The front yard.
The backyard, (somewhere near Narnia by the looks of things)
This past Saturday afternoon, we celebrated Christmas with our kids, or at least the ones that live in MN that were able to make it. Of course, Jessica and Christian are living here with us now, and Sarah and Brad came down from "up north". Ruth and Dan drove up from the twin cities area, but my son Joel said he was having trouble with the battery in his Jeep, and was afraid to try to drive it this far. His gifts are still under the tree. If he doesn't come to get them...I guess we'll be forced to use/spend them ourselves, and eat the contents of the basket from G & G, (including the much-sought-after "grandma buns" that are waiting for him in the freezer).
CJ got a really cool tool set from Sarah and Brad. He loves it, and has been "fixing" things and people ever since. He says he is a "workerstruction", which I believe means construction worker in Fouryearold. Here he is, sitting on the couch between Ruth's husband, Dan and Sarah's husband, Brad.
Molly received a messenger bag kit that you decorate yourself, with iron-ons and fabric paint. She really seemed to like that, and had it completely finished by Sunday afternoon.
The other gift that CJ got from Uncle Brad and Auntie Sarah, was a Minnesota Wild sweatshirt. It's a bit big, so when he tried it on later, he told his mom that he didn't want to come down and show it to us, because he was afraid we would all laugh at him! She told us not to, so we tried our best not to snicker. He'll grow into it...eventually. (I'm not really sure what Ruth is pointing at here). 
After we finished exchanging gifts, we put the extra leaves in the table, and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas dinner of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, red and green Jello, and scalloped corn. Sarah brought some yummy cookies for dessert too! So much for Weight Watcher's this week!
It was a real "three dog night", when you add to them our dog, "Jake", who is also a lab/springer mix. He thinks he's a people though, so he sleeps upstairs in Molly's bed with her. Here they are:
Ruth and Dan only came up for the day, so they didn't bring their 2 dogs. That was probably a good thing. I suppose we could have found room in the laundry room for a couple more crates, but their two pups are quite young, and may not have liked being away from their humans all night.We all had a great Christmas here on the farm! Even if it did seem a bit like the place had "gone to the dogs"! Happy New Year!
I often refer to my 4 year old grandson here on my blog as "CJ", but his given name is Christian. Christian and his mother Jessica came to church with us this morning. When it came time for the sermon, he decided he didn't want to leave and go to Children's Church. He wanted to stay with his Momma and listen to the message.
Our Pastor was preaching from Hebrews chapter 6, and was talking about when "Christians" fall away from their faith, whether or not they were ever actually "Christians", in the first place, etc. So of course, he used the word "Christian" quite a bit during this message. I wasn't sitting very close to my grandson at the time, so I couldn't hear his whispers. My daughter told me after the service that every time the pastor had said the word, "Christian", that CJ would gasp and say, "He said my name! or Hey, he said my name again!" Now that's what you call a personalized message!
After a very nice Christmas Eve candlelight service at church, we made a quick stop at home and were back out the door to head to my family's celebration at the home of my parents, which is a little over an hour away from us now.
There was no need for dreaming of a white Christmas this year, there's quite a bit of that white stuff all over outside. However, inside Mom and Dad's garage on Christmas Eve, it looked much more like a red and black Christmas! The tablecloths were red, and almost everyone was wearing some combination of red and black.
There wasn't much green to be seen anywhere this year...except for the Christmas tree and the carpeting. Well, of course we had a tree and carpet in the garage! Doesn't everyone? For the past few years, my family has been converting Mom and Dad's garage into a cozy family room just for a few hours on Christmas Eve. It's a little weird I guess, but no one has a big enough living room to hold us all anymore. So it works.
This is what CJ got from one of my nephews that had picked his name. CJ LOVES Spidey! After the kids opened their presents, we had a little excitement, thanks to my 5 year old niece, Shelby. We were all out in the garage, when she ran away from her mother, into the house and locked the door! Unfortunately, all the other doors to the house were locked, and Shelby was hiding inside the house somewhere, because she knew she'd done something wrong. After a few minutes, someone had the brilliant idea to climb through the wood storage door that leads to the basement from the garage, and they got back into the house that way. Whew! Never a dull moment with Shelby around! I found that out last summer when I babysat her for a weekend.
Here's Jessica looking lovely as usual, in her Santa hat, next to my hubby, Ray who is sampling some of the delicious treats brought by everyone. We "kids" all chipped in on Mom and Dad's gifts, but unfortunatley, didn't get Mom's ordered in time to receive it by Christmas.
Here's Mom, looking a bit perplexed, as she takes this little bicycle bell out of a gift bag. Notice the green tissue paper on the table. In it, there is a photo of what we ordered for her.
We had to explain to her that there actually WAS something in the tissue paper. Here she is looking at the picture below, of her shiny new red Schwinn bicycle! She can't wait to get it!
He got a GPS, so he'll never have to stop and ask directions, which is something I'm pretty sure he's never done in his life anyway...Well, maybe once or twice. He was pretty excited too, and played with his new toy the rest of the night.
