Thu. Dec. 20

Check out Justus concentrating on writing his letters! He'd just awakened from a nap and was still 'wearing' his blanket; it was/is! extremely fascinating to me that he was interested in working on letters so soon after waking up, even!!

Okay. So, we drew out N's birthday into a "Birthday Week", and when it was over we all agreed that we liked that so much that we would do the same thing with the children's Christmas. There were enough gifts for them that they could each open one every day from Sunday through Friday and still have their biggest (size) ones (that they're sssssso curious about) on Saturday when Dick and Shirley come over to share supper and witness our gift-opening time. [We never wait until Christmas, Christmas being an arbitrary date and there being no spiritual or otherwise significant reason to wait until "Christmas Day" to open gifts.... It works better for our family to keep the level of excitement and mess a little more evened out during the week before Christmas. Then on Christmas Day we have company, the big meal, and we do the stockings that morning before everything gets going.]

Since yesterday was a slew of pictures of N, today here are some of Justus. First, a basketball shooter game from my folks! He likes it a lot!! Alas, he's not very good at it yet. :) PRACTICE! It's all about hand-eye coordination! And it's NOT electronic!! :) :) :) :)

CUTE BOOK! Again from Mom and Dad.

Oh, this is random. (Sorry!) N took this picture of Jabba sleeping in the crook of Jeremy's leg.

MAJOR GAME SUGGESTION for children around age 5-6!! Todd & Jennifer blessed our family with this game for two players only. Already the children are putting it to great use!! "Guess Who?"

Today I decided to do the world a favor and share an awesome recipe for sugar cookies. See, this time of year there are TOO MANY sugar cookies floating around the world that are not worth the flour & sugar in them!!!! Now, sugar cookies are fun to do, I admit. And maybe this is the only thing most people expect to get out of sugar cookies: the fun/creative experience. However, I'm of the STRONG opinion that anything I work that hard on had better taste good!! In my first year of marriage, when I had time for such things (and a plethora of hungry Marine friends willing to consume the results of my work in the kitchen, good or not necessarily so), I methodically tested four different sugar cookie recipes I'd collected. Since then I have had eyes for only one. It is head and shoulders above the rest; others can't even begin to hold a candle, IMHO. I'm not the originator of this recipe; credit is due Betty Crocker.... If you are into sugar cookies, or think you might be someday, please be my guest and copy this down!! LOL

DELUXE SUGAR COOKIES

Cream together in med. mixing bowl:

1 c. butter, softened

1 1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 egg

1 t. vanilla

1/2 t. almond extract



Add:

2 1/2 c. flour

1 t. soda

1 t. cream of tartar



Cover; chill 2-3 hours. Divide dough in half. Roll each half 3/16" thick on floured board. Cut into shapes. Sprinkle with granulated sugar if desired. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375-degree oven 7-8 minutes or until light brown on edge.





And now, a recipe for an outstanding Cookie Frosting I found online a few years ago.



Beat 'til smooth:

1/3 c. butter, softened



Gradually stir in:

2 c. powdered sugar



Add:

1 T. milk

1/2 t. vanilla





Today I got a huge compliment. Natasha said, "Mom, I wish you owned a restaurant." I said, "Why?" She said, "So everyone could eat your good cooking." Awwwwwww!! I could have hugged her! :) [She hears Jeremy's regular compliments on my cooking, so she's biased.] I really claim no expertise in the area of cooking (Now, in the area of eating I might contend. lol); what I do well, I think, is follow directions. I simply do what the recipe says, and then if a recipe is a dud, I don't make that one again! lol


A nice time was had by all during the little get-together to prepare the Christmas baskets for the elderly in our congregation. The task was accomplished in probably just the first 15 minutes, but the ladies stayed about an hour. :) It was nice.


Only a couple hours before we barely averted disaster when I returned a call from the power company today. A dude was on his way to disconnect our power!! Argh! We've been SUPER-frustrated with the power company ever since we moved into this house. It's a long story that includes some major mix-ups between the bill from our old house, miscommunications with our landlord, address mix-ups and the A/C not working right through most of the summer, and drama-drama. Anyway, we were almost caught up on our bill after all these months, and now this! So we had to do some quick shuffling today in order to get that taken care of. Emotion: ANGER. It's just so irritating to think you have something taken care of and then be informed, last minute, that you don't.


I grocery shopped with N today. Then all four of us went across town for supper and Bible study with Tommy, Shavon, and Chris. A neighbor girl spends almost all her spare time with them, so we actually fed 10 tonight, between our two families! We decided it is better for both families if we just share dinner on these nights, since Shavon gets home from work barely in time to feed her family, and we have to drive almost an hour each way ... effectively eliminating any somewhat-normally-timed dinner hour. Tonight was our first night sharing suppers; it was lovely.


I can let you in on a secret. A Christmas gift secret. When Jeremy and I were Christmas shopping last month we were at an awesome second-hand book store here in town, Bookman's. They sell a surprising variety of other types of second-hand items as well. We were so surprised to see three used guitars for sale! Now, the (acoustic) guitar is something that is moderately significant in my family of origin. :) Many pleasant hours were spent listening to/singing along with Dad on the guitar. It has never been a priority for him, so Dad never got as good as he would have liked to have, if (the notorious 'if') ... IF he'd decided to spend more time at it ... which he couldn't since it wasn't a priority. Well, there are now guitars in the homes of both my brother and sister, and during the Folding family's 18 months in MT, Dad let me keep his guitar in our home for the benefit of the children. [I had begun learning to play *a bit* during college, and continued to play *a bit* when we had the guitar in the house.] Well, back to priorities.... Playing the guitar is NOT a priority for me. But, since it is a pretty simple thing to be able to at least do a little bit on it, and the ratio of invested time to fun/memories/music education is really good, it made sense to Jeremy and me to go ahead and pick up the least-expensive, (read: "least-nice") of those three second-hand guitars at Bookman's. They were asking $40; we talked them down to $35. The 'gothed-out' cashier charged us $30. We asked why just $30, he said, "Because you guys have great personality!" (We'd been joking with him and telling him about our plans for the guitar.) So far the whole 'guitar experience' has been a pleasant one. In order that I might be able to play at least a tiny bit for us on Saturday night, gift-opening night, I have been spending some time on the floor behind a closed bathroom door and a closed walk-in closet door in the wee hours of the morning (It's still a secret!) refreshing my mind and trying to get used to this new instrument.... I very much look forward to changing its currently all-metal strings, or ... shall I say, the first three fingers of my left hand look forward to it. Eesh, it's been a painful experience.