Open House

 

 

 

Okay, here goes. I love to decorate for Christmas! The main thing about Christmas for us is that we keep it very Christ centered (as we should in our lives every day) and we keep it very others oriented(as we should every day) and we keep it very family oriented. This is a month that we focus on Christ! I share here the gospel in as given in this scripture:

1Corinthians 15:2By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

 3For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

 4And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures

We spend December reading the gospel accounts of the birth of Christ. 

We also have a Christmas tree and many other decorations with lots of snowmen and lights! I love the lights, maybe because it is the darkest time of year for us.

We chose not to do the whole Santa thing when blessing #1 was born. Our choice and we have never regretted it, we do watch all the television specials, santa is a tv character to our blessings, just like Frosty the Snowman.  We are teaching them to discern these things at these early ages.

We make lots of candy and cookies to give and also to enjoy for ourselves. Blessing #2 wants to know why we only make peanut butter balls at Christmas. I will be posting  recipes in December. Our plan is to make one recipe a day after we finish with school work. So, stay tuned for some delicious treats!

Now, pictures:

It sure was nice to have this type of help this year. I have always undertaken this job myself in the past. I still love the red walls in the kitchen! I am glad I painted even though it was time consuming.

A few special things, does your Mom send you gourds and rocks, mine does! I love them.

 

 

 

 

A simple wreath in the entry of our home.

The entry is almost like part of the kitchen:

Ignore the cluttered fridge: I am just thrilled that the counters are fairly clutter free.

This is a set of those, I think they are called alpine treees, anyway, they are a set of three. This year they found a place in the kitchen and they are covered with snowmen garland and ornaments.

The dining room

Oh, my that wreath needs some adjustments!

The tree

 

The tree: I am pleased with how it turned out. I posted a picture of a tree a few days ago. This is my interpretation of that tree. I know it is not the same. But I am thrilled with how it turned out. A  dear friend came over yesterday and she helped me get it finished. We work well together on projects such as these.

This is my frugal wall filling decoration for my family room. I made this with salvaged shutters from our house. I changed out the wreath that usually hangs here for a pine wreath and berries and of course, lights.

These mice ornaments are special to me, they are from my childhood. I have no clue where they are from. I actually have quite a few mouse ornaments?

Here is the tree in the girl blessings room

Here is the tree and our one village piece in our boy blessings room, I think some one lives there as there were cars parked in front of the lighthouse the other day.

Well, thanks for stopping by, may you enjoy traveling around to others "homes" and sharing Christmas posts. Zip you coat and put on your boots and gloves and don't forget your hat~it's cold out there!!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Two weeks

I find myself with a few minutes of down time this Saturday morning. It's not that I do not have things to do, the list is long. It is just time to sit down for a few minutes and do something else. It seems as though I have been composing quite a few "catch up" posts lately. So, here goes:

The week of Thanksgiving we read  and on Tuesday we make Grandmother's Cranberry Bread recipe  from the back of the book.

 We read the recipe and gathered our ingredients.

Everyone took turns preparing the batter.

 

 

The finished product. It was really good. We had made it a few years ago and we didn't really care for it.

Then we prepared our home for Thanksgiving dinner with 17 guests plus the 5 of us equals 22 people! What a blessing and some thing to be thankful for. I was so busy that I failed to take many pictures, this is a picture of the dessert table in the dining room. We set up three tables in the family room and all ate in there.

I am saving my Christmas preparations and decorating for my Open House post on Monday, but while I was getting Christmas boxes from storage I found the blessing's bounce balls. Sweetheart immediately pumped them and they were off. They have bounced and bounced and bounced and bounced....... Oh, my. No wonder they are all so thin! I love the bandanas! 

Like I said this is a catch up post. Here is  a picture of the sunrise yesterday morning.

Lastly, here is our Christmas card picture for this year. I know it is not real creative and you can't really see the blessings very well  (and a couple of them look as though they have extremely long heads?)but this picture is us. After the picture taking was over all kinds of snowmachine riding took place, they had a blast. They actually like winter.

May the Lord find us faithful.

A plan

Let's try this again and see if the tree is still here, it was MIA. This tree was at a fund raiser in the lower 48 that a friend attended. I am glad she took pictures!!

Well, the Christmas decorations are going up slowly. The ornaments are on the tree. This is not my tree but I love this tree. I am working toward this goal. I have to do a little shopping tomorrow but then I can come home and put together my version of this tree. The mess of boxes here is beginning to get to me so I will need to finish up tomorrow so the boxes can go back into storage Friday. The blessings made drawings so I will take those to the copier tomorrow to make our Christmas cards. I will get those put together this weekend and mailed next week. I will post them here when I get the finished products. We will be taking our Christmas card picture on Friday as well and I will get those ordered and picked up on Saturday or Sunday. I am planning on an outdoor snowmachine"ish" picture for us all. Oh, yeah, the plan part of this post, I mean all that was a plan but this is the plan I was referring to. I am not a very organized person in action. I have great mental plans but implemtenting them is a problem. I also do not work well with clutter, which is probably what is slowing down my Christmas decorating. The cookies and goodies plan:   Starting next Monday, we will make one recipe of either Christmas cookies or candies or some savory recipe that we either eat or share with others. That way we have something to do each day and  will not be trying to make 10 recipes or more on one day. I will let you know how it works out.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Blogger Friend School #10

 

It is good to be back on track with assignments!

My favorite cookie recipe is a good old fashioned cookie that I made for the first time with my step mom way back when.

A.

