We Wish You a Merry Christmas!!!

We pray that you and your family have had a WONDERFUL day celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is truly the greatest gift of all eternity...not just on Christmas, and not just on the day we accept Him....but EVERY day...for all time.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2007!!

Address Alert!!!

If your name happens to be Sandy or Amber....would you please, OH PLEASE, email me your address (to doctimmons44@yahoo.com)??? And hop right on that, would ya'!?!?

Thank you so very, very much!!

I love these kids!! (Not to mention their parents!)

One of the very fun things about having great friends...is that they have really cool kids! We were so blessed to get to host the "friends Christmas party" Saturday night...8 grown-ups (I debated about using THAT term to describe us!) and 12 kids! As usual, the noise level was quite high...and the massive quantity of food was somewhat embarrassing (clam chowder, beanie weenies, veggie pizza, shrimp dip, spinach-artichoke dip, sausage balls, stuffed mushrooms, crab dip, cookies, sugar cream pie, key lime pie, fudge...and I cannot even remember what else!!!)

Of special note THIS year....there were no corneal abrasions! I cannot say the same about last year's gathering (special thanks to the foam-disc-shooting-guns that each person under the age of 15 received!)

Of other significance: Sheila won the card game (Hand & Foot).

So Much Has Happened...

I honestly do not know where to even start.
But I do feel like I should bring you all up to date with that has been going on around here...so here goes...

**At the age of 91, my Grandma Leedy (Papaw's mom) passed away last week. I have spent much time since then "remembering" some of the great times we had spent together. Grandma was never the "warm fuzzy" who smothered you with kisses and candy. But, she was a very special woman who I always loved and admired. ...Can I just share a few memories that I have of my grandma??...She was the one who took me to get my ears pierced (I think my mom was chicken!). She helped me wallpaper my room the first time. She made the most beautiful ceramic dolls and doll houses. She and grandpa would host these incredible July 4th celebrations at their home on Bass Lake....hog roast, camping, fireworks...they were probably just a weekend long, but when I was a kid it seemed like they lasted half the summer....days so FULL OF fun!! AND....get this...she was the coolest grandma ever because she had a "clap-on, clap-off, the clapper" light switch before anyone even knew what they were!!!!!

I wish I could say that I had spent many-hours-on-end with Grandma over the past couple of years. The honest truth is that we did not go as much as we should have. BUT...we are very, very, very blessed that God had nudged us to go visit her just 2 days before she died. We had a good visit. She seemed very peaceful, and we exchanged "I LOVE YOU's" (which was NOT a common occurrence with Grandma)!! I am thankful that the Lord saw to it for us to have a great good-bye-visit memory!!!


**In other big news.....
Chad's father ("Paps") had a heart attack earlier this week. Please pray for his recovery. He has never had heart problems before, so this was a little bit of a shocker!!! Fortunately (thanks to my mother-in-law's very wise decision making skills!!!) they got him to the Heart Center very quickly where he had an emergency cath and stent placement! He is doing very well and is back home recovering.


**Ready for some happy news??
Sugar had four very cute, very healthy puppies this week!! They are part boxer (her part) and part german shepherd (Let's just say that the new neighbors down the road have a dog that came for a welcome visit....but, we don't really want to talk about that right now...after all, this is a family blog!!)

Anyway, they are absolutely adorable. 3 girls , 1 boy. We believe that the boy is spoken for, but are looking for homes for the girls....any takers?? And don't think that I am above pulling your heart strings with some pictures....just look....




OK...so, if you are interested....just leave a comment, or email me, or call, or drop by....WHATEVER....just let me know!!!

Well...enough big news for one day.
Hope your Christmas shopping is going well (I am MOST CERTAIN that mine WILL be, AS SOON AS I ACTUALLY START!!)

I couldn't help but post this....

Perhaps I shouldn't....
But how could I not???
Something that makes me laugh this hard needs to be shown right here...



I am in NO WAY trying to be disrespectful to my man...I personally think that I am married to a very tough man...who continues to work hard, whether he is sick or not. But lets just face it, the "Man-Cold" is a real illness that must be respected (dare I say FEARED??) by all women!!!

Our Jesse Tree

I am so excited to show and tell you about our newest "Christmas tradition".

I hesitate to call it a "tradition" when this is our first year for it...but I love it so much that I KNOW we will continue to do it year after year after year.

Introducing.....Our Jesse Tree.



In "The Glorious Coming" by Ann Voskamp (at Holy Experience)created a devotional that is "to trace the family line and heritage of the family of God, of human beings from the beginning of time to the coming of God Himself, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger." There is a devotion for each day leading up to Christmas, and an ornament to put on the tree that has a picture depicting that day's Bible passage.



For our Jesse tree, we photocopied the ornaments and put them on card stock. On the back, we put the date...so after we read the devotion that day, we turn the ornament around.


How fun is that!?!?

If you want one for you family, you can order it HERE...I was very blessed to get mine as a gift from Stacy last year!!! (Thank you, Stacy!!)

***IN OTHER NEWS.....
I have not been blogging as much lately, and I keep hoping that will change...
Lots has been going on...this week I will do some "catching up"!!!