UPDATE!

Elaine is now home from the hospital! She is having almost no pain and her incision is healing fast. She will be on antibiotics for 2 weeks and will have to keep the wound clean and dressed as it heals from the inside out.
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!!

Please PRAY for the CLARK family!
Joel's sister Elaine had a precious baby via c-section last week- his name is Jacob. Her husband Wayne and new big sister Cora were also so proud!
















Well, today-Sunday, Elaine was readmitted to the hospital for an infection and had to be "opened up" again. Please pray for the infection to go away and quick-super fast healing! Also ask for grace for the rest of the family, Im sure its hard to have mommy back up at the hospital.
THANK YOU!!!

"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matthew 21:22

A WEEK IN PICTURES

Its been a week full of fun activities! The kids are out of school, so it has been busy around here!
This is just to highlight some of our adventures. (Click on image to see larger picture)

We started off at Pawpaw and Nana's house. We enjoyed all of our family.







We then celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve. We all opened lots of presents!









We spent Christmas morning at our home. The kids went through their stockings from "Santa" and opened their gifts from us. The theme for the girls were Littlest Pet Shop- I think we own everything "Pet Shop" now!














And Dylan got a new tractor! But this tractor isnt new, it was Joel's when he was a little boy. Our daddy restored it- isnt it amazing? This tractor is solid medal and will last many more centuries to come!














Taylor enjoying his new sippycups and toys in the trailor of the tractor. He also got a walker to help him walk- yes he is now a crawler! That is a post in itself!














We also visited our Granny's family. It was fun to see the extended family. (forgot to take the camera for photos)
We spent the rest of the week baking with mom's new mixer, having manicures and pedicures with our new polishes, and playing with all our new toys. Daddy got to stay home too. It was nice.







This last Friday we spent the evening with Granny and Granpa and all our cousins and aunts and uncles. We had a special Christmas! We couldn't believe it, but Uncle Matthew showed up as a surprise!! We love our Uncle Matt (Taylor is named after him- Matthew Taylor) The girls were estatic to get their new Bibles.





This is what our dad looked like most of the week. Carrying packages and presents!














Finally, on Saturday, we had the "Strickland Family Christmas". Lots of folks resembling the Strickland clan came. We had a great time, Papa and Granny have lots of space for the kids to run and play. Taylor and Jackson also got to play together, it was cuuute!





We are so blessed to be able to have spent our Christmas with so much family! It was a rich week! We hope your Christmas was just as rich!

Merry Christmas!!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Ornaments on our tree.

With much inspiration from Charity's blog, we have decided to share with you what ornaments are on our tree and their significance. (Click to enlarge photo)

This is our very FIRST ornament as a married couple.








This is from our second Christmas, and one of our favorites.









Believe it or not, this ornament has engraved "Joel's first Christmas 1978"










A tree I decorated with my second grade picture in it.








Kayla's first ornament







Emily's first ornament










Dylan's first ornament









We are working on Taylor's first ornament.

Two very special ornaments worth mentioning. The angel was handmade by a dear woman of my side of our family. Her name was Alice and she loved us dearly. The manger scene was handmade by Barbara. A very kind woman who loves well and has so much talent!








Handmade is our favorite kind of ornaments on our tree.








The snowman is from my adventure in England. We also have a teddybear from Scotland, a glass clover from Ireland, a Rickshaw from India, and the wooden Nativity from Germany.








Candy Canes are highly important on our tree, we eat them all throughout the season.







One of Emily's favorite is the bell that has a brown hair girl (resembling Emy) that says " You're a sweetheart."








Lastly, our tree is covered in the PLASTIC balls. Each one is unique and decorated colorful and glittery. They get used and abused, and never have broken yet.

Grand Prize Winners!!

Yep, Joel and I won the grand prize from a raffle at the ACC staff Christmas party! The prize was 100,000 free airline miles with Southwest Airlines. Realize thats ALOT of miles! It expires December '08.
















This is Southwest Airlines Destinations Map. We are open for any suggestions or ideas as to how/where we should use our miles.

Happy Birthday Aunt ARLEEN!

Because its your birthday (Dec.17th) and because we love you so much we decided to dedicate a post to you!

We made you special paintings. Click here to see Kayla's picture and here to see Emily's picture.

And below is a special video. We hope you have a GREAT BIRTHDAY!



XOXOXOXO,
Joel, Tressa, Kayla, Emily, Dylan, and Taylor.

Lots of COOKIES!!

Kayla and Emily had their 3rd annual cookie party. Everyone had so much fun. We made tons of cookies: chocolate crinkle, snickerdoodles, and special cut sugar cookies with sprinkles. The cookies were bagged up to keep, and bagged to give away. Sprinkles and flour dust was tracked all throughout the house!

Winter Luncheon- COMPLETED!

As you all may or may not know- Im chair of the Teacher Appreciation Committee at Woodway Elementary. I LOVE IT! I get to appreciate a wonderful staff of a wonderful school. At Christmas we put on a luncheon, which is alot of work, but well worth it. This couldnt be possible without amazing committee members- Susan, Jenny and Angela.














THANK YOU to those of you who supported our committee by helping make cookbooks (the ladies of my lifegroup- I owe you BIG), those of you who subbed in a class, or brought a delicious dessert, Leah at Olive Branch-your amazing, and importantly to our daddy for staying home with the boys, and for Papa and Granny to take over with the boys for the afternoon. It was really a wonderful event- and Im glad its over!!!

Our Christmas Card this year

I was so proud. I went to HEB.com and logged into their photo services. I was able to make this card online by uploading the photo from our computer. I was then able to send the card to our local HEB for printing. Later I got a confirmation email that they were ready for pick up. I picked them up and payed for them with milk and a few extra groceries. TREMENDOUS! The envalopes came with them and the cards were inexpensive too! I LOVE a good find!!

SICK and TIRED....

We are all sharing some type of virus. Please pray for our family and a quick healing for everyone. This is noooo fun!

A few of our favorite Christmas movies....

Two year olds online??

Can this be true?
I have found an
excellent website
for Dylan to safely
play on.

All he does is
push buttons
on the keyboard
and things happen!
Check it out at
http://www.fisher-price.com