Friday, December 25, 2015

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to you all!!!  Today is Jesus' birthday!!!!  Lets celebrate!!!!

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Holiday Greetings to you!!!  This truly is the best time of the year!!!

 

It’s also the busiest time of year but that’s because we get together with family & friends to

celebrate the birth of Christ!!!  It is by far our favorite holiday!  Christmas brings many festivities! 

Family gatherings!  The smells of warm cookies.  I love the smells of fresh cut pines that get cut and placed

around the house for décor.  Gifts get purchased and wrapped.  Lights get strung.  We drive down the road admiring

 the Christmas lights and efforts that people do to make the season sparkle!  Christmas music gets played in our home daily. 

Christmas carols are sung.  It’s like a huge celebration going on all season long!!!  At school.  At church.  In town. 

In the malls.  Everywhere!!!  We LOVE to celebrate the birth of Christ!!! 

For it is because of His life that we can have eternal life in heaven!

 

Our year has been a year of changes, challenges, plus much excitement!!!  I’ll share some of our highlights.

 

Michael:  Loves his Savior.  Employer at Lapps Structures.  Best daddy to our four adorable children.  Still plays baseball.  Loves golf, strong coffee, thin crust pizza, chips and coke!  Loves to be with people!  Enjoys date nights with his wife!  Mike also loves to learn about investing and got to do some traveling while getting more educated.  We took a family trip to Ohio in September for Mike to play in a ball tournament and he was finally, after many years, able to help bring home the first place trophy!  He also played for the Titans this summer and they won the town league championship!  His baseball season went well!  J  One of his dreams in life was to build a nice home for our family.  That is in process right now!!!  Mike has worked countless evenings and spent abundance of hours working to get this project finished before Christmas.  We are counting down the days for our ‘move in’ date!!!  The kids really can’t get enough of their daddy’s time and attention!!!  They love him so much!  He takes seriously the blessings God gives to us and raising our children for the Lord is his upmost life time goal!!!  I think he is the best daddy our children could ever have!!!

 

Lori:  Mother of four children.  Loves her wonderful husband.  Loves Jesus!  Loves to still go on dates with our children’s daddy!!!  Likes to shop.  I like and try to be organized.  Likes to blog on our family blog page.  (Reallife-lori.blogspot.com)  Coffee with cream, please.  I like to listen to music!  I love, love a routine.  And, boy, was that a challenge for me this year!!!  I wouldn’t mind if my schedule would mostly be the same week after week.  But I was challenged because we had some really big changes take place over the past year.  One, we now attend Honeybrook Community Church and loving it!  Two, had baby number 4!!  Three, moved out of our home and into a basement for remodeling to take place!!!  I did not have a choice but to adjust and embrace the changes.  On July 1, we could not wait for our baby number four to be delivered!  Austin Kendrick came into our lives as a healthy baby boy!  Mike, the kids and family helped me out like crazy with the house work while I was recovering from a C-section.  And when Austin was only four weeks old, I know … call us crazy, we moved out of our home and into dad-in-laws basement.  After living in the same old house for fourteen years and everything, everything needed to be packed up, moved to the basement, or be put into storage … made lots of extra work for us.  It was one of the biggest jobs I ever had!  We packed and went through so many things before baby arrived to help keep it simpler when we did actually move out.  Many thanks to family and friends who helped us through all this and blessed us with baby gifts and meals during this time!!!  We adjusted well to living in the basement but we are all very, very ready to move back home!  Our family became very familiar with the word “temporary”!!!  I can’t wait to live in our new home and be settled in for the New Year!!!  I know it will take me all winter to put everything in place and have a more organized home but that’s ok!  That will be the fun part … moving back home!!!  With a teenager, and ten year old son, a toddler and a six month old baby boy … this momma is lovingly busy!!!  J  I am so blessed to have such a wonderful, supportive husband and children!  My goal still remains that even though we will move into a bigger and new home to remember things here on earth are temporary!  I strive to set my eyes on eternal goals while living with God’s blessings here on earth!

 

Hadassah:  Volleyball player.  Serves hard and spikes down a good set.  Does very well in school.  “A” student.  Works hard for her good grades!  Loves to be with friends!  Loves to pin on Pinterest.  Has self-discipline.  Has a contagious laugh!  Cares for her house dog Ginger.  Loves to shop.  Hadassah has been such a blessing to our family this year and extra much when Austin was born!  She was my ‘in home’ maid.  J  She helped me with so much around the house while I recovered from my C-section.  I was so grateful!  She also helped pack up box after box when it was time to move out of our home so the remodeling could begin.  I was not ready for the school term to begin because then there would go my biggest helper back to the classrooms.  But Hadassah loves school and she was ready to see her friends and get back to school life.  She is now taller than her mom.  She wears a bigger shoe size than her mom.  J  She’s growing up to be a young lady and we appreciate her great attitude in life!  She cares about people and has a personal relationship with Jesus.  Hadassah is really enjoying her 8th grade year.  She just came through a wonderful volleyball season at school and starred in the sport!  She was happy to receive the MVP player trophy!  She is excited and a bit nervous when it comes to thinking about high school.  Moving back home and having her own room and bathroom is something Hadassah is really looking forward to!!!  She is also anticipating a class mission’s trip in the spring.  It is so neat to see her grow and blossom for the Lord!

