Merry Christmas!

A happy and blessed Christmas to everyone 💖

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Christmas is coming!

We decorated, finally, for Christmas! Yay!

Happy nearly Christmas!

You know it's Christmas when you super-glue a wreath to your finger!

Darth on the hearth

I think this is the earliest we've ever decorated for Christmas

Crafty

I was blessed with a number of plants this Christmas.  The Poinsettias came in regular brown pots and I didn't have anything to put them in, so I've decorated them all Christmassy.

This one was in a basket, but I thought it needed jazzing up a bit.

The next two came in rather nice pots, so I didn't need to change anything.  Does anyone know what the white flowers are in these two?  The flowers in the second pot are much bigger but seem to be of the same variety.

Chatterbox is upstairs with the flu, poor thing she was so feverish last night, I was a little worried.  She is still hot this morning but not as bad and is a little more cheerful.

Squidge has been busy in the meantime.

She is teaching herself to knit here.  It involves a great deal of getting very cross and frustrated and I'm not allowed to help! :)

I'll get my latest two Advent posts up later on today.  I must get on we have a dentist appointment.

I want to know him. Day 13 Advent.

Now I've caught up on the Jesse Tree series...huzzah...see also It's OK to Fail because He never does and Drawn Close to God for the other two.

Scripture:

4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, ‘You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.’

6 But when they said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king'.- 1 Samuel 8

Name of Jesus: King
Symbol: Crown

Devotional: 

‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king'

This is prophetic. Hear what the people said to Pilate about Jesus

But they shouted, ‘Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!’
‘Shall I crucify your king?’ Pilate asked.
‘We have no king but Caesar,’ the chief priests answered. - John 19:5

These people didn't know Christ was King...if they had truly known Him they wouldn't have rejected Him.  The chief priests were threatened by Him, they wanted to be in control and so they bowed their heads to the one who allowed them control over their religious realm - Caesar.  I believe the people rejected Christ as King because He didn't look like what they expected a king to be and He certainly didn't overthrow the Romans like they hoped.  And so, those voices that sang Hosanna as He rode into Jerusalem were soon crying out, "Crucify him!"  They were disappointed because they expected the Messiah to be a warrior.

But Christ is a warrior.  But He is also a Lamb.  The Lion and the Lamb.  He is conqueror, but He is also the rejected King.

I wonder if any of those who shouted, "Crucify him!" were amongst those 500 who saw Him after the resurrection?  I wonder what they did?

But the issue here for me is knowing Him.  The more I know Him, the more I trust Him as King over my life and the less likely I am to reject His ways or bow down to the modern Caesars.  We only freely follow someone we trust.

Oh Lord, may the eyes of my heart be fully opened that I may know You.  To know You deep in my heart.  That I may trust You implicitly.

Until that day Lord, strengthen me each moment in You.  You are my strength and my Redeemer.

Come Lord Jesus!

Happy Advent!

Day 2 of 2014

What have a done today?

Well, today I had an appointment with the dental hygienist.  Exciting, life on the edge type of stuff you know. :)  I'm not a huge fan of dental work, even simple hygiene work.  I spend the entire time trying not to gag or choke.

I've finally (and rather lately) planted out my daffodil bulbs.  Squidge and I ventured out into our soggy sodden garden to plant them out.  I'm praying we don't have a hard frost for a bit to give them a chance!

Chatterbox went up to Malham Cove with a friend today, so the rest of us had a...fun...ish...time emptying the shed and taking a load of stuff to the tip.  I've been on a real 'life laundry' thing at the moment and just want to throw everything away. The shed was full to overflowing!

I've done my weekly grocery shop.  Bought some pretty towels and tea-towels from TK Maxx with some of my Christmas money.  Now I'm blogging and roasting a chicken with various veggies and honey roast parsnips.

