Prayers Needed!

Yesterday, we had to put my grandma in the hospital. My family and I were supposed to go to my aunt and uncle's ranch in Kansas City this week along with my grandparents. Saturday we got a call saying that my grandma was not going to be able to make the trip because she was in too much pain. WHAT?!? I didn't even know my grandma was this sick, but apparently she has been in severe pain for 6-8 weeks! My aunt and uncle and their family instead came to St. Louis on Monday so that we could all be together around Christmastime. God really worked a miracle Monday night, because my grandma felt good enough to sit in the living room with her family and have Christmas. We thought we might not be able to get Christmas in this year on my dad's side, but God gave us an amazing night together on Monday.
Tuesday morning, my aunt, grandpa, mom, and dad took my grandma to the hospital to figure out what was wrong. It turns out that she has cancer and it's very aggressive and widespread. Wow, I can't even believe this. It's so fast. We're not really sure of all the details, but it's not looking good. Last night it took something four times as strong as morphine to ease her pain. My prayer is that no matter what happens, my grandma will be pain free and have peace. She's been sick for longer than I've been born, and this just happens to be the worst of it. Please, please keep my grandma, grandpa and our family in your prayers. God can do anything, especially when believers are united in prayer.
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the PEACE of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

Mullins Family Christmas

I love love love my family and all the things we do at Christmas! We begin preparing our hearts for the Christmas season on December 1. For awhile my mom has given me, my brother, and sister a small gift everyday during December as well as some Scripture and a small lesson for the day. As we approach our Savior's birthday, we grow closer to Him and remember what Christmas is all about. After attending the service at church, Christmas Eve at our house began with the kids' choice of dinner, which happened to be lasagna, Rich and Charlie's salad, and bread (pretty much the same thing it's been the past few years). During dinner we make toasts with the bubbly (sparkling grape juice)...man it's so tasty. We toast to our Lord, our family, friends, dogs, whatever we feel like really. Then after cleaning up we put our pj's on and go into the living room to hear my dad read the Christmas Story from the family Bible. The kids get to open one gift from each other on Christmas Eve. We finish up the festivities by watching Claymation Christmas...if you've never seen it, then you're missing out. We put out our stockings and then attempt to go to bed. Idono what it is about Christmas, but none of us can sleep EVER! It's ridiculous really. One of my favorite things about Christmas Eve is that Lindsay and I push our beds together and put our dogs in our beds. When we were little, we shared a bed so we were always right next to each other during the Christmas Eve excitement. We've never been able to let that go, so we still stay up talking and giggling like little girls. My sister is so awesome! After what seems like an eternity, we are finally allowed to wake our parents up and go open presents. They wouldn't let us wake them up until 6:30 this year! We do the whole present thing and then mom fixes a huge breakfast, which was french toast this year. Christmas at our house is about the same every year, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's tradition!

