Countdown to Christmas: Day 0

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Merry Christmas!!

From the Kawell Family

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Countdown to Christmas: Day 1

It's Christmas Eve! We're are having our Christmas party right now, so this will be short. Today, we played some football and watched some football (Bears win again!). We finished our work yesterday, so it was a quiet day. Everyone has had a great day! Hope everyone has had a great day too, and we'll see you tomorrow!!!

Countdown to Christmas: Day 2

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Today will be a busy day as we prepare for the weekend. We will be having a Christmas Eve party at our house with some friends of ours, so we will be cleaning the house and getting ready for the holiday. Last night, we went to see a house near by that has it Christmas lights set to music. We saw something similar at the zoo, but this house had more songs. I'm sure many of our readers have seen videos of such houses. They're pretty cool.

Sneak peek: After Christmas, and after the Christmas pictures are posted, we will be posting random pictures of 2006. It has been a fun year, and we would like to share it with our readers as we get nearer to 2007.

Countdown to Christmas: Day 3

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...

Christmas is coming fast!! Yesterday and the day before, we did a lot of shopping, and today we finished. There are some excited people in this house! Tuesday evening (19th) we went to the Birmingham zoo where they have the whole place covered in Christmas lights. They even had one section set up so that the lights blinked in time to music! It was great.

Again, pictures are coming on to the camera very fast and I haven't even got them off yet, so pictures will be late in coming. I might have a chance to get some posted tomorrow, but if I don't do so, you'll have to wait until after Christmas. Sorry...

Countdown to Christmas: Day 6

The "Countdown to Christmas" posts have been a lot of fun and we will continue to try and post up until Christmas. However, this is a warning that as the days get busier as Christmas gets closer I don't know how often we will get a chance to post. The pictures that we've been promising may not get on here till after Christmas unless I get some time to get them together. We've had good responses to the Countdown, and I'll try to keep posting, but I can't promise anything!

Countdown to Christmas: Day 7

Goodness, when was the last time we updated?! Christmas is coming in fast and we are scrambling to get ready. On Wednesday, we went to a walk-through-nativity at Briarwood church. We have been doing this for years. They have scenes from Christ's life from the prophets to the resurrection with actors and lots of live animals! We did take some pictures and we will try to put them up before Christmas!
Merry Christmas!!

Countdown to Christmas: Day 12

The twelve days of Christmas have started! Get out your partridges and pear trees! This is one of our newer traditions. The basket with the straw in it symbolizes the manger were the Baby Jesus slept on the night of his birth. It is hard to see in this picture, but in the corner there is a little pail of straw. Whenever someone in the family does a voluntary good deed for someome else they can privately put a piece of straw in the basket. On Christmas morning, Mama puts a doll in the basket to symbolize Jesus sleeping on our good deeds!

Countdown to Christmas: Day 13

Finally, I found the camera and took some Christmas pictures around the house. Here are a few.

This is the fireplace, which, when I took the picture, had a roaring fire inside it which I carefully prepared, but, of course the fire doesn't show up in the picture.

This is one of our Nativity scenes. The three black and gold figures crawling up the the manger are clay figures of Frisky, Minnie May and Jiggs; our three dogs. It has become a family joke to have Frisky (who loves to cuddle) crawl closer to the Baby every day!

This is our advent wreath. Three of the candles have now been lighted! For some reason the wreath was on the banister when I found it for the picture.

Mama had this wonderful idea a few years ago to wrap up all the main picture frames in the living room. A lot of work, but aren't they beautiful?

Happy thirteen days 'till Christmas!

Countdown to Christmas: Day 16

We had a hard freeze last night, and found water frozen solid this morning. I (Abigail) had to break a thick layer of ice in the dogs' water bowl so that they could get a drink this morning. Christmas secrets are flying around and we're burning logs almost faster than Jesse can chop it. There is something warming about a fire that even our heating system can't compete with!

Countdown to Christmas: Day 17

The air has turned Christmas-y!! This morning the temps got down to 19 degrees (which is cold down here, for you northern folks!). The fireplace is doing its job and hot chocolate is flowing. We hope everyone is having a great season so far!

(More pictures coming...)

Countdown to Christmas: Day 19

Last night we lit the second candle of Advent. We have been busy makeing gifts for everyone on our list. Many of our readers will receive them. We'll have more decoration pictures later.

