Christmas Thoughts

If you know me very well, and even if you don't know me but have been reading my blog, you know that I love Christmas!

I love everything about Christmas.  

I love the anticipation. Countdown to Christmas -- you bet!  Advent calendars to help keep track of the days. Paper chains where you can tear off one chain each day.

This year I found a Gingerbread house with doors to open.

I know these aren't new but they are usually expensive and I tend to pass on buying one. I found this one for half-price when I was Black Friday shopping and knew I had to have it.

I love the lights at Christmas time. Lights on the Christmas tree, lights on houses, lights in the snow. I remember as a kid Mom would make popcorn balls and we would get in the car and Dad would drive us around to look at the lights around town.  Gary and I drive around several times each season looking at lights. That's the difference between a big city and a small town. In the big city, you can go to a different neighborhood each night to see lights. In a small town you see the lights in one night. But either way it's fun.

I love decorating for Christmas. Pulling out all my tubs and tubs and tubs and tubs (do you get the idea I have lots of decorations?) from the attic. Unwrapping each one - remembering where it came from, who gave it to me. Smiling as I pull out the Christmas books and remembering my daughters reading "The Animal's Christmas Eve" every year. The angel at the top of my tree was on my tree growing up. I wrap her up carefully and put her in a special box. Every year, Gary is worried that her lights won't light up.

Kind of a blurry picture but that's our special angel. Her wings are a little bit tattered but she keeps lighting up for us every year.  For some reason, every time I get her out I think of my Mom.

I have a couple of grand kids who live close and they like to help me decorate for Christmas. I love watching them decide where to put items on the trees and around the house.

I love the songs at Christmas. I play Christmas music all year long intermingled with other music; but, at Christmas time - straight Christmas. I love Silent Night, Mary Did You Know, Frosty, You Gotta Get Up, The Grinch, Felix Navidad. Yeah, I love Christmas music!

I love traditions at Christmas time.  We always have cheeseburgers and homemade french fries for Christmas Eve. We have started doing an annual Christmas movie night. We have certain candies we make at Christmas. And what has become one of our favorite traditions is that everyone gets 1-2 cans of Silly String in their Christmas stocking. We then have a silly string fight in the house on Christmas morning.  We always look forward to this.

We have a lot more cans than this and we certainly have fun with it. You would be amazed at how big a ball silly string will make when you start cleaning it up.

I love Christmas Eve Candlelight service at church. Reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas, Christ's birth. Thinking of what Mary and Joseph went through - thinking of where Jesus was born.

In a manager.

As we heard at church yesterday during our Advent series; He came from the lowest of lows to be the Highest of Highs. Born in a manger, His birth was first proclaimed to the shepherds, people who slept with animals. But He came to fulfill a purpose - He came to save us. And that is why we celebrate Christmas Day. The greatest gift of all - which was also awaited with anticipation for YEARS - and some never saw it but the still awaited.

Wishing each of you a joyous Christmas and asking that you take time during this special of seasons to remember the Reason.

Leftovers

Who likes leftovers!  Not me!  There are very few foods I eat left over -- I'm pretty picky.  Potato soup is good leftover. Goulash is good left over. Mashed potatoes are good to use for potato pancakes or potato salad.

But what about those Thanksgiving leftovers you have?  Well I will kind of eat them. But we decided to do something different this year.  We decided to have a Thanksgiving Leftover New Food Night!

Now to be honest - we didn't have to many left overs from Thanksgiving and by the time we had our New Food Night we had to make new 'leftovers'.  LOL  But here you have it - some of our leftovers.

Here you can see that we are set up waiting to sample some goodness!

Let's start with some Turkey Tortillas.  Turkey, Swiss cheese, some cranberry -- this was very very good.  This was made by K.C.. You know you are always looking for new ways to use up that turkey.

K.C. also made some Sweet Potato biscuits.  Very good - but not a lot of sweet potato flavor to them.  I could detect the flavor but it was not a strong sweet potato flavor,

Gary and I made some Turkey Wontons.  Man were these good!  Turkey, dressing, cream cheese, turkey gravy!  May not sound yummy but it sure was.

We added some cranberry salsa to go along with the wontons.  It went well with the tortilla to.

Miss Annette made some dressing with cranberries and walnuts.  Gotta love dressing.

And to be certain we had dessert (didn't want anyone to be disappointed) I made up some snickerdoodles.  Now this classifies as Thanksgiving leftovers because it was some frozen cookie dough I had bought from a school fundraiser before Thanksgiving. It was sitting in the freezer during Thanksgiving so therefore it is Thanksgiving leftovers.  :)

Here's a plate of everything but the cookies.  I did have a few more wontons and tortillas but I wasn't sure if I would like them so strarted with just one of each.

