Counting my blessings!

In a couple of hours, the year 2006 is coming to an end! It's time to sit and ponder of the many blessings received this year and throughout my entire life and marvel at God’s astounding and unconditional love, mercy, kindness and boundless blessings!

Listed alphabetically below are some of the blessings in random order of importance....

A...All my senses, especially hearing, sight, smell, touch, taste and equilibrium; Apple pie; Alive in Christ; Adopted sister; Activities;
B...Best friends; Babies; Blessings; Blogging; Bible; Books; BEC (basic ecclesial communities); Birthday celebrations; Brother; Birds; Butterflies; Blueberry cakes; Brains;
C...Catholic faith; Computer; Chocalates; Cakes; Cineplex; Car; Churches; Camera; Compassion; Challenges;
D...Daughters-in-law; Doctors; Dentist; Dreams; Duties; Durians; Drinks;
E...Education; Eating; Enjoyment; Easter; Eucharistic celebrations;
F...Family; Family gatherings; Friends; Faith in Jesus; Flickr photo-sharing community; Financial stability; Food; Fruits; Forgiveness; Flowers; Failures;
G...God, our Heavenly Father; Grand-daughters; Good health; Grace; Guidance; Gardens/Gardening; Garden forums/friends; Gifts;
H...Home; Happiness; Hope; Holidays; Holy Spirit;
I...Internet access; Ice-cream; Intelligence;
J...Jesus; Joy; Jam; Jokes; Jobs;
K...Kindness; Knowledge;
L...Love; Life; Listening; Learning; Laughter;
M...Motherhood; Marriage; Mother Mary; Medicine; Music; Mangoes; Movies; Magazines;
N...Newspapers; Nuts; Nieces; Nephews;
O...Oranges; Offertory; Offers;
P...Pension; Pet dog; Part-time maid; Peace; Prayers; Plants; Patience; Photos; Presents; Protection; Priests;
Q...Quiet;
R...Retirement; Rain; Radio; Reconciliation; Rest; Relatives; Relationships; Resources;
S...Sons; Sisters-in-law; Songs; Successes; Sleep; Stability and peace in our country; Sunshine; Smiles; Safety;
T...Television; Trials and tribulations; Telephones;
U...Unity in family;
V...Visions; Vocations; Vacations;
W...Wedding anniversaries (37th a few days ago); Wisdom; Wonderful family life; Water; Walks;
X...X'mas; X-rays;
Y...Youths; Youthfulness; Years;
Z...Zeal; Zest;

I worship, I adore and I praise You, Almighty and Eternal God. All glory and honour are yours and yours alone, Heavenly Father! I thank You very much for the countless blessings received and am most grateful! I thank You for the new year 2007 which will begin in less than 10 mins, my 60th birthday which will be on new year's day too and uplift the days ahead as I don't know what lies ahead for us. I ask for your continued blessings, grace, wisdom, guidance, mercy, compassion and love for my family and myself, as well as for all mankind. I implore your Abiding Presence in my journey of life and journey of faith as I seek to do your will and desire to be obedient. I ask all this in Jesus most precious name, Amen.

Joy To The World, The Lord Is Come!

Raise our voices and sing

to welcome our King!!

OUR SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST IS BORN TODAY!

WE WISH YOU A JOYFUL AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Christmas Greetings

An angel of the Lord said to the shepherds, "Do not be afraid, I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David's town, your Savior was born - Christ the Lord!" (Luke 2: 10-11)

Here's a greeting card specially made for all our online friends.

Wishing you A Very Merry Christmas and A Joyful and Blessed New Year 2007!

May you experience the joy, peace and love of Jesus Christ this Christmas and throughout the New Year!

Thank you very much for your visits and do pop in again every now and then. :)

Almost One Year Old!

Hooray, our adorable twin grand-daughters will be one year old this coming Christmas day! They've grown remarkably healthy and strong since their premature birth last Christmas, praise the Lord!

We spent a wonderful day at David and Kellie's home last Saturday, December 16 in celebration of their twins' 1st birthday in advance as they won't be here around Christmas. They'll be holidaying in Cameron Highlands with Kellie's parents and siblings. Nonetheless, we look keenly to David, Kellie and babies joining us for another round of Christmas family gathering on Dec. 30 on their return to K.L.

Some precious moments captured on that great day of feasting and bonding! :D

Mozilla Firefox to the rescue!

My elder son had installed Mozilla Firefox for me a few weeks ago, insisting that this is a better browser than Internet Explorer. But I had continued using IE instead as I'm very familiar and confident with it. Anyway, this other alternative browser came in very handy recently!

Aaargh!!!...sometimes it can be so frustrating when you can't upload images in Blogger! This happened in my previous post dated December 3rd. where I tried umpteen times that night and decided to publish post without them. However, being the stubborn and persevering kind, I tried again and again for the next 2 days and finally succeeded after surfing Blogger help for answers!

My eyes were drawn to this particular suggestion:

"Try using a different browser. Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla Firefox will usually give the best results. If you're already using one of those, give the other one a try."

And I did exactly as suggested, using the Mozilla Firefox browser to edit my post and finally succeeded in posting the pictures I'd wanted! I'm putting this on record in case I face the same problem again (which is very likely as this is my second encounter!!) and will return here in future for reference in troubleshooting image upload problems. Moreover, my human brain is failing and getting unreliable these days? ;)

First Sunday of Advent, 2006!

Today, fond memories of past first Sundays of Advent float dreamily in my mind, recapturing precious moments spent with family members putting up our Christmas tree annually! A wonderful tradition that we still maintain, though for this year our tree was up last Sunday, but will only be lighted up every night starting tonight! We just love this blessed month of December! :D

Why was our tree up last Sunday, a week before the season of Advent? Go ahead, blame this soon-to-be 60 years old mummy, and daddy who's as aged and got their dates all mixed up! LOL! Anyway, last Sunday was a better choice of gathering our sons and their family home as our younger boy will be going to Davos, Switzerland for training on the 7th. of December and I would think that he'll need this weekend to pack and get ready for his forthcoming trip.

This year, our Christmas tree theme is purple and silver, different from our usual red and gold combination! A fascination I acquired when strolling at The Curve, Mutiara Damansara on New Year's day of 2006 where Darren and wife treated us on my birthday. Yanti, our loving daughter-in-law remembered our fascination of this trendy decoration and decided to surprise us this year with something quite similar! She's very creative in her handiwork - did a purple skirt with beads and ribboned edge for the base of Christmas tree, some dainty purple mini-handbags and lacy ribbons, as well as bought some mini butterflies.

She told me softly last Sunday that this is her labour of love for me and daddy and that she loves us very much. Oh...such sweet words ringing in my ears and how blessed I feel to get this affirmation! David and Kellie presented us with lovely Christmas trinkets and deco last Christmas and these came in handy now.

What a wonderful family get together – a great day spent cooking some of their favourite food from 9 a.m. (hokkien mee and yong-tow-foo), eating and enjoying each other’s company amidst laughter and fun. We had some yummy mini cheese tarts and dragon fruits that were brought home too. Of course David and Kellie were busy with their twins, Renice and Renee and luckily had help from Kellie's cousin, May who came along. So Yanti, Dylea (our other charming grand-daughter) and I did a good job decorating our Christmas tree. Darren did the final touching-up after he had watched his favourite Formula 1 on TV and his father just love to watch and observe all the fun going on! It was a glorious day well spent and treasured within my heart! :) :D