2013 Daily December 1--a new countdown

This is my third year to do a Daily December for blogging.  Ben asked me why I did it last year because in a crazy month like December it is a lot of work to remember to blog something every day.  I said I did it because

1.  I do enjoy blogging

2.  There is so much in December to talk about

3.  December is one of my favorite times of the year, and I want to remember things my family and I do/have done

Blogging for me is documenting.  It is keeping track.  It is recording life.  So Daily December 2013 here we come. . .

So we always do some kind of countdown--or several--for Christmas.  This year I decided to do a new one.  A Christmas book countdown.  We have a lot of Christmas books.  I told the kids to each pick 3 books they liked and one they had never read before.  Ben and I made up the difference to equal 25.  These are the ones we chose.  The idea is you wrap them and then open one to read each night before bed by the Christmas Tree.   Yes, my 4 kids are almost 16 (gulp), 13, 11, and 8, but they all still love picture books.  I still love picture books.  You can never be too old for good picture books--especially Christmas picture books, so I think my family will like it.

And here they are all wrapped and ready to go.  Miss O wrapped almost all of them and labeled them.  #1 is our new book for this year.  I always buy a new Christmas book each year.  I will share that in a later post after we unwrap and enjoy it tonight.  Looking forward to taking time each night to relax and share a story.  

Let the Christmas season begin!

Please join me for my Daily December posts!

See you tomorrow!

2013 Thanksgiving Review

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day yesterday.  I hope yours was wonderful too!  Today we are cleaning the house, decorating for Christmas inside and out and getting family pictures taken.  Let the holiday crazy begin!  Here is a look at our Thanksgiving Day. . .

My boys made the whipped sweet potatoes--yum!

Miss A made this cute turkey veggie tray and was so proud of it.  Thought it turned out really cute!

Ben is the official turkey carver and gravy maker.  He is the best!  Our turkey was yum!

The little kids' table

and the everyone else table.  We had a great time!

And last but not least our 2013 Tree of Thanks is finally complete.  So much to be thankful for!

I am starting my Daily December posting Sunday, so be sure to come back!  Enjoy your holiday weekend!!

Pre-Thanksgiving joy to share

So I know today is a busy day.  No one needs a new recipe today, right?  Here is all my lists and recipes ready to go.  We are making as much stuff as we can today.  The kids have school off, so they are in charge of certain recipes and setting the table and decorating it.  They are excited.

It is going to be yummy!  

And our Tree of Thanks is looking good.  

I found these videos and wanted to share.  People in New York City share what they are thankful for.

Love, love, this one.   Giving thanks is more than a holiday.

 I so agree with what he says, "I always felt like God gave me more than I knew what to do with."  Amen

Consider your blessing and thank the Lord for them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2013 Blue Jeans Week 47

This was a great week.  Ben and I had a mini-vacation together, or maybe I should say that I had a mini-vacation and Ben had work meetings, but we were together, and that was fun.  I also got all my Christmas shopping done--yeah!!!  The kids stayed with my dad for 4 days.  Way to go Grandpa!  Thank you!  Thank you!!  He is awesome.  We got our Thankful tree started, and I started getting more stuff ready for Christmas.  Here is a look at our week. . . 

Every year we do a "Thankful" tree during Thanksgiving.  More about this in my previous post.  We draw a tree and then cut out leaves to put on it.  On the leaves we write what we are thankful for.  We add to it all month and then have our guests on Thanksgiving add to it also.  It is a fun tradition.

Basketball games this week.  This is Mr J, Miss E and two of her friends just hanging out at Miss O's game.  

Ben and I also enjoyed the basketball game :)

Before we left for 4 days I went and had lunch with Mr J.  It was their thanksgiving dinner lunch at school today.  Yum!

I have been sorting through our Christmas books because this year I am going to do a Christmas story countdown.  I am going to wrap each of these and put a number on it and put them in a basket under the Christmas tree.  Each night in December the kids will take turns opening one and then we will read it by the tree before we head to bed.  I think it will be fun.  I do have older kids, but all my kids still love picture books, so we are going to try it this year.

