~HEATHER'S HIGHLIGHTS~: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

~Church Christmas program pics & fun visitors!~

~It's a good thing I took this picture of Sarah at the Christmas program practice, for it was tooooo dark during the real program for me to get good pics. =)~

~Katrina dressed for the Christmas program and our little Elijah all dressed up in his Colombian suit. =)~

~Brittany, Kimberly, and Natasha playing a piano trio for the prelude of the Christmas program.~

~Kimberly playing "What Child is This?" for the prelude.~

~The adult choir and small orchestra that sang/played during the Christmas program.~

~Little Jessica holding our tiny baby Mary.~

~After the Christmas program we invited the Hausmans, the Wegener family, and Bro. and Sis. Eisenhart over for a snack. Here are just SOME of the shoes that were by our front door. =)~

~They all brought snacks and I made some as well. It was a fun time with friends and eating yummy food too! =) ~

~I found this neat recipe for a "pine cone cheese ball". It makes for a fun "food piece" to put out on a Holiday table. (You could just make your normal cheese ball, form it into a pine cone shape and then put toasted almond slices around it to make it look like a pine cone.) ~

~We were wall-to-wall people...and wall-to-wall FUN!!! The young ladies~

~We ladies and our kids~

~The men (excuse the dark picture.=)~

More Christmas pics to come...and then...pics of our USA house. =)

Saturday, January 29, 2011

~Christmas baking with our kids.~

Mrs. Phyllis' house was such a blessing to our family. We lived in her house while Phillip worked hard on our home in Cinci. Thank you, Mrs. Phyllis!!
~In spite of having a new baby and trying to work on our own home, I decided that I should take time to do some Christmas baking with our kids. So, on Saturday, December 18th, I took our kids to the Christmas program practice at our church. While they were practicing Laura and I went grocery shopping for supplies. (It was fun shopping together as sisters, that doesn't happen often since I live in S. America and she in N. America. =)
Then I picked up our kids from practice and we went home and made lots of Christmas goodies. We made Mrs. Hurt's chocolate clusters, our Christmas mice, gingerbread cookies, peanut butter kiss cookies, and cherry kiss cookies.~

~Elijah was looking at some of the treats, and practicing the song, "Yield Not to temptation". =)

~Kimberly helping Elijah cut some gingerbread cookies.~

~Having fun, making memories, and making yummy goodies!~

~Kimberly's gingerbread men.~

~Some more of our kid's creations.~

~I asked our kids what Christmas goodie they really wanted to make. Kimberly said that she wanted to make our Christmas mice. She said that we've made those every Christmas but one that she can remember. So, we made our fun Christmas mice.~

~And we made up some Christmasy trays for the kid's and our Sunday School teacher's, their Jr. church leaders, the Jowers, and our Dear Missions directors, the Beckers.~

~I asked Sarah and Noah to go and gather us some greenery and pine cones for the mantel. In this picture, if you look closely you can see Sarah up in the tree picking pine cones and throwing them down to Noah who is catching them and putting them into the sled. =)~

~Then the kids put the greenery on the mantel. We put our Christmas gifts by the fire place since we didn't have a Christmas tree at Mrs. Phyllis' house.~

~And we put up my cute Christmas mouse that Cindy (from our church in Colombia) made me.~

~I saw this CUTE Christmas ornament at Cracker Barrel, and I loved it. Mom D. was with me and bought it for me. It says, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season." Thank you, Dad and Mom. D. =)~

Friday, January 28, 2011

~Fun Christmas activities and family time~

~Back in November Will took this precious picture of our sweet Mary.~

~We were happy to get to attend the GBS Christmas program. Our neice Natasha sang in it. It was beautiful and God's presence was close.~

~Natasha, and her brother and sisters, and our kids.~

~Our family after the GBS Christmas program.~

~In December our entire Dickinson family got to attend Michael and Beth's church with them. (Manly's church in Dayton.) Elijah sat with U. Michael and I gave him these pieces of felt to play with. We cracked up when we saw that he had used U. Michael as a "flannel graph board". =)

~Janelle (Sp?) and I had fun visiting together. =)~

~We ate a yummy lunch together at Michael and Beth's house. (Thanks, Beth, it was delicious!) As we were leaving their house goofy Michael came outside in the FREEZING COLD barefooted...just for laughs. Phillip is emphasizing how Cold it really is. =D We had a lot of fun being together with Michael and Beth and family, and Dad and Mom D. Thank you, Dad and Mom for coming out to Ohio!~

