Multi-multy-ing

Lots of things going on around this household!  Good things!

#1:  I haven't gotten rid of my kidney stone yet but PRAISE GOD I have been pain free since Friday night!  Keep praying that it removes itself from my premises.  I was to the urologist today and he said it definitely has moved but we're not sure where it's at.  He wants me to come back in four weeks and we will see where it's at and make sure my kidney is doing okay....that is, if it doesn't pass before then.  It has been an extremely painful experience and a trial of my faith.  It certainly has made my time crying out to God a priority.  I have a really good doctor which I am so thankful for.

#2:  Dad and Mom just celebrated 53 of marriage.  Dad made a special trip to the store to buy Mom a bouquet of flowers and a lovely card.  Dad is 85 years old and Mom is 82.  What a precious thing we have, and is rapidly becoming a rarity, to have parents who are committed to each other 'til death will them part'.  So many kids are growing up in homes today having no idea what it is like to have parents who will stay together through good and bad times.  And then to have loving parents makes them even more rare.  Thank you, God, for parents who have been faithful to You and to each other!

After an attack of pain Friday night I wasn't sure how things were going to go with Christmas, family and friends coming into town, and being sick.

I cannot begin to tell you how good 

God has been to me this week.

First, He took my pain after I cried out to Him and put Him in remembrance of His promises.

Then the food started pouring in as different friends begin calling and asking to bring meals in for us!  I cannot express with mere words what a blessing it was to have all this delicious food coming in randomly from our caring friends.  I have not had to cook at all (except breakfasts) and still have enough food for another meal.  I feared at one time that the men in our family might lessen up on the intensity of their prayers for me because they were enjoying these delicious meals so much!  (just kidding)  

Thanks Sharon, Melissa, Joy, Caryn, and Fransene and families for blessing us in a way that you will never fully realize!  

I hope I never take my church family for granted.

Christmas Eve

We all exchange names in October for our gift exchange for Christmas.  It has become too expensive for each of us to buy gifts for all of us so we each just buy for one person.  We post a paper in the kitchen where each person is to write something they would like to have.  Now we are a hard family to buy for....not because we want so much or because we are fussy about what we get but most of us feel so blessed that we have a hard time thinking of more things we "need".  Some we have to prod quite often to give us some ideas of things they would like to have.  I love to see them sneaking in with odd looking packages or the "Mom, can you help me wrap this?", or "Mom, would you please tell so-and-so to write something on their list so I know what to buy!".   Normally as we give our gifts we also share what we appreciate about the person we bought a gift for.  This year we shared Christmas eve with our friends, the NY Weaver family, and they had their gift exchange along with ours.  Kyle had my name and he blessed me with a large electric skillet that I wanted really bad and am looking forward to using it.

Christmas Day 

Church was packed and overflowing.  

Care packages were put together for the homeless from 9:30 to 10:15 

and at 10:30 choirs, special music, and a message was enjoyed by many.

The Weavers, along with the NY Weavers, my parents, and Mullett extended family met out at Bethel Church Pavilion for Christmas lunch.  I was not feeling 100% so I was given an easy thing to bring--dinner rolls, (Thank you for your consideration!).  Ham, meatballs, mashed potatoes, Grandma Weavers corn, green bean casserole, salad, veggie tray, rolls, and dishes of calorie-laden, but scrumptious desserts were enjoyed immensely.   

We could not stay long for the "Pinecraft Parade" was at 3:00.  (can be viewed on YouTube)

The Pinecraft Parade is one-of-a-kind.  In some ways it is a pretty pathetic parade and yet you have to go back year after year to see who is going to be driving what through!  We enjoy it!

Several others in the family were not feeling well, too, so it was not our usual jolly Christmas dinner.  After the parade and some visiting we went back out to clean up and hauled the food back to our place for a dinner of leftovers.

#3:  I am enjoying having my niece, Monica, here and my sister, Janice.  We haven't been over ambitious and are enjoying doing quiet things together and just talking for hours.  Ah, the kindred spirits of sisters and nieces!  Here they are reading blogs and facebook.  (and yes, Janice looks like she could use some reading glasses!)

(Poor Monica has developed a fear of seeing me get my camera.  

She knows she may end up on my blog!)

#4:  Mom has been making handbags from plastic grocery bags.  Yes, she is "going green"!  They really are neat and a large one like this takes about 40-50 bags.  She cuts the bags into strips and then crochets them into different sized bags.  Mom is a giver so she gives them away as fast as she makes them, rarely do people come to visit her without leaving with a gift of some kind.

....and Dad and JR worked together to conquer a 1000 piece puzzle.

I had to take a picture of this because it is a very rare sight to see JR work on a puzzle.

So as you can see, there are lots of things going on around here....

...and the children are back on their regular work schedules...

Tonight I watched my front door revolve back and forth as they come in from work, 

head right back out to volley ball, back in to shower, back out to a birthday party,

in and out, in and out.  

This week is the peak of activity in Pinecraft.

