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Thursday, 25 December 2008

We as a family want to wish each one of you a joyous, blessed Christmas!

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Now for a glimpse into our family's past week and a half!

We enjoyed a Christmas service at our church last week one evening. Different people shared Christmas memories and some of the children's Sunday School classes gave a program.

Here are several of the Sunday school classes singing carols led by Sandra Graber.

Here are the "young ladies" making "Christmas Cake"!

(Savannah and Cheyenne are no. 2 and 3 from the left.)

After the main service they had a very special candle-light service. Everyone stood around the outer edge of the auditorium and we sang Christmas carols.

Here are a few photos taken during that time:

Savannah, Sierra and Cheyenne

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We have enjoyed having children at our home for baby-sitting.

Here is Trinity Miller helping me with some apple pie while she was here!

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Christmas Eve is always a very special time at our house. We try to host a Christmas Buffet on that evening and we praise the Lord that we were able to do that again out here in Colorado!

Here are a few pictures of the evening....

Afterwards our children had some "fast-paced" games with Loren's children.......

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Some Christmas morning highlights:

Sierra has very much enjoyed the second-hand pony that her daddy gave to her!!!

"Danny" has been her constant companion all day long!

Jess was very happy with a second-hand lap-top!

And Tonya had great fun picking out new glasses for her dad!! This came about after a very long discussion one day at the dinner table on what dad's new eye-glasses should look like! She thought she would solve that little problem.... After all.....Dad did say he likes the big frames!

One of the very best Christmas gifts that I have been getting this season has been an almost daily serving of tea prepared by Savannah. She spends lots of time prepping her tray and food, making it such a treat!

As her mother I truly feel blessed and honored!

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Well..... that gives you a glimpse into the lives of the Knepps!

We hope your lives may be filled with the peace and joy that comes from God above!

Have a blessed New Year!

Tuesday, 16 December 2008

There's a feeling of Christmas in the air....

Before we moved our children were concerned that we may not get to enjoy the beauty of snow here in Colorado! Imagine their surprise when on Sunday we had enough snow that both morning and evening services were canceled at church!

It is interesting to be in a "new-for-us" community and experience some "new" Christmas time events as a family. One thing we enjoyed was seeing "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" that was put on by the community at a local school.

On Saturday was Tonya's 16th birthday. I usually like to do something special with the "birthday" person, so we (including Jess) decided to shop at a "bigger-than-Canon" town.. namely Pueblo! We ended up doing more driving than shopping but we had fun! We did find our mission's thrift store which was one place we wanted to check out!

We enjoyed a fast-food Chinese lunch!

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Last evening the NHM staff were treated to a Christmas banquet. It was done exceptionally nice and the food was scrumptious! It was especially special to have the NHM leaders serve the rest of us. Thanks Levis, Arlynns and Lorens for your examples of "servanthood leadership"!!

We enjoyed appetizers and drinks before the scrumptious chicken ~ shrimp dinner. The food and decorations were planned, set-up and made by different NHM staff members.

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Sometimes we get a little weary of all the pent-up energy that accumulates in our house here! A snowball fight is a great way to find some relief!!!

This has been just a glimpse of what's been happening in our lives in Colorado!

Wednesday, 10 December 2008

Winter Has Arrived!

Was it just on Sunday that we were enjoying warm, balmy weather???

This is what it looked like here on Monday evening... and by Tuesday morning it looked like this:

The snow is so pretty! Because of the snow, we were able to host some friends (Dewayne and Linda Mast and family) who live across the mountains close to the Montrose/Delta area. They were traveling from MS with two vehicles. One was a pick-up pulling quite a heavy load of logs and they were not too excited about crossing Monarch Pass on icy roads! They arrived Tuesday afternoon and left this AM!

We found out that it's really no big deal to host eight more people here in our house!

Today we started doing some Christmas baking. We are hoping to make Christmas Cookie plates for the neighbors. I am curious.. what are some cookies that are "Christmas traditions" for your family???

Sunday, 07 December 2008

December??????

Now that December is here we start thinking about what all is "suppose" to happen in December! The frantic search for enough clothes to stay warm.... get skates sharpened... enough hot chocolate and apple cider around so the children can get warmed up after their snow-mobile rides... etc. etc.
Guess what!
We are needing to get used to a "new" December-time normal here in CO!! We did get a skiff of snow several days in a row..... but by the next day Sierra was outside barefoot!
Tonight Jess went caroling....

Do you think she "felt" like caroling in the weather pictured in these pictures?
These are photos of the girls walking to church this morning!!! I am sure it's colder outside this evening than it was earlier today!
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Last evening we attended the Parade of lights that Canon City hosted. It was quite interesting. It ended up being quite chilly before the parade ended. We were not quite dressed for the cooler temps. We sat in front of the NHM Thrift Store. Some of the guys were kind enough to bring out a couch and let us sit on it.

Here are some shots at some of the floats in the parade:

We have enjoyed getting to meet some of our neighbors. Friday evening we enjoyed hosting a young family that lives on our street.

Our dear friend Ilva asked for a picture of the outside of our house. I don't have a very good one but here is a picture of the front.. plus several shots at what lays beyond our back-yard fence. These pictures were taken when Gaylord rented a man-lift and they were about 45' above the ground! (If you look closely you can see Gaylord behind the dead tree. The tree has become firewood since this picture!)

Many of the trailer courts around our part of town are for Senior Citizens. Our children love to ride bikes and go on walks in these areas. There is very little traffic and the people are so friendly. We are so grateful that the Lord has placed us in the midst of these precious folks! We hope to get to know more of them on a personal level as time goes by. Our girls have already made some dear friends.

The weather forecast is calling for snow and colder temps this coming week. Maybe I can post some "snow" pictures before too long!
Until then we will enjoy the "winter" weather that Colorado has offered us!

Blessings to you all!

Sunday, 30 November 2008

Holiday Activities at the Knepps

It has been such a nice time to have a few days away from a "normal" routine and doing some "different" activities around here! As our family gets older, I am realizing how very special it is to be all together during times like this!

Here is a quick glimpse into our life the past several days!

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One morning Savannah and I had a lot of fun making "Drop Do-Nuts" .. a quick recipe that is good but not overly time consuming! They went well with the hot chocolate and apple cider (or coffee) that we were serving!

Savannah did a great job flipping the do-nuts and then coating them with a cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Her older brothers enjoyed sneaking the fresh toasty hot do-nuts.... and Savannah was happy to share!

Leslie enjoying a do-nut!

Cheyenne has enjoyed getting a lot of reading done these days. She has also enjoyed working on some of her sketches.. horses being her main topic to draw.

Sierra.. in the meantime... enjoyed her coloring book!

Dallas worked on his mom's computer.. What fun..esp. when he thought he deleted a bunch of her files! Thankfully..he found them all after a quick prayer!

Janelle Lambright has kept things lively at our house this weekend! Here she is showing something to Tonya.

We had a wonderful scene this morning when we looked outside! Sierra was very excited to be able to play in the snow although she was dressed for church. It's good she played in the snow then because it had all disappeared by the time we arrived back home at noon time.

Our boys have now left for MN again..... Janelle plans to leave tomorrow and we'll be back into a "normal" routine, but I am looking forward to that! Vacations are great.... but so is everyday life!!

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~~Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel.

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