I Was Wrong

No one likes being wrong much less admitting it.  However, this time I don't mind too much.

I really like sweet potato pie.  I made it for Cameron several years ago I think and I did not like it that time, but this time?  Yummy!!!  Cameron has requested another one for his birthday in January.  The recipe is from a wonderful cookbook that I got when we got married.  It is called A Grand Heritage.  It is a book of recipes from alumni of the college in Cameron's home town.  I don't cook out of it for our everyday meals, but everything I have ever made out of there has been absolutely delicious!  There is a roll recipe that tastes exactly like my Grandmother's when I was a little girl.  Oh the memories!  I'll move on before the tears start flowing. :)

Calllie rolling out pie crust

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family.  I'm so thankful for a family who, even though we have our differences, always gets along when we are together.  The kids have so much fun and the adults do too.

If left to my own devices I would have enjoyed a day of lounging and eating leftovers on Friday.  But....when in Rome.....we go shopping.  I refuse to be crazy about it and I only bought a few things, but it was fun and I did get a couple of presents purchased and some craft supplies.

So for my ongoing list of thanks...

82.  My family

83.  God's provision of delicious food

84.  Safe travels.  The last time we traveled to my parents for Thanksgiving, it took us as long to get there as it would to get to Mississippi (literally) due to an ice storm.  This year there was a little rain, but no ice.

85.  Surprises in the mail

86.  Having two beautiful girls to celebrate the season with

87.  A husband who likes to shop

88.  A husband who is willing to watch nieces and nephews for a  while

89.  I love that the girls like to dress the part for Thanksgiving.  Callie had on an old fashioned dress with bonnet and apron and Kate had on Callie's old Indian dress from Cherokee, NC.  I forgot to get a good picture of them all dressed up though.

some of the grand kids decorating cookies

Back to normal tomorrow.  Well, not really.  We will have a modified school schedule for the next few weeks.  We'll focus on Christmas traditions around the world and sewing and crafting.  And math.  :(

Baking Marathon

Cameron sweetly agreed to take the girls to ballet so that I can be productive here at home.  Right now I have two cakes and muffins in the oven.  Then I'll be cooking sweet potatoes for sweet potato pie (it's a southern thing).  Then tomorrow all that will be left to do is make the icing for the cakes and baking the pie before we go to my parents.

The cake I'm making is from an old Country Living magazine.  It's chocolate cake with pumpkin added to the batter.  I'm a little nervous about the icing.  It's a whipped buttercream with honey and I've never done that before.  If it's a disaster, I can always run to Kroger and get a can of frosting!  The muffins are gluten free pumpkin muffins from Cooking for Isaiah.  They will be topped with icing so that Kate can have dessert too without cheating.  I also added chocolate chips to the recipe.  I'm successfully raising a fellow chocoholic!  I  just picked up this cookbook at the library today, so we'll see how they are.  The sweet potato pie is for Cameron.  I don't really care for it and I'm not a big fan of cake so I should be able to behave myself.  I'll focus on the dressing.  That's my favorite party of Thanksgiving dinner.  My mom always waits until we get there so I can taste it before she puts it in the oven.  It may sound gross, but I love to eat it before it's baked.  Kind of like eating cookie dough or licking the beaters when baking cake.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving Week

I'm really looking forward to this week for many reasons.  We have a lot to be thankful for and it's good to focus on those things.  We get to hang out with family and not be rushing around to any particular event and Cameron will have a couple of days off.

Remember my comment about wishing there would be more cousins?  Well, little did I know that my wish would be coming true.  My sister Alyson is expecting their third child!  I wasn't totally shocked, but just a little surprised.

Here are some things I am especially thankful for this week.....

74.  A husband who washes dishes :)

75.  A husband who bakes cookies!

76.  A husband who gets this old house ready for the winter.  The wind is howling tonight like at Laura's in The Long Winter!  Thankfully the temperatures aren't that low yet, but it's only a matter of time.  

78.  Wool socks.  I never thought I'd wear wool anything, but these socks are soft and warm.  It's amazing how much difference they make in my comfort and contentment level!

79.  Answered prayers for a very special little girl.

80.  Finished sewing projects.

81.  Winning a drawing at www.sewmamasew.com.  I actually won something!  It's a sewing book that I'm not familiar with, but I'm sure it will be interesting and hopefully useful.

I'll hopefully take lots of pictures this week to share here later.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Preparing for the Holidays

It's that time of year again.  Not only do we have Thanksgiving and Christmas to think about, we also have a birthday and Gotcha Day (Kate's adoption) in December and two birthdays in January.  Even though it is a little hectic and expensive, I love most every minute of it!

Since Cameron's family lives in Mississippi and mine in Southern Indiana, we alternate each year which holiday will be spent at which location.  So if we are going to be in Mississippi for Christmas, we will be at my parents for Thanksgiving.  This has worked great for 19 years.  The only year we didn't do it was the year we traveled to China.  Nothing like Christmas in China!  Strange, but wonderful.

