All things family-related. My husband and me, the children we made, the grandbebes that thrill us now. Our whole great big, loud, messy family. Love! *sigh…
Well the Worship and the Word Movement & Friends Christmas Concert was a rousing success!
Incredible music: Dave & Tara Powers, Rocky Rhoades, Dan Wakefield with Todd Herbic (drums) and Stormie Rhoades (bass). They were joined by special guests Lewis and Ramona Brownwho brought the house down, Dave Beegle the world-class-guitarist, and our good friend, Mary Ellsworth, plus Churchill played! Churchill! And DJ Life (of Transform DJs, aka Luke Bodley of Heaven Fest) brought a lot of Christmas joy by spinning some high energy traditional-gone-techno stuff. My friend Heather’s sweet little girl was heard to say “I danced my butt off,” which means she had great fun, I believe. Then Ellie Pickettbrought it on O Holy Night! When Dave started harmonizing with her toward the end, wow! Actually, I mean W O W!!
I think (partially judging by the mad rush for desserts and sweets provided by sweet-Patrice of Patrice’s Pantry), we had about 600 or so in attendance. It was fun, it was touching and it was filled great joy and good fellowship. It was a great night for families and friends, for kids from 1 to 92. Just a good show and sweet worship, too.
Here is a look back at the the very end of the night when the “band-of-brothers” Dave, Dan and Rocky closed the evening. My husband, I am certain, will be posting more of the great music from the night on his youtube channel.
Finale to the WWM & Friends Christmas Concert:
Oh, AND, we collected over 2200 pairs of socks for the homeless! YEAH!
Then Rocky at church on this fine {warm and sunny} Sunday morning before Christmas, O Come Emmanuel:
Christmas is for singing, just like the angels did!
We came. We baked and dipped and sprinkled and nibbled. We dropped from sugar shock.
Each year, us Rhoades girls get together for a big bake-off…and to dip anything that can be dipped/rolled/bathed in melted chocolate into it! Confectioners sugar, sparkly red and green sugars, Dr-Seuss-inspired sprinkles and nuts fly through the air as every available space, covered with calorie-laden ingredients gives way to platters full of pretty, delectable Christmas yummies!
Tara was in Estes this year, so it was just Stephanie and her girls, Guini and Gemma, Tredessa, Stormie, Jovan and Averi and me (though baby Amelie Belle was nearby as an honorary decorator and did contribute by popping an icing-covered mini-sugar-cookie-star into her mouth to taste test (which we ever-so-quickly removed, but not before she was able to suck the buttercream clean off it). She loved it and cannot wait to help again next year!
Best brand new recipe this year?
Goes to Stephanie’s Oreo balls. You could seriously die happy eating these, and perhaps could, for they are rich and sweet and melt-in-your-mouth amazing!
Best old recipe no one made because everyone thought some one else would be making it?
The Girl-Scout Thin mint knock-offs. They are so easy and stinking wonderful. Even though there is already too too much, we will still have to make these (and by we, I mean Tara :D )!
Runner-up in this category is the English Toffee that Tristan and I must insist upon, by Tredessa, who spent so much time creating thousands of the perfect Peanut Butter Balls yesterday, she just could not find the strength to toffee-candy make.
I have also yet-to-make Dave’s family’s traditional “strawberry cookies,”which are not actual strawberries and do not even include anything strawberry-ish in the recipe, but are merely fomed into a strawberry shape and rolled in red sugar before being adorned with a green icing leaf and tendril, AND they are not really cookies because they aren’t even baked: just cooked ingredients on the stove top. Nonetheless, he needs them each Christmas. And the ingredients are staring at me from the kitchen counter presently.
Yet this morning my house smells sweet and chocolatey and peanut buttery and sugary all at once.
Annually
The boys are allowed to visit us at the end of these crazy-baking-hours for dinner and eating the treats. So very sweet!
Now what shall I have for breakfast? Raspberry Ribbons? Peanut Butter Blossoms? A few dipped pretzels might be nice? Or some perfectly light-crunchy Peanut Brittle? I am fond of the perfect sugar cookies, or some of Annie Hall’s amazing butter cookies (which can be used any number of ways). Oh-oh, maybe lemon bars? No-I know. MEXICAN WEDDING CAKES with my coffee. Oh my goodness: scrumptious!
Yes. Tredessa is ticked because I just threw flour in her face. I was only trying to help because she was otherwise unable to “apply” her own. Geesh.
