A Recipe to Share

Francesca and I made these last night -- and they are quite yummy!

http://www.recipezaar.com/Easiest-Peanut-Butter-Chocolate-Cookies-Bisquick-336015

All you need is bisquick, pb, and a can of sweetened condensed milk a bit of vanilla and sugar. Of course if you have some Hershey Kisses to crown these beauties that's great too.

Okay -- had to add this one too --- I haven't made them YET -- but it looks very yummy -- a chocolate cookie with a buckeye on top!! That can't be a bad thing!!

http://jif.com/Recipes/Details.aspx?recipeID=2420

Enjoy!!

Preparations for Christmas

Our family tradition has been to shun Black Friday shopping and instead decorate our home. Last year I tried to do both, after the crowds and craziness I decided that I never had to do that again. And of course this year it turns out you were taking your life in your own hands going out on that day --- so I'm definitely sticking with our tradition.

What used to take Barry and me a couple of hours as newlyweds, is now an all day (sometimes multi-day) event. Barry preps the tree in advance, un-scrunching the branches and wrapping the lights. He's also great at lugging those totes down from the attic. Even though we've lived in this house 5 years – we seem to change it up every year. It makes it fun. This year we showcased all our Christmas books by putting them along the ledge in our foyer (will take a picture later). It's different – but I think it shows our love of books and shows how we try to focus on the spiritual side of Christmas.

By the end of weekend, all was done except the actual decoration of the tree. Barry is off on Mondays, so we spent that day outside (in majorly gusty winds) putting up lights. That's another area we change up a bit each year. For Family Home Evening we decorated the tree. It's fun to see that the kids enjoy the traditions we've established. It's the little things done the same way – like, special ornaments for each person. We even have a tradition for what goes on 2^nd to last and last. When it's all done – we finally turn on the tree lights (other room lights are off) and sing Silent Night. It sounds corny – but we love it and it truly is an important part of the whole experience for us.

Christmas has a way of sneaking up on me – but I'm glad it's here. I'm just afraid it will be gone before I'm fully in the spirit. So I'm embracing it. I want to enjoy it all, not get stressed. Remember when it seemed so long between Christmases! Well I'm trying to get that feeling back again. Savor the Season!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I don't know when I'll get the chance to sitdown and type again for a few days. And it's been a few weeks since I wrote anything. So I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving. I wrote in the YW newsletter that it would be a fun exercise to post on here 100 things I'm thankful for -- big things like my family and the gospel -- and little things like snack size ziplock bags and my favorite bubble bath. For right now that will have to be a some day maybe project -- perhaps ongoing throughout the year. I am very thankful for technology that allows me to communicate with my friends and family - in such a fun, creative and easy way across so many miles.

Wishing you and yours the best Thanksgiving Ever!!

Tori is Sweet 16

Well our teenager is now 16! Yikes!! We talked about her party for more than a year. We had lots of ideas. But all of them cost money. We tossed around the idea of a moon bounce and a carnival theme, a Roller Skating Party and I can't even remember all the rest. In the end budget became the biggest factor. We even thought about not doing a party using the money for shopping and lunch with her best buddy. But then I remembered my own 16th birthday -- and I wanted Tori to have a memorable day like I did.

Flashback: August 17th, 1983 My best buddy, Shireen, my sister, brother, Mom and Grandmother spent the whole day at the Ohio State Fair in Columbus. The cherry on the top though was the concert that night: MY FAVORITE BAND!! Air Supply!! I even remember locking the keys to the car in the car. The state troopers had some fun with us, telling us that they'd have to bust out the window to get them. LOL. Memories!!

Flash Forward -11-01-08:

So we decided to have fun with a party at home -- as many friends who could come, hay bales to sit on, a make shift canopy of twinkle light, the chiminea, tons of balloons, chilli cheese dogs and chips. It came together to be a really fun evening. At first the friends from church and the friends from school were pretty separate -- but after a walk down to the playground people were mixing well --then they really had a blast playing flashlight tag. We had a really nice group of kids, gorgeous weather and it really was just a great evening.

Victoria's Homecoming

The Elections are Over! Hallelujah!!

I didn't think I'd post political stuff on this blog...but...I thought I'd share an experience I had this last week. I'm a conservative. I love talk radio. I've been following this election for two dang years!!! Well like I said, I'm a conservative - McCain was never my guy -- Mitt Romney was. So even though I don't like the outcome of the election and Obama's extreme liberalism scares the daylights right out me, I can't say I'm crying for McCain. Especially since his campaign workers seem determined to further wreck the republican party.

Okay, so what was my experience...well I got to be a poll worker for the first time ever. It was pretty neat. I didn't work in my own district, but down in Dover. Here's what I found so interesting though. In Delaware, election workers must be registered to a party and so you have half and half from each party. The republican workers followed the rules...we didn't talk politics on the premises. The democrats were pretty vocal in their "hope".

Considering the racial make-up of the district, I expected that when we posted the results on the door at the end of the night that it would be overwhelmingly for Obama. But surprisingly, of the 1000 votes cast (that's about 50% turn out) there was only about a 60 vote difference between the two. Delaware-wide though it went about 60% for Obama. My job was to pull signature cards, so I had to find 500 cards and then refile 500 cards. Once you're there (6 am) you can't leave until it's all over (no leaving for lunch or dinner, just breaks to eat what you packed) --we were out of there by 8:30pm. It was a long day -- super busy until noon but then it was just steady -- no after-work rush, we are all a little stunned because other districts were slammed all day.

Two last points:

1. I think we need to seriously reform the whole electoral college thing. I am actually for a popular election -- no college. But if not that, then let it be proportional to the popular vote -- no more winner-take-all states. It may have served a purpose way back in the day. But in this information age -- anyone who wants to be educated about the candidates has ample opportunity to get that education. It would certainly allievate this perception that there's a landside or a mandate from the people when truly we're more 50-50 in our decisions.

2. I was happy for the African American community. They now have this wonderful example of someone who has overcome a lot of things people would generally say are disadvantages. I was even happy for the people I worked with that day -- even though we didn't know the outcome for any other polling place but ours, they were gracious in their excitement. Do I think he's a good answer for ALL of America --nope. But his election does say something about how far we've come as a nation.

This last Monday we had a great time together. We were all scheduled to have our teeth cleaned. So that meant we were going to have to take the girls out of school early – but we combined the chore of going to the dentist with something really fun. We went to Fifer Orchards for their corn maze.

We had a map and Tori acted as our navigator. She did a great job. We made it through the maze in 23 minutes with very little back tracking. They had six stations within the maze with interesting bee facts. We found them all!
They also had a great slide, a soy bean sandbox and a John Deere trike course. As much fun as we had in the maze, the slide was a huge hit and probably the girls’ favorite activity.
On the way to the dentist’s office, we talked about the maze and likened it to our lives. We talked about how difficult the maze would have been if we didn’t have the map, how easily we could have been completely turned around and lost. Then the analogy continued that the map was like the scriptures. We had a really nice discussion. Family Home Evening on the road. We all agreed that it was a lot of fun and a great object lesson.
Our friends, the Menasco family, had us over a few weeks ago for family home evening and we were introduced to their tradition of each family member sharing a compliment for each family member. We decided to adopt the same idea in our family. I got many compliments that night for planning that activity!