Dinner with Friends and Post Christmas Pics

Bruce and I have this new thing we do. I don't know how it is with you and your hubby, but when we go out to eat he'll always ask, "Where do you want to eat at?" To which I always reply, "I don't care. I'll have whatever you're in the mood for." We got tired of that discussion, so we decided we would eat, in order, at every restaurant along the strip of highway we travel to get anywhere in our town. Last night...El Titanic! One of our favorite places. The food is so good!!! And you just have to love the servers there. They are so friendly. It is always, "What can I get you, my friend?" "More water, my friend?" Always, "...my friend." I love that. Makes me smile. Here is a pic of our server from last night. Super nice young man.

Me :)

Hubby :)

As we were walking into the restaurant a car pulled up. At first I didn't pay it any attention until it looked like the person driving the car was going to hit me. Then I gave a better look and saw who it was. It was the "R" family! So we ate together and enjoyed about an hours worth of good fellowship.

I had a better picture of Brother Joel, but Bruce and I liked this one because of his eyes. Typical Joel look here. :)

And then of course, his wife, Mrs. Pam. :)

Their son, Caleb, who also happens to be in our youth group. He's a newbie to Sigma this year.

I don't know what it is about joining the youth group that makes a boy's mustache come in. I've also noticed his voice is getting deeper. *sigh*

:)


Always a silly nilly Nicole just had to make a lovely face for the camera.

:)

It's been a long time since we've been able to fellowship with this particular family so it was nice. I was glad we ran into them.

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So what do people do after presents have been opened and everything, once again, becomes calm? They play with their new toys, of course!

Justin with his new guitar

Hannah with her DS

Harrison with his Hot Wheels Twister Alley, which is, in his words, "...totally awesome!"

And then some of us just take it easy playing games on our computer and listening to new CDs.

Me? Well, who do you think is taking pictures? With her new camera, of course!

Reasonable Service

I was privileged to work the baby nursery Sunday. Who in the world wouldn't want to stay with these beautiful faces....


and hug them....


and kiss them....


and cuddle them....

and rock them....

and feed them....

and squeeze them?

"Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service."

Sweet Christmas Surprises

Last night we were so blessed to have friends in town that came to our church. They will always be part of our church family. Brother Mark and Mrs. Amy were our youth pastor and wife when we started at Faith. Since then, he has taken a position as an Associate Pastor up north and is now pastoring a church in West Virginia. Amy's mother lives here so they were in for Christmas and what a sweet surprise to walk up in the choir and see them sitting in the congregation last night! And Mrs. Gayle too!!!! It was wonderful seeing the whole family again.

Mrs. Amy has a GREAT singing voice and we miss her in our services. So it was a treat for all of us when Pastor called her up to sing. She sang a beautiful song I had never heard before. It basically says, I don't know what a sinner you are, but I know what a Saviour He is.

Pastor opened his pulpit to Brother Mark to preach and his sermon was on praying for lost souls. It was really good. His text verses were II Corinthians 4:3&4, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

~Pray for the unsaved because we love them

~Prayer is the key to power. A lost person does not see their need for salvation because the devil has blinded them. Pray the Lord will remove those blinds from their spiritual eyes and see their need.

James 5:16 "... The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

From left to right: Brother Mark, Mrs. Amy, Hayden, Mrs. Gayle, Luke (the booger with his eyes closed), and Jordan. I'm so glad we got to see y'all!! We love you so much.

Christmas with Kristi's Family

This is a picture video of Christmas Eve wit my family. We missed Taylor and Michael this year.

Christmas with Bruce's Family

This is a picture video of Christmas Day with Bruce's family. We missed Mitch, Angie, and the boys.

Christmas Play

The Christmas play went really good. I was nervous...as usual...but it went off without a hitch. OK, there was ONE thing I noticed during the play, but I'll tell you about it later.

When Mrs. Carolyn asked me to write a play for our program this year the first thing that came to mind was a spiritual twist to Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol.

Basically, I just changed the ghosts to angels (Remembrance, Present, and Death) and changed the scenes, of course.

In the first scene, Justin is talking with his mother(played by Mrs. Liz) who is asking him if he was coming home for Christmas this year. After all, it had been three years since he was home for Christmas and his dad was very sick. Justin said no, that he was just too busy running the store and he didn't feel like celebrating Christmas this year. After speaking with his mother, he hears a knock at the door from two witnesses out soul winning and inviting people to church. He slammed the door in their faces.

