He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.Ecclesiastes 3:11
How sweet the image of a babe wrapped in cloth laying in a mound of hay, trying to keep warm as his mother rests. How concerned the husband that loves her as he watches them sleep. Could this truly be the Time set forth in the Heavens for the Messiah to come? How long they had waited His coming. Oppression is great; the economy is such that the work this carpenter does pays but his taxes. With little left over no wonder they are in an animal stall giving birth to the King of all Kings. All things will be beautiful in His time.
Shepherds will shout to all who hear “Angels proclaimed The Messiah has been born and we have seen Him. Come if you dare and see the glory of the Lord.” Few will follow; fewer still will believe it possible. And what of the Kings that have traveled such great distances, slow going that it was to see the child Born King of the Jews, King of Eternity? So many saw them and wondered but did not seek out the child themselves. They traveled so far and yet those who knew them best were to busy to be bothered.
How heinous is the cross fashioned by the hand of an overworked carpenter; how menacing are the spikes hammered and shaped by the Blacksmith. Do you notice how peaceful the man with the crown of thorns on His head as he stumbles through the cobbled streets. If there were any other way to reconcile man to God He surely would have done it. If everything I do good really could out weigh the bad surely He would have been spared the cross. It truly is unfathomable this plan of Our Father.
Yet He has set Eternity in our hearts. He has called us to the stable to rejoice and to the Cross to be forgiven and the empty tomb to begin to understand, this truly is not all there is. Eternity is yours. It always has been. Just look into the hay you will see what shepherds saw so long ago. Hope was born that starry night. A Covenant was revealed, a promise was delivered.
Those who choose not to look will still see. Those that do not come will still be called. Those that bow before Him will be made glad for although it is more than they can fathom; it is not more than they can Believe. And with that they choose to worship the King of Kings, The Lord of Lord for all eternity, not just a day called Christmas.
Everything has been made beautiful in its time. Now is the Time. Esther was told “How do you know you were not chosen for a time such as this?” The same can be said of you…Today, may it be the day You look to the hay, to the Star, to the Cross and to the Tomb and Let the wonder that is Jesus fill Your Heart and Mind. This is our prayer and our gift to you in these uncertain times, Jesus the Messiah He has set Eternity in the Hearts of men, it is up to you where you will spend it. Will you come with us and see He who is the Christ?
Wishing You the Love Born in Bethlehem, Today and Always.
Because of Jesus, Mike and Bobbie ~ Christmas 2009
I love Christmas secrets! I can't post about very many of them, but here's a few pictures!
This sign does double duty, depending on which way you hang it! Leah made this sign, and since I share a room with her, I am the "certain citizen" :-D Unless I hang it out, then she is the "certain citizen"! : D
An idea of the piles of projects in our rooms :-D
A project I finished last night. Daddy really likes coupons for cleaning and/or detailing his truck and I always give him one every year in his stocking :-) This one says "Sleigh Cleaning Services" across the bottom, and on the back I wrote, "Keep you sleigh sparkly clean!" :-)
During the first week of December, we girls decorate our rooms for Christmas. "Decorating" usually involves rearranging some of the furniture, too! We have made it a tradition to close the doors and not let anybody else, besides whoever's room it is, see the room until it is completely decorated. When it is finished, we wait until the evening and turn on all the Christmas lights, light candles, and play Christmas music. Everybody else gathers outside the door and we open it to show everyone : )
Leah and I took all of one evening, trying to decide on how to rearrange ours...it was so perfect the way it was, and yet we wanted CHANGE! The end result was that we found a new perfect way for all the furniture to fit nicely into our room!
So now, we are going to let you be a part of the "showing" : D Although I must say, it's even better in real life!
This is what you see as you first walk in...
We took both of our shelves, and made a bookshelf out of it! We have enough books, as you can see...and there's more in the closet! Actually, I don't think you could really ever have too many books, do you?!
