From Our Home to Yours ...

Christmas is here! Put all the busy-ness of the season behind you, the shopping, baking, wrapping gifts, cleaning, on and on ... just sit back, relax, and enjoy all that tomorrow brings!

Smile as you recall Christmas Days gone by. Remember with fondness those you love that are no longer with you, and embrace the touch of loneliness you might feel for it is a sign of how much that person meant to you.

Never forget that a Very Special Baby was born on a Silent Night long ago.

He is the Reason for the Season!

Wishing all of you ... family friends strangers ... a Christmas Season filled with Peace and Joy!

Christmas Goodies

Today my daughters and I spent about 2 hours (or less) and made some quick and easy, but delicious candy, snacks, and other misc. things.

Abbi got home from school and could hardly wait to rip open this box.

After the fiasco of 1997, which I recall being similar to what WWII must've been like, I refuse to ever try to make one by scratch again. I really don't remember much of the story, but I do know that I had at least 3 children under the age of 10 helping me, and after licking my fingers often, I mercifully fell into a self-induced sugar coma. Martha Stewart claims it is so easy, but I don't have a kitchen staff or fully loaded cupboards with all the latest and greatest gadgets. I only have willing hearts and busy hands ... and we love every minute of creating our "kit"!

We lovingly consider Abbi's tongue another appendage that is necessary for her to complete any task that takes concentration and hard work.

Hard-working Alli & Abbi are sipping a cup of Russian Tea that Alli made. In the last several months I had this silly craving for the tea that I remember enjoying as a child, so I looked up the recipe and bought the ingredients and had Alli stir together the powder mix. This is the first time that either one of them had this tea, and they both gave it a thumbs up! We will bag some of it for gifts.

2 cups instant tea

2 cups orange-flavored breakfast drink mix (Tang)

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves

Add 2 T. to a mug of hot water.

Other items, starting in front: Macadamia clusters (w/white choc. drizzled on top) and cashew clusters, Caramel Almond Crackers, Dipped and decorated pretzel sticks, Peanut Butter Cheerio Snacks (my neice Lindsy's recipe), and way at the end - Peanut Clusters in the milk chocolate and the white chocolate is Haystacks, which is simply chow mein noodles stirred into melted white chocolate and dropped into small piles.

Here is the recipe for the Caramel Almond Crackers. I first had them last February at our Sunday School Retreat and recently asked my friend for the recipe and had a chance to make them. They aren't a usual Christmas goodie but I thought it would be fun to make something a little different, and as you can tell from the recipe it's loaded with calories so I think it'll pass the test on Christmas Day!

Lay one sleeve of Club Crackers on a well-greased pan and sprinkle with sliced almonds.

Pre-heat oven to 350.

1 stick butter

1/3 cup white sugar

Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes. Add 1 tsp. vanilla.

Pour the hot mixture over the crackers and bake for 8 minutes.

Easy Easy but oh so good!

When we finished with all the Christmas baking, we all (all 6 of us) sat down to a hot supper of ham, boiled red potatoes, green beans, and Orange Fluff (that's what I call it, cuz I'm not sure what it's really called - cottage cheese, dry jello, pineapple, mandarin oranges, and cool whip). We were finally able to catch up on everyone's lives ... GPA comparisons, boyfriend/girlfriend talk, "Quit texting at the table, or I'll take your phone away!", Abbi's News Team homework, winter travel plans and dreams, "Dave you don't need to take that page, it's not an emergency and you're not setting a good example!", ... you get the idea. We just had a real nice family time!

After most of the family had carried their plates to the sink, we reminded/begged Kevin to get out his homework. When he complained, Dad said "either homework or sit down and we'll have the sex talk!" The older two enjoyed some teasing comments directed at Kevin, Dad just waited for Kevin's response, Kevin said he already got that information at school and said he'd do his homework, and Abbi hid under the dining room rug! What a fun family we have! :)

The Nose Bleed Section

Those of you from Indiana, should quickly recognize the name "Lucas Oil Stadium". That's the name of the new stadium that the Indianapolis Colts call home! Also it appears that it's the name of the OIL COMPANY that threw in several (many) millions of dollars to have their name splashed on the front of the stadium ... and perhaps in several, or less, years all the taxpayers of our great nation can bail them out, since they may have depleted their cash source on this fine building! But let me tell you folks, no building is too great for my man Peyton and the rest of his fine crew, and let's not forget their fearless leader Tony Dungy.
Now for my story .... after a r-e-a-l-l-y long week for this weary Mom/Wife, things kind of just exploded on Friday. I won't go into a lot of detail here, but most of you homemakers will surely know what I mean when I just say it was one of those weeks that I sure was hoping I'd get laid off, or perhaps be awarded a bonus 2-week vacation because of all the hard work I'd been doing without much appreciation or tremendous pay! (but you know they tell you the benefits are awesome) So skipping through much of the murky mess, which I'm ashamed to say even involved my beloved brother of which I will probably never live this one down, and on to the explosion on Friday which culminated in me ordering two Colts tickets on-line. I told my patient and loving husband that he could either go with me or sit with my brother in some uppity suite. If he would choose not to go with me, I didn't doubt for a minute that I could find a friend or an excited 21 year old daughter to join me. He asked me how much the tickets were, and I asked him (don't you just love answering a question with a question) "how much is too much?" He very wisely replied "I'm not answering that question". Where oh where did I find this guy?!? He also very wisely chose to go with me to the game ....
The very top section of seating in front of that huge window is known as the nose-bleed section. But never fear my dear friends, what you're looking at is the view of that section from our seats in ...



... ROW 11!!! For sure, I was living and breathing everything magical about a Colts game! The smell of sweat, the sound of helmets cracking against each other, watching Peyton brush his hand through his hair each time he came to the bench and took his helmet off, Vinatieri practicing place kicks, Marvin Harrison sitting alone in front of a fan (cooling off fan, not a psycho fan like me), Dungy and Peyton conspiring with the offensive coach, Addai limping off the field. OK enough, you get the picture. Oh yeah, about the nose bleed section ... Dave really did get a nose bleed right there in our row #11 seats, right before kick off and had to spend some time in the restroom to get it stopped.
Speaking of pictures, I need to make a disclaimer here. Silly me left home without my digital camera! So I had to buy one of those disposable 35mm cameras at the stadium. How lame is that!? Not only did they price-gouge me, but the quality leaves much to be desired, and for sure I was humiliated beyond belief every time I had to wind that antique thing that came in a decorative cardboard cover. In the picture below I hope you can get a sense for how very close row 11 is to the players bench. If I would've had my high-tech digital I would've zoomed in and you could've read the names on the backs of the jerseys.



And here is a wonderful picture of my side-kick. Did I mention what a patient, loving, and wise man he is? Don't know what I'd do without him!

As we were leaving the stadium I had to have a picture with Peyton pointing at me!

There are surely some of you who simply don't understand the Colts-mania that I have portrayed here, but please hear me out. Yes, I am a Colts fan, but I also know there are much more important things in life than some football team or players. The whole moral of this messy story is that regardless of the price I paid for the tickets, it proved to be a pretty inexpensive way to get some intensive marital therapy, all in one day! We had 3 1/2 hours of uninterrupted car time going south, and then another 3 1/2 hours heading back north. We tend to go through phases of life where we are just co-habiting and barely functioning as our vows long ago intended. Now I'm not implying that if you crave some alone time with your significant other that you go on-line and buy costly tickets to some sporting event, but life is too short to just "exist"! Have fun, say I love you often, just find time to be together alone (or with 30,000 other people if you must), and don't be afraid to sit in the nose-bleed section!