Hey Mom...Turn on the Moon!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! After spending our Christmas Eve morning decorating cookies and the afternoon napping, we headed for church at 5pm. The boys were good and especially enjoyed taking turns holding my candle during Silent Night. Some may have tenderloin and shrimp for Christmas Eve dinner, but we came home to crockpot macaroni and hot dogs. Hey, the boys liked it! And it was ready when we walked in the door! The rest of the evening was spent relaxing here at home.

The boys tried to get up at 4:30am, but I put a stop to that. Once back asleep, they slept until 6:30am when we all got up. After opening gifts and eating breakfast, a few of us (Roz, Wesley, and I) went to mass with Grandma LaVerne. While we don't get much out of it because the little chapel doesn't have a speaker, we always manage to have a good time with our family members.

After lunch and naps we headed up to my mom's for our extended family get together. The weather was cold but sunny. And in case you were wondering we did have a white Christmas! More than white...we had a record setting December snowfall...over 3 feet! We had a good time and were home just after 8pm to put the boys, who were asleep already, to bed. We had our final Christmas "party" here Saturday with my sister and parents.

Here are a few (okay, several!) pictures:

Eli's favorite gift was a pet tornado. You just give it a spin and a little tornado appears in the bottle. He loves it!

Eli
(Future Storm Chaser)

Dad demonstrates the Pet Tornado

A better gift for a little weather addict would be hard to find. His second favorite is his new watch which is put on first thing in the morning and not taken off until bedtime.

Justus was happy with everything he got! He was the most fun of all the kids to watch open gifts. Everything was "just what he wanted" and "sweet!"...even underwear! All the boys are enjoying Justus' "moon". We have it hanging on the wall in the boy's room. It works by remote control and lights up to show the phases of the moon. So, we now have added a new step to our nightly bedtime ritual: "Hey Mom, don't forget to turn on the moon!" Like I'm not busy enough... now I have to be responsible for illuminating our planet's only celestial satellite too! :)

Wesley (and all the boys) love Wesley's marble maze

JD is happy with his Pooh phone

Who you callin' JD?

Hayden's not sure if he should open his...
or watch his brothers

What'd you get Roz?

Fa La La

Here is a video from Sunday. The boys, and the rest of the children's church group, sang for the whole church. The kids range in age from 3 to 7. They only practiced for about a month on Sundays.

I had our boys practice at home. I made each boy stand on a tile to practice not touching each other and standing still while they were singing. Justus and Wesley always did great during practice. Although, as the performance drew closer they were a bit nervous about singing in front of a church full of people. Can't say I blame them. [I think I was about 6 or so when I dropped out of gymnastics because I found out we were going to have to do a demonstration in front of our parents!]

Eli on the other hand told me straight up, "I'm not going to sing up there." I told him, "Fine, I don't care if you sing or not, but you will go up there." Eli went up there alright but, he was a man true to his word, he didn't sing one note. I can't wait to pull this video out at his wedding!

Disclaimer: The video is a bit shaky because I was laughing. Sorry about that!

From all of us Showns...
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Baking Sweatshop

This morning we had the elves working hard. There was a DOUBLE batch of Christmas cut out cookies to be decorated. While the boys worked on "quality", and I use the term loosely, Roz and Jer were told to go for quantity.

Things went well. Only 2 bottles of sprinkles were spilled and only one cookie was dropped, frosting side down, ahem...by me. Oops! Not to worry, Buck had it cleaned up in no time! JD napped through the whole thing. And best of all the boss bought us Taco Bell for lunch!

Justus works on his "J" cookie
(I need some big letter cookie cutters
so if you see some let me know!)

Hayden is thinking hard about his decorating plan

"Work faster kids!"

It was nice to have such a large work surface this year!

Team Cookie 2008

Christmas Cookies

I am in the middle of a marathon baking day! I decided I needed a break for a minute. While I've been making a mess of my kitchen, I was thinking of the year I didn't do any baking. Hayden was born 4 days before Thanksgiving in 2005 (he wasn't due until the end of January). While the twins had been early, Wesley hadn't been so at that point we didn't really expect Hayden to be early. (Now we know better!)

