13 Memories of '13

It's hard to believe that there are only a few hours left in 2013.  Our year has been filled with showers of blessings.  I asked my family what were some of the things we remembered from the year.  Here are thirteen of the many we came up with:

 

With John at the hospital

 1.  John's birth ranks first on the list without a doubt.  He is such a blessing to our family and we absolutely adore him!  He is spoiled rotten but at the same time has such a sweet spirit.  It's hard to imagine 2013 without him.

 

Before and after: James and William play in the freshly tilled soil, and our lush garden in late summer

2.  Our garden was bountiful this year and God provided us with a good harvest.  We have had plenty to eat and share others.  And--excitingly-- we had NO tomato hornworms!  Those frightening creatures  --who usually devour our plants--vanished without a trace.

 

 

George chasing a chicken

 3.  Although this one would probably not go down under "favorite memories",  George has had quite a memorable year with animals, both "tame" and wild.  Other family and friends have been involved in many of the encounters,. but since George is both a hunter and an animal lover, these memories chiefly belong to him.  So, without further ado, here is a sampling of George's animal adventures:  trapped and killed many possums, trapped two skunks (with a strong aroma thrown in for free), shot a deer, was bitten by a mouse (it was stuck, and he was truing to rescue it),  buried one dog and got another, shot and ate multiple squirrels, helped Joy deliver twin goats in the middle of February (while Daddy was at work and Mommy was in bed with the flu), trapped, killed, and ate a raccoon (with the help of Daddy and our friends, the Moores), and--with Samuel--sold eggs to friends and family.  It makes me tired just writing about it!

 

At the local spelling bee

 4.  Thomas, Anna, George, Delie, and Samuel participated in our local home school spelling bee.  They all did great, and we were thrilled when Delie advanced to the regional bee in Memphis.   My favorite memories of the bee are watching George spell R-U-S-T-I-C and watching Thomas spell anything.  He was so adorable trying to reach the microphone.

 

Samuel after the wedding

 5.  This has been a year of weddings.  After sometimes having years with no wedding at all, we had four!  Two of Daddy's former students married in May, a cousin in June, a cousin in August, and a friend in October; and we have two more coming up this winter.  We are discovering that the typical wedding is now anything but typical, but all four were beautiful.  Samuel was the ring bearer in our cousin Sam's wedding and was so handsome in his tux.  Wouldn't you agree?

 

With a live alligator and a fake one (I leave you to decide which is which)

6.  After Daddy's cousin's wedding, we stayed in Louisiana with my great aunt and uncle.  And they really were great!  They showed us around downtown Lafayette, took us to the circus, toured the Tabasco factory, and fed us what must have been tons of yummy food.  But everyone's favorite part of the trip was the swamp tour.  We saw trees, flowers, birds, and more alligators than I can remember!  Thank you, Aunt Helen and Uncle Randy, for a wonderful vacation!

 

At our spring recital

7.  Music was a big part of our life this year.  We took instrument lessons in the spring (we took the fall off for John's birth and the National Bible Bee) and this winter I was able to play the violin with our church and the girls and I sang in our Christmas choir.  We were very blessed to be able to spend time with the ladies of our church and learned a lot about the art of singing to the glory of God.  



No cars were hurt in the taking of this picture ;D

8.  Delie and I got our permits this year, and I got my license, so driving was (and is) a very memorable part of 2013.  We have already been able to bless our family with two more drivers.  Just don't ask Delie about the time I almost walked out of the store without the items I had just paid for.  I told her I did it just to make her feel needed :D.

 

The beautiful building that holds an even more beautiful church

 9.  This summer, after visiting for about a year, we joined Pleasant Plains Baptist Church.  It's a small church--less than a hundred members, I believe--but we love it all the more for that.  The fellowship is wonderful, the preaching is very biblical, and we have been very blessed by this body in the past year.  From bringing meals after John's birth to teaching us girls how to heal with herbs to praying for and encouraging our family, they have shown us time and time again what it means to be the body of Christ.

 

Samuel and William in a tunnel at the Chickasaw playground

 

10.  We went camping at Chickasaw State Park this summer.  After hiking and pedal boating in and around the lake (and being rained on quite heavily while doing the latter), Mommy and Daddy decided that camping in a storm by a lake did not sound like fun.  We all heartily agreed, but now what?  We tried renting a cabin.  The rangers told us that all the cabins had a capacity of six.  So much for that idea.  We considered returning home.  No one was really excited about that. After all, it seemed a shame to unpack everything that we had packed only hours before.  Then Daddy suggested "the Farm".  His parents' hunting cabin was warm, dry, and yet somewhat primitive.  Perfect for a rained-out camping trip.  Daddy and Mommy decided on that--and it was so much fun!  It was one of my favorite camping trips ever, and sleeping in a real bed was nice--until Anna suggested that there might be mice under the blankets.  Call us cowards, but we never pulled down the quilt to find out :D.

 

Still, it was a great family vacation!

