More Christmas Festivities!

We got together with Greg, Stephanie and the kids on Friday to celebrate Christmas, and what a great night it was! We hung out, played foosball, ate pizza and snacks, played Disney Trivial Pursuit while the kids were watching a movie (the kids watched MANY movies that night, while playing of course!), and topped the night off by getting Stephanie on Facebook finally! (that just may have been my favorite part, as the dads had all six kids on the other side of the SHUT door that Stephanie & I were behind while getting her started on Facebook!) (ahhh...) :-) All in all, a GREAT night!

The boys playing a game of foosball...IT'S ON!

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Jacob very excited about his new fishing game!

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Juliana LOVES her gifts!

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Jenna opening her gift from Uncle Greg and Aunt Stephanie.

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A super cute picture of Aunt Stephanie and Jenna!

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The Earnhardt cousins! (we're so glad they're back!!!)

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Then on Saturday night the Wagners came over for OUR annual Christmas get-together! Another night of hanging out, talking, yummy food, playing games, and kids watching movies! I tell ya, I love holidays!!!!! My parents had bought me the game "Would You Rather...?" for Christmas, so we broke that open and played it for the first time with the Wagners. A GREAT GAME! We had such a good time playing it!

The "surrogate family", the kids and Gabe!

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Jenna with her new book! I love Veggie Tales books!!!

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Juliana loving her new ballerina toy!

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Gabe was excited to get a Hulk toy!

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Jacob and his huge floor puzzle!

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Jenna reading her book...she's VERY advanced ;-D

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Aunt Lisa reading the book to the girls :-)

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THEN, on Sunday morning Jacob was in his first Kids Praise Christmas performance!!! He did SO great doing all the hand motions and singing the songs! (as did all the kids!) It's neat having him up there with so many close friends and family, like James, Austin, Ryan, and many others. He did the hand motions moreso during the 1st Service performance, but the 2nd Service performance was just too good to pass up! So that's the one I choose to upload right now. My favorite part is around the 1 minute and 40 second mark (or so), when Jacob loses his balance. :-) I am SO sorry, Ryan! But Ryan sure recovered well and kept right on goin'!

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Jacob and other Kids Praise kids in the Christmas performance.

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Great job with the hand motions!

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2nd Service Kids Praise Christmas Performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxzoqKKR6Mw

(Jacob is front row, 2nd from the left)

(If you have high speed connection, you can choose the "View In High Quality in the lower right corner of the YouTube video screen)

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I believe that concludes our Christmas festivities for 2008!!! I just asked Jacob if we should start taking down our Christmas decorations, which he PROMPTLY told me NO! So I think they'll be up for a few more days :-) My goodness, it's almost 2009, can you believe it?!?!?

FBC Women's Luncheon

Once again the FBC Women's Ministry Team wowed us all! Today was the Women's Luncheon at church and it was wonderful. They had a Not-So-Hallmark presentation, it was such a great idea. His Harmony blessed us all with their beautiful voices, and even had members from their early years join them for one song. It was so neat seeing them all up there together, their voices blended beautifully. The servers were all men from the church, which included my dad! He was a great server, the fastest and most efficient one there! (and best lookin'!) ;-D Women 3rd grade and up are invited to this event, which this year included Abby and Mikayla! It was so fun watching the girls, they even helped with the entertainment and passed out chocolate to everybody! The only thing that would have made the event completely perfect were if my mom could have been at our table. If only the tables could fit more like 15 people... ;-) I'm glad we at least got to get some pictures taken, and watching her up on stage. (and am overjoyed that she did not talk about sex this time!) :o) THANK YOU, MOM!

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Well done, Ladies, the afternoon was fantastic!

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22 Days Of Thanksgiving: Day Thirteen

I was just about to head to bed and realized "I haven't done my Thanksgiving blog yet!!!" And it's funny, first thing this morning I updated my Facebook to say "I'm still on a high from last night!" and was thinking I should have that be my thing I'm thankful for today, BUT figured I'd go ahead and let more of the day play out to see if something else trumped it (since it was only 7:00am!). And sure, there have been many good things that have happened today. I had fun baby shower shopping, the kids did relatively well, I very much enjoyed worship practice tonight, but I am still so very thankful for what a great time we had last night at FBC's Girlfriends Connection night! I was surrounded by great friends, great food, a great speaker on video, great entertainment...are you sensing a theme here??? I came home feeling so refreshed and on a total HIGH! And I was all the more happy to wake up this morning feeling the same way!

So here's a big Shout Out to Angie Swanson and the entire Women's Ministry Team at Faith Baptist! It was yet another event that exceeded my expectations! Thank you for all that you do (which is A LOT) to put those events together!!!

Here's a link to one form of entertainment the MOPS team provided last night, I thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLazPlyRz4

Iguana Begins!

That's right, tonight was the first night of Iguana - I mean AWANA!!! Jacob has been calling it Iguana all day :-) We all began in the sanctuary with songs and introductions. Juliana was part of the first group to be dismissed to their class, Cubbies! Mommy walked her back and ended up having to walk her in to the class as she was quite hesitant. But once I reminded her of the trains, off she went and didn't look back, so out I snuck! Jacob's group was next to be dismissed to class, Sparkies! Next to be dismissed was none other than DADDY! Matt is a leader for 3rd & 4th grade boys...may God be with him... ;-D

The kids were so excited when we got them at the end of the night. Jacob proudly showed off the first Awana dollar he's been awarded, and showed it off again...and again...and again...and spoke of it almost the entire way home! The cutest by far was when he said that we could go to McDonald's and he could give it to the man behind the counter (for ice cream, I'm sure!). He also now wants a dog...darn those Sparkies...Daddy quickly said "You can have cats! That's all!" Jacob was very sad to have to leave Alex & Evan Wyllie, he wanted to play with them some more. He also prayed that Gabe could be in Awana too :-) Anywho, a great start to their first year in Awana!