Happy New Year from Our Family to Yours

I always find the new year to be rather fun and exciting. In reality nothing really changes but in my mind it feels like a fresh start - a new page. Thanks for joining me on this blog in years gone by and I look forward to sharing time with you in 2015 too! May we be able to encourage each other to walk ever closer with our Savior! 

A Simple Christmas

The girls with some branches we gathered.

 As most of you know - life has been a bit busy and different for us this year with building our house and living in various unique situations meanwhile. We had thought that our house would be done before Christmas but that didn't end up being the case and so life was just generally still in a state of upheaval and so it made it so that Christmas was a little different this year.

  No hours and hours spent making lots of different homemade gifts. (At least not for me - I think Mara did spend hours and hours on some homemade gifts.)

 No decorating of the house from top to bottom.

 No Christmas lights.

 No Christmas letters sent out (though I printed pictures and we are hoping to get a letter sent out soon with a change of address - we just didn't find the time before Christmas).

And so on.

Though it has always been our goal to have a simple Christmas anyway this year it simply was all we were able to manage and that was fine. In fact it was great.

We did have fun one lovely day last week (we had some days that got above freezing which we truly enjoyed!) going out and gathering some evergreen branches from some of our trees)

 It started with just the girls but Aaron thought it would be fun to join us with his hatchet.

Our rule for Christmas is that all gifts must fit in one's stocking. The trouble was this year is that our stockings were all packed away in storage in a room at Ken's office and we really had no idea where the stockings were in the major stack of boxes. We discussed many alternate ideas such as using our real socks, or maybe boots, or pillowcases but the kids really didn't like those ideas. So the Sunday before Christmas we went to Ken's office after church and had a major hunt and after moving many things we finally found the box with the stockings. I wouldn't have packed them so deep but I thought that we were going to be all moved in by Christmas time.

   The week before that Aaron had gone and found a board to be our temporary mantles piece as our permanent one isn't done yet. He had got all the nails in for hanging the stockings and everything.

In our decorating Mara used some greenery to dress up our untrimmed dining room doors.

On Christmas Eve we came up with the idea of having a Sound Effects Contest. The idea came from all the weird sounds that the boys like to make at any given moment. Mara typed up rules and came up with categories and so forth. Ken (with his lovely microphone - a play one - that he likes to pull out for special occasions) was the judge and moderator. It ended up making for a pretty silly but memorable evening.

Christmas morning. We all slept in (it stays pretty dark down in the basement where we are still sleeping and we were tired) but then got up and had our big traditional breakfast of Vanocka Braid, Hot Chocolate stirred with Candy Canes, Eggs, Bacon (normally we have sausage so we did vary a little) and fruit. Then we opened gifts.

My parents and brother Peter and family came over for lunch and then we played games and had a little music. In the evening we watched - "It's a Wonderful Life".

 It was a lovely day and we had fun enjoying our simple Christmas.

 Did you have a good Christmas? I would love to hear about it!

We Never Grow to Old

 As I was reading in Psalms this week I ran across a verse that automatically makes me think of my dear friend Ula who went to be with Jesus a couple of years ago. This was one of the verses that she was inspired by and lived out to the fullest.

It says:

    "And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me,
Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
Your power to all who are to come." Psalm 72:18

Ula took that verse as a challenge - a reminder that even though she might be getting on in years and she couldn't hear very well and her health was failing (she lived to be nearly 99 and stayed pretty active until the end) she did all that she could to inspire all of us to live for God more fully - to know His word better and to give our everything to Him. She over and over again told of God's work in her life and all that He could do.

 I have been very blessed with people like that in my life. I would have a very long list if I would start to name off all the Godly gray haired people that I know - ones that don't just "retire" when they grow older but rather use that time to continue to teach, to continue to tell others about God's wonderful power.

 When I was looking for a picture to go with this post I started looking for a picture of Ula as she is who I was thinking of particularly as I remember her talking about this very verse but before I found one of her I found this one of my Grandpa talking to my sister Keren and her husband Benjamin at their wedding this Spring and I found it very fitting to have in this post.

 My Granda is 93 and last I knew he was still teaching Bible classes some of the time at church. His health is starting to fail too but he still does all that He can to tell the next generation about Jesus and what He has done for them. This picture is a very cool one to me as I remember him pulling Ken and I aside at our wedding too to remind us to have a Godly marriage and to always put Christ first and though I don't know what he told Keren and Benjamin at their wedding I am sure it was pretty much the same. That is what is important to my Grandpa.

