A Shafferland Christmas

Well, as I sit to write this to you, it's late on Sunday night, and we have had one very full, nice, hard, unexpected, and fulfilling day. That's a lot to ask of one Christmas, isn't it? My mind is still processing all the things that made up this day, but I wanted to tell you about our part here at home!

Since Christmas was on Sunday this year, our day looked a little different from what it normally does. We got up early and made a breakfast together. This was a new recipe that one of Ryan's co-workers just gave us on Christmas Eve, but we went to get the stuff for it, and it was delicious. {Not clean, but delicious!} Maple cream praline goodness in a dish. {Pardon my wet hair.}

Then we went to church! Our church did a Christmas Eve service Saturday night that was identical to the Christmas morning service, so people had the option of going at the time that best fit their schedules. We couldn't go Saturday night because of the Shaffer family Christmas, so we went Sunday morning. We sang ALL the Christmas songs, and I loved it! The message was excellent, too!

We had about an hour in between church and my family Christmas, so we exchanged our stockings then. These are the only gifts we exchange at Christmas now, since we've moved to doing a collective gift to each other as our "big" thing.

Braeya went first, and I think she liked her new toy. And her dad.

Oh my word, people. I forgot to show you our attempt at a family photo. Let's just say Braeya prefers to cuddle on her own terms. {aka never.} Here are a few of the shots:

Doesn't it just crack you up???

It went a lot better when it was just the two of us:

Our stockings were fun and I'll show you a few of our treasures:

 {Yes, that is a Christmas Vacation mug.}

And his "big gift" for the stocking...a little toy!

{A drone with a camera, if you can't see. He was pretty excited!}

ALSO excited...

 And then it was my turn!

 {I use the alarm on my phone for a clock, but I had mentioned to Ryan a while ago that it would be nice to have an actual clock for when I wake up in the night and have to fumble for my phone to see the time. We started to buy a clock and then I told him to just wait and put it in my stocking. And then I promptly FORGOT about that, so this was quite a surprise!}

My first grown up coloring book!!!!

 And my "big gift" - which I was SO excited about. There's a house in our neighborhood that has this super cute "hello" on the front door. I comment on it EVERY time we walk by it. So bless Ryan's little heart, he got on Etsy, {ETSY!!!!} and found a shop that made not only a "hello" sign for the front door but a "see ya later" sign for the inside of the front door. I'm so excited to see them on the door!

We finished up just in time to pack up the car and head out to my parents'. {And on the way, we encountered an SUV that had just broken down in the middle of a busy road, so we pulled over and Ryan helped the guy push the car into a parking lot. Another gentleman stopped to help too, which was very nice. Poor guy with a broken car on Christmas!! :(

It was just the beginning of our busy day, but it was a nice beginning!

The Christmas Shuffle!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! We know many of you are extra busy today with Christmas festivities and church, too, so you might not even be here to read this ON Christmas day, but whenever you arrive at this post, we wish you a very merry Christmas!!

We've had a full week, and our best gift is that we are FINALLY FEELING BETTER!!!!!

* Because a second round of ice was expected to fall overnight Saturday into Sunday, many churches canceled their Sunday morning services, including ours. AND, Ryan's mom postponed their family Christmas, which was supposed to be that day as well. So Ryan and I had a whole day at home! Ryan made breakfast, we watched church on TV, and we took a whole day of rest, enjoying movies, football, scrapbooking, naps, and the Christmas lights!

* Even though it was so bitterly cold that all the schools around here operated on a delay, last Monday morning was so pretty. Sunrise on snow is beautiful! AND I found a cardinal in the tree, so that made me happy, too! Ryan and I had a few errands to run after work, and we stopped by to visit a friend who is home-bound now. He was happy to see us and asked his caregiver to make us espresso, which I promptly ruined by adding creamer. LOL! But it was good to see him and try to bring some Christmas cheer!

* Tuesday was the last day of school before Christmas break, so I did my last carpool run before coming home to work on my 2017 planner. {Happiness in a day!} I also had a little more wrapping to do - including Ryan's stocking stuffers, so I got that done. Our only free night this week was Tuesday, so we finished binge-watching a DVR'd show, and Ryan was exceedingly sad to realize he was going to have to wait quite a while for the next episode!

