Videos from our Family Celebration Service

Callie & Samuel sang Jesus Loves Me for the Family Celebration service at church.

A solo by Mike Terrian.

Jaleesa sings...

A poem and song by the Peters.


Now this one....I'd strongly suggest NOT watching...oh my....I really debated as to post this...but oh well...here goes....It's hysterical. And, YES, it's me....the girl in the bright pink sweater that squawks out a note all by herself while everyone laughs!!! Don't know WHAT happened!!! I totally lost my voice....

Christmas Dinner 2009

Callie poses with the Christmas tree she helped me decorate for the church dinner.  One funny story about this tree....On Sunday afternoon, the kids along with Duane & my father-in-law helped me finished up the decorating.  (Thanks guys!)  I brought a white lace tablecloth to use for the tree skirt.  We didn't have one that matched and I didn't want to buy one.  I asked Seth to arrange it underneath the tree for a tree skirt.  A little while later he calls, "Mom, does this look ok?"  To my shock, it was PERFECTLY arranged around the middle of the tree.  He had covered up the entire tree with the white lace!!!!!!!!!!  I nearly died laughing!!  I wish I had brought along my camera to take a picture of that!  :) 

I wanted to have pillar candles in logs.  My wonderful husband, with great effort, carved out 4 of these BY HAND!  I wanted several for each table, but after seeing how much work it was for him, I told him 1 for each table would be ok!  I LOVED the way they turned out though!

I decided we need new curtains for the windows to match the theme.  I bought the fabric on Saturday morning.  After lunch, I sewed & ironed for 4 solid hours to produce 8 of these for the windows.  The fabric is a deep forest green sparkly satin backed crepe.  I LOVE it!  Very nice fabric to work with.  Of course, I had to use my 'new' vintage black singer to sew them! :)  The windows have fresh cut pine branches and pine cones picked up in the woods by Dad, Callie & I.  I dried them out in my oven!  Boy, did that make my kitchen smell good!!!!

I thought putting out some luminaries would be a neat touch.  This is with the flash on....

...with the flash off....much prettier!!!

What the Family Life Center looked like with the lights out!  I LOVE candles!

The following are a TON of pictures of the crowd.  Pastor Mark had the camera....sooooo....if you don't like your picture....it's HIS fault!!! :)

I love this picture of the two of them.....they look so relaxed!!

Simon, Lauren & Seth played a violin trio.  The video is at the end of this post if you'd like to hear them!

Pastor & his wife

The teen table.  They did an awesome job serving the drinks and desserts to everyone!

This girl grabbed the camera and took her OWN picture.

Duane gets ready to sing his solo.

Yours truly, getting ready to play 'O Come all ye Faithful'.  Tina decided to hijack my camera and video me!! :)

Pastor giving his sermon.

This is what one dedicated listener did during the sermon....cracked walnuts, brazil nuts, almonds...

...oh did I mention...he used his hands...it was quite amusing to watch.  Yeah....this is my brother-in-law! :)

A beautiful trio.....'Wise Men Still Seek Him'

The cousins play 'The First Noel'

~Pastor Appreciation Dinner~

Our church planned a Pastor Appreciation Dinner for Pastor Mark & Pastor Cravens' family. They traveled around to 3 different homes for appetizers, soup/salad & main course and finally everyone met up at the Youth & Family Center at church for the dessert. At each place, a different person was honored with a gift/card. Everyone had fun and the Pastors (and family) were very well fed! :-)

The Pastor & his family arrive for soup/salad. I wasn't able to get photos of all the places they went. Each family chose one place to help out at and later we all met at the church for dessert.
All the salad fixings.

The homemade potato-ham soup was scrumptious! I ate two bowls of it!

Pastor Mark fills up!

The Pastor and his family.

Enjoying food and fellowship together.

Ryan poses for the camera!

~HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN A LOVESEAT SEAT?~

"Let's get these pillows out of the way!"

"Now we've got some more room."

"Let's squeeze the Pastor!"

Ryan opens a gift from Simon.

Seth gave Christopher a book.

A bag full of goodies.

Meagan reads a letter to Ryan from Sis. Ogg.

Christopher reads a letter from Sis. Ogg.

On their way to the next stop.

Duane & I gave Pastor Mark 5 pounds of Reese Cups! I raided Wal-Greens 50% halloween candy stash today! Now he won't have to beg them off of little kids! :)

The two Pastors load up with desserts!

Is that sweet......Pastor & his wife.

All of the yummy desserts!

Pastor Cravens & Pastor Mark at the special table. They received cards/gifts from the church people.

Some of the church people eating desserts and talking.

A few of the ladies stayed in the kitchen. I teased them about wanting to stay close to the desserts so that everyone else wouldn't know how many they were eating! :-) Actually they were the ones cutting and serving all of the yummy treats!

Samuel chose a HUGE piece of chocolate cake for his dessert. After eating the ice cream and a few bites of cake, he found out it was too much to eat. I looked over as he was starting to shred what he could not eat. He made a BIG mess!

The guy in red is attempting to hide from my camera! :)The man in red reveals his face! He loves my candid snapshots! LOL

Duane snapped this shot of a certain someones FULL plate! :-)

I just had to take a picture of the gas price on the way home. It's been a LONG time since we've seen it this low.