The Party's Over

I've spent two days just sitting around being a little sad. My son and all the kids left on Saturday. It took us about 2 hours to take down the Christmas tree and other decorations and to vacuum up all the glitter and stuff from the floor. After that my house was just too quiet and too clean. Today I'm going to get into the closet and re-pack and re-stack all the Christmas stuff where it will stay until next year (or the year after if we decide putting up a tree is too much trouble).

When we started this process, we were so excited about getting out all the decorations and making the house look festive. When everything was done, my nativity set was placed under the tree in honor of the birth of our Lord. Then a few days later, when I had some packages to put under there, the nativity was moved to a spot beside the entertainment center. Later, as the packages grew, it was placed on an end table. Then, when the kids needed that table for their morning juice while watching cartoons, it went to the dining room table. But of course, the table was needed for playing games, so the nativity ended up on my desk. That didn't last long, because the desk was being used by everyone to check their email and my space pages. Finally, baby Jesus ended up in the kitchen, beside the microwave. My sister looked at it sitting there and commented that there was still no room in the inn.

So, today, as this year comes to a close, and as you ponder my little nativity sitting between the kitchen sink and a bottle of Twistup, resolve to make room in your heart for the baby in the manger, who grew up to be our Saviour and Lord, and who deserves a place of honor in our lives and our hearts and our homes.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone is having a Christmas as wonderful as we are. I have four of my grandkids from Texas here and we've had so much fun. Yesterday they played Apples to Apples all day and if you've never played it, you should try it. We laughed all day over some of the answers.

We watched Pirates of the Caribbean, which normally would be about 2 1/2 hours, but took us about 4 hours to watch with all the rewinding to see the funny scenes and any close-up view of Johnny Depp. Which explains the picture of my three grand-daughters swooning over a picture of him on a throw. I don't know why they think he's so Hot. Anyone with any taste would know Orlando Bloom is the one who's Hot!!

This morning we opened gifts, then gathered up paper and boxes and styrofoam and twist ties and thousands of pieces of packing peanuts, and dug through trash for directions, and cut two software CD's in half before realizing they were inside the package, and generally had a wild and crazy time. We still have a mess, but at least we can walk through the living room.

Here are all four of the kids with their stockings. From left to right are Josi & Joy, the twin girls who are obviously not identical. Then Brandon with his fake "bling." On the right is Kayla, our oldest granddaughter. And in the background, with us in spirit, are pictures of Bailey and Maverick.

We're going to Grandma's (my mother) for spaghetti at 2pm so I'll try to add more pictures later. Merry Christmas.

Shop til you Drop!!!

I don't think anyone in the world loves to shop as much as I do. I can go all day and look at thousands of things and not spend a penny. I just love the thrill of the hunt for some bargain that's too good to pass up. I love the last minute rush before Christmas to get one more thing for someone's stocking or to just be part of the hustle and bustle. When Jen was young, we always went someplace on Christmas Eve and we would be there until they kicked everyone out and locked the doors. We shocked Jake one year by making a 30 minute trip over a crazy mountain road just to go to Big Lots!! He was sure after that roller coaster ride there was going to be some kind of store that was worth going to.

If you ask my husband if he likes to shop, he would absolutely answer "NO". But don't believe it. He really doesn't like to shop with me because, as I said, I can look and look and not buy anything. He only likes to go if he has a goal in mind to buy. Fortunately for me, in the process of reaching his goal, we look at lots of other things. He OOOs and AAAHs the Christmas decorations and gets excited by every new nutcracker he sees. Anything Rudolph or Wizard of Oz gets him to act like a kid in a candy shop.

Which brings me to our trip to K-Mart. We were walking through Craftsman tools (thank goodness for K-Mart & Sears because he never turns down a chance to look at Craftsman tools) when we heard an annoucement that they had Martha Stewart towels at the front of the store for $2 each. If you have never seen a grown man running through K-Mart to beat a bunch of old ladies to a towel clearance sale, let me tell you, it was a beautiful thing. By the time I got to the front of the store with the buggy, he had snagged six beautiful matching towels by reaching over the heads of the shorter women. Maybe if more husbands could see it as a competition to get a good deal before anyone else, men would like shopping. Stores need to start some sort of tag team shopping or something. Mud wrestling for microwaves. Darts for dishes. Tug-a-War for tools. If Target would just let them shoot at the big bullseye!! Maybe someday.

Old Blue Eyes!!

I had to put a picture of Maverick on here since I put that video of Bailey. Maverick is such a beautiful little boy. We really enjoyed seeing him this week and getting to snuggle on him for a little bit.

Bailey Shows Off

Here's Bailey showing off for Grammy & Pop. I wanted GG & Paw to see this. He's so funny and so smart and he's beginning to pronounce words so well you can actually understand him. Enjoy!!!

Bread Pudding

I could write a book about the bread pudding recipe I got from my mother in law, Carolyn, a few years ago. I have never liked bread pudding, so when she offered me some that she had made when we were at her house visiting, I turned it down. Kirby, however, had some and talked me into tasting it. Have you ever wondered what food in Heaven tastes like??? This is as close as you can get on earth. We got her recipe and later that year when Jen and Jake came to visit us for Christmas, we made some. They both loved it, of course, and a few weeks later I got an email from Jen asking for the recipe so she could surprise Jake with a pan. It wasn't long after that she made some for her church, and she and the bread pudding became an instant success. We had already had the same reaction at our church, with so many requests for the recipe that I lost track of how many times I printed it out.

Last year, at our family reunion, one of my many cousins made cookbooks for everyone with lots of family favorite recipes and I gave her the bread pudding recipe.

Now, for the point of this whole story. Today I got a call from another cousin in Alabama who lives in an assisted living home. She has not been to the family reunion for several years because of her poor health, but she got a copy of the cookbook from her sister. One of the cooks at the home has been trying out some of the recipes and she made the bread pudding. My cousin told me that everyone at the home went crazy for it and when the cook said they needed to save some for later, they all insisted that they wanted a second helping NOW. She thought it was so funny she had to call and let me know that the recipe was a big success there, too.

So, a big thank you to my mother-in-law for a recipe that has become a legend in several states. And just in case you haven't had the pleasure of tasting it, here's the recipe.

6 Eggs
2 Sticks Butter
3 Cups Sugar
1 Can Evaporated Milk (12 oz.)
4 oz. Hot Tap Water
1 tsp. Vanilla
8 Slices of Bread
Cinnamon

Break up bread slices in a 9x12 cake pan and set aside. Melt butter and add eggs, sugar, milk, hot water, and vanilla and mix well. Pour mixture over the bread. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
Bake at 350 deg. for about 45 minutes.

Presidential Candidate Calculator

Here's a link to an interesting little survey you can take and it will tell you which candidates agree with your positions on a number of issues. It only takes a minute or two to answer the questions. I thought it was pretty neat.


http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html