Leah and I are both very happy with how the mirror turned out :-) It used to hang vertically on our door in our old room. We took it off and Daddy attatched a wire so that we could hang it on our wall :-) At first it didn't have the doilies over the top and it looked so bare. Leah came up with the doily idea and it was perfect!
I hope you enjoyed the "showing" as much as we enjoyed showing it!
A friend made these cookies at our ladies tea last night and cut them out with tiny Christmas cookie cutters and decorated with icing and sprinkles, they were adorable and delicious! I can't wait to try them with the boys.
The original recipe is for Santa's Whiskers cookies but she simply used the dough from that recipe to make her own cut out cookies to decorate.
Best of all, the raw dough is safe to eat because they have no Egg! My chunky monkey can eat them and the boys can eat the raw dough! (the best part)
Easy kid-friendly recipe for slice & bake refrigerator cookies.
In a large mixing bowl, preferably with an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add milk and vanilla, beat again and scrape bowl. With mixer on low speed, add flour one cup at a time and beat after each addition. Shape into logs approximately 2" in diameter. Roll the logs in parchment paper or plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silpat liner and give them a light spray with vegetable shortening. Unwrap logs and slice into 1/4" thick slices or roll out to cut out shapes. Place cookies on prepared cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until very light brown and the sides are slightly firm.
Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes before transferring cookies to a wire rack. Cool completely before storing in air tight containers.
No...Mommy's not expecting twins, these new siblings are adopted but not in the usual way!
As we said in our Seven Sisters Treasures last week, Scott and Kelley Appleton came to stay with us from Thursday to Saturday, and WHAT FUN we had! When they had to leave we were all very sad. It was so much fun staying up late and talking with Kelley...the first night we stayed up until midnight sometime... and the last night we stayed up until 2:00 a.m!!!
I just don't know how to say how much fun we had!
This picture is of almost everybody, the last evening that we had supper.
Anna, Kelley, and Susannah, playing Apples to Apples.
While playing Apples to Apples, we got very tired of sitting on our feet, so we all took a break and stretched out our legs : D
Kelley, me, and Susannah, playing a wonderfully long game of Monopoly : D Kelley also taught us the best rule ever...called "snake eyes" ! If you roll doubles of 1, you get one of each kind of bill from the bank :-) We quickly agreed that that was a very good rule to adopt! It was quite helpful many times, when one of us was running low on money!
The last night, almost everybody got in on the game of Battle in a Bucket...that was hilarious! Both Daddy and Scott were hoping that they wouldn't get the "drawing" one, but they both did! It was so much fun, and both of them did a good job for not wanting to do it!
We are all very much looking forward to when they come back to this area...which will hopefully be next spring/summer .
Around Christmas time our family has a tradition called secret servants. We all have our name on a piece of paper, (except for the boys...they're not old enough yet) and all those pieces of paper go into a bowl. We each draw a piece of paper and whoevers name is on it, we do stuff for him/her secretly for a week. It could be making a bed, doing their dishes or animals for them, giving them candy... or anything they might like. After one week, (on Sundays) we try to guess who had us and then we pick new ones. So now with that explained....my secret servant who had me last week was Leah. She gave me a wonderful surprise. : )
It all started when I went out to do my animals....I saw this piece of paper with my coat. At first I thought, "oh no.." I was thinking that it would say my goats are done. Usually I like it when someone does my goats, but last night I was wanting to do my own goats so that I could see the stars.( I LOVE seeing them!)
So I took the note and read......"Go look by something coo-coo." Then I knew that I was on a treasure hunt. :D I knew what it meant right away.
My next clue was by Daddy's coo coo clock. I found it and it said: "Now find something in a big, light brown, heavy, not-even-a-year-old, often noisy, superior, sometimes thirsty, THING." I had to think about this one for a little bit. I finally figured it out...it was in the new piano we got earlier this year ( I like it a bunch....MUCH better then our old one : )
Clue 3 read: "Perhaps the next one is craving some tea." I went to our pantry where all the tea is. I looked and looked and looked....almost on every box of tea we had. I couldn't find it, I looked in my tea cups...Mommy's tea cups....the mugs....then finally I got the idea that it might me in a "tea for one" that was sitting on a shelf in the kitchen. And that is exactly where I found clue 4. It said: "One, two, FIRE! Oops! It doesn't work no more : ( Guess the deers are safe." I guessed it pretty fast. We have a broken gun (that doesn’t work any more) hanging over a door way. The clue was sticking out the end of the barrel of the gun.
