"Wrapping Up" Christmas 2008

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.

Molly had been telling everyone that she wanted earrings for Christmas. She got earrings from us, and some from Jess on Christmas Eve, and more earrings from Sarah and even more from Ruth on Saturday. She should be set in the earring department for awhile!!

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).

I ended up getting a few of the things that were on my list too. Sarah and Brad brought me a Shark cordless floor and carpet cleaner. It was not the exact one I had pictured here, but it works just great! I had also asked for the two Narnia dvd's. I got them. In fact, I got 2 copies of "Prince Caspian", (one from Jess and one from Ruth and Dan), and 3 copies of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe"! Jessica, Sarah and Ruth each gave us one of those!! Apparently, they didn't compare notes to see what each other was getting, after they had all read my blog. That's okay, I had already opened the ones from Jess, so I may donate that one to church library or something. The one from Sarah and Brad is a 2 disc collector's set, so I'll probably keep that one. I took the two dvd's from Ruth and Dan back today, and got 2 more karaoke discs to add to our collection instead! They'll come in really handy on Tuesday night for the Youth Group's "Pre-New Year's Eve Party" at church.

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!

My daughter Jessica's corgi, "Bart", has been sleeping in his crate in the laundry room every night since they came to live with us. Sarah and Brad brought their lab/springer mix, "Buster" with them too, so we stacked the crates and made bunk beds for them. Here they are:

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!

Week 8 weigh In ~ A day late

Because our town only has WW meetings on Mondays, and that being Memorial Day this week, I had to wait until today to weigh in. I also had to drive almost 40 miles to do so. I was really considering putting it off another day, since I didn't think I did all that well, what with the three day weekend and all. At the last minute, I decided to make the trip to St. Cloud after all...and I'm glad I did. It wasn't a tremendous loss or anything...but it was not bad. I'm down another 2 lbs. for a total of weight loss of 18.6 lbs! I just can't seem to break that 20 lb mark. The good thing is, I don't have far to go this week...and it will be fun to get my star at my home WW meeting site.
And...since I was in the area today, I decide to go across the street to Petter's Warehouse and see what I could find. I hadn't been there in ages. About 2 years ago, I found myself a bedspread, a couple of matching decorative pillows, and 1 matching curtain for my bedroom. The problem is...I have 2 windows in my bedroom. All this time, I've had one window with no curtain...just mini blinds on it. It wasn't too noticeable since it is mostly hidden behind the headboard anyway...but I really wanted another curtain. Guess what I found today....tada~ I found my curtain. Yippeee! I had all but given up finding one at this point.

I also found an audio book called "Finding God in the Land of Narnia" by Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware at Petter's for just $2.99. I started listening to it on my way home...it seems very good. I had been looking for some kind of audio book to listen to while I use my treadmill. I figure if I only let myself listen to it while I'm on the treadmill, (and maybe while washing dishes), if it's interesting enough, it will get me to do those things more often. The same authors also wrote "Finding God in the Lord of the Rings". The funny thing is, my hubby and I were just discussing the other day about how I'd read some of the Narnia books as a kid, and other than the similarity between Aslan's death on the stone table and Jesus' death on the cross, I had no idea there was any deeper meaning behind the stories. I just enjoyed them because they were really good stories. Speaking of the Chronicles of Narnia...

I went to see "Prince Caspian" (the second chapter in the chronicles ), about a week and a half ago. It was VERY good. I would recommend it to everyone, but I would caution that there is a lot of violence in it, (not blood and gore, more like epic battle scenes), and may not be appropriate for very young children. We brought a bunch of 5th grade girls to it...I don't think I'd bring anyone much younger. They are working on the next 3 movies to be released in the next few years; "Voyage of the Dawn Treader", being the next one. That was one of my favorite books of the series...I can't wait. Check out the "Prince Caspian" Widget on my sidebar if you want more information on the Chronicles of Narnia.

May 27th is a date that brings both joy and tears to this family. In 1952 it was the day my mother and father said their wedding vows to each other. HAPPY56th ANNIVERSARY Mom and Dad!!!

And sadly, in 1998, my husband lost his first wife, and my step-children, their mother. So Ray, Sarah, Dan and Ruth...my thoughts are with you guys today too, as you mark the 10th anniversary of that loss. I'm sure you all miss her dearly.

Another successful AWANA year all wrapped up!

My husband, Ray has been the AWANA* Commander for our church's program for 4 years now. In addition to helping him out with the behind the scenes stuff, I started out helping with the Cubbies, (3 and 4 year olds), for a year and then moved next door to the nursery 3 years ago. My favorite age of kids has always been from about 18 mos. up to 3 years old. They're just sooooo cute and lovable at that age! And now, as a grandma...I really enjoy giving them back to their parents when our time together is through for the night too ;).

This last Fall, AWANA clubs started a new program for pre-Cubbies, called "Puggles". We didn't want to completely open it up to the public, since we have a rather small nursery, and just two of us also need to watch the babies that are in there. We decided that we'd try out the Puggles program on our toddlers that were already going to be in the nursery on Wed nights, (due to their parents helping out with the older AWANA kids). We had a fun year, and the kids learned about 4 simple precepts: 1) God made all things, 2) God saw that it was good, 3) God loves us, and 4) We thank God. The little ones don't have a very long attention span...but we tried to get at least a few "teaching moments" in each night. We had anywhere from 2 to 7 "Puggles" throughout the year, but ended up with just two of them there for our awards ceremony last night. Here they are:My dd, Molly just finished her very last year of AWANA. She loved it when she was younger, but the last couple of years, we pretty much had to drag her there. After all, we figured if we were going to volunteer our time and energy to this great program, it wouldn't kill her to stick it out and maybe even "accidentally" learn a few bible verses ...whether she wanted to or not. I think she actually did have fun there most of the time...but she'll never admit to that...she's waaaaayyy too cool for that! She did look pretty excited to finally, (after 3 yrs), get her 1st T&T book award though...but she'd never admit to that one either. Our annual awards ceremony was followed by ice cream, cookies and lemonade for all. (I had one M & M cookie and black coffee).

Here are a couple of pictures of Molly accepting her award from her leader, Yevette:

And look-- there's our friend, Sarah, (Sassyfrazz), behind Yevette too! She's our T & T director. As you can see by this picture, Molly is at least a head taller than most of the other girls in her class. My "baby" is now 5' 7" at 11 years of age! I've still got about 3/4 of an inch on her, but she's bound to pass me up by 6th grade.

Yevette told her twelve 5th grade girls last Fall, that if they collectively learned 500 verses throughout the year, she would take them to a movie and buy them candy. It worked, they did...in fact they exceeded the 500! Rumor has it, they even got Molly to contribute a few of them here and there. Thank you, Yevette for putting up with my daughter for the last 3 years, even when she didn't want to be there. We never really gave her a choice in the matter, and appreciate what you were able to do with her. She's very excited about youth group next year!

I get to go along to help chaperone and drive them to the movie this Sunday. We're going to The Chronicles of Narnia~Prince Caspian! WooHoo! I'm as excited as the kids are I think. I've wanted to see that one ever since I heard they were going to do it. I'm reading the book again, just to refresh my memory about what happens in that one.

*Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed