I thought it would be fun to make a slide show of photos from 2008 and pick one from each month of the year. Summertime got a little tough because I had so many to choose from. I hope you enjoy seeing some of the things we saw and did over 2008. Best wishes to you and yours for the New Year!
There's a new picture book out called Angeline Jellybean, written by Crystalee Calderwood, illustrated by Stephen Macquignon and published by 4RV Publishing. It's a delightful story about a little girl who loves jellybeans. Angeline loves jellybeans so much that she wants to eat them all the time. When people try to convince her to try new foods, she replies, "Blah!" My boys laughed every time Angeline said that. For her birthday, Angeline gets a big bag of jellybeans and eats them until she feels sick. Boy, can I relate to that! This is a cute book for younger children that will hopefully encourage them to try new foods without being preachy. The story is full of charming rhymes, color references and vivid illustrations of favorite holidays and special events that kids love so much.
This gives whole new meaning to the songs, "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and "Frosty the Snowman". G.I. Joe was so excited to build a snowman that he forgot to put pants on. But of course, I can't help but think of the song "Snow Hey Oh" by the famous band, the Red Hot Chilly Peckers --
But not to worry, Nathan got him back good ...
My cat Belle is mean, but cute. She has a tiny nose with a little streak of orange running up it. She also has orange fur on her feet. All of her brothers and sisters were orange tabby cats. Belle was the oddball of the litter. Unlike her siblings, she just got a splattering of orange here and there. She's fun to photograph because she's cute, but as with any cat, taking pictures of her with a flash is difficult. Her eyes always glow and she looks like she has laser eyes. Why do cats eyes glow, but human eyes turn red? 
For Christmas we got SNOW, SNOW and more SNOW! There was no shortage of snow on Christmas Day. In fact, our deck had only been halfway shoveled off and the snow on the other side was getting too thick. Rick & I went outside and shoveled nearly 20 inches off, all the while several more inches took its place. This picture shows our 6 mini trees out front, or what's left of them. These trees are 2 feet tall. It is snowing really good right now too and the forecast doesn't show any signs of letting up soon. From what I can see, a lot of places are being pounded with snow right now. It's a good thing Santa brought us snowshoes for Christmas. We tried them out on Christmas Day and stomped around the yard a bit. Without them, you sink up to your knees. I even got out my XC skis yesterday and slide around the yard a bit. That was fun. The snow is still too powdery to make snowmen, but the boys have had fun sledding. I hope everyone is staying warm -- and dry! One of the best gifts we've ever gotten was 2 years ago when my SIL sent us a boot dryer. That thing has been running nonstop lately. Merry Christmas everyone and I wish you all the absolute best for 2009!
Thoroughly mix butter and sugar. Blend in egg and vanilla and combine until fluffy. Stir together flour, soda and cream of tartar. Add to butter mixture. Cover and chill one hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough until approximately 1/4 inch thick on lightly floured board. Cut out desired shapes. Place on baking sheet and bake approximately 6 minutes or until edges are just beginning to brown. Remove and coll on racks. Makes about 4-dozen cookies.
SUGAR COOKIE ICING GLAZE
Combine all ingredients together until lumps disappear. You may tint glaze with a drop or two of food coloring. Dip tops of cooled cookies into glaze and wipe off excess. Sprinkle with colored sugars, if desired. This glaze dries fairly hard, so cookies are easy to wrap or stack.
If you like Rum Balls, check out Sharon's blog by clicking here. Yum!
Here are some pictures of our outside Christmas lights. These were taken before we got a bunch of snow. The little trees are almost all covered up now and we can barely see the lights on the rails.
This last one is a little blurry, but it was below zero when I took it, so I didn't feel like spending a whole lot of time out there fiddling with my camera. But this is how the house looks at night.
