Blessed Beyond Belief

All Good Things ....

must come to an end?  Nah, they just move on and turn into other good things.  Mom and Dad left today.  We had a week filled with Christmas activities, food, fun, laughter, food, snow, cold dog noses, food, movies (including some VERY old home movies of Mom when she was little) and lots of eating FOOD!

You all know how our Christmas eve night went.  It got a little worse after my middle of the night blog post.  But by morning it was all ok.  Will never went back to sleep, but Mom took the second shift and found a way to keep him occupied till the sun came up. Surprisingly he didn't go back to sleep till that night.  Mom and Dad found it pretty humorous that I blogged in the middle of the night. Dad said I should change the name of my blog to 'Real Time with Tara'.  Ha!

Christmas eve day was pretty cold, snowy, and slightly windy.  But the kids had their hearts set on sledding down a little hill in our neighborhood.  Russell never left the car, but Dad did TRY it.

(side note here - I'm trying to put some sledding pictures in here. But I am having major technical difficulties.  I'm literally working with half a computer screen. It's really cramping my creative flow and style.  What's a broke artist to do?  I think I'll sell my children tomorrow on craig's list.  just kidding. sort of.)

Anyhow, after the sledding and freezing we went for an early dinner at El Gallo Giro.  mmmmm.....

Then it was home to carry on with the Christmas eve festivities and traditions.  The kids always get new Christmas jammies on Christmas eve.  This year was fun because Mom and I were given new jammies too!  We unwrapped them and then everyone ran off to change, then came back for a fashion show.

Tim read 'The night before Christmas' to us all.  Then Will and Autumn carefully chose the plate of cookies for Santa.

Unfortunately we all turned our backs long enough for Mr. Endless Appetite to devour the plate of cookies.  It was horrible and certain people were thoroughly disgusted with it.  Luckily Will was upstairs so we quickly made a new replacement plate.  Oh, and this was AFTER the night before when he ate two whole bags of flat bread out in the garage.  I had a hard time convincing my parents that our dogs really aren't savage beasts that eat everything in sight all the time.

We finally made it to Christmas morning.  It was so much fun and the kids did wonderful waiting and watching everyone open gifts. We like to do it one by one and not everyone ripping into whatever they can get their hands on.

Guitar Hero occupied Russell and Autumn for the afternoon.

While I helped Mom prepare a full blown turkey dinner.  I think she missed being away from all the baby grandkids.  She held this turkey on the sink like she wanted to give it a sink bath.  I should have offered to let her give Russell a sink bath.  Oh wait... that was 15 years ago.  Good thing she's on her way back to babyland.

I filled the table and adorned myself with nostalgia.  Like I said - no fancy shmancy designer stuff, just family hand me downs.  The placemats are quilted christmas ones that mom made years ago. The dishes are Grandma Mathews dessert rose set that I LOVE and I also have her silverware set on there.  I decided to wear the apron that Mom had made for her probably 20 years ago or more.

Dad did the usual great job on the turkey carving even though we didn't have an electric knife for him to use.  We had SO much food!

Here's the propped up camera timer photo.  We were all dying to dig in, but not before we documented the moment.  Luckily everyone is so used to doing this it doesn't take much to git'er done.

After dinner we quickly cleaned up and ran off to the movies.  We picked Maggie up to join us too.  Bedtime Stories was a fun movie, even though it didn't change Dad's opinion of him as stupid silly.

Will's asthma got pretty bad a couple of times.  Thank God though that he has finally learned how to come and tell us that he's having trouble.  At one point Mom found him slumped over and when she asked him what was wrong he told her that his breathing was upsetting him.  I quickly hooked him up to the nebulizer and he started to feel better. 

I needed to get out for a walk and so did the dogs.  I was happy when Mom and Dad agreed to go with me.  The wind was blowing so I knew it would be darn chilly.  I dug out all our winter clothes for them to put on - snow pants, gloves, boots, hats, and even the hats from Mike and Jayne.  We looked and felt like we were going on an Arctic expedition. 

You KNOW it's cold when Mom is dressed like this.

A few days ago the ice and slush was so bad on our street that Tim and the neighbor guys got out their tools and 4 wheelers to try and break up the ice and push it towards the field.  I stayed inside and took a picture from the window.

Casey had a friend in mom.  She oohed him and ahhed him till it was almost sickening.  I think he's missing Grandma right now.

It wasn't always cold and cloudy.  The sun did come out and it was cold and sunny!  Mom took this shot creatively through a bridge fence.

On Sunday we spent the day in the kitchen and Mom taught me how to make khoresht bademjan.  We videoed the process.  Look for it soon.  (hopefully. if my puter doesn't die)  It was delish!