Wee Three Kings? Well, not really, but I thought these guys were so cute, I had to get a picture of them all together. The two to the left and right of CJ are my sister Kathy's little guys, Tiegen and Grayson. Age-wise, CJ is right in the middle of them too, but it looks like Gray has passed him up in height. CJ just happened to be the only GREAT grandchild there this year.
I really lucked out this year. I had the highest number, so I was able to choose from all the gifts that were already opened, or open the last remaining one on the table. If I opened the last one, the game was over, so I opted to steal from my niece. I got 2 wonderful over-sized, very soft, fleece throw blankets! I had to have them! They'll come in really handy in this drafty old farmhouse. In fact, I'm snuggled up in one right now.
Here's Molly helping Bart eat his "lollipop" that he got in his stocking while Jake looks on very enviously. CJ got all kinds of neat things, like a V-motion video game, the Animal Scramble game that I won from MomCentral and various other games and toys.
He was absolutely delighted to find that Santa had left him the one thing he had asked him for. Eve! He had gotten a Wall-e robot for his birthday, and just had to have an "Eve" one, to go with it. Now they can interact and talk to each other and make all kinds of weird noises all over the house. Yay!
I said a Christmas prayer for you because the season’s near.
I didn’t ask for riches but for gifts so much more dear.
I asked for joyful gatherings with your family all around,
And for carols to inspire you with their old familiar sound.
I asked for quiet moments in your heart on Christmas morn,
For a special time to celebrate the Saviour who was born.
I asked for friends to send their best that you might know they care,
I asked for peace and love and hope;
And I know God heard my prayer.
Well, I didn't quite lose the 5 lbs that I had put back on over the past few weeks this week, but I got close. I lost 4.2 lbs, which made me feel a bit better about things. I just ate ONE of CJ's cookies though. How could I resist? They were just so beeeeautiful!
Hopefully, I can do a good job of maintaining over Christmas and New Year's. I got a couple of new weight loss books in the mail today too, they look very intriguing to me. I'm hoping they will be something I can incorporate into my weight loss plan and then maybe I'll be motivated enough to get off of this plateau that I've been on for awhile. Look for my review of these books in January. I received an extra set of books to give away to one of my lucky readers at that time too!
My grandson, CJ informed me the other day that we needed to have some CHRISTMAS cookies to leave for Santa Claus when he comes in a few days. We still have some cookies left from the cookie exchange at church, but he said those were not CHRISTMAS COOKIES. So, since it is so absolutely frigid outside today, it seemed like a great day to warm up the kitchen with some holiday baking. I put all my little elves to work. Here's CJ, his Auntie Molly and his Mama Jessica cutting out cookies.
CJ thought it was great fun to cut them out...
Of course, he kept choosing star-shaped cookie cutters,
of which I have about 5 different ones.
Here's Molly doing a little decorating
And CJ Trying his hand at it
He was VERY proud of these beautiful creations of his. Do you think he inherited his grandmother's decorating talents???I learned on Friday, that my cousin Marshall, (who was 40 years old), was found dead in his home by his fiancee that morning. I don't know very many details yet, but he apparently had taken some kind of prescription drug of his girfriend's to try to fight flu symptoms that he was experiencing, and had also taken his own prescription drug for bi-polar disease. They're thinking that there was a bad reaction between the two drugs, at this time.
Marshall lived in Utah, and was a divorced father of a young daughter named Lexie. I was not especially close to this cousin, because of our age differences, but I'm still quite shocked at the news of this sudden tragic event.
Please pray for our whole extended family, and especially for his daughter Lexie, his brothers, Lane and Channing,(Channing and his wife Dawn attended our church for a short time a few years back), his father, Tom and his mother Betty. Aunt Betty, (my father's sister), has been battling alcoholism most of her adult life. It's NEVER easy for a parent to bury a child, and the fact that this tragedy happened just before Christmas, will likely make it even worse. Thanks for your prayers.
Today would have been my late sister Patty's 49th birthday. Patty went to be with the Lord on April 27th, 2003; after a 2 year battle with breast cancer. She was a great sister and a wonderful mother to 11 children. We all miss her very much, but I know that I'll see her again someday in heaven. Every year since she passed away, most of her remaining 9 siblings have gotten together on her birthday to remember Patty and celebrate her life. I suspect we will do that again this year, but not until later on this evening. There's something else we have planned to celebrate first tonight. 
Yes, the roads are icy after the rain/snow mix we just got, but thankfully, this is NOT a story about sliding into the ditch. The truth is, I had been going down that slippery slope of gaining a few pounds back again, over the past 4 weeks.
I went back to Weight Watcher's tonight to "face the music"and weighed in. I knew I had gained a few pounds, but I kept hoping I'd be able to take those pounds back off, before I went and officially weighed in again. Unfortunately, HOPING doesn't do much for weight loss, believe it or not. You actually have to WORK at it. I weighed myself at home, and was less than thrilled to find out that I'd gained somewhere in the vicinity of 5 lbs! I weighed in at WW, and their scale concurred. Exactly 5 pounds.
