Wordless Wednesday: Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean

Our nativity scene...with a guest (far left):




You can tell we have some Mr. Bean fans around here. :)

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

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Click here and leave a comment for a chance to win 100 customized postcards from UPrinting.com!

A little housekeeping

I haven't been doing a good job of promoting my giveaway this time around...but I've been busy doing stuff...really.

I'll be the nursery director in our church for 2010, and I've had dozens of ideas bubbling around in my brain. If only those ideas would get in line...instead, they bump around each other and make me a little crazy. ;) One of the things I've been working on has been creating a design layout I could use for the postcards I'll be receiving from UPrinting.com. I have been looking around online for some ideas for reminder postcards for the nursery volunteers, and there's really not that much out there. So, here's my take on the project, using a 6x4 layout like the UPrinting postcards will be:

Front

BackI also created a new front for the ones we'll print off ourselves so we can use a little less ink and it'll still be cute. :) Plus, I don't think the guys on the nursery rotation will appreciate the girly wreath photo too much...

If you happen to have a need for this kind of thing, email me and I'll be glad to send you the files in either Publisher or PhotoShop for you to customize, either for if you win my postcard giveaway or for another use.

Please click here to leave a comment on my giveaway for the 100 postcards from UPrinting.com! The giveaway ends on January 5, 2010, so there's still time. And so far your chances are very good that you will win. ;)

Just think of it as an encore performance...

I have some more Andrew Peterson for you--one serious; the other...notsomuch. :)

I'll give you the humorous one first: A song about cheese. And not just any cheese, but it's the gooey white cheese you get at Mexican restaurants. Intrigued? Well, you should be. Check it out! You will laugh and then laugh some more. :)

On a more serious note, this next one is a song I would recommend to our praise and worship leader if I thought I had the spiritual gift of song selection.

Oh, I kid.

(But I also would be glad to loan him our Andrew Peterson CDs...)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)


Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
Revelation 21:5 (NKJV)

Happy New Year!

It was not a silent night

Labor of Love
By Andrew Peterson
Performed by Jill Phillips

It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Noble Joseph at her side
Calloused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night

So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love
For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love

Lyrics were found here.

Merry Christmas, everyone...

One of us would make a really great elf...

My sister-in-law Cindy sent this to us recently...click here to see our family as ELVES. Grace's reaction was "I'm as big as Daddy!" And I don't know how many times I've heard, "Mom looks like a boy!" So thank you, Cindy... ;)

Also, click here to see Retooning the Nativity. It's a clever little video commenting on the details of the Christmas story.

Merry Christmas!

She'll call this "Christmas Road"!

As we were driving along one evening, Josiah pondered the whole Christmas light thing...

Josiah: I wonder who came up with Christmas lights...

Grace [with all of the pep of a three year old so excited about Christmas she can hardly stand it]: I did!!

Everyone laughed; Josiah continued to ponder...

Josiah: When did people start putting up Christmas lights?

Grace [with that same pep]: When I wuz born!

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When it comes to decorating with Christmas lights, I figure you have three basic types:

The pretty type, with white lights and red wreaths

The type with more lights and figures

And, finally, the type where you wonder just how much their electric bill is during the month of December...because all of this is at one house, and I didn't even get all of their decorations in these shots.

And now you have seen what Grace calls "Christmas Road." Except it's so much cuter when she says it...'cause she still sometimes says either "Kwismus" or "Quitmas." ;)

Do you drive around just to look at Christmas lights?

Giveaway: Postcards!

Postcards are perfect as invitations, thank you cards, or note cards. And because of the generosity of my blog sponsor, UPrinting, one of my readers has the chance to win a set of custom postcards. Plus, I will also receive a set of custom postcards for hosting this giveaway.

Giveaway Prize: 100 Postcards for one (1) lucky winner
Size: 4x6
Paper: 14pt Cardstock Gloss
Printing: Full color both sides
Shipping: Sponsored bloggers and Winners have to pay for shipping.

This is what I have done with one of my previous orders for UPrinting postcards:

(Front view of a postcard for children who visit our children's church program, Adventure Kids, with space to write the visitor's name with a Sharpie.)

What would you do with custom postcards? Here's one idea...If you haven't gotten your Christmas cards out yet, and don't see yourself getting that job done in time, perhaps you'd like to put a family photo on one side of the postcard and a message to your family and friends on the other. Or you can leave the message side blank and write your own personal message.

Starting or promoting your own business? UPrinting has templates for a variety of industries, so you don't have to build something from scratch unless you want to.

What are your ideas?

Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment on this post telling me how you plan to use the postcards. I will randomly choose a winner from the comments at noon on January 5, 2010. If you receive my blog via email or feed, you can leave an extra comment. If you blog about my postcard giveaway and link back to this post, you can also leave an extra comment, giving you a total of three possible comments. Make sure I have your email address to contact you if you win! (You can click on "View my complete profile" on the sidebar and email me from there if you wish.)

The winner will be awarded via email with a coupon code on January 8, 2010.

You Capture: Lines

This week’s theme of the You Capture blog carnival hosted by Beth over at I Should Be Folding Laundry is lines.

(I can't wait to see what everyone else did with this theme!)

Let's see...there are the lines on the road as we traveled to Athens on Saturday


A line of babies beside my sleeping daughter (Three of those babies are named Emily. The one with the hair bow is the only one who gets her own name: Miss Muffy.)


Chocolate chip cookies lined up during our cookie baking day at my friend Kim's house



My Dad riding on a scooter last Saturday when we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family. I just had to include these...there are lines in the background, right?



Last but not least...these are some really great lines. I could say that these are my favorite lines, but that might just be wrong. ;) We finally joined the 21st century and have gotten away from dial up! Whoo hoo! So here is our DSL modem:


And if you are still on dial up and are looking for a great deal, AT&T has an online deal for people who have never had DSL. This is what we have now--it's $10 a month (I know!!) for DSL Lite. You buy the modem ($75, which you can pay in full or spread out over 10 months interest free) and you have to keep the service for one year. Here's the link. Scroll down below all of the various offers they have in the boxes, and look for "New to DSL?" You type in your phone number to see if you qualify, and go from there. If you are already a Bellsouth/AT&T dial up customer, I believe you get the modem for free. I don't work for AT&T in any way; I'm just thrilled to have DSL for as much as we were paying for dial up. :)

Check out I Should Be Folding Laundry for more You Capture participants.