Christmas

Christmas Eve at Opa and Oma's house. Visit Opa's blog for a short video clip. We all had a great time and felt the spirit of the season.
Christmas morning breakfast. We always have English Christmas Crackers and wear the crowns inside them. We had a wonderful day together. The highlight, of course was being all together with Johnny home. Christmas morning before we opened gifts, I asked the children to think of what kinds of gifts Jesus would want from us. We are grateful for this time of year when we celebrate our Savior's birth and life.

Some of our homemade gifts to each other were as follows:

Caroline to Josh--cookie of the month club. She gave him a paper listing the different cookies she will bake him each month.

Josh to Natalie--He set her up on a double date. They went out last night and Johnny joined them for a triple date--his first date in 2 years. :)

Joe to Johnny--tied a fleece blanket for him

Jake to Joe--made a Lego kit. He created a model and then took pictures for Joseph to follow to reassemble it.

Natalie to Caroline--made some music mix CDs.

Johnny to Jake--gave him a little Greek hand toy and taught him tricks

Johnny's homecoming

Johnny came home from Greece last night. His flight was 4 hours late so many of the extended family members were unable to come. Opa and Oma stayed up late with us to welcome him home. Caroline took the video and Jake the pictures. Words can not express how wonderful it is to have him home.

Christmas Cake

**This is the cake Caroline decorated last year.
John's mom was English and often made the traditional English Christmas cake with marzipan frosting and all the dried fruits and currants in it. We were not big fans of this cake, but wanted to try and keep up the tradition. This wonderful apple cake looks similar to it with it's white cream cheese frosting. The warm butter sauce is so delicious served on it. We also put a silver dollar covered with tin foil between the layers and the lucky person who gets it in their piece receives a present(another English tradition). The other great thing about this cake is that you make the cake ahead of time and freeze. Here is the recipe Al:

Apple Cake:

2 eggs

2 C sugar

2 tsp Soda

1/2 salt

2 tsp. Cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C oil

4 C apples (peeled and shredded)

2 C flour

1 C pecans or Walnuts chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 2 9" round pans (floured and greased). Cream together eggs and sugar. Add vanilla and oil. In a Separate bowl combine soda, salt, cinnamon and flour. Mix into egg mixture. Add apples and nuts. Beat for 2 min. Bake 45 minutes. When done cool on counter. When cool, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze. Frost as desired while cakes are frozen.

Frosting:

1 80z cream cheese

3 T softened butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

1 1/2 C powdered sugar

Butter sauce:

1 C sugar

1/2 C butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 C cream

heat on low. Don't boil. Serve warm over individual slices of cake and with a dollop of whipped cream on top if desired.

Winter Recitals/Concerts

The past few weeks have been filled with concerts and recitals. Jake also played in a winter orchestra concert. He did a great job and I feel bad I forgot my camera and did not get a picture.

Caroline singing a solo in her Christmas choir concert. She did great!! She sang a Ghana song with just drums to accompany her.
Natalie and Caroline playing "Let it Snow" duet.
Caroline dancing for the nursing home.

Caroline's Cooking Blog

Caroline has started a cooking blog. This is where she trys and shares recipes. She has always loved to cook and lately I find her reading cookbooks when she goes to bed. She only has 2 posts on it now, but wants to put a new recipe each week. The above picture is of her helping to cook when just a toddler---she always was on the counter as I cooked. Here is the link to her blog.

Winter Dance

Josh and Natalie both went to the high school winter dance last weekend. They went in different groups. Josh's had a group of 28 kids. One very energetic mother made a sit down turkey dinner for them all. All the other mothers brought side dishes to share. Natalie's group went to Olive Garden, which Natalie reported she out ate her date. :) Natalie had a nice time, but admits that there were some really awkward moments and would rather go on a more casual date.

SURPRISE!!!

On Friday I had a surprise party for Natalie. It was really hard to keep it a secret, especially on her real birthday when I had not planned too much to celebrate. In the future I will always do surprise parties before the real birthday. Her girl friends came over first and surprised her and we had dinner and games. Later a bunch of her guy friends showed up. I think at one point we had at least 50 kids here. Everyone seemed to have a fun time. Joseph said the next day, "Our house was a rock-in everywhere."

Happy SWEET sixteen Natalie!!!

Natalie has been counting down the days till she turned 16--the time she could both drive and date. She got her drivers license yesterday and her friends surprised her by decorating her room. As you see in the picture they put a life size "Jacob" from the Twilight movie in there too. Late last night when checking on something in her room, I about had a heart attack when I turned the lights on and there was this "man" standing there. I told her when she is not home he has to go in the closet.(--a little creepy) We love Natalie's zest for life and her passion for things she is involved in and her ideas. Most importantly we appreciate that she is kind and sensitive to those around her. WE LOVE YOU NAT!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

14 DAYS TILL JOHNNY COMES HOME!!!!

I can't believe it has been two years since Johnny left for his mission. Time has flown, except for the last few months as I anticipate all my children in my home again. We are all so excited and can't wait to see, hug, talk to, hang out with, play with, and be with him. I feel like I did when I was nesting for a new baby. I have been deep cleaning the house, making up menu plans and cooking. I guess thats what moms do when they are excited. I know he will be surprised to see how some of the kids have grown, especially Natalie, Jake and Caroline. Jake's goal was to be taller than Johnny when he came home. :) I will post a before picture and after picture once he is here. This is a little excerpt from his letter today. I guess he is starting to think of coming home too.

"This week while in church i realized that I don' t really know what I have been used to do in this country, but God knows. Only He knows how many people I have been used to influence. I hope that this last few weeks I can influence as many people as I can. I am grateful for the experiences that I have had here and for the people that I have got to know here. It has been an amazing two years, that won't compare with any to come, but hopefully not the best (in other words I hope it only gets better:) full of happy and difficult times. I love this country and the language, and the poeple who live here. I will miss them.

But I love you and I can't believe that I will see you soon. I am very very excited."

Dating, Dances, and DRAMA!

Natalie turns 16 next week. There is a Christmas Dance 2 days after her birthday and she has been really hoping to get asked to it. Well, tonight at 7:00 pm just as I was leaving for Jake's concert the doorbell rang and there was a Christmas tree sitting there. I hurried and put it in Natalie's room. Later, when Natalie came home there was wrapping paper all rolled up and a candy cane with Natalie name on it sitting at the front steps. Two boys asked her within 1 hour of each other!!!!! Then the drama began..... Natalie was so excited to be asked but very traumatized at the same time to turn one of the boys down. They are both nice boys and she is friends with both. She could not focus or function for about 2 hours because she was so indecisive as what to do. She finally decided the best thing to do was accept the invitation of the first. She still really wants to go out with the other boy too and she hopes he will ask her out again. John and I told her if she doesn't date at all it would solve everything. She didn't like that answer. Above are pictures of how she was asked and how she responded.