While You Were Sleeping

Oh little town of Bethlehem

Looks like another silent night

Above your deep and dreamless sleep

A giant star lights up the sky

And while you're lying in the dark

There shines an everlasting light

For the King has left His throne

And is sleeping in a manger tonight, tonight

Oh Bethlehem, what you have missed while you were sleeping

For God became a man

And stepped into your world today

Oh Bethlehem, you will go down in history

As a city with no room for its King

While you were sleeping

While you were sleeping

Oh little town of Jerusalem

Looks like another silent night

The Father gave His only Son

The Way, the Truth, the Life had come

But there was no room for Him in the world

He came to save

Jerusalem, what you have missed while you were sleeping

The Savior of the world is dying on your cross today

Jerusalem, you will go down in history

As a city with no room for its King

While you were sleeping

While you were sleeping

United States of America

Looks like another silent night

As we're sung to sleep by philosophies

That save the trees and kill the children

And while we're lying in the dark

There's a shout heard 'cross the eastern sky

For the Bridegroom has returned

And has carried His bride away in the night, in the night

America, what will we miss while we are sleeping

Will Jesus come again

And leave us slumbering where we lay

America, will we go down in history

As a nation with no room for its King

Will we be sleeping

Will we be sleeping

While You Were Sleeping ~ Casting Crowns

from the album "Peace on Earth"

[photo credit: Me (hehe) :)]

Christmas Pics (part 1)

Introducing...

The new Christmas template!!! :) :)

Catching Up...

Ok! So its been a while since I've been in the blogosphere. So! First thing's first....


I've been tagged!!! By Stephie. Here's how it works:

Go to your Pictures file
Go to the 5th folder
Open the 5th picture and post it
Tag 5 people when you're done

Yes, I know. It's Picket's Charge. Not surprising, huh? :) And since Stephie already tagged Vivian I'm going to have to think really hard who to tag and I still doubt I'll come up with 5.

Okay. I guess Vivian can do it twice. :) I also tag Ben, Anna, and William. Guess that's 4. Even though nobody will do it. ;)

Now that I have that taken care of...

IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!

For some reason last year I was not really excited about Christmas. This year, I am remembering why I loved it so much when I was little. Not presents, necessarily...for the life of me I can't think of anything I want and my grandma is very aggravated with me (LOL). Seriously, though. I love the SMELL of Christmas. I have baked countless batches of gingerbread cookies already just because I like the smell. Then I end up eating them. Thankfully the doctor thinks I'm underweight so I can eat as much as I want. =D In addition to this, I love Christmas music...I'm either listening to it on the radio or playing on the piano. Christmas decorations rock...yes, I know, "shiny things." lol. And my favorite: church at Christmastime. There is just something about the combination of garland and pews and big red bows that is so old-fashioned and sweet. And out worship team is awesome with the Christmas carols. This week I think I realized for the first time, singing them, how worshipful they are! I bawled the entire worship service and ended up with a pile of soggy, make-uppy kleenexs on the pew. But seriously. God is so good! I love Mr. Hoffman's saying: "You can't separate the cradle from the cross."

Wow this is a really rambling post. I think the cold weather is getting to me...

Merry Christmas everyone! "Hallelujah, Hope has Come!"

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

"Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!"

~ Chronicles 16:34

Isn't it amazing how many things God has given us to be thankful for? We are truly a blessed people - in so many ways. As always I have been reflecting on the blessings of family, friends, church life and our country. But each year brings unique blessings, too. This year I am thankful for 1. My job. Already, it is proving to be such a good thing for me. Starting to figure out this real-deal responsibility thing! At work at actually have to be tidy! Fancy that! ;) 2. Finishing Algebra! I can't tell you how happy I was when I shut that book forever. It took me to years and I'm still not sure I understand it completely, but by-gum, I'm DONE! Thank you Lord! 3. New friends! I love Alexandra Purvis! What a joy to get to know that wonderful family!

So...what are you thankful for this year?

Halloween Randomness from Mr. Smith and Co...

