Exciting Year at Emmanuel's!

This has been about 15 years in the making! We are a few months away from officially breaking ground on our addition to the Fellowship Hall at church. Hopefully by next year this time, we'll be worshiping in our new addition (contemporary worship)....or having a fellowship event that we're not squished together!

A portion of our Building Committee, the Pastors and the Bishop of the NEPA Synod:

Our ceremonial ground-breaking:

The kids each had a little shovel and took part in the 'ground breaking':

He NEVER Tells Us Anything!

We had to find this out on our own. Can you believe it??!?! Kurt's first response was...."Do we get a break on the tuition now!?!!" Adam's response was...."He's just a midget!!" LOL!! 

 

Kiddo Pics

 Note the clay pigeon at the top of the picture:

 

 This is Adam with Nate, they are rooming together next year:

 Katrina with one of her roommates, Paige:

Adam helped Tate build a potato gun/shooter on Monday, Martin Luther King Day.  Penn State didn't have classes.  Looks like they had fun ;-)

Apple Pie

Here's my recipe for apple pie.  Well, actually, I guess it's Martha's recipe for apple pie ;-) One of the best purchases I ever made from Pampered Chef was my apple peeler, corer, slicer!  I got it cheap with one of the parties I had many years ago.  I don't use it often, but it sure works great when I do use it!

Basically layer the apples (I always use granny smith) in the pie crust (that you've bought at the grocery store in the refrigerator section...LOL!!) with the following mixture:

1 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon.

Pour 1/4 cup milk in middle of pie. Dot with 2 Tbsp. butter and bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes.  (I also shield the crust after about 30 minutes with aluminum foil so it doesn't get too dark).

Assorted Christmas Pics

The first few pictures were taken at our Christmas Concert at church:

Alyce, Holly and Alyssa, with friends Becca and Morgan in background :)

Alyce, Holly and Alyssa :)

Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus (aka Pete, Megan and Jaxen!)

**Megan used to babysit for Alyssa and Adam ;-)

Christmas Day 2012

Christmas Dinner

Alyssa's yummy hors'deuvres:

Christmas Eve at 11 pm.  Just beautiful!

Christmas Eve Bells

If you don't listen to any of the other videos, please listen/watch this one! Alyssa and three other young ladies from church played Carol of the Bells at our contemporary Christmas Eve service. This song is generally played by about 9-10 bell ringers. They used a bell tree and a homemade contraption that one of the gals made :-). They each played anywhere from 4-6 bells. They start out very quietly, so it's tough to hear at the beginning, but keep listening, they keep getting louder as the song goes on. It was absolutely beautiful on Christmas Eve; this really doesn't do it any justice!

Christmas Eve

Alyssa sang this song at our late service on Christmas Eve. It's called 'Mission of His Heart.'

Christmas Concert, Part 3

This song was part of the cantata that was done during the Christmas concert.

Christmas Concert, Part 2

This song was part of the cantata within the concert.

Christmas Concert, Part One

I've had these videos on my flip video camera since before Christmas, but forgot to have Adam help me convert them to an acceptable format for Blogger before he left to go back to school.  He and I just had an intense texting/face-timing session and he helped me convert them, so now I can upload them all.  Thanks Adam!

This first one is from our Christmas Concert the Sunday before Christmas.  You can't see it, but there's a brother and sister playing the piano and violin.

Enjoy!

Easy Corn Chowder

Found this crockpot recipe on Pinterest...seemed easy enough...and it was!!  It was even pretty tasty :)  We had the leftovers yesterday after church, I think it was even a bit better the second time around.

4 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 can cream of corn soup
1 can whole kernel corn
2 cups chicken broth
8 oz. diced ham
1 cup diced onion

Place in crockpot, cook on low 7-8 hours.

Mash the contents to desired consistency (I used my potato masher, but didn't too much mashing).

Add 1/4 cup butter and 2 cups cream (I used non fat 1/2 and 1/2)

Cook an additional 30 minutes.

Happy New Year!

Kurt and I spent New Year's Eve at home all by our selves. Very low key. He slept. I played games on my computer. Facebooked. Played with the cat. Watched the cat play with my new iPad. Made some munchies. Very boring. That was OK.