* Wednesday was my parents' neighborhood Christmas party and we went as photographers for the photo booth, which was much fun! Dinner was delicious, the company was fun, and we had a great time!

* Thursday, I met up with one of my friends for coffee and some shopping in the afternoon, which was a fun treat! That night, Ryan and I joined his family to celebrate his mom's birthday, and we ended up having a good time together - even if we traumatized our poor waitress!

* Friday felt like Saturday ALL DAY. Not sure why! I met with my friend Faith and her daughters for our annual Christmas celebration, and we had a great time. That night, Ryan and I had date night, which included a trip through the We Care Park to see the lights. We drove it since it was rainy, but it was still a lot of fun!

* Ryan had to work yesterday morning, and while he was gone, I had a massive cookie baking extravaganza for all the Christmas celebrations. It was FUN! And last night was our first Christmas of 2016, with Ryan's dad's side of the family. His grandma always makes an amazing dinner {ham, noodles, the whole nine yards} and we got to exchange gifts with that side. Great night!

So...merry Christmas from us!! Can't wait to catch up with you this week and tell you all about Christmas! :)

The Saturday Six

One.

Today's a big day!!! Happy, happy birthday to my niece, Cassie!!! Hope your day is extra sweet this year as you celebrate with your new husband! Love you!


Two.

Source

Maybe you've heard of this place, but I hadn't until stumbling across it this week through a Facebook post. Have you guys heard of Whittier, Alaska? A town housed almost entirely in one building. Residences, church, police station, store - all of it in one huge former military tower. Fascinating story. 

Three.

Source

I stumbled upon this blog this week, via another blog, and I am going to have to come back and spend some time here, for sure! This blogger lost quite a bit of weight a few years ago and now creates healthy recipes to be able to maintain the weight loss AND enjoy life while she's at it! I love finding sites like this!

Four.

Source

You know I'm a sucker for a good Christmas tour, and this week, the blogger at Between Naps on the Porch had a tour of a room in a MAGNIFICENT home. Bonus: at the bottom of the post are "related links you might enjoy" - including links to other room tours of this same home. I think this homeowner has more decorations in one room than I have in my whole house, but it's an amazing sight to behold. Enjoy!!

Five.

Source

With Christmas being...ahem...tomorrow...there might be just a few of you out there who are flat out tired today. Tired from this year, this month, this week, the shopping trip you just took to the store. Kristen Strong's words are for you. 

Six.

Source

Today I am doing something very out of character for me...and I'm telling you about a book I haven't fully finished reading yet. I'm almost there. It's actually a book Ryan and I have been reading together this Advent season. Speaking of which: you know what's awkward? A girl who wrote and Advent book choosing to read a different Advent book for Christmas. WHAT?!? I love my little Advent devo I wrote, but this year I needed another writer's perspective, so I pulled from the shelves Finding the Messiah by Jane Rubietta.

I first read a book by Jane years ago {Grace Points} and I loved it so much that I bought a dozen copies and gifted it to a bunch of friends. Finding the Messiah was a book I acquired back when I worked at the station, and I just hadn't read it yet. Ryan and I have been working our way through it, but sickness made us lose a few days so we haven't quite finished it yet.

The book is a daily reading for 28 days, and what I love most about it is its unpredictability. That's the hard thing about Advent devos. Everyone has the same material to work with and the books come out sounding remarkably familiar. It's hard to write from a fresh angle on something as frequently written about as Christmas. But Jane has done just that. She spends time focusing on people who often get forgotten entirely or just lightly mentioned: Zechariah the priest, his wife Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna, for example.

As Ryan and I read together each day, we found ourselves uncovering new ideas we'd not considered before, seeing the familiar from a new perspective, and appreciating her viewpoint on familiar passages.

This book is a good personal reading selection, but it's also a good one for reading together as a couple or family, since each day has a reading, some reflection questions {which make good discussion}, a benediction {poem type reading} and a prayer.

The only complaint I have {which feels odd to even mention, but I will} is that for some reason, this book has been hard for me to read out loud. Some of the sentences seem to flow more easily when read silently, but since we're using this for our devotions as a couple, I read out loud, and sometimes I trip over the words. I think some books are just easier to read aloud than others - or maybe it's just user error on my part. Who knows!? But the message is still very good, even if the sentences don't roll off the tongue.