Clue 5: "Breathe, Lacey, breathe!" "Uh, actually I'm pretty busy." "Why does this have to be so HARD?" "Hey! You.....need to find me!" The first three are quotes from FIREPROOF. So this clue was NO problem finding. ( It's my favorite movie!) Clue five was tucked behind the DVD in the case.
Clue six said: "In a blue and yellow room, under something glass, below eye level, find me!" I knew that the blue and yellow room meant Susannah’s and my bedroom, so I went up there and looked, and found clue 7 waiting for me under a kerosene lamp. "Bailey's Bait and Tackle" is what clue 7 said.
At Christmas time we have these houses that we put on top of or kitchen cupboards. One of them is a bait shop and it is called "Bailey's Bait and Tackle". So that is where clue 8 was hidden.
Clue 8: " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1" I wasn't really sure who's Bible it was in but I guessed that my Bible was a good place to start. That’s where clue 9 was.
Clue 9: "I see a man'' "where?" Someone in our family came up with this saying: "I see a man" "where?" "on the fan!" So I knew that clue 9 was on a fan, but I didn't know which fan. I did find clue 10, it read: "There are pinky purple (or brown and round) bleeper people living in the (frozen tundra) moon-- I hope you find him soon!"
We have this book about Kipper losing his teddy bear....and while he is looking for his teddy bear, he comes along the "pinky purple bleeper people living on the moon" as the book put it. Kipper asks if they know where his teddy bear is, they don't but they tell him "we hope you find him soon!" That is where "pinky, purple, beeper people living on the moon" "hope you find him soon" came from .
I could not figure clue 10 out....someone suggested our attic, (it is freezing in the winter and quite hot in the summer.) But as I was pulling down the stair case to our attic, Bekah said that maybe it was in the freezer. She opened the freezer door and we both looked......and that is when I saw my prize!
It was a pint of Starbucks Java Chip, Frappuccino, ice cream! I was very happy....on the container was a piece of paper and it said: " I'm brown and round. Thank you for finding me!" A couple of times when we had gone shopping at Walmart, we both talked about how we both wanted to try it sometime. I am very glad she got it for me! It doesn’t have a fake coffee flavor, or as your eating it for a while you start tasting chemicals, or you start tasting the box! It doesn't have any of that, it has a true coffee flavor and it is wonderful. Isaiah was wanting to try some so I gave him some, I didn't hear what he said, but Jessica told me later that he made a face and said that it was gross.
After the treasure hunt I went back to my coat to get ready to go out and do my animals....and I found another note that said my goats were done. Even though I wanted to see the stars I was glad that they were done....even though earlier I wasn't wanting anyone to do them. I went ahead and went outside to look at the stars for a little bit. And much to my great joy, it wasn't very cloudy so I could see quite a few of them.
So thus concludes my treasure hunt. I hope you had fun reading about it...I sure had fun doing it. :D
For all those who wanted to see our tree decorated...here 'tis! Be looking for a whole post on this :-)
Quote of the Week
"The Holy Spirit is just as truly in us when He makes no sign as when the fountains of joy are overflowing, or the waters of peace are softly refreshing our weary and troubled hearts."
A.B. Simpson
The Bookshelf
Dr. Ida: Passing on the Torch of Life
by Dorothy Wilson
I love reading the story of Ida Scudder...it is inspiring and neat to read! She had just recently graduated high school and did NOT want to become a missionary as her parents and most of her relatives had. That all changed when she was called 3 times in one night by the husbands of Indian women who were dying and wanted her to treat them...they did not want her father, a man, to see their wives. All three wives died in the night because of the lack of a woman doctor, and Ida felt that God was calling her into this ministry. I was a little concerned at the beginning that it was going to kind of have a feministic flavor, but it really does not. Ida was never trying to "outdo the men"...she was doing was God called her to do.
