2009 year in review

2009 was a great year.
Davis turned 1. Annie was born. Katie finished up her time with young life, for now. We added on a room to our house. Lawson was born. and this just scratches the surface. Hopefully some of these pics will help you remember as you've journeyed along with the blog. Lots of pics.
enjoy.
happy new year.

Merry Christmas part II

Like I said, we had a great Christmas.
This song is amazing.
I almost hope you'll listen to the song and then watch the video.
Enjoy.

We had a great Christmas.
All around great.
Lots of time with family.
Love our families.
Aunt Kristin got me a flip camera.
More videos coming.

Christmas Eve Eve

On Christmas Eve's Eve, I thought I would link to a friend of mines blog, Dave Strunk.
It's less about a political statement and more about why Jesus came.
Click Merry Christmas to be taken to the blog.
Merry Christmas

12 Days of Christmas Neely Style

One of the traditions that the Fendley family has is the 12 days of Christmas plates.
Every year we pass around the plates and everyone picks a plate.
Once you receive your plate you take a black sharpie and write your name on the plate so that we can remember who had what plate each year.
After you have left you mark on the plate the fun begins.
We sing the 12 days of Christmas! Of course, whichever plate you have is the part of the song you sing. 12 drummers drumming is like GOLD. You sing 1 time the entire evening.
The partridge in the pear tree is like hitting a WHAMMY on "Press Your Luck", you are going to be singing all night long! The other winning plate is 5 golden rings. You have the pleasure of all night trying to make that sound good while everyone listens to you drawing out, "FIIIIIIVE GOOOOOLDEN RIIINGS."
You always have people that forget to sing, try to sound like this is being recorded (usually Katie), or hope that people will join in if they sing quiet enough.
We are the original "The Sing off", no instruments, just the wonder of our voices.
Boys to men would be proud.

These are not the exact plates.

12 Days of Christmas Neely Style

Great Music.
I absolutely love Christmas music.
Here are a few of my favorite cds that you should probably own or try to get your hands on. Please note that this list is far from extensive.
Joy: by Allen Levi, Ed Cash and Bebo Norman. This is old but still has some of the greatest version of Christmas classics.
Shane and Shane: Glory in the Highest. If you have never heard of Shane and Shane they are crazy. It is unbelievable that 2 guys, both named Shane, were able to find each other and make such amazing sounds. We just got this cd last week, but I am really enjoying it.
Michael Buble: I would say there is not a better sound to have on in the background at a Christmas party. His station is 1st on my Pandora list.
Chris Tomlin: Again, lots of classic songs done in a way that you want to sing along.

Andrew Peterson: Not classical Christmas at all, but a great sound and it really tells the story of Christmas throughout the cd. Great buy.

Here is a recording from Fellowship, where I work, with a song we did this Sunday which is actually off of the Chris Tomlin cd. Enjoy. Merry Christmas.

Fellowship Church: Unto Us Christmas Service 2009 - My Soul Magnifies The Lord from Fellowship Church Knoxville on Vimeo.

12 Days of Christmas Neely Style

9. Laughter.
We love to laugh. Katie is great at making people laugh.
Both of our families laugh well together. Its funny how different things make people laugh.
They say yawning is contagious, but I say that laughing is much more contagious.
We need to be better at laughing.
If there is ever a season to laugh it's now.
Christ laughed a lot, that's not completely biblical, but I'd bet a lot on it!
I hope no matter your circumstances this Christmas season, you are able to laugh.
Hope this helps.
Saw this on a blog I read by Kevin DeYoung.

12 Days of Christmas Neely Style

10. Design changes.
Obviously our house changed a lot this year.
I wish I could put up pics of all the changes but 2 months of work is hard to put up on a blog.
I love decorating for Christmas.
Some of it's tradition.
Some of it's the beginning of an amazing season.
Some of it's loving the look of a decorated house.
Here are a couple of changes, unfortunately none of them are actually of the new addition. We will try to take some pics soon.

You can see the new front porch thingy (technical term) missing in this older pic. Amazingly we have two pics in the snow. We think it breaks up the long roof.
Here is our front room.
New way, not the greatest pic. The best addition to this room which you can't really see is that there are now 4 stockings because of the addition of Annie.

Old Way


*Random update on kids. Annie has moved up to the duck bathtub, I think Davis is excited for her. She is also getting more and more mobile. Davis is singing alot these days, Katie is seeing how many Christmas songs she can teach him. We also went and got sushi with Muma and papa tonight and Davis had some. I love that he still want to eat anything we give him.

