I will praise the name of God with a song; and will magnify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69:30

Recognizing that everything we have comes from God all the time not just during the good times or once a year on our nation's holiday of thanks. 

We were blessed this year to have Thanksgiving dinner with some dear family and friends. Belize doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving so it is a challenge to prepare a meal when I have to work all week. With the help of Chris and the kids I managed to get everything made. We celebrated our Thanksgiving yesterday.

The food tasted good and there are WAY too many leftovers. I already am looking forward to eating my usual salads and simple foods. Rich foods just cause me not to feel good and Chris and the kids have been laying around the house, saying "I'm so stuffed" or "I feel sick because I ate too much"......the typical things we hear this time of year. Not to mention breaking the grocery budget to fix these super rich and fattening foods.

Gluttony to show thanks sure seems wrong. Now, don't get me wrong, a special meal is just fine; but we could tone it down and use some of our "extra" to help others a bit more. We can also exercise our own self control when consuming these "special meals". Right?

 We had to snuggle under the new electric blankets my mom sent down because it was so cold yesterday.

 

  

Cookies, cookies, and more cookies!

The girls and I have been busy making tons of spritzer cookies to give away as part of the upcoming food distribution. Hannah and Bella are getting really good at making them. They had me mix the dough and then took over for the last hundred or so. Both girls really take my cooking instruction well and pay attention to things that most young cooks wouldn't. They are both going to be excellent cooks and bakers.

 

Danish Pancakes

I love to cook!

 This is therapy to me to reduce stress.

I have perfected so many recipes over the years in different genres of cooking that it surprises me. I have been told I make the BEST Thanksgiving turkey ever, and I can make any beef or chicken dish taste so scrumptious (except we haven't eaten meat for 7 years) if I have to. I can not only cook delicious vegetarian meals but also vegan. I can bake healthy vegan desserts and no one knows it doesn't have dairy. I can make homemade candy that is out of this world......no this isn't the healthy version.

I should publish a cookbook as I have created more recipes or I always tweak/change a lot recipes I find. I do have to admit that I also just cook out of my head a huge percentage of the time and have to force myself to write the recipe down.

 I love that I can look at a recipe and say immediately how it will turn out or there's not enough of this ingredient. Cooking does require a skill but baking is definitely a talent. I have shared recipes with others and it doesn't turn out anything like it should. Thankful that I learned from some of the best.......my grandmother and my mom.

The other night I made Danish Puff Pancakes for my family. I had actually found the pan required to make these little delectable, melt in your mouth, darlings!

Back home we used to frequent a certain lodge on Sunday's for brunch and they would serve these. Love them! Anyway, they turned out really good and I mastered the skill for using a skewer to gently turn them. The kids all voted that we need to have these more often. Better than Belgian Waffles.

The only negative part is that we were so enraptured eating them that I forgot to take a picture.

Family & Memories

Even though my last trip home was for a sad reason I was glad to see family. This picture was taken at my aunt Won's house in Oregon while we were gathered for the memorial service weekend.

When I was a little girl I remember the big family gatherings we would have at Uncle John's house. All the cousins were there and we had so much fun. I remember everyone getting together at Grandma Myrt's house on Thanksgiving and Christmas. We all ate too much and played games until late in the night. I can remember just feeling like your stomach would give a little relief from that over stuffed feeling and then squeezing in one more piece of homemade pie or some of grandma's homemade candies.

The family has grown and branched out and those large gatherings are few and far between these days.

Coming up on the holidays makes me reminisce all those childhood memories. 

I intentionally left out the nail-biting, horrifying winter/snow experiences with my dad to go get Christmas trees.Too many of those stories.

One of my favorite memories was when we(me, Alanna, & Eric) had been out with dad along with my cousins, Jenny and Ryan, to get Christmas trees. We were in my dads 1980 something 4x4 Bronco and on our way back after acquiring the trees. We had taken two runner sleds with us, and when we had descended from the deeper snow mountain roads to where they began to plow, we thought it looked perfect for a sled ride.

Of course with only two sleds we came up with the bright idea that me and Jenny would share a sled and Eric and Alanna shared the other (we laid down and double stacked....probably not safe but definitely more aerodynamic). Poor Ryan missed out!

It was just getting dark but we shot off on those runner sleds and we quickly lost my dads headlights and had to begin to see in the dark and some of those corners in the mountains got pretty dark! We began to drag our feet to no avail; we were flying!! I'm not sure how many miles we covered but we managed a system of anything that looked like a shadow looming ahead we steered to avoid it and that worked out really good. Finally, we flew across a cattle guard, which slowed us enough, to ditch into the snow bank.

Later, back in the vehicle I learned from my father that he gave up trying to catch us after the Bronco hit 25-30mph on slick mountain roads. So we were really going super fast. Of course we had a blast and thought it was the greatest fun. My father told me later in years that he shouldn't have let us do it. 

I will have to share more sledding stories later! 

Getting Ready for Outreach

We are busy preparing for the upcoming holiday outreach. This year has lots of different components thanks to a mission team coming in from back home. They will be partnering with us for our annual holiday project and we will be partnering with them for some of their projects. Very exciting!

We have been busy gathering food, live turkeys and chickens, getting the packaging ready,  and planning the route.  The girls and I will be doing a lot of baking so we can hand out goodies too.

Isabel has become the head turkey and chicken wrangler and she makes sure their wings get clipped to prevent them flying out of the yard. 

We have given names to the turkeys: Frederic, Louie, Mr. Fudd, Liesel, Luna, Snowflake, Birgita, Gertrude, Thelma Lou, Theodore, and Cornelius. The chickens get the numbers of our favorite football(soccer) players.