Christmas Eve

We just had our marathon celebration day today! We went to church this morning...had ALL the family (including grandparents and even my great-aunt) over for lunch and to exchange gifts. Then we went to church for the candlelight service and came back home and had dinner with just the parents and K&H and their kids, and then opened presents, and then sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and had birthday cake. It was a very good, very fun day! Mom is exhausted, though. She keeps saying that if she stops moving that she will crash!! Here's some of my favorite pictures from the day!! (as you can see, Aubrey can get Aunt Nini to do whatever she wants!!)

You know what struck me when I saw this picture? Aubrey and Brendon look the same age...but they are a year apart! They look like twins here, though. In fact, Brendon looks like he might be a little bigger than her (I think he outweighs her by now, but she's still taller).

Ugly Naked Guy

I thought I'd better write something before Adam took me off of his blogging friends list again!

Yesterday, our church took our Christmas pageant on the road. We went to Ft. Hood and presented it at one of their chapels. It was a lot of fun, and I got to know several people in the church better both on the bus and backstage.

Through chatting backstage with some of the other ladies, I discovered that I missed seeing my very own ugly naked guy walking down the street I live on. The mom in a family that lives close to me told me that they were driving somewhere on Saturday afternoon at around 5:30, and there was a man walking down my street completely naked! They immediately called the police (who had apparently already gotten some phone calls about this guy). Frances (the mom) said that it looked like he was either high or drunk or something. Pretty crazy! And I was just sitting in my apartment, clueless about the chaos going on outside!

On a totally unrelated note, here's a really great, easy recipe for Christmas (or it could work for Thanksgiving, too, since it's pumpkin).

Pumpkin Pie Bread (Recipe is for two 9X5 loaf pans)

You'll need:
3 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. salt
3 c. white sugar
4 eggs
1 c. vegetable oil
1 (15 oz) can of pumpkin puree
1/2 c. water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease your pans.
2. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat together sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, and pumpkin.
4. Stir in flour mixture alternately with water. Divide batter equally between pans.
5. Bake at 350 for 60-70 minutes or until toothpick inserted to center comes out clean.
6. For best flavor, store in clear plastic wrap at room temperature for one day before serving.

I made this for my Sunday School teachers, and they all loved it! I used 3X5 foil pans instead, though (little loafs). The recipe is enough for 9 of those pans and you only have to bake for about 40 minutes. Enjoy!!

Christmas Memories

We just had a group of 6th graders come in caroling. They had been at a nursing home and had some time to kill before they needed to head over the mall for lunch, so their choir director (a former member) called and asked if they could come over here. It brought back SO many memories of choir days in the past.

It was their 6th Grade Girls Choir and 6th Grade boys choir. There were about 30 girls and of course, maybe 8 or 9 boys. They sang one song together, and then 2 songs each by themselves. One of the girls sang Silent Night as a solo. The boys sang "Grandma got Run Over By a Reindeer" and "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." The girls sang a Santa medley and that Faith Hill song from the new Grinch movie "Where are you Christmas." (All trying to sound like Faith Hill...as a group...)

Aahh...those were the days...I actually miss singing in choir. Once I finish up at DBU, I plan to find a community chorus that I can get involved with. I'd love to sing with the Pointe of Praise choir here at church, but they meet the same time as our G.A.'s and until we get some leadership for this ministry, I'm going to need to help out there!!

Christmas Music

My friend Adam just wrote on his blog that he only likes really good Christmas music. I guess I'm not as selective...I like pretty much any Christmas music by almost anyone. I have Yahoo Music Jukebox, so I'm able to listen to a lot of music that I don't have CD's for. My Christmas playlist is a fairly interesting blend--Lee Ann Womack, Point of Grace, Reba, Todd Agnew, Martina McBride, Clay Aiken, Mariah Carey, Sarah McLachlan, Celine Dion, Brad Paisley, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Jessica Simpson, Hanson (yes, it's true!), Harry Connick, Jr., Il Divo, Chris Botti, Vince Gill, Rhonda Vincent, Jim Brickman, Julie Andrews, Take 6, Glad, Michael Buble, Faith Hill, Jaci Velasquez, Manheim Steimroller, Brian McKnight, Trisha Yearwood, Rosemary Clooney, Sammy Kershaw, 98 Degrees, and N'Sync (yes, I'm slightly ashamed by these last two). I do have several of these on CD (I'm not saying which), but most are newer for me.

