Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We sure did here.    We actually celebrated on Christmas Eve since Dad had to work at BGEA Library on Christmas.  It was fun getting done early.   

Something a few of us were talking about was how Christ’s birth directly points to His death and resurrection.  So much attention is brought to only His birth without recognition of why He came.  While His birth is certainly worth celebrating and recognizing, it’s important to remember the reason He was born and how it affects us.  Praise God for His grace and forgiveness for those who believe!

Our Christmas card for 2012

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This post consists of pictures of some of the many activities that have gone on this month.  There are more to come, but this is a start…..and hopefully all 2012 pictures will be posted before 2013 rolls around!

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Christopher’s CSYO fall concert.

He’s an awesome concertmaster!

Jen and one of her students who is in the JYO (the orchestra we all started out in).

Family and friends who came to watch Christopher.

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Girls afternoon at the music school!  I actually was only here for part of this, but the girls had a great time singing, watching a Ray Comfort evangelism video, eating, and hanging out.  Yay for friends!

 

 

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‘A Walk Through Bethlehem’ at a local church.

With some of the McGarty’s

 

Finding her shoe size and helping make bread

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Just everyday life.  I snapped the two pictures below almost at the same time.  Marianna doing math with Dad and Christopher and Missy playing Dutch Blitz next to them.

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Mom and the girls went on a field trip to the Billy Graham Library.

Lots of animals for their nativity!

Great place!

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This year the music school Jen and I work for didn’t do a Christmas recital.  BUT we did schedule three retirement homes and different teachers went to the homes with several students and put on recitals for the residents there.  This is Jen with a number of her students.  They did an awesome job!

 

This is Jen, Bethany, and Christopher playing a Christmas arrangement.  All four of us played it for church (I played the viola), but I wasn’t here at the retirement home.  Love this piece!

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Bethany’s UNCC chamber ensemble concert.  The ensemble actually accompanied the UNCC chorale.  The chorale and ensemble were both AMAZING.  They performed Bach’s Magnificat.

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Mom and Marianna went on another field trip to a Nutcracker performance uptown.  Missy was sick so she stayed home with me to decorate the tree, make cookies, and play a games. 

The kids were so excited to ride the train.

Uptown!!

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Last Sunday, our friend Naomi came over.  We had fun hanging out and making cookies and peanut butter balls.  Yum!

The next day was our church’s Christmas cantata

Here’s the orchestra!  They did a great job.  The cantata went really well and everyone one (the choir included) sounded wonderful.

After the cantata, our family went ot the Carter’s for dinner.  Cincinnati Chili baby!!!  Oh yeah!

Thankful for friends like them.  Fun times!

 

More to come soon!  Like our caroling event, our Christmas party, and other Christmas activities.

Since it’s December, I figured I should get the rest of November’s pictures on here.   I guess I could have just left these pictures out and gone onto December pictures, but we happen to like a lot of these pictures sooooo…here goes!

We older four and some friends went to Stone Mountain, NC a few days after Thanksgiving.  It was an awesome place with an incredible view!  The whole top was completely rock, which was pretty neat.  God is so creative!

It was interesting to see trees growing out of the rock.  Seemed so random, but looked really REALLY cool.

At the waterfall

  

Would love to go back here sometime.  It’s definitely worth the ride!

 

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Christopher and the little girls had their fall choir concert at the end of November.

 

So cute!!

Missy is in Music Makers and is *loving* it.  She’s an awesome singer and enjoys every aspect of choir.

During one of the songs, some of the kids held up state signs.  Missy looked so funny when she held it in front of her face.  Apparently she was supposed to do that, but we didn’t know that.  Either way, it was really cute.

Marianna is in Savior’s Singers (the choir Jennifer and Bethany started out in several years ago).  She loves her director and thoroughly enjoys singing as well.

Christopher is in the Carolina Youth Chorale.  We girls have all been in this choir as well.  There are a great group of talented kids in there!

After the concert

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Christopher’s “Fun with Chamber” ensemble performed the piece they’ve been diligently working on.  Wish I had a video of it!

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For Thanksgiving, we had the Edwards family and part of the Carter family over. 

We played volleyball, basketball, and soccer outside…and cards, foosball, and other games inside.

Fun times!

Our crazy group  

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Marianna and Missy were invited to a friend’s princess birthday party.  They LOVE dressing up and had a blast getting ready for this party.

  

Love them

 

With their friends

Sweet group of girls!

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Alrighty….now to work on December pictures!!    It’s sometimes hard to find the time to go through pictures as you keep living them out!

Enjoy this season of the year!

 

By the way, I’d highly encourage you to check out the video below if you’d like a laugh.  We’ve been watching this nonstop and are constantly quoting it.  It’s so cute and funny!

 

http://www.wimp.com/kidteach/

 

Bethany set up the camera and did some self-timer birthday portraits.  Not bad, huh?

  

The boots were definitely a favored accessory.

 

 

 

Lil’ Miss helped and took the two above pictures of Bethany.

 

If you take the picture on the left and multiply it by five, that’s Bethany’s personality. 

Bethany is hilarious.  There’s  never a dull moment with her around.  If our family had a reality TV show (which we never would, btw), we’d get more ratings than Jon&Kate and the Duggar’s combined. 

Jen took Christopher’s birthday photos.  Actually, I think these are his senior photos.  Poor guy had to get braces for the fourth time, so they made sure they did these pictures before the braces were put on once again. 

 

  

Christopher is exceptionally good at the violin. We went to his orchestra concert last week, in which he had many solos, and we were blown away!  He’s worked hard and is using his God-given talent. Keep it up, Christopher!

 

Christopher is an awesome brother.  He enjoys spending time with us and making us laugh as well. 

Love this one! 

Senior 2013