A gift for my dad

My dad is an amazing man. He is a daily example of unselfish love. 

Over the years he has spent countless hours helping me with my art program, tackling chores that most people not only don't want to do, but never see. For example, just last week he sorted, washed, dried and stored a thousand soiled flag blanks for me. And these weren't just dirty.. they were rodent soiled from being in cardboard boxes in a storage building. UGH! 

So anyway, I wanted to do something to show my appreciation and I've been wanting to try a new art project, so I figured this would be a good time. When I think of my dad, I think of music and art. Specifically, screen printing... and I just happen to have access to some of the screens that he used in his business for twenty plus years!

I pulled this photo off my dad's facebook page. This is so him!  In fact, this was him in his early twenties.

I took the picture and edited it in photoshop and used it to draw on the silk screen. I used a couple of different kinds of sharpie markers as I found that the plain sharpie dried a grey color, but the one that was created for fabric dried black. You can see the difference in the two below.

Here is the piece in process. I ended up going over the entire thing a few times as I liked the dark contrast on the screen. (If I had time, I would have used both shades to create more depth.. but no time!)

Here is the piece complete.

It was so much fun giving him the gift. 

I have to say, this was one of the best gifts I have ever made. I loved creating it and I loved giving it! I know that what made it special was the meaning behind not just the piece but the screen as well.

A new tradition, the interactive Christmas Pageant

Last Sunday we had an "Interactive Christmas Pageant" at church. It was so much fun and was such as success that we have decided that it is our new tradition!

So what did we do that made it so successful?

We took the stress out of it!  Instead of practicing for weeks and stressing everyone out about learning lines and making it to practice, we embraced our need for flexibility and said to everyone, if you can be here on Sunday for the pageant, great! Bring a soup to share and let's spend time together.

And that's just what we did.  I found a script that I tweaked for our church and we ran through it a couple of times with the kids during Sunday School, but we didn't ask anyone to learn lines, and no one was required to do/say/wear anything special.

We arrived early and got out all of our props.. fabric, a baby doll, some angel wings and some left over costume parts from a local elementary!

Yes, we really were that rag tag.

Here are Kylie and Kai... Mary and Joseph. They were absolutely adorable.

We had different youth read various parts of the script that outlined the story of Jesus' birth.

But those are the normal things...  what made this pageant special was we invited the adults to join the pageant as the "extras" and during each song (the congregation sang the songs to set the scene such as "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly"), different adults would come to the back and we would dress them as animals, shepherds, angels, wise people and so forth!

Below is a picture of the "animals." 

And as angels. Those little wings were hilarious on the adults!

and as Shepherds.

For the ending, the kids sang "Happy Birthday, Jesus."

Then we had our soup supper!

We had a lot of varieties!

This event was a lot of fun and I really think a huge part of it was the fact that families weren't stressed about it for weeks.  It was also great to watch different people get up to be a part of the service that don't usually volunteer.

So will First Presbyterian Church, Stephenville do this again? Absolutely! I'm already making a list of props I want to get for next year!  And Doug will be making a larger batch of his chicken and dumplings!

A Simple Christmas

With life absolutely nuts, I'm purposefully taking things a little easier for Christmas. This means fewer decorations, fewer gifts and fewer obligations.

In fact, while I had already explained to the girls that we were going to be doing the 4 gift Christmas this year (1 gift you want, 1 gift you need, 1 gift to wear, 1 gift to read), I was reminded tonight of why we all need to refocus.

Because you see, while Kylie and Lexi were decorating the tree, Kylie thought it was fun to place the little elf figurines with the nativity scene. And that BOTHERED ME!! 

I am completely aware that my sweet girl had no disrespect in mind, but really? Is this were we are at? Has elf lore taken over my home?

NOT THIS YEAR!

I quickly called on my pastor/husband to explain in a calm fashion that the elf means nothing. In fact, the elf isn't making an appearance at our house this year. "Jingle" is needed elsewhere.. and that's cool. We have Jesus.