I've never really enjoyed cooking.  I haven't the temperament - I'm forgetful and impatient.  So things are either burned, I've forgotten to defrost something...one time I forgot to make an evening meal at all, or, I overestimate/underestimate the time things take to make/cook.  I find being in the kitchen boring.  BUT one of my goals for this year, is to eat healthily and to eat more things from scratch and to GET OVER hating cooking.  Maybe I'm a lost cause, but I am determined! I WILL ENJOY COOKING probably. I will share my successes, and, if I am brave, my failures. LOL

Here are a few fun photos from the last couple of weeks:

Chatterbox looking like a little [storm] trooper - she's quite the Star Wars fan

Put a box in the middle of the floor and the cat will sit in it

Photobomb!

The girls opening their presents on Christmas Day - can you see the cards on my fireplace? They'd all fallen off over night!

Success!

Here are my honey roast parsnips, a spoonful of runny honey, a little salt & pepper, mixed with some olive oil, smear over parsnips, cook for 30 minutes.

Yummy!

Hope your New Year has started well too! :) x

Spending our Christmas money :)

As well as some lovely presents, we all got a bit of Christmas money from various relatives this year.  It's fun to have something to spend on fripperies for a change.  The girls spent their Christmas money yesterday on some painting stuff.  They had lots of fun.

Squidge going for an imaginative candle picture

Chatterbox painting, something orange and blue...not sure what it is yet. :)

I spent mine on some new cushions and some light shades.

See the blue one, it took me ages to find the right blue.  You see I started decorating the living room before Christmas.  Our walls were cream and this awful orangey-terracotta colour, so I've painted the chimney breast blue and the rest of the walls will be cream.

Looks nice eh? I'm pleased with it.

And here's one of my new light shades.  It's hard to tell but the shade is cream with gold pattern flocking, with some nice dangly bits LOL.  I have three of these, this one in the hall (see below) and then one half-way up the stairs and one on the landing.

You can just see the top of one of the girls' new scooters.  When you use the brakes on them sparks fly.  It's all very exciting! :)

On the above picture you can see one of Chatterbox's paintings, which looks really nice in my red hall.  I've took a close up (below), it's a bit blurred. #proudmummy.

We all still have some money to spend, well G hasn't spent any of his yet.  He's saving for a new guitar, so perhaps the money will go to that.

Did you get any nice presents this Christmas?

The feast of Stephen

I hope you had a blessed Christmas this year. We did, my poor Mum was poorly but she was well enough on Christmas Day to eat some dinner and play some games.

Today is traditionally St Stephen's Day in England (I presume it is in other countries too). It is also known as Boxing Day. Boxing Day is traditionally the time to collect money in an 'alms' box for the poor or to distribute to workers in thanks for a year's hard work.

Bizarrely it is also Wren hunting day today. I've just read that it was illegal to hunt wrens everyday of the year except on the 26th December.

"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds
On St Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
We hunted him far and hunted him near
And found him under the bushes here.
Hurrah, my boys, hurrah!
Hurrah, my boys, hurrah!
Knock at the knocker and ring at the bell,
And give us a copper for singing so well."

So armed with this information, I'm off out with Boots the cat to kill some tiny birds... ;P

Not. :)

On a more serious note, I think that Boxing Day has two merits in the Christian life. It is a day to remember the poor at this time of year (in fact a reminder that we should always remember the poor) and it is also a time to remember the first martyr - Stephen.

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Acts 7:59-60

'Lord, do not charge them with this sin', only someone whose whole heart was given to God and who was filled with the fruit of the Spirit could possibly, as he was being painfully stoned to death, cry out for forgiveness for his attackers. Unlike me. I feel like blaming someone if I stub my toe, so I have a long way to go. But we press on.

Here's to a wonderful New Year.

Hugs.

Homemade countdown calendar and update on kitchen

I made a Christmas countdown calendar today.  It's stuck to our mirror in the living room. I had some blue card, which had been given me a while ago.  I LOVE the colour and the texture is great.  I created a frame effect by putting some purple paper bordered with silver paint pen and then more blue card on top. You can't tell by the photograph but it has a bit of a decoupage effect as I used sticky pads rather than glue to stick everything together.  The pudding is a clip art picture I found on the 'net.  I cut it out of brown paper and then used white paper for the white sauce, pink paper for the plate and of course red and green paper for the holly.  There is a touch of green glitter glue on the large holly and it is all finished off with the silver paint pen.

