MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Every Christmas Eve our church has a candlelight service.  I wanted to show you all how beautiful it is but the pictures just didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.   We light all our oil lamps and they serve as our lighting for the service.  We sing Christmas songs and the pastor reads the Christmas story.  Then we have communion. 

Next, we make a circle around the sanctuary and light our little hand held candle, sing a few more Christmas songs and leave.   It is always such a moving service reminding us of the TRUE reason we celebrate.  

Sunday morning, Hubby and I got up and enjoyed our morning coffee together as usual.  Then the girls got up, we opened our gifts, ate breakfast and got ready for church.  It was a very nice service.  We did not have Sunday School.  We came home, ate homemade soup.  I made it from the leftovers from Friday’s dinner.   Then we just relaxed the remainder of the day.  We didn’t have Sunday night church. 

We had planned on taking down the Christmas tree and all the decorations today but I think that will have to be another day.  It is raining pretty hard here and it is cold.  Temperature is 28 degrees with a fairly strong wind.  All our decorations are stored up in one of our buildings.  I’m not too big on carrying all that up in the cold rain.  Maybe tomorrow. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Look at these beautiful cherries.  David’s mother has 2 of these cherries trees in her yard.  She graciously gave them to us.  Thank you, Donna.  We went down Friday morning as Hubby was having difficulties with his computer too.  While Dave and Hubby worked on the computer, Jess and I with the kids went to pick cherries.  We picked 3 gal. and didn’t even hardly take a step.

Look at how the limbs are just bowed down to the ground.  You could just stand and pick.  No tree or ladder climbing.  I really liked that.

We ended up staying Friday night and most of the day Saturday getting Hubby’s computer up and going.  When we came home I put the cherries in our steamer juicer.  We got 5 1/2 qts of juice.

Sunday morning just before we left to go to church, Jess calls and says Dave needs Hubby’s help.  Their shower drain has come loose and flooded under the house and the heat pump was not working.  This of course means no air conditioner and for a pregnant woman that was bad.  It is really hot where they live with lots of humidity.  Well, we changed clothes and headed down to help Dave.  While the men went to Lowes, the girls and I went to pick more cherries.  We got 2 1/2 gal.  I have one batch in the steamer juicer now.  I think I will make jelly from some of the juice and then just can the rest.  It is very good.  We had fresh cherry juice with our breakfast this morning.  The Lord is so good to provide us with treats like that.

Well, I have clothes to go on the line and much to do today.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

What a wonderful way to start a Sunday morning!  Sitting on my front porch, drinking a cup of coffee with my favorite man in the whole wide world, and looking at this special presentation from the Lord.  Beautiful!  We had a really good weekend.  We watched the movie “Fireproof” Saturday evening with some friends from church.  Then our Sunday School lesson was on marriage.  This was not planned to be that way-just our Lord at work.  I said we had an unplanned marriage retreat weekend.  We started the day with the beautiful sunrise and then on the way to church last evening the Lord gave a beautiful sunset to look at all the way to church.  (of course, I did not have the camera with me then)  How good is the Lord we serve?

Here is a picture of my first attempt to make english muffins.  They turned out pretty good-a little dense I thought but good.  I used a recipe I found on line to make the dough in my bread machine.  Next time I think I will try making them by hand to see if they are different.  I am trying really hard to make as much of our food at home as possible.  This really lowers the grocery bill and of course is healthier for us and usually tastes much better.  Well enjoy your day and God bless.

I think you can learn a lot about a man by his hands.  These hands say I work hard.  I am married.  I love to work the land.  I’m sure if I were a good writer I could write a story just from this picture.  This man loves the Lord.  Not only in word but in action.  We are very blessed to have him as our pastor.  Thank you Lord!

A picture of his grapes.  He has several different types of grapevines growing.  I forget what he told me the name of these were but they were very sweet and delicious.

The girls and I have been busy with beans.  We canned 11 quarts yesterday.  One of them broke in the canner so we only had 10 to add to the canning list.  I picked a gallon of blackberries this morning and we’ll can those later today.    We love to make blackberry dumplings and cobblers.  I also want to make salsa today.  I think we have enough tomatoes.  They are mostly yellow tomatoes so it will look a little different but hopefully taste just as good.  Maybe even better.  I know we have enough peppers. 

Sunday morning is our Sunday School breakfast.  Every year we have a big breakfast at Smartview Park-a small picnic area on the Blueridge Parkway.  After breakfast we do Sunday school.  Tom will proably have a message as well.  We love all our little get-togethers we have.  Our church is really big on fellowship and I am glad.  I think it is an important part of being a church family.  If I remember the camera I will try to take some pictures to show you all.

I guess I better get busy.  Take care and God bless.

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