If you're looking for a new option for Advent for next year, I would recommend this one as a possibility!

Let the Celebrations Begin

Party week for the Shaffers is in full swing! Thought I'd let you peek into the last couple of evenings we've enjoyed!

Earlier this year, I read a book called Next Door as it is in Heaven, and it has really changed the way I view neighborhoods. {In a good way!} The book talked a lot about how "back in the day," neighbors knew each other and did life together, because you did ALL of life from your neighborhood. People lived and worked and shopped and went to church and had friendship circles right in their geographical circles. Now we spread our life over a much wider range, and after reading that book, I began to crave the old way of doing things.

That's why I think it is so cool that my parents actually have the "olden days" kind of neighborhood. They know their neighbors and they do life together all the time. They watch out for each other and pitch in to help and share together, everything from extra garden spoils to evenings around a fire pit roasting marshmallows.

So in this season when it seems like many people cram their annual socializing with everyone into one week, this neighborhood got together for a Christmas party - but for them, it's not an annual meeting. It's just a special gathering of a life that happens all the time.

They take turns hosting the party, and this year was Mom and Dad's turn. And a couple of weeks ago, Mom asked if Ryan and I could come and bring our photo booth props for something new and different. Rarely known to turn down food in exchange for anything, we happily packed up our photo booth stuff and drove to Mom and Dad's to be part of the celebration.

You guys, it was so. much. fun. Everyone pitched in with food, and we pulled up chairs around a table to eat salad, my aunt's best-ever-on-the-planet homemade lasagna, and breadsticks from Fazoli's. {Yours truly picked those up on the way over and had to carry TWO DOZEN BREADSTICKS WITHOUT EATING THEM. Slow forms of torture.}

Pie, cookies, and coffee made up dessert, and then we played Christmas games and took turns at the photo booth. And then everyone just sat around in a huge circle and they told story after story after story, each one feeding off the story before, and we laughed until we cried.

That's how celebrations should be. People stayed late - we didn't get home until about 11:30 - and I don't think most of them wanted to go home then. It was just sort of socially expected.

I saw notes on Facebook of how much fun they all had and how much they all loved each other, and it warmed my heart. I love it that this bunch is proof that a neighborhood can be a neighborhood that works. Not just a bunch of people living next door to each other.

Here are a few peeks into the photo booth. They were fun!

And then last night, the celebrations continued, because yesterday was Ryan's mom's birthday! A group of us got together to celebrate with her at Bob Evans, and it was a fun night!

{This is what happens when my dinner time is delayed. My stomach can't tell the difference between 15 minutes late and 2 hours late. HA! I had downed 2 cups of coffee by the time food arrived, and then apparently there was the fear that I would hoard EVERYONE'S food.}

{No. I did not eat all that.}

While we waited for our food, Nita opened her gifts and had fun with her treasures.

{Ryan and I gave her a calendar that I'd made using pictures of her family and pictures she had taken. I think she liked it!}

And of course, photo opps!!

I think we scared our poor waitress half to death, but she did a good job, and we had a great night together.

Happy birthday {again}, Nita! We love you!! :)

Dream a Little Dream, Pray a Big Prayer

I'm an orderly sort of person; you know this. I like to make my way through calendar events with much precision and not jump ahead too much.

But this week, I found myself itching to think ahead to 2017. I think it's because with the exception of a couple of gift cards, our shopping has been done for a while, all the gifts are wrapped and waiting to be delivered, the cards have been mailed, and baking day isn't scheduled until later this week. I was sort of stuck in that middle place of getting to enjoy the beauty of the season while awaiting the official arrival of get-togethers.

So what's a girl to do, except plan for a year to come? So while the Christmas princesses searched for princes on the movie marathons on-screen, I sat down with my beloved {custom...did I mention I make it myself?} day planner and got busy on next year.

I made cover pages and meal planning pages, prayer request pages and Scripture writing plans. I arranged the weekly schedule pages for the month of January and started filling in {color-coded, of course} the plans we've already begun to make for a year we haven't begun to see.

It. Was. The. Happiest. Place. To. Be.

Planners and colored pens and dreams are among the finest ways to spend a day, I think.