Anyway..

As I worked on my digital portfolio for my class, Maddie finished off the decorations for the tree.

 Thanks Mad.

And there you have it. Our decorations. DONE.

I'd say that was more than enough to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Candlelight Christmas Eve

One of the church celebrations that I have looked forward to the most now that Doug is back pastoring was the Christmas Eve service. These is absolutely NOTHING that matches the awe and reverence that comes with the candlelight singing of Silent Night.

Maddie got sick during the afternoon with her fever spiking to 103.5 and I was so bummed. She has been sick many a Christmas (scrapbooked to prove it..) but given that she was sick last Christmas as well, she was really disappointed. I had been working all day getting treats ready for after the service and was determined that we would find a way for me to be there for at least a few minutes of this special time!

So, I gathered up the candy and crackers and took all of my supplies to the church early and got everything set up and then hightailed it back home so that Doug and the littles could get to church on time.

 

After giving Maddie another dose of meds, I ran to church and snuck in the back for the end of the service. JUST IN TIME!! whew.

Here is a glimpse. You can almost here the singing!

I absolutely LOVE this picture of Doug helping a child light her candle with the Christ candle!

What a sweet child.

I didn't get any pictures of Lexi or Kylie with their candles as they were sitting down front and I snuck in the back. I will make a point to do so next year!

And if any of you out there haven't ever been to a Christmas Eve service, you should put it on your calendar for next year!

Family Christmas Celebrations

There are times throughout the year that I feel bad for the rest of you. Yesterday was one such day. Yesterday, we had our traditional Maxwell Family Christmas Celebration.  We had so very much fun. Below is a recap.. I almost hate to share our joy as it seems wrong when I know that others don't have what I have. But I'll share for those of you that enjoy seeing the antics of my family!

The first thing we do is eat. We have a wide variety of foods. We start with dessert. It's not that we plan to, we just like to snack.. so we ate some "Christmas Crack" along with some prosciutto and mozzarella.

One of the great things about my parent's retirement house is that we can all eat together in one room. We had to do some shifting, be we got everyone together!

After eating, we do our annual family picture. I love these pictures! I did finally realize that the reason my face is never focused cause I focus the camera and start the timer and the run and jump in the picture at the end. I really need to get one of those remotes so that I can have a non-blurry face!

After the real picture, we take the crazy picture. These are truly some of the best pictures we have! They are adorable!

Moments later we are ready to open gifts.

oh wait.. a picture with me? :)

One of the best parts of this process is not what is in the packages, but the absolute joy on everyone's face. And in case you didn't know... joy is LOUD!

After the kid's craziness abates the adults do a gift exchange. We have themes every year. This year we did "free trade" gifts. I bought earrings from Noonday. I brought home a cool bracelet from Ten Thousand Villages. This was a really fun theme.

After the exchange we played. Kylie asked for skates and Mom bought them for her and her same-aged cousins. The three of them had a ball!!

 

My dad has a model train that he was given as a child. I LOVED that train growing up. He got it out after years in storage and the kids loved it. Hudson seen in the picture below LOVES trains and was in his element sending it back and forth over and over again!

The weather was gorgeous and we spent hours outside. (okay, I was cold and it was was windy, but the kids didn't care.) 

One of the favorite activites is always tossing the footballs. Well, this year, tossing the football was taken to a new level.

It started innocently. Dad mentioned that the guys could knock off the rest of the pecans out of the tree with the footballs.  Well....

3 footballs stuck in the tree. 

Here is what followed.

yeah.

My dad... up the ladder, into the tree, standing on a branch, holding a stick...  his four daughters yelling at him to get down!

That's when I went inside.

Thankfully he came down... well long enough to find a bigger stick.

Anyway,  we had a blast. The kids love playing together and my sister's and I enjoy talking and laughing and watching our children renew their bonds.

These moments are special and fleeting I know. How thankful I am.