The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas that is normally filled with shopping, decorating, and baking was instead filled with daily trips to the NICU and prayers that Hayden would be home in time for Christmas. He struggled with eating more than expected and just barely made it home in time on the evening of the 23rd. That was the best Christmas gift!

That year, of course, stands out a bit in my mind as quite different from the rest. It was more simple. The fun extras were just that...fun extras, not necessities. The tree went up late, I didn't get out every decoration, and I didn't have time for baking that year. And you know what? We survived! :) Because I'm sure you all know that Christmas isn't about cookies and gifts and decorating. It isn't even about friends and family. It's about the One who came to save the world. But here is the part I wanted to share, the part that I thought of this morning as I made my sugar cookie dough...

Knowing there wasn't going to be much baking going on a with a baby in the NICU, one sweet lady from church offered to take Roz to her house for a baking day. Sure, of course! Then she asked that Roz bring my cut out cookie recipe along with the frosting recipe and my cookie cutters. I said okay and wondered why in the world they would want my recipe when I was sure they had a perfectly good recipe and cutters of their own.

Roz was picked up. She baked, decorated, and had a great time. She was dropped back at home with a pile of cookies. Our cookies. My cookies. They tasted and looked exactly like they always do, made with the same recipe in the familiar shapes. This wasn't just a gift of cookies! It was an unexpected gift of service, of time, of tradition; a modern day foot washing. Those cookies were my second favorite gift that year and probably one of the most thoughtful, Christ-like gifts I've ever received!

Cantata

Last Sunday, Roz was in the Christmas Cantata at church. We took all the boys. They were good, not perfect (as you will see), but good.

I could have done a little editing here but you know me..."honesty" is my middle name. I'm all about truth in advertising! Eli was sitting with me when I took this short video so it is him you hear saying: "Where's Rozzy?" And his hand you see move in front of the screen. He was watching on the camera to see if he could see his hand go by.

When asked on the way home what his favorite part was, Justus replied, "The cookies!" Refreshments were served following the cantata.

Tomorrow will be the boys turn. The little ones will be singing a couple songs during the service. The boys have been practicing at church and home for their big debut. I'll be sure and take the camera so I can share the fun with you all!


I'm sure you won't have trouble finding Roz in this clip, but I just thought I would mention...next to Roz, on the right, is her friend Laura. Wesley has a crush, his first, on Laura. She is a beautiful young lady and is super sweet to our boys. I can only hope he continues to have such excellent taste about 20 years from now!

So Nice We Bought It Twice!

The house, that is! This afternoon we are going to sign the papers to refinance the house. We'll be saving about $100 a month. This combined with the low gas prices (WOW! Only $44 to fill up the big van yesterday!) will help plug a few holes in the monthly budget. Jerry told me to tell you all to check into refinancing NOW! (If you are in the GB area and need a good mortgage guy, call or email me and I'll give you our broker's name & number.)

We are also supposed to go out to dinner and do a little Christmas shopping after we sign the papers. I say "supposed to" because we in the middle of a pretty good snow storm. Oh, you guys in Arizona just don't know what you're missing! I let Buck out a bit ago and just about lost him! Thankfully, he found his way back to the door!

I'm not sure if this link will work but here is a link to a live weather camera if you want to see for yourself!

Super Coloring Southpaw

Justus has recently really improved his coloring skills. He stays in the lines and colors with appropriate colors, you know...flesh colored skin and blue skies. Eli on the other hand is still into monochromatic coloring. Once he picks a color he pretty much sticks with it until the end, which is only a couple minutes at best. He's got better things to do with his time. Eli is a bit better with a pencil though, he can write his name (all caps) and draws pretty good (stick) people.
Here is some trivia for you:
Justus is my only left-handed child (so far, anyway!). My grandma also had six kids with one being left-handed. Did you know that only 7-10 percent of the population is left-handed? Or that more males are left-handed than females? How about that twins, both fraternal and identical, are more likely to be left-handed? Four of the last six presidents have been left-handed, so is President Elect Obama. (John McCain is left-handed too!) I didn't know any of that either. Now we can "wow" people with our left-handed trivia. [There's lots more to learn about lefties here if your interested.]

