What do you mean SCHOOL IS CLOSED?!?!?!

Not only is school closed today but it didn't get posted until AFTER all four kids were up and getting ready. ARGH!

I had planned on sewing the kids Christmas PJ's yesterday and Zack came home sick. No problem I will do them Tuesday... Okay I guess now I will be doing them Wednesday. Here is a picture of the pj's I made for them last year.

2005 PJ's... Look how small Gunner is. It is our first Christmas with him.

2004 PJ's... I helped the kids make their own this year. They picked their fabric and they helped sew. The girls tops didn't work out so well because they were a bit revealing so the girls had to wear tank tops under them. This was the last year I bothered with tops because the after Christmas the kids always go back to wearing tank tops or t-shirts anyways.

You see a theme, for the last 4 years or so they have been pants for the girls because they just don't wear the dress-type pj's and if I am going to make them I want them to wear them. I am very excited about this year's pj's because of the fabric I found for them. You will have to wait 'till after Christmas to see them since the girls look at my blog.

So instead today I will be working on a purse that Julie ordered at the Craft Fair at church a couple weeks ago.
Smiles!

Marker wars!

Anna started something Sunday afternoon that I just had to finish in a "Grand Fashion". You may not know but washable markers do come off skin with a little help of soap so when we have Youth Retreats we let the kids have marker fights as long as they don't mark any of the adults faces (not that those sweet middle schoolers would ever try). Well I guess Anna is getting excited about the upcoming Youth Retreat, Jan. 5, and just had to tease mom a little by marking my hand and giggling. I could only stand her teasing for just so long and then I had to "school" my little lady. We were both laughing so hard at one point I thought I would wet my pants. She was holding four capped markers in her hand and I was trying to get them away from her. I pinned her on the floor and grabbed her handful of weapons. I got all the markers with none of the caps. She was holding on to the cap ends. We both realized what happened at the same time (picture a light bulb above my head here) "Mom is now armed and dangerous!" Since Anna's t-shirt had got pulled up in the process I had the perfect canvas (her back) for my art work. Although I was laughing so hard it was hard to even hold her down.

Here she is not letting me get a proper picture of my handy work.

This is a picture of one of Anna's friends at last years Youth Retreat. You can see they have TONS of fun with the marker wars.

Smiles!

Yummy!

Friday night Melissa stopped by and dropped off a wonderful surprise Christmas gift of homemade goodies that she spent all afternoon making and an individual little gift for every member of our family. The picture only shows a small portion of what she gave us. We love you Melissa!!!

Saturday was our family Christmas baking day. To start the day Kaylyn and I made Stuffed French Toast that I got from Sarah. Although I didn't make the Fruit topping for it even though it sounded absolutely delicious to me I don't think the rest of the clan would have been brave enough to try it over their much loved maple syrup.

Once everyone was fed it was time to get busy. First on our list was a recipe that Lauren shared from Family Fun for Holiday Pretzel Squares.


Next up, Easy Peanut Butter Cookies we were going to dip these in chocolate like this but I miss calculated my chocolate and ran short. They taste great anyway so we will save that thought for later.

Somewhere in there we also made White Chocolate Chex Mix.


After that we moved on to dipped pretzel rods. I just melt some chocolate squares. After they dip them in the chocolate they rolled them in chopped peppermint, chopped nuts, or rice crispies.

The last thing on the agenda was Peanut Clusters. This is a super easy recipe. It sits in the crock pot while we make the other stuff and then you just drop it by spoonful onto parchment paper.

Anna thought we also needed a couple pictures of the messy kitchen. The sad thing is I left it not much better than these pictures because Mark and I had to be at a wedding at 2pm.

Anna and Kaylyn did a great job of getting all the food taken care of while we were gone. My most wonderful hubby cleaned up the rest of the kitchen after church this morning. I had to stay for 2nd service to help in YC&W. I love that man!

As I type he is cleaning up from making eggs, bacon, and toast from homemade bread a wonderful lady from church, Noreen, gave us. She loves Mark so we are blessed with her homemade bread on occasion and he blesses her with flowers from work.