We haven't put up our Christmas decorations yet.  When do you put up yours?

~oOo~

The decorating (painting and papering) in the kitchen is finished now - yay!  I'm just waiting to be sure the paint is dry before I hang the curtains.  We had a bit of a set-back though.  We have laminate wood floors in the kitchen.  Yesterday after running the washing machine I heard a squelch noise as I walked across the floor.  Water seeped up between the laminate planks.  I called my Dad (hubs was at work) and we discovered that we've had a drip from a pipe behind the washer for a while.  Under the flooring water was everywhere.  It's warped all the planks.

I could have cried.  I'd finally got the kitchen looking nice and then the floor is ruined.  *Sigh*  I will have to put up with concrete floor now until we can sort it out.

BUT - God is with us, He cares for us.  Despite my homemaker despair, I know that I have everything in Him.  He is in control.

Lol, the fact is the flooring we had down was the remnants of flood damaged flooring from Hubs' parents' house.  They had a flood a few years ago and we got all the pieces that weren't damaged. I thought that was quite funny that those that escaped their flood were damaged by our own little flood!

22 Days 'til Christmas!

Christmas is coming,
The goose is getting fat
Please put a penny
In the old man's hat.

If you haven't got a penny,
A ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha'penny,
Then God bless you.

Christmas card designs

My church asked me to design a Christmas card that we can send out with service times on. At the time of designing the preaching had been all about the sacrifice that Jesus made leaving His throne in Heaven to be born in a manger (basically a feeding trough). That He came to suffer and die and we can forget this in all the glitz and cosiness of a modern Christmas.

The first card that I designed is the one you can see on the right with the baby Jesus in the hay but shown on the cross - obviously not nailed to the cross but shown with the cross as the background to show what He was born to do. But this was after some consideration deemed a little too sensitive and could be misunderstood. So I then very quickly designed the second one which shows the baby Jesus in the feeding trough or manger. I tried to get the effect of a stone trough (based on some pictures I found of 1st century feeding troughs)...but I am not entirely happy with the aspect of the baby in the manger. It doesn't quite look right to me. But I didn't have time to correct the picture as they needed printing.

The Like Sunshine in the Home is obviously not emblazoned across the originals! :)

The Bible text is from the NIV John 6:38  "For I have come down from heaven not to do My will but to do the will of Him who sent Me".  I didn't add the verse this was done on the computer at church, but I think it looks good and it's a wonderful scripture.

Bits and Bats and Books

Just a few pictures from Christmas and then a little about books.

I do so love the snow, January is now rather bleak and soggy. The previous two pictures were taken in December when heavy snow was falling, my camera, unfortunately didn't pick up the flakes.

Squidge opening her presents on Christmas morn. Can you see her fantastic 'bed-hair', she is always in full 'fluff' in the morning.

Chatterbox opening a present from her Nana and Grandpa. Can you see the white box on the sofa behind? That is a thermometer, we were only just getting over the flu then.

After church we went to my Mum and Dad's house for Christmas dinner. More presents were opened!

After Christmas we visited Hub's brother, wife and two children (including a cute new baby) for new year. Here's Chatterbox and I checking out facebook I think! :)

~ooOoo~

Books

I'm afraid I've given up on The Three Musketeers. I'm over halfway through and all the characters are still annoying me and I'm yearning for the book to be over. There's never any reason to continue reading a book that is so disagreeable (unless you're at school and you have to!). I would like to read Dumas' The Count of Monte Christo because I loved the film. Cabcree, if you're reading, I seem to remember you really like The Count of Monte Christo book?

