It's CHRISTMAS TIME

Ryan and I after he finished preaching at the annual Christmas Sunday service at GBS.

Katie posing for the camera, which is certainly not her favorite thing to do. She dislikes cameras!

Jason and Kara

Jason, Kara and Katie

Ryan posing for a picture - he doesn't care to have his picture taken either. Just a little get-even for all of the pictures he takes of us...

Ryan was the statue in the Christmas program for God's Bible School and posed for a photo. It was very interesting because several people thought he was a real statue until he moved.

He was scary looking up close~!

JaLayna in her great-grandma Watters dress.

Close up of JaLayna

Jaxon, JeNessa and Mamaw having a few bonding moments.

I rearranged my living room and decided to put pictures on here for my family.

More living room pictures ~ The grandfather clock fits so perfectly in this corner.

Moved my piano into the corner, creating a lot more room in the living room. Notice the snowmen under the piano.

If you know me, you know that I love Christmas. It does not matter to me if I get gifts or not, I just love Christmas. I collect snowmen...lots and lots of snowmen...in my office, in my sun room, in my living room, I just love snowmen. I have spent so much time decorating and redecorating this year. Moving things around in my new office, trying to figure out where things look the best and now, here it is, three days past Christmas and I am still on an adrenaline high. I never look forward to taking all of my decorations down. I love it when the children are all together and having a good time. There is nothing that makes me happier than to see that my family is together. I never want to get to the point though that I overlook the real meaning of Christmas and need to constantly remind myself to not get carried away in the hustle and bustle of the busy crowds in the mall. You may think I am crazy but that is one of the highlights of my year when I go to the mall the day before Christmas and just walk around and watch the frantic people. Actually, I went to the mall twice on the 24th and just loved watching the people scurrying here and there. Steve and I always used to do this. Rarely did I buy anything of significance a day or two before Christmas but that is generally when Steve started his shopping. He loved the thrill of trying to find just the right gift at the last minute. I could go to the mall and just sit for a long time and be totally entertained by just watching the weary shoppers.

Christmas time also brings families together and allows them to reflect on the past year. I love to hear the kids laughing and telling stories of things that happened in their past. Like, "Remember when we used to come down here in the basement and light the fireplace and lay down here and roast and Princess (beagle) would pant like crazy but was too dumb to move away from the fire?" Those memories are priceless. Last year was the first time we were able to sit down and watch some of our old home videos, from when the kids were all small. It was hard to hear Steve's voice and reflect on the happiness of the days gone by, but in a strange sort of way, it brought healing. This year, with Ryan's help, I have been getting these old VHS's transferred to DVD, so we can preserve them without losing the tape or the means to play them, since DVD's are 'the in thing' right now. These are priceless to the boys (and to me). Precious memories.

I know it has been awhile since I have posted so I decided to send out some pictures. I am not professional in my photography skills, like Ryan is, but at least you can see some of the pictures of the past few weeks.

On the way home from Thanksgiving at my parents, we stopped in Findlay, Ohio and met Andrew and Jennifer and the kids. We had my mother-in-laws baby dress that was over 80 years old (It was used for Bonnie's older sister). We met in Wendy's and put the dress on her there and took LOTS of pictures. They turned out so cute. Jaxon and JeNa loved meeting Uncle Ryan and Mamaw in Wendy's. We had a blast. Then on Christmas, Andy & Jenn came to Michigan so we were able to get the picture of JaLayna and her great-grandma Watters together. This was a special picture and one to be treasured.

This weekend has been momentous for us as we have really enjoyed being together and having our family photos taken professionally. The photographer met us at a designated location and spent 1 1/2 hours with us. He was great and we had a very fun time having the pictures taken. I will give you the link when the pictures are up on his site for us to view.

Watch for a post on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Ryan's birthday is Monday and Jason's birthday is Tuesday. I will post pictures of the boys on these days.

Leaves, Leaves and NO LEAVES

Bus unloading 55 students and staff - preparing to rake my yard.

Looking at my house before they started raking.

