~HEATHER'S HIGHLIGHTS~: December 2025

I cannot believe I haven't been able to blog since Nov. 22nd...but yet when I look at my calendar of events,

I realize that I meet myself coming and going and haven't had too many moments to spare.

But, I am sure that is how your life is as well.

So, you might want to grab yourself something Hot and yummy to drink...And, Let's get started on all of these fun pics!!

~On November 23rd, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, We invited the whole Strait Creek Church over for a

Fall Sunday dinner.

That Sunday morning, Noah told the Bible story about the little boy who gave Jesus his lunch.

God settled down and we got blessed just thinking that God takes the tiny little bit that we offer (that He has given us anyway) and uses it when we give it back to Him.

As usual, I had a blast setting the table.

These plates came from

Family Dollar

years ago.~

~It was fun to make the cloth napkins into bows.~

~We were surprised to have nice visitors show up at church that day.

Josh and Lisa A. and their 3 sweet girls.

~Cousin Laura took these pics and sent them to me.~

~Thanksgiving 2025~
Thanksgiving prep...
The kids and I
Making all the fun recipes that we
normally make each year to enjoy at
Gramp & Gram's house and
Grandpa & Grandma's house.

~My Chocolate Chip Pie~

~YUM!
~YUMMY Pumpkin Custard pies!~

~Yummy Easy Rolls!
~Easiest rolls I have ever made!
Even if you are not very comfortable making bread,
I think that you can make these rolls!
I have tried to add clear instructions to make it even easier.
I FORGOT TO TELL YOU TO BUTTER THE TOPS OF THE ROLLS WHEN THEY COME OUT OF THE OVEN.

Give it a try!
I've already said a prayer for YOU...
that if you try these,
they will turn out delish!
(If you do try this recipe,
I'd love it if you let me know.)

~I made them into cinnamon rolls too.~
~Pretzel rollos,
in memory of my sweet Aunt Carole!~
~Yummy pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing.~

~Gramp & Gram's house~
Thanksgiving Day found us going
"over the river and through the woods"
....to IN to spend a wonderful day with
my DEAR parents!
Moma sent us this pic of Daddy reading,
before we got there.

~Before we ate we all wanted to walk down to see the lake near their house.

It was an absolutely FREEZING day!!!

The wind chill was crazy!

~MY DEAR DADDY AND MOMA!!!~

This is what sweet Moma looked like...her ears were so cold!~

~If you wonder WHERE I came from,

and why I LOVE to set pretty tables...

I come from my sweet Moma! <3

This is her pretty table she set before we got there.

My new sweet friend Lisa,

found these plates and napkins on a major sale from

Hobby Lobby and gifted me with these!

Thank you, Lisa! <3

~Look at all of Moma's antique iron skillets! I love them!!~

~Sweet Daddy and Moma!!~

~Firecrackers...one of the recipes we make every year!~

~Moma made yummy pumpkin pies.~

~It was so fun to be together.

I had texted Moma days ahead and asked if Daddy would be willing to read us a fun Christmas Story out of the awesome Christmas Story books that he owns.

Years ago Moma got Daddy the first 4 of these Christmas books.

I got us some copies off of Thriftbooks.com,

for around $5 each book.

We love those stories and read our favorites every year.

There are lots of them,

but we only have the first 5 books of the

"Christmas in My Heart" series.

Some of our favorite stories are in the 2nd treasury that is green.

~I was happy to find my "Grateful" sweater on a Goodwill shopping spree

with Dear Friends this summer...in Mitchell, SD.~

~Elijah built two hammers for Gramp & Gram.~

~Holding Sweet Moma's hand.

Right before we left their house, Moma or Daddy asked me if I had heard the song,

"Look for Me at Jesus' Feet"?

I guess, Years ago, Squire Parsons' wife was going to pick him up somewhere, and on the way, she heard that there was a bad accident. She was so worried that Squire was in the wreck.

When she arrived to the location and saw that he was ok, she was so relieved.

On their way home, she told him how worried she was that he was in that wreck and had died.

He handed her a piece of paper and asked her to start writing...and wrote that song,

"Look for Me at Jesus' Feet."

He started it with these words...

"If I leave this world of Sorrow,

Sometime before you do..."

While sitting there with my dear Daddy and Moma (82 & 83), and holding Moma's hand,

I looked up the Booth Brothers singing that song, and wept!!!

WE MUST STAY CAREFUL AND LIVE FOR JESUS!!!

