Get your confidence back!

A group of four of us from church went to see Beth Moore in El Paso on Friday and Saturday. Wow! It was great. She is just like you would expect her to be live. Her presentation was about digging your confidence out of the trash. The key verse for the weekend was in Hebrews.

So do not thorow away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews 10:35-36.

Through John 15:5 and Philippians 4:13 we learned about humble confidence.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

She had eight points through out the session. I really liked the conclusion point.

• Daily and deliberately believe God over every other influence.

Movie night and the past week

On Friday night, the Baptist church in San Simon played "Fireproof." We couldn't pass up the babysitting part. I highly recommend that movie. It was an excellent movie.

I guess I should have started at the beginning of the week. San Simon was hosting the country gospel band "Desert Reign." We went on Monday to see them play. They were very good. It was an extremely meaningful service. I came away very moved.

On Saturday, we did some outside cleaning and then went to count all our new little baby calves. This is my favorite part of ranching. Seeing those cute little babies out there with their mothers. We have a total of 4 new babies and lots of cows that are getting very close. After that Jed offered to take one kid on the four wheeler to fix fence while the rest of us waited in the pick-up. Of course every one of the kids wanted to go. The clincher was when Leo very loudly expressed his want to go. So Jed gave in and we all piled on and began the slow treacherous drive along the back fence. I have to admit, I wanted to go also. The idea of sitting in a parked pick-up with kids bouncing off the doors just didn't appeal to me. It was very fun. We managed to climb a very high hill and we all got to look out over the vast countryside in awe. I got to practice praying without ceasing during our entire venture. One failed move and we all could have been wiped out. We managed to literally "prop" the fence that was down in several placing, make it back to the pick-up, load up, and beat the rapidly deflating front tire (on the pick-up) all the way home.

The Weekend

On Saturday, we had a few cows to gather. We are scaling back on the cow scene and so we are consolidating the herd to sell some this weekend. We found them pretty easily and successfully pinned them. The day was so beautiful we spent the rest of the day outside. On Sunday, we had just a nice of day and spent the afternoon outside. The kids wanted to ride Blondie both days.

Christmas Morning

We enjoyed company with a big breakfast. We hung around the house for a while and then went to Duti's for a 2:00 lunch.

We had a good Christmas, celebrating the greatest gift ever, Jesus!

Christmas Program

Eventually I will get all these Christmas posts on.



On December 21, we had a Christmas program/concert at church. It was very nice. I taught all the kids a simple Merry Christmas Baby Jesus song and they also sang a few other numbers in larger groups. It was very cute.

The loud voice you hear towards the end was me, of course. I almost didn't post this video because of my voice. Ugh... The part of the song I like the most is: "It's Your presence not some presents we love most on Christmas day." I love how miraculous the Christmas story really is.

The Great Tree Hunters

Okay... so our Christmas tree looks like a greaseweed (I am unsure of the technical name) bush. Our days were getting short. I wasn't feeling well and no one else was up to making the trek to hunt a tree between Lordsburg and Silver City, so we opted for the next best thing. The best part of this picture is the fact that we are still on the road. I didn't even get any pictures of the kids and Jed decorating.

Easy Gingerbread Houses

About a week before Christmas, for the first time, we made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. It was a lot of fun. Of course the builder had to instruct us on building the house. He used terms like gable ends...

A fun time was had by all. Leo was in sugar heaven. And by the looks of Bruce's face, he tasted the frosting a few times. Clea didn't taste too much, she got all involved making a fence around her house with gumdrops.