Smiles!

Soup-Tacular

Since I just posted this soup recipe a little while back I decided to just put a link to it. I know some of you have tried it already. We just had it again last night and I have yummy left-overs in the fridge for my lunch today. Can't wait!http://zaankalisadventures.blogspot.com/2007/11/lynneas-potato-soup.html

Smiles

Zack's solo

Yeah! I finally got a video to work, however you see it still isn't directly through the blogger upload. Instead I uploaded it to my Google account and pasted it in here. Oh well.

Edited:Maybe I spoke to soon... I still haven't been able to view it on this page yet. Maybe it is still loading somewhere out in cyber world. One can only hope. If it doesn't show up try going here to see it.

Edited AGAIN! I am giving up on Google and switching to YouTube. I try not to use YouTube after having a very graphic video coming up on it infront of my 12 year-old but I am hoping that won't happen again.

Zack had to sing for the Senior Citizen's Program that his High School does every year. He had a solo last year also and never told me. I found out from people at church "your son sings so lovely".

"Zack, what is she talking about?" (I know he sings well but when we she have heard him)

"Oh yeah, I had a solo at school last Wednesday at the Senior Citizen's Christmas Program."

"I am at home all day why wouldn't you have told me this so I could have seen it?!?!?!"

"You would've come to watch?"

"Are you serious? When don't I watch you (sports, choir) am I not always there with my camera?"

He didn't make that same mistake this year. I guess I stressed it loud enough last year.

The only bummer is my camera's batteries went dead but I at least got his solo. They did a great job!

Edited yet one more time: Since I got videos to work I decided to add Kaylyn's and the room at The Inn at Bay Harbor that we stayed at last weekend. I should have turned on the lights before I started taking the video, sorry.

Kaylyn's concert

Doesn't Mark looked thrilled to be waiting for Kaylyn's concert to start?

Kaylyn started playing the clarinet in band and she still practices it often but she has switched to the flute and plays it quite well also. She also plays the piano. Are you getting a theme? Kaylyn loves music.
Here she is playing Jingle Bells with all of the bands together at the end as the "Grand Finale".

Random questions?

1.Is anyone else having trouble uploading videos directly into Blogger? I keep trying both with the room at the Inn and now with Kaylyn's concert last night and they keep failing? It is getting quite frustrating to me. I have uploaded videos before and I am using the same camera and software. Argh!

2. Is there somewhere specific you can go to get a "Christmas" header for your blog?

Smiles!

Can you say "Pampered"?

First in regards to my last post. Little Noah is doing great! Thank you for all your prayers and please continue to pray for him and the family as they wait his home coming.

I have a hubby that loves to pamper me and I love him for it! He took me to Petoskey this weekend to stay at The Inn at Bay Harbor and it was wonderful!!!

Here is sweet hubby filling up before we hit the road. You can't tell but there is no snow on the ground here and hubby isn't wearing a coat.

We left our house Friday around 1pm. Mark had taken half a day off from work. First stop, Jimmy John's for lunch.

We are about 30 minutes from home in the next picture and if you can see the temp on the mirror it says 18 degrees Brrrrr! You will also notice the ground is covered in that white stuff that we didn't have at home.

Hubby tells me to reach behind his seat for my first surprise.

He had a gift bag for me and in it was a bottle of wine, a can of whole cashews, a King size Kit Kat bar, a three CD pack of Celtic music (he thought it was the Celtic woman and was bummed when he realized he read it wrong but it was still nice music), a berry smelling candle, and hand warmers (for while we are shopping downtown Petosky on Saturday in case it is really cold I can put one in each coat pocket).

We are about half way now. There are flurries on and off but the roads are still pretty good.

We arrived at the Inn just before 5pm. Just in time for my 5 o'clock appointment at the Spa. Oh yeah, my hubby knows how to start the weekend off right.

