Burnett Family

Sooo…after 25 years of living all together as a family, John-Clay and Caleb have made the first move out! For quite some time, they have been looking around for a place more convenient for Caleb’s travel commute, and one that would provide them with a chance to start spreading their own roots. A duplex about 45 minutes away was God’s provision for them. It’s an exciting transition for sure, although the pain of change is sometimes hard – mostly because it will just never be the same again like it always was…
But hey, if you’re going to get to the next season in life, you have to start sometime, somewhere, somehow! :)

Moving is never a small task, even if you don’t have a ton of stuff to move. The guys have been coming home at least on the weekend – whether to see us or to get a home-cooked meal, I’m not sure. ;)

The house still had a strong smoke smell from previous renters, so Abbie, Charity, and Maggie went up for about 5 hours one Saturday and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned…scrubbed ALL the woodwork (including all the cabinets!) inside AND out, vacuumed, mopped, organized, cleaned the bathroom, put up curtains,…they cleaned from top to bottom, literally! Needless to say, the guys were super blessed by their huge help!

Ab was determined to get that whole cabinet scrubbed out…

The duplex is actually really cute nice. ;) Us girls would have no problem coming up with all kinds of ideas for decorating and making it homey.

By the way, we just returned from the Big Sandy ATI conference – it was amazing!! We’ll look forward to sharing about that soon. J-C just got back from an amazing weekend at the World Changers’ Summit, so all of us girls and Benj (the new man of the house!) are going up to hang out at the guys’ place tonight to catch up on everything with each other. It’s going to be a blast. :)

And yes, we are bringing them supper. ;)

I am always looking for a way to cook up a bunch of party food,

and thought a Spring tea sounded fun…after lots of planning and

tons of baking, this was the beautiful result. :)

My beautiful family. :)

Picnic Stuffed Eggs                   Asparagus Ham Roll-ups

French Vanilla Cream Puffs       Flavorful Sausage Balls

I really enjoy planning everything to cook, but I do have trouble

narrowing down all my options, and probably end up with too much

food, as you can tell. :)

Aren’t these flowers cute?! Carinna helped with them – I thought

they turned out very fun. :)

Charity was very sweet, and willingly assisted me all day! …well, I guess she WAS a little unsure about peeling the shrimp. ;)

Carinna is making lemon curd, and Mom is working on the decorations. She also spent a lot of time and effort on making the little “signs” you see in each of the dishes. I definitely couldn’t have put all this together without all the help I had!

Chicken Salad Crescents

Sugar Cookie Fruit Pizza           Fried Shoestring Carrots

The strawberry scones are a personal recipe, and we served them

with Lemon Curd.

Maggie made the shoestring carrots (I think she enjoyed it?) and several pitched in and did dishes.

Cheez-it Toffee

Lemon Tea Cakes                     Bunny Bait

Skewered Shrimp

Cheesy Corn Bites                   Jalapeno Popper Dip

Yogurt-Covered Raspberries were from Sam’s Club. ;)

If you think we were having fun here, (which we were!) you should’ve seen us afterward playing games for family fun! It wasn’t the games that were so fun, but all the laughing in between that had nothing to do with what we were playing…thanks, Caleb. ;) We sure can have a good time. :D

 
Happy spring everyone! Don’t ya’ll just love the weather?! It’s been in the 80’s and higher here!

Well, this kind of weather is just too good to pass up for a picnic, right!? So, Thursday evening our whole family (except Caleb who had work plans =(….) and our Grandma and Grandpa went to the “city” park for supper! The meal was a group effort (and delicious!!!).

 
Charity “deviled” the eggs.

 
Grandma brought the jell-o (just sayin’, my Grandma makes the best jell-o in the entire world!)

 
Hannah did the baked beans.

 
I (Maggie) fried the chicken.

Carinna/Abbie made the oatmeal sandwich cookies, Grandma brought the cupcakes, Charity made sweet tea, and Abbie made the fruit salad.

 
Twins forever!!! <3

Our sweet Grandma!!

 
Abbie and Benj.

 
Calli got to come. (She got her fill of fried chicken along with the rest of us…umm!)

 
=)

Dad and his parents – we are so glad that Grandma and Grandpa joined us!

Bro’s (that pretty well explains it!)

 
Grandma, Grandpa and Hannah…( love the smiles.. =)

 
Charity and Abbie =)

   
Trying to get Calli to go up the steps and down the slide..we finally managed it with a little “chicken bribery”…she slid the whole way down!

Dad on the slide….. (who says you can get too old to do such things?!! not me!!)

Hannah

These swings go so high, they’re SO much fun!! 

 
Well, I hope this post has inspired you to go out and enjoy this lovely weather! (and having a family picnic is a great way to do it!)

