ice and rain and orchids in january

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Shanda

In January
its so nice
while slipping
on the sliding ice
to sip hot chicken soup
with rice. Maurice Sendak

So far in this month of newness, we have had deep freezing temperatures suited for ice skating, snow to make us stay at home, and now…..rain.

January is a time to rest after the holidays, and a time to talk about the weather.

Sarah herself says that today is a fine day and I quite agree. When we went out to the chicken coop we were quite happy to get rained upon. It was ridiculous and made us laugh. Rain in January?

In other news, we have orchids blooming in my bathroom. Rich bought me these last year and I am just thrilled that they grew new branches and blossomed. There are five big magenta blooms and it amazed me to see them uncurl from their buds. Imagine trying to fold them back in? God is truly a master designer, my son David works so hard to make an origami masterpiece out of a flat sheet of paper…..God takes a seed, which grows into a green leaf and stalk, and a bud, and the flower UNFOLDS ITSELF from it just perfectly! And that’s just the basic explanation, there is much more to it as we all learned so well, in science class.

Yesterday morning’s frosty ice.

“Hast thou entered into the treasure of the snow?” book of Job

It was so beautiful by the stream, doesn’t this look like melting candles flowing into a wax puddle? or a cow udder?

I saw this beautiful bare foot sight this weekend….Grace was playing songs for the little ones on the computer, songs from the movie “Frozen” that Rich and I took the girls to see.

Sarah’s been wearing her fanciest dresses at home and I say, “yes”, because life is short and tiny girls grow out of little fancy dresses eventually.

I love feathering my nest……

I found this tea towel yesterday. It’s just right.

My ring came back today!!!!!!! ( from Rich for Christmas, I had to get a smaller size)

My pantry.

“You overflow my cup.” lyric from a worship song by Audrey Assad.

My darlings painted the most beautiful pictures this morning.

Sarah played on my bed with the new bunnies.

She wanted to keep them but I said these bunnies live on mommy’s bed, this is their country, but you can visit them.

Hot chicken and noodles, a wonderful dinner for a January evening.

Candlelight.

I absolutely positively cannot believe it’s raining today!

Quote from today: “Seth I just burped, did you hear that Seth, I burped.” ~Sarah, who thought he would be proud.

dancing

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Shanda

Everyone. Please. Be quiet.

Sarah is dancing.

And Sarah takes her dancing very seriously.

Why, yes, she is wearing new adorable slippers.

She bought them on sale just yesterday.

However, while dancing, they make her trip.

Much better.

Now she is really free.

Now she can fly.

Now she can run.

While dancing.

christmas food

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Shanda

I’m in the new addition and a fire is quietly burning in the fire place. I can look across the room and see that the light of this day *is gray, snow is falling, and the children came home early from school. When I check the temperature on my phone, I see that it is 19 degrees, but we are warm as toast inside. Rich cleaned out the wood pellet stove so a fire is going in the livingroom, too. Ethan is on the floor in front of it with his dog, playing video games.

I am at Rich’s desk and behind me is another window. Sammie the cat is on the sill looking out. When I stop to pet her, she honors me with immediate purring. Sarah just wandered over and carried her away, “Poor little Sam,” she coos.

Grace is texting with her friend Jenna, they are both all excited because the new Sherlock episode aired last night. They have been wondering for over a year how Sherlock faked his death….and now they (sort of) know.

Rich just got done running on the treadmill and I asked him if he would make me some coffee. “yes”

I don’t know….today is calm. Today is lovely, dark, and quiet. Christmas is over, Jacob’s birthday is over, New Years is over. I might be sad tomorrow, but today I enjoy the feeling of nothing pressing, nothing on the “to do” list.

I’ve enjoyed puttering around, making small little improvements, going through old stacks of papers, putting up new calendars, throwing things away, taking down the Christmas tree (with 9 nerf bullets in it!), wrapping up Joanna’s Christmas gifts to mail out later.

Rich and I took a nap on the couch.

Christmas was a week ago now, and I thought it would be fun to do a food post.

The Christmas Menu.

spiral cut Cracker barrel ham

mashed potato bake

homemade rolls

corn casserole

green bean casserole

strawberry congealed salad

MASHED POTATO BAKE

One day, while I was out, my friend Mary was babysitting the children for me. When I came home I discovered that Ethan had asked her to make this dish (we hadn’t made it yet) and she did. I couldn’t believe that she went to that much trouble for him, and it was so good! I consider these Ethan’s special mashed potatoes and I shared the recipe on my blog five years ago, when he turned 10. The original recipe is from Taste of Home magazine.

5 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 cup sour cream
2 pkgs (3 oz each) cream cheese, softened
3 T. butter
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. onion salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Boil potatoes 20-25 minutes until very tender, drain. In a large mixing bowl, mash potatoes. Add sour cream, cream cheese, butter, salts, and pepper; beat until fluffy. Transfer to a greased 2 quart baking dish. Dot with butter. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until heated through.

Yield: 8 servings (can easily increase recipe slightly by throwing in a few extra potatoes)

CORN CASSEROLE

Years ago, Rich’s grandma gave us a Hospital Guild community cookbook. As I was looking through it, the recipe for corn casserole caught my eye. I made it and we liked it. very much. I only realized later that it was his grandma’s very own contribution to the cookbook! I make this for every holiday meal.

1 can whole kernel corn (do not drain)
1 can cream-style corn
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup soft butter
1 pkg. Jiffy corn muffin mix
2 eggs

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl on medium speed until well combined. Pour into a greased 2 quart casserole dish. bake, uncovered, at 350 for 45 minutes or until lightly browned.

HOMEMADE ROLLS from this link.

My mom and I both use this recipe, but we only use half the sugar. The recipe is for loaves, but it is very easy to use the same dough to do rolls. One batch made one 9 by 13 pan of rolls, just enough for our dinner and some leftover, too.

GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE

First, I made my own condensed cream of mushroom soup substitute, using this recipe.

Drain 2 cans of French cut green beans, added the cream soup, and 1/2 tsp. of onion powder. Pour it into a baking dish, sprinkle with 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese. Crush some ritz crackers in a bowl and added 2 T of melted butter, toss with a fork and then sprinkle on top of casserole with your fingers. Bake at 350 until hot and bubbly.

CONGEALED STRAWBERRY SALAD

When I was visiting Jekyll Island this spring with my parents, I bought myself a cookbook called Mrs. Wilkes’ Boardinghouse Cookbook. This recipe was included.

1 (6 oz) pkg. strawberry jello
2 cups boiling water
1 1/4 cups sliced fresh or 1 (10 oz) pkg frozen strawberries
2 large bananas, mashed
1 cup pecans
1 (20 oz) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup dairy sour cream

Dissolve the gelatin in the hot water. Add the strawberries, bananas, pecans, and pineapple and mix. Pour half into a 9 by 9 inch dish. Chill until firm. Spread the sour cream over the firm half, then pour the remaining half over it and chill until firm. Serves 6-8

The food was received with grateful hearts.

Of course we all ate off fiestaware!

Rich took most of these pictures…..

The congealed strawberry salad is in that vintage pyrex dish (another favorite thing to collect at thrift shops).

After dinner we had energy to burn so I went outside and played two games of PIG with the boys (very fun) and Michael came over to visit, too.

He totally looks like a relative, doesn’t he? We’ve only known him for 2 years, from church. One of our first special services was seeing him get baptized at the apple farm. (in the pond). Anyway, he’s like a member of the family.

Nerf war!