Wanted to show you our full table. Jessica and Steven, Michael's daughter and son-in-law, joined us this week. Also, at the end of the table you will see Katie, a foster that K.C. and Michael are assisting. Now you cannot see the plump little girl in the high chair at the end on the other side of Lily but that would be Amelia, Michael and K.C.'s granddaugher!



Now tell us how you use your leftovers?  We are always open for new suggestions.

FIre PIt Fun

New Food Night ---- Fall Weather -- Fire pit --- Nice patio   Let's put it all together.

We had a Fire Pit Food New Food Night this week!  We all enjoyed it very much.  Let me share with you.

Fire Pit Food was Miss Annette's idea and we are all so glad she came up with it.  So let me try to share some of the food and fun we had last night.

Gary got a fire going.

Bud enjoyed the fire.

We had hot dogs on a stick - but wrapped in a crescent roll.  Now I've checked all my pictures and for some reason I don't seem to have a 'finished' one.  But they were good.  This was Gary's idea. He had two types of hot dogs - regular and cheese dogs. We roasted the hot dogs for a bit to cook them then just rolled crescent dough around them and held this over the fire to bake.  Some of us didn't bake ours as long as others and the roll was a little doughy.  We all agreed though that crescent rolls on a fire are awesome!

Miss Annette had been telling us about Pudgie Pies.  Now no one but her knew what they were.  She had one Pudgie Pie maker that we all used.  Basically, it's a sandwich with filling - your choice, cooked over the fire in the special device.  Miss Annette had a meat mixture.  So you put buttered bread in the Pudgie Pie Maker and just a couple of spoons of filling then top with second slice of butter bread.

Here she is showing us how to put the sandwich together.

Here's that device just sitting in the coals cooking - a couple of minutes on each side.

And here's the finished product.

We also had some corn niblet ears. We just put these on sticks and roasted on the firepit.

And check out the Fire Pit Pizza Roll that K.C. made!  This was really good!  She took the pizza dough and put the filling/toppings in then rolled it up and wrapped in foil. We put it on the fire pit for 15 minutes each side.

This dish was going to be our dessert.

Cake baked in an orange.  Man was this good!  I just took oranges and scooped out all the orange (again I didn't plan ahead as this was a chore  LOL and now I have lots of oranges left in a mushy, mashy mess.  They will be used in garbage disposal).  Filled the orange 2/3 full of cake batter, wrapped in foil and baked for 20 minutes.  The flavor was unbelievable!

There you have it - our New Food Night.

Here's a few pictures of us just hanging out.

Can you guess who likes on-fire marshmallows?

I forgot that we also had marshmallows to roast and chocolate chip cookies to put the marshmallow between.

We all agreed it was a very enjoyable evening and we very glad that Miss Annette had this idea. It put me in the mood to go camping.  How about you? What is your favorite fire pit food?

German Night

Last week we had New Food Night.

I know many of you are wondering why we haven't eaten in so long.  Well, trust me - we ate!  Just not together or as New Food Night.  It was a busy busy month in October. Several things going on - I had surgery, my mother-in-law was in the hospital - trips. But we got together last week and cooked up a storm.

We had decided that our theme would be German food.  So here you have it.

Gary made Rouladin. How good does this look?

It called for it to be made with round steak but he used cube steak instead. Don't you just love creamy sauces?  I do.

Miss Annette made some spaetzle and gravy.

Spaetlze is like fried noodles - kinda. The gravy was an onion gravy she made. It was really good.  Typically, spaetzle is served with whatever sauce comes with the meat dish. She did not know if Gary's meat dish would have a gravy or not so she made one. Nothing wrong with two types of gravy.

She also made some red cabbage.

I'm not a big cabbage person unless it's in coleslaw that is made the  RIGHT way - none of that vinegar stuff for me.  I want the mayo creamy saucy coleslaw.

K.C. made a Bacon Onion Pie.

This is kind of like a quiche but it doesn't have as many eggs.  I loved it. K.C. was not a big fan.

I made potato pancakes.

Now I make potato pancakes frequently but usually out of left-over mashed potatoes This was made with shredded potatoes not cooked.  They were good but I prefer my mashed tater ones better.  Have to thank Gary for shredding those potatoes for me - I was still recovering from surgery and not sure my shoulder could have handled it.

Here's what my full plate looked like.

Not bad.  I cleaned it up too. It was very filling.

Now as I was getting ready to make my potato pancakes I realized that we didn't have a dessert. I knew this for a fact because I had already checked with everyone to see what they were making.  I remembered one other time we didn't have a dessert at New Food Night and could not let that happen again. So, I Googled easy German dessert.  This is what I came up with.

German Honey Cookies.

