Merry Christmas...

...from the Carpenters! We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Day celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Praise God for His perfect Christmas gift!

"The Savior- yes, the Messiah, the Lord- has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!"

Luke 2:11

Joy To The World...

...and joy on our Christmas tree! My sweet Mom has bought me a new ornament every year. (She started out buying one for me and Garrett, and now she still buys one for us, as well as Yancy and Katherine, and the grandkids!) She tries hard to find one for me that says "joy" and most years she's able to find one. So our Christmas tree is covered in over 30 "joy" ornaments and I LOVE IT! Thank you, Momma! I thought I would share a few of my favorites...

Just in case you're wondering, here's Yancy's favorite...

Opelika-Auburn News

It's amazing that Bullen and Andrew are in the paper at all. We still don't know how the newspaper found out they were going to speak. God is definitely at work in their lives! Here's the link...

http://www.oanow.com/oan/news/local/article/oms_greets_special_visitors/50907/

Bullen and Andrew are here!

Yea! I'm so glad that Bullen and Andrew are spending the weekend with us! I've had a bad week, and I'm feeling better already just spending the day with them. They have a way of helping me keep things in perspective. Our friend, Adam Massey, invited them to speak to his classes at Opelika Middle School this morning. They did a great job! I never get tired of hearing their story; God has done such amazing things in their lives. The newspaper was there, so we've told them they're gonna be famous! The article should be in tomorrow's Opelika-Auburn News. I'll try to remember to post a link to it.

Christmas Party

Monday night we celebrated Christmas with our Bible Study girls. We had breakfast foods on our menu since it was so close to Thanksgiving. Rebecca and I finally got to give our gifts that we worked so hard on. We made the girls- and ourselves!- a cookbook on Shutterfly. We included pictures of all of us and all the yummy recipes that we've enjoyed together. It was fun to see their reaction. Merry Christmas, Girls, and Happy Cooking!

Thanksgiving... again and again!

Thanksgiving is Yancy's favorite holiday and we got to celebrate it 3 days in a row this year! On Thanksgiving Day, we drove over to Thomaston for lunch with Yancy's grandmother- and aunts and uncles and cousins. It was a very eventful day! Yancy's grandmother, DeDe, as we like to call her, turned 83 on Thanksgiving Day. We sang happy birthday and had a yummy caramel cake, her favorite, along with lots of other delicious food. That afternoon, there was a calf born! It was so exciting and I was surprised how quickly it got up and going! Yancy was disgusted because he has a weak stomach, but I thought it was a neat experience. I think it was the 9th calf born in just a week, so it was sweet to see all the babies in the pasture. (I don't get out much!)

Happy Birthday, DeDe!

Yancy with his Uncle Paul and Aunt Cindy

Lots of baby cows!

Thanksgiving day 2 was also my birthday. I'm technically "in" my 30s now at 31. I really can't believe that! I still feel like I should be 20! Anyway, we celebrated with my parents and my brother's family. Garrett has 3 boys, so there is always lots of activity when we're together! They are definitely all boy! We all had a great time...

and here's the activity!

Yancy taught Garrison about the "atomic elbow"

I had a little help blowing out my candles!

Mmmmmm... yummy cake!

Thanksgiving day 3 was held at Yancy's Mom's house and it was Iron Bowl Saturday. We had SO much food; we could have fed 20 more people! We got to visit with lots of Yancy's family that we don't get to see very often. I enjoyed visiting with them so much, but I will have to say that I did not enjoy watching the game with a roomful of Auburn fans. I'll have to find a different venue for next year! Roll Tide! Anyway, we had a great day and we are still full from our 3-day feast!

Strategizing before the game...

Matthew and Papaw

Yancy refereeing the little football stars... they were hard-hittin'!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We all have SO MUCH to be thankful for!

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever." Psalm 107:1