I was treated with a 75 min. Swedish Massage to start with. Then I used their ladies room to take a shower and do my hair. Everything I needed was supplied. (My hair gets a little messy after the massage and I knew dear hubby had fancy dinner plans.) Then off to get a manicure. That took until 7:20pm. Hubby was waiting for me when I got out and he took me up to our room which I hadn't seen yet because we got there a little later then planned.

Time to get dressed to go out for dinner but I don't want to ruin my new manicure. "Will you help me undress and dress?" He planned that too didn't he. Smiles!

We ate at Latitude Restaurant. (Picture taken Saturday morning in the daylight) We started the meal with Lobster Roll for an appetizer and then I had the Fire Roasted Pork Tenderloin and Mark had the Char-Grilled Beef Filet. The servings were HUGE I couldn't even eat half of my meal but Mark was gracious enough to not let it be wasted.

Back to the Inn for a surprise "turn-down" service that Mark had requested. A hot bath was already drawn for me.

I wasn't able to really "sleep in" Saturday morning because my internal alarm clock woke me up so I decided to make the most of that tub that I can stretch my legs out straight out in (and at 5'10" that says a whole lot for that tub). Mark was in his glory while I soaked he was watching hunting shows. We don't have cable so he seen this a a HUGE bonus for him. Then it was time to say goodbye to our wonderful view and go get us some breakfast/lunch at Chandler's and do some shopping.

We didn't shop downtown long because of the looming forecast (freezing rain and snow). We were heading home by 2pm. We hit a couple of stores back in Grand Rapids and then we ended our laid back, relaxing weekend the same way we started it with a stop at Jimmy John's for dinner. (We like Jimmy John's can ya tell?)

Mark and I agreed that this had to be our most relaxing weekend ever. We never felt rushed. It was just wonderful!

I took a short video (really bad lighting) of the room and if I can get it to upload I will post it so you can get the "full effect" of my wonderful getaway retreat.

Smiles!

Prayers needed

Please keep Carl and Tess in your prayers today. They left for the hospital for an emergency c-section. They are at 34 weeks. They have a lot of history with complications with prior pregnancies and I know they would appreciate all your prayers.

What an eye opener!

Last night I took my youth group girls (6-8th graders) along with the 8th grade boys (4 of them) and their leader, Jeff, to a homeless mission, Degage, in downtown Grand Rapids to drop off coats and blankets that we as a church had collected. We parked about 100 yards away from the building because there were vehicles parked in front of the building. This means that we had to walk in front of one building, Goodwill, and cross over one intersection to get to the building. So we park and get the boxes out of the back of my Suburban. The boys took the really big box and the girls took the smaller box. These boxes were open on top so that people could just drop the coats and blankets inside them.

Degage feeds the homeless at 7:30pm and we arrived a little before 7pm which meant there were a lot of homeless people standing around on the corner waiting to go inside. Well the minute they seen us they pretty much surrounded us to see "whatcha got there" and they started to just take stuff right out of the boxes. Now I have been here before so I was slightly more "prepared" for what we were going to be seeing then the kids but I didn't expect people to start helping themselves. The kids were so taken back that they literally froze, eyes big as saucers, while the men continued to help themselves to the contents in their boxes. Jeff and I quickly came to the rescue (not that we had left the kids but our group and the homeless group had quickly become one big group) and moved the kids along to put an end to it but the kids were still overwhelmed. By the time we got in the building I was laughing and explained to the lady, Joy, who was going to give us the tour that we didn't have quite as much to donate as we did when we got out of the car. One of the boxes only had one coat left in it.

I was also asked by one gentleman if I had just $1.50 that I could spare. I hadn't even taken a purse for that very reason and explained to him that I had nothing on me. One of my girls leaned in and whispered in my ear "I have $7 in my pocket may I give it to these people?" I quickly,quietly said no and told her I would explain later. I told Joy about this while she was giving us our tour and asked her if she could explain to all the kids why that wouldn't have been a good idea. She jumped right in and explained it very well and told the kids if the wanted to give them something they could buy food vouchers and then give them to the people that way they wouldn't be able to use it on alcohol or drugs.