Cape Girardeau Christmas Traditions

I got back from Cape Girardeau yesterday and had a ton of fun as usual. We had Christmas with 38 people this year on Friday night. It seems to get bigger and bigger every year. I'll never get tired of Christmas on my mom's side because of all the traditions. And boy do we have traditions... This year we didn't get there early enough to take part in the baking of the yummies, but they were incredible as usual. We had a smorgasbord of sweets...fudge, sugar cookies, pecan cookies, peanut brittle, apricot roll-ups...my mouth is watering just thinking about it all. Of course we had a Christmas dinner but this year my grandpa changed things up a little. We actually dined on pizza and salad this year rather than the traditional meat, mashed potatoes, veggies, etc. It was still delicious and there were plenty of sides to fill everyone up. That's some good cookin'! After we finished eating, the cousins rushed to the basement to begin rehearsing for the annual Christmas Cousin Band. Our band consists of 4 flautists, 2 trumpets (1 was missing though), 1 alto saxophonist, 1 trombonist, 1 pianist, and 1 drummer ranging from 8th grade to freshmen in college. This was probably our 4th or 5th year performing for the rest of our family and we get better and better every year. This year we played Joy to the World, We 3 Kings, and Carol of the Bells. We learned the first 2 within a matter of 10 minutes which is pretty swift if I do say so myself. For Carol of the Bells, my brother Sean and I had arranged our own version for our jazz combo, so we tweaked it to fit our cousin band. This was the first time we didn't use music and it turned out pretty well. While we were downstairs practicing, I decided to be a little goofy during my solo and play all gutsy like. All my cousins were laughing and really enjoyed it, so they dared me to do it in front of my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I couldn't turn down the challenge so I soloed with everything I had. I don't even remember anything I played but I was running my fingers like crazy over that saxophone...it was insanely fun! Then my grandpa read the Christmas Story from the Bible and presented a Bible to one of my cousins who is going to be a teenager this next year. I really like this idea. They present the Bible as a symbol of passing the torch of faith on to the next generation. Next we sang Christmas Carols like we do every year. It is amazing how musical my family is. I stopped singing and just listened...WOW!!! We could seriously make a CD. Idono how so many people can make so many different harmonies sound so good. It's unbelievable! Ever since we were little, the girl cousins around my age have always done actions to the 12 Days of Christmas. We're getting older now, but it's still just as much fun. For each "day of Christmas" we have a different motion that just makes everyone crack up...especially 6 geese a laying. You could only imagine! We made each other promise that we would keep doing the actions no matter how old we got. Whenever we get married, our husbands will probably think we are pretty weird, but I couldn't not do that song with my cousins. Such good memories... Time for presents!!! We sorted out the thousands of presents under the tree, then the younger kids got to open first, followed by the older kids. There's too many people for everyone to give everyone presents so we just draw names around Thanksgiving to see who we should get presents for. After all those presents are opened, the adults (around age 16 and up) play a gift exchange game...Chinese Auction. Everyone brings a gift to put in the middle...some are humorous such as a Hillbilly Briefcase made out of underwear, and some are really nice. In this game, you can either open a new present from the pile or you can choose to steal from someone else who has a present already. We had 24 people playing and I happened to draw number 24 so by the time it got to my turn I could pick pretty much any present I wanted, as long as it hadn't been stolen 3 times already. I ended up with 3 awesome Christian CD's. The rest of the night consisted of eating, mingling with people we hadn't seen in awhile, the usual family stuff... 3 families, including mine, came from out of town so we stayed at my grandparents...as well as my aunt Sarah. A total of 18 people in one house! There are 2 girls in each family and I have soooo much fun with these girls. We played games and just had a blast as if we see each other every day. Time doesn't change how close we are. Saturday before we left, us 6 girls and Sarah went to Panera Bread for some mochas. We snapped some funny pictures and had a wonderful time together. We are such good friends and make such good memories every year that I just can't wait until next Christmas!

Home!

I made it through my first semester of college! I finished up finals last week and now i'm home for 3 weeks!!! It's so nice to be able to sleep in my own bed without people running around outside being loud or random people coming into my room. I never really appreciated the smell of home until I left. There's just something about home that makes you feel good about yourself. And homemade food! It doesn't get much better than that.
I'm so blessed to have such an awesome family! I have been brought up knowing Christ personally. I've always taken that for granted and I'm just now realizing how lucky I've been to have a family that loves God so much. I'm really looking forward to spending time with each person individually over Christmas break and getting back into their lives. This weekend was just the beginning of what's going to come in the next few weeks!
My aunt Sarah came to my house this weekend. She's a missionary in India and her life is just amazing, but that will have to be another blog. Anyway, our family decided about a month ago to pray over our home and Sarah wanted to be here for that which was a major blessing. We put stakes on the corners of our property with Scriptures on each of them and then anointed the perimeter with oil. We came inside and took communion, then just worshipped God and prayed together. Sarah read us some passages from the Bible that fit so well with what we needed. It was so nice to be with my family praying for each other and for our home. Nothing is our own and we want to serve God with everything He has given us.
"But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15