Holiday Open House 2007

Click on the above link to visit Tiany for more "Holiday Open House 2007".

Welcome, what a blessing it is to me that you've stopped by. Please allow me to give you a tour of our home. After that we can sit down and chat for a bit.

Home Sweet Home for the past "10" years.

As you come up the stairs the house if filled with the Christmas smells of: Cinnamon, Apples and Yankee Candle "Christmas Wreath". You will first see our fire place. We are missing one stocking at the end. Do to the fact we got a new dog this past Easter and have not found the right stocking for her. The Reindeer with the gold bow was made by my husband grandfathers wife "Nina". So it is very special to us since she has pass on.

My Mother-in-law & Sister-in-law blessed me two Christmas ago with this Nativity Set. This stays out all year long as a symbol of Christ being the center of our home. The cake plate with the ribbon around it is used on Christmas Day. It is placed at Jesus "place" at our table with His birthday cake on it. My husband sits at one end and the other end is for Jesus. Christmas Eve we will bake Jesus birthday cake. At Christmas dinner we all sing "Happy Birthday Jesus" before we eat.

Click on the link to here the song that we sing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ouaWgUCNg

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
1 chocolate cake mix
1 white cake mix
white frosting
yellow, red, and green liquid food coloring
3 round cake pans, 8 or 9 inches
large red candle taper
box of small birthday candles
red and yellow piping gel
plastic Christmas decorations (optional)

Directions Mix and bake chocolate cake mix according to box directions. Cool & flip out both. Wrap 1 chocolate layer and freeze for later use. Mix white cake according to box directions. Divide batter in half. Add several drops of red food coloring to the first half and mix; pour in cake pan. Add green food coloring to the other half of the batter and stir; pour in cake pan. Bake, cool, and pop out. Stack the chocolate layer first and frost with white frosting. Add the red layer next, frost, and finish with the green layer. Frost whole cake with white frosting. Decorate with plastic decorations or red and yellow piping gel, adding a gold star on top (representing the Star of Bethlehem) and the red candle in the center. Light the red candle and read the Christmas story. Light each person's small candles from Jesus' candle and carefully add them to the cake. Sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

The girls would now like to take over our tour:

Meet Scottlyn & Shalyn: They are so proud of their bedroom door. They found this idea of wrapping the bedroom door in wrapping paper from their American Girl Magazine.

They picked "Pink' Snow~Family for their door and "Red" Snowmen for their big brother.

He will be home this Saturday.

What do you think a "20" year young man will think of this?

Back down stairs we go to see the school room tree. This is Mom's favorite because it is filled with hand made treasures from past years. The tree skirt was hers when she was a littler girl and the Nativity set was given to us by our "Grammie" it was the same one Momma played with. We also have a collection of our favorite Christmas Books here that we reread together each season.

Before we visit would you like to freshen up? Let them show you to the powder room.

A few Christmas ago Scottlyn had a Awesome Sunday School Teacher named "Miss Bonnie". All SS Teachers are blessings. But there is always one or two that touch your heart. This one gave her a very special Nativity Set and each year she likes to but it in the bathroom.

Would you like some "Hot Coco w/ lots of marshmallows"? We also have some special treats to eat! Yummy, Yummy. By the way all things are Fat Free. He, Hee :)!I got theses neat Christmas Tree placements this year with matching rugs for the kitchen.

This is part of out Kitchen. The tree on your left a dear "AWANA" students gave me one Christmas. Their is also our "Jesse" tree. Now, the white bows on the tree, the gold skirt on the "Jesse" tree and the green bows with gold Angle's on the banister when you came in the door were first used in our wedding "10" years ago this past October. Our very first Christmas tree skirt was the gold skirt and all over the tree were these white and gold trim bows. Now let's take our "treat's " and visit by the tree.

Here is our tree. My cousin"Sharon" gave us the Angle on top for a wedding present. I always thought it was the best present we got. To give an Angle tree topper was so special. Our first Christmas was a small one. We had just bought this house and we were in dept up to our eye's but our home was filled with newly wed Bliss. I laugh now. What were we thinking? But on to the "Tree". The tree is filled with an eclectic mix of things: their are purple grapes, red apples, gold poinsettia's, little pink and purple dresses, ivory angles, American Girl dolls, yearly pictures of us, ballerina's, gold balls and Lenox bells. The Christmas tree skirt my mother made us last year. The ruffle is out of some left over gold material from our wedding. It is so pretty.

This school year we have been memorizing the book of James. We have taken the this year off from AWANAS and spent our time more wisely studying the word. By Christmas we will have the first 2 chapters written on our hearts. The girls will dramatically recite from memory what they have learned. What a blessings this has been to us as a family.

Now that I have showed you my home let me open up my heart:

Every year at night when the kids are in bed and the house is quite and still I like to sit here and reflect of the past year. The year is coming to a close and I am counting my blessings. We are also blessed to be where we are. I know we are all in different places in life some of us our on top of a mountain yelling "victory" and others of us are in a low valley wondering when we will see the light? But know matter where I am or where you are I want us to praise God together for where we are in life. You can lean on me and i can lean on you. He is drawing us closer to Him though each season we are in. At times it's hard and I can feel His hand around me, caring me through. Other times I am smiling as I look at my children and see His reflection in their Christ like actions. Sometimes He uses them to speak straight to me. Life can not get any better then this. I have been praying for you (the reader of this blog) this past few weeks. What I have written I pray has blessed you and encouraged you. What ever season you are in "May you feel Gods presence around you." I love you my Sweet Sister in Christ. Have a blessed day with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Growing in Him,
Trina