O Happy Day!

Today I got a call on my cell phone from my girls in Brasil! It is always such a treat to hear their voices because we don't get to talk unless they are at the missionaries home. They had just finished having a meeting and decided to call me. I got to talk to Flavia, Marcia of Geferson, and Jaque. It's still easier for me to hear and understand Portuguese than to speak it but we get by. They are patient with me. I miss them and it's good to hear that things in their corner of the world are good.

Road Trip Continued...

Well I figured out how to upload my pictures without the cord...so you can click here and see the Indiana Road Trip album...in progress. Wednesday night we went to downtown Indianapolis and took a horse and carriage ride around Circle Center and had hot chocolate...DARK hot chocolate!! Yum! Thursday my nieces took my nephews to the Childrens Museum and Jill and I went to get my haircut and then picked up Laurie and went shopping. I got a new coat for 50% off. Thursday night we played games - Buzz Words and TV Scene It.

Today was Tyler's 9th birthday and we had a full day. We went to see my niece, Erin, at work and then went for a walk and to get pizza. Did a bit more shopping for dinner and got a couple movies and had a little party for Tyler complete with chocolate cake w/chocolate frosting and ice cream! I think he had a good day.

More later...

Road Trip - The Beginning...

I'm writing this post from my sister's computer in Westfield, Indiana. Jill and I packed up the boys and the dog this morning and set out for Westfield, Indiana at 7:30am. We arrived around 5:00pm (we lost an hour coming out) safe and ready to be out of the car...especially Bear (the dog). We have already had a full night and are looking forward to spending a great weekend/New Year's with my sister's family. I will post some pictures of our adventures later. I forgot the cord to connect my camera to the computer but maybe Drew - my genius nephew - can help me out. Stay tuned...

Merry Christmas

I recently came across the story behind the lyrics of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the Civil War. This is not a very popular Christmas song but after learning the story behind the songs it has new meaning for me. Especially since my brother, Dan, is away from home this year defending our country. Apparently, when the bells were rung on Christmas day during the Civil War, there was a cease-fire for the day. There was peace for Christmas day. Here are those lyrics:

I heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeat of "Peace on earth, good will to men."

I thought as now the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom Had rung so long the unbroken song of "Peace on earth, good will to men."

And, in despair, I bowed my head. "There is no peace on earth," I said. "For hate is strong and mocks the song of 'Peace on earth, good will to men.'"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail with 'Peace on earth, good will to men.'"

Merry Christmas, Dan…I love you.

Kids say the darndest things!

Last night I was talking to my nephew, Lucas. He's 4 1/2 years old and his last day of preschool was yesterday. My sister-in-law, who is a Kindergarten teacher, still has school today so Lucas was telling me how he was going to school with him mom tomorrow (today) and he could hardly contain his excitement! He was showing me the lunch he packed in his Cardinals lunchbox. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and one of the much loved, infamous Santa cookies mentioned in a previous post. So I asked him if he liked the Cardinals? His response....."Yes, I like the Cardinals, and the Vikings, and the Hot guys!" I started to chuckle, "Oh, you like the Hawkeyes?" "Yes, the Hot guys!"

Then I said, "Do you know who else likes the Cardinals?" He didn't so I told him his G'Pa Miller did. "Then I really like them!" he said.

I love living with them....here is my cartoon for today. This one is my personal favorite...

I never thought of this...

This one is also pretty funny. I am posting this one for Jill in hopes that she hasn't seen it yet...

You girls will appreciate this one...

My sister-in-law, Jill, wants you to know that she is the one who sent me all these cartoons. And she is not impressed with my blog lately because she has already seen them. But wait until she see's what I got her for Christmas! (And no, Jill...it's not a plane ticket or my brother all wrapped up...sorry)

Caution!

Be careful where you're catching snowflakes!!

Daily Christmas Cartoon

I thought it would be fun to post a cartoon a day until Christmas...some of my favorites...

The Weekend

I love weekends!! Not just because I don't have to go to work...well, yeah, mostly just that. This weekend was fun because it was my Annual Christmas Baking Day with Sandy and her mom.

I look forward to this day every year when Christmas gets near and I am never disappointed! We usually begin early (8:30-9:00am) and I usually wear a hat b/c that is WAY too early to shower on a Saturday. Madeline had already made some things before we got there but together we made peanut butter balls (my personal favorite), Ritz cracker peanut butter sandwich things dipped in chocolate (just what are those called, anyway?) and peanut clusters. The last thing we do every year is frost the cut-out cookies...and every year we seem to dread it. But Allie came in time to help with that so that made it more fun. However, somehow I got stuck frosting the Santa's, and there's a certain way they need to be done and it ain't no picnic!

So, if any of you out there got a Santa cut-out cookie from Sandy or her mom you'd better enjoy every last bite of that thing!! Speaking of Santa, Saturday was the day the Norwalk fire department drove Santa around town on a fire truck. We were outside to greet him as usual.

Last night we had a SNAC (Sunday Night After Connection). (The Connection is the weekly Sunday night gathering of students at Fellowship Community Church). Anyway, this is our beloved youth pastor with a face full of frosting....

Makes you want to send your kids right over, doesn't it?!

Did you know?

The top of the Empire State Building was originally built as a place to anchor blimps.

