Getting Out The Pretties…

I went to a tea party last night.  I haven’t been to a tea party in AGES.  It was great fun! It was to welcome a darling girl from the Ukraine to her new family here in the states.  A bunch of us brought our beloved teacup sets and all had a lovely tea party together.  The young lady was even given her own teacup and saucer to start her collection.

I have a collection of nearly 40 teacup sets. Both of my grandmothers had “teacup showers” when they got married, so when they passed away my sisters and I inherited their teacup sets. Two of my sisters didn’t want theirs, so I took their share too.  I LOVE these teacups.  They are so beautiful.  In cleaning up after this party, I even found my grandma’s initials written on tape on the bottom of one of the cups we didn’t use.  I thought that was so cool!

Here are a few of the sets that I inherited…

When I got home from the tea party, I was SO sad to put these all away again.  I have started storing them in a beautiful teacart that we inherited from Andy’s Grandma, but there is a cupboard on it and no windows for display. I really want to be able to see them.  So I decided to display three teacup sets at a time on top of the teacart.  Only two of these current sets belonged to my Grandmothers. The pink set closest to the camera came from the hospital gift shop where my dad had his heart valve replaced.  It is the only one I have purchased myself. The cup and saucer are both in the shape of a heart, and when you pour your tea it is heart shaped also.  I saw it in the window and HAD to have it.  I bought a lighter pink version for a friend who is very dear to my heart. Get it?

Closer shot of the pink heart set and inside the cup…so pretty!

     

When it came time to put the teacups away today, I decided to make a change.  I moved all of the Christmas dishes out of my china cabinet, and into the cupboard on the tea cart that used to hold the teacup sets. I only use them one season out of the year, and don’t really need to display them.  Now all of my teacup sets (besides the three on top of the tea cart) are on the bottom shelf of my china cabinet, and I can see them EVERY time I walk by.  With the Christmas dishes moved to the tea cart, I also had room to spread out my wedding china collection. As I was doing that I realized that I just don’t use my china enough.

When I was young and we were attending a bridal shower, my favorite thing was to look at the bride’s registry and see what china pattern she had picked out.  I even picked out a pattern when I was in my late teens for my “hope chest.” I didn’t end up getting married until my late twenties, so the original pattern I had picked out was discontinued.  It was fine, because the pattern I ended up picking is SO much more beautiful, and is named after a place that is very dear to my heart. I thought that was much more fitting. I couldn’t wait to register for china, and was SO SURPRISED when I got every piece I registered for, and then some.  I ended up returning several place settings and still ended up with 13! It was crazy.  I got the lovely tea/coffee pot and several serving dishes in my pattern as well.

As I said I just don’t use my china enough.  I’ve decided to change that. Once a month I’m going to cook a special meal, and I’m going to serve it with a nice tablecloth, candles, and my good china.  I think it will make some beautiful memories for the kids, and will make Morgan want to have some china of her own someday. I hope so….

The top shelf of my china cabinet (matches the tea cart and was also inherited from Andy’s Grandma) hold my good crystal goblets,  the coffee/tea pot and my china tea cups…Our German wedding cup is also there. Isn’t the pattern so pretty? It’s called “Ontario.” I love the shape of the teacups as well.

                    

The middle shelf holds all of my plates, serving dishes, cream/sugar dishes, salt/pepper, and two gravy boats I received…

And now the bottom shelf holds all of my beloved teacup sets. I just can’t stop walking by and looking at them.  I can’t wait to have some friends over for tea sometime. I only had to stack a few cups, otherwise they were all able to fit on one level.  The plates are all stacked at the other end of the shelf. 

I am so excited about this change today! I don’t know about you, but every time I rearrange like this, I feel like I have something new.  I found a few things I don’t need/want anymore, and that will all be going out in the next purge. So it was a good change in many ways….the main way being I can see my teacup collection any time I walk into my living room now. The second way is that I’ve remembered how much my china means to me and I want to use it more.  I’ll post pictures the first time we have a fancy dinner!

Last Lazy Days of Summer…

It is August, and we are soaking up the last weeks/days of summer.  As usual, this one has flown by! We packed a lot into this summer, and made some great family memories.

Here is a small picture recap of our summer…

My Beloved and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary and got to have dinner at a local restaurant we’ve always wanted to try…                                         

      We went on vacation to our favorite place on earth…

Went to our favorite amusement park with two fun new cousins…

We got to see Mr. & Mrs. Kirby together for the first time…such a great couple!

We took our school pictures on the beach and pier…

We got a family picture taken by our favorite marina…

Our beloved AZ cousins came to stay with us for a couple days…

We had lots of fun on the lake…

We saw relaxing sunsets…

We visited a chocolate factory, and celebrated Oma’s 80th birthday…

          

We had a cousin photo shoot…

We went out for midnight milkshakes to ring in Charlie’s birthday…

And then had a super sleepover with the cousins…

The Four Musketeers were together one last time…

We had a family reunion…where we enjoyed great food…

And took a big family picture…

That’s our summer in pictures! We only have a few weeks left before our new school adventure, so we’re soaking in as much as we can.  We’ll enjoy ourselves right through Labor Day weekend, then it’s back to the books!

