10 Years

How Sweet It Is!

Christmas Music

Last year I posted some of our favorite Christmas music. This year we have added a few new ones to our collection.

Phil Wickman has a limited time only Christmas CD called Songs for Christmas that is really great. Has the best version of Little Drummer Boy I've heard and I love his version of the The First Noel.

Jill Philips and her husband Andrew Gullahorn have a great Christmas album called
Christmas. I was able to see them perform a few of these songs the other night and they were really sweet humble people. I bought the CD that night and have been loving it. I love their version of Baby, Its Cold Outside.

A few days ago Erik downloaded How Many Kings from Downhere. The title track and What Child Is This are both great!

And any posting on Christmas Music from me cannot be complete without once again recommending Behold the Lamb of God by Andrew Peterson. This CD is by far my favorite and the other I was able to see him perform the entire thing. This has honestly been a dream of mine. It sounds crazy to drive 3 hours to Richmond to see a 2 1/2 hour concert to drive 3 hours home but it was WELL worth it and I would do it again.

Would love to hear anyone else's favorites.

May we all worship the Savior who was born to die.

A Busy Fall

This blog seems to have been abandoned by me. Just for the sake of my own memory here is a short synopsis of our busy fall.

In Mid October my wonderful Mom & Dad took our family and my brother's family to Orlando. We had a wonderful time visiting the parks, enjoying the pool at our resort and mostly just time with family. Our kids LOVE their cousins- all of them, all the time, they cannot get enough of them!

Turns out the first ride we went on at Animal Kingdom, the Dinosaur Institute, scared the daylights out of my kids and they henceforth unable to go on any other ride! So Disney looked different than I expected but there is so much there, entertainment, parades, etc, that they still had a great time. We also went to Sea World, which we LOVED, Erik & I almost cried during the dolphin show (though I'm not sure he wants that info to get out- too bad). We also got to feed the dolphins which was highlight.

This fall we also found out that Titus is allergic to Eggs, Milk, Peanuts & Soy- not that he was actually eating any of that- but I was and he was becoming increasingly miserable by his horrible skin. I have since stopped nursing him and his skin is MUCH better. Not sure why we have such allergic babies but we trust that God has the best for them.

Mercia got hit in the face by the wood swing in our front yard, actually this was the second time this happened to her. She looks much better now but she has a pretty bad hematoma on her cheek- we are hoping that it doesn't calcify into a permanent lump.

So that is a brief synopsis of our fall. If you know us at all you know we LOVE Christmas and start celebrating early, really early, right after Halloween I start playing Christmas music. So we are in full swing Christmas mode already.

Just love her

She just has so much personality.

New Faith

As a family we love the Planet Earth Series. A series was just released called Life, last night we were watching it as a family. We happen to be watching the episode called Primates (yes there is an evolutionary tone). Mercia LOVES monkeys. She started saying, "I'm going to do that next time when I become a monkey." or "I'm going to eat that acorn when I become a ..." I always knew she was a heathen but I didn't know she was Hindu.

Fear

After our exciting day when the tree fell in our yard, Cia has developed an intense fear of a tree falling on her. This makes it difficult for her to play outside. She is okay if there is not wind and the tree aren't moving AND someone is outside with her BUT if the trees are moving at all she is not going.

So the other day when there was no wind and Erik and were working on a project outside she was walking across the backyard and an acorn fell about 40 feet right on her head- how funny is that!

School Days

We have started school again here at home. This year Karis is in first grade, Jotham is in kindergarten, Mercia is in distraction, Jedi is in the pack n play, and Lord willing Titus is sleeping.

We started unofficially a few weeks ago, just to sort of break me into the idea again. Yesterday was our first official day and the following is the text I sent Erik "I think we should send them to school because there is no way I can do it." That was at 10 am and we hadn't done a bit of school work yet- on our first day! But God gave grace and the day got better and today actually went well. I am desperately aware of how much I need the Lord to sustain me for each moment of the day and the amazing thing is he sustains me. As he says in his word, ""My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

These are sweet words to my soul!