This is the St. Louis temple for our Church.  Ben had some work meetings in St. Louis, and my Dad very kindly offered to watch our kids so I could go along.  Ben had meetings 8-5 each day, so I had the whole day to myself in the big city.  I went to the temple, got all my Christmas shopping done, and relaxed at the hotel.  In the evenings it was so nice to be with Ben!

So what did I do in my hotel room?  Project life!  I got all caught up!  Yeah!

I finished this book--oh.my.  Have you read this series?

Got lots and lots of shopping done!  Actually got all the Christmas shopping done for Ben and the kids.  Yeah!

And worked on a Christmas present.  It was a very nice few days!!!

Thanks for visiting!  Have a wonderful week and a blessed Thanksgiving!!!

I am linking up with The Mom Creative

Thankful #3

 I think recording our thanks and gratitude and expressing it are so important.  President Gordon B. Hinckley in his book Way to Be!  9 Ways to be happy and make something of your life lists Be Grateful as his #1 thing to be.  He says 

"There are two little words in the English language that perhaps mean more than all others.  They are "thank you."'

"The habit of saying thank you is the mark of a cultivated mind."

"Be grateful.  Count your blessings and gifts and privileges and see just how long that list is.  I imagine that each of you will have difficulties ahead of you.  None of us can avoid them.  But do not despair.  Do not give up.  Look for the sunlight in the clouds.   And be grateful for what you have."

 

Every November we make a "tree of thanks" to put on our wall.  We draw a tree on a big piece of paper or poster board, then we cut out leaves and write on them what we are thankful for.  

We hang it up in the kitchen and add more leaves to it each day.  On Thanksgiving we have extra leaves for our guests to write on and add to it.  Here is our tree so far.  By the end of the month it should be overflowing with leaves and thanks.

This year I also wanted to really focus my family on our blessings and being grateful.  At the beginning of the year we made these daily blessing books.  I wanted 2013 to be our year of Gratitude.  The post about them is here.  Each night we were to write 5 things in our books that we were grateful for that day--5 blessings we saw in our lives that day.

"We live in a unique time in the world's history.  We are blessed with so very much.  And yet it is sometimes difficult to view the problems and permissiveness around us and not become discouraged.  I have found that, rather than dwelling on the negative, if we will take a step back and consider the blessings in our lives, including seemingly small, sometimes overlooked blessings, we can find greater happiness.
     ". . .take an inventory of our life and look specifically for the blessings, large and small, you have received."

President Thomas S. Monson

The above quotes are the inspiration for our daily blessings/gratitude journals and for 2013 to be our year of Gratitude.  It has helped me a lot so far this year to look for my blessings especially when I become discouraged.  I am so grateful for this inspired counsel and for all the blessings, large and small, that I have received.  

Consider your blessings.

We had done pretty good.  These are the state of our books mid-November.  We haven't written every single day, but a lot of days we have, and it was been wonderful for our family to consider our blessings and be grateful.  Recently my girls were telling some friends about our 'blessings books.'  They said as they go through the day and see something good they think "I need to remember that to write it down.  I am grateful for that."  I wanted to stand up and cheer. :)   We do have so much to be grateful for, and we really do need to take the time to say thank you and count our blessing and now is the perfect time to do it.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What's up Wednesday--cheater Korean Beef