Reflections from the life and times of Mr. Smith. Today is Halloween. That strange holiday, celebrating strange costumes and greedy little children. The one time of year – not counting Christmas – where you can be very, very greedy. I have not decided what costume I should wear yet…any suggestions? I think I will go as the all duck-tape man, maybe wrap myself up like a mummy with duck-tape. But last time I did that I got an awful rash and I lost all my hair. A couple years ago one of my friends suggested I dress up as a globe, he said that I wouldn’t even need to use any padding. I’m not sure I like that idea. As I wandered through the streets looking at all the other children’s costumes, trying to decide what I liked, night had already fallen, and people were handing out candy to greedy little fat children. I felt compelled to write a poem. And here is my poem:

I rounded a corner and lo and behold,
I saw Old Saint Nick, trembling and old.
He stared and he glared and he grumbled at me.
He stared so long I charged him a fee.
He stopped in his tracks.
He started to scream.
The world around me shifted,
As if in a dream.
And poor old Saint Nick, he turned and he fell.
And he didn’t stop falling till he landed in hell.
The moral to this story?
Look both ways before crossing the street.
I’m not sure why, but it sounds kind of neat.

Thus ends this week’s reflections. And then my mirror image disappeared.

Reflections from the life and times of Mr. Smith.

After Saint Nick expired, I realized that,
I, as myself,
In all of my fat
Am nearly as evil
As an evil dark bat.
Demons and goblins can’t stand up to me
As I walked down the street,
I saw they could see.
They dropped left and right
They fell before me.
They saw Smith at his best.
Standing there only in a plaid striped vest.

Thus ends this week's reflections. And then my mirror image disappeared.

Just as a side note, we don't really celebrate halloween. We are just amused by the ridiculousness of it. :) And yes, Ben is now a professional poet. We're totally going to be published someday. Soon his name will be up there with Edgar Allan Poe and John Greenleaf Whittier...

Okay. It's way too late for me to be posting so I'm going to exit before I say anything I'll regret in the morning...

Yesterday

Isn't it strange that it's not even April, and yet Easter has already come and gone? Weird. We had a great day, though, even if it was freezing cold. First of all - thank you Pastor Hoffman for a wonderful Resurection Day sermon!
Then we came home and had a delicous meal. And...

...because my mother is all kinds of awesome, she made a huge chocolate ice-cream cake. It was very yummy. :)
We also had an Easter-egg hunt. Julianna hid the eggs very well. So well, in fact, that Emily and I had very hard time finding all of them. It was a color-coded Easter egg hunt, but being as we were rather short on eggs, Emily, Ben and I shared the yellow ones. I know - I thought that tradition was long behind me - but somehow we ended up doing it. So sad we had to get all that candy. :D
Here are some "artistic" photographs we took:

The kids hung out all afternoon - till about 7:30, I think. It was a very relaxing afternoon. We took lots of pictures. :) Here is Emily, putting on her glasses:

And Emily took these of Ben having a conversation with me:

See, guys? I refrained from posting the really weird ones! Aren't you proud of me? I suppose I should post some of me, but fortunatly, all the ones you took are either blurry or so dark you can't see them! Hehe! :)

Oh, yes. We also got stuck doing all these dishes. ^ Fourteen people makes alot of dirty dishes.

One of the main events of the afternoon was the "time-capsule." Emily, Ben and I made one some time ago were meaning to open it in 2012, but Matthew found it and dug it up. Sadness. So we made a new one. It contains some weird pictures and letters we wrote to our "future selves." Yes, we are weird, I know.

Here is Ben and Emily, preparing to bury the new time capsule. (Which, by the way, has been sealed in a water-tight apple-sauce jar. :))

We found out that Matthew just threw our old letters and pictures back in the hole after he dug up the box. This is what they look like now:
We had to dry the letters with a hair-dryer to make them readable. They were hilarious. Ben's letter began like this: "Don't die before you read this!" ?? Emily wrote both a "real" letter and a "fake" one. The fake one went something like this: "This is my last day of breath. The evil Matthew and Joshua have ordered my execution at sunup. I fear it is to be the bash-in-the-skull. The sun is coming up now. I can hear them. They are coming. I cannot get out. They are here......." Very dramatic, is it not? I think she was hoping someone would find it many years from now. Hehe.

Hehe, my letter looks like a historical artifact!

Thus concludes my interesting post. Hope you all have a fabulous day!

Love

Okay, okay. Valentines Day was what...two days ago? I've been a little out of it this week. So - even though it is late - this is my official Valentines Day post.

I remember when I was younger and every Valentines Day I would painstakingly write out 1st Corinthians 13 on little red and pink construction paper hearts to give to my friends at church. It's kind of like John 3:16 - it's almost become cliche. Right there should be a little red flag. God's Word, cliche? Yikes! We should never just brush off scripture just because we've memorized it or heard it "too many times." God's Word is an incredible blessing. Take a moment to meditate on 1st Corinthians 13:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a
noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand
all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have, and
if I deliver up my body to be burned, but I have not love, I gain nothing. Love
is patient, love is kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or
rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it
does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never
ends...So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these
is love." ~ 1st Corinthians 13:1-8/13

Happy 2008!!