Here's Will in his amour of God.

Ephesians 6:10-18 (New International Version)

The Armor of God

 10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Though at this point he thought he was a dinosaur slayer.

Mom, Autumn and I had a girls lunch out at Miss Tami's cottage.  It was wonderfully frilly and girly and our tea lunch was fabulous. 

Thank you so much Mom and Dad for making the long journey here to spend the week with us!  We love you!!!!

It's 3 A.M.

I'm sitting in the front room.  In the dark.  Listening to dual snoring coming from the living room and wide awake Will chattering to himself up in the loft.  We were sleeping so nicely.  All tucked in warm in our beds.  Then, for some reason (maybe it was the vision of sugar plums dancing in his head?) William woke up at 1:30. Before we knew it, he had gone down stairs then ran back up to say that there where presents under the tree.  Oh no.  We could hear in his voice that the sleepiness was gone.  The excitement was almost too much to bear and he nearly lost it.  The questions - 'how LONG?'  'how long will it take?'  'Can't I go downstairs NOW??'  'But I want to!'

Oh no.  This was gonna be bad.  I don't wake quick, so it was Tim answering all the questions.  First it was calmly and soothingly, praying that he would be satisfied with the answers and fall back to sleep.  Will kept firing off the questions and demands.  Then Tim's answers became sharper.  William still wasn't backing down.  In desperation I offered him the tv.  So he finally said, 'FINE, I'm gonna watch tv.'  I must have fallen back asleep because about an hour later I hear him chattering again.  He's turned off the tv and gone back to the questions.  Demanding to know exactly how long it will take before he can go downstairs.  How many hours?  How many minutes.  Tim's throughly annoyed now and I'm sure convinced that he will get no more sleep.  I'm wondering if we are going to have a full melt down in the middle of the night.  Then - 'FINE! I'm gonna go play my game in my room till it's 7 o'clock'  Tim - 'good. shut your door.'  We knew full well this was our only shot at him being occupied enough for us to sleep.  

But now I am awake.  Will has a tendency to talk, chatter, scream out, and make lots of noises while he's playing his video games. There's no exception because it's 3 am.  I figure I'd better get up and go to a guard post downstairs since I am awake.  The last thing I want is for him to decide that he's waited long enough and go downstairs to start his own christmas party.  Dad has been sleeping on the pull out bed in the living room each night.  Mom has been sleeping in Russell's bed upstairs and Russell in Will's bed.  Autumn must have been hogging the bed because when I came downstairs the snoring had a couple different octaves going on.  As I got myself a snack in the kitchen I wondered how in the heck my Dad was able to snore in different pitches at the same time.  Talent? Many many years of snoring practice?  Then as my eyes adjusted I noticed two lumps on the pull out bed.  He wasn't alone!  Him and mom were conducting their own symphony of sorts.  I wondered if I could go whisper a request of jingle bells in their ears without waking them.  Instead I took my snack and headed to the front room and my computer.

Here I sit.  Will upstairs making noises playing his game.  I've now heard Tim yell to him twice to be quiet.  I don't know if I'll be able to get back to bed and sleep.  I don't know if it's physically possible and even if it was I don't know if I trust Mr. Chatterbox upstairs to STAY upstairs.  Course, if he did come down he would have to get past the duet playing on the pull out bed.  All I can think of is the long day ahead.  It wouldn't be so bad if it were just morning madness of present opening - it's the turkey dinner we've committed to that scares me.  Oh, then there's the fact that William will have been up since 1:30 am.  hmmm... should be an interesting day.

Merry Christmas Eve

We have been having so much fun!  Mom and Dad made it here safe and sound on Sunday night.  They did have to fight with tire chains and nasty roads a bit, but overall it didn't take them much longer to get here.  Just look at how happy Casey was to see Grandma!

Yesterday morning they happily agreed to take a winter wonderland walk with me.  So we bundled up and hit the snowny neighborhood.

See my hat?  It's SOOOO warm!  Jayne bought this for me in june - in mccall - in the snow.  Yes, I said in June, in the snow.  Don't ask. For some reason I feel very Canadian in it.

I gave Mom and Dad wool socks to wear, but I think they still got frozen toes.

The dogs didn't care about frozen parts.  Snoopy LOVES running through the snow.

Here's a left over tumble weed from the fall.  Mom picked it up to shake the snow off, cool huh?

It's supposed to snow off and on for the next 5 days.  Autumn is dying to hit our sledding hill around the corner.  We had Maggies family over for dinner last night.  That was really fun, it included a game of Apples to Apples.  Today is more elf work and then a dinner out to our fave mexican joint.  More pics to come....