“… we elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy cane, candy corn, and syrup …” ~Buddy-the-Elf in the movie, Elf
Dave is the romantic lead in the Prairie Playhouse production of the original play, “Christmas Again.”
Tonight is the final performance of this fun, jolly mix of traditional Christmas songs and a heartwarming story with 4 adults and about a dozen and a half kids. It will follow Brighton’s own Parade of Lights downtown and be performed at The Armory (not long ago renovated and restored for community-theater-type events even though I wanted it for my house, geesh). And Dave, among other songs, gets to solo on one of his all-time favorites, “White Christmas,” with the rest of the cast joining in. He was the star of the show, the handsome leading man. But even wholly dedicated to his role in the play, with a “bad woman” flirting with him, and the “good, single mom” winning his heart, he refuses to remove his wedding band.
The older mom of another player saw him at Target today and was quite star-struck, apparently. Get in line, lady!
When (if) I blog about Christmas, when (if) I get the time (because I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas), I shall place this banner in the body of the blog.
Here is what it has:
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“Keep Christmas” because that is actually one of my blog categories and is derived from the Charles Dickens quote, which you may read at the bottom.
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Next there are 1960s baubles and I love the merry cheer they invoke. They were the type of ornament I grew up with and make me happy. It was a google image I happened by and I don’t recall the source. Thank-you, some random jpg-poster!
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Then, I allow you a “sneak peek” at some little Rhoades Family Fun we had a few weeks back. There are some darn cute pictures that will go one our Christmas card – if ever I actually get around to doing that! The grandbebes just bring me joy!
This particular shot (used in the banner) was a split secondbefore total chaos erupted. At this precise moment, Amelie is watching her little tiny life flash before her eyes, because the donkeys just got spooked by the {giant} white calf that walked up on the right. Meanwhile, the alpaca on the left has freaked out the billy goat, who is madly ramming his horns in to a bail of hay and has caused Gemma May to run to hide behind Averi. The miniature donkeys nearly trampled the whole lot of my bebes, but it did not stop our photo shoot. Oh no, it did not. We kept right on shooting with angel-Amelie and Baby (Sawyer) Jesus crying their heads off in the frigid air. It was a hilarious sight to see.
Hunter asked if this was the last year we’d be doing a nativity. “Oh no,” I told him. “Pretty much you’ll be in a Christmas Nativity scene for my Christmas cards until you’re grown and married and have kids I can use.” He seemed to shrug that off without much surprise.
This shot of Stef holding “Baby Jesus” dressed in pink and Rocky holding Baby Jesus’ body-double cracks me up, for some reason.
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The final photo is of the actual tree-topper my family used in the 1960s. “Angel hair,” or spun glass, was all the rage (we’d all tell horror stories of children we’d heard of who’d been dumb enough to run their fingers over the glass threads and began bleeding profusely on to the Christmas tree, each story topping the previous). Truthfully (true confessions) , I never knew of a single cut, yet the myth persisted and annually, we were careful-beyond-carefulto avoid bleeding out as we decorated wih the mysterious and deadly angel hair.
My mom says she picked this topper up in a grocery store, circa 1964. This is what Stormie says I have to explain: I was holding the topper at arms length in front of me because it is the story. She thought I’d just pasted it onto a blurry photo of myself. So there. You can’t see my arm much, but it was there! The ANGEL was the focus (or should I say, the “paper angel” to fully distinguish between the two of us? ;D ha-ha-ha ).
Oh. Well, I DID paste on a fake Santa hat. There is that, I guess.
In the end, the banner is just a reminder to you, to me, to KEEP CHRISTMAS, the celebration & worship of the Christ, because Jesus is all, and all in all….
Got to hang with cousins Hunter and Averi recently, which was lovely.
click on thumbnails for a larger view
And Rocky sang to Jovan for her birthday.
A Bruno Mars song. She loved it. His mommy may even have cried a little at the romance of such sweetness. Isn’t it nice when we can love someone just the way they are (even if we’d tweek them a little here or there if it were up to us??}? And isn’t it glorious beyond comprehension when some one loves us that way???
And my little Kelley-sisters-grandbebes visited
Under the canopy of yellow-leafed Aspens just beyond the patio. We use Christmas lights in trees even in summer for magical nights under blue-blue skies.
And this is a SNEAK PEEK at some Rhoades family fun we had at the farm this weekend. More to come!
Tristan went to Austria to play drums for a missions worship team recently.