Wow. It's hard to believe 2007 has come and gone - this year has gone insanely fast! So weird.
Looking back on this past year, it has been a year of blessing. God's grace is so evident! I am still far from perfect (haha) but I think God has really helped me in overcoming some heart issues that were not right. And He has given us a church building!! Who would have thought that by the end of the year we would have our our own church building? That's amazing! There have been some hard things within the life of the church, but God has proven himself faithful, has He not? He is so good! Even looking back at the new people God has brought into my life, the friendships He has strengthened, the relationships that have changed - He is faithful.
Now, this computor has served me well for many years, but it is rather old and rather slow, and I do not feel like uploading pictures right now. So stay tuned, because sometime soon I will put up my favorites from the year! Crazy memories are one of my favorite parts of life. I just love them so much!
Ta ta for now,
Elisabeth =D

Ahhhhh! It's Christmas Eve!

Hard to believe this time of year has rolled around again! Craziness! Why did this year go by so fast? So many memories - lol! I should seriously write a book about it all.
Sooo...anyway...since I don't have anything better to post and I am feeling guilty because I haven't posted since Tuesday *gasp* here are some pictures...documenting what my week has looked like:

First, the sad news. :( We found out that my beautiful 1876 upright piano (which turns out to be 1902) is basically beyond repair. The soundboard is cracked, for one thing, and somebody tried to nail it *back together* but unfortunatly, the echo off the nails makes the keys sound all buzzy when you play them. The cost to repair that, along with other problems, would be literally twice as much as it would be to just buy a new piano. My dad is being very gracious and letting me keep it until it really dies. *Sigh* It was fun having a historical artifact in my house for a little while, at least!

Then I was smart and sat outside in 20 degree weather taking pictures of the sky. Yep. Uh huh. It was quite cold. But I loved it! If you just sit there and watch the sky from between 4:30 - 5, it changes so quickly, and all the colors and lighting and the clouds - ahhh! It is truly breathtaking. God's creating is so amazing! And I tell you, Kansas sunsets are the best anywhere. Even compared to Florida. It's true.


Aaaannndd...we had our care-group Christmas party! Lots of good food and off-key singing! It was awesome!

Yes, and here we are with our bounty. It was amazing.

Emily and I decided our New Year's resolutions would include "not to eat so much." There is a fine line between holiday feasting and gluttony. Mom, stop being such a good cook! Stop it! :)

Here is Ben in his Chick-Fil-A uniform. See, Ben? It is not an evil picture! Even if Matthew did take it. ;)

And finally, National Treasure 2 came out! Finally! Whoot! Us and the H's have a weird obsession with National Treasure. I guess it is because we are history geeks. :) We have been counting down the days till it comes out - literally. When it FINALLY came out, we were doubly blessed to have Anna and Vivian come with us! We rocked the theater.

Here is Emily and Vivian pretending to be enthralled with the movie (and Ben in the background giving me a very odd look) . Actually, the movie hadn't even started - it was during the 30 minute period we sat through pointless previews and comercials. Bleh.
Here are our adorable little brothers. Seriously, though. I love them.

Matthew: "Lets do the squishy face!"

Gregory: "On the count of three..."

*All three boys count to three*

Gregory: "Oh look! My tooth popped out!"

lol!

Why are you guys so awesome?! God has blessed me with some pretty amazing people in my life.

Well...it is 10:30 and I am still in my pajamas, so I guess I'd better go get a shower now. ;) See ya'll when I see ya!

~Elisabeth~

.candle light.

Here are the few pictures I have of Candlelight this year. *Sniff,sniff* In my rush I did the unthinkable - I left my camera on my dresser! Horrors! Anyway, thanks for sending these to me, Anna! We got through the evening with few problems. Josh forgot his lines one or two times, as did Gregory. But they were so cute in their costumes I forgave them. :) I didn't get to see Anna in her room, but I hear she did splendidly. And we could see Ben out the window of the children's room, and it looked like he did well enough. Except he told me at one point he forgot a whole paragraph of his little speech as "Hans the hired hand" :) and had to go back and say "uh...I forgot a really important part...Eliza died." :D And then there was Matthew, who was bringing tours up to the front porch. "Please join me in singing Jingle Bells while we go up to the Wornall's front porch, where your tour will begin." A big man looks down at him and glares and says "We're not gonna sing Jingle Bells this time!" Ha! It was an eventful evening!