~GRANDPA & GRANDMA'S HOUSE!~
~The 3 Pumpkin Custard pies I made.~

~I always Love setting the table for our gatherings at Dad and Mom D.'s house.

Dad always cleans up his already IMMACULATE SHOP ...

and sets up tables in there.

He has 2 stoves in there so we stay pretty warm.

~Helping Grandpa with wood.~

~Dad bought a brisket and smoked it for all of us. Delish!~

~Michael did a great job on the turkey.~

~There is always a huge variety of snacks and sweets and yummies to eat.~

~Then the kids play games.~

~And this is what we adults feel like doing.~

~Sliders~

~We always try to put up G & G's tree for them,

so they do not have to lug things up and down the stairs.~

~Greenville always does a great job decorating!!~

~Someone drew NOAH. ;-)

~Sophia and Ava got to come home with us.~

~Sunday night we were going to Christian Nation Church for a missionary service.

So, Noah led the service at Strait Creek, and Bro. Mills preached.

So, I made up a tray of my pumpkin cookies and sent bags of pretzels with Noah to SCCNC

for everyone to have a snack on their way home.

~Phillip at CNC sharing about his trip to Colombia~

~Jesus helped us and it was a good service.

~I got the idea to put lights above my kitchen sink, and I love it.

It makes it so cozy in there.

~Our garage...needed some help!

Everyone had just come in the door and dropped things!

So, we started WORKING!!!

Organizing...

throwing,

cleaning,

donating,

etc.

~There, much better!!~

~Dad and Mom D. gave us their Retro yellow hide-a-bed couch.

We rearranged the garage to make a family room in

there / extra bedroom.

We love this couch, we have so many memories from it.

We surprised the kids and threw up a Christmas tree with colored lights in our new little family room.

(Phillip and the kids Love colored lights.)

~Another fun snow~

~Kimberly invited us to go shopping with her one day.~

~Eggnog time.~

~Phillip and I got these little outfits for Adelynn and Stella.~

~Such cute coats too.~

~Kimberly made us some yummy cake pops to pass out after church one night.~

~Happpy Birthday, Sarah!!~

~Sarah told us that she wanted to come over to celebrate her birthday!

We were so excited!

She told us that one of the main things she wanted to do was to put together a Christmas puzzle!

So, since Josh, Sarah, and Adelynn were coming...and we had a new-to-us Retro couch that needed a place...

THAT is one reason we worked so hard to organize the garage!

We surprised Sarah with the new family room,

so everyone could work on the puzzle in there together.

~Kimberly's cake pops were cute and yummy.~

~The adorable girls in their matching dresses and coats.~

~After church, back home,

I decided to do a dessert charcuterie board of sorts for Sarah's birthday snack.~

~It was so fun putting it together.

The little round balls are "Mochi's" found in Aldi's freezer section.

Ice cream wrapped in dough. So yummy!

The pink ones were peppermint flavored (our favorite), the white were cookies and cream, and the brown were hot cocoa.~

~Some of us were already in our jammies and comfy, but we still wanted to take a pic.~

~Little Adelynn was so CUTE as she played a "special" on the piano.

She would even reach up and turn the page in the hymnbook. ~

~Then Stella joined her.~

~Puzzling again.~

~We had sooo much fun being together and celebrating Sarah!!!

We Love our Sweet Sarah!~

~So cute.~

~It was a full moon that night.

I took this pic at 2:00 AM. --No Flash!

~(Here is a pretty pic of Sarah on her Birthday, that I took later from Josh' FB. <3)

~Friday night, we took the kids to a Habatchi grill.

Every year around Valentines we try to take the kids to an international restaurant, to celebrate that Jesus called us to be missionaries. Phillip shares Scriptures and urges us to be careful to let our light shine for Jesus.

Last year, we did not go out, because we didn't have the money.

So, since God had sent in an extra gift from 2 different sources, we decided to take the kids out.

(Sadly Josh, Sarah, & Adelynn couldn't come that night. We hope to take them some time later.)

A year and a half ago or so, Noah went to this Fun place in Jackson, OH, and told us that we had to go as a family sometime.

The 3 youngest had never done anything like this.

This restaurant is very reasonably priced.

It was such a FUN NIGHT!

The chef did a great job and the food was superb.

~Stella was all eyes.~

~Then we ran to Walmart to do a little Christmas shopping.~

~My Kitchen window all Dressed for Christmas.~

~One Saturday found Phillip and I running to Cinci for the funeral of Bro. Eugene McIntyre.

