Tree with presents

Here is a picture of our tree with the presents underneath. My mom really doesn't like a tree without presents. I can remember years that Christmas afternoon she was taking the tree down because she did not want to see the tree without presents.

This is the Christmas present I got from Amy. She loves to scrapbook and has started making these floating frames. This is a collage of pictures of me with Josh and Daynah. I LOVE IT! Now, some of the pictures I can look at and think, what was I thinking when I got dressed that day, but I can overlook it for the cute babies in the pictures!

You'll never guess what Teresa is doing...

She's putting songs on her iPod. The iPod that she has had since JULY that she hasn't been able to use because her computer was too old to recognize the iPod. :) Teresa is very excited. So excited that she is talking in third person!

In other news...I'm excited to be celebrating Christmas #1 this evening. Josh has a program at church that the family is going to and then we're going to come home and open presents. Dad, Amy, and the kids are going to be out of town for Christmas and so am I, so tonight was the only night we all had free to exchange presents. I took a picture of my tree with all the presents under it, since some of them will not be there after this evening. I'll post that later. One thing at a time with the new computer!

HOORAY!

I am posting from my brand new computer. It's pretty and shiny and new! Did I mention it's new :). I had Bible study tonight, so I haven't had a lot of time to play with it and figure things out, but I got Internet set up, which I thought would be difficult to do. Now, I should be fast asleep and I'm still playing, so I need to go and clean up some food stuff, get ready for bed, and sleep. But maybe I'll dream about my new computer...

I promise I'm organized

Last night I was sad because I had to set my alarm clock so that I could get to the dentist this morning before work. I woke up to my alarm clock beeping really fast from what seemed like a really far distance. Really fast beeping is my alarm clock's way of saying, "Ummm, hello, can you hear me?" Which means it was going off for awhile. Got ready and out the door on time. Walked into the dentist just in time. Stood in a long line of people to get to the front desk, getting what I felt were strange looks from the staff. Finally, one of the ladies said, "Teresa?" My answer, obviously, was "Yes." Then she said my favorite sentence of the day: "Your appointment is tomorrow." Very, very sad. Now, when I get the card with my appointment, I enter into my day timer and throw the card away. I did get a postcard last week, but I didn't really look at it because I already knew when my appointment was. :) I would like to give the dentist's office the benefit of the doubt that I was the one who messed up, but when I went in for my appointment 6 months ago, they told me they didn't have an appointment anywhere near the time I came in and they fit me right in. So, part of me thinks that this was their mistake also. Who knows? All I know is that I get to get up early again tomorrow, trek through the "blizzard" we are supposed to get, and go back to the dentist. Yippee!

Stolen Pictures

Mom was in Georgia for Thanksgiving, so there were a lot of pictures taken. And memories I missed, but fortunately Ann and Mom took lots of pictures so I could see the memories that were made and I wanted to share them with you too! The fun part of having your own blog is that you can add commentary to pictures, even if you weren't there! :)
John LOVES ZuZu!
Making cookies with Grandma and Mom. The real reason I posted this picture was so that you can see the tree in the background....this is where the obsession with lights began!

In awe of all the Christmas trees!

At the Christmas tree on the square in Covington. John can see himself in the ornament!

Ann's caption was "Get your groove on!" If one of his feet wasn't in the air, I would have said, "Get your poop on!" Who knows what was really going on :)

Awwww! Group hug. John's looking a little claustrophobic.

More fun at the Christmas tree farm. How tall is this tree, John?

Scripture Saturday

I was reading a commentary this morning that goes along with Ephesians, which we are studying in Bible Study still. Here is a statement that really struck me:



"Spiritual growth does not always involve learning something new. Our most important growth often is in regard to truth we have already heard but have not fully applied." So often we want broader knowledge instead of deeper knowledge. The commentary writer gave this Scripture reference to further his point. 1 Peter 1:12,-13, 15 says, "So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory...And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things." It also made me think of Philippians 1:9, "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight."



When I sit down to read a passage of Scripture that is familiar to me, I often pray that God would give me fresh eyes and new insight into that familiar passage. I think that is what MacArthur's statement means. I am basically praying that if I've missed something in the past that I should be applying that God would make me aware of it this time and help me to apply it in the future.

See! That wasn't so bad!

Thanks to everyone who posted comments on my blog yesterday. But really...do I only get comments when I beg you to post them?!