I have a very large yard to rake and when you get old like me, you can't rake without pulling your back out of place, so the Lord has helped me since Steve passed away to get my leaves up by using the services of the Junior High students from where I work at Lenawee Christian School. This is a servanthood project for them and teaches them the blessing of helping a couple of widows in our school family. There are several younger widows in the school and the junior highers rake leaves in the fall and do yard cleanup in the spring for four of us. It is such a blessing to me. Due to the recent snowfall, the leaves were heavier this year and the students were delayed in getting to my house because the previous yard took a long time. There were left-over piles EVERYWHERE in my yard and I did not know how I would manage to get them picked up, but God sent an angel along on Saturday morning, who came in and picked up all of the left-over leaves and got rid of them. I do not know who did it, although a neighbor told me it was a green truck that was in my yard Saturday morning, so I have an idea. It was such a blessing to me. I will post some pictures of before and after. There were 55 students and 6 adults from LCS helping me. My father-in-law and a friend also came over and spent time of Saturday doing yard work, for which I am very grateful.

November is half over and Christmas is comin...

Snowmen arrangement under my piano.
Snowmen over the open stairwell.

Katie is helping mamaw arrange the village under the piano.

Baby Keaton (Seth & Jordana's baby) - he is so calm and quiet. (Emma - his sister was too busy to get her picture taken). These children are beautiful and we enjoyed visiting with them.

JeNa was so cute in the way she was holding Keaton so carefully.

My Christmas Tree in the Sun Room

My mom and dad's tree in their family room - my favorite.

My mom and dad's tree in their living room.

My Women of Worth ladies surprised me with a 50th birthday cake and card shower.

JaLayna was so alert this weekend.

Katie is holding a baby kitten during the hayride festivities.

JeNa and Katie at grandmy & grandpy Watters house.

Jaxon is my little man.

Look at those rolls and the double or triple chin.

I have been thinking lately that perhaps you are wondering why I haven't updated my blog recently. Well......It's because I have been on the go and haven't taken the time to update it. OK, now that I have that out of the way, here goes...

It is hard to believe how much I have packed into November thus far. I went to Kentucky this past weekend, to attend Beth Hartkopf's wedding and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. It was a beautiful ceremony. I stayed at God's Bible School & College campus (where Ryan goes to school) and it was so good to be able to help him get a lot of his work finished. He had thank you's to write and cataloging of the Schmul Library to do (which I love to do), and some shopping to do. We had fun going to a big mall and just mingling with the people. I love walking through malls and watching people. It felt good to just be with Ryan and feel like I helped him with some tasks that were overwhelming to him. I went to church with him Sunday morning at the Kenwood Bible Methodist Church and that was a pleasant experience.

My job is going pretty well. Teaching two ladies now to do the job that I have done for almost 17 years is proving to be something that keeps me pretty busy. It is so hard to teach something that you do not have on paper. One of the ladies is a visual learner, so everything must be written down. I'm sure not bored, that is for sure.

Rochelle, the former student of mine, who is living with me, is working out very well. I thoroughly enjoy having her in my home. She is bubbly and so easy to have in the home. I do not have to do anything for her, she is so self-sufficient. She is a blessing to me.

Andrew & Jennifer, JeNa, Jason and JaLayna came up this weekend to go hunting with Grandpy Watters. Boy were they fun to have around. I love those kids! I got to hold JaLayna for a long time. She's sure growing up fast. Jaxon and JeNa are growing up fast too. JeNa is in kindergarten and it was fun to hear her sound out words in my office.

I have my house all decorated for Christmas! Can you believe it? I usually have it all done by the end of September or fist of October, but due to circumstances beyond our control (BUSYNESS), I finished it up a couple of weeks ago. It is beautiful. Since I am not decorating a big office at school this year, I brought the two boxes of snowmen home and decorated my living room (plus my sun room), so I have lots of snowmen, which I love! I'll post some pictures for you.

I am looking forward to next week when we can go home for Thanksgiving. Most of my siblings and their families will be together, which is so exciting for me.

I trust you are able to enjoy this holiday season and spend time with your family.

Where did October go?

My niece, Amber Plemmons and her boyfriend, Seth Fish at Youth Challenge

Jaxon, JaLayna & JeNessa

Andrew is quite an artist and drew pictures on Jaxon's wall in his newly redecorated room. This DOZER is one of the pictures he drew on the wall, then painted. This talent did not come from his mom or dad, that is for sure!
Another drawing / painting on Jaxon's wall.