We did not know him well, but was neat to learn that he had gotten saved at 15, under the ministry of the Ray Campbells, and stayed true to Jesus ever since! \o/

Afterwards, our dear friends and mission director invited us out for lunch.

We had so much fun!

I have known Bro. Becker since I was a baby.

As a teenager, He used to attend my Dad's school in Friendsville, TN and he used to carry me around when I was only 18 months old.

We LOVE the Beckers.~

~When we came home Noah was hanging the Christmas lights he purchased to put around our house.

~"CHICKEN TRACTOR PRAYERS"!!~

I can't remember if I have told y'all or not, but That little metal thing in our yard...is our

ANSWER TO PRAYER!!

For several years we have been praying for a

CHICKEN TRACTOR.

A chicken tractor is something that you can move around your yard to keep chickens inside.

They can be $1,200 to $2,000, which is not money we had.

Recently, our guys were out working with the chickens, when a new-to-us neighbor stopped by said that he had a chicken tractor we could buy, if we were interested.

So, Phillip asked him to send a pic.

We liked it and we were able to buy it for CHEAP.

IF JESUS CARES ABOUT THE "CHICKEN TRACTOR PRAYERS" in our lives,

how much more does he care about

HELPING US GET TO HEAVEN!!!

~My Kitchen Christmas tree...is Gingerbread again this year. That was the request of Abigail, and I'm sure the little girls love it too.

This tree gets redecorated by little Stella...quite often. :-D ~

~One Sunday morning Cousin Laura did everything but preach and take up the offering. :-)

We love Cousin Laura and Uncle Bill and are so grateful that Jesus sent them to help us here at Strait Creek Church.

~She also sang a Christmas special that morning that she wrote.~

~Baby Stella has recently become interested in babies.~

~Baby Stella walks everywhere now.~

~Snack together with the Averys and U. Bill.~

~The Living Room tree!

I love these brownish beige poinsettias from Walmart.

So classy, so cheap.

~Love these little baby carriages I got for the girls last year.~

~The Old Gas Stove in the Dining room.~

~The old Church window in the living room.~

~CHRISTIAN NATION CHURCH CHRISTMAS DINNER!~

Aunt Bee and her little Stella.~

~Levi and Elijah.~

~The Family...

just missing Chris, who had to work, and Josh, Sarah, & Adelynn.~

~Old pic that were used for a game. ~

L to R: Rob and Stephanie Ryan, Melinda and Donald Shirk, and Heather...Phillip must have been getting more food or something.

I have no idea what year this was taken, but it was obviously a CNC Christmas dinner...and possibly before Kimberly came along.

~L to R: Rebekah R. Nikayla, Jessica, Mary, & Eva.~

~Grandpapa trying to entertain Stella.~

~Dear Pastor and Grammy!!!

Love them to pieces.~

~Zach & the Duck, Noah, Phillip.~

~Friends~

~Pastor and Noah.

Pastor announced at the Christmas dinner that Noah has just received his Preacher's license with Christian Nation Church. We are all excited!

I have no GREATER JOY than to hear that my children walk in truth.~

~(Cousin Laura's pic.)

~Grammy's pic.~

~THEN AND NOW~

This first Pic was taken in our apartment, in 1998, in Cinci.

That is Pastor Eisenhart and Grammy holding baby Kimberly!

~They Recreated that pic

Dec. 2025

with

Pastor and Grammy holding Kimberly's baby Stella.

~Our Christmasy Coffee Bar.~

~"Christmas cards have all been sent"

...or nearly.

We ordered 300 cards this year, and I have most of them sent out.

~Let's Walk Down Memory Lane...

With some Pics From Christmases Past!~

~My Sweet Grandmother...GG, My Moma's Mom.

I didn't "fall very far from her Tree."

As long as I am alive, (and our girls too)

GG will still live on. We act a lot like her. :-)

Loved her to pieces!~

~Where in the world has time gone?~

~Look at all that DARK hair that Phillip has in this pic.~

~Not Christmas, but had to post this one.

Sweethearts...Choir tour my Freshman year...

riding around on the big GBS bus.~

~The back story to this fun pic was that Mary was so sick with the flu.

We had to leave her in the van until we got all ready for the pic, then quickly bring her out,

snap the pic, and put her back in the warm van.

Love this Classic pic with

Dear Bro. Yerian's NEAT VAN.~

~And this was Dad and Mom D. with Phillip and baby Michael!~

~Smiling Mary~

~Little Abigail at the Golden Lamb In Lebanon, OH.~

(Thanks Bro. Jowers for snapping this fun pic.)