Virtual Christmas Tour

I love to see how other's decorate at Christmas. So I am inviting myself to visit each of your houses. Just kidding...however, since several of us have blogs I thought it might be fun to do a "virtual" Christmas tour.

First, take a few pictures of Christmas decorations in your home (the tree, a favorite ornament or two, outside lights, nativity, etc.). Post them on your blog with a short explanation if you'd like and maybe include a favorite Christmas recipe. Then come back here and put your name and link in the little form below this post so we can all take a peek. (I haven't done this before so let me know if it doesn't work!)

I'll go first....

This is the front of our house from the street outside.

Our Tree

We also have a small "kids" tree full of unbreakable ornaments in the basement. I have been pleasantly surprised that little ones have not been messing with the tree this year. Of course, now that I have said that, they will probably knock it over tomorrow.

Our Fireplace

This is the fire time we've ever had a fireplace in our own home. It has been fun. Some nights we turn it on and have what the boys call "campfire", which means we sit by the fire and tell (not scary) stories and eat marshmallows.
The stockings are a new addition to our holiday decorations this year. I made them myself...in case you hadn't heard. :)

Here are a few ornaments on my tree:
I cross stitched this one the Christmas I was pregnant with Wesley. I made several of these that winter. It has become one of my favorites.
I got this one from my first grade teacher...ummm, twenty eight years ago...man, I'm getting old.
My mom got me this one, made of pewter, in Copenhagen.
This is Roz's favorite. It's a pickle. Jerry's parents got it for her a long time ago, maybe even her first Christmas, because we called her Pickle when I was pregnant with her.

Our Nativity

This is another favorite decoration in my house. This quilt hangs on my quilt shelf in the living room.

Last year at Christmas I shared a potpourri recipe and the recipe for my now famous Snow Cocoa. Here is a recipe for candy cane cookies. One of our neighbors in Idaho used to make these (Danny's mom, in case you're wondering Mom). I really liked them and it took me a long time to find the recipe. Now, of course, with Google and the internet it takes two seconds to find the recipe!

Candy Cane Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

Mix first 6 ingredients together.
Add flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
Divide dough into 2 equal portions. Add food coloring to 1 portion. Blend well. Chill if desired to make the dough easier to work with. Roll 1 teaspoon of each color dough into ropes about 4-5 inches long. Lay them side by side and twist. Place on ungreased baking sheet and bend to form canes. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Makes about 4-1/2 dozen.

LINKS to Others in the Virtual Tour:
Nora
Erica
(there were a few more but unfortunately the links are no longer working--if you are one of the missing links let me know and I'll add them manually)

A (Short) Tale of Two Cities

It's warming up! It is too! When I woke up it was in the negatives.
This is the weather widget on my desktop. Look! With the click of a button, I can change the widget to see what the weather is in Arizona.
But it doesn't change the weather outside my window. Someone should really fix that!

Christmas Concert

Here is a short video of Roz's Christmas concert from Monday night. She is right behind the young lady in the wheelchair. She's in a black dress if that helps. Ha!

It was a short concert. This was the only song her group sang by themselves. I was a bit bummed, but it worked out well since it was snowing like crazy.



Keep her in your prayers since she is the seventh in this family of eight to fall victim to the stomach "bug". Last man standing, Jerry, has not yet been affected. Let's hope it stays that way!

This Blows!

So here are few pictures of the snow. I was trying to get a couple shots of the drifts in the backyard. They were pretty tall. I can't tell you exact measurements since I wasn't about to go out there! But I'm guessing about 2 feet. We only got about 8 inches of snow, but it was windy so it was blowing into piles quite a bit deeper than that.

Faithful blog readers will recognize this window (below), site of a daring rescue earlier this year, looks quite a bit different today. And if anyone gets stuck in there now, they'll just have to stay put until...well, spring I guess.

