Merry Christmas Eve

maybe I'll post something tomorrow... after things settle down...

last night we had a secret santa. someone knocked on the door and connor got up to answer it. (I was a bit tangled up with yarn in my rocker) he closed the door with a puzzled look on his face and said that no one was there. sometimes people will knock outside of the ramshackle porch and the light out there wasn't turned on since we didn't expect anyone and it sometimes doesn't want to turn on anyway. so I went to check and there was a box full of presents for the little kids and a family gift and a gift card (I suspect) taped to the top of one. we decided to let the little kids open one and the rest have to wait until tomorrow morning.

secret surprises made the kids a little bit crazy... see?

along with the box was a set of foot prints in the snow indicating someone who can run in the snow... so not the grandparents. the handwriting on the tags is a bit familiar but I just can't place it.


I've done secret santa before and I loved doing it. I'm sure we won't be in a financial position to do that again for a few more years :( but I would love so much to do it again. I like being able to give - it's great fun

so who ever you are Secret Santa, thank you very very much.

for the next month...

I've been wondering something lately...
well, I've been wondering a couple of things really.
how many people are reading me?
do I know you? and if so how?

some of my readers I know and they comment so I know that I certainly have three readers, but I must wonder if there are more.
so I put a little poll box on the side bar. (look to the right of this text)

I guess I will continue to write my blog, mostly because this is the best I'm getting at keeping a journal/record of my life and my kids lives here.

so answer the poll if you please
and if you wouldn't mind, comment on this post and let me know who you are... do a little shout out.

sole survivor

last week a piece of my church's history was destroyed by fire. follow the link to learn more
investigation of the cause is on hold until they can stabilize the remaining walls, etc... but it is thought that it was most likely electrical.


I visited this building only once. I was 15 or 16 at the time

over the last several days I have thought a lot about that building but more about the only thing that made it out of a fire that raged for more than 12 hours.
a picture of Christ. the picture in particular has had a very special place in my heart. I saw this picture after my mom died almost 22 years ago and it touched me more profoundly than I can ever say.
the Tabernacle is where I first saw this picture. it makes me emotional every time I see it.
so the fact that it is this picture has great significance to me.

begining to wind down

tonight is Erica's choir concert. then we have Christmas Eve with Grandma. after that there is no more running here or there.

however, I do have a little bit of shopping to do for any perishable foods that I want to have on Christmas and depending on availability I could be going to a few different stores/markets for those things. I really hope that I can get these all with two stops.


Tim is going to be home for a nice vacation soon. he actually has more time off from work than the kids have off from school.


edit: a correction needs to be made... the concert is rescheduled. the kids got out of school early due to snow.
so Wednesday concert, Friday grandma's, Saturday home. :)

finished editing Tim's birthday post.

the birthday boy

Yesterday was Timothy's birthday. 13 years old.
two teens under my roof.

timothy is very camera shy and because of that I didn't make him pose for any pictures and therefore I don't have a lot of pictures of him.

his birthday was a couple of days ago and I have been busy and lazy and haven't gotten any of the pictures of him on his birthday edited until now.

a little about his day. the day before was Erica's birthday and we got iced and snowed in. it was pretty horrible and the road out front of our house was not cleared off until much later in the day on Sunday. We were supposed to have the gingerbread house party at my sister's that day and so Timothy said he wanted to wait to celebrate his birthday. but we were still snowed in. so we decided that we wouldn't let that get us down and we went ahead and had his birthday. I quickly made his cake and we had ice cream from the day before (you are saying "hey, you said you didn't have any. you lie." but I don't lie. Erica and I braved the storm and walked to our little grocery store. I thought I was going to die. but that's another story)
while we were stuck home the kids played outside. they are tough kids because it was below zero outside.
timothy dug out a 'fort' and he stayed curled up in it for a very long time.
the littler kids didn't last out there as long as he did but I was shocked that they played out there for over a half hour.

this is our van. Tim's car wasn't covered in snow. just a bit of a drift close and some ice. I even tried to take a picture of under the van since there is snow blown under and packed under the van. but I was shivering and in freezing pain so I didn't get a good picture of that.


we had Timothy's favorite soup for supper. just as we were setting the table for supper the power went out. everyone scrambled for candles and flashlights and we ate supper by flashlight and candles. the power was out for a bit over a half hour.
thankfully it came back on right as we were finishing up eating.

another memorable birthday this month. :)


He bunched his candles in the middle so he would be sure to blow them all out in one try.


