Because of Jesus...

...we have Hope.

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth

and thick darkness is over the peoples,

but the Lord rises upon you

and his glory appears over you.

Nations will come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

~Isaiah 60:1-3

Celebrating the first week of waiting,

the first week of advent.

Advent

Advent is almost here. Will you be celebrating?

We are doing some new things this year as we prepare for Christmas. We will be doing a weekly study of the Advent wreath. It is already made & posted on the pantry door.

Fancy, I know... some green construction paper and an old file folder.

And we've got some candles ready and waiting to be colored, cut out and glued to the wreath.

We have our Advent coloring books, which I printed (free) from here.

I found it a little difficult to find a free weekly study about Advent, so the lessons will be from a combination of sources.

We're also bringing back a tradition that we started last year.

This is our Jesse Tree. It's some branches from our Tulip tree in the back yard that we put in a vase of cotton balls. We keep it on the dining room table, and each night we read the devotional after dinner. The boys take turns hanging up each evening's ornament.

We unpacked the ornaments and devotional yesterday.

Last year was our first year with the Jesse Tree, and we loved it. You can download your own here for free. Many thanks to Ann Voskamp for sharing this beautiful resource.

How will you be celebrating Advent?

I'm back

Hey, all. I've got a ton to share, first of which is that I've missed you. I've missed sharing things with you. Whether or not you've missed me is, I suppose, a question that hangs in the air. See, a while back I sort of withdrew from the whole blogosphere. I'm not sure why... I guess life got busy... but, I stopped posting and I stopped reading. Except for a few of my favorites.

One that I've mostly kept up with is smockityfrocks.com. That Smockity is funny and wise; she makes me laugh and teaches me something new every day. She is the kind of writer whom you start to feel like you actually know her after you follow her for a while. You just know that if you bumped into her in the grocery store, you'd absolutely want to be her best friend!

Right now, she has a fantastic giveaway that you absolutely must check out. Vision Forum is giving away some gift certificates through her blog. If you haven't heard of Vision Forum, you should definitely check out their site. It's a great source for Christian books. I receive the catalog in the mail, and I can tell you that I'm so excited to get it... I think I must know how my sweet grandmother used to feel when the Sears and Roebuck catalog came.
So, be sure to check out this link:

http://www.smockityfrocks.com/2011/11/600-vision-forum-giveaway.html

for chances to win.

Another blog that I have continued to lurk on is A Holy Experience. Ann helps me stay grounded and helps me remember to slow down and make time for my Father. Okay, she also makes me think that I might like to sell our belongings and move to the middle of nowhere to become a farmer, but that's only because her photographs are beautiful, her words are poignant and her quiet approach to faith is calming. We will be getting our Jesse Tree out this weekend. It's our second year, and I can't wait. You should check out her blog when you get a chance.

I've got more news and thoughts to share, so check back soon!