Twas the day after Christmas...

Merry (white!) Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your friends and family.

Look at all this snow!!

Samantha went to shovel out our neighbors house, she says she loves any excuse to go out in it!

But because of all this lovely snow, we thought that we wouldn't have any family over on Christmas morning, usually my grandparents come down from Vancouver for the morning, but they didn't think they'd be able to make it. So we invited my grandparents from here in Lynden to come for our big Christmas breakfast, as well as my my aunt and uncle who are both single.

Everybody said that they would probably come, but we didn't know exactly how many would show. But on Christmas morning, low and behold, EVERYBODY came INCLUDING my grandparents from Vancouver!! They said that they just decided to brave the weather and come! Thankfully we had plenty of food, (my grandma saved us with a pan of hot cinnamon rolls she brought!) and everyone had a wonderful time. Everybody left around 12pm, and we had the rest of the day to go sledding out side, and play with Christmas gifts.

Ali got this adorable robe from grandma, I think it is just like her!

Bradley got a really neat bucket'O legos for Christmas, with over 400 pieces in it! He'll be busy for days!

Now I have the excitement of a litter of puppies soon to be born to look forward to! Rosie is due in about a week. I love it when the dogs have puppies, yet another example of Gods amazing creations. So many things have to happen for the puppies to be born on time, and to be born healthy. I just love watching them be born, and then grow into healthy pups.It never gets old, no matter how many times I see it. I can't wait!

She is getting so fat!!

Merry Christmas everybody!!

Christmas Baking

Today we didn't go to church because of the bad weather, and everyone was tired from being up late last night. So since I had a free day on my hands, I thought I'd get a "head start" on our Christmas baking. Yep, you heard me correctly, a head start. It's something like a week before Christmas, and we've yet to officially start baking! Oh well, better late than never I guess.

So I decided to make the thumb prints, the cherry flips, and a new treat that I got from my aunts blog. So, for the thumb prints, I needed to start unwrapping the chocolate kisses. And I though I'd take a picture of one of the kisses for you to see, and the funniest thing happened! I happened to be taking the picture with the chocolate positioned right over my hot cup of coffee, and right after I snapped the picture...

PLOP, that sweet piece of chocolate plunked right into that cup of coffee! I have know idea why that silly piece of chocolate decided to slip out of my fingers right at that very moment! Strange. So any way back to baking.

I measured and counted, and scooped and sculpted all afternooon, and the results of all this arduous labour are very tasty indeed. :) The peanut butter thumbprints were pronounced finger lick'in good by daddy, and the cherry flips don't look as pretty, but they remain our absolute Christmas favorite.

Oh, the cute idea I got from my aunt? Are these adorable maraschino cherrie mice!

I thought they were so cute, I just had to try making them. They consist of the cherries (stems left on) dipped in melted chocolate, a kiss for the head, and slivered almonds for their sweet little ears. I have always loved mice, and I had one for a pet that was given to me as a gift by a friend that was moving away and couldn't take him. (her?)

"He" came with the name Guy, and it stuck with him for the rest of his life. Which was a grand total of two years after I got him. So the mice are made in memory of "Guy."

Anyhow, good luck with your Christmas baking, and if any of you have a favorite Christmas baking recipe, I'd love to get it! Oh yes, I'm wearing my officially dubbed baking slippers! :)

Just to make you laugh...

We found this online, and I thought it was so funny, I just had to post it!

You’re Drinking Too Much Coffee When:

You ski uphill.You speed walk in your sleep.

You answer the door before people knock.

You sleep with your eyes open.

You just completed your third sweater today, and you don’t know how to knit.

You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.

You have to watch videos in fast-forward.

The only time you’re standing still is in an earthquake.

You lick your coffee pot clean.

Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.

The nurse needs a scientific calculator to take your pulse.

You can type sixty words a minute with your feet.

You don’t sweat, you percolate.

People get dizzy just watching you.

People can test their batteries in your ears.

Your birthday is a national holiday in Brazil.

Your Thermos is on wheels.

You can outlast the Energizer Bunny.

You don’t even wait for the water to boil anymore.

You don’t tan, you roast.

A White Christmas

Do any of you remember the last time you had a white christmas? Whether there was already snow on the ground, or it was snowing when you got up on Christmas morning, I'd love to hear about it, espescially since I don't think I've experienced a white Christmas that I can remember.

