My husband and I have lived in five states since we’ve been married. We traveled a lot before we had
“A child is born in an obscure village. He is brought up in another obscure village. He works in a carpenter shop until he is thirty, and then for three brief years is an itinerant preacher, …
" It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags!" He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore...then, the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. "Maybe Christmas..." he thought "doesn't come from a store? Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more?"What is it about that day that makes the harshness of the world soften a bit? The Grinch learned that the joy of Christmas was something that couldn't be purchased, and even better, something that couldn't be stolen. You see, Christmas, doesn't come from a store...yes, Christmas in fact, means a little bit more. It is a time to gather in with family and friends. It's a time to be full of glad tidings and cheer and a time to relish in that sense of magic that eludes us most of the year. We see the dreary world with new eyes. Lights glow a little brighter, fires seem a little warmer, and charity spreads its wings from pocketbooks and bank accounts that know a new generosity. Still...the glitter of the gifts, the sparkle of the tree, and the love of kith and kin are only shadows of Christmas. Christmas still means just a little bit more... "Isn't there anyone out there who can tell me what Christmas is all about?" *Lights please* And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.' That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. Merry Christmas to all. May the true Joy of Christmas be found in your heart on this and every day.
Paint Your Own Christmas Angels I saw this simple to paint trio of angels designed by Cynthia Fortner in the Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Cra
Free printable Chalkboard cookie recipes - attach to a jar filled with cookie cutters for an adorable gift any baker will love!
Here are our best kids LEGO activities and projects. Free LEGO Challenge calendars, STEM challenges, science activities, and art projects.
Christmas Carol Printable--Quotes from Charles Dickens. Choose from four different versions, great way to decorate for Christmas with very little effort.
I liked a post at 5 Minutes for Faith
Print a copy of the O Holy Night free printable and enjoy the lyrics to your favorite Christmas song all season long!
A-Z Of Christmas - I share the A to Z of Christmas. Taking each letter of the alphabet from the letter A to the letter B that relate to
Be sure to stop in and check out all of the great holiday inspiration over the next 12 days!! 30 awesome bloggers share all!
This beautiful DIY lettered pallet "O Holy Night" sign is a perfect additional to any holiday decor! Make your own today!
I made a ustream video to show how I've set up the bases of my December Daily Albums; yes, albums - plural - I need to figure out which one I'm actually going to use . Actually I think I'm going to transfer all the pre-planned pages into the brown one and then use the red one for the finished pages, so there's my system. Here are some photos of the December Daily albums right now: I tried to keep them general and neutral enough so that I could do anything with them. I have several free printed numbers and I'm not sure which I am going to be using yet. Here are the links to the adorable free printable numbers for December Daily: 1. Free Printable Journaling Cards with Numbers 1-31 for December Daily from Creativity Prompt: 2. Free Printable Whimsical Numbers 1-25 from 4shared: 3. Free Printable December Daily Circle Tags with Numbers 1-25 and Half Circles by Alyssa's Scraps: (for some reason the image above came out too wide but the tags print perfect circles). Highlight Reel: The Adventures and Story of My Most Favorite and Resilient Scrapbooking Tool: The We R Memory Keepers Cropodile & the Cropodile II. My We R Memory Keepers Cropodile is my favorite tool; I loaned it to my husband and he left it outside after he did some "work" on our office building. That Cropodile survived outside for more than 2 months of Florida weather. In the meantime of waiting for my husband to return my Cropodile, I bought the Cropodile II for making altered mini books out of old hard cover books. I love both of these tools and I think I'm putting the original Cropodile on my Christmas list so we have one at home and one at the office. Here is the link to the awesome Cropodiles that I love so much I want to marry: I don't actually have the We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper - but Pssst. Charlie: honey, if you're reading my blog - maybe this would be a good addition to standard bottle of Calvin Klein Eternity perfume I ask for every year - here's the link to that too, just in case you forget which kind I like: I can never have enough of that perfume - I love it and I'm currently out.
