Cunningham Christmas

We had the Cunningham-side-of-the-family Christmas celebration on Sunday evening. It was a LOUD evening to be sure. Lots of little people running around the house.

This is Dad outside preparing a large candle holder. It looked quite pretty later in the evening with the candle in its proper place.


Here's the crew around the table.

A new word?

We were playing a game tonight as a family and Isaac came up with another saying that made us laugh. We've been trying to teach Isaac that he doesn't have to win every game or be first in every endeavour. And so tonight when Bonnie won both games, I told Isaac how proud I was of him in not getting upset. Then he proceeded to tell us how important it was to have good sportsgirlship.

I can only assume he was, in his own way, trying to instruct Bonnie on how to properly behave when she won a game.

Counting our blessings

At the end of the year, it has been a tradition in my family to look back over the year and recall some of the many blessings God has bestowed on us. I'll start with some recent blessings.

On Sunday morning, as we were waking up and preparing to attend Isaac's Sunday School performance of "Angels Aware", Curtis informed me that our hot water taps were frozen. After a couple of phone calls and acting out some good advice, they were soon thawed and the water was flowing once again. We went to church and were blessed by the childrens' performance, glad to see all their hard work over the past months turn out so well. We told Isaac how proud of him we were, and were glad to hear the positive comments of others, too.

After church, we made a brief stop on our way home to pick up a couple of things, only to return to our van and find out it wouldn't start! (The temperature, by the way, was about -20 or lower). Thankfully another couple from our church had also stopped there, and graciously gave us a ride home - another blessing! When Curtis returned to meet the man from BCAA (having been told it would be about 45 minutes, and that he would get a phone call when the repairman was on his way), the man was starting to pull away, and told Curtis he'd been waiting about 20 minutes already, though Curtis had not received the promised phone call. He did get the van running again, though, for which we were thankful!

That afternoon, Isaac had a second performance, and the van started without a problem, going and returning. It was another lovely performance, and this time his paternal grandparents, his uncle Michael, and the 4 oldest Cunningham cousins were in attendance, too.

Afterward, we had the grandparents, uncle and cousins over for supper, as well as some friends who came to help celebrate Curtis' parents' 40th anniversary - more blessings!

We truly have so much to be thankful for: enough work provided for me and Curtis over the course of the year to provide for our needs; new friendships to develop through work, church and Bible Study groups; a wonderful school and teacher for Isaac's kindergarten year; visits with family and friends over the year; the ability for one of us to stay home with Isaac while the other works; a beautiful place to live; Curtis' ability to persevere despite disappointments concerning his health and developing his business; new opportunities that are presented... I could go on and on.

Thanks to all of you who have kept us in your thoughts and prayers. We appreciate them very much! May God be with each and every one of you this Christmas season, and bless you with good health and happy memories!