Mid Day Mess

It's middle of the day, some day after Christmas. I don't exactly know the day or date because we aren't in the middle of our regular schedule. There is no school to keep track of, I have no lessons going on right now to help me know the date, etc. I'm lost in Christmas break. I called our neighbor kids to have the bring in our trash can after the garbage truck came by since we were going be gone and got a call the next day from them asking if our trash was picked up on Monday or Tuesday. It's Tuesday, but I thought the day I called them was Tuesday. I'm so confused.
Outside it is warm for winter and the snow is melting. Bill is washing the mud off the motorcycles since he never got that done before it turned cold. It just feels off. 
Inside, it's a Christmas mess. Garbage sacks full of ripped off papers still sit in the living room.  Gifts lay strewn about, played with until the next party. Socks scattered into corners as new ones were unwrapped and immediately worn. Bits of cookies are mashing themselves into the rugs. The entry bench holds a yellowing sock snowman, a discarded clarinet, and everyone's Christmas cards, still to be postaged and sent. Downstairs, 100 Nerf darts have littered the floor like a large scale version of Battleship. The kitchen has given up. It would like a little break from the cookie bake-off. I know that the flour sack towel hanging from the oven door is really a little white surrender flag. I feel your pain.


I'm not really complaining. Somehow I think it will make me feel better to take a few pictures of it all and blog about it before I set to cleaning it up. That's what bloggers do, right?

A Christmas Song

It's not done...

Okay, it's done now. 
Merry Christmas!

He Has Come

Here are some Christmas thoughts I've been pondering over the last month.


My Bible study this last semester has been studying 1 and 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Old Testament. We finished up last week in a very sad place. The people of Israel had rejected God as their one true God. They either treated him as just one of the other gods or despised Him completely in their idol worship. 

The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. 2 Chronicles 36: 15, 16

There was no remedy for these stubborn- hearted people. God had tried through prophets, messengers, even bringing kings against them as a wake up call. But they didn't listen. And so He took them into exile, into captivity. 

The Christmas carol I singled out this year is "O Come O Come, Immanuel". This Latin hymn was written in the 600's. Besides the beautiful melody, the first stanza really resonated with me.

O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel. 

That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!

I think the hymn voices the sentiment of those who, in captivity, finally realized their need for a Saviour. It voices my need for my Saviour. As I drawer nearer to Him, my short-comings become more and more apparent. My immediate reaction is "to-do". I need to eradicate the sin out of my life. I need to be more like Him. I need to be perfect. My expectations for myself are so high. I have take myself captive in my pursuit to be worthy of Him. 

Christmas. The birth of Jesus. The remedy. He shall be called Immanuel. God with us. He has come. 

Jesus came not only to save Israel, but the whole world. I'm not perfect. I'm never gonna be perfect. And in my pursuit, I've lost the point of His coming. But He has come to bring hope.  No more captivity. And it is free. This love..

David Crowder sings, "I don't know what to do with a love like this." I don't know either. If I make it a "to-do" then I've lost it again. So I will sit in awe, silence, struggling, surrendering over and over to this love, to His coming. To let it flood over me, fill me.

That is reason to worship. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! He Has Come!

Free Drink at the Movies

I'm just catching up on my subscription reads and caught this one from my cousin, Jill, over at Frugal Plus. 

Before you go to the movies, check this coupon out. Looks like it has to be an AMC theater and read the other details on the coupon.

Favorite Cut Out Cookies

The real name of these cookies are Sour Cream Cookies. However, that tends to turn people sour towards them (ha ha) before they even try them! You mustn't be put off though, they are really good. In fact, my non-sweet eating husband loves them. I've made 4 batches this season and let's just say the cookie jar isn't overflowing!


Sour Cream (or Favorite) Cookies
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 c. shortening
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. (8 oz.) sour cream
4 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt


Cream together sugar and shortening then eggs. Add vanilla and sour cream and mix. Add altogether the rest if the ingredients; mix until combined. Cover and refrigerate until chilled- a few hours up to a couple days.
On a well-floured surface, scoop out about a fourth of the dough, sprinkle with more flour and roll out to medium thickness. These are thick cookies, so no thinner than 1/8. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes until ever so slightly browned.


Notes on cookies: These are very sticky and though you need lots of flour to keep them from sticking everywhere, you don't want too much or they'll get too hard. Also, after mixing the dough, I usually grab by rubber spatula and finish mixing by hand to combine the wet ingredients still in the bottom of the mixer with the rest. Finally, these puff when baking, so intricate details don't show well.


Easy Frosting
1 lb. powdered sugar
1/3 c. shortening
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. milk


Whip together powdered sugar, shortening and vanilla. Add milk as needed to desired consistency.


Notes on frosting: You might as well just double the batch because 1. powdered sugar comes in 2# packages these days and measuring out 1# is a pain 2. you'll end up making a double batch of sour cream cookies and will need it anyway.

What Was I Thinking?

Every Friday afternoon is a cousin swap. My sister, Beth, sister-in-law, Jessica, and I all take turns dropping our kids off at 1 aunt's house for the afternoon and running away to solitude  doing errands, etc. There are 7 that are not in school, ages ranging from 11 to 2 1/2.