~A pic I snapped of baby Abigail.~

~The kids with GG.~

~Little Mary and her snowman.~

~Dear Uncle Carson, Moma, Sweet Aunt Carole, and Sweet GG!

I cannot believe that Dear GG and Aunt Carole are both in Heaven now!

~Our Christmas pic in Argentina.~

~Christmas 2014 with Baby Abigail.~

~Back to the Present.~

~Our Dear friends the Kemps, Lost their son Ricky! :-(

We called them to ask if we could worship with them one Wednesday.

So Phillip and I ran to Wash. Court House to their church to worship with them.

It was a snowy cold night, but Jesus met with us and we had a good service worshipping Jesus!

~Afterwards they took us to a yummy Hong Kong buffet.

Phillip and I had stopped by Kroger on the way to get a cozy blanket, a winter candle and some flowers to give to the Kemps.

We love them bunches and oodles and are so SORRY for their huge grief!!~

~Our Master Bedroom~

~I decided to use colored lights in our room...I think that's a first.

The girls got these little Christmas tree lights

IN COLOMBIA...probably back in 2012 or earlier...and they still WORK!!!

~I grew up with one of these little ceramic trees in My GG's house and in our house...

So, back in 2009, we got one.

I love it.~

~Baby Stella in the local Queen Beanery.~

~Queen Beanery~

~These 2 are like peas in a pod.

Elijah is a people person...so likes to have someone with him if he goes to scrap metal or whatever.

He normally can talk Abigail in to going with him, if he buys her food or a drink. :-)

~Elijah was happy to get a "Prime Windows" hoody!

This is the Christian company that Noah works for.

Elijah has been helping them some.

~Abigail cooking.~

~Stella got "toddler's tower" so she can help her Mommy in the kitchen.~

~This is that sign that I saw earlier in a decor store in Amish Country.

So, I typed it out to hang in our house each Christmas.

It is so True!

I STIIL LOVE GIFTS ~ONCE A BABY OF THE FAMILY...Always a BABY of the Family... ;-)~

but as long as we are together at Christmas time,

I am HAPPY!!~

~Phillip brought us this little handmade Nativity from Colombia.~

~GOING TO SEE THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

AND HEAR GBS.~

~Saturday found us going to the Ark ...in very snowy roads.

But, we were in good hands because our guys LOVE to drive in the snow!~

~We Rarely eat out as a family, if we do, it is Wendy's...but

It is a becoming a tradition each year to eat at Cici's Pizza on the way to the Ark to see the GBS Christmas program.

We Love going to see the Fun Lights on and around the Ark at Christmas time.

~We were surprised to meet up with our new friends Josh, Lisa, and their girls.

We love them.~

~And with my "Men Arise Prayer Team Friend" Trisha.~

~We love Josh D.

He is our nephew Bryan's best Bud, so we love him too.~

~It was snowing and Freezing after the program...

but we LOVED going out to see the Lights on and around the Ark,

and being together as a family!!

~It was so fun to see the light show with the FALLING SNOW!~

~Noah was taking a video,...

Look at the snow that was landing in his hair.~

~They did the story of Jesus in lights...from the Nativity to his ascension.~

~Abigail LOVED sliding in the snow.

~My Sweetheart and Me~

~Such fun snowy Family pics!~

~The 2 hour Drive home was a little crazy.~

~Passing our Strait Creek Church to see how the roads were doing.

We decided to cancel Sunday AM service, due to the all the snowy roads.

We didn't want the Fields or others coming out and having a wreck or slipping and falling.~

~Home Sweet Home~

~Snow...Snow...everywhere!

We Love Snow!

~So, we didn't have Church on Sunday morning

But by Sunday night, the roads were better, and we were able to have our Christmas program at Strait Creek Church.

For Our Sunday dinner, Kimberly brought over homemade chicken noodle soup and together we made yummy snacks for the all-church snack at our house, after the Christmas program.

~Mary made this design in our peanut butter cookie dough.~

~Christmas hats!~

~Yummy Peanut Butter cookies...with mini Reese's!!~

~Pretzel Rollos.~

~Plenty of wood ...all ready on the side porch... to keep everyone warm.~

~CHRISTMAS PROGRAM AT STRAIT CREEK CNC~
(We were not able to get pics of everyone that participated,
because the ones that read,
read from their seat,
and it would have been too awkward and
disturb the service,
to turn around
and get pics.)
We were thrilled to have 26 at church that snowy night!
We were so GLAD that our dear friends the Leslies could join us!
Everyone did a great job participating!!
~Noah playing his classical guitar.~