Austria has chocolate and really good pastry (and tafelspitz, and germkenodel). and is where Arnold Schwarzenegger came from. Julie Andrews made their hills famous as she twirled and sang. Lots o’ composers were from this little nation (Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Brahms and more). It is mainly Catholic, but mostly in a traditional, religious way. And it is a great mission field.
Tris and the worship team take on the castle.
Got to see pictures and hear his experience last night. The missionaries throw country music into the worship set list because people are drawn to that. A little Keith Urban here, a little Brad Paisley there. But they did not “get” Brad’s song, “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” about a guy whose wife gives him an ultimatum. They thought they were misunderstanding the translation and asked, “Why would a man choose fishing over his wife?” Perplexed, they were.
And it turns out they are NOT fans of “The Sound of Music.” Tris said they find it campy and believe it paints them in a bad light, to which my husband speculated sarcastically, “You mean because they sided with the Germans?!” Never-mind him, Tris. You went. You played. You ministered!
And everytime one of Tristan’s photos did show some beautiful hills, it was hard for me not to break into song. They did get that right!
I doubt this Austrian street drummer knew he was no match for our Tristan. Ahem.
When my kids go, I stay and pray. My honor to do so, to share my kiddos with the nations! And Tristan is wonderful. He brought us Mozart’s Balls (chocolate truffles, people) from the land of “singing hills” and coffee, too. Yum!
Stormie got baking chocolate. Mmmm…what loveliness awaits us this holiday season, I wonder? NOTE: Careers with McDonalds are available there, it seems.
Wanna hear some awesome Holy-Spirit-anointed drumming by Tristan Kelley?Right HERE! Click on “Freedom” (also down-loadable) for 34 minutes of his playing with scriptures on the topic read by Pastor Lewis Brown and Lewis Brown Junior (Proxy). Very cool!
In other family-missionary travels news…
Mary Jean just returned from 6 weeks Scotland, England, Estonia, and Norway~
That woman travels and teaches! AND she brought me ART! A signed and numbered piece called Heart Garden in a series of paintings about the heart (from Proverbs 4.23)…isn’t it beautiful? There is actually so much to look at in all the details!
Overall, pretty lame, as Keanu {so very cute, but seemingly pretty empty-ish and not much good at dramatic parts), plus the melodramatic storyline will most usually end up (did you recall hoiw much hope I had for “A Walk in the Clouds”? *sigh…). Anyhow, rather unsatisfactory and weird story, but a few interesting quotes I am fond of and the title is nice! ;p
Nelson: Why a month? Sara: Because it’s long enough to be meaningful, but short enough to stay out of trouble.
Nelson: Try to be wrong once in awhile. It’d do my ego good.
Sara: You’re my immortality, Nelson.
Sara: Nelson, do you want to be my November? Nelson: Yes.
Nelson: November is all I know, and all I ever want to know.
Nelson: This is it. Life will never be better or sweeter than this.
If only the movie had been as lovely as these lines…FYI: A really really great movie to see each November is “Pieces of April” starring Katie Holmes. It is a sweet Thanksgiving movie (thank-you Rob and Carol Ann for introducing me to it!).
PICTURED: The K-kids – Gavin, Guinivere and Gemma; and Hunter-Magoo!
In the dark of all All Hallowed Eve, 24 years ago today, a light was born
“You are the light of the world, a city on a hill cannot be hidden.” Matthew 5.14
Last year I sang to you for your birthday, remember?
“So hold onto Jesus, baby wherever you are…”
This year, I am singing this song of great wisdom over you and your sweet life. I really do hope you’ll have no fear and never be afraid to dance, to fall, to succeed, to make a mistake or try what your heart wants to try.
I really do hope that – that you’ll live your life in the middle of the fulness of joy Jesus has for you! And may it cause dancing and rejoicing! Thank-you for loving my son like you do and for raising my granddaughters like you are. You are the beautiful girl your parents raised so well to share with us and we are grateful. And glad to call you our own.
I love you wholly, Jovan. I have you in my heart. Happy Birthday!
You shine!
“…so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—…” Philippians 2.15-16 NIV
A Christmas present I shall be making for 2 young grandbebes, who shall remain nameless, but may or may not be pictured in this blog post (thank-you, Martha Stewart, for the idea) sent me to Michael’s…where I bought a bag of something I’ll need (which I can’t tell you in case said grandbebes read this! ;p ), which is usually $5.99, however was on a clearance table for $2.99, but when in fact, I went through the check-out, was only 1-cent. That is right! One red penny.
I sense God’s smile on this project. I’ll give you a sneak peek later. Shhhhhh…..
