On the 3rd Day of Christmas....

O.K. I know I'm running a little behind, I think the "12 days of Christmas" were a little overly ambitious. I didn't take into account working, shopping, wrapping, entertaining company, and other various wonderful things that happen this Holiday season.

Anyway- 3rd Day- True Love- right....right.....uhhhh.... On the Third day of Christmas my true love sent to me, Three Christmas Cantatas.

As you may or may not know I am married to a wonderful musician. He sings! He plays tuba! He rocks drums! He strums guitar! As a matter of fact, Chad decided in February, "I think I need to learn how to play guitar" so he picks it up and in a month he is playing at our Spring church retreat. Now he leads worship with it in our contemporary service every Sunday. As a non-musical person, that blows my mind. I don't play anything other than the radio. I can sing a little, I guess, but it's not that great and I would NEVER do it in front of anyone! Anyway, both times we've moved to a new church, question number #1 to Youth Pastor's wife is- "Do you play piano?" (Answer: Does chopsticks count?) Question #2: "Do you sing in the choir?" (Answer: No, and trust me, that should make you very, very happy.)
Well, our dear friend is the music minister at our church. Three years ago she asked me if Chad and I would narrate the Christmas Cantata. (She asked me 3 days before, but that is another story all together....) So we did. I was so nervous- It was like she asked me to sing a solo. Last year, she asked me again. I did it. (A lot of nerves going on again) Well for a THIRD year, I received the honors again.
If you read music (which I don't) I think it would be easier. Picture it. Music measures (might as well be Russian) with words printed above them. LOTS of words. It's like Mission Impossible. You MUST finish reading this paragraph in 12 measures or the singing starts and your book WILL self-destruct. So when the music starts I start reading, trying my best to not stumble all over myself, read the wrong part, loose my place, or say words like "genitals" instead of "Gentiles". All this with 300+ people starring at me. With music ticking down like a time bomb. No problem.
Don't get me wrong, I love having a front row seat to a 50 voice choir. It blows your socks off! i love contributing to the church in any way, the music is beautiful, the message of the Christmas Story set to music is amazing, I just get really, really nervous. I want the Cantata to be meaningful and perfect. I don't want to mess up what Dale and all these musicians have worked so hard to perfect.
So this Sunday, I stood and brought the Christmas story in words while my musically talented brothers and sisters brought the message in song. It was beautiful. After the musical, I got two comments that really stuck with me. One was that I had become the "Voice of Bethel" and they really look forward to hearing me speak every year. The other was "I think they pick you because you aren't too Southern! We can actually understand what you are reading!"

On the 2nd day of Christmas.....

My true love sent to me...... Two penguins guarding!
These cute lil' guys flank our garage door. Normally, I am anti-inflatables- but these guys are small, about 3 1/2 feet tall and very charming!
The night I took this picture it was really windy and starting to sleet, so his neck tie was flapping in the wind, but I think it gives him personality!

Good News (but not THE news!)

So a while back (late summer to be exact) you may recall we applied for the Show Hope Grant. This is the grant from the Steven Curtis Chapman Foundation, formally Shoshanna's Hope. Well we really weren't expecting any money at all, we heard from a few other families that with the economy all foundations that provide grant's funds were lower than normal, not to get our hopes up. But we gave it a try and GUESS WHAT?
We got a letter in the mail today that said we were awarded $3,000!!! We will receive the funds at the time of the referral. Isn't that wonderful news?!!?! That will REALLY help take the pressure off of our travel expense crunch. I just can't believe they gave us money! I am so grateful and so appreciative of Show Hope, they are such an answer to prayer. And truly, they were the first nudge Chad got putting adoption in his heart (at a Hope benefit concert), so in a way we've come full circle.
I am just speechless (well...almost!) Thank you Show Hope! Someday we hope to repay a little of the blessing you've given us by helping this wonderful organization. According to our letter, one way that we know we can help is to send pictures and our testimony after we bring Baby Deetz home! I hope we can do that VERY soon! Yippeee! What a great early Christmas present!

