Monthly Archives: January 2016

{adventuring}

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December days continued to roll by, and with them, more adventures by the day. 😀

I thought it might be fun to start working on a few new songs on the ole’ instruments. I had a little project in mind for these songs….

Continuing on with trying new things, I found a strand of purple lights down in the basement and thought I’d hang them up in my bedroom. Jess was thrilled! 😉

The next new adventure came on New Year’s Eve. I learned to play Texas Hold’Em Poker.

I wasn’t expecting to like it.

It was so much fun!!!

I’ve been working on some piano actions:

And getting to hold the cute little squishy adorable baby nephew:

Now, the nephew needed some new pictures, and my brother and sister-in-love needed their piano tuned, which meant I got to have a rather fun workday. My real job is flexible enough for me to work from my brother’s house, so, I packed up the laptop, tuning tools and camera, and headed out!

In progress:

I really enjoyed taking photos of the aforementioned cute and squishy baby nephew. 🙂

The next order of business was Elvis Presley’s birthday. I don’t have any photos of me rocking out to the Elvis tunes, unfortunately. I’ll have to do better next year. 🙂

Next, it was time to get the 4-H on! I took the kids to Columbiana for their first Livestock Quizbowl and Skill-a-thon. I still have my 4-H shirt from when I went and participated in a 4-H day when I was younger, so, I embarrassed the kids to death by wearing the aforementioned shirt when I went to drop them off. BEST BIG SISTER EVER!!! 😉

I got to hang out with them until it was time for them to head back to their dorms, which meant I got to stick around for the campfire. It was SO MUCH FUN!! I have a few ideas tucked away now for the next time we have a campfire. Sitting under the stars though…I’m overwhelmed. Our creator-God is so amazing. To know that He created each star and put it into place is absolutely amazing. <3 We were out in the middle of nowhere Alabama, so all of the stars were super-clear and just gorgeous.

Since all the kids were at camp, our normal chicken feeding crew was “afc”….away from coop. 😀 This meant that it was my turn to feed the chickens. Did I mention that this was my first time ever to feed them??

It was also my first time to put them all away. A nice big rainstorm moved in right while I was getting them put up. I was very thankful for my big, waterproof flashlight!

All in all, late December and early January were definitely getting off to a “hopping” start, and there’s more to come soon! 🙂

~Miss Court

{early December}

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So, in the early days of December, I turned 24. I had a delightful day. =] Delightful week, really.

My birthday was nice and quiet, with delicious chocolate cake. We also went to the first drive-through nativity we’ve ever attended, which was wonderful. 🙂 This is my converse waiting on our turn to drive through:

My mom and I continued our tradition of seeing the latest Hunger Games movie for my birthday. This year, we were armed with coupons that had been posted on the local theater’s Facebook page, so we were able to get popcorn and drinks as well. What we weren’t expecting was to get plastic Star Wars collector’s cups as the drink cups. It was so awesome!! Couponing for the world, haha!! 😀

It has been a fun tradition over the last 3 years. I’m hoping that there will be another interesting movie that comes out around my birthday, since we are finished with the Hunger Games movies now.

Later on in the week, it was time for Jacob’s company Christmas party, which was held a local bowling alley. It was wonderful to meet some of Jacob’s coworkers, and just have a great time bowling!

I also received the scores back for Lesson 1 of school…couldn’t be happier with it!

We also took the time to participate in Krispy Kreme’s “day of the dozen”….always a good plan. 😉

There were so many neat things that happened that week, and all through the last year, really. God is good to me, and so very merciful. I look forward to seeing what He does through this next year!

{Christmas at the Lambert Estate}

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We had the most peaceful and restful Christmas season ever this year. We were blessed to be able to spend a lot of time together as a family and just take it really easy. It was truly the most wonderful Christmas we have ever had. Here are a few highlights:

For us, the Christmas season starts with the choir practices for Handel’s “Messiah”, with the Alabama Civic Chorale. This year, I convinced Mama and Matthew to sing with me!

We practiced each week at a lovely church, and as we got a little closer, we had the opportunity to go sing at the shopping mall and on the local news:

"Hallelujah Chorus" 🎶🎼🎵

A video posted by Courtney Lambert-"The Awesome" (@thedixiesongbird) on

I did a dress mini-session of my recital dress before the actual performance. I thought it might be fun to try, so I did!

This is a photo of Mama and I just before the performance:

This was my second time to have the opportunity to study and sing Handel’s “Messiah”. This year, like last, I found myself fighting tears at the end. It is such an incredible way to memorize scripture and have the opportunity to present the gospel to people who might not hear or read it otherwise. I find myself praying in the weeks leading up to the performance that we might be a light to the folks coming to hear it. I know many come simply because it’s their Christmas tradition, but they are still being presented with the gospel message. It is absolutely incredible. I’m so blessed to have the opportunity, and am thankful the Lord swung those doors open for my family and I.

As the days continued onward, we started doing many of our annual traditions.

I went and cleared out the local Dollar General’s stock of eggnog. Because eggnog, right?

Then it was time to start putting up the décor. We actually did most of the outside stuff first. Matthew and I took care of the bulk of it. I guess you can say we were the “lighting engineers”.

And then, it was time to do the inside.

We actually rearranged the entire back room of our house so that we would have a nice place to sit and watch sappy Hallmark movies. Because sappy Hallmark movies. =D

Here are some of the other highlights:

My parents give us a commemorative Christmas ornament each year. This was mine for this year:


I find that it was very fitting. 🙂

Of course, I would be neglecting so much if I failed to give a hat tip to the Christmas parades. This year, we participated in all three of the Christmas parades, which means I have driven a parade float four times in two years. If we do all three again this year, I’ll have driven the parade float seven times in three years. It’s kinda thrilling!! =D

First things first….making the big heads:

Mounting Snoopy:

Then there’s rewiring the trailer:

Getting folks sat down and ready to ride:

It was a little odd to be perfectly comfortable in a short-sleeve shirt for the final two parades. Just saying.

Here’s a quick video of the float riders in action!

We really enjoyed getting to do that again. 🙂

Life started to calm back down post-parades. Now it was time for music practice:

Realizing we made the paper for the 2nd year straight:

Oh, and trying to keep Jackson from opening all of the presents. At the time, I had the entire action assembly out of our Story and Clark piano, so there was quite a bit of extra space. I realized we could hide the majority of the presents inside of the piano, and he wouldn’t be able to get to them!

We had a couple of creepy appearances from Elf:

And I loved making personalized homemade gifts for everyone this year. Some were made while watching sappy Hallmark movies (I’m starting to notice a theme here…)

Others were made where time permitted, and everything was made from things already on hand here.

And this was a favorite thing I made. This was for Mama….it’s the Lambert family as a pod o’ peas!!

Here’s everything wrapped up and pretty:

Christmas dinner….need I say more.

Daddy said we got to leave the decorations up until New Year’s this time, which was really nice. We were sad to see them come down. I think we are finally, finally coming up with where each thing should go permanently, so between that and the very detailed packing we did last year, we had everything up in less than two days- a record!

To finish this out, my dad makes a “look back” video each year, and shows it on Christmas Day. This video is just a few of the highlights from the year, so that we can look back and reflect on all that God has done through the year. It’s always fun to see the different places we’ve went, the different things we’ve done, how much the kids have grown from the previous year, etc. I’m thankful Daddy is skilled in this area and can share that gift with us. It has become a special legacy.

Well, I’m still working on catching everything up, so there will be more postings over the next few days. It’s been a “happening” several weeks around here! =]