I've also been reading a book on prayer this week, and the author keeps asking me what I'm too afraid to pray for. At first I scoffed. Too afraid to pray? HA! It's God! He's seen me at my absolute worst. I'm not afraid to pray for anything. The worst He can say is no. I know that. I've experienced that. Why in the world would I be afraid to pray for anything?

But in the interest of respect to the author who worked hard on her book, I paused to consider what I might be afraid to pray for.

Turns out, she has a point.

Turns out I'm not afraid to pray for anything when it comes to the needs of my day or the burdens of my friends and family. I'll ask for anything and everything for those I love.

But when it comes to putting prayers to these baby dreams that flutter in my heart? No thank you. I'll just keep them tiny and fluttering. Because to utter them is to risk losing them. Or to risk getting them. And sometimes I'm not sure which one is more scary.

Looking ahead to next year is more than filling in blanks of Ryan's work schedule or when we're hosting Tuesdays at the Table and who we might invite. Looking ahead to next year is daring to dream about the kind of ministry God might have for us and how that might change our lives. Looking ahead to next year is daring to admit out loud in even a whispered prayer, that I actually do have dreams for things I'd love to see happen, and waiting to see how {or if} they align with God's dreams for me, for us.

Looking ahead to next year means praying for the courage to try new things, risking what matters to the soul, and trusting God with the outcome.

A lot can happen in one year. I think I've seen that every single year for the last six years. Sometimes your December life looks nothing like your previous January life. {For better or worse, but when God is at work, somehow even the worse is used for better.}

So I know your next few days will be filled with madness of last minute rush, parties, exchanges, hurry, and more. But as the celebrations begin to dwindle and you reassemble your house and schedule to a bit of normalcy, dream a little dream. Dream of what could be if you'd dare to have the courage to allow it. And pray BIG prayers. Prayers unfettered by fear. See what God does with them.

And for Pete's sake, get yourself a planner. Or make one. And then get to filling it out. May it bring much joy to your soul as it does to mine.

Linking up with Tamar!

Dear 2016

** Originally I planned to share this blog post next week, as a 2016 wrap up, but who am I kidding? I'll have 239482983749238740 Christmas celebrations to share with you next week! So let's just move this little bit of reminiscent fun up to today and unwrap gifts together next week, mmmmmkay? ** 

Dear 2016:

Well, you were just a year of dreams coming true, weren't you?

We welcomed you with much celebration, in the home of friends that we had no idea would move far away from us within a year's time:

And less than one month had passed before we walked through a house - "just for funsies" - and ended up falling madly and hopelessly in love with that little house and the hope of what could be if it - gulp - could be ours! The journey that followed was a hang-onto-your-hat rush of faith building that we are grateful for in so many ways.

And while all that was happening, you kept rushing on, 2016. We spent time together, enjoying things like surprise dates:

...and hosting friends in our home - all the while knowing our time in that home was probably about to come to an end:

The faith journey kicked into high gear, with much sorting and purging and packing and stacking and planning:

And before we knew what was happening, 2016,you brought along a HUGE dream. come. true.

A new home - all ours. And even though it was "move in ready," you know we're the Shaffers, and we can't go without a couple of projects:

And so the renovations and the moving went, eating up far more weeks out of the year than we planned, and accomplished only because of the village of friends who pitched in to help. But even all the work was a dream come true, because we were taking a house and making it our very own.

And 2016, you brought another huge dream come true/answer to prayer, too:

We are so thrilled for the new owner and the legacy our first home is already carrying on. Moving out was hard, but easy at the same time, because we knew this place would be so loved.

2016, you brought the joy of settling into our new home and making it ours, and rarely a day passes {TRULY!!} that we don't express out loud our love for our home and the opportunities we have in this new place.

You also brought the opportunity to leave home a few times and see new places and enjoy some much needed rest and friend/family time!

You brought along the chance for us to minister in our own ways, together and separately {and OH how much we love the together part}.

2016, in you we realized the dream of hosting friends and fun in our home!

And you brought the joy of celebrating newness and milestones all over:

Oh 2016, you still have a little over a week left, and we intend to fully embrace every last minute of you, but we are grateful for all we've lived in you so far. Cannot wait to see what adventures await in 2017!!