CAT sign that Andy painted.

We were PACKED in the hayride wagon.

Kara and Kaitlynne on the hayride.

Kaitlynne with a kitten she found at the hayride

Katie was in her glory on this pony.

Riding home from the festival.

So tiny and precious!

Kara still has the touch to calm little JaLayna

Grandmy Plemmons prepared a lovely birthday dinner.

Aunt Lelah, Cousin Ronnie and Jennifer - sharing in the special day

Mamaw is enjoying this moment.

Jason and Katie were partied out and took a nap in my wheelchair. :0)

Grandmy Plemmons still has the touch

Grandpy Watters holding little JaLayna

Jaxon - Look at those eyes!

Grandmy Watters holding little JaLayna

Grandpy Plemmons holding JaLayna

Andrew and his girls, JeNa and JaLa

Andrew & Jennifer

Baby JaLayna looking at her Mamaw

I have been receiving 'side notes' from friends (thanks), prompting me to update my blog and I opened it today to realize I have not updated since October 1. Whew! It is hard to believe that October is almost behind us!

Work has been extremely busy, with the training of a new girl in the front office (where I have worked for 17 years) and learning my new position.

On the 'homefront', I have been repainting my basement, with the help of Jason and Kara. It is so much brighter being an off-white color as opposed to the darker blue. A little paint makes a huge difference in a room. I also had blind put up in the basement, as that sliding door area was wide open and I am just a little 'scaredy-cat' sometimes. My mercury light behind the house does not work. I think the wiring needs to be replaced because I have had the fixture changed twice and it still doesn't work on a regular basis. I need to do that before winter, so I am not so afraid!

I went with Jason and Kara to their church hayride and we had so much fun. I felt like I was falling off the wagon a time or two but I enjoyed it. The wagon was packed!!! We had to go over a very narrow bridge and that scared me to death but we survived.

I traveled to Cincinnati last weeked for a Women of Worth Committee Meeting at GBS. It was so nice to be with Ryan again. With the gas prices, I haven't been going too far and this was the first time I had been at GBS this year, so it was nice to be with him. I went a few hours early and helped him with a big project that has been on his plate and that is sorting wedding pictures. He shot a wedding a couple of weeks ago and had thousands of pictures to sort, so I helped him with this project and now he will need to go back through the pictures and touch them up with a touch only he has. I don't see the blemishes he does or the different variations to each picture that he does.

On Saturday (of last weekend) Ryan was pretty anxious to be on the road by 11:00 a.m., heading to my parents for their Homecoming Weekend at their church. I kept thinking, "I would really like to just do something in Cincinnati (I LOVE CINCINNATI and always have)." He said, "I would just like to get out of Cincinnati." I thought, "Oh well. I guess we will leave Cincinnati." He was up early and ready to go. He had to wait for me and boy is that unusual! So, we started out and he led the way. I kept thinking, "Why aren't we at least going the speed limit? After all, we still have two hours to drive and I know we are tired. Let's just 'get there'. We stopped to eat and he took his dear old time. After all, he said he wanted to leave Cincinnati by 11:00 and it was only 9:45, so we had time. (????) We finally got to my parents around 1:05 and when I walked in the door, there was a whole bunch of people yelling 'SURPRISE". My family had planned a surprise 50th birthday party with the black balloons, wheelchair, walking cane, cake with 50 black candles that nearly burned the house down, scaring us to death, and lots of gifts and cards. It was so nice to have all of my kids there with all of my grandkids. We got to see the new little one JaLayna, for the first time (for many of us) and it was so much fun just being together. My aunt and cousins came over and my brother, Don, traveled over from Fort Wayne. It was a beautiful day and a lot of mysteries to me were suddenly enlightened as I realized 'why' we needed to be here at a certain time (he was planning for 1:00), why my dad was off on a Saturday and why Ryan didn't want to stay in Cincinnati.

This weekend, I traveled with Dan, Clayton and Amber to the Cincinnati area again, to attend the Youth Challenge. What a special time that was. We all had a great time and it was fun being together with YOUTH. I won't be 50 until October 29th, so it was fun interacting with YOUTH again before the big day. :-)

I will share a few pictures of recent weeks and will try to better at blogging more often. We'll see how a 50-year old brain functions and if it remembers to blog. hehe