Live Nativity

Our church is putting on its second live nativity (December 4 & 5) and I'm the costume coordinator again.  A group of us work on the costumes and those days have been teasingly dubbed the Grace Fellowship sweat shop ;-)

(You can see a hint of the costumes to the left but that's only about 1/4 of them)

There are 80 volunteers involved this year and they aren't just from our church.  Wow!

Its fun and exhausting but so worth every minute of it.  Especially when you hear how much it blesses people and reminds them why they celebrate Christmas to begin with.

To all the volunteers..........THANK YOU!!!

What characters are my family this year?  Noelle is Mary, Kyle is a shepherd, Kirk is a wise man, and I'm a villager (so I can help where needed and take pictures :-)  Hopefully, I'll get us together (in costume) for our family Christmas photo.  Some of the families did this last year and the pictures were great!

I am taking off today through Saturday to focus on Thanksgiving and enjoying my family.  I just wanted to share while I had a few minutes.

The Apprentice Puppeteer

Noelle is involved in puppet ministry this year and really enjoying herself.  She got her "hood" last night and has been having fun creeping us out, lol.  She put the thing on my head when I wasn't paying attention to her and, yes, you can see through it, but I would have liked a proper warning :-P

Pepperoni Pizzaz

Here's what we had for dinner last night.  I'd never made it before, but some similar, and we have decided that this ones the best!  I also got to use my Home and Garden Party cranberry bean pot for the first time (I only got it a year ago, lol).

The recipe came from a Quick Cooking cookbook, though its not really that quick (unless you have a food processor, which I do) but is worth the time spent.

Pepperoni Pizzaz

8 ounces medium tube pasta, cooked and drained (do this while mixing other ingredients so pasta stays warm)

1 jar (28 ounces) spaghetti sauce, divided

1 jar (4-1/2 ounces) sliced mushrooms, drained

1 package (8 ounces) sliced pepperoni

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp crushed rep pepper flakes

1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce

2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese

Combine 2-1/3 cups spaghetti sauce, along with next 9 ingredients, in a bowl.  Add pasta to sauce mixture and mix well.  Transfer to a greased 3-qt. baking dish.  Combine the tomato sauce and remaining spaghetti sauce; pour over top.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until bubbly.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.  Bake, uncovered, 5-10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.  Yield:  9-12 servings.

As usual, I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  Pizza is usually topped with what each family likes best so I only did what we liked and had on hand ;-)  I left out the mushrooms, halved the pepperoni amount (and cut the pepperoni into small pieces), and upped the onion and pepper amounts. I also didn't have the red pepper flakes so used hot sauce instead.

If you make it, let me know what you think.

Hard Drive Failure

No, I didn't have it backed up. Yes, I lost a lot from the last couple years (a lot of my pictures have been preserved on Flickr and Picasa, PTL for that, but the videos are gone). The hard drive was so dead that I wasn't even charged a fee by the computer shop for trying to retrieve my files. Some lessons in life are learned the hard way *sigh*

I have a new hard drive now. I've also resolved to buy an external hard drive to do back ups on, as well as continuing to use online sites for storage. I'm trying not to be paranoid about the whole thing, just going to do what I should have been doing all along.

What caused the failure? I didn't get my firmware update accomplished in time. If only life didn't get so busy that many things get put on hold until "a time when things aren't so busy". That's my excuse anyway ;-P

Oh well, moving on....

I Continue to Stand in Awe of You, Lord Jesus

I am continually humbled by my Lord and Savior. I'm very moved by all expressions of worship and after watching/listening to this song just had to share. Enjoy!


When I Speak Your Name by Gateway Worship

Which way?

Is up?

I'm so busy just trying to keep afloat lately. I kind of crashed today and can't seem to get motivated. I can't be this way, I have so much to do. Ugh.

I've neglected my blogs and I'm just keeping up with reading email (no time to really reply though).

Okay, off to make dinner...

Decorating?

Yesterday, we spent an interesting evening helping friends decorate for the Oil 150 celebration going on this week. There is a contest and let me tell you, they are out to win! An oil derrick in their front yard, no less! We started at 4:14 PM and finished the helping out part somewhere around 8:30 - 9:00 PM. We had people slowing down to get a good look (some also turned around to get a second look) and a few even parked to watch, lol.

Videos take too long to load so here are some stills from the many videos I took.

20 Years of Marriage

Kirk and I kept things pretty low key for celebrating our anniversary, we like it that way :-)

We walked to a local restaurant for dinner and just enjoyed some time together. I asked him if it felt like 20 years and he said, yes. I agree, lol. We've gone through a lot of growing pains together and our relationship just gets stronger. Marriage for us is a covenant, not a contract. Our vows did say for better or for worse didn't they? So difficult times are no reason for giving up!

There have been many many good times also. Here's to another 20 years or more!

"Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction." ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Rainbow

Noelle was washing dishes last evening. She looked out the window and saw...

Will We Know Each Other in Heaven?

Will We Know Each Other in Heaven?

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