You can leave your comment, (click on the button at the bottom of this post that says "comment") and I'll publish them for others to read. I look forward to hearing from you all about your white Christmas!

Dreaming of Snow....

What's up with this November?! I would appreciate some snow! I love snow! I love everything to do with snow. Building snowmen with my sisters, playing snow ball fetch with my dog, pulling my brother in the sled, and coming in to steaming hot chocolate and a warm CC (chocolate chip) cookie freshly baked by Sam. But since we still don't have any snow yet this year, I'll try and be content with reminiscing about snowy days from the past. So here are some pictures I uploaded from the times we were having so much fun in the snow, we've just had to take some pictures.
My Aunt Jenn and Danny on the 4-wheeler, pulling Samantha and I on sleds. This was taken the year we came back from Mexico. FIVE years ago already!

Beautiful snowmen.....

Isn't he cute?! It's a snow-bear! Can you see where the nieghbor dog nailed this one on the front?! Arg! It happens every year!

Tug of war on ice!

Hope you're all wishing for snow!

Christmas!!

Oooops! Sorry! Here's the post! I had tried to save the post as a draft, I didn't know it published the title! :)

I LOVE Christmas, so the sooner we set up the tree after Thanksgiving the better!

So this year dad said we could set it up whenever we wanted, so up went on Friday! We always have so much fun doing it while we listen to jingle bell rock and Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, Mary did you know, let it snow, let it snow, and all our other favorites. Cries of "Oh this is my favorite ornament!" or "I love this song!" or "I love this picture of us in the snow!" went up in joyful unison all afternoon. The lights on the tree are not turned on till every one is sure that all the decorations and ornaments are in the perfect place. And then once it was dark out, off went the lights, and on came the Christmas tree lights! What a beautiful tree! So the Christmas season is finally upon us! Hooray! (I can't put a picture up because our silly computer won't read the disk!)

A favorite recipe.

Last night mom asked me to make a side dish to have with dinner last night, so I opened my cook book, and found a favorite newer recipe that I've only made once, and everybody really like it. It's called skillet braised Brussels sprouts with bacon and shallots. This recipe is so good, I just have to post it. But be warned it is so very easy to burn the bottom of the skillet while the Brussels are cooking, unless you use non-stick, so don't turn the heat up to high, or you'll get results like these! :

oops...

4 oz bacon (about 4 slices)

2 shallots, sliced thin.

1 LB, Brussels sprouts stemed and halved.

1/2 cup water

pinch of salt and pepper

1 TBS, butter

1 TBS, red wine vinegar

cook bacon and shallots together over medium heat till bacon is cooked and shallots are browned. transfer mixture to paper towels to drain. Add Brussels, water and salt to skillet, cover and simmer for ten minutes. Uncover pan and cook until liquid has evaporated and sprouts are tender. Off the heat add bacon mix, butter and vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste before serving.

This recipe is so yummy. Hope you enjoy it! My family did!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Practicing, Turkey, Pumpkin pie, Lattes

I know I haven't blogged for ever. My apologies!

I have been really busy though. So this is what we've been up to.



1. I have been helping at a sick friends house for the last four days from 8am-12:30pm, So that has tied up my mornings. But I loved it. Their family is awesome, and their children are a joy to be around. 2. Ali and I have been busy practicing for our recital that took place last night. Yay it's over! Ali did really well, and it went well for me too. 3. We've been practicing for our yearly trip to the Everson Senior Center, to play some music for their Thanksgiving lunch/dinner that they have a couple days early. They always invite us to come early for lunch, and they always do a full tradition Thanksgiving dinner from turkey and gravy, to pumpkin pie. (my favorite part) :)

So now I'm sitting at the puter drinking a 20 oz, sugar free carmel latte, extra hot. Mmmm...,

And enjoying a few minutes of doing nuth'in. Mom is in the kitchen making dinner, the gravy with sausage in it , to pour over Sam's killer homemade biscuits. Yumm 'O!

So I hope you're all havin' a great week. Happy Friday!

Stony Ridge Farm

Every fall our family goes to Stony Ridge Farm for an afternoon of fun.

Stony ridge is a family's farm that they have opened to the public during the fall. They have hay wagon rides, pumkin patches, corn mazes, & animals ranging from donkeys and goats, to geese and chickens. We went this October during the last weekend that they're open, and we had alot of fun. We fed goats, rode the hay wagon, got very lost in the corn maze, picked a couple squash and some mini pumpkins, and topped off our fun afternoon with\apple pie, and carmel apple slices. (heaven in a bowl, consisting of sliced apples, topped with vanilla ice cream, hot carmel sauce, and whipped cream YUM!) We love Stony Ridge, and I know we'll keep going every year. As long as they keep seving their carmel apple slices!!

