The Season For Silent Night

 Opening stockings on Christmas morning.

                         Too many presents to fit under one tree. That might be saying something.

The Traditional masking off the areas.

Oh look! A pez:)

Christmas Dinner

Table setting for Christmas dinner

 Endress Christmas can be a bit dangerous.

 The little girls grab

 Elijah and Jesse got fake guns and were shooting them all night and the next day

 The adult grab

Lexi Rae is going to be a big sister:)

Miss Kylie who is also going to be a big sister

Matching sweatshirts from Grandpa and Grandma

 The Aniellos.

 The Aniello boys and us

 It gets pretty crazy at meal time!

Uh oh! Caught!

NOTE: I wrote this blog a few days ago, but it took me awhile to get the pictures uploaded so I got discouraged and didn't finish in until tonight. I find it ironic that Silent Night is one of the most sung hymns of Christmas. For me, it is far from the opposite. Waking up at 5:30 to open at work doesn't help, although I shouldn't complain considering most people don't get to work at a Christ-centered bank. I am so grateful to be able to work with the co-workers I have. Most of them don't just profess christianity, but you can tell that they truly love God. I have nothing to complain about, although sometimes I think I do. This has been the craziest week for me. It kind of started out on Saturday with the big Endress Christmas at the Midwest Food Bank in Bloomington. It was a noon meal, so we were able to get some shopping done before and after. My really good friend Ashley Herrmann called to tell me she is engaged that night. I was a little shocked, because of the timing. Last weekend, me and another friend just had a surprise for her, because she graduated from Bradley University with her Masters in Accounting. I didn't think she would be getting engaged this soon. I am happy for her and I had her and Ryan Stoller matched up. I must say I take after my mom quite a bit:) On Sunday, Curt and Marybeth served church lunch so we helped them a little. On Monday, we had to clean, clean, clean, because we had Berchtold Christmas that night. It was  a fun evening full of our traditional games, baked potato bar, and lots of laughing. It's always enjoyable being with the Berchtold's, because they are older and about a 1/3 of the amount of people as the Endress family. The Berchtold family added 3 new family members this year though. My cousin Tanya is engaged to Sean Puckett and Luke and Jill have 2 foster children, Remington(3) and Clayton(6 months??). On Tuesday, we got up early (by Dad playing his iPhone in our ears) to go to church. When we got home, we ate some lunch, and then opened presents. Grandpa Berchtold came over since he didn't have anything to do. If you must know, I got a pair of snow boots(that don't find), a iPod adapter for me car(that doesn't fit), and piece of clothing(that doesn't fit), an alarm clock, umbrella, and Bible cover. I realized this Christmas that as you get older, you start getting less interesting gifts. Probably more practical. We spent the rest of the day trying out new toys and playing our new games. Then at around 4:30 we started rushing to get our Christmas dinner ready. Each year, everyone has a dish they make. It was delicious! We had turkey, bacon wrapped chicken, parmesan-herb bread, cheddar mashed potatoes, salad, veggies, and cake roll for dessert. On Wednesday, I worked from 7:15-11:30 and then drove all the way up to Grandpa and Grandma Endress's for Endress Christmas. We had a delicious appetizer lunch followed by the men and boys reading the Christmas story and the kids saying their pieces from the Christmas Program and playing Christmas songs on the Piano. At around 2:15, my Mom's best friend for high school came over with her family. They ironically have 4 boys and no girls. We don't see them often, because they live in Omaha, NE, so it was a treat seeing them. I think the last time we saw them was probably 2-3 years ago and the 2 oldest twin boys were shorter than us. Now, they are taller than their parents. It was pretty funny getting a picture with them, because of the height difference:) After that we went down stairs to open presents. There were 3 different grabs this year. There was a little girls grab, teenage girls grab, and adult grab. This was Seth and I's 1st year in the adult grab. We had to buy a $10 gift from a 2nd hand store. Believe me, it was very difficult. I bought 3 candle stand things and gave some soap with it. My aunt Betsy got it. When she opened it, she started laughing and I thought "Oh, no. She thinks its dumb!" Anyways, when i bought it, I could only buy half the set, because of the price. She bought the other half of the set that I didn't buy! She was really excited though, because she really wanted to keep her own gift. I ended up getting a cute white wicker picnic basket. I will probably use it for photography now and later in my own house. We stayed until a little after 10:30. I worked from 7:15-4:15 today and then headed up to Grandpa and Grandma's again. The men were cleaning out Grandpa's shed as a gift to him. If any of you know my Grandpa, you know he is famous for his junky shed. It had so much stuff in it and it looks great now! We had pizza for supper and then Seth took my out to the shed to look for some goodies:) I found a really cute barrel and some old suitcases. Pretty much I had a corner of my room designated to stuff for my future house. A lot of it is wall hangings and stuff that doesn't match my room so I don't want to hang it up. I will have to take a picture of it sometime. Oh, and did I forget to mention that Adam and Brittany are expecting in July. This will be Endress baby #4 in 2013 making 28 grandkids of which I am the oldest and 42 altogether. We are getting to be very large and it's hard to fit us all in one house now! Anyways, that is a "summary" of my past weekend and week thus far. I hope you all enjoyed this Christmas and remembered to keep Christ as the focus of your holiday!

