Today, Chuck and his family came for a visit.  We had a very nice day.  We ate baked ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, sweet potato casserole,  homemade rolls and biscuits with peaches for dessert.    He loved his swing.  I am hoping it makes it home safely.  He left with it tied on the top of his Pathfinder.  The kids played with the kitties most of the day.   The other big entertainment was clothes pins.  Children have such imaginations. 

A picture of the food table.

Here we all are getting ready to eat.  Julie is hiding behind Chuck. 

I pray you all have a wonderful Christmas and God bless.

Hubby has been working on my Christmas gift.  I love it!!!

This is a side view.

Front view and

all folded up.  It will hold lots and lots of clothes.  I will take a picture later of it full of clothes. 

He has also been working on Chuck’s gift. 

A porch swing.  I think it is very pretty.  I really like the two colors together.    Chuck and his family are coming up tomorrow.  I have to get busy today to finish his “goodie basket”.  We will be having ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and homemade rolls.

The Horn’s are coming over this evening.   For supper, we will be having 15 bean soup, rolls and a peppermint cake.  I got the recipe from http://nadinesnook.blogspot.com/2011/12/peppermint-cake.html  I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless.

You all remember this little dress.  I got it at Goodwill before we even knew what Jess was going to have.  Well, this weekend when we went down for our Christmas get together, Jess had dressed her in it.  She looked darling!

It amazes me every time I see her how much she has grown.  The boys were too busy for me to get a picture of them.  Maybe next time.  We had a great visit with lots of good food. 

Yesterday I put a deer roast on in the crockpot before we left for church.  Pastor Tom’s message was very good.  He preached from Isaiah 40:3-5.  We had deer roast, french fries, green beans and homemade rolls for “lupper” with homemade candy for dessert.  Then we just chilled for the rest of the day.  Our church was going caroling and giving out fruit baskets last night.  However, Julie is suffering from a head cold, so we did not go. 

Well, that’s about it.  I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

Our van is fixed.  YEAH!  Dave, Jess and the kids came up Sunday so Dave could help Hubby work on it.  Thanks so much, Dave!  Hubby finished getting it all put back together Monday.  Monday evening we rode it to the feed store to get chicken feed and everything worked fine.  Yesterday, the girls and I rode it to Sam’s.  No problems!!  I am so glad.

Yesterday, the boys had a terrible stomach virus.  They were both very sick.  Daniel was hit especially hard.  He told his mom he felt like he was living in a bad dream.  Today they both seem on the mend.  We are all praying no one else gets it.  Jess said that baby Sam was calling for his “Maw” when he was sick in the night.  You know that just touches my heart.  We are hoping to go down Saturday to do Christmas with them.  Lots of good food planned. 

Well, I guess that’s about all that has been going on here.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Hello everyone!  I thought I would show you one of my newest Christmas tins.  I love these things.  I think they look so cheerful and happy.  I got this one at the Salvation Army store a little while back.  I only paid .50 cents for it.  Yesterday, after school, I decided it was time to start filling up some of these tins.  I made pinwheel candy to put inside it.   This is one of our favorite Christmas candies. 

Several people on our gift list will be getting homemade candy this year.  Chuck (oldest son) has already called and gave me his wish list for what he wants in his “goody basket”.  I made some peanut butter and chocolate fudge over the weekend for Dave and Jess.  I will post that recipe soon. 

We will be doing school today as usual.  We plan on taking a 2 week Christmas break starting on Dec.19th.  I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

We are on Thanksgiving break from school.  The girls are very happy.  Today is planned out as just a fun day.  We will watch a movie, The Prince of Egypt, also play a few games, and listen to Christmas music.   I will also be busy baking today.  We are doing Thanksgiving at Jessica’s.  Everyone is bringing something.  I am to bring the rolls and the ingredients for punch.  The punch we all love is called Angel Punch.  Jessica’s grandmother, Marie would always make this punch at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We really like it.

