Reflections

I love New Years Time! I love looking ahead and setting goals for the upcoming year (That will be tomorrow's post) But, I also love looking back on the previous year. I love to look at the many blessing from God, the areas we need to improve in, the memories made.....I thought I'd share a few of those: January We began the New Year of 2009 praying and waiting for our new baby to arrive. Just like 2 of his other siblings, he arrived exactly 4 days late, but right on time. We welcomed Silas Boone Gimenez into our family January 6, 2009 at 12:31 am. Having a new baby has changed our family so much, but we've loved every minute of it! February With no time to waste, February took us back on the deputation trail. It sure is different going to meetings with a newborn! Silas had a bit of colic that puzzled me and Patrick. We worked through those sleepless times. And I spent plenty of services in the nursery with my newborn.

March We had several meetings out of Florida and were glad to return to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. We saw many friends and stayed with the Hartmans. We loved it! And so did our children!

April The month of April was exciting, as well as difficult. This was the month we packed up and moved to Canada. It was hard saying goodbye to all of our family, but we were also excited to take the next step in the ministry the Lord has given to us. One of our concerns (should I say worries?) was our motorhome still hadn't sold. We owed a whole lot of money on it ($40,000!) and not many lookers interested in buying. We knew we would be taking a huge loss. We prayed and asked the Lord to please sell our motorhome and help us with the difference. We finally had a buyer, but he only offered us $26,000. We would be stepping into a $14,000 debt. We decided we needed to take a huge loss and get rid of our motorhome. We took a step of faith that the Lord would somehow provide. Our home church, Winkler Road Baptist Church, gave us a send-off service. The Deacons and Trustees prayed for us and it was such a sweet time. Then, as everyone shook our hands and told us goodbye, they stuffed our pockets with checks and cash. It was unbelievable! As we went back to my parents house that night, we counted the ones, fives, tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds, and checks, and guess what the amount came to!!!!! $14,000 exactly! The next day we walked into the bank with the buyer of our motorhome and paid off our loan in ones, fives, tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds, and checks! Wow! Isn't God good! I will never forget that day for the rest of my life. God is so good and provides right on time!

May At the beginning of this month (on our way to Canada) Patrick's Dad passed away. We're so thankful that he accepted Christ as his Savior and one day we'll see him again in heaven. It's been a hard time for Patrick, especially during a major move out of country. 2 days after we arrived in Quebec Patrick flew back to For Myers to be with his Mom.

June This month was a month of settling in to our new home and getting used to having everything in french. As of this month we also have a teenager living in our home!
We also started classes with our French tutor! Boy, have we got a lot to learn!

July We've enjoyed the beautiful outdoors and even went camping in July! Quebec has beautiful weather this time of year and we enjoyed our yard, walking in the park close by, and camping in Maine.

August Quebec city is gorgeous! We've loved exploring the Old Town and enjoyed a visit from the Nyes.

September Now, we're officially in Language School. We have a wonderful Professor that is so patient with us. We also spent a lot of the month scouring thrift stores buying the needed things for the upcoming winter.
And, we found out we're expecting another blessing from the Lord due in May 2010! God is so good!

October This was our month of traveling. We had two meetings, one in Niagara Falls, Ontario and another in Nova Scotia. We've enjoyed seeing different parts of Canada, but really loved being to drive through parts of the US (New York, then Maine) to get there! We also enjoyed the changing colors and tried to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible.

November We were able to be with our friends The Hambys for Thanksgiving and be in the Missions Conference for their church also. The fellowship with other missionaries is something we have enjoyed so much!

December This month brought ice storms and snow storms. The kids love it outside and have fun sledding, building snow forts and having snowball fights. We had a good Christmas at "home" here in Canada.

It's been such a good year and we're so thankful for the many blessings the Lord has bestowed upon us. Looking back, it has flown by so quickly. Like the Bible says, life truly is a vapor that appeareth for a time, then vanisheth away. I can never relive those moments. That is time spent. It makes me want to give all the time I do have left to the Lord. Live for Christ, you'll never regret it!

Fondue Chinoise

For Christmas this year, the girls went together and bought Patrick a Fondue Pot. Fondue is really big here. They do what is called Fondue Chinoise. You have a broth boiling in the pot, then you take raw meat or veggies and cook them in the fondue pot. We had all been dying to try out Patrick's new gift! So, last night was the night. We prepared several sauces to go with our Fondue: Curry Sauce, Mustard Sauce, Asian Sauce, and a Melting Pot Sauce. Everyone had a different idea of which one was the best.

It was a very relaxed meal. It was fun to have everyone "cook" their own meal and this is something we will definitely be doing again! (Especially since all the fondue meat is on sale this week!)

Then, of course, we had to finish the night off with Chocolate Fondue! Right? It was extremely delicious!

Gift for Madame Claire

I made this throw quilt for my Language Professor, Madame Claire, for Christmas. It was such an easy pattern! My Mom sent me the magazine with the pattern in it from Fons and Porter. I really like their stuff! It made it even more fun because Patrick and I made this quilt in 2 evenings. Yes, I typed that correctly...Patrick and I! It was so fun because we set up two ironing boards in the living room. We put the iron on one and the sewing machine on the other. I sewed and he ironed the seams after each step. We sewed, ironed, and watched football. It was great!

Madame Claire really seemed to enjoy her quilt when we delivered it to her on Christmas Eve. It was so fun making it! I can't wait until my next project!

Joyeux Noel

We had such a good Christmas this year! We were able to do most of our family traditions and create some new ones, too! I love making memories with my family. We had close to 2 feet of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. Even though snow didn't fall on Christmas Eve or Day, we still had a White Christmas. Yay!