6 daughters and 1 crazy dad

I was thinking this week, how different our family must be from others. Most families are unique in some way or other, but ours? To but it nicely, ours is special:) From our table conversations(let's not even go there:)) to our fighting over who's hairspray is who's. So I thought I would make a little list of reasons you know you live in a house with all girls.

1) You have 5 bottles of mousse and 2 bottle of hairspray
2) Your bathroom floor has to get scrubbed more than any other floor because of the hairspray
3) The first word your little sister learns is "shoes" (she may be a little brainwashed)
4) Your dad likes shopping more than your mom(for instance, he is currently shopping right now for the 2nd night in a row and 3rd time this week)
5) You don't know how to interact with boys of any age, even babies
6) You even have a girl dog
7) You have approximately 185 pairs of shoes in your house(this is true, because I just counted the other night) and let's not even talk about the clothes:)
8) You have auctions to give away your clothes
9) There is no silence what so ever at the supper table(even dad talks more than some of us:))
10) It takes forever to get the perfect Christmas picture, because even Sophie thinks she looks bad in them (maybe a little exaggerating!)

So there you have it. I'm sure I could write a lot more, but I wasn't sure if this post would be able to handle them all. Just kidding. I hope this doesn't scare you away from visiting us, because we have some normality in this family, it just doesn't come out when we are trying to function as a family:)

thoughts from this weekend

We had two very good sermons today in church. We had a visiting minister from Bluffton North, and he had both sermons. The one that really was very interesting and convicting was the afternoon service about the end times. It was a perfect Sunday to have that sermon, because I know there were a lot of kids that felt convicted because of our newest convert. Also, one thing that really stuck out to me was when he was talking about how is daughter was so shook up because of all the sin she was seeing and it really made me think that I should start praying that I might see how ugly and horrible sin is. When you go to school or work or wherever, you really start getting use to it and you don't think about how awful it is, because the people that are sinners are people you interact with every day. Also, we went Christmas caroling with our church and one song that we sang at multiple places was The Babe of Bethlehem. It has become one of my favorite Christmas hymns, because it really puts Christmas in perspective. The words are amazing. We should be so thankful this Christmas season that the story does not end at the manger, but truly starts at the cross. Let's put more emphasis on the cross rather than the manger this Christmas, because that is what it really is all about.


The blessed story of the Christ, The Babe of Bethlehem,
Is worthy of our song and praise and stirs the hearts of men.
The fullness of God's love divine surrounds the Christ so mild.
Alas how many only know the Saviour as a child?

Our saving hope is all in vain if here our love should cease,
For in the man of Gallilee we find the gift of peace.
'Tis not the babe, but Christ the man, who walked in Galilee.
'Tis not the manger, but the cross, that sets the spirit free.
Be not content this babe to know, nor stay at Bethlehem,
But go with Christ to Calvary's land, beyond Jerusalem.
'Tis there men learn to know the Christ, for there he bore man's sin,
Then open wide the door of heart and let the Savior in.

no internet=better finals??

So I decided. I am going to stay off technology for a whole week starting Saturday. Believe me, that's a long time for me. I will make some exceptions to certain websites such as ICC and my e-mail. I think it will be good for me to see how much time I spend on the internet, plus it will hopefully(fingers crossed) help me study more(next week is finals week). We shall see how this turns out. Oh, and I may let myself get on the blog, just so I can update it with how it's going. You may laugh at me, but seriously this is going to be harder than you think for me. May you all have a wonderful week and remember to prepare for His coming.
Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
James 5:8

My Rusty Armor

Last Monday, I had a paper due for my psychology class on a book that we were suppose to read. I totally forgot about it, so I quick read 2 chapters of the book, there were only probably 6 chapters at the most so it was a small book. Basically it was about a knight who was kind and good, and he had very shiny armor. He eventually became very proud of his armor so much that he never took it off. He didn't take it off for so long that it became rusted to him. We were suppose to write about what our rusty armor was and how it inhibits our personal growth. The following is the paper I wrote.