As he settles in for the night, he is visited by the three angels.

Here is Justin with the angel Remembrance as Remembrance shows Justin himself as a small child with his Patch teacher, Mrs. Dawn. Benjamin Ross played "little Justin".

Remembrance also showed Justin himself as a teenager,(played by Parker) eager to work and save money for a new car and other worldly possessions. Too busy to attend church and fellowships.

Here is a video of Hannah singing Remind Me, Dear Lord.

Nathaniel played the angel Present. He took Justin to the church where the witnesses were speaking to their pastor, telling him about the man they visited that slammed the door in their face and how they prayed for him. Justin did not know they prayed for him until Present told him it was after he slammed the door in their faces that they took the time to pray.


Present also took Justin to his parent's home where his mother was feeding his dad because he was too ill to feed himself. They spoke of Justin and how he would not be joining them for Christmas and how he was running from God. Then prayed together for him to accept Christ.


As they prayed, Parker, Spencer, and LeAnna sang Wall of Prayer.

The third angel was Death. He took Justin back to his parent's home where his mother sat alone on the phone, speaking of her husband who had just passed away. She began to cry as she spoke of Justin and how he needed the Lord. Then Death took him to a graveyard. Justin did not want to see his father's grave. And he didn't. He saw his own. Death grabbed him and told Justin that he would be his forever, tortured and burned. Justin began to run from Death and fell at his bedside and accepted Christ.


Justin's mother was praying for her son while Justin fought with Death.

As he knelt to pray for salvation, Crystal sang Were It Not For Grace.

After Justin called his mom to let her and his dad know he had been saved and would be home for Christmas, Spencer ended the play with We Have A Hope.

There were a couple of videos and pictures I did not get. If your child was in the play and not posted here, please know they did an excellent job! I was so proud of all of them. And Mrs. Carolyn, thank you so much for working with me again this year. You are SUCH a blessing!! OH! And the one thing that happened was, when I "engraved" the tombstones, it wasn't until during the play that I realized I placed 2002-2008 on Justin's tombstone. lol *oops*

My New Nativities

Thank you, Mander! I love the nativity ornaments you've given to me the last few years. I enjoy taking each one out to put on our tree every year. They are all unique.


Thank you, Aunt Sylvia. With so many people in our family I am touched that you not only think of me, but remember details about me....like what I collect. You are so sweet!


Thank you, Harrison. I love my nativity. It's special to me...just like you!


Thank you, Honey! I love this thimble nativity. It is so precious!! It is definitely on my "favorites list!"

Merry Christmas...

From our family to yours.

Mary Had A Baby Boy

Mrs. Debra and Mrs. Kim have been working with these little angels, teaching them a song for our Christmas program, which was this past Sunday night. Here they are singing Mary Had A Baby Boy. They were so cute!

Bad Blogger Update

I feel like the worst blogger in the world. Is it just me or y'all having a hard time blogging this month too?

There's been so much going on that it's not like I don't have anything to blog about. I guess I'm just waiting for things to slow down.

I always take the Christmas cards we receive and hang them on the back of our front door for display. But for some reason we can't get them to stay put this year. Every morning we come through the house and there will be several on the floor. So the cards are put away, but the ones with pictures of our friends and family we've placed on the branches of our Christmas tree. They actually look nice there. I wasn't sure at first, but.....yeah, I like it. One reason is we have our tree on a rotating tree stand, which is neat anyway. But to see my friends and family go around in circles is fun too. *giggle* Yesterday I was blessed to spend the day with my friend, Amy, and her two sons, Cameron and Little D. Amy is still recovering from her twelve pound preemie, so while her hubby was at work I got to play with Cameron and cuddle Little D for a while. Those are some cute younguns. Cameron keeps me laughing. He's so fun. I was supposed to do a drink and vegetable for them for a meal our Sunday school class was taking to them so I decided to just cook the green beans there. That's all I'll say about THAT fiasco! ~~ I cleaned mom's house today and although I feel like closing my eyes right now and dozing off for a power nap, I really need to defrost some meat and get my supper started. What to fix? I think I'll do oven fried chicken with rice. ~~ We have our Christmas play Sunday night and I'm beginning to feel a little nervous. I always get nervous a few days before. By Sunday night I'll be avoiding people before the play starts. Or at least trying to. I'm just praying that it goes all right. I'm sure it will. It always does. It just seems like this whole season has snuck up on us. It would just make me feel better if we had a few more practices. But, oh well....

