Epicenter

 

Right now I am at the Epicenter conference in Albany, New York!  Epicenter in the annual winter conference that our region puts on for the students in the Northeast.  Usually Joe would have come to this conference and I would have stayed home with the kids, but this year Joe decided to give me a bit of a break.  And I am ON MY OWN (except for the students and other staff of course) for 6 days!  6 days!!!  As my friend Steph put it earler this evening (she is also here without her husband and son)- "At dinner tonight nobody threw food at me or on the floor!"  I could add that there was no screaming and I didn't have to convince my friends to eat their dinner by promising dessert!:)  I believe that 3 days/2 nights is the longest I have ever been away from either of my little loves before so this is a BIG deal and I am oh so thankful to my husband for making it happen!  While I adore my children and do miss them- this time away is oh so good for this mama! 

So here I am at Epicenter working on physical arrangments (basically getting some things ready before the meetings), conducting a staff interview with a student later in the week who wants to join staff with Campus Crusade, meeting with our students and coaching them, and now as of last night I was assigned as one of two photographers for the event!  This last part I wasn't expecting (and only brought one camera and one lens) but I am really excited.  This will be the first real chance in a setting like this to use my photography skills in ministry.  After the first couple of hours photographing I can already tell that it's going to be way more work, time, and effort than I was initially expecting, but I'm still looking forward for this chance to serve.  So it may not be this week as I was planning, but I will be posting our Christmas pictures sometime soon.  For now I'm off to bed...tomorrow should be another busy day!

Getting Ready for Christmas!

 

We had a wonderful Christmas and really the whole month leading up to Christmas was filled with little preparations and celebrations!  There were lots that I didn't photograph...parties, the Christmas parade, gatherings with friends, and lots and lots of tasty treats, but here is a glimpse...

 

The kids loved decorating the tree...over and over and over again!:)

 

And my parents even got to help with the first tree decorating while they were here.  And I love how the pom pom garland I made turned out!

 

Lily has been on vacation for much of the holiday season (her school follows the university schedule), but for her last day of school they had pajama day and here she is in her matching pajamas with Bitty Baby!

We did a giving basket for the kids again this year and once again Lily just LOVED creating some special little goodies that she could give out to anybody she wanted.  She really gets so much joy out of giving- I think it's a gift of hers.  This year we made carmel corm again, these adorable snowman ornaments (which she gave to everyone in her class among others)...

 

And these cute Christmas tree brownies!

 

Lily helped make each thing...baking, stirring and decorating the treats and cutting, paiting, and clueing the ornaments!

And we enjoyed a few fun little Christmas crafts like these nativity stick puppets (we printed some in color and the kids colored some themselves).

Our giving baskets and the little glitter trees that we made for the mudroom.

I don't even remember which yummy Christmas treat Eli had smeared all over his face here, but I couldn't resist these pictures!

Every Christmas we look forward to the cards and hearing from many of our friends and family.  This year we hung our Christmas cards from lights around our front door and we put the picture cards under the glass on our kitchen table (so we got to see all of your lovely faces during every meal)!

Making beaded candy cane ornaments- Lily did such a great job at beading them and Eli even did pretty good at threading the pipe cleaners through the beads until he decided that it was more fun to dump out the beads from bowl to bowl (and ALL over the floor)!

And of course there were cookies!  We made a more reasonable sized batch of cutout cookies this year and other than the last few that Joe helped Eli with the kids cut them all out themselves (I would roll the dough for Eli).  They really enjoyed being able to do it on their own and they did such a great job!

And while the cookies were baking I let them clean up (and play) in the sink.  This has quickly become one of their favorite activities!

Getting ready for Christmas sure was fun this year!!!

Wishing you a Christmas that is merry and bright!

Love,

Joe, Angie, Lily, Eli & Indy

The countdown is on!

The Countdown Is On!!!

Lily and Eli have been counting down the days 'til Christmas all month with the advent calendars my mom made for them!  Each day they pull out a little box and not only only get to enjoy the little treat my mom has hidden inside (candy, stickers, etc...) but they also get to see what creative, festive picture my mom made on the other side!  They look forward to doing their advent calendar every morning and they are so excited that Christmas is nearly here!  Yesterday we were planning to head to Bar Harbor (without snow we were going to hit the beach to collect some rocks for a gift I am making for Eli).  Instead we decided to slow it down a little and stay home.  We made and decorated cookies, went to the pool, Joe worked on a homemade gift for the kids, and we all ate pizza in the living room while watching the Muppet's Christmas Carol.  What a fun day!  And this morning we woke up to snow and the hope of a white Christmas after all!:)  We had our Christmas celebration with my family over Skype this morning and overall it has been such a nice couple of days as we continue to countdown 'til Christmas and celebrate all the while along the way!