Elysabeth just gave me the “Your Blog is Fabulous” Award. I'm told the rules of the award are simple: Write about 5 addictions you have and then pass the award on to the 5 blogs that you think are fabulous. Here are my 5 addictions, and funny enough, they all begin with the letter C!I need to pass this award onto 5 people that I feel have fabulous blogs. I think a lot of people have fabulous blogs, but I can only include 5 of them. I would like to give this award to --
As a kid, my favorite holiday book was The Sweet Smell of Christmas written by Patricia M. Scarry and illustrated by JP Miller. It was originally published in 1970 by Golden Books, so I would have been 5-years-old then. For me, this book had it all -- fun story, cute illustrations and little stickers to scratch-and-sniff. I read-and-scratched this book until the stickers were ripped-and-worn from being scratched-and-sniffed so much. It was a fun book. When I got older, way after I had outgrown the book, I bought two more copies. I knew this would be a book I wanted to share with my kids. We still have those two copies.
I can't knit to save my life. I don't even own a pair of knitting needles. My mom used to knit and she'd let me pick out yarn to make me sweaters. I usually picked out some wild color, like the hottest pink I could find. They probably saw my sweaters from space. I loved watching my mom knit -- it looked relaxing. Christmas of 1974, all I wanted was a Knit Magic machine by Mattel. They had just came out and were all the rage. I was 9 and my wish was granted that year. In an old photo, I can see the very corner of the machine. It was the same year I got a giant Barbie head. That was a fun Christmas. According to the booklet you could make all sorts of things, from stuffed animals to Barbie dresses. I was so excited to get it. I remember playing around with it for hours. I remember getting frustrated when I messed up. I don't recall anything I made with it in particular. Over the years, it either got pushed aside, broken or tossed out and then it was only a fond childhood memory. Then came Ebay ...
Several years ago I looked for Knit Magic machines on Ebay and ordered one. It had to be an original one from 1974 just like the one I had. I don't know why I felt the need to have it again, but I did. It was right about the time that long, skinny scarves were popular. Since all I could ever make with it was a tube, I figured I'd give that a try. The funny thing is -- the darn thing worked! I've made a bunch of scarves with this silly little toy. Of course, nowadays long, skinny scarves aren't in as much, but I still like making them. Last year I made my daughter one for Christmas using a camouflage colored yarn. I've made over 10 of these scarves. Another thing I've made are draft stoppers for our doors. I knitted really long tubes and then took an old pair of pantyhose and filled it with rice. I put the pantyhose/rice in the knitted tube and stick them by all the doors in the winter to keep out the cold air. Works like a charm. Some of my scarves are pictured below. 
However, it's a silly sight to see a grown woman playing with her 1974 knitting toy. I get razzed about it all the time. I've seen newer knitting machine toys, but I still like my old one. I don't think they were meant to be worked so hard, so it probably won't last forever. I'll have to decide to replace it with another original or go for a newer model. The other day I found this really cool yarn at Walmart. It was red, pink and white. It reminded me of a candy cane, so I got some to make a scarf. Turns out, the skein wasn't long enough so I had to go back for more. I wasn't sure if I could tie the ends together, but I gave it a try. It didn't like going over the knot very well, but it worked. I got the whole scarf done and sat it down on the floor in my room. All I had left to do was remove it from the machine and tie up the ends. A few hours later I come up to do it and noticed it was all jacked up. Someone had turned the crank backwards. Rick tried to blame it on the cat, but it turns out it was Nathan. He apologized after the discovery was made, but I don't know if he was going to tell me on his own. So, I had to rip the whole thing out and start it all over again. I think he knows not to play with MY toys now. I would still love to learn how to knit for real someday. In the meantime, I'll have to settle for my ridiculous little toy. 
What's the deal with fruitcake? Most people I know hate fruitcake. It's become a source of jokes at Christmas, but why? What's so horrible about it? It had been years since I tasted fruitcake. I think the last time I did, I was a little girl at one of my mom's hospital Christmas parties. I didn't like it. It was sticky, chunky and weird. That was a long time ago. Afterall, I'm older now and my tastes have changed. Cake made with nuts and candied fruits doesn't sound that bad. Could fruitcake really be that horrible? My curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to try it again. 