Over the years I've heard a lot of other moms talk about how they insist on being at their own home for Christmas.  I sort of understand, but I have a whole lifetime of a different experience and point of view.  When I was growing up we never lived any closer than five hours to my grandparents.  Every year we had a special "Christmas" night at our home and then a few days later we would leave for Tennessee.  I have never, in 39 years, spent Christmas in my own home.  The memories of those Christmases are some of the best memories of my entire life!  I didn't care at which house I celebrated.  I was with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and that's all I cared about.  And the presents weren't bad either. :) 

Would I like to use my special tablecloths and dishes for Christmas?  Would I like to open presents together first thing on Christmas morning while still wearing our pajamas?  Sometimes I think I would, but those thoughts don't last long.  I know the memories that my girls are going to have with their extended family will be some of the best of their life.  They don't care whose house they are in and this way they get three celebrations.  There is no way I want to rob them of these times.  

Blessings

66.  Friends.  Really good friends.

67.  Free "organic" fertilizer.  Otherwise known as horse manure!  Hoping to improve next years garden.

68.  The freedom to worship whenever and wherever we choose.  I wish I was better at remembering to pray for those who don't have that freedom.

69.  Soft, warm blankets.

70.  Flannel pajamas!  I'm sure I'll be repeating this one every week from now until April 2011.

71.  Geography with Callie.  So much fun.

72.  God's answered prayers concerning a different subject.  Not all school subjects are fun and games around here.

73.  The nice warm bed I'm getting ready to get into!

Traveling to the Middle East

We have left Africa and we are heading to the Middle East.  First stop Turkey.  This has already caused some confusion with the four year old who is coloring turkeys for Thanksgiving and even for the Mom when Callie wanted to write an "acrostic for Turkey".  I said something like, "I guess you can if you want to.  Are you going to read it at Thanksgiving or something?".  Callie set me straight and we had  a good laugh.

One of the things that we have been using for our geography studies are a series of videos that we get at the library.  They are produced by Pilot Productions and the are called Globe Trekker.  There are several for different countries and even regions within countries.  Anyway, we love them!!  They are geared to adults, but Callie has been watching them since she was probably 5 or so and Kate will sit through them too.  We watched all of the China ones with Callie before we traveled to get Kate.

So that's how we started our study of Turkey on Tuesday.  After lunch the girls set up a "market" outside.  I love how all of these great videos and books that we read about each country get them so excited to play it out.  Kate isn't even in the room when we read most of our books, but she sees the videos and follows right along with Callie's creative directions.  Most of the time.

It's a good thing we live out in the country!! :)

Gifts From Above

Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  James 1:12

58.  Laughing harder than I have in a long time

59.  Scrap booking without tears (see yesterday's post)

60.  Dark chocolate and peanut butter

61.  The girls in bed...asleep!

62.  Libraries!!

63.  High school friends who have lasted all these years

64.  Children who love to read and be read to

65.  Good advice

Thank you, Lord!!

Busy, Busy, Busy

It has been more than two weeks now since we have had a day where we had no where to go.  I don't like weeks like that.  We are behind in every category.  All of the places we have been or things we have done have been good or important things, but it's still hard on Mom.  Today will be no different.   We will be having lunch with friends who we rarely see and then, when we get home, I will be running off to a scrap booking "meeting".  It's an all day/all night (if you last that long) session of women scrap booking.  It's not that I'm that into scrap booking, I'd really rather sew, but.....I've had this little project that I want to do for Kate about our trip to China.  She was suppose to receive it for her 3rd birthday I think.  Well, she'll be five in January!  The only way I'm going to get this thing done is to leave the house and not come home until it is mostly finished!  One reason I'm probably such a terrible scrapbooker is because I cry like a baby looking through the old pictures of either girls.  That and it's just a pain to get all the stuff out.

Say a little prayer that I don't start bawling in front of all these other women!! LOL

dipping leaves in beeswax

the beeswax smells wonderful and the leaves will last longer for fall decorating

Next week, I may just refuse to leave the house!



{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. Photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, visit Soulemama to leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

I can't stay wordless on this one. :)  This is why it takes at least 30 minutes to feed the cat and rabbit in the mornings.  You probably can't tell, but all these layers are on top of pajamas and Callie's "shawl" is a tablecloth! LOL

November 2

Most people think of politics and elections when they hear the date.  For us, November 2 has much more signifigance than who is going to end up in Washington!

Four years ago today, we were living in our newly purchased farmhouse just a few weeks.   One of my sisters and her family were going to be here visiting that weekend.  Cameron and my brother-in-law were going to put up gutters I think.  Then, we got THE CALL.  There was a baby on the other side of the world who needed a family.  God chose us!  Her name was Jiang Chung Huai and she was about 10 months old.  "Pictures will be coming tomorrow " the agency said.  That was a very long 24 hours! :)  Then, the Fed-ex guy didn't even knock on the door.  The only reason I knew the package had been delivered was because I looked out the window and saw him driving very slowly which I assumed meant he had just pulled out of the drive way.  He had no idea what he was delivering!!  I remember wishing it had been our old Fed-ex guy from our old neighborhood.  Because of Cameron's job, we get Fed-ex deliveries quite often and we actually considered him our friend.

So Cameron and Bryan hung gutters while Alyson and I went through baby clothes.  We got rid of everything too small and started washing things we guessed would fit according to the info. we had been given.  Then it was time to start packing for China!!

Kate 2010  pretending to be a hula girl