December happenings

Been busy busy! Of course I'm the only one, right?  You all have been sitting around watching daytime tv and sipping hot cocoa, wondering what Santa was gonna put under your tree, haven't you?  Well, I'm getting a little closer to doing all that myself.  This elfs work is nearing completion!

First off - my mantel.  Isn't it festive?  The stockings are going to be hung there soon.  Heather and I got together for our annual holiday craft day and made the PEACE letters.  See the Santa painting in the mirror?  Grandma Kelly painted that and we take down our wedding portrait to hang it up for Christmas.  Would it be weird to leave it up all year?  Oh, and see the bunny behind the last 'E'?  Mom made that years and years ago.  It's a christmas sock bunny.  Matching and fancy decor would be pretty, but I just LOVE my sentimental homemade Christmas decorations.  Mom brought me a bunch of her stuff last year.  When I take it all out it just reminds me of all the happy Christmases at our house growing up.

I've sort of started my own tradition of baking gingerbread men and women each year.  I decided that my cutters weren't big enough so I went on a hunt for GIANT gingerbread people.  I didn't anticipate the difficulty of very large cutout cookies.  But it was FUN!

I'm an elf...work...work...work.....

We did have some casualties.

No reason to feel left out since I can't eat trays full of sugary sweets anymore. I came up with my own recipe for a healthier gingerbread man. No white flour and no sugar and they were GOOD!  What better way to get some flax seed meal in than in a gingerbread man.  

BUT - it's not Christmas without snowballs.  The annual grindage of pecans and walnuts mixed with butter and sugar is a MUST.

Our neighbors are so festive around here.  We were feeling a little underdressed with our plain house.  But you can see the dilemma here - VERY high peaks.  No good.  Some people brave it and put up the lights.  We love them for it.  It's so pretty and decorative.  But not us.  We are just happy to look out our window and see everyone else's.  But like I said - the underdressed feeling was starting to really get to us and the good ol american way of keeping up with the Jone's (or in our cases the Wilson's) kicked in and we put up some lights.  I didn't have anything to do with it.  I'm an inside elf worker.  No freezing outside work for this girl - unless it's to go for a walk.  Tim and Autumn and Will did it.  Just the first story got lights, but Tim did construct a very creative tree with lights on our porch.  I was so proud of him!!

Meanwhile, back in the elf kitchen I was busy making pans and pans of homemade cinnamon rolls.  I used the pioneer woman's cinnamon roll recipe. Which is to. die. for.  Which you will if you eat these everyday.  Which you will want to once you taste them.  Which is why I only allowed one pan (out of eight) to be consumed at my house.  I had a total of two tiny bites out of one.  Just to taste my work ya know.  The rest of the pans were passed out to deserving friends and neighbors.  Deserving of what I don't know - a heart attack?  diabetes?  a bigger butt?  food induced comas?  Nah, just pure holiday sugary, buttery joy.  It's only once a year, right?  Shhh.. don't tell them, but I am planning to make another batch just for us and grandma and grandpa for christmas morning.

We finally got some good snowfall here.  Good enough to turn our semi steep driveway into a sledding hill.  Well, sort of.

Surprisingly Will has been loving playing out in the snow.  He doesn't tolerate outside activities and weather very well, but he is getting much better.  All we need is some cherry syrup and we can make our own snowcones.

I had wanted to go chop down our own tree in the forest somewhere.  But that would require a fairly long outing.  Time is just too short right now with holiday activities and our pizza work load.  So we opted for a very local small nursery. Besides, the weather was perfect for getting a tree.  It was always disappointing when we had to go get a christmas tree in the heat of southern calif. We got a fairly nice little try for a decent price and it fit into the back of the suburban.  The only down side is that it was cut before thanksgiving!  Which means it's not super fresh.  Which means it's sucking water like a dying man in the desert.  Let's hope it doesn't end up catching fire and burning down our house with the very high peaks.

Back at the elf kitchen the penguins made an appearance.  Another tradition of mine.  But I had to wait till I had somewhere to take them because I aint makin no stupid penguins to sit around here. They went to a party with us and promptly got consumed.

Here's Russell pouting because it's cold.  So far every morning he has wanted a ride to school.  Because he doesn't want to walk down to the end of the street - to get on the heated bus.  So far we have given him a ride a total of - hmm... ZERO times.  He claims that the bus driver is late and makes them wait for 20 minutes.  Before you all laugh - in his defense, it IS cold and dark and windy and probably pretty miserable. It feels like the cold wind has teeth and is taking tiny painful bites out of your skin..But it's doable.  It builds character and puts hair on your chest.  Oh wait, that's burnt toast.