I have no one to blame but myself. I know what I'm supposed to be doing, and what I'm NOT supposed to be doing, but I haven't been doing those things. You know, like NOT eating anything and everything that looks good (and there's a lot of that kind of thing around this time of year), and writing down EVERYTHING I eat, and um...actually counting my points and keeping track of them. You know, basic Weight Watcher's stuff.
The good new is, 1) I went back tonight and stayed for the meeting, and 2) Weight Watchers just unveiled a BRAND NEW PROGRAM called last week, unbeknownst to me, since I had been MIA from the meetings for the past 3 weeks. The new program is called, "Momentum". Hopefully, that will be enough to get me motivated to get back on track, so I can lose this extra 5 lbs...and get me started in back in the right direction at the start of a brand new year. And as our leader put it tonight, I'll have a jump on all of those people that will start on January 1st, because they've made a new year's resolution.
Speaking of my younger son Joel, he finally came to visit yesterday. I wanted to take a picture of 3 of my 4 children together, but the older two wouldn't cooperate. They had the funny idea that their loving mother would post said picture on her blog for some reason, and neither one of them was ready for a picture. But I did catch this one of CJ beating up on Uncle Joel. Just ignore the fact that I hadn't made my bed yet, and didn't think to close the bedroom "door" before I took this picture. Okay? Hey, it was Sunday...and I had just gotten up from an afternoon nap.
Anyway, as some of you may have noticed, I have not been changing my weight progress chart lately. That's because I haven't gone to weigh in the past 3 weeks. I'm afraid that with all of these holiday parties and events we've been to lately, that I may have actually gained a few pounds, and I was hoping to take it back off before I went to weigh in again. Well...that's not exactly working, so before I backslide just too much, I've decided to "bite the bullet" and go weigh in tonight...even if I have to admit that I've gained, and make my little froggy hop backwards just a little bit.You fill in the above blank. What word comes to mind for you? Busy? Crazy? Frantic? Hectic? Stressful? Of course, we all know it's supposed to be the most WONDERFUL time of the year, or at least that's what the popular Christmas carol tells us. But after a long day of running from store to store, trying to find that perfect gift for Aunt Agnus, Uncle Jim and everyone on your Christmas list, don't you sometimes wish you could just slink yourself down into a nice deep bathtub full of bubbles? I sure do.
We recently moved into an old farmhouse, and while I was taking a bath in my ordinary tub, (which is way too shallow to cover most of me with water), I was thinking that it would be really nice if this old house had one of those old fashioned clawfoot tubs to go with it. That way, I could fill it almost to the rim, and have nothing but my head and neck sticking out of the water. Wouldn't that feel great right about now?
But then, it occurred to me, that one of the things I really miss about the house we used to live in, is the whirlpool tub we had there. If I had one of those, it could surely work out the kinks I'm feeling in the back of my neck and shoulders at the moment. And then, the thought actually crossed my mind, that it would be totally awesome if someone made an old fashioned-looking clawfoot tub, with the modern technology of today's whirlpool bathtubs! Now, that would be just way to good to be true, right? Wrong! I found the bathtub of my dreams at SimplyBathtubs.com. Seriously! Here it is:
Wouldn't that be the coolest thing ever? The website says this tub is made of "Acrastone" which is naturally warm to the touch, stronger than cast iron, and durable enough to carry a lifetime warranty. This bathtub features a "Champagne Massage system", which means that it has strategically placed air jets, that are said to give you a better "therapeutic effect" while you're bathing. I think I'm going to put this bathtub on my Christmas list, and hope that Santa can deliver. And speaking of delivering things, they even offer free shipping with no sales tax, (unless you happen to live in the state of CA).
Simplybathtubs.com also carries a variety of walk-in bathtubs, that are a great solution for anyone who has trouble getting in and out of a regular tub. They carry a line of discount walk-in bathtubs too. And for today only, they are offering an additional 10% off this Deep 30 Inch Walk In Bathtub:
We had our Ladies' Night Out Christmas Party at our church last night. This was Lisa doing her best imitation of Pastor Chad, telling some really LAME Christmas jokes to start the evening off.
We did a "white elephant" gift exchange last night, and I ended up with a very cute snow angel figurine. I started out with a cool, red sock monkey shirt, but little Miss QTpies stole that from me! It's okay, it wouldn't have fit me quite yet anyway, and it looks great on her. 
Chicken GREAAAT
1/4 cup prepared mustard
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 cup Country Bobs All Purpose or Spicy Sauce
1 cup water
1 - 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 - 3lb chicken cut up (I just used a 2 1/2 lb bag of the frozen
chicken tenderloins), cooked them and cut them up)
Directions:
In pot with lid combine mustard,sugar,soy
sauce,vinegar, Country Bobs, tomato sauce and water and bring to boil. Add
chicken and simmer for 45 minutes with lid ajar or until chicken is no longer
pink. The sauce is great over mashed potatoes or rice.
Submitted by:
Al Malekovic
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