While Jer bought the snow blower last night he didn't actually use it for the first time until this evening. I guess there are a few finer points of snow blowing that have yet to be learned...
...first would be don't shoot the snow into the wind!

Under the Weather

Lots of snow. No school. Good thing because Roz was needed to "run" the house while I laid in my bed pretty much useless. The stomach "bug" that hit half the family (Eli, Hayden, JD, and Justus...in that order) on Monday spread to me and then Wesley yesterday. The boys bounced back quickly. I'm a bit slower to recover it seems, but at least I'm upright today.

I wish I had some pics for those of you in Arizona of the snow! Maybe tomorrow...it's not going anywhere. Let's just say it was enough that Jer finally, after 8 winters of shoveling, broke down and bought a snowblower last night!

Tree Trimming 2008

We decorated the trees this weekend. Yep, you read that right...trees...with an "s"! Since we have a bit bigger abode this year we decided to go all out and get both trees out of their boxes. We put the big one up in the living room with the "good" ornaments and the little one up in the basement with all the unbreakables we've been using the last few years.

Roz is the official tree assembler in our house. I help some and then we work together to do the rest. The boys helped decorate the tree in the basement. Roz and I pretty much did the living room tree by ourselves with a bit of help. I forgot how big the big tree is and how little the little tree is! It is fun to have the both up.

Hayden, Justus, and Wesley decorate

Santa Eli gets into the action as well!

This will be Roz's last Christmas as an official "kid" in our house. So it's only fitting she got the angel honors one last time:JD is doing surprisingly well with the temptation of the tree. Much better than his brothers ever did! He tries to touch the ornaments every once in awhile, but he isn't grabbing them off or knocking the whole thing over! In this photo, I did catch him touching an ornament:
Here is the face I got when I told him "no!":

Jerry also risked life and limb putting the lights up on the house over the weekend. It was a two day process to get up enough courage to scale the roof to do the high roof line above the garage. They look nice but I am told that it is a one year thing and he won't be doing that again!

The pièce de résistance for me though was the stockings hung by the fireplace (with care, of course...because I made them myself!). We've never had a fireplace before! These stockings have been my latest project. While I had a whole year to make them, I completely crammed all the stitching and sewing into the last month or so. You know what they say...if it weren't for the last minute, I wouldn't get anything done!


And thanks to God for providing over four inches of snow yesterday to complete the decorating...now it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Free Christmas Music

I posted this on GBSavers but thought I would post it here as well...

Amazon.com is giving away a free song download each day from the 1st through the 25th of December. Looks like it will be a fun way to make a Christmas music CD. If you missed the previous songs you can still download them for free as well.

Speaking of Amazon.com, if you shop there do me a favor and click through the Amazon box on this blog, Jerry's, or GBSavers. Jerry signed up to be an Amazon Associate and gets a (very) small percentage of each purchase made through that link. It is for any product they sell, new or used, including gift certificates. Thanks!

Going Crazy...One BEEP at a time!

Several nights over the last two weeks at 11:53pm, usually after I was in a deep sleep, I was awakened by faint but increasingly loud beeping. I jumped up to investigate only to have the beeping end before I could figure it out. It was not the smoke detector. It was not the doorbell. It was not my clock or Jer's. I had no idea what it was! The house has an alarm system and I figured something had gone wrong with that. I don't know much about the system but I couldn't find anything wrong with it the next day.

The next night the same thing. beep. beep. BEEP. BEEP. Again I couldn't find the source. After four nights I told Roz I'd pay her $5 to sit outside my door until 11:53pm and figure out what was making the beep. She just laughed...and didn't take me up on the offer. That night...nothing...no beep.

Then a few nights later it was back. Okay. I'm smarter than this. I can figure this out, I thought. I noticed I had left my cell phone on. I don't really use the cell phone, it's more for emergencies than anything else, but sometimes I forget to turn it off. I wondered if some kind of alarm got set. I turned it off and there was no beep that night. I had figured it out...or so I thought.

