Casting Crumbs

This year as my Mom and I discussed putting up our Christmas trees, we both decided that our garland was worn out and it was time to purchase new. We both loved our old garland but it was getting quite dilapidated and smashed from years of enjoyment.

We trekked to Hobby Lobby to ensure our 1/2 off discount and made our purchases. Evely had fun discovering ornaments as we decided what to get.

We both came home excited to put the new garland on our trees. Mom put hers on and when they came over to help us decorate she put mine on.

Mom stringing my crumby garland!

After the tree was completely decorated, I looked and looked at it trying to like it. It was horrid! It was gaudy and obnoxious. It completely overpowered the tree and you couldn’t even see the ornaments.

Needless to say. . .I went to Walmart and purchased this really cheap stuff and restrung the tree yesterday. It looks better but I am still not loving my tree. We did the same to Mom’s tree. She didn’t like her’s either. What is the deal with that? I am tired of messing with garland, I am determined to stop messing with this. Why is this such a big deal?!!

So, I pose a question for you. . .

Do you all use garland or is it going out of style?

Also, as an update on Mom. . .she is having a CatScan tomorrow morning. They will be looking at her abdomen area and determining how the cancer is responding to the chemo. Please pray for a good report! She need some good news.

Thanks for praying everyone!

My older brother, Mike, lives about 3 hours away and so we don’t see him as much as we would like. With everyone’s busyness of life and work we only see him on the big occassions. He was sick this year on Thanksgiving and didn’t come down until the day after. (We don’t really go around Mom if we are sick).

Evely being spoiled!

We made the most of it by getting started on Mom’s Christmas decorating.

The boys had fun with Uncle Mike. It was such a beautful day they road the gator around the yard quite a bit. This was his Christmas gift to the boys last year. He was able to get Jaden on the thing this time which is a great feat! Jaden usually runs screaming when Julian rides it.

Good to see you, Uncle Mike!

I hope that your turkey day is filled with warmth from family, friends, good food and a heart filled with gratitude.

I know of so many years that I have went through the Thanksgiving holiday with no real thoughts of what I had to be thankful for. I think as my meager faith grows I view thankfulness in a different way. I realize that everything that I have comes from the hand of God. His blessings abound in my life as I look around at my family, my little children and most of all the great salvation that God, in His mercy, has extended to me and I must praise Him.

I heard an awesome quote this week. Adrian Rogers, a great preacher, passed away this last week and they played pieces of his memorial service on Focus on the Family. I caught a small portion of it as his successor was reading quotes that he gave. This one really struck me and has stuck in my mind this week as I have pondered thankfulness.

Faith is praise turned inside-out!

I really love that.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Thanks for being a part of my life. I am thankful for you.

Leona Batt, my priceless Grandmother

Yesterday Julian and I made Butter Horn Rolls using my Grandmother’s recipe. She made these quite often and I remember Thanksgiving’s on the farm with these gracing her table. My Grandmother was the best. . .best cook, best listener, best card player, best smile, best at hospitality, best chocolate chip cookies. . .all around best Grandma!

She taught me so many things that I could never repay her for. She had a hard life as a poor farmer’s wife, yet she made lemonade out of lemons. She was a great lady and will always be one of the “top ten favorite people” my whole life long. Can’t wait to see her one day!

Here is her recipe. It’s a keeper!

Butter Horn Rolls

2 Cups scalded milk
2 packages yeast -dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
6 beaten eggs
9 cups flour

bake at 250 for 15 minutes and then freeze. Pop into oven when needed for 8 minutes at 400.

Julian helped me roll the dough out and make the rolls. He said “Mom, where did you get this at?” I told him about my Grandma making them for Thanksgiving and he said “Wow, did you help her like I am helping you?” It just made my heart smile.

The wall came down!

The cabinets went up!

The sheetrock is partially in . . .

And now we wait.

We are really seeing the progress now. It’s fun to watch all this come together and actually be able to see what the room will look like. This week will be pretty slow for the work because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but then the next week will really take off. James is going to bring my countertops, tile will be going on the walls in my kitchen, sheetrocking and carpet people coming to give the bid, etc. Very busy and fun.

Here is what I am doing for my color scheme. . .

The border goes in my kitchen, the little swatch is the countertops (Cotta Stone).The kitchen will be painted “Latte” and the addition will be a lighter shade of that. That’s the carpet sample, too.

I will be so glad to have all this done. I can’t believe people actually do all this with a whole house!! It’s been hard enough with just two rooms. The decisions seem to get harder and harder or maybe we are just tired of making decisions.

While I am very thankful to have all this done, it will be nice to have the house back to myself and the kids. No more men working in my house, traipsing up and down the stairs, banging and sawing during naptime and trying to keep the kids out of their way and off their ladders.

Today even though Mom was feeling pretty bad from her chemo, she drug herself over to see the progress and hold Evely for a minute. She just had a treatment on Wednesday and is still pretty hung over, tired, no appetite. . .the usual it seems from chemo. Each day she will get a little perkier. I hope that she is feeling really well for Thanksgiving!

