Women's Christmas Dinner 2022!

Our Women's Christmas Dinner was on Friday, December 2nd. I was asked by the Women's Ministry Leader back in May to be the speaker at this event. I said I needed to pray about it and I did. I knew that God was calling me out of my comfort zone and I just needed to take the leap and say yes...so I did. Fast forward months and I still had no idea what I was going to talk about. I think it was sometime in October I told Michael I needed to just go have sometime with God and so that's what I did. I holed myself up in my bedroom for hours one Saturday and when I came out I had most of my talk finalized. It felt so good! A few weeks after that I fine tuned it and was ready to go. Not to say that I wasn't extremely nervous because I was! 

Mom and I decided to do a tree theme with our table this year. She has all these pretty wooden trees that she decorates with at Christmas. We used the red buffalo checked napkin since they remind me of a lumberjack shirt. We also bought pinecone napkin holders and these paper chargers that look like tree rounds. They were so cool! Our gift to our ladies were these cute pinecone ornaments. 

Since I was the speaker we got the table right down in front next to the stage. Pa was asked to build a star to put in place of the cross during the Christmas season. It turned out so gorgeous and went perfectly with our Christmas Dinner theme which was The Star of Christmas. 

Our table was also right next to one of the big Christmas Trees! 

I always sign Michael up to be a server during the dinner, but this was the first time I signed up the boys as well. Owen was especially not that excited about having to dress up nice, but they both did such a great job! 

After the event, Michael is usually telling me how they could have done things differently in regards to serving. I've been trying to get him to lead this portion of the night for years and he's finally agreed that he will lead this next year! 

Nancy playing the harp is one of my favorite parts of whole the night! 

Here were the ladies at my table. Unfortunately Miss Ruth left before we were able to get a picture. We also were the only table that had the pleasure of having a guy sit at our table. Stephanie who's in the very back...her husband Scott was playing the piano while she led us in carols for the night so he joined us for dinner. They also wrote a song for the evening that was based on my talk. They asked me to send them my notes and they wrote a song off of that. It was incredible!!! 

My portion of the night went great and even thought I was nervous I don't think I showed it too badly. I had lots of ladies compliment me on my talk and while that's not why I did it is really nice to hear that the words the Lord gave me to say resonated with those listening. 

This is always feels like the official kickoff to the Christmas season for me and it absolutely did not disappoint!

Riverview Women's Christmas Dinner 2021!

After having to take a year off, the Women's Ministry at church was able to hold our Christmas Dinner on Friday, December 3rd 2021. 

Mom & I decided to decorate a table together again. At the last Christmas Dinner in 2019, we used my mom's cabin, but we figured it had been so long no one would remember so we'd just reuse that same theme. 

The church was providing all the dishes so we just had to bring the decorations, tablecloth and napkins. 

We did decided to use chargers to jazz it up a bit. We also were in charge of bringing a gift for each of our guests. Since we used the cabin I thought it would be fun for each lady to go home with some sort of house of their own. I couldn't find enough of one kind so we alternated between a church or a gingerbread house they both were battery powered and lite up and the church played music. 

Mom and I with our table. We were the last table to get to decorate since we didn't have time to get to the church earlier in the day. I knew we would be at the last table available which would probably not have the nicest view, but in fact we got the table I really wanted. Right in the middle in the very back! 

Every year Pa always decorates the cabin for Christmas. I love the little details, Christmas lights on the house, Christmas tree in the window, wreath on the door, a sled, snowman and even a nativity scene on the front lawn. 

People loved coming over and looking in the house. It really is amazing and Dad always gets lots of compliments! 

The food was amazing and made in house by some wonderful volunteers! What a blessing! 

I love singing Christmas Carols! Prior to the start of the event while ladies are just arriving we have a wonderful lady from our church who plays the harp...it's always one of my favorite parts of the evening! 

Here was the ladies that sat at our table... MJ, Melody, Ga-Ga, Me & Christina. 

All the while us ladies were eating, singing and listening to a wonderful speaker our kids were upstairs with a few of the Dad's having the time of their lives. Such a great blessing to everyone! So happy this event is back! 

Spring Tea!!!

Last year I joined my churches Women's Ministry team. We are in charge of coordinating 4 big events a year with a few smaller events in-between. The in-between events are the Ladies BUNCO night. We've had 1 so far and there are 3 more on the calendar. The big events have been our kickoff in September when we watched the Beth Moore Simulcast. The next event was our Christmas Dinner where the guys in the church treated all us ladies like queens. We had another event in March where we packed purses for Kent Hope. The latest event was our Spring Tea. This was a HUGE event. It took a lot of planning and prep work, but in the end it was all worth it and it was a total success. 

Registration table.

The lady in the blue floral shirt is Nancy she brought her harp and played it while we were waiting to get started. It's not a small one...it's one of those giant ones. The music was so beautiful. I took a picture of her playing but unfortunately it was super blurry.

Tea cups...each of the ladies got to pick their own tea cup. Later on in the morning when our speaker Lynette...she goes to our church....was talking she informed the ladies that the tea cup that they chose was theirs to take home!!! 

Lynette is a huge supporter of Compassion International. Her talk was centered around how God has made us all different...kind of like how each tea cup is different...and each person He created with a purpose in mind. God has a purpose for us. She also spoke about Compassion and how we can make a difference by sponsoring a child. 

The food was amazing! It was also a big reason why this event was so time consuming. From the shopping to the prepping and then assembling. It was so yummy though! On the buffet table we had all the tea sandwiches which were chicken salad croissants, turkey with cranberry butter and then the traditional cucumber open faced sandwich. There was also two kinds of salad a fruit salad and a pasta salad. 

The beverages of course were tea, but there was also lemon water and strawberry lemonade. 

It's a little blurry, but here are just a couple of the hardworking ladies in the kitchen! 

Our wonderful speaker Lynette putting out all the teapots! 

At the tables we had scones, lemon curd, raspberry jam, Devonshire cream, veggies and all the mini desserts. 

Here's the view of the auditorium as you walked in. 

Here's the view from the stage. 

Me and my Ella Grace! 

Rachael and her older girls...Kendra and Lilyann. 

Ella and I with Ga-Ga! 

And while us ladies were all having a great time eating yummy food, sipping yummy tea and hearing a wonderful message our other kids...mainly boys and younger girls were being taken care of in the church nursery.