Countdown to Christmas: Day 20, Part II

This is a follow-up to the last post. We will be posting pictures of our decorated house as parts of some of the future "Countdown to Christmas" posts. Here's the first one:

Countdown to Christmas: Day 20

We are hoping to put some pictures up of our house all 'dressed up' for Christmas! Mama does such a wonderful job every year! Everyone seems to enjoy the decorations so much that we thought our readers might like to see it too, since not everyone can visit this time of year. I (Abigail) will try my hardest to get some pictures today. (Maybe promising will help motivate me!)

Countdown to Christmas: Day 21

Before I go into Christmas stuff, I just want to tell everyone that Mama is doing great after her minor surgery to remove bone spurs in her shoulder. If you didn't know about this, it's because it was a minor thing.

Well, yesterday we had church and, of course, sing plenty of Christmas songs. As a family we are learning great 4 part harmony: Abigail sings soprano, Mama sings alto, Sam is learning tenor, and I (Jesse) sing bass. It is beautiful to hear, and especially fun with all the wonderful Christmas songs.

I must mention that yesterday (Sunday) the Chicago Bears clinched the division title and will be going to the playoffs!! Go Bears!

Countdown to Christmas: Day 23

Nathan has a Lego advent calender which he is using to count the days until Christmas. His calendar gave me an idea to put a countdown on the blog. We'll just post small things that are going on in our lives as we near Christmas. The posts won't be long, they'll just have a small tidbit of our holiday preparation. We'll see if we remember to update it!

One Year

Somehow we missed it. On November 22, our blog celebrated its 1 year anniversary! This site has been a wonderful place for us to tell whats been going on in our lives, so our friends don't have to wait for the Christmas letter to learn. We hope to continue making this a fun vist for everyone. Thanks for reading!!!


(We just switched our blog to a updated version of Blogger, that's why it looks a little different. Everything works like it used to, it just looks different.)

Thangsgiving Pics

When I looked through the pictures of Thanksgiving I was very disapointed at how few pictures there were. Thus, dispite the name of this post, there are more pictures of us decorating the tree than of Thanksgiving. Enjoy...

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This is the only picture of the food (that isn't too blurry, that is). It was all good and so I'm sure we didn't get pictures because it was gone before we could.

Here's Evie!! She's always the superstar.

So much good food leaves so much hard work. Thanks Abigail!

Beautiful sunset Thanksgiving evening.

The day after Thangiving we always get the Christmas tree. Here we go...

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Promise of things to come

We have such patient readers. No hate mail yet. Pictures are coming, I promise. Christmas is definitely here and we have been in a rush, thus the posts have been few (if not gone altogether). We have plenty of pictures of Thanksgiving and the cutting of the Christmas tree, but I haven't been through them yet. I will get them up before the week is through.

Here's a few notes on what's been going on around here, just to tide you over until the pictures come:
We had Thanksgiving at Grandmother Calk's home. There was a lot of food and we ate plenty of it. The next day we traditionally get the Christmas tree, and we did just that. It is currently sitting upstairs and you will see it (by the end of the week I promised). The house is now completely decorated for our Lord's birthday and we are all excited.

That's all for now, until the pictures...

PS: This is to Uncle Len and Auntie Ma'am: We realize that your New England Patriots beat our Chicago Bears, but we still think we could have won that game at any time. We want a rematch. How about on February 4, 2007 (Super Bowl)?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

The Kawell Family wants to wish everyone a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!!

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; His love endures forever."

Psalm 107:1

Belated Hurricane Pics

I (Jesse) promised that I would post more hurricane relief pictures and I'm finally getting around to it (Sorry Joshua!!). On the trip we got a chance to see two of the houses we worked on last year. What I'll do now is post some before and after pictures.

BEFORE

This older lady's house was one of the most the most badly damaged homes we worked on last year. When we left some of us felt that the only hope for it was a bulldozer.

Still Before
We left the house looking like this; stripped of it's walls and furniture, all of which were by the street waiting to be picked up and carried away.

AFTER
However, when we went back this year we had a wonderful surprise!! This picture is the same as the one above except one year later. Many volunteers had helped this lady fix her home, and it is beautiful! Here are some more pictures of this house.

BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER

Now we also went to see another house we worked on last year, and it was unchanged from when we left it. We didn't get pictures of that house because no one was home, but it was just as bad. The idea that we got when we were down there this year, is that there are a few success stories, like the lady's I just gave, but the amount of destruction still there is overwhelming. They still need help. That is what everyone said whom we met. Keep on coming, they said. So if anyone wants to help, but just isn't sure if it's needed, please know that it is!!! It's a wonderful feeling to help people and there is still plenty to do.

What's new?

In case anyone is asking the question, "So, what's new?" The answer is, "Not much!" The latest news is that the boys got 'superiors' and 'superior pluses' at the Hymn Festival, a piano event; this is wonderful news, but not surprising!
We've been getting ready for fall: planting pansies and snapdragons, raking leaves and making menu plans for Thanksgiving. And, yes we did see the disappointing Chicago Bears' lose on Sunday. Oh well... the New York Giants have it coming next week!! School is going smoothly: Jesse is studying for a big achievement test he'll be taking this spring, Sam and I (Abigail) are taking science classes and the Birmingham Zoo, the twins are starting really advanced math and Nathan is reading everything now!
Everything is pretty calm and normal, even the weather is warm and sunny for Fall. Tomorrow we will be going to spend the day at our good friends' lake house so we'll be sure to take the camera and update with pictures soon!

Halloween Sunday (another late post!)

We have always enjoyed the costumes and candy on Halloween (if not the other Halloween traditions), but instead of Trick-or-Treating we do the "Trunk-or-Treat" at Grandmothers church. For those of you not familiar with "Trunk-or-Treat" it is where a group of people get together, decorate the trunks of their cars and fill the trunk with candy. Then the children go from car to car playing games and collecting candy-a safer alternative to Trick-or-Treat. Just the three youngest dressed up this year while the rest of us decorated the car and handed out the candy (all, of course without even tasting the candy!!). The party was held on the Sunday evening before Halloween.

Multitasking on Sunday afternoon, carving pumpkins, eating lunch and of course, checking the (7-0) Chicago Bears game on the laptop.

Jesse joins the annual fight against intact pumpkins!

But nothing can pull him away from the da Bears for long!

The Hunters! Since the twins had a bow-and-arrow themed birthday this year the natural result was Halloween Hunters!

Everybody at work

This is the best picture that I could find of our trunk; the van is to the far right with three bowls of candy and a large assortment of balloon animals that we teenagers made, they were a huge hit with the kids. Farther right is a hay bale with the finished jack-o-lanterns and Mama is on the far right, ready to hand out the candy and balloons to the kids.

Below the gords and pumkins is a basket of water bottles

These people got really inventive!

This is Christopher at a car full of games!

It was a great "Halloween Sunday"!!!

Hurricane Relief pictures

The hurricane pictures are ready. There were 144 pictures that we took on the 4 day trip, and I've selected 14 of them. I will definitely post more later. Also, I would like to post more in-depth comments on the trip. I'd like to have Abigail write some too. Anyway here are the pictures. If your are looking for pics of Jack and Chris' B-day, see the previous post.

Our crew: left to right (back) Sam, Andrew, (middle row) Abigail, Rebecca, Melanie, Scott, (lower row) Jesse, Jenell, and Greg.

The interior of the house we were working on. We worked on the roof, so the inside still looks like this.

The outside of the house. Trash from the hurricane was still everywhere.

Half the roof already had shingles on when we arrived. This is the other half.

We had to do some of the roof in the rain and wind. No one fell though!

The finished product.

Some men from another crew helped us finish the roof in double time.

Here's Andrew feeding seagulls. The wind was blowing so hard that the birds just hovered in the air like humming birds.

That all the pictures for this post. Like I said I will try to post more later...

[JESSE]

Jack and Christopher's Birthday

Sorry about the lack of posts over the weekend. Jack and Chris' birthday was on Saturday, however we had the party and Friday. Here's pictures. I hope to get more up later. (hurricane relief pictures will come soon too.)

The boy's got real bows and arrows for their birthday! The idea came after they enjoyed shooting at an outdoors expo last month (see earlier post).

Jack's cake: Cubs equipment.

Chris' cake: dog.

Chris blowing out the candles

They also got targets and haybails as gifts.