Oh what a cute picture of buddy!

Not tall enough Emily!

I hate geese... They scare me!!
I don't think this one liked us either!
Maybe he was craby 'cause he knows he's gonna be Christmas dinner!

Makeover update

If you read the previous post you can see the pictures of my new room before I painted it.

Now after four days of living out of boxes and laundry baskets, it's done! I can move in! I still need to get the new bedding, and make slip covers for the throw pillows, and I'm sure I'll find lots more little odds and ends. And I can't put anything on the newly painted shelves either for a couple days until the paint is good and hard. It's been fun painting though mostly... I didn't like painting the ceiling one bit! My neck is still sore! :) But it's done. And I love how it turned out.

The Makeover

So one day about a week and a half ago, Ali comes running up to me and she says she has the best idea ever. I cautiously asked her what she had in mind, and braced my self for a shocker, remembering what some of her other good ideas had brought on. (Ask me sometime about the messes she and I have gotten into with our great ideas!)

She said that she thought it would be "really cool" if her and I switched bedrooms. She said that she was tired of sleeping in her own room by herself, and that she thought I'd like having my own room. Now if you had asked me before if I'd like to have my own room, I'm sure I would have answered with an enthusiastic YES! But I was surprised to find that I was rather apprehensive. Samantha and I have shared a room since I was two years old, and the idea of being by myself didn't sound real good. when I voiced this, she replied quite quaintly that I wouldn't be by myself! I'd have Rosie. I thought this was funny, and Samantha gave her a sideways glance and said she didn't think her invaluable companionship could be replaced by a dog, and that she wasn't sure she liked the idea either. We were going to say no, but she gave us those puppy eyes, and pleased and pleaded, and finally we agreed to a one week trial period.

And we've found that we all rather like this new arrangement, and decided to make it permanent. So now came the chore of moving all our stuff from room to room. And now that we're settled, I HAVE to paint the room. The colors she had painted it were bright pink, bright yellow and bright green. And even Ali is very tired of the bright colors! I tried to take a picture of it, so you can see the before and after.

Pretty bold huh?

So I thought I'd paint it something a little more subdued. (so I could at least wake up in the morning and not feel like I'm being blinded by color!) I picked a light green, but it's hard to get a good picture of. It looks grey in the photo, but rest assured, it's light green.

So Ali helped me, until around 4pm. (We started around 2pm), and I finished the bottom two coats around 7pm. We had fun though, and I'll probably paint the upper half later this week. I think it will turn out nicely, and I can't wait to put the room back together, and see the end results. I'll put up more pictures of our progress as we go.

Our supervisor.....

Music

My board of blogging advisers, (That's what my sisters call themselves :) were "reviewing" my blog, and Ali mentioned that I haven't mentioned that I play violin. I can't believe I missed that, because music is a big part of my life! I was introduced to music (specifically violin) by a very special woman. Her name is Nancy Benning, and her life is dedicated first to our Lord, and than to music. We met her during our time in Mexico where, every other month she packs music, violins, music stands, and homemade cookies for her students, in her car, and makes the long trip from her home in California, down to the orphanage where we were, to teach violin to the children and adults who live there. She started teaching me about about six years ago, and I probably would have quit many times if not for the encouragement from my mom and Mrs. Benning. I love playing music, and have taught myself some piano, and have just picked up the littlest bit of guitar, ( I want to learn more of that.) My sister Ali plays viola, my mom, and Samantha play piano, and I teach Brad violin, and he takes piano from mom. Our house is filled with mostly beautiful music :) on and off all day, and everybody enjoys it so much. We all like to play as a group, and we often take our instruments to nearby nursing home to play for the residents. They are great audiences! I now take lessons from Mrs. Gaye Davis here in Lynden.
I can't imagine my life without music now, and I'm very thankful that the Lord chose to bring just the right people at just the right time into my life so that I too can enjoy the blessing of playing an instrument.

Dog show

It's been for ever since I blogged last! Sorry about that, but I have been really busy!

This Saturday I went with my mom and sisters to a Canadian Kennel Club dog show in a quest to find a breeder that I could ask a million and one questions, about the breed I'm interested in. So here is a Google images picture of what I'm getting.

