The Real Romney?

  Americans who are considering voting for Mitt Romney should take a closer look. Why would a man change so much so quickly?

Angel's Carol

Angel's Carol

John Rutter

Have you heard the sound of the angel voices

Ringing out so sweetly, ringing out so clear? 

Have you seen the star shining out so brightly

As a sign from God that Christ the Lord is here?

Have you heard the news that they bring from heaven

To the humble shepherds who have waited long?

Gloria in excelsis Deo, gloria in excelsis Deo!

Hear the angels sing their joyful song.

He is come in peace in the winter's stillness,

Like a gentle snowfall in the gentle night;

He is come in joy like the sun at morning

Filling all the world with radiance and with light.

he is come in love as the child of Mary;

In a simple stable we have seen his birth:

Gloria in excelsis Deo, gloria in excelsis Deo!

Hear the angels sing 'Peace on earth'.

He will bring new light to a world in darkness,

Like a bright new star shining in the skies above;

He will bring new hope to the waiting nations

When he comes to reign in purity and love.

Let the earth rejoice at the Saviour's coming;

Let the heavens answer with the joyful morn:

Gloria in excelsis Deo, gloria in excelsis Deo!

Hear the angels singing 'Christ is born'.

December Projects

Like everyone else, December has been busy.  Shopping and a bit more shopping (thank heavens for the internet so some of it can be done in jammies ;0),   trying to get school done, baking, post office runs--really no different than your life.  So I thought I'd just post some pictures of what we're doing.

Jacqueline isn't a morning person.

Some siblings don't appreciate sing along

Twitch worked hard putting up the decorations--time to hang ten.

End of decorating Day 1

Stringing popcorn and watching "White Christmas"

Making Snow Globes

Jacqueline's latest decorating project.  Don't you love the color?!

Made this pattern over the fall, but it needed...

Face improvements

Making soap

Born To Die

We caught part of Polar Express over the weekend.  The animation is great.  Towards the end of the movie the train conductor tells the boy that the meaning of Christmas resides within him.

How utterly sad.

How hopeless.

How depressing.

How humanistic.

I've been meditating on Ephesians 1:4-5 the past couple of days.  It was used in the Sunday sermon.
               According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
             of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
             him.
               Having predestinated [marked out beforehand] us unto the
             adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
             to the good pleasure of his will.

Absolutely none, not one twinkle of time as we know it is accidental.  No event in the life of any human is accidental.  Before the world was created, before time began God marked out [predestined] the redemptive story.  All of history, every single event, is part of the redemptive story and is therefore predestined by Him. 

That means that before time began the Godhead marked out Christ to die.

He was born for the express purpose of dieing.

The meaning of Christmas is found in Christ alone.

My heart leaps  for joy as I ponder that.  Thank God the meaning of Christmas has nothing to do with me.

Written by Nikki

Thanksgiving Prayer

Thanksgiving Prayer–Norman Rockwell

Now Thank We All Our God

Words by Martin Rinkart

Now thank we all our God

With hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done,

In whom His world rejoices;

who, from our mother's arms,

Hath blest us on our way

With countless gifts of love,

And still is ours today

O may this bounteous God

Through all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts

And blessed peace to cheer us;

And keep us in His grace,

And guide us when perplexed,

And free us from all ills

In this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God

The Father now be given,

The Son and Him who reigns

With them in highest heaven,

The one eternal God,

Whom earth and heav'n adore;

For thus it was, is now,

And shall be evermore.

T'was the Day Before Thanksgiving

T'was the day before Thanksgiving and all through the house

all the creatures were stirring even Jacqueline the mouse.

The menu was posted on the bulliten board with care

in hopes that the dinner would soon be there.

The fat cats were snoozing all snug in the sun

while visions of gibblets danced on their tongue.

And Mom in her apron, wiping flour off her sleeve, 

was just sitting down to a hot cup of tea.

When out from the kitchen there arose such a clatter,

she sprang from her chair to see what was the matter.

Away to the kitchen she flew like a flash,

threw open the french doors, and drew a deep gasp.

When what to her wonderous eyes should appear,

but two magic dish fairies with all of their gear.

They wiped and they rinsed; they rubbed and they scrubbed

'til the dishes were free of dinner and grub.

As they hung the last dish towel, they said with a grin

Happy Thanksgiving to all, let the feasting begin.

Review of the Documentary 'Agenda: Grinding America Down'

The documentary Agenda: Grinding America Down is a great place to get some of the blinders removed. This documentary carefully introduces the history of the communist's party agenda to destroy America. This isn't a conspiracy theory movie. Idaho legislator Curtis Bowers spent two years researching the topic. During the course of the film he interviews people such as Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum, Mike Smith of HSLD, and the Honorable Edwin Meese III--all respectable members of the conservative movement.

Mr. Bowers begins by defining communism and its goals. He traces their history, not only in American politics, but also education and religion. He then illustrates the urgency needed to stop this movement and suggests tools whereby it could be accomplished.

As another election cycle is gearing up, this documentary could be a useful tool in your decision making process.

In his book Ethics, Dietrich Bonhoeffer states,

     "What is worse than doing evil is being evil.  It is worse for a liar
      to tell the truth than of a lover of truth to lie.  It is worse when a
      misanthropist practices brotherly love than when a
      philanthropist gives way to hatred."  (pg 67)

Why?  Shouldn't we rejoice when wickedness is turned away from?