Here are a few reasons why I don't like The Three Musketeers personally: 1) D'Artagnan - honestly, he's so 'in love' with Constance Bonacieux, even though he's only spoke about two words to her and she's married; 2) Nobody seems to be able to trip up near another character without being challenged to a duel. So what if bodies line the streets a man's honour is at stake!; 3) Despite D'Artagnan's 'love' for C. Bonacieux he's been romancing 'Milady' and upsetting her servant Kitty who is in love with D'Artagnan - but of course he works hard to keep Kitty in love with him because his ego is so huge; 4) Aramis is apparently a theologian who can't decide if he's to join the church or be a musketeer - of course a big bag of money and a pretty woman with always change his mind from the church...I could go on, but I'm sure I'm boring you. I just cannot put up with these characters. I want to bang their heads together more than I did with Austen's 'Emma'. LOL! :) I suppose a lot of it is supposed to be perhaps tongue-in-cheek, but I don't get the joke, so I give up!

On to the kiddiwink's books:

I was reading The Children of Green Knowe with Chatterbox. Somehow the book has lost a little of its charm for me. Maybe it's because I read the book originally in my early teens after watching the BBC adaptation, which is simply magical: Here is episode 1 on Youtube. The book is good, don't get me wrong, but it isn't an easy read-aloud book. It isn't divided into chapters and is very descriptive. It also raises some theological questions about dead people walking about that maybe you might not want to delve into with your child. I simply explained it was a fantasy to Chatterbox and she seemed to accept that. Also, I was rather amused that Tolly 'saw dead people...walking about like regular people', rather like the child in the film The Sixth Sense. Some children could find it creepy, some adults could find it creepy. But we finished it and she seemed to enjoy it.

But onto more solid jolly good books...like the Famous Five! Chatterbox wanted me to read to her one of the High School Musical books that she'd picked up from the library, and whilst I haven't banned her from reading them I certainly am NOT going to read it to her. "It's trash! I exclaimed." :)

So we compromised and picked up one of the old Famous Five books I'd picked up in our Antiquarian book shop. Oh it's just wonderful to behold!

Lovely old hardback. Smells old and fusty. Super.

Beautifully illustrated.

And with a charming inscription. Funny how Father Christmas's handwriting changes with each family. :)

We've only just started. The joy is, I don't remember this particular Famous Five story. So it's quite an adventure of our own. :)

~ooOoo~

It's back to school for the girls and back to work and the old routine for me. I was so behind after being ill and then Christmas. But things seem to be back on track. Something always comes up though, life never just smooths along does it? :)

Hope you're having a lovely January. Just remember, Spring is coming! :)

Chrismassyness

It's been a busy day. I have trawled around every shop in our town looking for size 2 wellies for Chatterbox. Honestly, just before I'm about to lose the will to live, the very last shop we look in and I find some. Pirate wellies no less! Captain Jack Sparrow would be proud of them! :) It was exhausting. Hubs had a fun time at home fitting a light unit in the kitchen that involved pulling up carpet in Chatterbox's room, pulling up floorboards, and some electrical fiddling. We've checked the smoke detectors work just in case!! ;)

We've had a lovely evening, mulled wine and mince pies. Very aromatic.

Here are some of our Christmas decorations. Sorry for the blurry rather orange photos but we have a small camera and a very small living room! Apologies over...I love Christmas.

A bit blurry and orange, but you get the picture. :)

You might just be able to make out in front of the television right in the centre is a tiny tiny nativity scene. Lol, I bought that off eBay last year and I expected a full size nativity. I was rather surprised when it came through the post - to say the least. Always read the description, photos can be deceiving! :) Hub's feet and the X-factor on TV can also be admired! :)

Our nativity, you might notice the white dove lying in front of the crib. Lol it's fallen off the top of the stable and I didn't notice until after I'd taken the picture.

For some reason this is the only picture that didn't come out orange!

Through the mirror which reflects the window which in turn reflects the Christmas tree.

I love my tree, its design reminds me of the White Tree of Gondor

Kittehmas

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