Justin and his friends are making plans to go to McAdenville tonight to see the Christmas lights. He is currently learning the Saint Crispin's Day Speech from Henry V for English Lit. I think he has about 3/4 of it learned already. I hear him saying it often in the bathroom. Which is really funny because I KNOW he's standing in front of the mirror acting it out. I told him he had to have it learned by the end of next week. I think he'll have it. He loves the story of Henry V. He always has. Even as a small boy. No kidding.

Hannah is going to our Youth Pastor's house tonight to bake cookies with his wife, Mrs. Liz, and the other girls in Sigma. They'll be taking the cookies to some of our shut ins tomorrow night when they go caroling. She looks forward to this event and I know she'll have fun baking tonight and doing girlie things.

I do believe Brother RJ is being pushed out of the house to make room for all of the giggling girls. Bless his heart...wherever shall he go?

Harry is playing his Wii at this very moment. It's some kind of game where it looks like you're playing with toy army tanks and there are giant wodden blocks all around you. Apparently, you have to move the tanks and fire them at each other. ~~ Mrs. Kim O' gave him his own jar of a special snack mix at our churchwide Christmas party Wed night and he thoroughly enjoyed it....every. single. bite. Did he offer his brother and sister any? NO! He just grinned and smiled at them as he shoveled it in....bite after bite. He was feeling quite special that Mrs. Kim did that for him. What a happy little boy! lol

Bruce won a desktop computer from work. It's a Dell and he was very happy to have won it. They shorted him one power cord so I guess he'll be going back to pick that up later. He's been having to work on Friday the last several weeks, but this Friday he's off. I know he's looking forward to having his whole weekend break. Right now he's listening to Christmas music and whistling while scanning old pictures of our family.

And so this concludes the "brief" update on our family. I hope you are all having a great week and enjoy the weekend ahead.

Total before coupons: $29.96~~Total after coupons: $8. and some cents

Along with the picture above were six other items not pictured which, the total before coupons were $9.54~~Total after coupons: $3.54.

My deal today....
Total before coupons: $7.51~~Total after coupons: $1.59

Baker Reunion, Christmas 2008

These pictures are from our family reunion we went to this past Saturday. We had such a good time. We always do.

Music by the Rochester Family, The Greatest Christmas Tree

For the Baker Family

Please be patient with me. Lord willing I'll have pictures from our reunion up sometime Monday, but it may even be as late as Wed.

THANKS!

Enjoy It!

It's that busy time of year when we have parties and get-to-gethers. This week already I've had my Secret Pal Christmas party where we revealed ourselves, our Sunday School Christmas party, and today we're celebrating Bruce's birthday followed by a family reunion tonight. There are some things going on in the next couple of days that will keep me busy also, so I think I'll take a bloggy break for a few days. I have a ton of pictures I'll be sharing, I just don't know when.

If you're as busy as I am right now, please take some time to breathe and enjoy the season. Enjoy your children or grandchildren, nieces or nephews, enjoy the tree, go see some Christmas lights around your town, spend a quiet evening on the couch with your hubby and a cup of hot chocolate, etc.

Ponder the reasons a little babe would come to this earth to die for you. This is the true meaning of Christmas.

Matthew 1:21

"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

A Twelve Pound Preemie

Remember my friend, Amy? Guess what she did today!!!

I was folding laundry when she called to tell me her water broke. I was going to be with her when the baby was born, but as of three weeks ago, the baby was measuring just over 10 pounds so they scheduled a C-section...for tomorrow. Little booger couldn't wait one more day though. He was a week and a half early.


Even with contractions starting, Amy kept that beautiful smile.


While they prepped her for surgery, big-brother-to-be Cameron was listening at the door to see if he could hear his little brudder being born.



While we waited for her to return from surgery, Cameron picked out this lovely rose for his mommy.

It was about thirty minutes after they took her that Amy's husband, Brian, came around the corner with this twelve pound preemie.

Being measured

Bruce was thrilled that little D was born on his birthday. What a special kid, huh?

You can see by this pic how big this newbie really is. They wheeled Amy by to see him before taking her to her room.

He went right by newborn diapers and straight into size one.

Those of you that know Brian and Amy will agree that this little one looks just like his big brother. Is he not the sweetest?

Congratulations, Brian, Amy, and Cameron!! We love you and that new little baby!!!