So why the fuss over fruitcake? Other than some people not liking it, why has it become a source of holiday ridicule? Fruitcake dates back to ancient Rome where it was made with pomegranate seeds, raisins and pine nuts. Later alcohol was used and the cakes were soaked in brandy, which preserved them. Did you know fruitcakes can take over a month to make? After baking, they're brushed with brandy once or twice a week. It's a long process to make a good one. The cake I tried last night didn't have alcohol, but I think the one I tried as a kid did. I was probably around 10 years old and it sounds like something my mom would let me do. No wonder I didn't like it. She nearly scared me off fruitcake for life. Johnny Carson joked that there was only one fruitcake in the world and it was constantly passed from family to family each Christmas. I'm sure that didn't help the poor fruitcake's reputation. Fruitcake is like eggnog -- you love it or hate it. There is no in between. I'd like to try a good brandy soaked fruitcake with a glass of spiced rum eggnog. I can honestly say I've finally turned into my mother. 
The following list are those I feel are deserving of this award. They're people who aren't afraid to say it how they see it, those who tell the Honest Scrap. I know a lot of people who deserve this, but I can only list 7 of them --
You can use the Honest Scrap Award logo on your blog, providing you follow the guidelines and list 10 honest things about yourself and nominate 7 other bloggers. Have fun, be honest and keep telling it like it is!
As some of you know, "Carol of the Bells" is my all-time favorite Christmas song. I love it so much that I actually collect this song. I have over 30 versions of it on a playlist on my iPod. Each one is totally different and I have it done with bells, piano, jazz, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harp, violin, fiddle, harmonica, kids, surf, rap, babies, even cats and dogs! I've heard some of Straight No Chaser before, but recently my friend Nancy showed me this video clip. I knew I had to have it and add it to my collection. Isn't it awesome? Rick bought the entire CD from iTunes and all of their songs are amazing. Check them out, if you haven't already. "Carol of the Bells" is a beautiful song and it has been done in so many interesting ways. If you ever hear any good ones, please keep me in mind because I'm always looking to add to my collection. Thanks!
I wanted to share 3 pictures today. This first one I used for our Christmas cards last year. My son Nathan drew it. He loves birds and knew how much I loved nativities, so he combined the two. I thought it was really cute. It's a little hard to see, but the Baby Jesus eagle only has his 2 little feet sticking out of the egg. The angels and the Mary eagles all have their eyes closed like they're praying. Too cute. The pictures below are of an ornament my oldest daughter Nichelle made for me last Christmas. One side has the Holy Family and the other side has the Wise Men. I was really stunned by her artwork on this one. I know I'm biased, but my kids are awesome.
It's -7 degrees right now and I think our high for the day is going to be -2. I guess it will be a good day to stay home, fire up the woodstove and throw something in the crock-pot. We had to go into town yesterday and it was 3 degrees at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Just walking from Target to the car was an experience. As you know, all this is new to me, so I had fun being out for a short time. People are telling us we haven't had an extreme winter here since 1997, so I'm curious when the next big one will be. Anyway, I think today is a good day to stay inside, drink some coffee and maybe get some things done around here. I might even knit a scarf -- kinda, sorta, maybe.
I guess today isn't a good day to sit on the deck for coffee & donuts. I know other parts of the country have been pounded with snow and ice storms, but in Montana it's been below normal. We finally got some good snowfall last night. I was listening to the weather radio this morning and they are saying Glacier National Park is expecting over 8 inches before 5pm with winds up to 35mph. They're saying the low will be -40 to -50 degrees. We're about an hour south of the park, so it won't get that cold here. If I wasn't afraid of the car breaking down and us all dying, I'd love to go up there to experience it. I'm talking about getting out of the warm car, saying "Brrr!" and then getting back in the warm car. I've never felt it that cold before. They're saying for our area to expect temps in the -20s though, so I guess that will be close enough. I think we're due for more snow today as well as all of next week. I spent 40+ years in sunny Southern California, so all this snow & cold stuff is still fun for me.