For mine and Patrick's first Christmas we started the tradition of eating dinner out on Christmas Eve. For the most part we've kept up with that tradition and we love picking a neat place to try. This year we thought it would be better to do a Christmas Eve lunch. The place we were going to try was closed, so we ended up at Tomas Tam. It is a Chinese Buffet. It was very delicious! It's been a while since we've all been to a Chinese Buffet. The food was a little different than American Chinese, but we enjoyed it.

My little man did so well and was so content at lunch. They had noodles that looked brown, but were shaped like macaroni. We cut them up and he fed himself for a while.

On the buffet they had a ton of ice cream flavors. My adventurous family all had Chocolate or Chocolate mint. I, on the other hand was dying to try a bunch of flavors. I had a small scoop of blueberry, caramel cream, rum raisin (in honor of my Mom), two different kinds of maple (it was in french and I couldn't translate the words after "erable") (I hope it was something good :o), banana, and green tea. Have you ever heard of green tea ice cream?? It was different! I still haven't decided if I like it or not!

We went home and had a very relaxed evening at home. The children opened their gifts from my Aunt Robin. She has such excellent tastes and the kids loved all the clothes she bought for them! She bought the girls some gorgeous outfits that look so good on them, older, but good. I'm sure you'll see them in upcoming posts. Then, we all sat together by the Christmas tree while Patrick read about the true meaning of Christmas in Luke Chapter 2. Then, all 4 children went to bed in the same room. (Some on the floor, one in the bed, and one in a crib) This is something we started when we moved into our house in Carthage for Brenna's first Christmas. Maybe it's not such a good idea, they end up talking and waking each other up most of the night!

We told the kids they couldn't wake us up until 6. Exactly at 6 o'clock the children came in to wish us Merry Christmas. We passed out the gifts under the tree and started opening. Silas was more interested in the paper than the gifts. I weaned him fully last week and he has fallen in love with his milk. Halfway through opening gifts he was done. He was ready for breakfast! My little man loves to eat! But, there was no way J, E, and B were going to stop for a breakfast break!

For lunch we had our Turkey Dinner. It was delicious and I love being around the table with my family.

Then, we had our birthday cake for Jesus. I'm so thankful that Jesus came not just to be born, but to die, so that I might live! What a neat thing to think about, Thank you, Lord!

Trying to get that "Special" Picture

All week I had prepared my family about our "Family Picture Time" before church on Sunday. I love to have pictures of my family and my kiddos, and I knew Sunday we would be dressed in our christmas clothes. I thought for sure it would be a perfect time! (I have my Mother's problem of having High Expectations! Love you Mom!) Saturday Night I ironed everyone's clothes and had visions of gorgeous pictures that would be good enough to use as wallpaper!

Well, that didn't exactly happen. We got ready on time, a little rushed, but on time. I realized a few minutes before we took pictures that all our church shoes were still at church!!! (We wear our snow boots to church and take them off when we get there and put on our church shoes. If we forget our church shoes there are these blue bags we have to put over our boots to protect the floors...not all that pretty! So we, like everyone else at our church, leave our shoes there.) Okay, no huge deal...do I really want our feet in the pictures anyway? As I started taking pictures I realized Silas was a little on the grumpy side and not all that cooperative. I took bunches of pictures, but didn't seem to get that perfect one that I envisioned. Here's a few: Silas wanted to be next to the bench, leaning on it, behind it....ugh!

Then, I tried to get the perfect picture of my 4....didnt' exactly happen!

Well, even though that "special" picture of my 4 didn't happen, I think I was able to get few good ones. In fact, I think they're pretty great!

Sunday mornings are truly hectic, and we're often not that "picture perfect" family. We're real...we may have an unnoticed butter stains from our biscuits that morning, or a few hairs out of place, or maybe sometimes mix matched shoes (oh, what a horrible memory!) but that's us! Our lives are busy and hectic, but I wouldn't trade the precious lives the Lord has given us for anything. I love you, Gimenez Family! Can't wait until our next Family Picture Time!

One of my favorite traditions...Christmas Cookies!

Every year I look forward to making Cookies with my Children. Now, when they were little I still loved it, but it took a bit more work. This year was a breeze (almost!) We started Friday night making cookie batters that needed to be refridgerated. JEB helped mix everything and we had so much fun together. On Saturday we started rolling dough and decorating. I sure do have some creative kiddos.

We made several different kinds of cookies and two kinds of fudge.

Here's the list:

Sugar cookies that we cut into shapes and decorated (I think that's a Christmas must for us!)

Peppermint Pinwheels

Elves Snickerdoodles

Gingerbread Men

Peanut Butter Fudge

Chocolate Fudge

We had a great time figuring out which ones we were going to make, then buying the fun decorative ingredients. But, I think the most fun part was Saturday night after all the baking and decorating was done, after we divided them into platters and covered and labeled them, and after the clean-up (ugh) was the relaxing and sampling! MMM MMM they were some good cookies!

Christmas Munchies

I've had fun this year looking up some creative meals and snacks for us to have around Christmas. Here's a few to share:

Okay, this one was a bit of a bomber. When you're family really can't recognize what you've created, then your creativity wasn't a success. What do you think these look like? Patrick thought they were bees swarming around a pond of honey! They're supposed to be reindeer. Well, at least you can never go wrong with Cocktail Smokies!

I found this recipe for sandwich wraps on family fun

Wrap 'n' Stack Sandwich Tree Recipe Christmas Appetizers & Snacks Family F

I couldn't find green tortillas here, but the regular worked okay, anyway. The turkey with the cranberries was very delicious!

Another thing I made was this cute dip:

Christmas Package Cheese Snack Recipe Christmas Appetizers & Snacks Family

The dip tasted wonderful and I'm making this again for tomorrow's church lunch.

Merry Christmas! and Happy Eating!