Aren't they adorable!? I'll be getting a female, and I'm going to name her Bandi ( pronounced-bandee) The dog I have now is hopefully pregnant, so after she has this litter I should be getting the new dog. All you dog people let me know what you think! :)

Sam (Samantha)

Samantha is our quiet one, and she spends alot of her free time in her room listening to music, or reading. But Samantha has the most hilarious sense of humor. She is very funny, and often when a few of us are together doing something, she'll have us rolling on the floor laughing at the funny things she says in her famous english accent she likes to use. Sam is also our baker, she likes to bake anything from cookies, to cakes, to brownies. And when she is trying a new recipe, we're all more than happy to be her taste testers.

My Favorite Things About Samantha:

I love to laugh, and she is always making me do so!

Her cookies.

I like to talk with her about the books we're both reading.

Brad (Bradley)

Computers, video games, music, math, eating, sports...

Brad seems pretty good at whatever he does. He's both quiet and outgoingand he definately gets into the least amount of trouble compared to his sisters! But to his sisters disapointment, he seems least concerned with what he wears. He would spend his life in an XL tee-shirt that reaches to his knees, and sweat pants! But he is still very much loved and spoiled by his entire family. I love to play baseball, tag football, basketball, or whatever other sport he picks with him. He's a joy to have around, and to be with.

My Favorite Things about Brad:

How well he puts up with his sisters teasing.

How he often comments on how pretty his sisters look.

How he stands on his toes and sticks out his chin at you when he's mad.

Ali (Alexandra)

Ali is the one who is the most like me, and we get along really well, but we're also very capable of driving each other nuts!! Ali is a smart, outgoing, little goofball. She's always trying to be funny, and no matter how determined you are, it's impossible to stay mad at her! Like me she loves animals, and unlike me she hates gardening! Ali plays viola, and she enjoys it, and when she is practicing she can be a perfectionist. We've spent alot of time playing violin and viola together. Brad and Ali spend alot of time together playing and goofing off. Once those two start laughing about something they think is absolutely hilarious, it's hard to get them to stop!

My Favorite Things About Ali:

Her long hair

Her ability to take a joke.

That face she makes when she realizes you just talked her into doing something she really didn't want to do!

Posie

This is my dog Rosie Posie.

Rosie is a three year old Shihtzu. Shihtzu is chinese for Lion Dog. Which is fitting because Rosie thinks she is a VERY big dog. On the other hand you do have reason to be afraid of her; Come within a 2 foot radius of me and you'd probably be minus a limb. But with her family she is an awesome dog to be around. She's a spunky dog, who isn't afraid of anything. Rosie is also very smart. In 2006 she won the 4-h Washington state intermediate championship for our state.
She is my little buddy, and love taking pictures of her. I put my favorite ones up for you to see.

As an April Fools day pay-back joke, my dad (so you know where I get it!) Dyed my dogs fur, hot pink!!! It took me forever to wash it out! Watch out dad, you're really gonna get it this next April first!!

Our Gun.

This Summer, Ali and I bought our first gun! It's a .22 lever action rifle,


and we've had a blast with it! Dad gave us several long lessons on gun safety, and then we were set to start practicing. But I don't really know what we're practicing for exactly, since niether of us intend to ever go hunting. But we've heard duck hunting is fun, so we might have to try that someday.
In the meantime we just enjoy "practicing"almost every Sunday out at our grandpa's property, and spending time with dad.

A Stir-Fry Dinner

Tonight was my night to make dinner, and as always, I thought I'd try and make something new.
Outta my kitchen!!!! :)

So I thought I'd making stir-fry. Onions, bell peppers, carrotts, sprouts, noodles and rice. I thought it sounded delicious, as did mom and dad. But when I told my plan to my curious siblings, I recieved dubious glances. I was never the less, encouraged by them in my efforts, and started chopping away in the kitchen.
My fancy cooking slippers.


And chopping.. and chopping... and CHOPPING! To feed six hungry people, you need alot of veggies. By the time dinner was ready, the kitchen was filled with wonderful aromas, and it looked delicious!
We sat down to eat, and to my suprise even Samantha the pickiest eater said it was really yummy. And almost the entire pan dissapeared!
So it was another success in the kitchen. Can't wait till it it's my turn to cook again. (Hopefully my siblings are thinking the same thing!)