A Month in the Life

With Love . . .


Thanks for reading the Hoover’s blog this past week.
It has been our privilege, and we have thoroughly enjoyed “blogging” – something our version of Microsoft Word denies the existence of.

May God’s richest blessings be yours this Holiday Season, and may His eternal hope remain ever present in your heart!

It has been an incredible year in our lives and we are sincerely grateful for having experienced it, and for having the opportunity to share some of it with you.


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Steve, Kristin & the Girls

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!

Labels: hoover and meeks families, thehooverhouse.net, wife swap #314

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Mangers

There was a last minute rush to get Christmas cards mailed out today. I try to make a personal, Jesus centered, card for our friends and family each year. It’s not always easy getting three wiggle worms to pose, but we’ve ended up with a fun collection of Christmas cards throughout the years.

Meeks

Today I telephoned the Meeks family, our counterpart from the television show, to get the proper mailing address for their Christmas gift (Ooooo…. I just want to tell you what it is soooo bad!). Tony sounded quite cheerful, just returning from caroling at a nursing facility. (I wonder, how do rock and roll carols sound?)

He seems to be enjoying his new job – one we prayed for over a nine month period, after he was fired during filming. While waiting on God, Tony and Tish both went through some difficult moments, but now they are rejoicing, and giving God the glory.

Every so often we get a message on our voice mail, “Hey! Just wanted to call the Hoover’s today. We’re thinking about all our blessings and wanted to let you know we’re so glad you came into our lives.” That’s enough to give you the warm fuzzies all day!

Mary

In Bible Study today we read through Luke 1 - the story of Mary and Elizabeth. I performed for the ladies, a monologue I have been preparing for church this Sunday morning. In the monologue Mary is on the road to visit her cousin Elizabeth, and is pondering her new role as “mother of God”. A mother’s natural instinct is to teach her child things such as:
Manners:
*Share
*Be kind to others even when others are not very nice to you
*Control your temper
*When others wish to argue, sometimes it’s better to remain silent
Safety:
*Stay close to your parents, especially in the bigger cities, we don’t want to
lose you!
*Be careful when walking around water.
*Don’t touch sick people, you might catch what they have
*Be careful when your in Joseph’s shop, the nails are very sharp and can hurt
you.

The monologue continues with Mary’s ponderings, and she realizes her job in “mothering” the God of creation, is not to be a teacher, but to just be there.

My mother, Judith Bentley, and I recently published a Bible Study about the women of Acts and how they changed their world. The first lesson in the study is on Mary. Mary was THERE at the birth of Christ, participated in His first miracle, was THERE at the cross, and was THERE to witness the glorious resurrection and ascension. And we can thank Luke, the writer of Acts for letting us know Mary was THERE to experience the outpouring of His Spirit on Pentecost. Mary was THERE!

I believe that God can move through this presentation, and hopefully he’ll REmove the spirit of the chicken I’m starting to feel.

May His love be THERE in your heart today!

Blessings, Kristin

Labels: Daughters of the Promise

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I BELIEVE

I have been blessed! I just received this Italian Capucio King espresso machine. It is brass and copper with manual lever pressing action. This is more than I normally alot for Christmas expense, but my employer insisted... .

As a compromise I am committed to making some espresso drinks for those less fortunate than I!

My side of the family will be celebrating Christmas with a feast on Sunday after which I plan to don the role of a Barista.


I Don't Wanna Shimmy!

Tomorrow is day two of a three day chimney service project at Harbor Towne in the Lake Of The Ozarks. Today was fourteen hours long and a serious reminder that my slower season can't come fast enough.

Much of our service is performed from the fireplace, but the inspection includes rooftop evalutions and access to the terminations. Needless to say this activity takes a toll on my body.

Huck -n- Rudy

I would like to comment on new political polls but will leave it at a question, "Is Huckabee going all the way?"

Steve

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!

Tradition

Blessings to you during this special season! We have been looking forward to a week of blogging.

As Steve has mentioned, we are in full swing with the Hoover family traditions. They say necessity it the mother of invention, and it was this which started our own Christmas tradition. Steve and I are both terrible at keeping surprises from each other. If Steve buys a present early for me, it begins to eat on him. First he’ll innocently say “Kristi, I brought you a present today. . .” From there it progresses to guessing games, with hints on the gift’s dimensions, and finally, “Come on, don’t you want to open it?” I’m all too eager to do so.

Later, Emily our oldest daughter, joined our twosome. On Christmas day, she was surrounded by this huge pile of gifts and not quite sure where to dig in. Thus, the Hoover’s 12 Days of Christmas began.

Gifted

About two weeks before Christmas, the celebration starts. Each evening we call the family to the living room and sit by the fire. We have a children’s Christmas story book (barely held together by tape) that nicely divides the Christmas story in small sections. We read a section, talk about it, sing a carol, and pray. Then the girls will either present their gifts to the family or receive a gift.

They really enjoy our tradition and I like the fact each present gets equal attention, and we can keep Jesus right in the middle of it all. Often, they are occupied the whole next day with their newest "treasure". It’s fun to help the girls shop on their special night to present gifts to the family. They save their own money, and do extra 50 cent jobs in order to buy better gifts. One daughter still had money left over from our television stint and bought some larger presents. (Dad is either given a coffee mug or Reese’s, and I get scrapbook stickers)

Friends & Fun

Tonight, a fondly tagged, “Wife Swap convert" and I together made a festive dinner for our families and exchanged presents afterward. She and I started Bible studies soon after she watched our television episode. It is beautiful to see her being led by the Spirit and see the progress she is making in her walk with God. She’s becoming a great cook too! Amazing what the Lord can do!

Kristin

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!

# posted by 99 Blogger @ 1:10 AM 4 comments

Holiday greetings from the Hoover House!
What a special treat to pop in and say hello to one and all reading this blog. We greatly enjoyed our stint here in July, and are anxious to again open the window of our lives for a few days.

God has blessed the Hoovers in many ways in this past year, and we have become very busy people – not saying we were slackers before!

The twelve days of Christmas are in full swing and Holiday Cheer abounds... well at least in theory!

We are recovering from last week’s damaging ice storm, complete with power outages and damage from fallen trees. Then the last few days we got a blanket of snow, which is beautiful, but hazardous on the areas still covered with ice. I saw several cars in ditches and overturned on Saturday, and I had to attach snow chains to my service van to make it home.

Labels: chimney sweep, Hoover, thehooverhouse.net, Yaktrax