Jam Thumbprints

2/3 cup butter

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tsp. vanilla

2 slightly beaten egg whites

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/3 to 1/2 cup jam or preserves, your favorite

Oven 375 degrees.

Beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add about half of flour, sugar, egg yolks an vanilla. Beat till thoroughly combined. Beat in remaining flour. Cover and chill about 1 hour or easy to handle.

Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll balls in egg whites and then in nuts. Place 1 inch apart on a greased cookie sheet. Press centers with your thumb. Bake for 10-12 minutes or till edges are lightly browned. Cook on rack. Just before serving, fill centers with jam. Makes about 42 cookies.

B. We were not big cookie makers but I do remember making these cookies especially with my step mom. I enjoy a cookie that is not too sweet and this one is just right for me. I also love the Mexican wedding cakes, I think that is what they are called.  When I was much older my mom and I would make pumpkin roll and coconut sour cream cakes to give as gifts to neighbors and friends.

C.  Jeremiah 6:16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

The tree is up and the lights are on but that is as far as we made it today. Hopefully, I will be back tomorrow with pictures. My download was interrupted by accident tonight.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Around

I have begun the Christmas decorating so I will be MIA for a couple of days! I am taking pictures as I go.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Home

Good morning to you all. As the title reads, I will be home today, yahoo! No sales crowds for me. I think we will read books, watch movies and design our gingerbread creation for the year. Last year we made a gingerbread train. This year I am desiring to make a gingerbread log cabin, this will take some planning! So, look out google and library, here we come. I do not know if I could homeschool without google and the library. Is making a gingerbread concoction homeschool? You bet it is! I hope to keep December moving along by daily working on some handicrafts and other projects. We will try to attend the local gingerbread contest and gain some mental pictures to use in making our cabin, who knows, one of us may enter next year.  The girl blessings and I will attend the Nutcracker Ballet (note to self, call and get tickets!) I am not in the Christmas spirit, as they say. I am really focused on only what is necessary and I am definitely not focused on commercial"ized" Christmas. I desire a homespun Christmas celebration. (I did purchase some Debbie Mumm Christmas paper plates, napkins and wrapping paper at Joanne Fabrics on Tuesday, it was plaid, I loved it and it was almost gone already! )Usually I have my husband hauling up Christmas decoration boxes after everyone leaves on Thanksgiving Day. Not this year. Maybe on Monday.

I really enjoyed Thanksgiving this year. I almost became overwhelmed with the number of people, then I refocused.  (Not that I thought it would be too many people, but would they all enjoy themselves with their being so many?)I became thankful that 17 other people would want to come to our house for Thanksgiving Dinner! What a blessing and something to be thankful for. How many people ate a dinner without being thankful, without any fun Scrabble or Dutch Blitz games played? No football? What, no football? Football is big in this house, but not during dinner. Dinner, the food was all great! We set up three tables in our family room and some of us ladies sat on the couch and chairs around the perimeter of the room. I loved us all being in the same room.  Pa-Pa, where were you?

Tomorrow, I am just going to be with my blessings! Just be!

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

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Happy Thanksgiving

 

May the Lord find us faithful.

Monday Meanderings

 

Monday Meanderings

Lots to do here, work on kindness and accepting responsibility for responding kindly to all situations

May the Lord find us faithful.

1. Bible Study/Devotions: Following this daily reading plan:

Monday-Pentateuch

Tuesday and Wednesday- Old Testament History

Thursday- Old Testament Prophets

Friday- New Testament

Saturday/ Sunday- Psalms/Proverbs

Finishing Lies Women Believe Bible Study tomorrow night.

Reading Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God

2. Must-do:

Get back to normal routines

Return home to normal chaos levels, ie. remove all signs of painting and put things back together

Clean this house

Grocery shop

Do as much ahead of time as possible for Thursday

The dog has to have a bath

3. Zone: None this whole week, my whole house is in need of a home blessing and a little de-cluttering.

4. Train them up:

 

5. Menu:

I am just going to post our Thanksgiving feast here, the rest will be quick and healthy meals we can find!!

Turkey ( we have two coming one regular and one smoked, I do not even have to make the turkey this year!)

Stuffing/dressing – the turkeys are coming stuffed but I am making dressing for leftovers for our family

mashed potatoes–being brought

greenbean caserole–being brought

broccoli casserole – I am making this, sweetheart loves it

sweet potato casserole –me

corn–me

gravy–me

deviled eggs–me

pumpkin pie–being brought

pumpkin roll –me

blueberry cake–being brought

rolls–me

other desserts are being brought but I am not sure at this moment what they said they were bringing

I think that is all, who knows what will show up here by the time it is all said and done.

By the looks of this, I need to get this finished and get busy!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

 

Moose meat finale

I cannot sleep... I will finish this moose adventure and drink some sleepytime tea and head back to bed.

Let the wrapping begin. We place our moose in zip top freezer bags, squeeze out as much air as humanly possible and wrap that in freezer paper, label and freeze. The blessings get to help here with taping and labeling and errand running.

And the hip bone's connected to the .....

I actually did a little meat cutting this go around, usually I just package. Look at us looking so serious, we are NOT serious people.

Wow, for a lady who just a few weeks ago had no pictures of herself on her blog, I am all over this thing now.

Enjoying the fruit meat of our labors, Moose burgers. We label those packages.... Mooger.

All finished, YAHOO!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Monday

Good Monday morning,

I will be posting my Monday Meanderings and a completed moose packaging finale later today....

this is our first school day at home in 5 weeks! And we have a busy day of school and finally cleaning up from the painting and the neglect of the rest of the house while I was painting this weekend. Gotta run!

 

May the Lord find us faithful.