There's more, but I'm done boring you for now.  Oh wait, one more. Last night I got to see my first ballet!  Autumn and I went to see Charlotte's Web the ballet.  It was a Girl Scout outing and it was so neat!  Very fun and cultural.  I love being cultural.  It makes me sound very grown up.

Sofreh Abol Fazl

Guest blogger here today.  I got this email from my mom yesterday and wanted to share it.  I wish I had been there.

"So...this is what I did today.  Louise held a Sofreh Abol Fazl, and I was invited.  I was the only foreigner invited because I know the language and culture.  It's for women only, and it is all about religion and food.  The woman in the long white dress/pants is a mullah, and she lead an hour long Muslim sermon, which included talking, singing, crying, chanting, and praying.  I think it was mostly about making wishes for the future and god's will.  Anyway, when she was done, the food frenzy began.  Me?  I was trying to take pictures through it all, because I wanted you guys to see this.  I went to a couple of these when I was in Iran, but back then they put me in a separate room because the mullah was a man and I was too "uncovered" to be let loose.  Of course, that was a much more conservative area (Sabzavar).  After everyone ate, the race was on for everyone to get her own "to go" box packed.  It's tradition for all the left over food to be taken home by the guests.  Louise had plenty of disposables to go around.

On a humorous note, I took my Chador, and everyone had a laugh when I put it on.  Although this was definitely not a humorous occasion.  But, they may have been laughing AT me, not with me!  (That crazy foreigner!)"

Check out this site:  http://www.payvand.com/news/06/oct/1283.html

My Boyfriend

My heart still skips a beat when he walks into the room.  I giggle at his jokes and antics.  I blush when he stares at me a moment too long.  Being apart for a length of time makes my heart ache.  I think of ways to please him and make him smile.  I dream of our future together.  He's sweet to me and I to him.  We are not only husband and wife but boyfriend and girlfriend.

This verse is often heard in wedding ceremonies.  But is it heard and thought of throughout a lifelong marriage?  I know I am guilty of not thinking of it often enough.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Straight No Chaser ~ Holiday Spirits

Christmas Parade

Yesterday was a busy, action packed day!  To start the day off we headed down to the high school for a drivers training meeting. Russell officially finished his class and was presented with a permit. So now he is legal to drive with us for the next 6 months.  And yes, he drove us home from the school.  Oh boy!  I'm sure it will prove to be a learning experience for us ALL.

Then Autumn preformed with the school choir as part of Kuna's Christmas day.  After that we headed home and bundled up to go to the parade.

Autumn was SO excited, she literally could not wait for it.  She wore a battery pack lights string and bells.

The sixth graders go twice a week to the middle school for band practice.  So for this parade it was 6th - 8th grade band students.

I would say they were the highlight of the parade, they sounded great!

Meet Clara

Anyone that knows me knows that I love to cook, but I NEVER watch cooking shows.  I don't even know what number channel food network is or if we even have it.  

Anyhow, I ran across this youtube channel awhile back.  I fell in love with her videos.  Not because of her recipes.  I'll probably never make any of them.  The carb load ingested during this era was incredible!  But her stories, her experience, her simplicity, her essence, it's all just beautiful.  Any time I hear about the Great Depression I always think of Grandma Ann talking about living through it and her story of raising rabbits and having to eat them.

I was just going to send this link to a few people, but decided that it was just too precious to not share with everyone.  Watch this first episode, then go to her channel and watch the rest.  There are only a few and they are short.

Depression Cooking

Christmas Card List

I'm actually a little ahead of schedule this year.  I have my cards made and almost ready to send out.  Some of you may have gotten emails from me asking to for addresses.  While I keep a fairly good log of addresses, it's always a new investigative job each year to update them.  Well, I ordered my cards and after starting to address them out figured out that I needed to order more.  I was grumbling in my head about the extra expense, cursing myself for not figuring that out BEFORE I ordered, blah blah blah.  

I sit here this morning going over my list and updating addresses still.  Then I realize how BLESSED we are to have so many people in our lives that we want to remember at this time of year.  While I am also saddened that my list now has several families that I need to send two cards to different addresses that I used to send only one, I am still grateful for each and everyone.  I wish them nothing but happiness and peace in the new year.  I love to send out Christmas cards and I love to receive them.  I won't complain about my growing list of loved ones that I want to remember in this way.

On another note  - we are all SO excited that Mom and Dad have decided to join us again for Christmas!!!  It was so nice last year.  I love sharing a piece of our lives here with them and can't wait to do it again.  Mom - make sure you pack warm.  Last year was cold, but Tim says this year will be colder!  Just your type of weather and a nice break from sunny socal.