Adam's favorites looked interesting, so I'll probably look them up, too!

My only rule about Christmas music is that you can only listen to it between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas (or until your family finishes celebrating Christmas if that's after the actual Christmas Day).

Happy Thanksgiving???
Well, most of you are probably getting ready for a huge Thanksgiving feast with your family...I'm sitting on parents' couch talking to my mom and trying to figure out what the two of us are doing today!

No family coming over, no big Turkey dinner cooking...Dad's working today (actually he's sleeping, because he's on the night shift), and then Kelsey is working tomorrow before my dad wakes up...so we're having Thanksgiving on Saturday. And because we always decorate the house for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving, so the house will be decorated for Christmas when we celebrate Thanksgiving. We're also having Chicken Spaghetti...and we have to do it at 11:00, becuase Kelsey has to be at work at 1:00, and I need to leave early afternoon to get home at a decent hour (because next week is pageant week)...it's getting harder and harder to coordinate our schedules.

So...Mom and I are going to Furr's today to have Thanksgiving dinner...and then we're going to go see Facing the Giants.

It just doesn't feel like Thanksgiving yet...But Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Some Pics




I couldn't resist this picture of Brendon's squished face!










And once again my niece and oldest nephew show their similar tendencies.

Contacts

Yes, after 5 years of wearing glasses, I have finally broken down and gotten contacts. I'm sure it was entertaining to see me try to put them in and take them out for the first time. But I can see!! (my vision's not really that bad). I also got new glasses, because my prescription had changed.

Ok...I have a major research paper to finish...blah...

I love accents!!!

Yes it is really almost 1:30 a.m., and I am still awake. I was about to go to bed, and I found the Take Home Chef on TLC...I love this show, not because I like learning new recipes...but because I think Curtis is so good-looking. And I've realized that while I love his blue eyes and smile, I think what I like the most is the Aussie accent! I think that's why I like Keith Urban, too! :-) Just some random thoughts after midnight!!

(I also love English accents...that's why I like movie versions of Jane Austen...especially Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy.)

Playing around with my blog
Well, apparently the folks running this blog site realized how difficult it was to figure out how to customize your blog for someone like me, so they made it a little more user friendly if you updated your blog. Which I did...which means that the handful of you who read my blog will notice it changing every day or so until I get it right!! Let me know if you really like or dislike any look that I have.

Living the Single Life
For some reason, talking about being single is something that I have done over the past few days with several different people for several different reasons.

I have been an completely content single woman since September 8, 2005 when I moved into my own place for the first time ever. I never realized living alone was going to be something that I enjoyed so much.

I sort of dated someone before I left Temple (how sort of? well, I didn't know we were sort of seeing each other until he broke it off). For the first time ever I can say that I have no regrets on how I handled this semi-relationship, and that I did not act like a desperate single girl who is trying to land a husband (finally!). I can't tell you how encouraging this is for me!!

I still get asked why I haven't gotten married yet (usually by someone in my home church who has known me since I was little). I have several reasons (and these are in no particular order):

1. God hasn't brought that person into my life. If all I wanted was to get married, I could have done that various times in college.
2. I'm not ready to get married yet. I still have grad school to finish up (hopefully by Spring '08). I like living alone right now. I like my independence. I like what God's teaching me. I honestly have no desire to be married. I know a lot of my friends were ready to get married when they were younger, but I wasn't ready at 20 or 21 or 22 (or even 26).
3. I don't want to get married until I find someone who will love me as much as my daddy loves my mom. I don't want to get married until I know I'll have what my best friends have with their husbands. I want a husband who will always think I'm the most beautiful woman in the room the way my dad does. I want a husband who strives to protect his wife from hurt the way that Adam protects Brooke. I want a husband who is a compassionate father and encourager the way that Jeff is to Cat.

I have so many wonderful examples in front of me...how could I possibly settle for anything less than what my friends have?

Where's Waldo?
I used to like looking at these books...if you have some time to kill, go on over here and find Waldo.

Wow...I started to laugh at this comic until I realized how true it is in my own life. (not that i'm praying to Buddha now or anything like that). How often do I take a need before God and then expect him to answer immediately on my time table. Worse than that, how often do I pray to God and tell Him exactly how I want my prayer to be answered, and then get mad because He answers it in a different way.

