lunch today I put him down for his nap, then when I went back to check on him, I found him sleeping with his thumb in his mouth. He does not suck his thumb during the day or when he is playing, so for now I guess that it is very cute for a 1 year old little boy.

On another note we had a very nice Thanksgiving. The night before Thanksgiving, we went to one of our friends house for their open house. I cooked a very wonderful meal for my family on Thanksgiving and afterwards we walked down to the park and worked off a few of those calories. On Friday, I did some shopping and found a few good deals. Then that afternoon we watch the Huskers win their last game of the regular season with some of our good friends. This Saturday night they will get to play for the big 12 championship. We topped it all off with a relaxing weekend. The last of the turkey was turned into soup last night so tonight we will enjoy something other than turkey.

I saw this on a few other blogs I read. Have fun.


Words

1. Yourself: busy
2. Your spouse: trustworthy
3. Your hair: brown
4. Your mother: kind
5. Your father: solid
6. Your favorite item: family
7. Your dream last night: cooking
8. Your favorite drink: coffee
9. Your dream car: little
10. The room you are in: playroom
11. Your ex: none
12. Your fear: loss
13. What you want to be in 10 years? here
14. Who you hung out with last night? Birk
15. What you’re not? done
16. Muffins: blueberry
17. One of your wish list items: to sing in a opera
18. Time: AM
19. The last thing you did: laundry
20. What you are wearing: skirt and top
21. Your favorite weather: cool - 49
22. Your favorite book: The Notebook
23. The last thing you ate: Shreaded Wheat
24. Your life: Busy
25. Your mood: content
26. Your best friend: Birk
27. What are you thinking about right now? school
28. Your car: Suburban
29. What are you doing at the moment? typying
30. Your summer: busy
31. Your relationship status: Wonderful
32. What is on your TV? : Nothing
33. What is the weather like? Chilly
34. When is the last time you laughed? earlier this morning

Bioethics

This past weekend I attened a Christian Life conference and the speaker was Dr. Voss from the Concordia Bioethics Institute. It was a wonderful conference and if anyone would like to learn more about bioethics, you should check out the istitute's web site at www.concordiabioethics.org . He also lead bible study on Sunday morning and shared the follow this us.

Jesus the Zygote

What do you think of when you say in the Apostles' Creed that Jesus was "conceived by the Holy Spirit"? Do you ponder that mystery or do you rush on to "born of the virgin Mary"? The latter is a little easier to think about because we have all those pretty manger scenes in our heads. We've seen depictions of baby Jesus lying in a manger. We sing songs about the "little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay". I asked a group awhile back how God came into the world. "As a baby," was their answer. True enough, but . . .

March 25th is the Annunciation of our Lord. I've written about this before, but it seems appropriate to bring the subject up again in light of the attention given to stem cells and cloning these days. The annunciation is celebrated nine months before Christmas. It marks the conception of Jesus. A more precise answer to the question of how God came into the world is "As a zygote!" A zygote is the name given to what human beings look like at the one-cell stage.

This picture is what each of us once looked like. It is what Jesus looked like on March 25th as He began His prenatal growth toward December 25th. I'll grant you that it is not exactly conducive to inspiring great works of art or memorable musical melodies, and I doubt you will receive many Annunciation cards with this on the front. Nevertheless, it has profound implications for all of humanity.

Psalm 51:5 reminds us that all of humanity was sinful from the moment of conception. The implication, therefore, is that we were human beings from the moment of conception. We were human beings in need of salvation from the moment of conception. That is why God sent Jesus as a zygote. We were single zygotes. He took our place as a holy Zygote.

"Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is the devil". Hebrews 2:14 In order to redeem us, Jesus had to become just as we were except without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus' conception as a holy zygote attests to our humanity from the moment of conception.

Therefore, it is not just a five-day-old growth of cells that are destroyed when stem cells are extracted. A five-day-old human being, for whom Jesus was conceived, born , suffered, crucified, died, and rose again is destroyed. It is not just stem cells that are extracted. These are the body parts of a living human being. If a zygote would be cloned, he or she would be a living human being, a genetic twin of someone else. Although cloning is contrary to the will and ways of God for procreation and we should vigorously oppose it, once a cloned zygote exists he or she should not be subject to mutilation and experimentation.

So the next time you say Jesus was "conceived by the Holy Spirit," remember that you are saying all you really need to know when it comes to deciding the rightness or wrongness of embryonic stem cell research.

Rev. Dr. James I. Lamb

Executive Director

Lutherans For Life

Thank you Dr. Lamb for your insightful words.

Mercury activities

Today we finished studying Mercury so we did some activities with craters. The kids dropped different size objects into the flour to see what kind of craters the objects would form. As you can see, Constence really likes to play in the flour.
Tristen is a very hands on type of learner so he really enjoys it when he gets to learn by using his hands.
After we were done making craters in the dry flour, we then turned to flour into a dough. The children molded the flour into the planet mercury and covered their planets with craters. Constence needed to have Mommy help her because her planet kept turning into a big pancake.
Adri making craters while she is standing in second position. I guess those ballet positions get well learned after 3 years of dance.
Three children busy making planets.

My Grandma

Here is a beautiful picture of my Grandmother. She has lived on this same farm for 60 years. Grandma has also been married to my Grandfather for 60 years. She loves to window farm from the window that you see in the background. In front of this window she has a collection of African violets. Every time that I see a African violet I think of her. My aunt sent me this picture because Grandma had gotten a new pair of glasses. I think that she looks just wonderful in them. This woman can also make some of the best gravy that you will ever taste. But one of her favorite things to eat is toast with honey or peanut butter on it. You maybe wondering what her beverage of choice is and I can say it is coffee. The first language that she spoke was German and she still speaks her native tongue every now and then with her sisters.

Election Day

I just wanted to tell anyone out there that you should go and vote today. If you have made the mistake of not reading up on the issues than I am sorry for you. Our country needs very strong leaders at this time. It is our job to make sure that our country is do the right things and protecting our liberty. I am very proud to live in the United States and I voted today!

A Boy Must Work

My son loves to do big guy jobs. Both of the older children were worrying about these logs that were stacked up by the back of our yard. They thought that the puppy (Toby) might be able to climb over the logs and get out of our fence. I suggested to Tristen that he should get his work gloves and move the logs to the log pile by the garage. He, of course, was more than willing. What boy would not want to be outside on such a lovely day. He only got about three of the logs moved, I think the last few maybe a bit to heavy for him. I hope that later on today I will be able to go out running in this beautiful weather. I have not been able to run much last past 2 weeks because we have been so very busy. Plus all of the dust around here was causing my asthma to act up. I have not had any problems with it for a few years but harvest season can bring on many things.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.
The West
The Midland
Boston
Philadelphia
The South
The Inland North
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

As you can tell I was born in ND and lived in SD for most of my youth. Plus my Mother was born and raised in ND. She must have influenced my speech.

4-H vs. soup supper

Last night our family had two things that we could go to and both involved eating. The first was a 4-H achievement party for the 4-H kids and leaders from our county. The second was the ever famous soup supper that our church puts on every fall. We were not obligated to attend either event, we just thought that it would be fun. After church and Sunday school were finished we came home and I had to cook a side dish for the 4-H party. They asked that if you attend that you would bring a side dish. The kids wanted to play outside with our puppy since it was such a beautiful day. My baby also wanted to be out with his older brother and sisters. I have a hard time letting him in the backyard with them to watch over him. Throw in a puppy, the building of a "tree house", (read: nails being hammered into wood, nothing more.) and a Mother's anxiety, the Mother will soon end up outside. I was watching the kids play and pushing them on the swings, everything was seemed fine, until I figured out what time it was.

Time is something I am always fighting. There is never enough of it. I am always running out of it. It is a battle I will never win.

Now I have 1 hour until we must leave for the 4-H party and my scalloped potatoes are not even in the oven yet. Heck, they are not even preped. I was insistant on making them so I rushed and hurried about the kitchen. The potatoes were in the oven 15 min. late. Now the time battle is being lost. My dear husband was watching football, Cowboys vs. Redskins. He is a great Redskins fan and that has rubbed off on me. It turned out we could watch the end of a very exciting game because we had to wait for the potatoes. Then we packed a diaper bag, changed a diaper and filled the sippy cups, we were out of the door 20 minutes later than we should have.

We drove over to the town where the party is suppose to take place. We drove around in a small town of about 1.000 people. Do you think that we could have found the high school in under 10 min? No, we drove around the town for over 15-20 min. so by the time we found it we were almost 1 hr. late. There we were, four kids in a car, a casserole between my feet having just drove all over just to end up being to embarrassed to walk in to the 4-H party almost 1 hr. late.

Go ahead and laugh now. We did. It was rather silly. We dove back to the our house to let out our puppy then went on to the soup supper. The yummy casserole will be our supper tonight, so I guess I will have the night off. These are funny days of our lives.

Weekly update

This week was a very busy one. I have not had time for anything and that is the reason I have not been posting on my blog many things have happened. We had a field trip, birthdays, Halloween, and life in general.

Here is a photo of the youngest trick or treaters; my little two are the m&m's. Constence just had to wear vampire teeth so that is why her smile looks a little different. It was a very cold night and they were such little troopers. The monkey loved to push the wagon while my husband pulled the peanut m&m in it.
This is my oldest daughter and her friend as a husker gal and a bronchus gal. They were the leaders and thought we should run from house to house. It hard to hurry while trick or treating with a 1 year old.

Here is Tristen in the middle with his to civil war buds. They provided great protection for everyone while gathering a great harvest of sweets. In the past this trio has gone trick or treating as the three musketeers and cowboys. I wonder what they will come up with next year.

On Halloween we also had Adri's ninth birthday party. I figured that most of her friends would come trick or treating with us anyway so way not combine the two events. We has a lot of fun and the kids had even helped to decorate our playroom into a spooky playroom.

Here is a picture of me with our new puppy Toby. This photo was taken on my 33rd birthday. After we went to church my husband took me out to one of the local LCMS church's soup suppers. Later on in the afternoon we went to one of the state parks to look at all of the beautiful fall leaves. To bad that I was to scared to climb to top of the lookout tower to get a birds eye view. I was only able to make it have way up.

And finally here is a photo of a organ that was completed at the organ company where our LCMS homeschool group went to for a field trip. At this company they build pipe organs from the ground up. They melt the metal and do all of the woodworking. It was very interesting. One of our teenage boys got to test out this brand new organ. His music of choice was Charlie Brown's theme song. It sure got the little kids and the adults to smile. It bet that piece will never be performed on that organ again.

One night down

Toby's first night with us went fairly well. He has only had two accidents so far. I think the dog slept a little better than I did. I am not sure how much school we will get done today. Hopefully the little guy (Toby) will fall asleep soon and then I will be able to give my younger two children a bath while the older two do handwriting and math. I also want to finish reading a book about Martin Luther to them this week since Reformation is on Sunday. I need to think of a nice Reformation day craft for them to do. We could always draw Luther's rose on clay then paint them. I will just have to see how wild this little dog becomes after he is used to the house.