Under the Weather!

Alright, I'm addicted! I've been dying to upload pictures from the Melting Pot from my camera, but I have been so sick. My hubby is sick, too, and now the baby has it (but not as bad as the 2 adults.) Anyway, I just don't have the energy to do anything extra. For the past two years, we have been doing something with Greg's brother and his family for Christmas rather than exchanging gifts (which was actually turning into exchanging gift cards!). Last year we went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede in Orlando. That was a blast, but we felt like we needed something a little closer to home and not so "show" oriented with Carys along. So, we went to the Melting Pot. It was really fun, too. And Carys did pretty well. Anyway, when I feel better, I will post some pics.

Another Baptism Picture

My sil took this great picture during Chase's baptism. The top part is the giant screen right above the baptistry; the bottom is the actual baptism. Daddy Greg baptised Chase (he's the one in the funky glasses - for all my homeschooling friends).

Christmas Day

Although I was under the weather on Christmas Day, we had a good time. I've included some pictures. This ball popper was one of the few presents Carys got. What do you get the 4th child? She had more fun tearing the wrapping paper and climbing on top of packages anyway! Chase was so shocked at the Ipod she received from Grandma and Grandpa. Landon was thrilled with his digital camera, too, but it doesn't work and Greg had to send it back today. Ugh! Gerren's main gift was the drumset he opted to receive early. But he really loved this car Landon and Chase got him.

We made it through Christmas! Whew!

Wow! We made it through a marathon weekend of 7 services at church! Due to the size of our congregation (large!) and the size of our facility (small!) we have 5 services on a regular weekend anyway. So in order to have enough room for Christmas Eve, we had one service Friday night, 2 Saturday night, and 4 on Sunday (2 a.m., 2 p.m.) I sang with the worship team in all seven. Greg and the boys worked in the preschool for all except the 6pm Saturday service. We all sat together in that service and Chase was baptized! It was so awesome! I had a migraine that morning and started coming down with something Sunday morning. By Christmas, I was pretty much down and out. We had a quiet day at home, and everyone loved their gifts. By that evening, Greg seemed to have caught what I had and he trudged off to work this morning with an awful headache. We're supposed to go to the Melting Pot with my inlaws for our annual Christmas event tonight, but we're waiting to see how we feel later today.

Ringing Bells

Today, we were scheduled to ring bells for the Salvation Army from 12-2 pm. I committed to do this before I knew that I'd need to leave home by 3 pm for the first of our 7 Christmas Eve services at church this weekend. I tried everything I could think of to get someone else to take the boys (13 and 11) to ring so I could stay home to get everything ready to go and to allow Carys to at least get a full morning nap. No one was available! As it turned out, the people with the 10-12 timeslot so my cry for help on our local homeschool loop and called to see if it would be easier for me to switch with her. We had to get out the door in 20 minutes, but Carys had awakened late that morning, and I actually thought that would work out. It was a hassle to get there BUT I was so glad we did it. I'm not much of a crier, but I spent most of the two hours teary-eyed as I watched my kids in action. Without any prompting from me, they were holding doors for people, saying "Merry Christmas" and generally making their mom very proud of them! I'm so glad we did this!

The first service at church went well, and tonight at the 6:00 pm service my 8yo daughter is being baptized! It promises to be another wonderful day!

I can't believe I'm doing this!

Well, the ladies on my homeschooling e-mail loop finally convinced me to start a blog when they said: 1) It only takes 5 minutes to set it up (it took me longer than that to think of a name - and this one is rather lame!) and 2)It's a great way for all your family to keep up with what you're doing. So, I'm entering the world of blogging. I'm rather nervous about it, because I'm an awful journaler, hate to journal, have tried to do it for my kids and manage to write something once every 6-9 months. Yikes! But, I figure if all I do is add pictures every once in awhile, it'll give all of our far-away family members a way to keep up!