 

Anna, Samuel, George, Delie, and Joy after the Local Bible Bee

 11.  Our year was chock full of the Bible Bee.  I've said so much about it in previous posts that I'll keep things short and sweet here.  Both Locals and Nationals were wonderful, and greatly impacted my life, both spiritually and otherwise.  I can't wait 'til next year.

 

Christmas with the Hayeses (left) and the Mosses (right)

 12.  We spent a lot of time with our extended family over the many holidays in 2013.  From swimming at Paw Paw's house on the 4th of July to geocaching with our Moss cousins at Thanksgiving, we made lots of special memories with the people we love.

 

Praying around the breakfast table

 13.  And then there is the everyday life.  Working together, playing together, praying together--these are the things that we will never forget.    Two thousand and thirteen has been a wonderful year, and as we look back on God's grace to our family we can't wait to see what His plan is for next year.

 

See you in 2014!

 

Happy New Year!

~Joy, for the Mosses

The Life of Christ





At Christmas time, we tend to focus on Jesus as a tiny baby in a manger, but he was God.  He lived, taught, died for sins not His own, and rose again.  So I wanted to share with you one of my favorite Christmas songs--The Life of Christ

 

This song was written by dear friends of ours, Cody and Melody Curtis.  We hope it blesses you as much as it has blessed us.

Merry Christmas!
The Moss Family

Rags to Riches: how to make an old jean skirt into a new (and cute!) apron

For Christmas this year we wanted to give my two five year old cousins aprons.  Two weeks ago I discovered that the elastic in my tiered jean skirt (you know, the one that is technically mine, but Anna permanently borrowed) had rotted.

The two above sentences seem totally unrelated, but I had an idea.  Why not cut the skirt up and make it into aprons for Helen and Amy?  I got on the internet and searched for tutorials on how to transform a women's tiered skirt into a girl's apron, but found nothing.  So, being the confident firstborn that I am, I decided to make the aprons without a guide--and live to tell about it.

 

Helen and Amy in their matching aprons

 

So here's how to turn an old skirt into a new apron:

 

1.  Grab a skirt past all hope.  More correctly, a skirt past all your hope.  If you are fresh out of old skirts, ask all your friends and relatives.  Or go to Goodwill.  Whatever floats your boat.

2.  Use the bottom two tiers for a child's apron (or a short one for yourself) or three tiers for a longer adult apron.  You could even add a ruffle to the bottom.  Be creative!
3.   Measure how wide you want the top of the apron to be; add one inch for hem allowance.   I wanted 12 inches, so I measured 13 inches at the top of my second tier (which will end up being the top of my new apron).

4. Draw a line down to bottom of skirt to mark where bottom of apron should be.  I used pins, but for this blog post I drew it with the paint feature on the laptop.  Oh, the beauty of the virtual.  You can even click "undo" if you draw it wrong.  Real life isn't so forgiving.

5.  Warning:  This is going to be the hardest emotional step in making a skirt.  Face your fears of ruining an already ruined skirt and cut!  Remember, this skirt was going in the trash anyway, so you can't make it's fate much worse.  I cut along the side the seam of skirt on one side and down my lovely visual line for the other.  Just make sure that the sides are (somewhat) symmetrical.  All those hours of studying geometry are finally paying off.

6.  If you are making more than one, go ahead and cut out the second using the first as a pattern.  The more the merrier!

7.  Pin side seams over 1/4 inch and iron.  Fold over another 1/4 inch (to hide the edges), pin, and iron again.  Pat self on back for being able to iron and take a picture at the same time.

8.   Hem sides.

9.  For the waistband, cut a strip of fabric 3 inches wide by however long you want long.  I used 54 inches for a five year old, but it's up to you.  If you already have an apron you love, measure the ties from end to end.
10.   Fold 1/4 inch down each side of strip, and iron.
11.   Fold another 1/4 inch (to hide the raw edges).  Iron again.
12.  Baste on to the top of your apron, but make sure that the center of the apron matches up with the center of the ties.  Or don't, if you are like the crooked man of Mother Goose fame.

13.  Sew!
14.  Turn the ends of the ties in on themselves and sew securely.
15.  Cut the threads, unplug the sewing machine, and cook up a wonderful holiday meal for your family and friends!

Repeat as wanted.  I certainly intend to.

Joy

O Come All Ye Faithful

  

 

O Come All Ye Faithful
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of Angels;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

O Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing all that hear in heaven God's holy word.
Give to our Father glory in the Highest;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

 

All Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning,
O Jesus! for evermore be Thy name adored.
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.



Sugar for Christmas

We love Sugar.  I'm not talking about that white stuff that turns up in so many delicious foods (although we're pretty partial to that, too) but about our early Christmas present from Mommy and Daddy--Sugar, our new Great Pyrenees.

 

 

Ever since Snowball died last summer, our farm has been in need of a dog.  Even though Sugar is only a few weeks old--she's one day older than John--George is trying to train her to protect our chickens, goats, and children. 

 

 

Sugar is sweet.  (No pun intended.)

 

~Joy