Thursday is the volleyball tournament, Saturday is the basket ball tournament, 

and Saturday night is the youth Lock-in!

The kids are thinking they would like to vacation in Florida sometime! 

Kidney Stone

You have been served your eviction notice.... effective immediately!

I would appreciate your prayers as I have a good sized kidney stone that has been giving me unspeakable amounts of pain.  If it doesn't get out by Thursday afternoon I will need to have an outpatient ultrasound procedure done to break it up.  I have friends and family coming for Christmas and would so much love to be feeling good while they are here!  If the stone would just GET OUT the recovery would be immediate.  Thanks for your prayers!

Youth Christmas Banquet

While the settings on my camera appeared to be "kafluey", a picture is still worth a thousand words!  :)

For the youth Christmas banquet, their choice was Dry Docks Restaurant.  They so graciously accommodated our group and we could each order off the menu instead of being limited to a select few dinner choices.  Dry Docks is located right along the bay.  Our tables were next to huge glass windows and our view was the beautiful bay.  

How romantic!

Our family left early to take some family photos before dinner but much to our chagrin it was too dark.  We took a few snapshots anyway but in many of them someone either looked the other way, sneezed, or scratched their head!  We had some good times just getting everyone to look ahead at the same time.

The lovely Kyle & KaShondra

One snapshot of the group outside of the restaurant,

(the inside ones' lighting was too terrible)

Afterwards we went to a house for desserts, gifts, and games.

Brittany fixed our desserts for us.  She is so gifted in this area!

For gifts the girls sat in one circle and the guys in another. 

As JR read a Christmas story they had to pass a gift right or left every time they heard "right" or "left" in the story.  It was so funny to watch them!

After desserts we played Bingo.  There were seven prizes they could win and after that whoever got Bingo could steal a prize from someone else.  With this large of a group it got crazy real fast!  :)  Sometimes four or five of them got Bingo at the same time so they would wait to 'steal' until someone else did!

Then of course, the evening's not complete without group pictures.

First the proper, posed one..

the the crazy one!

Guys only posed...

and then the crazy one!  

Now they did get so-o crazy that we will have to carefully select exactly what to show here!

And now we present the lovely ladies...

and yes, the crazy ladies!

and theirs got worse with time, too!

And now the youth leaders.... and we won't even go into 

what their 'crazy pose' was!  

...or should we?  Nah! 

We'll stick with the proper, posed one!

Wow!  What a blessing to interact with a group of kids who love the Lord and desire to walk in truth!

It was amazing how many people asked who we were when we were at the restaurant.  They were so intrigued with such a big group of good-looking kids.  (OK, so they said 'beautiful' but I thought the guys might not like that word quite as good!)  Even by not saying a word, the kids were a living testimony of Jesus Christ just by their conduct and appearance.  

May God use these kids far and wide to bring glory to Himself!

40's Christmas Banquet

For our 40's Group Christmas Banquet we went to Barnacle Bill's.  We had a delicious meal and good fellowship over our dinners, then we went to Phil & Dorinda's for desserts, gift exchange and more fellowship.

Here is our lovely dessert table:

not pictured were pots of coffee, hot cocoa, hot cider and lemon water

We each brought gifts, men for men, and women for women. 

We did "white elephant", which is where we were all given numbers then in that order we chose a man or ladies gift.  We could keep it or opt to steal a gift from someone who had already opened one.

Everyone was quite content with the gift they got so there was very little stealing going on, some years there is a "hot" gift which everyone wants and it can get quite funny!

Fellowshipping and opening gifts...

I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful group of friends!

Refurbished Furniture

The furniture is finished now and in the rooms.  

Here are the before and after pictures:

These two before:

And these two after:

This one with primer on it:

And this one after:

I have one more yet to put the final coat on....

Thank-you, God, for free furniture and for paint!

What is True Freedom?

I love our youth girls' Bible Study class.  I am challenged by their desire to do what's right and their openness to share what is going on in their lives.  Last night we were discussing what True Freedom is.  Is it the right to do whatever I want to do?  Hardly!   Not "True Freedom".

True freedom is the power to do what God wants me to do; it is being free from the control of sinful ways of thinking, sinful attitudes, and sinful behavior patterns.  It's knowing that by God's grace, I can say no to sin and yes to God.  Instead of being in bondage to the consequences of believing lies, I can be free.

FREE to accept the beauty God chose to express when He made me.
FREE to enjoy the food He created.
FREE to wait on God's timing.
FREE to be more concerned about being a friend than having one.
FREE to be kind and gracious when I don't feel good.
FREE from the hurts of the past so I can embrace the future.
FREE to be the same person no matter who is around.

I love our prayer times together as we all share our prayer needs  and  go over all the prayers that have been answered.  I need prayer for the season we are entering here in southwest Florida....busy, busy, and busier.
As much as we enjoy all the activities during the months ahead, we also struggle with maintaining some sense of a private family life, church life, and a meaningful devotional and prayer life.