On the 1st Day of Christmas

My true love sent to me.... A kitchen Christmas tree! I thought as these 12 days of Christmas whirl past us, I would highlight all of the beautiful decorations in our house at Christmas. Since I am just not motivated to send out cards this year, it's my way of helping you get into the Christmas spirit!
Since I spend A LOT of time in the kitchen at Christmas, I just had to have a kitchen tree to look at while I cook. It has some of my favorite ornaments on there- little cookies, candies, decorative serving utensils, and other darling things. Now all I need are some kitchen cleaning elves.

Early Christmas!

This weekend we traveled to Florida to have early Christmas with Chad's dad and step-mom and his brother and sister. We had a great time! One of our gifts to the kids was a gingerbread house with all the bells and whistles. Faith and David did a fabulous job with decorations; It looked great until it fell down 30 minutes after completion! I was going to try to do some repairs, but the kids weren't upset at all with the unfortunate demise of the house, so we just stacked it up for consumtion. Eating the candy seemed to make them happier than building the house!

Before! After!

Matthew 7:24-27
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

Russian Recipe No. 2

"Moldavian White Bean Soup" a.k.a. Supa de Fasole

O.K. so I was kinda in a hurry last night, so I am going to give you my variation on this yummy recipe. I took a few shortcuts, but even with the hasty variations- this was super yummy!

2 cans of Great Northern Bean (the recipe calls for fresh beans, soaked overnight. Totally didn't think about that until last night, so 2 can o' beans it is!)

3 cups chicken stock and 4 cups of water (The recipe calls for 7 cups of water but I thought this would be better)

1 meaty ham bone (I didn't have a meaty ham bone, so I just got some nice chopped ham)

Bouquet Garni (4 sprigs thyme, 4 sprigs dill, 4 bay leaves, 8 black peppercorns, tied in a cheesecloth bag) Ok- I confess: I used dried!

1 rib celery and 1 carrot (the recipe calls for use to these whole and fish them out, but I chopped mine and didn't fish them out, it seemed wasteful to toss a nice carrot and celery stock!)

2 medium boiling potatoes, peeled in cut into 3/4 inch pieces (The first step I actually followed!)

2 Tbsp. butter

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 leek (white part only, chopped)

1 pinch dried thyme

Salt and Pepper

1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

Sweet Hungarian Paprika (dashed on top for presentation) I don't know if my paprika was sweet or Hungarian, but it worked just fine!

______________________________________

O.k. now this part is a total deviation from the recipe. It was very labor intensive and I looked like Rachel Ray on crack trying to get this dish made before my 6:30 hair appointment, cookie making for Deetzsie's Treatsies, laundry, packing for our early Christmas (more on that later) wrapping gifts, and searching to find Chad a white dress shirt.



Step One: Drain the beans and rinse them off

Step Two: Dump the beans, stock, ham cubes, celery, carrot, herbs, and potatoes into a stock pot. Boil the heck out of it. (Say 20 minutes.) Take your potato masher thingy and smash up some of the beans. Mix a little cornstarch and broth and add to the soup if you want to make it thicker. (I'm sure if you do all this the right way that won't be a necessary step ;0)

Step Three: Saute onions, leaks, and garlic (the recipe didn't call for that, but a meal isn't a meal without garlic in my house!) Add to pot. Add salt, pepper, and thyme.

Step Four: Go put the laundry in the dryer and start a new load in the washer. Oh wait, wrong task.

Step Four 4 real: Add vinegar and let stand for 5 minutes. Add more to taste. (Since we weren't sure what this actually tastes like we just went for the 1 tbsp. and Chad added some more to his.

Step Five: Sprinkle with a dash of paprika, take a picture for the blog!

Hopefully, Amy (Reining cookoff champion) will post the actual recipe on her blog. I'm sure it was much better than mine since it was done correctly! http://cupcakeandthecaseys.blogspot.com/



But this dish was really tasty~ Very easy (made the Druggie Rachel Ray way) and very hardy and filling, perfect for the cold, wet weather we've been having.

Thursday is the last day!

You can buy this

But not this.

If you would like to order Pampered Chef for our fundraiser, Thursday is your last day to shop. I'll turn in all orders to Meagan Thursday night.

The link to shop in on the left hand column......

Please remember if you are local, just e-mail me your order because we'll lump all orders together to save on shipping! Happy cooking and shopping!