I had Roz check the phone. She couldn't find any alarms set or missed messages. But I felt certain that had been the source because after I turned it off I didn't hear the beeping that night.

Then Thursday night, there it was again. I jumped up to look at the cell phone. Did I leave that stupid thing on again? Nope, it was OFF. I ran frantically around the back hall area. But I could still NOT find the source before the beeping stopped. I'm sure I looked like a crazy woman running around in my nightgown, hair flying everywhere, searching for the increasing beep that I knew would end in about 3o seconds.

Yesterday afternoon, I took apart the alarm system to see if I could find something, ANYTHING that would be causing this beeping. The detective in me figured out since it was always at exactly the same time it had to be something with a clock or timer. I got out the alarm system manual and ran a "test". Me, oh, my. Don't do that unless you are prepared to have emergency backup to revive you when your heart stops. That thing was LOUD!

By the way, just in case you aren't aware, testing an alarm system can apparently screw up the internet connection. So I had to take a short break to call my internet tech support and unhook the unfiltered alarm system phone line. I finally got the internet working again but now it was time to start dinner so...

I gave up just short of smashing open the alarm system box (we don't have a key) and pulling all the wires out. The only thing I could do was wait. Until 11:53pm. Tick. Tock.

Jer had his work Christmas party last night so he wasn't home. I fed the kids and we went downstairs to play and read books. One of the book shelf supports had fallen tipping out some books. So I was sitting on the floor putting all the books back on the shelf when I looked up. I saw a little soccer ball clock sitting so innocently up there on the shelf. For one brief moment I stared at that clock with a slight bit of...I don't know what...recognition? Does that thing have an alarm?

It was up where the boys shouldn't have been able to reach it. But the time was wrong so someone must have been messing with it.

I thought...no...that's too simple of an explanation...it couldn't be...

The proof was there at the touch of a button. The alarm was set for 12am but the time was off by 7 minutes making it really go off at 11:53pm. I reset the alarm so I could here it. Sure enough. Beep. Beep. BEEP. BEEP.

There is one battery-less soccer ball clock in my storage room if anyone wants it.

December 2008 Menu

If you would like to see our menu for the month of December...click here.
If you are interested in the recipes for any of the items on the menu just let me know.

$aving $trategies: Menu Planning

While I love saving money, I really dragged my feet on this one. I don't know why but I just did not want to do it. Now that I have been menu planning for almost a year I can promise you it is worth the effort. If you are really busy then a menu is a must! You will not only save money, but time as well. I plan my menus for one month at a time (weekly can work too). When I sit down with the calendar, the first thing I do is mark all the games, meetings, etc. so I know what nights I need a quick meal. A planned, quick meal means no fast food, which saves us a bunch of money.

The real key to saving money with menu planning is to do it backwards. To save money, you DO NOT plan a menu and then go shopping for the needed ingredients. You shop, taking advantage of the deals and sales, then plan your menu around what you have in your pantry and freezer. That way you are getting the best deals and using what you have. Always keep an eye out for sales on the items you use most. When you see a good deal...STOCK UP! When you use what you have and only use items bought at low sale prices you save even more!

I have menus for breakfast and lunch too. Those aren't as creative as the dinner menus, but I didn't just want to have cereal every morning either. So I made a two week rotating breakfast and lunch menu. I don't even have to think about what to make for breakfast or lunch anymore! I love it! I always know what to stock up on (saves money!) because we have the same 10 things! Since half of our family can't read yet I put together a clipart menu for the rotating breakfasts and lunches; the kids know what to expect and really hold me to the menu. Now not only do I save money, I don't have to wonder what to make, AND I don't have to answer the dreaded question: "Mom, what are we having...?"

Here are a few additional links to help with menu planning if you are interested:
Organized Home
Family Grocery Budget
Menu Planner
Money Saving Mom
The Simple Dollar

[I wrote this (minus the links) for my Mother's of Multiples club newsletter but thought I would share it here as well. That way this info will make it in to my next book! I hope to write a small piece for the newsletter each month and I'm calling it $aving $trategies.]