Oh, and since I've been posting about some of the crafts the kids have made, I thought I'd put up a picture of what they did yesterday. We traced their hands on black foam and then they glued cotton balls on them to make little lamb ornaments. We added a loop of ribbon and they look really cute hanging on the Christmas tree. It's a good thing we have a 9 foot tall Christmas tree to fit all these ornaments. If we keep at it, I might have to start looking around for a taller one. We have about another foot we can go in the corner of the room. If we were to put the tree in the center of our great room, we could probably fit a 15 foot tall tree at least. I made 4 more angels out of recycled Christmas cards last night, so I just might have to find a taller tree!
When we started homeschooling, my girls were in the 4th and 2nd grades. They loved crafts and we did tons of them. When you look at our tree, it's covered in homemade ornaments the kids have made. One of my favorites is one Nichelle did in school when she was 4 years old. It's a silver bell made out of an egg carton cup, covered in tin foil with a pipe cleaner and bell attached to it. It's so simple, but one of my favorites. The boys are in 4th and 1st grade this year. They love crafts too, but they're a little less patient than the girls were, so I keep things simple. This picture is of my boys this week, being goofy as always. We made star ornaments out of popsicle sticks and sequins. Nathan wanted to do a Star of David and Neil decided to do a traditional star. Sometimes crafts can be pretty complicated, but I cheated and used pre-colored sticks and adhesive sequins. The only thing I helped was with the hot glue gun so we wouldn't have to wait hours for them to dry. The funny thing is, because they were so simple, my boys enjoyed making them even more. The girls could sit there for hours, cutting things out, gluing stuff on, getting things just right. The boys like things fast and easy -- must be a boy thing! We made egg cup bells yesterday and on Monday we turned last year's Christmas cards into angels.
This other picture is of me taken sometime in the 70s. Even though I'm painting eggs here, I'm sure this was a Christmas project. I remember having this awesome Christmas craft book that had all sorts of fun projects. One of them was to blow out the inside of eggs and paint them into Christmas ornaments. I think that's what I'm doing here and I'd guess that was the book behind me on the couch. I've searched for that book online, but haven't been able to find it. I remember doing so many fun projects. I'd love to find an old copy of it, but I can't remember the name. I always loved doing crafts, whether it be in school or at home. I remember Christmas fondly because I kept myself busy making crafts. Today the boys are making peace doves and tomorrow they'll make handprint lambs. Then after school we're heading to the library to drop off some books and then over to Joann's Crafts. I found a handful of old Christmas cards the other day and I want to get more beads to turn them into little angel ornaments. Tis the Season to be Crafty!
I made a slideshow of some of the snow pictures I've taken. Most are from Montana, but there are a few from places like Yellowstone along with some others. We only have a slight dusting of snow at our house right now, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before more comes. It's supposed to be -2 on Sunday. Three pictures to look out for are kind of interesting. The one of the little squirrel with snow on his back and the one of the road with all the green leafy trees bent over were taken in June. We got about 6 inches of snow dumped on us this summer. The trees had their leaves again and they were snapping left and right from the weight. We couldn't even get out of our road without having to plow through broken limbs. The third picture shows what looks like a mound of snow with a car next to it. That's a motel inside Glacier National Park! The snow gets so deep there that the motel was buried. Ironically, it's in an area in the park that gets the least snow!
When I was younger, my mom would take me skiing. Sometimes she'd drive over 6 hours to take me to Mammoth Mountain in California. She would sit out on the deck and read while I did the slopes. Or if it was too cold, she'd sit inside by a fireplace and drink coffee. I was never a really good skier, but I had fun. Rick and I started getting into skiing and then when our girls were older we took them a few times too. We'd go to Snow Summit, which was a little over 3 hours away from home. I loved it, but my feet made it hard. I had surgeries on them and something about the ski boot hurt them, so that made it difficult and uncomfortable. When we moved to Montana, we brought our old ski equipment with us. Once we got here, we realized how outdated it was. Our skis were 15 years old. Looking at them, you would think they were cross country skis because of how skinny they were. Skis now are much wider. We took them to the Salvation Army and I'm sure they're tacked to a wall somewhere or turned into a fence by now. I highly doubt anyone skis on them. We did buy cross country skis when we moved here and we have gone a few times. I had never tried cross country up until recently. Since the equipment was so much cheaper and we have so many places we can go, we figured it would be a good investment. I am hoping we can start up with this soon so I can get a little better at it. It's different than downhill, but fun.