Ho Ho Ho

11 Days of Christmas

11...

Meals.
Unbelievable the number of meals we have together over the Christmas season.
We are blesssed with two families that really know how to cook, and cook we will!
We will have breakfasts, lunches, bruches, dinners, heavy hor'douvres, snacks, cookies, etc...



Along these lines, i haven't updated at all.
That should have been a sign.
.5 lbs NOT 5, 1/2. Awesome.
Santa is proving trickier than i imagined.
Off to another meal.

12 Days of Christmas Neely Style

For the next 12 days we will count down our 12 days of Christmas.
I'm sure that you are as excited as when you were a child and had a paper chain where you would tear off one piece a day!

12...

Pairs of matching pajamas.

For my entire life we have received one present on Christmas eve from my parents.
Every year I would get excited thinking...This is the year they surprise us. This is the year I get a transformer village! This is the year there will be an Xbox...This is the year!
Instead... every year it was a new pair of pajamas.
This is now one of our favorite traditions.

Yes, you read that correctly, NOW, we still receive pajamas every Christmas eve.

We all get matching pajamas.
Girls get a set, guys get a set.
Even the year we spent Christmas in Australia, Mom smuggled some pajamas in the country and surprised us in the hotel.
This is sort of like initiation into our family for spouses. Katie and Chris can tell you about the enjoyment of this event. We have told Kristin on multiple occasions that this, the night the pjs are unveiled, will be the ultimate test for her future husband.
I have plenty of pics that could shut down the internet.
Demetria and Kristin would probably disown me if I put them on here, thus, the generic pics of pjs.
But it does make sense, if you start looking back at your Christmas pics there are some bizarre pictures.
The year Timmy came out in only his briefs, the year you wore underwear with a hole in it, the Christmas your older brother decided to go shirt less, your mom in your dads sweatpants...

Not the Neelys. Every year we all have matching pjs on in our Christmas pictures.
I'll be sure to post a pic of the pjs we get this year (with everyones permission of course).

So 12 pair of pajamas.
I am willing to bet that I have more pairs of flannel pjs than Sears.

*Note- these 12 days do not have to be exact... For example, I don't have exactly 12 pair of pjs, this is really just a Christmas countdown.

Gifts

Davis and Annie are not old enough for us to know what the "must have" gift is for this season.
But apparently their grandparents are in tune with the must have gifts.
Davis and Annie received two of these yesterday within 20 minutes of each other, one from each set of grandparents.


I'm thankful for grandparents that desire for their grandchildren to know the story of Christ.
It matters.
As a matter of fact, it's the only thing that matters.
I promise you that the toys they receive will perish.
Next year we will have forgotten the awe on Davis' face when he opens...
But teaching our children (and grandchildren) the story of Christ will endure.
I genuinely hope that one day my children are more amazed that God became a man, than the number of presents under a tree.
I PRAY that they will cherish Jesus, and not things that will one day be our junk at a yard sale.
I'm thankful that it starts this year. I could cover my house in nativity sets. But my children are going to notice the things I cherish, the things I am amazed by.
By His grace, I hope they see me amazed and cherishing Christ.

Santa

Muma and Poppa took Davis and Annie to see some reindeers and Santa Claus on Sunday evening while we had a group of newly marrieds over to our house.
Luckily Davis only asked for peace on earth.

Thankful for my dad's camera phone.

While they were seeing Santa we had a murder mystery/Christmas party with the newly married group that we help with at Fellowship. It was a great evening. I took it upon myself to spread rumors. I don't think too many people believed me. My character was Tyler Tinsel, a guy who loved Santa and loves Christmas. Katies character was a young professional, who is also a new mom. Fun time. We had 42 folks over here trying to figure out who killed Santa. We set up a little crime scene in the corner where all the couples took their picture.

Cousins, cooking, Christmas

Demetria and Katie decided to try to make Cupcake Pops the other day. Thanks to Bakerella.
In my professional cupcake experience they are keepers.
Basically they are deliciousness on a stick.
And they are cute to top that.


While they were cooking Davis, Annie and Lawson took some pics of themselves. Actually I think most of the time they were napping, well timed by the ladies.




Davis and Annie have started rocking their Christmas attire to church. It's a great time of the year.

The Ladies

The ladies of the house (minus Katie)