It's Community Christmas time at Bethany! That means practice, practice, and more practice! But not for me. I don't sing, at least not on stage for all to hear. :) Every year, Pastor Fred tries to get me to join Christmas Choir. Every year I tell him, "Fred, if everyone joined choir, there would be no one to sit in the audience and listen." That has never been a good enough excuse for him. But today I realized a more important role that I have. This is the second year I have babysat for the same family the two nights before the performance. Dress rehearsal starts tonight which means that Helen is practicing and Mike is helping with sound. If I were in the choir, who would watch Isaac and Anna? The funny thing is, Helen knows how hard it is to find a babysitter for these few nights, so she already called dibs on me for next year! See, I do serve a purpose during this time of year! I wonder if Pastor Fred will think it's a good enough excuse...

Come on Already!

I KNOW that there are people who read my blog who don't leave comments--I've heard it from their very mouths. So, in light of that information, I'm asking very nicely and sweetly for people to comment on my blog. People besides my mom (no offense, Mom). Of the last 15 blog posts, only 3 have a comment from someone other than my mom, and one of them has 2 comments from my mom! Because, really, if only my mom is reading, I could just email her instead of posting for all the world to see!

Worth more than the tree!

Tree Decorating, Part 2: Some of the story that I forgot to tell:
While I was putting on the three strands of lights that we used last year, I was quickly realizing that the way I was putting the lights on the tree, those strands were not going to go far. When I told Emily, she stated that I was doing a great job and then when I began to stress again, she said "Teresa, we live in a civilized society and Walmart is just up the road." She left and came back with 4 new strands. When I had gotten through 3 strands, we stared at how little progress I had made and I volunteered to go for 4 more strands. "Surely that will be enough." I got home, continued with the lights, continued to apologize to Emily. She just kept assuring me that she liked a lot of lights and I was doing a great job. 4 more strands later, Emily was back out the door. I was convinced we would only need two more strands, but we wisely decided she should buy 4 more and if we didn't use them all, she could return them. I was almost to the top with the 4th strand when I realized I wasn't going to reach at my continued rate of lights to branch, but it wasn't enough for another strand, so I began to stretch them out a bit. I can totally tell every time I look at the tree. If you look at the picture, you can see a big red bow right under the star. It helps to disguise the lack of lights! :)

When all was said and done, this was Emily's comment (after much gushing about how wonderful the tree looked, of course): "There is more money in lights on the tree than I paid for the actual tree!" :) We were both okay with that.

And thanks to Dad and Amy coming over with some string, the tree no longer leans!

If anyone wants lessons on how to put fifteen strands of lights on a 6 foot tree, I'm thinking of having my mom come and teach! Any takers?!

6 feet of MAGIC

Here is my post of my 2nd decorating experience in my apartment. Let me start with a pre-story. My mom is the Christmas light putter-onner in our family. My brother is her second in command. It was only ever my job to unravel the lights for them while they put them on. I was always fine with that. It was always a joke in the family that someone would have to run to the store to get more lights because we wouldn't have enough. All those years of Christmas decorating fun have culminated to me taking over the reins in my own household and have resulted in my fun-filled day.

Let me give you some statistics that will make my mom proud :) :

6 foot Christmas tree

5 hours

3 trips to the store for more lights (2 of which were made by Emily, one by me)

1500+ lights (yes, you read that right)

15 strands of lights (we think at least one of them was more than 100 lights)

2 calls to my mom to ask questions about putting lights on the tree

1 fabulous, magnificent tree!

1 afternoon of fun/roommate bonding

1 more Christmas memory to file away in my brain


Here is the final result:

If you scroll down to my previous post, you can see the poor, pathetic attempt of putting on only 3 strands of lights last year. What a difference 12 new strands makes :)

Here it is with the flash.

Last year I posted lots of pictures of Christmas ornaments on the tree. Here are a few more, plus other decorations in the house. This is my 2008 ornament. I panicked because I couldn't find it at first. But then I realized that I was looking for the 2009 box (which I don't have yet because I haven't opened presents from 2009 yet!).

This is an ornament Mom bought me from my hometown in Georgia.

I have always loved the Willow Tree Nativity set, so I asked for Mom to start the collection for me. These are the pieces I got last year (except the lady holding the lamb and the little boy--those are pieces I have out throughout the year, but decided to add to the Christmas decorations because I figured they still applied).

This is the ornament I got last year at the Forsberg Christmas party. We have a tree that we do an ornament exchange off of every year. You bring an ornament and then take one off the tree at the end of the night. In the background is one of a set of ornament bulbs I bought last year after Christmas because I thought they were fun. They came in all sorts of colors--pink, gold, blue, green, red.

Many years ago Hallmark had these snowmen for sale. Jan Karon wrote a very popular series of books called The Mitford series. These snowmen are inspired by the book and there was even a gift book that was written to go along with the series. Mom let me take them last year to decorate the apartment. This year they are on my book shelves.