It was a very fun night. I'm so sad the second night had to be cancelled!

.ahhhh...the holidays!.

We drove back from Jefferson City last night all full of Turkey and cranberry sauce and there was a lovely crust of snow glazing our lawn. Lovely! Now I'm excited for Christmas (I've already made two batches of ginger-bread cookies...lol!) and can't wait to start decorating. Some people hate Christmas shopping because of the crowds but I love it! Just as long as somebody else wraps the presents, I'm good. I always mis-judge how much wrapping-paper to use and am notorious for getting tape-happy. Yep.
My problem is I can't think of anything I want for Christmas...save one thing. Actually, I'm afraid to ask for anything else because this is an expensive request and I'm afraid I won't get it! lol! I would post a picture but I don't have one. It's a camera. To be more exact, it's a Nikon coolpix 4800 ED. It's got 4.0 Megapixels, 6-50 mm lens,15 different scene modes, and has 8.5x zoom. !!! I don't expect you to know what any of that means, and that's okay, just know that it is an idol right now and so you can pray for me. lol.
So! Let me get to the point! When I began this rant I was originally going to ask you a question - what is your favorite Christmas carol/song? And I'd better get some answers - I don't know what's up with you guys lately but no one likes to comment on anything any more. =(
So now I'm off to snuggle up with a cup of hot chocolate and a book (Yes, one of the books you lent me Emily and I promise not to spill on it.) Have a wonderful getting-ready-for-Christmas time, everyone!

.no, i am not copying vivian.

...actually I was planning on doing this already when I saw Viv's post. Soooo...here is MY early "Happy Thanksgiving Post" because, like Viv, I'm going to be out of town on Thanksgiving Day. God has been so good to me - I am amazingly blessed!
Before I continue I'm going to take the opportunity to thank each one of my friends. Vivian - thank you for being sincere about the important things in life and for always bringing me back to the cross. We are different in lots of ways - for yes, God DOES have a sense of humor - but our differences have been good for us. You're the real deal, girl. I love ya. Anna - thank you for your example of a young lady who is striving to walk in biblical womanhood and femininity - you provoke to godliness more than you know. I cherish our *deep conversations* and tea-parties :D. You're a blessing. Emily and Ben - where to start? :D My *almost-cousins* - you both make me laugh and keep me humble. I seriously can't remember what it was like not to be doing life with you guys. Thanks for sticking with me through the good, the bad, the weird, the ugly...ahem...the REALLY ugly ;D, and the everyday mundane. Christina and Stephie - my long-distance friends - thank you for being so in love with God. Communicating with you is so refreshing - it is amazing what God is doing in your lives and in MY life through your example! I cherish our friendship. Lauren - you are too precious. Your gentle and quiet personality is good for one who likes to talk too much. I thank God for our friendship! Catherine - thank you for being a faithful friend these 9 years. God has been very faithful over the years - he has been with us through the good times and the bad. I love you and wish you didn't live so far away! Emily S. - we are just getting started - but I look forward to the years we will have together as friends. I have so enjoyed the short time I have had with you - thank you for opening up and being so quick to accept me and the others. You are a very sweet girl and I am excited to see what God has for us!
Okay. I am overwhelmed. And I'm not finished yet! I am also very blessed with an amazing family. Daddy - thank you for being gentle and slow to be angry. I can really see God working in you. You are faithful in bringing me back to the cross and helping me keep the "main thing the main thing." I love you so much. Mom - thank you for being so-patient-its-almost-unbelieveable, for being interested in the things I'm interested in, and for making me laugh. You are my role model. God has blessed me with a mother who is an example of biblical femininity - thanks for helping me cultivate my nurturing instincts, for letting me cook and...yes...even clean along side you. Thank you for being a Proverbs 31 woman and teaching me ahead of time how to be a submissive wife. God knew just what he was doing when he gave me you and dad as parents! And to my cutie-patootie little brothers and sister - you guys rock. Life would be very dull around here if I didn't have you to annoy me and teach me patience and make me laugh. To borrow Vivian's expression (which I think I heard once in a story-book) - I love you to the moon and back again.
And there are so many more things I am grateful for...but I shall bore you no longer. ;D Stay tuned...this weekend I shall have many pictures from several different occasions.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving praising God for his grace!