My bread machine just beeped so it is time to start shaping the rolls.  I better get busy.  I pray you all have a safe and happy thanksgiving.  God bless.

My Christmas cactus is blooming.  I don’t think it has ever bloomed at Christmas but it’s very pretty no matter when it blooms.  I love the bright pink color.  It always makes me feel happy when I look at it.

Temperatures here this morning were mid 20′s with a heavy frost.  It has warmed up already to low 30′s and the sun is shining.  I think it will be a nice day.  We will be doing school as usual, then we have some wood to unload.  We also need to go into town to get some chicken feed.  Thank the Lord, we have once again sold enough eggs to pay for the feed. 

Jess and Katie are doing well and big brothers are adjusting nicely to having a little one in the house.  Katie seems to be (as of right now) a very content little girl.  She sleeps very well at night, 3-4 hrs between bottles.  Amazing!  David will be going back to work on Thursday.  He took a week vacation during Katie’s birth. 

Well, it is almost time for school and I have clothes to hang out.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

When I was living in Grundy, we would buy our milk, butter and buttermilk from a friend of ours who had cows.  She made absolutely the best butter I’ve ever tasted.  When we moved up here to Floyd, the butter they made tasted completely different.  They call it “sweet cream butter”  here.  Well, don’t get me wrong,  it’s really good.  But just not the taste I’ve been hankering for.   So the other day I called Margie, our friend in Grundy that made the butter.    The cows here on the farm are Holsteins and don’t produce much cream so it takes a long time to save up.  We wanted to make butter for the weekend for Jessica, so I cheated and bought heavy whipping cream from the store.   Here is the recipe she gave me. 

1.  Put equal amounts of cream and buttermilk in a jar.  I used 1 pt cream and 1 pint buttermilk.

2.  Let jar sit out on counter overnight or until it becomes very thick-I mean really, really thick.

3.  Her instructions were then to churn it.  As we do not have a churn, I poured the thickened cream into my mixer with the whisk   attachment on-You know my beautiful mixer my wonderful hubby surprised me with at Christmas.

 4. Llet this mix about 5 min.  (I’m not really sure of the time, it could have been less or more.)  This is what it will look like when the butter is ready.

6.  Then you do what Margie called “gather” the butter.  I put it into a container, added a little salt,  took a spoon and worked it around and all the excess buttermilk came out.  Drain off the buttermilk as you gather the butter.

The finished product.  Chill and enjoy!!  Of course, I had to sample it before this.  I wanted to make sure it was good before serving it to my family. (lol)  It tastes just like Margie’s.  Yeah!!!!  I am so happy.   I am making fresh rolls today for the weekend.  Won’t they be good with  butter spread on them. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Every year at Easter and Christmas, I make pickled eggs as a special treat for my Hubby.  He and David both like them so I will be taking them down with me for our Easter dinner.  Don’t they look so colorful in the jar?

Yesterday we had some pretty hard wind.  Our plastic is still on our greenhouse, YEAH.  I had clothes on the line drying and looked out our dining room window and a pair of Hubby’s jeans had blown off the line and into the dogwood tree.  I should have taken a picture of them hanging from the limb but I didn’t think of it in time.   Anyway, the wind is not as bad today.  Our clothes are all still on the line.  Hubby and his brother are working on the van window.  Hopefully, they will be able to fix it.  It has been more difficult than he first thought it would be.

Well, time for us to start back on school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I think my Christmas Cactus is confused.  It bloomed around Christmas time and has decided (to our great pleasure) to bloom again.  It looks so cheerful and happy in the room. 

Todays temperature was a little warmer when we got up, 26 degrees.  It is a little overcast  but the sun is coming through.  It is now about 30 degrees.  I have one load of clothes on the line and am getting ready to take another.  They are predicting rain for tomorrow.

On the menu for tonight is pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and kale.  I think I will do homemade biscuits with it and have cooked apples for dessert.   Time for us to start school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.