These were very good!  You may notice the different color variations on the cookies. That's because I was doing to many things at one time and did not bake each batch the same amount of time. The ones that look really dark aren't burnt nor were they hard. They were still soft. The different baking times gave them each a different flavor - the darker ones the honey flavor was more intense.

There you have it - German food at it's best.  What do you think?  Which dish looks the best or maybe sounds the best to you

What Is A Veteran?

What is a veteran?

The dictionary lists this definition: 

     :a person who has served in a military force, especially one who has fought in a war.

But that doesn't define a veteran.  

A veteran is a young boy who leaves home and is on his own for the first time. He comes back with an air of maturity about him. You can see it in the way he carries himself. You see it in the respect he shows.

A veteran is some one's brother, sister, mother, father, aunt, uncle, friend. 

A veteran is someone who was not able to be there for a holiday, a birthday, their daughter/son's birth, first step, first word. 

A veteran is someone who may be in a foreign country missing family as he spends his first Christmas away from home. 

A veteran is someone who trained to give his all if it was needed. He may never have set foot on foreign soil but he was prepared if asked. 

A veteran will tell stories of places he has been and things he has seen. He and his buddies had the time of their lives when he recounts stories of their glory days. 

A veteran will not tell of the horrors he has seen. The wars he fought. He keeps these to himself. 

A veteran is someone who thought enough of their country to voluntarily give their time to defend it.

A veteran is someone who will stand when the national anthem is played - and he will stand proudly. 

A veteran is often forgotten, ignored, mistreated. 

A veteran is someone who deserves our thanks but seldom receives it. 

To all the veterans I know and those I don't THANK YOU  

These Things Will Happen

This if for all the parents out there wondering if you are doing it right or wrong.

THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG IN PARENTING.  

Every parent is different - every child is different. 

I can tell you this, though.  If you are a parent these things will happen to you

YOU WILL BE NERVOUS

     If you are lucky enough to have a parent or some close friend come and stay with you for the first few days you are home with the baby enjoy it. Because when they leave and you are alone with that child you will be nervous. You will question yourself - what if he/she cries and I don't know why they're crying?

     What if I forget what time I fed the baby last? Will she starve because I couldn't keep my eyes open enough to see how much she ate?  

     The first time the baby sleeps for more than 3 hours straight you will worry that she died because you forgot to get up and feed her.  

     Relax -- all mothers and fathers go through the same fears. Trust your instincts - it's your child and you will know if something isn't right.

YOU WILL CRY

     

     Oh my yes - you will cry!  It's ok. Sometimes you won't know why you are crying. Maybe you just felt like the baby needed some company crying - after all she has been crying non-stop for the last 24 hours.  

     Maybe you are crying just because it was either that or loose your mind.  It's all right. 

YOU WILL LAUGH

     

     Oh the things that will make you laugh. Your baby's laugh (once you can get her to stop crying) will make you laugh. The faces your baby makes will make you laugh. The cute little way they mispronounce words will make you laugh. Their silly jokes will make you laugh

 YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES

     Hey it happens - don't beat yourself up over it. All parents make mistakes. They can be little ones some may be bigger but it's all right. Ask yourself - are we all still alive?  Are there any broken bones?  

AT SOME POINT YOUR CHILD WILL NOT LIKE YOU

     I know this might seem hard to believe but there will be at least one time your child will not like you. It might be at a young age when you tell them no dessert because you didn't finish your dinner. It might be as a teenager when you have to do the unthinkable and ground that perfect child for something you thought they would never ever do. But at some point your child will not like you.  

Remember, this doesn't mean they don't love you.

YOU WILL LOSE SLEEP

  

     Oh you can be sure of this one.  You start when they are babies and you lose sleep because they are up every 2-3 hours for a feeding. Then you lose sleep when you are up all night with a sick child who just keeps throwing up. Or they have a fever that just won't go down. Or they have a nightmare that keeps them awake. 

     There may be a few years when you think - oh I've got this the rest is easy.  Don't fool yourself. They turn into teenagers who go out. That's right - they have the nerve to want to go out at night with their friends. And you will wait up for them. You won't be able to sleep until you know they are back home where they are supposed to be. Or there will be away games that your child participates in.Or they will be the child who gets a job and works the late shift. 

Yep you will lose sleep.

YOU WILL HAVE FUN

     This I can guarantee - you will have fun. Every hour of sleep lost, every tear cried, every doubt you have will be forgotten in the fun. The fun of watching them learn to crawl, to walk, to run. The fun of watching your child become an individual with their own personality. 

   You will have fun playing with them. and I encourage you to play with them.  Have a tea party, play catch, color in books, turn a nature walk into a scavenger hunt, camp out in the living room.