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

~Dedicating baby Mary to God!~

When we realized that we only had 2 Sundays that Mom and Dad D. would be in OH (They live in AZ) we knew that we wanted to get baby Mary dedicated on one of those Sundays. But I had just been in the ER with a serious kidney infection, was still sick and was supposed to be on bed rest and was feeling overwhelmed. Thank the Lord my sweet Moma helped me out and went shopping and found baby Mary's dedication dress and bonnet for a wonderful price. We were sooo thrilled that Dad and Mom D., my Daddy and Moma, my sister Laura and her family, and Phillip's brother Michael and his family could be at baby Mary's dedication on Sunday, December 5th. (Baby Mary was 2 months old). It was a very sweet time.
~I snapped this picture of baby Mary before the service started.~

~Gram and baby Mary~

~Mommy and baby Mary~

~We asked Will to take some pictures of baby Mary's dedication. (The lighting in our church makes it HARD to get good pictures, but He did a great job.)

~Our family sang, "The family that Prays together Stays together" and when Sarah sang, "Give the baby lots of kisses" Elijah and Noah leaned over and kissed baby Mary. =)

~Gram bought a play mic for Elijah to sing with so he wouldn't feel left out.~

~Brother Eisenhart and my Daddy did a great job dedicating baby Mary. (We missed having Bro. Pilmore involved, he was very sick.)

~In this picture...Baby Mary is saying that she is glad that she is now dedicated to God, but she is tired and hungry. =)~

~And Mary makes 7~

~We snapped this fun picture after the service.~

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

~Yea!!! I finally get to blog again!!~

Thanks to Wil for taking our fun picture that I have posted at the top of my blog. Even though he thought it was getting too dark, I was happy with this pic of my Sweetheart and me. =) Thanks, Wil!!
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS, AND ALL YOUR SWEET COMMENTS...GOD IS HELPING US! PLEASE HELP US PRAY THAT GOD WILL GUIDE US WHETHER OR NOT TO FIND ANOTHER HOME HERE OR PUT UP WITH THE MOLD. WE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT OUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH WITH ALL THE MOLD AROUND. THANKS!
(Carla, I don't know how else to contact you, but I was sooooo sad when I heard about your house fire and prayed for you and your family LOTS!!! Thanks for your sweet comment and I'm so glad you are back in your home now!!!=)
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In spite of the fact that our ENTIRE APARTMENT seems smaller than JUST THE FIRST FLOOR of the house that Jesus has given us in the USA, and inspite of MOLD, MOLD, MOLD everywhere, and having to WASH 7 people's clothes with No dryer, etc... It's good to be back in Colombia and we are so happy serving Jesus. =)
Though not all the way unpacked and still feeling overwhelmed, we made our way out the door to find a taxi to go to Church. (For as you may recall, most people here don't have their own vehicle.) It was worth our efforts to go to church. (It's always worth the effort to go to worship God and fellowship with His people!) Our dear Colombian church family was as delighted to see us and we were to see them. They all loved baby Mary and wanted to hold her. =) Bro. Jimmy and Sis. Farly have been such a huge blessing in carrying the load while we were in the USA. Bro. Jimmy's sermon on Sunday was just what we needed to encourage us. Here are some pics from us saying those HARD GOODBYES in the airport in the USA, some airplane pics, some pics of our suitcase mess in our apt. here, and some pics of our first Sunday back in Colombia. And, Lord willing, in a day or two you will see the promised pics of Baby Mary's dedication from back in December. And then...I have pics I want to show you of our nice Home in the USA. =)
~Our dear Pastor and Misions director, (along with my sweet Daddy and Moma) came to the airport to see us off. Here is Pastor with Elijah.~

~Gramp and Gram getting a few more "Baby Mary squeezes".~

~Mary and I with our MANY suitcases! These contain our kid's school books, and clothes for 7 people for the next 2 years or so. I try to hit thrift stores while I'm in the US and stock up, for I haven't found any here in Colombia.~

~The "boys" in the airplane (look at our Elijah's face) and...

~We girls in the airplane.~

~Baby Mary slept in our chair for a couple nights until we could de-mold her bed and get it set up.~

~I LOVE Baskets!!! But we came back to mold growing on all of my pretty baskets. So we had to buy "not so pretty and classy looking" plastic containers and re-organize everything. Here I am working on my kichen. =(~