This past week was my turn and I was a bit ambitious. I decided we were going to frost cookies and make a craft. So the day before, I went to the store to buy all the items for the craft and I made up the cookie dough, since it needs to be refrigerated. 
Here's how the day went down.
AM: I set about to roll out and bake the cookies before everyone comes. In the process, I get a text from my friend, Kate, saying she's coming over. Yeah! I love Kate and her kids, so we were going to hang out and I also secretly hoped she would decorate my tree for me. Well, it turns out, that was her express purpose for coming over. But I didn't even have it lit yet! No problem for her. She loves doing that and did it all for me! Kate decorated my entire tree for me!! All I had to do was feed her little 'uns some cookies. It looks great. Thanks, Kate!

Lunchtimeish: 7 more kids pour in. I'm sure our neighbors wonder what sort of shennanigans are going on when all the kids are here. It's like we're a clown car; the kids just keep coming! I finish the cookies and make up some more frosting. Then 7 kids (remember, ages 11- 2 1/2?) seat themselves at the table with 7 colors of frosting, 6 or 7 different kinds of sprinkles and cookies stretching the whole length of the table! I was thinking I'd get some great cookie decorating shots. Boy, was I wrong! I barely got any in as I was running around, trying to help the 5, 3 and 2 1/2 year olds be successful. Athan and Luke dropped off pretty quickly. Chiara was very much into it. She needed lots of "lellow" and like shoving the "too hots" (red hots) into the unfrosted cookies. Obi frosted exactly 1 of each shape and then was done. He job after that was supervising. He'd count up the cookies and declare there were 30 left to frost. Later, he'd come back and announce there were still 17. Ariana loved it; there was pink and purple. Gavin kept at it until they were done, although he said that "carving" these cookies was hard.  Cora talked the entire time about how bad store bought cookie dough and frosting was and how good homemade cookies and frosting were. Somewhere in the middle of that I decided that I should also read them a book and I ran to grab Jan Brett's "The Mitten" and read it to them at the table. It was like a  little preschool.

Middle of the afternoon: The cookies are decorated. Amazingly, the sprinkles did not get out of hand. (Partially because after Gavin poured them on the frosted cookie, he would lick his fingers and then press the sprinkles into the frosting. Oh well.) The little ones took a nap, the older ones went out in the snow and Cora and I set up the craft. I saw this craft and just had to do it. Painting styrofoam balls with thick craft glue is not as easy as it looks, but the older kids managed. The end result turned out adorable!! 

Late afternoon: There are now 10 kids in the house. All in all that day there were 12. Needless to say, once they left, I was a little tired but we had fun. The clean-up took all night to do though it wasn't bad, just everywhere. 


Saturday morning: We wake up to a really warm house. Noticeably warm. Bill checks the thermostat and it say 76! Apparently, some little munchkins pressed some buttons while climbing the ladder that was used for decorating the tree. 


(next up: the recipe for the cookies we made) 

The Start of Christmas

Now that the production is done, we've finally started to move on to prepping for Christmas around here. Bill finally pulled down the Christmas tubs and other miscellaneous stuff and tonight the kids put together their tree.

Brace yourselves, folks. This tree is like none other. In fact, if you ever had this tree you've gotten rid of it long ago. Hey, it's all us newlyweds could afford! We've kept it around all these years and it's filled it purpose here and there. Now, it's the kids' tree.

It always begins with unpacking the box and finding the top. (Why, yes, Bill is standing on the craft table. He's changing a lightbulb.) 

Putting this thing together takes some thinking. Like those mind-bender, unsolvable knot games. 

Once it's together you string the lights on. We have about 4 miles of lights for this little tree. Again, same set from Bill and my first Christmas (sigh).

Meanwhile, someone must step in and "fluff" the branches in order to fill it out. (Sheesh, people! Do you want this to look authentic or what?!)

I pack all the kid ornaments in the same box as the tree and let them at it. 

This Nutcracker Advent calendar was confiscated after a wild round of White Elephant gift exchanging one year. The kids love it. It's little books with the story written in it.

It's all done. I should have taken a picture with the kids in front of it but we had other things to do.

Like flip over 16 days on our other Advent calendar. This one was made by my grandma for me and my sister and brother when we were growing up. Obviously, I have it now. I think it was made from a kit. 16 days, 4 kids = 4 days of flipping over. Every time Luke flipped an animal over he made its sound. (When it wasn't his turn he was running around the table.)

And when that was over, we began "The Worst  Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by Barbara Robinson! LOVE that book!!! (V didn't join us for that part. We can't seem to get her to sit and read with us yet. Maybe that will change after she receives some of her Christmas gifts from us. :) )

Wednesday night we watched "Elf". Fuuuuunny movie! The kids also helped me color in some stamped snowmen for some gift bags I was going to make. 

This is one of my favorite gifts to make for teachers. So, if you're a teacher to one of my kids: Spoiler Alert. I take a coffee bag that I've been saving since my last trip for coffee beans from my favorite coffee shop in the whole wide world (Burgie's and I've been a lot) and cover it with some scrapbook paper and layer on the snowman, etc. Inside are some homemade biscotti and to go with that is a Starbucks Frappuccino decorated with some paper. Doesn't it look so cute?  

So, that's it for now. We're getting Christmas started here.