I believe my armor, is my fleshly nature. It gets in the way of every aspect of my spiritual walk with the Lord. I would not be who I am today without my spiritual walk, and my fleshly nature tends to rise up and beckon me to come back to my old ways and habits. Satan and the flesh work hand in hand and can be a strong force, but my God is bigger and mightier than both of them working together. By HIS grace I can overcome. In this day and age, Satan’s tactics can be so easily enticing. When my armor does get in the way, I have to take a step back, look at the situation, and ask God to help me to overcome my temptation. I was 16 when I gave my heart the Lord, and I’m not sure how I lived without Him before. I lived in such sin and darkness and my life was a slave unto sin. It was then when I had fallen so low and didn’t know what else I could that Jesus called me by his mercy. I knew what I had to do, and I was willing. The next morning after I was called, Satan really told me that everything I had just done was a dream so I put off my calling. It was about a month later when I actually realized that I could not do it on my own, and that is when I fully surrendered my heart to God and His service. One way that my armor can get in the way of my personal or spiritual growth is by fear. I always fear new changes. This year especially has been full of different changes. I had a lot of friends get married, which is a big change when they have to move away and are in a different town or state. Another big change was graduating from high school. I was hoping to just get a job and not go to college, but that was not God’s plan for my life. I was fearful of not knowing what to do, and college absolutely terrified me. I tried everything I could to get out of college, but it was not meant to be. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, because all of my other friends were so excited to go to college.  That was really my flesh and Satan rising up and telling me I was the only one, and putting thoughts in my head of all the things that could go wrong. I finally had to rise above my fleshly nature by God’s grace on the first day of school. I have loved everyday of college thus far, and it goes to show that God’s ways are better than ours, and we have to get rid of our fleshly, rusty armor to let Him work in our lives. It was after I was getting into the routine of school that I started worrying again how I was going to pay off my college tuition, considering all I did was clean for 2 hours on the weekend.  It was in mid-September that I got a call from the bank that I had applied at earlier in the summer. They said they were looking for a part-time employee at their Peoria branch. They asked if I could come into and interview and I accepted quickly. My interview lasted probably less than 5 minutes, because they knew they wanted me.  I started working a few days after that, and it was been such a blessing working there. It really goes to show that we don’t have a clue what is best for us. I really had never seen myself working at a bank, especially since that was my sister’s dream job and we have complete opposite personalities. Really learning to trust in God’s will and timing can be a very difficult thing, because my fleshly nature really thinks it knows what is best for me. I must daily commit my will unto God’s will and ask Him to take away my fleshly desires. I must also ask Him to truly humble me so that I may be submissive to His will. It can be so hard to trust Him, especially now since there are so many changes at this stage of life and not a lot of time to make decisions. My flesh constantly rises up with in me and nearly overpowers me, but God truly is mightier than it, and can calm the storm within me. I only need to ask.

So this was my paper, very last minute(I didn't do it until the day it was due.) and surprisingly, I got a 100% on it. I was pretty nervous about turning it in, because I wasn't sure how my professor would react to it and if she would be mad, because it was a spiritual paper. I was wrong. Right underneath my grade, this is what my professor wrote. 

Good work, Lynelle! I appreciated your openness and honesty to look at some of these issues regarding life and faith. Certainly fear inhibits both areas! Self-awareness and faith in God are always keys to change. I think you have identified areas for growth and gained some good insights. I am confident that these lessons and insights will help you as you continue to journey along this lifelong

path towards your truest self! 

So then one day, she told us that she worked at the Antioch Group which is a christian counseling group. So then I was curious, so I looked up the Antioch Group and it a bios about the different counselors, so I read hers, and come to find out, she was a missionary also. So I pretty much have the best psychology professor ever. I am pretty blessed to have her, because some of my friends don't have very good professor. So once again, God has blessed me so much more than I deserve and all I can do it praise and thanks Him. May you shine your godly lights this week!