Needless to say the ride home the girls couldn't stop talking so it gave me a lot to discus with them. Our Youth Pastor sends the 8th graders every year and the 6th and 7th graders know this so they look forward to it. My daughter, Anna, was one of the girls to go tonight and she would not let me forget that tonight was THE night. It is funny then to take them and see that they really had no idea what they were in for. I was not looking forward to it because I had gone 2 years ago with a group and we had a man knocking on our van window asking for stuff before we even got out and I hadn't been there before that and it caught me way off guard. As soon as we explained to him we didn't have any money he left but it had shaken up the groups of kids we brought then also. I do believe it is a good experience for the kids I just wish I would have remembered to pray with the kids when we got in the Suburban before we left church and prepared them a little for what we were heading out to do. It would have helped to prepare me also.

I also made a mental note to tell Brandon (the youth pastor) that next time we should bring the coats and blankets in closed bags so it doesn't draw as much attention. (chuckles)

Smiles!

"The Golden Compass", don't be fooled.

Tonya alerted her readers about this movie a few days ago. She also mentioned that the books the movie is based off from are in the stores already for Christmas sales. Snopes explains that the author of the books is an atheist who "hates God". I went to Focus on the Family and found this article...

"Atheism for kids. That is what Philip Pullman sells. It is his hope that The Golden Compass, which stars Nicole Kidman and opens Dec. 7, will entice parents to buy his trilogy as a Christmas gift. It is our hope that the film fails to meet box office expectations and that his books attract few buyers. We are doing much more than hoping — we are conducting a nationwide two-month protest of Pullman's work and the film. To that end, we have prepared a booklet, The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked, that tears the mask off the movie. It is not our position that the movie will strike Christians as troubling. Then why the protest? Even though the film is based on the least offensive of the three books, and even though it is clear that the producers are watering down the most despicable elements — so as to make money and not anger Christians — the fact remains that the movie is bait for the books. ... We are fighting a deceitful stealth campaign on the part of the film's producers. Our goal is to educate Christians so that they know exactly what the film's pernicious agenda really is." — Catholic League president Bill Donohue [Source: catholicleague.org, 10/9/07 c&e]

This also caught my attention in an e-mail I received from a friend..

"The anti-religious themes get progressively stronger with each book in the trilogy; in the final installment, the characters succeed in killing a character called God — who turns out to be a phony, and not God after all. The series has soared to the top of bestseller lists in the U.K. and other countries but has not caught on in the United States."

My husband mentioned this morning that the author is a hypocrite. "He claims to be an atheist (doesn't believe in God) and then uses God in his books. How can he write about something he claims doesn't exists?" I thought that was kinda funny.

Smiles!

What does "Meme" mean anyway?

I was tagged by Cheri and Kim to do this Meme. I have seen these going around and have wondered what Meme really means. I was thinking it was pronounced "me-me". It is not. I discovered it rhymes with dream. So now that I have educated myself this morning I will do the Meme that was requested of me.

8 Random Facts Meme

1. I have bungee jumped and my father has a video to prove it. (and no I won't be doing it again)
2. I have an Associates Degree in Technical Drafting and Tool Design from Ferris State University. (not so girlie after all)
3. I was a cheerleader in High School. (okay maybe a little girlie yet)
4. I had my 4th child 2 days after my 30th birthday. (Kim might find that funny compared to her 3rd fact)
5. I loved being pregnant. (and would love to be pregnant again but dear hubby has made certain that that can't happen again)
6. I am the 5th "J" in my family. (John and Judy had Jodi, Julie, and Jennifer and owned a dog named Joker)
7. I was never given a middle name just a middle initial. (the story goes that they couldn't think of a good middle name and my father said you never use your middle name anyway because documents just ask for a middle initial so they just gave me an "L" yup weird!)
8. When Mark and I got married we wanted to have 6 kids. (now number 5 makes more sense doesn't it, I think I got cheated somehow)

So there you go. I hope that was "random" enough for y'all.

