Christmas 2011

Today was the twins first Christmas. Yay! We really had a whole Christmas weekend, though. Daddy couldn't work because it snowed on Thursday. So we've been celebrating for four days in a row. Tomorrow (Monday) will make it five days.

Punkin, you were in a Christmas play at church. You were the CUTEST sheep up there! You said, "We are warm and cozy. We are the sheep. Our wool makes warm blankets to help baby Jesus sleep." It was, honestly, hard to see you, mostly due to your standing directly behind one of the shepards and the sheep not being on the stage. However, once everyone started singing "Away in a manger," you climbed up on the stage to look in to the manger. You told me later that you wanted to see baby Jesus. In fact, just now, without my mentioning what I'm writing about, you spontaneously sang a song with the lyrics, "I saw baby Jesus. Hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm. I saw baby Jesus." I think you were so excited because I told you that it was Jesus' birthday and you kept asking me if he was coming to our house for His birthday party. So now you put a name with a face, albeit not the actual face of our Lord and Saviour. It was very heartwarming to see you so involved in the real spirit of Christmas.

This morning, we opened presents. Blueberry and Apple were very excited to play with the wrapping paper. You both loved playing with the silver cups that great grandma Bonnie gave you. You are both learning to drink out of cups, so you probably thought there was a drink in them for you. But you didn't seem put off by the fact that they were empty.

Punkin was very entertained with the new vacuum cleaner's box. In fact, you took a nap in it!

I'm going to have to put away the decorations soon. I'm tempted to leave the spiral Christmas tree up in the living room. Blueberry and Apple, you both love to roll over to it and shake all of the ornaments off. The tree is anchored to the fireplace grate, so it won't fall on you, and the ornaments are plastic. So it's not dangerous in any way. However, I love watching you of you roll over to it, shake it until an ornament falls off, then play with the ornament. We'll have this tree around for a while, I think!

That's about all I can think to put here. We really had a great Christmas, with just you girls and daddy and I. It was mostly quiet, but it really was happy!

Faithfulness

Pastor Jay was talking about the faithfulness of God a couple of Sundays ago. It got me thinking about how faithful God has been to me in my life. It also made me think that I'd really like you girls to know some of those times, especially the miraculous ones. So I think I will start adding them here when I think of them. So here is the first, and probably the one that stands out the most.

When I was 8, we moved to El Paso because Grandpa found a job at the refinery there. It was a hard transition for all of us, especially because we were so far from family. When we were in Farmington and grandpa lost his job, great grandpa Clarence would bring us groceries. But when we were short on funds in El Paso, there wasn't anyone we could ask for help.

One day, we were really short on food. When I say really short, I mean it! I remember looking into the refrigerator and seeing mustard and ketchup. And that's all. Nothing else. So grandma really had absolutely nothing to make for dinner, not even beans. At dinner time, we all sat down around the table and grandpa prayed like this, "Dear heavenly Father, thank you for the food that you are about to provide for us."

About the time he finished praying, the doorbell rang. Marie, our neighbor and friend, had had friends coming for dinner who had canceled at the last minute. God had put it on her heart to bring us a lasagna, salad and bread sticks! She was a fantastic Italian cook and we all ate like kings!

This is a story that you might hear a lot or not at all. But it's one I remember distinctly. It left an indelible impression on my young mind that I never forgot. I knew, from then on, that God could be counted on, quite literally, to "supply all [my] needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19)."