Happy Birthday

so yummy I have to share the recipe

24 ounce package white almond bark

1.5 cups toasted slivered almonds

1.5 cups dried cranberries

zest of one orange

prepare the wax paper covered surface before you start mixing because this will start cooling quickly. Melt bark stirring until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients until coated and well mixed.Quickly spread candy on 18 inch long sheet of waxed paper/ foil into a thin... layer. Let set, break into pieces. Store tightly covered.

Now I will have this recipe right here and I won't have to search high and low through my recipe books to find it.

enjoy

sweet 16 gets a very memorable birthday

this is our birthday girl. she is 16 today. most people want their 16 year old girl to remember their 16th birthday and they go to ridiculous lengths to make that day unforgettable.

how sweet :)

but what I can't make happen with money I make up for in other ways...
this is my kitchen window. that is snow, not frost covering that window.
thankfully the snow is NOT so deep that it has covered this window, but instead it is blowing around so much that it has completely covered that side of the house.
add that to me forgetting to buy ice cream for a birthday party and we are out of rice for her chosen birthday supper and there is a 1/4 inch of ice all over our road and we can not drive anywhere - not even to run to the store across our highway.
we can't even walk on the road outside our house... (that's another story I will try to tell you about later.)
so she might have to go without ice cream and rice for her birthday

this is how she feels about it.

but at least I have her cake done and her present bought already so she will have at least something if we can't get to the store soon.

Happy Birthday, sweety

the other blog

this morning I was peeking in on my other blog and checking the hit count for it and I was surprised to see a hit from another country that used a translator to look at me. Arabic is such a beautiful written language.
I got curious about what other countries have either pinged my crochet blog or have spent some time there so I went through and made a list

• the Czech Republic
• France
• Brazil
• Greece
• Spain
• Hungary
• India
• Poland
• Uruguay
• New Zealand
• Belgium
• Indonesia
• Finland
• Hong Kong
• Australia
• Serbia
• Japan
• the Philippines
• Italy
• Canada
• the United Kingdom
• the Russian Federation
• Romania
• the Netherlands
• Germany
• Sweden
  
• Egypt

it is so much fun for me to know that pictures I've taken of things I've made and words I have written have traveled all over the world. I might never get to see these places, but people from those places have had a small glimps into my part of the world

how cool is that!

addition:

you can add Latvia to that list

and so begins the busiest month of our year

I'm sure that I have mentioned it in the past, I am not a soccer mom. I am not used to running here and there for anything on a regular basis, so when December rolls around I am wiped out by the beginning of the third week and I just can't wait for the month's end to come.
every time we go someplace, it turns into Sunday morning around here. unless Tim and I can sneak out and go by ourselves... but December is all about family and if any of the kids can be left home we need to worry about getting a baby sitter.... which reminds me....
anyway

this weekend I am going to be taking most of the kids to see Harry Potter - so beginning the process....
then there is camper cabin (I've wrote about this last year and the year before... nutshell just me and my sisters - there are ladies there who are not biologically my sister, but they are my sisters) Okay, I can deal with this, but from there it is bordering frantic
the day I get back from camper cabin... it is Erica's birthday
the next day is Timothy's birthday
same day is the Gingerbread Party hosted by my sister
the next day is the high school winter band concert
small break
then there is the elementary school winter music program
somewhere in this is the winter choir concert (the date remains unknown)
also somewhere in here we will decorate Christmas cookies with grandma (still needs to be scheduled)
then there is going to be family Christmases - two of which have yet to be scheduled as well
then there is vacation from school. I will, very strongly, be fighting the urge to cause physical harm to all the fighting children. I will succeed in this, as I always do, but there will be yelling


.... in a week and a half I will have 2 teen-agers.
the oldest of them is going to be 16.
16!
what?!

years pass by so fast now. she's going to be gone soon with a family of her own before I know it.

wow