I will tag...
Jenni
Jennifer
Jenna
Jennifer
(am I making you laugh yet?)
Jennifer
I was hoping for 8 but this is all I got so I will add...
Anna
Kaylyn
because they REALLY need a reason to update.

Smiles!

Good Fun!

So what do you do after you have eaten so much that you can't eat no more?

Board games of course.

Here is my favorite game, Settlers of Catan. Zack and I taught my nephew Brandon and Mark how to play it. Pastor Brandon (sorry to be so formal and all but I don't want everyone confusing you with my previously mentioned nephew) can appreciate this picture of Zack asking his dad what he would like to trade. I think Mark got just as frustrated with Zack as Pastor Brandon did when we played it in Chicago with the "that doesn't even make sense" trades Zack tries to offer.


I also warned both Mark and my nephew not to tell Zack what they had in their hand just in case Zack draws a Monopoly card and my quick learnin' hubby used it against Zack and me.


Pastor Brandon does this sound familiar...

Mark: "Zack you got any ore?"

Zack: "Yeah, but I'm not giving it to you!"

Mark: "Jen you got any ore?"

Jen: "Yeah but I really can't trade it."

Mark flips his Monopoly card and says (all proud of himself like), "Everyone hand over your ore."

Zack and Jen: "That's just not right!"

Then Mark proceeded to laugh so hard Zack asked him if he was going to be okay because Mark's face was beat red and he started coughing like crazy. That'll teach him to not be so scandalous. I had to include that last word (scandalous) 'cause it was Zack's "word of the day" apparently because he kept repeating it.



Mark had just tons of energy because he had spent the afternoon at my mother's house doing a lot of this during the football game...


Note the remote on his lap even though he fell asleep for almost an hour and then the rest of the guys had to watch the football game over his snoring. I am glad he feels so at home my my father's chair.



Smiles!

So much to be thankful for...

Libby must have been telling her Great Grandma something interesting. Aunt Jodi was listening in on it also.

My sister Julie is talking to my Grandmother. Julie is the excited mother-to-be of the baby represented in the ticker on the side. Isn't she just glowing? I am so excited for her!
Two of the important men in my life are carving the turkeys. That is right, we have 2 turkeys every year. My mother roasts one traditional turkey in the oven and my father deep fries a second turkey. I look forward to the deep fried turkey because it is so moist and juicy. That is my Grandma in between them pointing out something to her son.
I think my dad is wondering what is taking Mark so long to carve that bird since he has finished carving his already. In the background is my busy mother and I am bummed now that I realize I didn't get any pictures of her because she was busy at work preparing for us. I will do better at Christmas, I promise.

Here is my father sitting next to his mother at the head of the table. He is deciding how he is going to sign his name this year on the table cloth. And Grandma is giving me her "Jenny put that camera away right now" look. I love you Grandma and I want pictures of you for the scrap books. She wasn't really mad at me she was just being funny. I don't think she has ever really been mad at me.
Here is my most favorite part of the entire meal my mother's pumpkin pie. My sister can't eat flour so I even ate her crust for her. It is the best crust ever I just love it!
Do you see the names on the table cloth? Every year whoever is sitting around the table signs the table cloth with a pencil then my sister takes it home and embroiders over the name with floss. She uses a different color for every year. It is really quite a keepsake.
Around the table starting with Grandma.
Grandpa, Uncle Jer, nephew Derek, Brother-in-love Randy, hubby Mark, brother-in-love Leo. My sister Jodi is sitting next to Randy but Mark is kinda blocking her out of the picture.
Here is my Grandpa trying to decide how to sign the table cloth this year and Grandma giving her two cents.

Here is my handsome son watching him some football. What would Thanksgiving be without a little of the the Detroit Lions. Isn't he handsome? I am so proud of the young man he is becoming. Check it out, in the background way to the left is my mother again still busy at work.

I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends.
Smiles!