This is truly a time for THANKSGIVING!

To give everyone an update on Mom, Tuesday she had her surgery to put the port catheter in. She came through that great. She was pretty sore on that side of her body, but by Wednesday it was better.

She had her second chemo treatment Wednesday and came through it fine. No nausea but the fatigue is starting to hit her today. Also, her bladder thing started up again which looks like it may be something that goes along with the chemo treatments.

The good news is that when she went to have her surgery Tuesday, the anesthesiologist talked to her at length because she had had fluid in her lungs. He really looked her over, listened to her lungs and thumped her up and down the back trying to hear any fluid. He could not hear any!! Praise God.

Then yesterday before the chemo treatment, her Dr. examined her and said she was doing well and could hear NO fluid in her abdomen!! Very good news.

Mom will go to have a Cat Scan done in two weeks to check and see how the Cancer is looking. Please be praying for a GREAT report when they do that.

Thank you all for praying. I am truly thankful this season for my family, friendships and for the Lord’s hand in our lives. In the good and bad, God is consistently a loving, good and kind Father. He does long to give His children good gifts.

I have always known that somewhere along the line, a “thing” happens between little girls and daddy’s. I just didn’t know how or when the phenomenon occurred. . .till now.

Evely is now 9 months old and this past weekend she started crawling! Also, this past weekend she has discovered how to tame Tom (Daddy). All of a sudden when he comes home, she puts on her cutest look ever, peeks at him out of the corner of her eye and bats her eye lashes. She then reaches for him and when he takes her in his arms, she buries herself into him. She has him completely smitten!

Knight in Shining armor and the Fairest One of All

Daddy. . .Sucker!

It’s adorable watching Tom fall in love with this precious little girl. It really is such a different relationship from the boys and what fun it is for a Mommy to watch this happen.

“Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.”

Joseph Addison quote

Actually, I must admit. . .I am a sucker too. Tom, you are my Knight in Shining Armor and my hero! I love you.

I haven’t been able to post for several days due to the absolute craziness of our life right now!

So here are a few crumbs of what we have been experiencing the last few days.

Friday I had the wonderful opportunity of going shopping for hats with Mom. We went to several stores and finally found a few that were just so cute! I like the hats on Mom even better than the neat wig that she has.

I stopped by Sherwin Williams to check out wallpaper and they had in stock exactly what I was looking for. I decided to go ahead and buy it and then noticed a sign that had fallen over above the rack “50% off!” I felt truly blessed by the Lord. It was if he said “Here’s a little something to brighten your day!”

Saturday we spent the day working on our cabinets in our kitchen and Tom insulated the new room addition. We ran into electrical problems and Bill came over on Sunday to save the day!

Thanks, Bill!!!!!

Amongst all the hubbub at our house, Jaden came down with the croup! He started barking like a seal and having problems breathing so Sunday I took him to the urgent care center.

At the Dr.’s office, isn’t he sad looking!

James and his guys came over Monday morning to finish the cabinets!! Yeah! I will post more pictures of them on here later. My cabinets are great. I unloaded all my stuff and I still have some empty cabinets! I’m sure I will think of a way to fill them up.

Today our builder is here opening up the room between the kitchen and room addition. It’s very exciting to see all this finally come about. It’s pretty chilly in the house today as we have no heat in the new room and it is snowing. Our heating and cooling guys come in the morning to run our ductwork and the sheet rocker guy comes tomorrow. Wow!


No more window!

On another note, Mom has her surgery this morning to put in her port catheter. Please pray that all that goes very well. She will have her second round of chemo tomorrow. It will be a hard week for her. I pray that she will be feeling good to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday with the family.

Here are some new updated pictures of our add-on! It’s really coming together quickly and we are so excited.

Our deck was just completed today!

Our builder extended the deck down to match the addition. So it will still be a nice sized deck for use.

North side

West side

View through the kitchen

Soon they will tear out this kitchen window and wall; I will lose the cabinet there above the dishwasher and the sliding glass door with be taken out. That wall will be opened up. We will have an eating bar with bar stools on the other side of the kitchen sink. James is going to redo all our countertops and make our bar! He does such great work. He and Tom are going to rearrange our kitchen and add more cabinets this Saturday. That will be awesome! I am in great need of some cabinet space.

This word was on my email this morning. It really meant a lot to me as I prepared to go and shave off all my Mom’s hair today. In the face of loss, there is serious HOPE.

Life is funny. You find yourself in places and doing things that you NEVER thought you would ever do, and somehow God gives us the grace to carry on, to cope, to overcome despite it all.

Don’t lay down and let life pass you by, get up and fight! Most fighting is really done best on your knees.

PERSISTENCE RECOVERS ALL

Beloved ones, I know you are weary and frustrated with your losses. I AM drawing you to get your focus off your misery and begin to exercise the rights I have given you through prayer. It is time to learn how to recover what has been stolen.

By the way. . .Mom looks adorable with her little round bald head!!!