My cooking is very non-geographical--if that is a term.  I don't branch out much in terms of ethnic variety.  I do American and Italian with a slight sprinkling of fried rice about once a month and homemade egg rolls once a year.  I think I need to expand more.  I have never tried anything Korean, so when I first saw this recipe here, I has very hesitant--sesame oil?  Never used it, but I actually did have some in my pantry because I bought it years ago to make another Asian type recipe that I never made.  But as I was reading through the recipe I was thinking "this looks really easy."  And I am all about easy, so I gave it a try.  Wow!  It was really easy, and my whole family loved it!!!  Score!  And I think I have made it about 2 times a month since.  It is a keeper.  We serve this over rice, and I never cook my rice "plain" so that is why this rice looks brown in the picture even though it is not brown rice--although I think this recipe would make brown rice almost palatable (sorry, not a brown rice fan).  I will also share my super easy yummy "good" rice recipe--as my 8 year old calls it.  Enjoy!  I think I am going to make this the Saturday after Thanksgiving when nobody wants leftovers, and we will have had pizza on Friday.  It will be perfect! 

Cheater Korean Beef

1 pound lean ground beef

1/4 cup brown sugar or more if you want it sweeter

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 Tablespoon sesame oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 tes ground ginger **original recipe calls for fresh, but I never, ever have that, so I used this and it is great

1/2 to 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper depending upon how spicy you want it.  I use 1/2 tes

salt and pepper

green onions sliced for top

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and brown the ground beef in the sesame oil.  Add the garlic towards the end of browning and cook until meat is completely done.  Drain fat if needed.

Add the brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, red pepper, and salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer for a few minutes to blend the flavors.  Serve over rice topped with sliced green onions.

Good Rice

1 cup rice

2 cups chicken broth or 2 cups water and 2 tes chicken bouillon

1 Tab. dehydrated onion

Place all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  When starts to boil, cover with a lid, turn down to low and simmer 20 minutes.  Turn off heat after 20 minutes and let sit with lid on a few more minutes then fluff and serve.  The bouillon is what makes it a darker color depending upon how dark your chicken bouillon is.

When I make rice I usually double or tripe this because we like rice in our family, and then I can use the extra to make that occasional fried rice :)

Enjoy!

2013 Blue Jeans Week 46

This week . . . more basketball and busy life in general.  We are so looking forward to Thanksgiving here and the break.  It was a good week.  I have so much to be thankful for!  Here is a look at our week and blessings. . .

Love the sister missionaries from our church.  We try to have them over for dinner weekly, and this week one of them was moving on, so we had to get a picture to remember her by.  Great ladies who serve so well.  They bless our lives.  I am thankful for them.

One home game this week--one away game.  This was the home game, and Miss O did awesome!  I am slowly but surely figuring this basketball thing out.  I am thankful for a daughter that works hard, is willing to try something new, and for great coaches that encourage and teach.

If you ever wanted to find Miss E this week, you would find her with this book.  The Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan is one of our whole family's all-time favorites.  #12 The Royal Ranger just came out, and Miss E got it first.  She is almost finished with it and loving it!  I love how blue her eyes look in this picture.  I am thankful for good books and kids that love to read!

Mr J working on his homework after school today.  He is so good to get it done without being asked.  He is a hard worker!  I am thankful for hardworking kids and great teachers that inspire my kids!

Miss A had her cross country awards banquet this year.  This is her coach, who has been a coach for over 50 years.  He was my high school chemistry teacher and also my cross country coach.  He has since retired from teaching, but still coaches.  He is amazing!  Miss A had a great season, and she is ready for a break and then is excited for track in the spring.  He is also her track coach.  Again, I am very thankful for hard working kids--running cross country is not easy--and wonderful coaches!!!

Ben took the time this weekend to wash all the window screens (we have a lot of windows, this is only 1/2 of our screens) and then he washed every window in the house!  I am amazed to look out my windows now and see how clean they are!  I didn't realize how dirty they were until he cleaned them :)  I am so thankful for this amazing, super cute guy, for how hard he works to take care of us and everything he does for me--like washing all my windows!!!  Thank you so much and sure love you Ben!

So thankful for this past week!  So thankful you could visit and share it with me! 

I blog

Mondays--pictures from our week

Wednesdays--a favorite recipe

Fridays--focusing on my blessing this month and what I am thankful for

Come visit often!

I am linking up with The Mom Creative