• This time of year is crazy for us!  Birthdays, Thanksgiving, more birthdays, Christmas, more birthdays.  Hard to keep up!
• That includes not keeping up with the blog, too, of course.
• My parents and aunt and brother and his family came down for S’s birthday.
• THREE!!  Our little girl is THREE!!
• Then came Thanksgiving.  Whew.
• The next day we (my family plus my parents and aunt) joined Mike and his family in Orlando at DisneyWorld.
• Magic Kingdom, more specifically.
• Of ALL the days we have outside activities, it was cold in Florida on that day.
• By cold, I mean mid 50s.
• It’s ok to laugh.
• S’s entire goal was to see the princess’ castle and ride a carousel.
• Check and check.
• She loved it!
• G got to ride so many more rides now that he is older and he had a blast!
• Being there with family made it that much more fun.  Can’t wait to do it again – when the temp is, you know, low 70s.
• Yes, that would be perfect.
• Nana and ‘Pa and Judy were like kids again, riding everything G did.
• If Cinderella’s Castle is this amazingly gorgeous, can you just imagine how incredible Heaven is going to be?  If human hands can create this, God’s handiwork is going to knock our socks off.

Going Nowhere, Growing Up

One of my favorite Christmas CD’s growing up (or was it a cassette?  I think it was a cassette actually…wow.) was A Very Special Christmas.  It included songs from artists including U2, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Madonna among others.  Stevie Nix performed Silent Night for this collection and I must say that it is one of my favorite (if not THE favorite) version of Silent Night I have ever heard.

I hope you enjoy it, too.

Uncategorized

Yes, we did.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner in our pajamas.

No need to loosen the proverbial belts.  They’re elastic.  Sweet.

This was the first year I have ever prepared the entire Thanksgiving meal by myself.  Chris gets credit though for washing dishes as we went.

The menu included turkey (no picture – it was sad looking coming out of the roasting oven but it was SO yummy, very juicy!)…

…sweet potato stuffing…zucchini au gratin…

…these yummy bacon bundles – a recipe from our worship pastor’s wife, Monica…(I didn’t get the recipe exactly right but even still, they were SO good!)…

…and these are supposed to be cloverleaf rolls but I ran out of muffin pans (must invest in more) so improvised on the pizza stone…then they looked ore like shamrock rolls or something…but even so, yummy!  Making them from scratch wasn’t too terribly hard either.

We also had baked macaroni and cheese, pecan pie and pumpkin pie (store-bought).

My mom and dad and Aunt Judy were in town for the festivities as well!

I highly recommend PJ’s for Thanksgiving Day.

Gone Cookin'

• Still recovering from the flu, but we are doing great!
• S and I haven’t left the house since Friday night.
• I made Pioneer Woman’s Carrot and Squash Curry Soup tonight.
• Success!
• The funny part was that I had just been talking about a similar recipe with my Aunt Macie the day before…then Pioneer Woman was gracious enough to read our minds and post her recipe for it.
• So nice of her to do that.  *cheesy grin*
• I rounded out the meal with homemade ranch dressing on salad and homemade croutons.
• The kids love helping make the croutons – tearing the bread apart, tossing them in the olive oil…
• …then eating them all once they are done.
• I finally made a successful batch of mayonnaise!  Yea!  I love the taste of it, too.  I used this recipe.
• I am keeping G home from school this week just in case.  I would hate to spread it to his classmates and their families.
• Oh, yes, he misses it.  Who am I kidding??  *I* miss it!  LOL
• So we are working on the letter J at home this week.  It’s amazing how much free preschool stuff there is online for the letter J!
• We’re going to do a lesson about the fall season this week, too.  Tomorrow:  Leaves.
• G is asking about FIVE times a day when he’s going to turn FIVE.  He’s so excited.
• S keeps asking for her birthday cake.
• It’s going to be a busy holiday/birthday season this year…
• …and for many years to come.
• Sweet blessings.

Going Nowhere

I haven’t updated my 101 in 1001 list in a loooooong time so here goes…

3.  Complete the family video for 2006.  DONE.  Amazing, I know…

4.  Start and complete the family video for 2007.  STARTED.  Hopefully it won’t be 2011 by the time it’s done…

19.  We’ve gone to the zoo a couple more times.  It’s finally great weather for it.  Not too hot, not too cold, juuuuuust right.

23.  Going to have to come up with a new goal for this one since I’ve decided to nix the book project.  Ballroom dancing maybe?  Hmmm….

24.  We do have another trip planned for the spring.  It can’t come soon enough!

30.  Need a new goal for this one, too, since I’m going to nix the cake decorating plans.  Another class idea?  I’d love to take photography class but I’d have to get a decent camera first…

31.  We are almost there with the living room, front room and entertainment center remodels!

36.  Need a new goal since I feel called away from PPD  ministry…

37.  We took the kids for swimming lessons at the local university swim center and they loved, loved, loved it.  We’ll probably do it again either in the spring or summer.

54.  I did attend a Deeper Still conference, but unfortunately had to leave early due to a severe migraine.  *sigh*  Oh, well.

56.  We took the kids to see Dora the Explorer Live!  It’s a musical – so, hey, it qualifies!  :)

78.  We’ve gone on a couple more date nights.  Yea!

Any ideas for those new goals I need?

Going For 101 in 1001