   Though I still feel pretty young and my hair has yet to turn gray (other than a stray hair now and then) - I want to always remember this verse.

  So to those of you that are gray or will turn gray someday please take this verse as a challenge. Never say "I'm retired - it is somebody else's turn to spread the gospel now" or "I've done my bit". No matter what your strength level or how much you are able to do physically there is always some way that you can still tell the next generations about Jesus. 

A Mural and Other Progress on the House

  This week was not our normal schedule but it still ended up being a good one for getting things done. We only had workers at our house basically on one day- Tuesday. But that was a busy day. Our contractor was here putting trim around windows and hanging one of the bathroom doors. The heating guys were here fixing up the zoning for the furnace, putting in the dryer vent and other things and the plumber was here putting in a couple more toilets (and pulling one out so that I  could do the tile underneath it), hooking up some sinks and another shower/tub. It was fun to see all the progress!

   We meanwhile kept working on floors. I also used muriatic acid to clean and treat the fireplace.

The girls and I also got to have a lot of fun working on another project. Mara had thought it would be fun to paint a tree in their room so we decided to give it a go yesterday before the flooring went into that room.

 We decided to put it in one corner where it was unlikely we would put any furniture. First we drew a tree on the wall with pencil. Then we painted it all with a plain brown and then went over it with other browns to try to make it look more like bark. Mara cut oak leaf shapes from sponges and we dipped them in various colors of green to make the leaves.

Megan painted a purple prairie clover on the wall by the base of the tree.

 This is our current finished product but before the floor and trim and we also have more ideas for this area but I will update once we get them done.

 I had a lot of fun painting violets and harebells in our picture.

 Here are Megan's flowers.

This was truly a fun project. One that allowed us to express a lot of creativity. It is one of those projects that feel a little scary to begin but very fun once you get going. We just had to realize that it doesn't have to be perfect for us to enjoy it. Also - if we don't like it or want to change we only have to paint over it.

Today the guys (I did help a little too) made some good progress at getting more flooring done. My music area now has flooring and the girl's room is partly done too.

That is life at our house - What is going on at at yours?

A New Oven = Baking Day

 The excitement of the day at our house was the delivery of our new appliances (stove, fridge, washer, dryer and over oven microwave). We had left all of those things in our old house when we sold and though we did have my "flower" fridge to use and a little old microwave (that Ken had replaced with something better at his office) the other things we had gone without for 4 months.

  We have made it fine. I have a Mom who did all our laundry during that time except for 2 times that I went to the laundry mat. I feel extremely blessed to have a Mother that helps us in such loving practical ways!

  We also have been able to use the oven at our church building which we mostly did on the days that I taught piano lessons there. We basically still made bread every week (Mara became the expert bread maker while I taught lessons) but we didn't manage to do much other baking as hauling all the ingredients needed to another location was a little challenging. So when the oven arrived today everybody was feeling rather excited.

"Can we make cookies?"

"Can I make a sponge cake?"

"I want to make pie!"

"Sure. Go ahead. Sounds good to me too. I'll throw something in the oven for supper too."

The boys made chocolate chip cookies. Megan made sponge cake and Mara had fun making pies (we are looking forward to eating some for breakfast tomorrow) and I directed Mara in making supper as well. (I was busy treating our fireplace with acid).

 Mara at work in our new kitchen. Our counter-tops are still missing but we are making do until they come in a few weeks. We had found some plywood to put on them and then this morning Mom came by with various things that they had that she thought might work for our temporary counter-tops. It is working just fine! Thanks Mom!

They cleaned up the kitchen too (with a little prompting). We are so happy to have a kitchen sink again! That was truly missed! This sink is actually just a temporary one that our plumber had laying around. We will get our sinks when our counter-top comes.

  Tomorrow I may get into the baking too. I want to make some special bread to give to our contractor and others that have worked here.

  I am enjoying our washer and dryer too. They have been busy much of the day! It is so nice to be able to just throw dirty stuff right in the washer here at home.

  What fun things did your day bring? I would love to hear about your day too.

God Blesses Us

"The earth has yielded its produce;

God, our God, blesses us.

God blesses us,

That all the ends of the earth may fear Him."

Psalm 67:6-7

This is so very true. Each and every day our God provides for us and blesses us. We would never make it without Him. Let's share His love with the world!