The example that immediately comes to mind is Satan taking on the form of a serpent in order to deceive Eve.  At the core is evil.  He disguises himself in respectability and proceeds to wax eloquently.  It all sounded so good to Eve and Satan's entrapment was complete.  In reality, she did not equip herself to do battle with evil. 

For reasons that I don't understand, people have difficulty believing that our government would lie to us or use us.  The reality is that the evil of socialism has wrapped itself up in respectability.  We are made to feel guilty if we oppose welfare, or called a racist if we are against affirmative action, and declared unpatriotic and against the troops if we question foreign policy and the use of troops in the world. Vladimir Lenin said the the goal of socialism is communism. No one can question the inroads socialism has made in the past 10-15 years.

Success!

What could be better then tasting the 'fruit' of our labour?

Wardrobe Change

Since the fall weather finally looks like it is here to stay, I decided to switch out my spring/summer clothes.   

 Organized Chaos

More Mess

Director of Operations

Organized, for now.

Switching out clothes is a really good time to try on favorite outfits. My usual excuse is that I am making sure they fit though the chance of me growing is slim. This skirt, top, and vest is one of my top two favorite fall outfits.  Mom made it for me last year from a sixties pattern we bought online.   I love vintage clothes, mostly because they are so smart and femine, qualities that are very hard to find in the stores today. 

I love not only facts about history but also seeing how life would have been.  Clothing is just one area of that.  I have several books on different eras of clothing that I love. One of the things that I have noticed is how causual our society has become.  It seems such a shame that when this pattern was published this outfit would have been for school or shopping but with the way our society is now, it can only be worn to church without looking overdressed.  I sincerely wish that not only recitals and parties but also daily life could regain some of its former elegance because there are many things that I would like to wear which I can't now. 

Applesauce

We went and visited Miss Laura and her family earlier this week.  We had such a good time with them.. so good I forgot to take very many pictures! When I am having fun reading to three or four cute kids, running around outside, cuddling a baby, or talking up a storm,  I, at least, forget my camera even exists!  We had hoped to pick some apples while we were there but the orchard had been picked clean.  So we just bought some apples for applesauce and apple butter.  There was even enough to squeeze out a pie! Mom discovered that we needed some canning equipment that didn't get here until late in Friday. So we didn't get to the applesauce until this morning.

One-on- one with Mom on a quiet Saturday morning turns into a peeling.. 

 and chopping festival!

The recipe that we used for applesauce is really good one that Miss Laura recommended. The recipe calls only for cinnamon but we put in nutmeg and cloves too.

This was my first time canning anything and Mom hasn't done it very much either  so it was very interesting to see exactly what is done and very rewarding when the first batch "popped".

Since we are new at canning the mistakes we made were very interesting too.  We put to much water in the bath and boiling water spilled over the sides a couple of times!   Now we most definitely know what not to do the next time around.

The very first one!

Projects

A couple of years ago somebody gave me a book about knitting toys for children which I haven't ever used.  I looked through it and liked the projects but never had any reason to make them.  Fast forward to present: me with an ever growing yarn stash.  I decided that I really needed to do something with my yarn before I found myself knee deep in it. I started looking through my books to find something that could work and discovered a pattern for a knitted doll.  Since I had quite a bit of different colored yarn leftover from my purses, I decided to try it.

The first one I  made was the pink and purple  fairy.  The pattern was easy to follow and didn't take to much time.  Trying to embroider her face, do something, anything with her hair, and arranging her skirt to look like petals (I imagined her as a flower fairy), was what took the most time!  I think I starred at the skirt for the better part of a week, trying it first one way and then another!

The green and yellow one was an accident.  But once Mom found the netting, I was in love.  The skirt and the hair went much smoother this time.  So did her face.  I only had to do it once!

This project was a lot of fun and easy to do. I do think I would make it again just not in the immediate future.  One can do the same pattern for only a short time.

How We Use 80 Feet of Rope!

Dad had to work most of the day on Saturday (his line was running), so when he came home he decided that he needed a project to help him relax . The first thing he hit upon was a rope swing. So he packed Jacqueline and me off to the home improvement store to buy 80 feet of rope! When we got home, Jacqueline and I found our work clothes and then headed out to help him.

The rope was in 3 different pieces so we had to find the longest one and then tie a pair of knots on either side of the middle where the ropes attached to the swing would go.

One bored Jacqueline + one camera= a lot of funny pictures

Tying the rope around the tree. (Dad is standing on a ladder in our tree house)

On the other side Jacqueline had to hold the rope taunt. 

When Dad finished one side, he had to tie the other .

I think that we were all praying at this point. 

Once Dad had finished tying and had gotten off the ladder the mood lightened a lot, probably because no one was  thinking about how far away the nearest emergency room is!

Jacqueline was so excited that she couldn't wait for the seat! Swinging is her favorite think to do.  She is outside for an hour or two almost every day!

Drilling holes in the seat for the ropes.

Tying knots in the rope.  Notice that Dad's favorite beverage for working (and not working)  has made it's appearance

Mom was worried about how a rope tied to 2 trees was going to support any one's weight so she made Dad try it first.

After individual turns, Jacqueline and I decided to go together.   Even Mom tried the swing although she declined any souvenir photos.

Jacqueline has commented that in all of our videos one or both of us is screaming.  So here is a continuation of that tradition.