Just a quick greeting from my house to yours as we enter into this week of calendared “thanks”–a practice that should follow us every day of our lives. I’ll be offline most of the week, but wanted to send you a pre-Christmas tour of my life!
I pray God’s peace and blessings to you all as you center your hearts around an intentional day of gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy in our country and the freedoms we know because of Christ Jesus. As always…
peace for the journey,
~elaine
Have a wonderful week of rest, family and lots of Jesus. Love you friend…
Lelia
Oh, what fun…we were putting our tree together tonight. Lights and ornaments will come later, when Bo is home.
Were your ears burning? Trying to convince my guys to buy new lights each year, as you and Billy do. We'll see…
I have some of the same snowman decorations from Hallmark, and also have an advent calendar hanging on our front door.
We miss you, too! Have a blessed Thanksgiving, my friend. Bill and I are so very thankful that God has brought you and Billy into our lives.
Love,
Beth
I started getting decorations out today, too. Don put the tree together last night and hopefully I will get it decorated soon. Am hoping for no issues with the lights 🙂
Hope you have a wonderful week, my friend. Blessings to you!
The picture is so sweet. 🙂 I love their smiles. 🙂
Have a wonderful days for Christmas.
You… make… my… heart… smile! I love you Elaine! Thank you for sharing!
We put our tree and lights up tonight but the ornaments will wait until Thanksgiving night. A little newly married tradition of ours!
You always move me closer to Him, Elaine – to the very one "who loves us all the way to the cross".
Happy Thanksgiving and much love to you!
Enjoy your thanksgiving sweetie.
Those little ones are sure growing!
I love your planning & organization. You're a girl after my own heart (but then, I always knew that)!
You'd be so proud to see all my decorations, including a TREE (the one I bought last year at your insistence). The tree's still naked, but at least it's up. It took be awhile to track down all the decorations. Hopefully it'll be clothed in glitz by nightfall.
We're off to WA State to spend the holiday with the kiddos, flying north VERY early Thanksgiving Day. How thankful am I – and I can't wait!
Hugs,
Kathleen
Just loved seeing you and hearing you again! May God Bless your time together this holiday season.
Decorating Tip: I have saved the kids' Christmas school projects over the years – some from pre-school and on up. I hang them on a yarn line with clothes pins in my kitchen. We have so much fun looking at all of them and thinking back on what stage in life the kids were in. What a great way to showcase those precious projects and memories!
Happy Thanksgiving my dear friend! I count in my blessings this year! I have loved so much reconnecting with you!!
How special to share with us all! What a beautiful family! Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Miss Elaine,
May you have peace for the journey this week as we settle in and upon with thanksgiving living, in our hearts.
Love to you,
Yolanda
Thank you for the tour. Thank you for the prayer. Thank you for just being YOU and the blessing that you are to all of us! {{{hugs}}}
Loved the tour Elaine! How fun to see where and how you'll be remembering the coming of our Lord this Christmas season.
Would love to hear some of the other books you'll be reading along with us.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving week.
Mary
What fun!! Thanks for sharing!! I'm not ready to think about all the Christmas decorations yet….but your video has inspired me. Blessings to you!!!
I LOVED the whole connection of the 'kids close to their Jesus' Happy Thanksgiving Elaine…enjoy your week!
I love you and pray to meet you Elaine in person on this side of heaven.
Loved the video…
the Manger is my favorite. I have a special one too.
your children's Christmas trees are so cute and perfectly suited right near the Manger.
Now Elaine, I was loving how you turned on all the musical snow men and your rockin santa. So funny.
You had enough ornaments on that table to start a Hallmark store girl! 🙂
You are just so precious. Your prayer for us blessed me into big tears.
Staying close proximity to the manger as you said AND keeping JESUS in my heart as I keep my heart in HIS.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving with your loved ones as I will do with mine. I won't be online after tomorrow either.
Love you.
I have not even thought about Christmas decorations yet! ha Usually I put out decorations for Thanksgiving but think I'll skip it this time since it's already so late.
Getting ready this week to host Thanksgiving at our house which we have done for many, many years now. We expect our three children, their spouses and our two grandbabies. We will be celebrating on Friday though instead of Thursday in order to let our married daughter and son-in-law eat with his side of the family on Thanksgiving Day. That will just give me an extra day to prepare!
I always cook the same menu which goes over great.
Chicken (not turkey)& dressing (southern cornbread style)
Creamed potatoes
English Peas
Corn
Cranberry sauce
Homemade whole wheat rolls
The desserts vary from year to year but they will be homemade.
Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!
Marilyn…in Mississippi
Love this precious video! I pray that you have a super blessed Thanksgiving, a safe journey to the in-laws, and get lots of rest! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
Wylie
Happy Thanksgiving!
You are too cute! Loved the video tour.
This was so sweet….enjoy a blessed Thanksgiving weekend!
We have outside lights up but the inside stuff has to wait until after Thanksgiving! 🙂
Hope you have a great visit with your in-laws and a wonderful Thanksgiving!
First, thank you for stopping by…it was so good to look at the comments and see you there.
What a year it has been! God is so faithful and we have so much to be thankful for.
I enjoyed the tour of your Christmas decorations and the sweet reminders you gave. We serve a God who is soooo in touch with His people…and so worthy of our love, adoration and praise.
Have a blessed time with your family….may you return refreshed in body, soul and spirit.
Happy Thanksgiving to your family! Yes, daily gratitude is always order. We're preparing for Thursday and also digging up our Jesse Tree ornaments to begin Advent Sunday evening. It's an exciting time. Blessings & peace.
Fun video! Thanks for sharing–thanks for praying!
Have a great week of rest and relaxation as you spend time with family and Jesus.
Rebecca
Sit before the Lord! Love this my friend! I need a moment…should have taken one earlier, but…the busyness overcame! Thanks for the sweet reminder.
Love all of your Christmas things!! Precious! And the kids' picture…darlin'!!!
Do you have "The Polar Express" in the basket? I love that one!
Y'all have fun in Chapel Hill…we're headed for Knoxville in the morning using some route that goes around the rock slide!! Mercy! Happy Thanksgiving, sweet friend! Love to the family!
Hugs!
susan
You make my heart smile too 🙂
Elaine, you have heard this…right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BxFZdaSLso (My dear friend Evie is the storyteller and singer.)
Hugs today,
Joy
It is always good to *see* you Elaine! And you blessed my heart to hear and see you just come before the father in prayer just like you do at the end of some blog posts – so natural to you – my favorite part!
And what a jewel Billy is to film you and your Christmas festivities! You dancing Santa made me laugh! I love my kids decorations too. Was reading in Revelation 4 recently and with all the descriptions that are made in proximity to the throne, your comment about placing your treasures in close proximity to the manger just struck a chord with me.
You are among my thanksgiving blessings!
Absolutely love your video!!
Praying for you this week and may you have sweet times with your family my friend.
Sweet Blessings and Happy Thanksgiving!
Jackie
Thank you for opening up your heart and home to us. I so enjoyed another peek at your heart via video. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Thank you for your friendship. I look forward to what God will continue to do as we blog for Jesus. I hope to meet you face to face someday, Lord willing.
Love you, Elaine.
Hi Elaine – I passed along a creative blog award to you – come by to pick it up.
Hey Elaine,
Stopping by to wish you and your family a blessed, joyful Thanksgiving.
We're heading to my inlaws in a little bit and will spend the next few days with them. The day will feature our annual backyard football game of our family vs. my sister-in-law's. My kids have been making up trick plays all week!
Enjoy the break from blogging. Have fun with your decorating! I'll start mine in a week or two.
Blessings, my friend,
Kelli
I enjoyed the video. Lots of good ideas. Happy Thanksgiving, Doylene
Elaine… As usual I enjoyed your video and listening to you 🙂 May you and your family enjoy your time together this Thanksgiving Day!
Blessings my friend,
Debbie
What a neat video Elaine! I loved your tour and all the homey and well loved decor! Thank you for letting us 'come in' and walk through your home. It makes YOU so personal, and not just a photo. I loved it!
Elaine,
Just played catch-up with your posts this month. I pray you had a blessed Thanksgiving.
LOVED so much of what you wrote. As always, I leave FULL.
love you friend, Joanne
My goodness, you are organized! Have a peaceful week, full of thanks.
What fun to get a peek inside your crazy weekend. All the boxes, ornaments, and special decorations will come out next weekend for us. Our typical weekend is this weekend, but we decided to just play, read, play some more and eat lots. Happy weekend to you.
Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you Mrs. Elaine:) I tried to watch your video, but I'm at my parent's house and my sis's laptop has no volume. Sad. I like your house decor for Christmas!
Love in Him, ((HUGS)), Blessings,
katiegfromtennessee
Glad you can set apart these days to establish and experience "peace" and "proximity to Jesus." May His blessings be obvious and overflowing in your life, Elaine!
I LOVED that video clip and the sweet visit to your home! 🙂
Now if only I could have sat down and visited with YOU in person a while!