**"Real Fact" #330 from under my Snapple lid**

Creamy Broccoli Cheese Soup

Wow, is this good! I made it for a meeting last night and even I was impressed with myself!!

¼ cup chopped onion (I didn't use...don't like em)
1 Tbsp. butter or margarine
1 Tbsp. flour
2 cups milk
4 oz. PHILADEPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed
8 oz. VELVEETA Cheese, cut up
1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped broccoli, cooked, drained
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg (I didn't use...seemed like a weird spice for this soup)
Pepper to taste

This recipe says it makes 6 servings, ¾ cup each. Just to give you an idea…last night we had 7 people and two soups. I tripled this recipe and only had 2 bowls leftover. I can't wait for lunch!!

It's not my job...

I guess they need to hire someone to move things out of the way...

Bizarre Pictures...

These are just in from my friend in Brasil...bizzare...

The Wonder Steamer Blues...

Last night we laughed the night away at our youth leader Christmas Party. I ate my fill of little barbequed smokies and puppy chow...ah Christmas...and we played a game where you had to indentify the Christmas carol from a picture. The picture for "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" seemed a little risque, if you ask those of us sitting on the couch! Jaime was the big winner...she got 22 out of 24 correct. Then we had our White Elephant gift exchange and, let me tell you, there were some pretty funny things that were opened up. I took a big box full of my older CD's that I don't listen to anymore and that seemed to be the find of the night!! That box was stolen and re-stolen, and re-stolen, and just when you began to sort through the CD's because you were sure you would end up with the box it was stolen again!! The other "hot" item was bathroom reading material. What Deb said really is true - "One man's junk is another man's treasure." However, in my case, one man's junk is now my junk. I came home with the lovely, never before used, "Wonder Steamer" you see pictured here...compliments of Art and Stacy. I tried my hardest to get rid of this thing last night. I even got so desperate that I threw $5 in the box! No takers...so now it is sitting in a drawer in my house just waiting for next year's White Elephant gift exchange...beware.

But my spirit's have been lifted out of the "Wonder Steamer" muck today. I am listening to one of the stations that plays Christmas music 24/7 and they have played my all-time favorite Christmas song, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", 3 times in the last hour and a half. I love it!! Several people have recorded it over the years but my favorite rendition is Brenda Lee...hands down.

AND! I just found out that my sister-in-law is making turtles as part of her Christmas Candy making and she offered to make me some with Dark Chocolate and NO CASHEWS! O Happy Day...

Operation Christmas Child

Saturday I left at 5:30am to travel to Minneapolis with our youth pastor, five other youth leaders, and forty-some teenagers to work in the Operation Christmas Child processing warehouse. And it was an experience I will never forget!

The trip up was exciting enough. How can it not be when traveling with teenagers? Each van had a walkie talkie and two of them had some kind of contest going on. First they tried to pass a CD between them and the wind just sucked that right away!! Then it was a Snickers candy bar…then it was Jolly Ranchers. They were unsuccessful in their quest to get anything from one van to the other…

Soon we arrived at the Processing Center and after finding the restrooms we were directed to a room where we received a nametag and watched a training video with other volunteers. After the video we were divided up into groups and assigned to work in various roles in the warehouse. Some were chosen to work in the pre-sort section. This is where financial donations are removed and volunteers make sure each box has a boy/girl label. Then they sort the boxes and stack them on wooden pallets based on the age of the child they are intended for.

My group was chosen to work on the inspection lines. Here, we looked through the boxes and took out anything that might spill or melt or otherwise be inappropriate, like war-related stuff. Lots of tootsie rolls came out…that seemed to be the candy of choice. It was very cool to see all the gifts people pack into the boxes and to imagine how excited kids on the other side of the world are going to be when they open them. Some people even put a family picture and a letter in their box. But what was very cool for me was realizing that I was the last person to see and touch the contents of these boxes. And that the next person to touch and see them would be the child who received the box!

Once we inspected the boxes we sent them down the line and they were packed into large cartons that would be taken that day to the airport and shipped out. We were told that the boxes we were inspecting would be sent to Iraq.

This is one of six processing centers around the country and at this one they received close to 700,000 shoeboxes to sort. They had been doing this every day for the last three weeks and they were looking to us to help finish up the last 40,000. We did not disappoint…and when there were no more shoeboxes some of the kids actually groaned! They had a great time. In fact, we spent the remaining part of our day at the Mall of America and some kids actually told me they had more fun at the Processing Center than at the Mall of America…that’s cool. And several kids, and adults, hoped that this would become a tradition for us.

Is this heaven?

As I was wandering around WalMart last night doing some Christmas shopping I saw they now have Dark Chocolate Turtles! "Have I died and gone to heaven", I asked myself? I stepped forward, reached for a box of my favorite candy now covered in my favorite chocolate, and read the box...and I quote..."Premium pecans and cashews with creamy caramel smothered in delicious dark chocolate!"

And there's the rub......cashews.......they ruin everything! Nuts!!

My Christmas Wish...

I wish this fit into my family's $20 limit, "family night" themed gift exchange...

Futebol

Here are some pictures from a friend in South Brasil of our favorite soccer team! Ole, ole, ole, ole...Gremio, Gremio!!

Life...

Don't just embrace life. Grab it around the waist, throw it to the ground and give it a big noogie!