I hope you have enjoyed your summer as much as we have!

Nothing says summer to me like freezer jam!

I have always loved freezer jam.  My grandma used to make it, my mom made it, and my sisters make it.  My favorite is strawberry.  There is nothing like a piece of toast with REAL strawberry jam on it, and a hot cup of tea.  I’m a big fan.  I made jam with my sister a couple summers ago, but I have never made it on my own.  Today I did!

I wanted to process a whole flat of strawberries into jam.  The only problem is that I’m not able to pick them.  If I did that I would not be able to walk the next day.  Thankfully, a dear friend offered to pick them for me, and I took her up on the offer! This afternoon she delivered a flat of strawberries, and I got to work.

Here was my list of ingredients minus the berries…

YES, that is 10 pounds of sugar! I actually had another bag of sugar off to the side, so I used nearly 2o pounds altogether.  Isn’t that insane?  I would not change the recipe one bit though.  It tastes SO GOOD! I don’t eat this stuff every day, so it will last us a long time. 

So a flat of strawberries, 20 pounds of sugar, lemon juice, and 9 packets of liquid pectin.  I also bought 16 plastic containers.  I really like the look of the glass mason jars, but I just can’t open them anymore.  I wanted something that is easy to get into.

The process…

I think I used every big bowl I own.  I bought them after my sister and I made jam once, because I knew I was going to try it myself at some point.  I love these bowls, and they came in very handy today.  I poured that whole bag of sugar into a bowl, because it was so much easier to divide it up that way.  That big blue bowl is holding all of the mashed strawberries. 

It’s a very simple recipe.  You just mash all of your berries, and then each batch takes 2 cups of berries, 4 cups of sugar (yikes!), 2 Tbsp of lemon juice, and one packet of the pectin.  You mix the berries and sugar and let it stand for 10 minutes.  Then you mix the lemon juice and pectin and stir it for 3 minutes.  Mix both mixtures together and pour them into containers leaving a 1/2 inch space at top of container.  Voila! You have freezer jam.  After two batches, I doubled my batches so it went faster.

The result…

I made 5 batches of jam, and ended up with 18 containers full.  I had to grab a couple extra containers out of my cupboard, because I ran out.  I had a bunch of sugar left over, and only one packet of the pectin left over as well.

The fun part was finding room in my fridge for all of these containers! It will be even more fun when I have to find room in the freezer tomorrow for them! These babies have to set for 24 hours before they are ready to eat or freeze.  I’m planning to keep one in my fridge at all times, and freeze the rest.  I’m going to share with some friends as well.

I LOVE freezer jam, and I’m so excited that I got to finally do this myself.

Raspberries will be ready soon, and I’ll be making a bit of that as well.  I’ll let you know how it all turns out!

These Are The Special Times…

She is 13 years old, and she will still crawl up in my lap, or crawl into my bed with me to snuggle.  I love it!

A Little Christmas Disappointment…

We had a lovely Christmas as a family this year.  Probably one of my most favorites ever.  We had my extended family the Saturday before, and the members of Andy’s family that have anything to do with us were out of town, so it was just the four of us.  I LOVE that! We had all day Christmas Eve and all day Christmas Day to ourselves.  It was fabulous.

We had planned to drive to Pennsylvania the day after Christmas, to visit my dear friend Deeds, who comes to the states from England every other year.  Two years ago she made the trip to my house, and I finally got to see her in person.  This year it was my turn, and I can’t tell you how much we were looking forward to this.  I was going to get to meet her extended family, take her family photos again, and spend more time with her than we got to last time.  I was looking forward to getting a picture of the two of us together.

Christmas Day, the route we would have taken got hit with a winter storm named Euclid.  I’d like to know when we started naming winter storms…just seems weird to me.  By Christmas night,  after reading the weather reports, we made the horribly difficult, and VERY disappointing decision to not chance the trip.  My poor girl immediately dissolved into great alligator tears.  She was SO looking forward to this trip.  I wanted to cry so bad, but I didn’t want to upset the kids…so I waited until I was by myself that night.  Words can’t describe how sad we were…

Andy and I wracked our brains to come up with something to make this up to the kids…as if anything would! We decided to book a room an hour north of us in the same hotel we spent our wedding night and 1st anniversary.  We’ve been there a few times with the lovies too.  It is beautiful, and has several fun pools, waterslides, indoor putt putt, and an arcade my lovies really enjoy.  Thankfully they had a room available, and we went for it!

We encountered no snow on the way up.  It all started once we were up there.  It snowed a bit up there, but home was hit with 5-6 inches while we were gone. I was so glad we were spared seeing that, because I think it would have depressed us more,  knowing the snow was what ruined our trip.  We wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the snow.

The kids ended up having a blast…we spoiled them rotten while we were there, letting them stay up really late, and letting them do things we don’t always allow at home (soda pop at meals, arcade games, late night snacks, etc.).  I think we succeeded in making up for the cancelled trip, and giving them something else to enjoy instead.