Most importantly-  LOVE YOUR CHILD - ACCEPT THEIR UNIQUENESS - ENJOY EVERY MINUTE

Facebook Friends

I love Facebook. It has let me catch up with old friends from high school and family members.

I love the fact that my Facebook friends know me well enough to post things on my timeline when they see something that makes them think of me or even send me a private message if they see something. Most of my friends know I'm a big coffee drinker and I'm a HUGE lover of anything Christmas. So when I get those messages they make me smile.

There are some who know me even better and will post something that makes me spit my coffee out when I start laughing.  That's as good as texts I share with some of those same people. 

I know someone was thinking of me and cared enough to send me a message or post on my wall. That's a good feeling.  Likewise, I tend to do the same thing. I see something and share it to someone's wall just because it made me think of them.  

The other day I was scrolling through my Facebook feed catching up on my friends.  It occurred to me that I have some people on here that I'm not real sure who they are.  

You are probably thinking, "why are they your friends on Facebook if you don't know them?"  Well, I can explain that. 

I get friend requests. I don't accept all of them, especially if I don't know the person. And sometimes, I just don't want to be involved in the drama that I know they will bring with them if I accept their request. But sometimes I think, 'hmmm they sound familiar'. So I'll go look at their page, see who they are, who their friends are, etc.

Lots of times it's friends of my daughters' who want to be my Facebook friend.  Of course I'm going to accept those because I know it means that I'm going to get to see more pictures of my away-from-me family.  Never want to miss that chance.  Besides, I've met them often enough on visits that I think of them as friends anyway. 

Sometimes it's my daughters' friends from high school. Of course, I accept those. I know these people and I tend to have more interaction with them on Facebook than my daughters do in some instances. That's fine too. 

Sometimes the name just sounds familiar and I accept the friend request because, quite frankly, it's nice to hear from people from 'back home'.  Then as time goes on you realize - oh hey, that's not who I thought it was. Then I think maybe I'll just delete them. I don't really know who they are.  

BUT -- by this time I have been reading their posts and saying prayers for requests they have had. I know what's going on in their lives, sometimes more than I need to know. And I think perhaps I should keep them as my friend because it's pretty obvious they need some prayers. 

So for now I'll keep my Facebook friends I have. I enjoy reading all the posts even if I don't always comment on them.  I like seeing how the kids who grew up in my house are now, for the most part, responsible adults with children of their own.  

It's nice to know that when I get a Facebook request someone thought enough of me, or perhaps one of my daughters or grandchildren, to want me to be a part of their lives.  

How about you? Do you have friends on Facebook that you sometimes wonder why you have them as friends?  

What's For Dessert?

Do you ever hear, 'What's for dessert?' I don't know about you but dessert is not something that I grew up with.  Now don't get me wrong - we had cakes and cookies and even pies and puddings but we never actually had dessert with our meals.  Well, sometimes we did have Jello. They were more around to snack on.  One of my dad's favorite things to snack on was yellow cake straight from the oven with butter on it.  If you haven't tried it you should.

So recently our Lily-girl was baptized!  Very happy occasion for sure. However, circumstances did not allow us to have a 'special' meal for her then.  She asked to be allowed to choose our theme for New Food Night.  Can you guess what her theme was?  DESSERT NIGHT --- she has been trying to get us to do this for quite some time.

Grampa made a compromise. He would make a soup and then everyone else could bring a dessert.  Pretty good compromise.  So here you have our Dessert Night Themed Dinner,

As promised, Gary made a soup.

He went with Taco Soup.  Now this may not be new to you all but it's the first time it has ever been made at our house.  We really like it and I can see that we will be making this again.  It makes a lot so we will have to just share with a neighbor or friend.

NOW FOR THE DESSERTS

I made some Iced Pumpkin Cookies.

These things are addictive!  Just a soft pumpkin flavored cookie iced.  Yummers. I will make these again and perhaps add some cinnamon chips to them.

Miss Annette made Lemon Chantilly Crean

Now how good do these look?  Lemon pound cake, with cool whip flavored with some lemon zest and topped with raspberries and blueberries dusted with sugar.  OH! MY! GOSH!!  This is a perfect light dessert.

Lastly, we have Frozen Hot Chocolate.

This was K.C.'s contribution.  Some chocolate chips melted with milk, hot chocolate mix and ice all blended together!  What a great summer time treat.

Here's a picture of my dessert plate.

Yes, I also had a cup of coffee as I knew I would be eating a cookie (or two or three).  LOL

Here's a couple of other photos from Dessert Night.

The kids had bought some build-a-straw kits and Remington was trying his out at dinner.

So tell me, is dessert something you always have with your evening meal or is it a special occasion thing?  Or, like me, do you just have it around to snack on?