 

 

Matthew:  Family boy.  Loves to play baseball.  Likes routines and a schedule too!  Made lots of new friends at church this year.  Loves to be with his dad!!!  Matthew is growing taller and is doing great in school.  He is really enjoying Mrs. Felter as his new 5th grade teacher.  I am very impressed at how he has learned to take responsibility for his homework.  Matthew loves family time.  He teases his sisters (especially Ashlyn) more than his mom can take at times but loves them with deep affection!  J  Matthew played baseball this past summer again and did wonderful on his team!!!  He is a key player and is really good!  He has talent and ball skills like his daddy and throws catch every night with him during the summer months.  He was also extremely grateful for another brother!!!  Austin loves when Matthew fusses to him!  I’m sure they will become best friends!  Matthew likes going to the cabin with family and makes it a highlight!  He spent many nights helping Mike work at the house and cannot wait to move back home and get back “to normal” living conditions.  However, he does like having Mommy Lapp’s cereal selections right upstairs and has enjoyed having a creek right nearby.  Lots of crawfish were caught here this summer!  We love Matthew’s calmness in life and the charm that he adds to our family!

 

Ashlyn:  A sweet four year old girl.  Loves to play doll house.  Gardener.  Is such a great big sister and entertainer to Austin. Still plays with “Baby Kate”.  J  Likes to watch Peppa Pig.  Paints her finger nails often.  Loves her cousins!  Ashlyn is our long, blond hair girl!  She adds much spice to our lives!  She was very excited to have Austin join our family this summer and is very helpful with caring for him.  She loves to help me with gardening.  We only have a small family garden but we hope to make a small garden just for her.  She absolutely loves to plant seeds and see them grow!  She is also the one who eats the most vegetables!  Her favorite combination is cooked corn, sautéed mushrooms and cold black olives.  J  I love that she likes healthy foods!  Ashlyn can’t wait to move back home and play with her kitties.  She likes to color, play with play doe, make Austin laugh and loves to receive mail.  She always looks to see if there is something in the mail for her.  J  I know she will be delighted to open up all the Christmas cards we will receive this season!  She’s so cute and adorable!  She prays.  She sings.  She is such a blessing to our family!

 

Austin:  Six months old.  Smiles often.  Loves to be entertained.  Adores his daddy and siblings!  Is a happy baby.  His mom is his favorite care taker!  J  He was born with blond hair and blue eyes.  Austin arrived in our arms on July 1st!  We were all excited to have another healthy baby boy join our family!  He loves to be held.  Loves to be kissed and cuddled.  Likes to be fussed to and coos.  His favorite is to lay on his back on the living room floor and watch his toys.  Everything that he grabs goes into his mouth.  He jumps and fusses in his Johnny jump.  He can sit in the saucer and play with the toys.  He can now roll from belly to back and back to belly.  He is the happiest in the morning and loves to wake up early.  Austin is such a blessing to us and we are so grateful God put him into our lives!  What a privilege it is to be his parents and it is so much fun to watch him grow and move into new stages.  Austin is a gift from the Lord!

 

With the Christmas season now upon us, let’s remember to celebrate the birth of Christ!  To wrap Jesus around our lives just as Mary and Joseph “wrapped him in swaddling clothes”.  To sing with the angels “glory to God in the highest”.  Let’s rejoice with the shepherds as they went with haste to see baby Jesus and “glorified and praised God for all the things that they had heard and seen”.  To worship like the wise men did “when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.  And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” 

The whole earth rejoiced when Jesus was born!!!  The whole earth was saved when Jesus died for our sins! 

As a believer, let’s thank Jesus for the gift of eternal life with him!!!

 

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”  Isaiah 9:6

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

 

Love,

The Lapp Family

          
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We moved into our new home just in time to enjoy the holidays and celebrate Christ's birth!!!  I feel like I've been going 100 miles an hour ever since Monday!!!  It's all exciting and we are so blessed to be moved back home!!!  (More on the whole moving thing later!!!  Now, I must go and do some packing so we can have Christmas with my family!)

Merry Christmas!!!