Our church had a Christmas supper on December 19. The pastoral staff provided most of the meal, with everyone else bringing salads, desserts, and beverages. It was a wonderful evening.
The table where Emily was sitting with some of the teenage and younger girls in our church.
The Stetler Trio gave a beautiful Christmas concert.
Emily got this picture of us and our newlywed friends, Sam and Hannah Kinnaman.
Kenny and Elizabeth Stetler came over from Indiana for the concert. God has been so good to them in healing after a terrible automobile accident in October.
Our pastor, Darrell Stetler
Next we painted the girls' room. They wanted to change from blue to Honey White, which turns out being a cheerful light yellowish hue.
Because of being on semester break, Elizabeth got to help with the painting of her room.
You can tell from this picture how the ceiling brightened up when it got two coats of ceiling paint. All of the ceilings improved so much with painting. We did half of the ceiling, then tore down the bed and did the other half.
Jeff and Lesa spared 12 days for a Christmas break from their painting responsibilities--to let the builders get ahead of them--and spent the time with us December 22-January 3.
A picture on the deck of Jeffrey and Lesa
Jeffrey was able to take our little fireplace apart, clean every part, and get it hooked up to the propane tank outside, so if the electricity goes out in this all-electric house, we will still have some heat.
Emily took this picture of all of us having supper together. Karen was with us quite a bit for Christmas break. Emily had to work at Chick-fil-A most days, but was with us in the evenings.
Karen and Jason meticulously wrapped gifts together on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Day pictures before they left for church in Dayton, Ohio.
The rest of us before Christmas morning service at our Burlington Bible Methodist Church.
We went early to practice a special song.
We went early to practice a special song.
The BBMC Triplets and their big brother (Harms family)
More Christmas Day pictures on the deck
Janet and her girls
Elizabeth and Emily on Christmas Day
Christmas Evening after church, we had the Stetlers over for supper and a visit.
We love these people!!!
Then we decided to go ahead and open some gifts.
Jeffrey and Lesa
Karen and Jason
Janet and Rowen
Rowen looking sweet!
Jeff and Lesa with the wedding puzzle from Shutterfly.
Elizabeth and Emily acting silly with their joint gift from Jeff and Lesa. It was a Scentsy pot.
One of the "thank you" hugs after presents.
Lesa helping to paint the basement. We started on Dec. 23 and finished this room on Dec. 28.
Besides taking down the wallpaper borders all around the basement, there was a LOT of drywall damage to work on. It was wonderful to have Jeff and Lesa to help with this huge project.
A picture of the people who got to help with this painting job. Elizabeth is obviously not dressed for painting that particular day, but she had helped the other days. It was a several day project.
Tim and Brenda came on December 28, after we had the basement put back together. Karen enjoyed Felix and he enjoyed her!
Elizabeth spent lots of quality time with Charissa.
Tim needed a haircut. Charissa and Lesa played with each other's hair.
Of course, Tim and Brenda had to have a Christmas picture on the deck, too.
Everybody's doing it...
Everybody's doing it...
On December 29, we went to Franklin, Ohio to get together with Ron and Becky, Adam and Valerie Profitt and their girls.
It was good to see them.
We had a taco salad meal in the Family Life Center of Adam's church.
Ron got us a gift of a little hound dog, so we can be "real" Kentuckians. :)
Right after we got done with eating, the electricity in that part of Franklin went out, and we were in the dark except for emergency lights.
Valerie lit some candles, so that helped.
The darkness prevented us from getting to play the stack of games we had taken for that purpose.
So we visited and hoped for the lights to come back on.
They didn't until 11:30 that night, but we left about 9 pm.
So we visited and hoped for the lights to come back on.
They didn't until 11:30 that night, but we left about 9 pm.
It wasn't a tremendous storm. This was the snow that came down.
The next day, we played games at our house. I was working on finishing a Shutterfly book on the computer with a deadline of December 31.
Charissa's metal pots and pans set worked great on our sofa pull-down console!
More games, and Emily got to be there too!
We had a few gifts to open with Tim and Brenda.
Tim resembles the cup he got from Karen and Jason! ;)
Felix liked the paper the best!
On December 30 evening, we went to the Christmas at Creation Museum event. The lights were beautiful!
Tim and Brenda's family and Elizabeth went into the museum instead of wandering through the lit gardens like we did.
One of the Magi from the East was there and gave a presentation. There were also shepherds, Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, Simeon and Anna.
We were pretty cold!! We had hot chocolate after we got back home.
December 31, we played more games. This is the Interstate game our friend Mathew Hinkle invented. We are a test family for it.
Some of the people played Clue.
Felix is a sweetie!
Our parking lot through our bedroom window!
Brenda's sister, Audrey and her husband, Chad came over New Years' Eve. We played Taboo and Wise and Otherwise.
Grandma's last grandchild fingernail clipping of the year!
We were so happy to have as many of our family with us for the Christmas season as could be here. We missed Randy's family, but we were glad we got to see them earlier in December.