In a 2-quart saucepan mix sugar, corn syrup and 1/2 cup water. Cook and stir over medium high heat to boiling. Clip candy thermometer to pan. Cook on medium heat without stirring to 260 degrees, hard-ball stage (about 10-15 minutes). Remove from heat and remove thermometer. In a large bowl, beat egg white with an electric mixer on medium speed until stiff peeks form and the tips stand straight up. Gradually pour hot mixture in a thin stream over whites, beating on high speed for about 3 minutes. Add vanilla and continue to beat on high just until candy starts to lose its gloss. When the beaters are lifted, mixture should fall in a ribbon onto itself. This last beating should take about 5-6 minutes. Drop a spoonful onto waxed paper. If it stays in a mound, the mixture has been beaten good enough. If it flattens out, beat for another minute and test again. When it's ready, quickly stir in the nuts to the remaining mixture. Use a spoon to drop the mixture onto waxed paper and let cool. Store in a tightly covered container. Makes about 40 pieces.
One of my favorite things to photograph are sunsets. In fact, I posted one on my Multiply blog only yesterday. The link is on the right, if you want to see. Last night Rick & I went Christmas shopping and saw the most amazing sunset. It was one of those where the entire sky was pink and purple. I managed to get a few pictures, but it was fading fast. Rick took this one. We stopped on the bridge over the Flathead River. That's tricky, considering people come flying over this bridge at 70mph. Fortunately, we had just enough time for him to get one picture before a car came. Maybe someday I'll make a slideshow of my sunset photographs.
Another fun thing for Christmas is the book The Three Bears' Christmas. Neil checked this one out of the library recently. When we read it the other day, we were delighted to find it was written in the style of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It's written by Kathy Duval and illustrated by Paul Meisel and published by Holiday House. It's a cute story where Mama Bear bakes gingerbread bears for her family, but they're too hot, so they decide to go for a walk. When they return, they discover someone's been in their house, eaten their cookies, sat in their chairs and has left clothes all over the place. It's a fun twist to a classic story and a great book for the holidays. Amazon has used copies starting at 99 cents, or you can ask for it at your local bookseller or library. The boys and I love retellings like these. My upcoming book, The Marshmallow Man is a retelling of a famous story too.Also, one last thing for today -- yesterday I received a contract from Highlights for Children magazine. I had sent them two craft projects and they accepted one for purchase. It's a Halloween type craft, so I imagine it won't be featured in the magazine for awhile. It's a simple craft that any child can do and it doesn't use anything fancy to make. It's my first craft sale, and my first sale to Highlights for that matter, so I was pretty excited about it.
I made a slideshow of my nativity collection. I have over 50 sets and that doesn't include all of my nativity ornaments. I keep my nativity ornaments on a 3' tree and I hope to get pictures of them this year. These are my other sets. Some are tiny, others are big and a few are handmade. I've been collecting nativities for years. One of my favorite ones is the blue triangle shaped one that my daughter painted on a rock for me. I don't go for the real expensive sets, which makes collecting them a lot more fun. I saw one at Ross the other day and now that I've got my sets out again, I'm thinking I might have to go back and get it. I only put them out at Christmas and since I have so many, they're everywhere. I put most of them on my windowsills. That's one good thing about having a great room with many windows.
I have also been tagged by Adrienne to answer the One Word challenge, so here are my answers to that. I'm not sure who to tag, so I'll leave it open to anyone who wants to do this on their blog as well.