What this last minute trip did for me was to solidify in my mind how much I love these three people God has entrusted to me, how grateful I am that He gave them to me, and how much I LOVE to spend time with them…just them.  The kids thanked us profusely for taking them, and it made us all feel so much better.

Here are a few pictures from our trip…

 

          

            

We came home to 5 inches of snow, and a completely blocked driveway.  After several minutes of shoveling, we were able to get our van in the driveway!

I hope you all had a great Christmas.  Ours was wonderful, and we had a great time away, though we wish it had been in Pennsylvania!

Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas! I love the story of Jesus’ birth, I love the lights and decorations, I love the gifts, I love the traditions, I love everything about it! We have always celebrated Christmas at our house.  We never did Santa, but we have always had a tree, gifts, decorations, and lots of memorable traditions we have developed over the 17.5 years we’ve been a family.

We got together with my extended family last weekend. I love when all the cousins are together, and this year only two of them were missing.  Madison will always be missing, but one nephew and his wife were unable to be with us, and one brother in law.  We had a great time.  Here is a shot of the whole family together.  I’m ducking awkwardly in the front because we used my camera and it was on a timer.  I had to run in at the last minute…

At our house, Christmas Eve is my favorite day.  There is just something about that evening that seems “magical” to me.  I have always loved it.  Most of our family traditions occur on Christmas Eve, and I really like it that way.  This year I had all of my shopping done, and my gifts wrapped ahead of time, so I got to enjoy the whole day with my family.  We started out with a lovely brunch together…

In the evening we went to our church’s Christmas Eve service.  I got to play this year, and we had a guitar and cello playing as well.  It’s my favorite service of the whole year.

When we got home from the service, we had dinner, and then we all worked together to assemble our breakfast casserole for Christmas morning.  It has to refrigerate over night.

We each open one gift on Christmas Eve, and it is always a new pair of pajamas.  We put those on right away!

We all gathered on the couch for our next tradition, which is to watch “The Polar Express”.  Andy’s video camera takes still shots, so we snapped one of all of us ready to watch the movie…

We always stop the movie right before the hot cocoa scene, and I make cocoa for all of us to drink while we watch the movie.  I can’t remember how many times we’ve watched the movie, but I love it!

The next tradition is one Andy has been a part of since he was very small.  Every Christmas Eve his dad would gather the kids around him, and he’d read “Twas The Night Before Christmas” to them.  Oma would snap a picture, and it was fun to see how the pictures changed over the years.  One Christmas when our kids were small, Oma & Opa gifted us with a copy of the same book Opa would read to the kids.  They included pictures of Andy and his siblings, and we have added our own since we started this tradition with our own kids.  As I said, we never did Santa here, but I love the tradition, so we have kept it up.  That was next on the agenda after the movie last night.  I snapped a picture, and my lovies are laughing, because I know the story by memory now, and I was reciting along with dramatic hand signals…

Then I just snapped a picture of them, because I love them!

We sent the kids to bed after this, and I got stockings ready.  The kids woke us up around 9:30 on Christmas morning, and we always head right to the stockings.  It’s kind of fun now that the kids are older, and they do a stocking for me.  :)

After stockings, we head to the living room for gifts.  Before we open our gifts, I get to read several Scripture passages.  This is my favorite tradition on Christmas day.  We read Isaiah 9, Micah 5:2, and the accounts of Christ’s birth from Matthew 1, and Luke 2.  Daddy prays for us, and then we open gifts.

It is also fun to open the gifts that the kids now choose for us.  Morgan is so thoughtful, and remembers EVERYTHING you told her you would like :).  I got a small calendar that I bought for my dear friend Ellen.  Morgan was with me, and knew that I was almost tempted to keep it for myself.  She bought it for me for Christmas. :) It has an old hymn for each day coupled with Scripture.  I plan to post them on FB this year, and just enjoy each day’s entry.  I also got a beautiful hot beverage cup, and a Paris cover for my iPhone…

After we opened our gifts, we sat down to our breakfast casserole, fresh croissants, cinnamon rolls, and juice.  I had a cup of tea in my new cup :)

We’ve just been enjoying our gifts today, and each other’s company.  We have to pack tonight for a small trip to see a dear friend of mine, and the kids are VERY excited to get to stay in a lovely hotel with a huge pool.  It will be the first trip in our new van, and it will be great to take some new movies we got for Christmas and watch them on the way.

I hope you have had a blessed Christmas! My heart has ached so much this week for the dear people in Newtown, CT who are having a much different Christmas than they anticipated this year.  How I pray that God will draw near to them, and truly be their Emmanuel (God with us) this Christmas.  We have so much to be thankful for…we’re all together here another year.

May the joy of this Christmas fill your hearts and minds, and cause you to reflect on the REAL reason we celebrate…the ONE Who came so that we could have life everlasting.  Happy Birthday Jesus…how we LOVE you and worship You!

I leave you with a few more pictures of our day…