I’ll skip lamenting the fact that it has been __ days since we posted and get straight to fixing the problem…writing a blog post! :)

Our friend from Alaska, Barrie Greenfield, came up from Bible school in Texas the other weekend to fix some of her own Alaskan salmon for us! Some of the family were rather skeptical, since we hardly ever eat salmon (what can you expect when you live in OK?), but I think we all enjoyed it! I thought it was delicious. :)

We peppered her with all sorts of questions as she prepared it (pun intended…sort of), such as, what kind of salmon it was, how they fish for it, what other ways do they eat it, how do you know when it’s done, etc.

On the side – Garlic Knot Rolls

Roasted Asparagus – the best way to eat it in our opinion! (Thanks, Aunt Janis!)

and fresh flowers. :)

I experimented with a new dessert – puddingwiches. They’re like ice cream sandwiches, except they have a pudding type filling inside graham crackers (or Ritz, if you run out of graham). Pretty good stuff!

After listening to Barrie’s wild bear hunting stories (true Alaskan she is), we wound up playing Fishbowl for Friday Fun Night…lots of laughs. =D This was the charades round…any guesses?

The next morning, a few of us got in some target practice. Speaking only for myself, I think skeet shooting is more my forte. :)

The Sharpshooters – heh heh. ;)

More posts coming soon…right, Abbie? ;)

We had a fabulous whirlwind of a weekend in Texas!

Buzzing down the road for the Saturday night, SAICFF. closing ceremonies!
Family road trips are the BEST. We (kids) always have an itch to go somewhere.

Mr. Randy Putz, our fabulous host – putting up a total of 14 people for the night is no small task. We always enjoy his kind, full-of-joy fellowship.

Of course, John-Clay had been in San Antonio for the whole week, attending the Film Academy along with the Henline family and their friend, Emily. J-C said the Academy was the best ever – plenty of practical instruction and challenging messages.

The week is always key for networking with other Christian filmmakers. It’s encouraging to see how much independent Christian filmmaking has grown and improved in just the past 9 years since the film festival began!

John-Clay’s main project last year was making the documentary, Captivated.
Phillip Telfer was the producer of the film, which was a semi-finalist at the festival.

This was our third year to drive down for the closing ceremonies on Saturday night! Sooo excited. =)

Doug Phillips – President of Vision Forum Ministries

Special music for the evening was provided by Charlie Zahm

We were thrilled when the Henlines’ film, The Forgotten Martyr: Lady Jane Grey, won the Best Young Filmmaker’s Award and was also runner-up for Best Short Film!

Captivated was up against 15 other documentaries, so we weren’t sure whether to get our hopes up for an award or not. We were pleased when Captivated won runner-up for Best Documentary and was a finalist for the Best of Festival Award! =)

In actuality, the best award of all was the feedback received during the week from the many people whose lives have been greatly impacted through the message of the film. Praise the Lord! That’s a work that only HE can do.

Courageous deservedly won the Best of Festival Award! Stephen Kendrick gave a meaningful speech, honoring his dad for the powerful influence he has been in their lives. One thing that really stands out among all these filmmakers is their passion to do what they do for the glory of God, that He might be lifted up and seen for Who He is!

What better way to end the night than by bringing down the house with the Orange Blossom Special! Personally, the harmonica was my favorite. :)

Remember the Dorninks? We were so happy that seven of them were able to stop for a night going and coming from the film festival. They joined us for our bi-weekly volleyball practice at a church gym, which was super fun!! Sorry, no pictures of that. We were pretty busy playing, losing, and winning. :)

Discussing guns, I think. :)

My dear friend, Melody – we can talk for hours! And every time I’m left challenged, encouraged, and hungry for the Lord. That’s a good friend for ya. ;)

The Moms.

Spoons! A favorite around here.

 
Benj got a lot of basketball time out of Dustin and Kelly, much to his enjoyment.

Somehow, the length of the Dorninks’ visits seem to expand…and grow…and carry on…(not because we tempt them with homemade ice cream or anything).

On their way back from San Antonio, they planned to drop in from 10pm – 2am (yes, you read that correctly). But it so happened, they got an early start and expected to arrive by 7pm instead. Then, their mini-van broke down in Waco, and we weren’t sure if they were going to be able to come at all. :( Van got fixed, they arrived at midnight and decided to stay the night! (Nachos are a great midnight snack meal, by the way.) Wellllll, when their departure time of 11am rolled around in the morning, we said, “Is there any way y’all can stay longer?” A few phone calls made, and the rest of the day was spent with them until we sent them off with a blessing at 10pm that night. =D Good times!

Good friends = willing to ask meaningful questions, talk deep, and truly desire to build each other up in the Lord. The Dorninks definitely fit that list. We shared some great discussions together, and I know our family was really encouraged! Hopefully, we’ll find an excuse to meet up again soon. :)

There’s the re-cap for you! With the calendar as full as it is, I’m sure we’ll have more to tell you about soon. :)

Thanks to all you blog readers for staying in touch! We appreciate each one of you and pray that the Lord will really be the treasure of your heart as you walk through life with Him.