FREEDOM during the holidays....
FREE to enjoy them without getting so caught up in the hustle and bustle of shopping, meal preparing, hospitality, etc. that we miss the real meaning of Christmas.
KEEPING HIS PRIORITIES MY PRIORITIES....
FREE to allow God to rearrange my schedule and the wisdom to know what His priorities are for me.
So many times I can have it all arranged and suddenly He "blows it all up" and allows some really important things to take precedence over my less important things.  This week my precious nephew was in the hospital with pneumonia.  Suddenly his health was our focus...health doesn't compare with the value of our daily tasks.  I am so grateful he is back home again and doing well.  And along with that I have to thank God for him and for the health we take for granted so often.

Pray for me and our family that we could live in God's TRUE FREEDOM as we serve him each day in the land of busy, busy, and busier.

Project 1, Project 2, Project 3

Project 1:

It's been windy here in southwest Florida, temperatures are spectacular, and all of us Floridians are loving it!   The wind, however, is causing my tomato plants to bend way, way down....and I can't have that!  I went out to visit with them one windy day and realized their dilemma was now a crisis.  If we didn't get them tied up soon, their stalks were going to break.  I figured out what needed to be done but am not muscular enough to do the labor.  Just in time my dear husband comes home.  He, of course, has it taken care of in no time.  Now for all you out there that don't have husbands like I do...I'm sorry.  This guy is so good at helping me even when he has to delay what he was working on at the time.  I love him for that!  He also is very particular with everything, so to build a "thing" to tie the tomato plants to required a hammer, screwdriver, nails, screws, boards, saw, and a level.  We measured, cut, hammered, screwed, and yes, leveled, then ta-da..... a nice sturdy "thing" to tie my plants to.

We figured it will be multi-functional.  We can set a sprinkler on top to gently water the garden when needed.  When we have frost warnings we can use it to hold up a tarp to cover the plants.  Ingenious indeed!  :) 

At home, Mom used to occasionally make fried, green tomatoes.  I've been hankering for some of those again.  Mm-m!

This week I picked peas....all six of them!  

Oh, were they good!  KaShondra called home around lunch time that day and asked what I was doing.  

I told her, "I picked peas today."

It sounded good and almost made me feel like I should take a rest or something! ha!  I only planted several plants of them to see how they would do and dear husband and dear oldest daughter 

keep the fresh ones picked AND EATEN for me.

The cauliflour is still going crazy.  

I don't see any heads forming yet but the leaves are humongous. 

 I don't know if this is normal or not.

My parents plan to come a week from tomorrow and then I can 

turn the gardening over to them.  They know so much more 

about this kind of thing than I do.

Project 2:

JR is putting together some cabinetry for closets and storage in the bedroom my parents stay in when they are here.  We found some really nice cabinetry at Lowe's so he spent some time this afternoon putting that together while I worked on:

Project 3:

OK, but only a "sneak peak".

I got some free furniture from a friend of mine.  I have been looking for a chest of drawers for the boys for quite awhile and I have refused to pay $65. for a chest of drawers at Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity.  Seriously!  And I have also refused to pay $99.00 for a cheap chest of drawers from Walmart or Target.  Then along came not one, but four pieces of furniture for free.  JR and I went and picked it up, the boys looked at it and mumbled something like "that is some UGLY furniture" and something else about "not wanting it in their bedroom"!  After telling them how great it could look painted....they wondered about it and me! 

So here is the "sneak peak".  

Before:

Primed and drying:

And:

Sorry, final pics not in yet but put it this way....kids are quite impressed!   Oh yeah!

Project 4:

FLEX.....FLEX....FLEXIBILITY

JR found out this afternoon that his Uncle Vernon from Virginia passed away last evening so he (JR), along with his parents, brother, and sister are making plans to leave tomorrow for the funeral.  Uncle Vernon had alzheimers disease for the past years and had steadily become worse.  Of course, when someone passes on you remember the memories of them.  While I didn't know him real well, we had good times when they would come to visit. His wife, Aunt Frances, isn't well either so JR and his family are looking forward to seeing her and their cousins again.  

Meanwhile, here at home, we rearrange all our scheduled plans for the weekend. 

 We FLEX!  :)

Harvest Time is Coming!

It's Thanksgiving time and harvest here comes after Thanksgiving instead of before.  Even though our garden is a couple weeks behind, it is still growing and the fruit of the vines are beginning to appear!  It is so exciting!
The tomato plants are huge but they are taking over....it appears like the onions have been crowded out so that is a lesson for next time.

A green pepper!

Sweet peas on the vine!

Loads of radishes!

The little squiggly looking weeds are the onions 

that probably aren't going to produce much.

Cauliflour!

Our two lone strawberry plants!

Hope to have lots more of them next time.

And lots of tomatoes appearing!  Can't wait to eat them!

On another subject...

Here are a few pictures of Erica's home made lotion project.

Her lotion and the green salve will be available at 

our church's annual Quilt Sale in February.