Sugar-free, fat-free, gluten-free, carbohydrate-free, cholesterol-free and what is this, CALORIE-FREE? What? How can that be? A salad dressing that is calorie-free? No way! That can't be possible. If it is possible, it has to taste horrible, right? Nope. I recently bought the Walden Farms Creamy Bacon salad dressing and guess what? It's GOOD! It was so good that I went back and bought the bleu cheese salad dressing, the raspberry fruit spread, the chocolate syrup and the chocolate dipping sauce. I don't know if I like the dipping sauce just yet. It tasted a little weird to me, but the chocolate syrup was okay. I put it on a banana with some peanut butter. I just tried the fruit spread and it's pretty good. I'm now on a quest to find the peanut spread. Rick wouldn't let me buy the calorie-free ketchup. He said that was blasphemy. He's a huge ketchup eater and I'm not, so it doesn't matter. But if I like the peanut spread, all will be good. One of my favorite things to eat is a banana with peanut butter, drizzled with chocolate syrup. If I could eliminate the calories of the peanut butter and the syrup, that would be perfect. In a perfect world -- all food would be CALORIE-FREE!
The day after Thanksgiving, my six-year-old came down with a tummy bug. Poor Neil spent the entire day on the couch and in bed. He only ate one saltine cracker and had a couple sips of water all day. It's so hard seeing your babies sick like that. Being nauseated is the absolute worst feeling in the world and it always breaks my heart when my kids feel that way. He is feeling better now and is munching on saltines and drinking apple juice. He just told me that he "grew out of being sick", so I'm hoping he's on the mend. I am also hoping no one else gets it, but you never know. We're all just kind of waiting. This picture was taken in 2004 when he was 2 years old. It was taken at the National Oregon/California Trail Center in Montpelier, Idaho. We stopped there on one of our trips to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. I love this picture, but can't believe how much Neil has grown in the past 4 years.
Yesterday was a day of discovery at my house. It started off in the morning as I got out our Thanksgiving decorations to set the table. I found everything but the one thing I wanted most. Last year I made a Pilgrim Hat Centerpiece from Family Fun Magazine. It looked really cool with an autumn collection of flowers in it, so I wanted to use that as our centerpiece again. Rick & I tore through the downstairs closet, but didn't find everything we were looking for. Then I tore up the upstairs closet while Rick looked in the garage. Still, no centerpiece. Going through our downstairs closet is like Christmas to my boys. They had 3 or 4 huge boxes shoved in there with various toys that were never officially unpacked or that had gotten thrown in there out of frustration. They discovered all sorts of treasures like oodles of Hot Wheels cars, race tracks, GI Joe's long lost boot, and stuffed animals they thought they couldn't live without. Who needs Christmas when you have a closet like mine? Upstairs I made a huge mess in the hall, which you now couldn't walk through. I found my latch-hook rug kit. Remember those things? I loved doing them when I was younger. I have a huge leopard rug that I started years ago, but never finished. I knew it was in there, so it wasn't that big of a discovery, but at least I got it out so I can start working on it again. Way in back was the box where the roasting pan was in, so I pulled that out. I pulled everything out, but no centerpiece. Now the house was in shambles and we were trying to get our meal started, I was getting irritated. I went back downstairs to the closet of treasures, because by this point, that was the only place it could be. Sure enough, in a huge unmarked box, there it was. I also discovered our turkey games we made last year, one of which I posted a picture of yesterday. Inside the box was also a nativity the girls & I made during school many years ago. It was so unlike me to mix my holidays like that, but I guess that was the only box I could find for those big items. Anyway, I finally found my Pilgrim Hat Centerpiece and I got my table set, so all was well. The picture above is of the centerpiece from last year, but this year's looks pretty much the same.
The other big discovery for me yesterday was NaNaWriMo. I did it! I wrote 50,000 words in less than 30 days. I even had 3 days to spare. When I first began this project, I thought there was no way I could make that word count. I have only written picture books that range from 500 to 1000 words. The only exception was my one middle grade novel, which topped at 10,600 words. I thought there would be no way I could reach 50,000 words, but I did it. I received my winners web badges and printed up my certificate from NaNaWriMo, so that was cool and gave me a sense of accomplishment. Of course, the manuscript is long and drawn out and rambles, but with time I hope to clean it up and make it presentable. Just being able to reach my goal was a big discovery for me. And finally, the day before yesterday I began working on my upcoming website. Just getting this started and learning how to use the program was a discovery in itself. I hope to have the site up soon.