Mix together first three ingredients. Cut in the shortening with a pasty blender, or two knives, until the shortening lumps are the size of small peas. Put in a small amount of water (approx. 4 T. ) and mix until dough forms into a ball. You may have to add a little more water. Roll out the crust and place it in a 8 or 9 inch pie plate. A way we like to do it is roll it out right in the pan, so that you don't have to transfer the crust into the pan. You can crimp the edges to make them look pretty, too : ) Line the crust with foil and bake at 450 degrees F for 5 min. Remove the foil and bake for 5 min. more. Set aside.
Coconut Cream Filling:
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. flour OR 1/4 c. cornstarch
1/4 t. salt
3 c. milk
4 eggs
3 T. butter
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1 c. coconut
extra coconut for garnish
In a medium saucepan combine first 3 ingredients; gradually stir in the milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 min. more. Remove from heat. Separate egg yolks from whites. Set aside whites for meringue. Beat yolks slightly and gradually stir 1 c. of the hot mixture into the yolks. Return egg mixture to pan; bring to a gentle boil. Cook and stir 2 min. Remove from heat and stir in the butter, vanilla, and coconut. Pour filling into the baked pie shell. Prepare and spread meringue over pie, sealing to the edges. Sprinkle coconut on top. Bake at 350 F for 12 to 15 min. or until meringue is golden. Chill. Note: you can skip the coconut to make a vanilla cream pie if you prefer!
Meringue:
4 egg whites
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. cream of tartar
1/2 c. sugar
In a small mixer bowl beat egg whites, vanilla, and cream of tartar on medium speed until frothy. Turn mixer to high speed and gradually add the sugar, a little at a time, and beat until stiff, glossy peaks form. Immediately spread over pie.
Farmgirl Favorites
We love this online magazine! Click on the picture to go to their site.
And now...who won?!
I don't know how many of you have already went to the official announcement at the site, but while we did not officially win the Homeschool Blog Awards in the "Best Teen Group", Feelin' Feminine did! We are SO happy for them!
A HUGE thank you to all who voted for us! Even though we didn't win, it was super fun to watch those polls! We probably checked them 10 times a day, at the very least!!!
We have had the privilege of having Scott and Kelley over at our house this weekend...it's been so much fun! Be sure to check out Kelley's blog :-)
Cute Quotes
Noah loves shorts...even in December. Isaiah, the complete opposite, loves his "big pants"---which is what he calls long pants :-)
Today we were getting ready to go with Scott and Kelley to hear him speak about his book. We tried telling Noah he should probably stay and take a nap, but he was really wanting to go. Mommy said, "Well, okay, but you will need to sit still and be quiet, and you need to change into some long pants."
He thought a little bit and said, "I guess I'll stay." : D
However, he must have decided that he likes Kelley and Scott more than his shorts, because he changed into some pants, and came anyway!
Instead of cute quotes in words, we decided you could here it in sound!!! This is one of the Fireproof scenes, when Caleb is rescuing Lacey from the burning house...acted out by Noah and Isaiah! If you listen closely you may be able to here Isaiah say "Get the girl! Get the girl!"
For those of you who can't see the video, click here :-)
Note: The Seven Sisters Treasures is a weekly post where we share some of our favorite things. We try to post a new one every Friday. Hope you enjoy! ~The Farmgirls
I am doing something I have never done before today. I am off to a women of Faith Convention in Sacramento! I have never gone before, although my dearest and best friend has many times. This time I get to go with my daughter. The guys have the kids and we have a hotel room. Truth is I would be excited to just have the hotel room for the weekend with Heather. We haven't been alone like that in a very long time. We have great seats. The tickets were bought so long ago that the price of our hotel and all the festivities is only five dollars more than it would be if we bought just an entrance ticket today.
I hope you all have a great weekend.
Because of Jesus, Bobbie
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