a good, good weekend

Well, this week was calm for the most part. Wednesday night we had ICC church rotation in Eureka. It was a good turn out, and I think everyone that went felt it was a blessing. After church we went to someone's shed(it was heated and had a living area in it). Some of us girls went upstairs and played dutch blitz. I heard some music, and went down to check it out. Some of the brothers were playing guitars, mandolins, and banjos. Us girls all decided we wanted to go down and listen so we piled down into the living room and listened someone suggested we sing. It was a great singing and the instruments really made it sound awesome. On Thursday I worked, then came home and did some cleaning, etc. Thursday night we had our Single Sisters Bible Study at Jim and Marlene's. It was on True Worship, and it really was an uplifting/convicting evening. I always enjoy our Bible Studies. It's always a good way to get to know people on a different level. Friday, I had school, came home after school to clean, went to work after an hour, worked until 5, came home and cleaned for an hour, and then the people started coming. We had a supper and singing at our house. It was a soup supper and I think people really enjoyed it. We had a pretty good turn our, and I think everyone was glad they came. Saturday I had good intentions of sleeping in, since most days I wake up at 5:30. Anyways I woke up at 9, which was really early for most people in this house. I realized I just can't sleep in anymore. My mom said I'm growing up;) I just sat around and did nothing until 12:15. At 12:15, I drove over to Panera to eat lunch and study with Heidi Bradle. It was delicious, but I'm not sure how much studying we got done:) We are both in the same Earth Science class AND lab! We have gotten super close, since we really didn't know each other very well before having a class together. We studied until 3:15, then headed to Berean Bookstore and just browsed awhile. We then went to Starbucks to grab some free coffee:) She had a gift card from her mom and they have this deal between 2-5 that if you buy one of their holiday drinks, you get one free, so of course we skidded in at 5. I picked up Claire at Grand Prairie and headed home. We had memorandum at 7. John Wiegand from Silverton, OR was here to assist Jim. One topic I really thought about a lot was Spiritual Responsibility in the Home. I thought about what my job was and the Spirit really convicted me that I need to let my family members and others how much I appreciate them. So, when we got home, I wrote notes to everyone in my family letting them know why I appreciate them and encouraged them to continue using the gifts they have. I really prayed that they would know and feel they were appreciated and at breakfast when the opened them, I could tell that they really liked the notes. I really need to try harder at doing that for my friends as well. We always assume people know they are appreciated. Today, John Wiegand was in church so he had the morning service and Jim had the afternoon service. In a few minutes we will be heading up to my Grandpa and Grandma Endress's for my cousins Autumns 1st birthday. Oh and did I mention I am going to be a cousin 2 times over in May. Ben and Katie and Steve and Betsy are both expecting. This will make 26 grandkids with me being the oldest. It's pretty crazy! Tomorrow I have school and my last class is canceled so I will be meeting Ashley Herrmann for lunch at Chiles. This week is going to be pretty crazy, but I am looking forward to it. May you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and remember all that God has blessed you with!

Happenings....

I realized that I hadn't blogged for a couple of weeks, so here is a shortened version of what's been happening in my life recently. I have been keeping fairly busy with school, only a few more weeks until this semester is over! I can hardly believe it, I guess time flies when you are having fun:) It really has been fun, I enjoy it so much. I have great friends at ICC, which makes it 10 times better. I also have enjoyed going to Wednesday night rotations with the ICC young group. Sophie is growing up so fast it's scary! She is really learning how to talk. Some of her cute sayings lately is we ask her who's cute and she replies "ME!" Of course she learned that on her own:) When I tell her that she is a meanie she just says "No, Nene(Lynelle) memie. Work is pretty much the same. I work only until noon on tuesdays, which is really nice, because I can come home and play with Sophie or do laundry. Today was my laundry day, and let me tell you it is quite a chore. I have to do my own laundry so I usually procrastinate and it sits in my closet for about a month until it drives me nuts enough to do it. I always feel so great after it's done though. It is pretty hard to do laundry and stuff like that, because I am never home. I guess I have to get use to adult life, like the girl who came into the bank today. She came in and said, "I'm trying to get use to the adult life, and I don't know how to cash a check so you will have to show me." I guess we all have things to learn about the adult life. Speaking of adult life, my birthday was November 3rd, and I celebrated it in Chicago with Amber Ehnle and Emmy Grant. We stayed at Emmy's sister and brother-in-laws. We went to the Art Institute(Amber got extra-credit for going there),  then for lunch we ate at the Cheesecake Factory, and lastly we shopped on Michigan Avenue. It was an awesome way to spend my birthday. This last weekend, I was in Washington for an invite. It was small, but I like it that way, since I usually get drained when there is an over abundance of people. I stayed at someone's house who was 12 and I was the oldest one there. There were 2 others who stayed there too. I decided that I have a greater respect for the older ones in the single group:) Well, I had better sign off, I here Dad praying upstairs, which means I missed supper. Have a blessed rest of your week, and shine the light of Jesus!
O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Psalm 34:8