I suspect over the course of this blog regular readers have detected certain recurrent themes. You might have noticed my love for animals, and thus my support of our local SPCA, and my concern over the welfare of the homeless in our community, and hence my interest in the Centre of Hope. You may have noticed how often I write about places like the Wood Buffalo Food Bank, and other non-profit organizations in this community. I do so for a few reasons, I guess. I believe we as citizens have a responsibility to the others who share our community, and our world. I believe we are judged as a society by how we treat those who are vulnerable, and I want to ensure we are judged kindly in this regard. And I suppose my support of non-profits traces all the way back to my parents, who were very Catholic. What does being Catholic have to do with non-profit organizations? Well, not much really because people of all faiths - and people who do not belong to any faith - work with and for non-profits. For my parents, though, part of Catholicism and religion was "walking the talk". The words were easy, they would say, but the actions are hard. And so over their entire lives my parents were involved in helping others, sometimes through their church but often on their own, too. The religion part didn't stick with me, I guess, and the last time I was in a church would have been at my mother's funeral four years ago - but the desire to help others, and the understanding that this is not an option but a necessity, has been deeply ingrained in me. Last week I attended the 17th annual Soup Kitchen Banquet. If you aren't familiar with it the Soup Kitchen has been serving lunch meals to those in need in our community for years now. They serve at the Fellowship Baptist Church every weekday like clockwork, the doors opening at 11:30 and closing again an hour later. And in that time they serve dozens of people - averaging about 76 a day, but as the years have gone on and fortunes in this city have waxed and waned those numbers have on occasion fallen - and risen again. I suspect there is a perception that they feed only the local homeless, but this is simply not true. I learned that at the banquet when an elderly gentleman, who has been in our community since 1969, spoke of why he eats at the soup kitchen. He has a home, and he has been here for a very long time - and while he says the food is good he eats there for the fellowship, for the companionship - and that makes sense to me, because breaking bread with others is perhaps the staple of our society. It wasn't lost on me that my table mates at the banquet and I, and dozens of others, were breaking bread together while hearing stories of seeking food and fellowship at the Soup Kitchen. It wasn't lost on me that one of the most profound stories in the Bible involves food, the Last Supper of course, where Jesus broke bread with his disciples for the final time. And it wasn't lost on me that while religion sets down some fundamental guidelines there is a difference between talking about them and acting on them - and that those who volunteer at the Soup Kitchen every day are not reciting religious tenets but rather living them. Every day volunteers from several different faith organizations, and those from none, serve meals to the homeless, the elderly, the new immigrants, the unemployed, and the working poor. They do so in an environment that is safe for them and their patrons, and they do so not because of glory or reward but because it is the right thing to do. They do so because food is a fundamental need, not a luxury. And they do so because I suspect, somewhere along the way just as happened to me, they learned that talk is easy but actions are what matters. I chose very deliberately to write this post today, on Easter Sunday. I think there is a natural connection here, the concepts that faith lays out for us and then the choice we have - to simply recite them, or to instead live them. There are two lines from the Bible that stand out the most for me when it comes to non-profit work, and they are these: Two very simple lines, and as profound as they are simple. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me - which in my life I have chosen to interpret as meaning that whatever one does to anyone else they do to me as well, because we are all connected in this world. Every act, good or bad, positive or negative, has impacts far beyond the initial result, and so every time a meal is served at the Soup Kitchen and a hungry person is fed there is a positive impact not just on them but on the rest of us. It is a ripple effect that starts in the basement of a local church and ripples out far and wide, right through this community and beyond. It was an honour to attend the Soup Kitchen Banquet, and one day I plan to see if I can spend a couple of shifts volunteering there. I always love to listen to the stories of those who share this community with me, and in the end I always find it is not those I am "helping" who truly benefit but rather me as it opens my heart and mind to others every single time. Perhaps I will break bread with some of the Soup Kitchen patrons and we will share a meal, an act that has connected us as humans likely far before we even developed language to communicate. I will leave you today with one final thought. No matter how you celebrate Easter Sunday, no matter your religious belief system, no matter whether you even believe in God or not, I think this final line is pretty fundamental, because I think in the end this is what it is all about. It is all about actions, not words - and compassion. Happy Easter, Fort McMurray.
This DIY Wooden Nativity Silhouette is an easy project to add a unique nativity scene to your home decor. Make one for yourself or give as gifts this Christmas!
The Work of Christmas
Helping you study and memorize "The Living Christ"
Great list of the best Christmas songs made from the most popular Christmas songs or the most iconic Christmas songs! Great for Christmas music games!
Hello, lovelies! Welcome to Blogmas day 19! Today I’ll be sharing 21 quotes that will wake up your Christmas spirit. So if you aren’t feeling the holidays, this quotes will definitely help you to feel more festive. We know that sometimes is hard to keep up with the celebrations when you are dealing with the...