I have so much to learn about prayer...my prayers are so me-focused. Please help me do this or please help me do that...Don't get me wrong, I think that it's important to take our needs before our Heavenly Father, but when 90% of my prayers are focused on what God can do for me instead of Who He is...something's out of whack. I've been a Christian for 19 years, you'd think I'd have this down by now..

God, teach me how to pray...

Why Guys don't plan the wedding.

On the Most Viewed News story list on Yahoo
I for one am in shock! (sarcasm)
This story was the number one viewed news story as of a few minutes ago on yahoo...

Closely followed by this one. I actually saw this on TV last night, and while I thought it was a poorly chosen joke, recognized that she was just kidding. I thought it was odd when I watched her reaction, and figured that she'd get some backlash. I think people need to calm down mostly, though.

So ready for election day to be over!!

This comic pretty much captures what I've been feeling lately! I'm so sick of watching political ads! Last night I saw three ads in a row from three different politicians running for the same position. I'm sick of watching ads for Kinky Friedman and the tough grandma and everyone else! I think that the election is very important, but can't stand all the stuff leading up to it!

Okay...I just had to get that off my chest! Go vote everyone!

This made my day!

As most of my loved ones know, I am a very proud aunt. Part of the struggle of living away from my niece and nephews is wondering if I'll ever have a strong relationship with them. Mom sent this e-mail to me today.

I forgot to tell you something that happened last night. Aubrey wanted to go into my office. Then she wanted to see Aubrey on my laptop. I turned it on, then showed her the tumbling teddy bears. (Kelsey got a kick out of that.) Then I showed Aubrey that pic of you holding her & Brendon. She got real excited & screamed, "NINI!!!" I thought that would make you smile.

Yep...that definitely made me smile!

Experiment #214

Here's something silly...These guys have way too much time on their hands...but it looks like they are having fun! I wonder how long it took them to set this up and get it to work right?

Great Weekend
I made a quick trip to Temple this weekend to visit Cindy and Andrea and to see some of my kids in a play. I also was able to see some of the staff as well as a church member that I was really close to.

I hadn't realized how lonely I've been since moving to HEB. Andrea and I stayed up until about 4:00 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning just watching movies and talking. I've missed having close friends to hang out with. Be praying that God will bring people into my life that I can do that with. Everyone's been really nice here, but I don't really have anyone I can confide in...I know that will take time, so I'm just trying to be patient and build relationships.

Sunday was a great day! The trio was so much fun, and went over well. I had my first meeting with my preschool and children's teachers, and we had a great turnout!!! I had nearly all of my preschool teachers, and a good number of my children's teachers there. I never had that kind of attendance at my meetings in Temple, so this is a new experience for me!! They seem eager to move forward and to do what needs to be done to move forward, so that's encouraging. Even two of the youth helpers came to the meeting. I have been really impressed by both of these girls and their commitment on Sunday mornings. They have been very faithful and are hardworkers. I'll take youth like these anytime!!

I'm so excited!!!
One of the things that I was saddest about leaving in Temple was my best friends Andrea and Cindy. Along with being some of the sweetest people I've ever known, we had starting singing trios together at church (I think we sang 4 times together).

Well, I have a new trio to sing with, from the most unlikely of places--with my staff!! The pastor, worship pastor and I will be singing "Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns this Sunday. They are excited to have an alto who can sing the really high parts (which down an octave for me are in my low to mid range).

Of course, our worship pastor has a beautiful voice (you kind of expect that!). It was the pastor that amazed me! John can SING! Wow!!! Just a beautiful tenor voice...how fun! My dad would say that we need a bass, though! Our worship pastor is very excited, because he wants us to do some Philips, Craig & Dean stuff (which I would love!).

Anyway, having a great time at work! I'm really glad that my daddy "embarrassed me." Did I tell that story here? Well, my very proud father wanted his daughter's new church to know about her musical gifts, so he e-mailed her new worship pastor before she got there, and sent him several mp3s and then a CD of her singing...which the worship leader then made copies of and sent around the office. And this unsuspecting daughter didn't find out from her very proud father, she found out from the chair of the search ministry team!!! :-) Needless to say, I was about ready to kill my sweet daddy...but he has always been my biggest supporter and my biggest fan, and because of that, God has blessed me with some wonderful men to sing with!!! (It's been awhile since I've sung with men).

Better get to work!!