December Pictures

A picture is still worth a thousand words.....so consider this a long letter of what we have been doing. Scroll over the picture with your mouse to read the caption.

Five Years Ago in China.....

....a sweet little 15 month old baby girl was placed in our arms. She was crying and confused. She wanted nothing to do with daddy, grandpa or grandma, or big sister. She couldn't turn over from her back to her tummy.

Now, 5 years later, she is the sweetest, funniest, happiest little girl I know. We thank God every day that He placed her in our family



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Taylor and LiAnne love to play dress up. Taylor always dresses up like a cowboy, and LiAnne has a whole dresser full of dress up clothes. Today LiAnne spent the day with a friend from church, and Taylor was sad. He said that his bestest friend wasn't home, and could he please play a game on the computer?

Relaxing....

Someone asked today what I do to relax on busy days.....so I took a couple of pictures of my favorite things to do.




Any questions?

While I'm waiting for the pictures to load today I'll chat. I fixed dinner last night at church--enchiladas, corn, beans and jello cake. I was planning on 120ish, and we ended up having 150! I had plenty of enchiladas, but we ran out of corn. Had two spoonfuls of beans left. It is so hard to guessitmate how many people will come and how much they will eat. I would have had a lot of enchiladas left over if we had only had 120. There are 2 or 3 new families coming to church and bringing their kids on Wednesday for Awana....and they have came for dinner, too, so that was nice. No dinner next week, then three in December before the Christmas break.

I have a bad feeling about the pictures right now....it is taking too long to load them. Let's see if they ever come up.....










We'll, they didn't load correctly, and it looks like I have to resave them another size....have to do that later today. Right now I need to get some sewing done.If you click on the picture it will take you to photobucket where you will see the entire page.

Another YIKES!

Where has the time gone? My daughter and sister keep asking when I'm going to write something here, and it keeps getting put off. I don't imagine that anyone other them them and my mom are still reading, but I will try to do some catching up. I'll start out with the easiest....just posting my 365 pages, then try to add more soon.

Well....I tried. Blogger won't upload my photos right now, so I'll try again tonight after I get back from work/church. Enchiladas, beans, corn and cake for 120 coming up.

China!

Not really something that we consider worth celebrating, but WOW! they sure know how to put on a show! (You'll want to scroll down and mute the music on the blog.)

China's 60th Anniversary national day - timelapse and slow motion - 7D and 5DmkII from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

We enjoyed a short visit from our friends Dan and Donna from Oregon. It is always so much fun to get together with friends that we don't get to see very often. Our friendship, based in Christ, just picks up where we left off last time we were together.

Time Competition

Everything competes for time. I have the same problem as many of you....I need another 5 or 6 wakeful hours (preferably after the kids are asleep) to get things done. I want to quilt, there are books I want to read, sewing to do, digital layouts and blogging. All that after the cooking, cleaning and taking care of kids and husband. And school.

Here is a bit of what we have been doing over the last few weeks.

Oh, give me a home.....

....where the deer and the antelope play. This is what we saw in front of our house when we got home from school on Friday.

Field Trip

Saturday we went on a homeschool co-op field trip. We made three stops along the way: the Oregon Trail ruts, Register Cliff and Ft. Laramie. I took Janelle, Taylor, LiAnne and Josiah. It was a 2 hour drive, and we traveled in a caravan of 12 vehicles. It was a fun day.

Birthday Girl!

Six years ago a baby was born in China. Through many loses on that end, we received one of the best gifts ever to be given....a sweet daughter. I wonder today what her birth mother must be thinking. I wish that she could know what a beautiful daughter we have, and know that she is loved and cared for. Today we celebrate LiAnne's 6th birthday. She is excited to be six, and please, can I have a white and pink princess cake?

All Ready for AWANA

Awana started last week. Taylor and LiAnne were so excited about starting again. Last night they both passed 4 or 5 sections, and are working on next weeks verses now. Janelle attends the youth Bible study while they are in Awana.

I started a job last Wednesday--cooking for our church Wednesday night dinner just before Awana. We have served over 100 people both weeks so far. It is a lot of work, but I really enjoy doing it.

Still Proud to be an American

Music

Oh man! I changed the music here on my blog a while back, didn't like it and thought I had deleted the changes. Seems that it is still the music that I don't like. So, just mute it for now, and I will try to get back in the next day or two to change it to something better.

911 to the Rescue

August 26th I got up early to read my Bible, have some coffee, and be ready to start our first day of school. Once I heard the kids waking up, I put on a pot of water to boil to make oatmeal, then went into the bedroom to make the bed and piddled around doing some other things. I then heard a popping sound, and wondered what the kids were into, so went back out to the living room. What I found was a nice fire on my stove. What? How could a pot of water catch fire? Took me a while to figure it out, but I had turned on the wrong burner, and heated up the small skillet of oil that I had left from a couple of nights before. I quickly called 911, since way too many house fires are small fires that get out of hand. I put a lid over the one pot, and mostly got the fire out. Carried the pan out the back door, and burned my hand doing it. By the time the firetruck got here I had the fire out. It was a good lesson in when and why to call 911 for our first day of school! Taylor was pretty impressed that the fire turck/men were here. I thought to hand Janelle my camera, so we have some picture of them here.

Thankfully, the damage was just in the stove area and didn't get out of hand. My hand blistered up pretty well, but is almost back to normal now.

Ketchup, anyone?

It's obviously time to play Catch-up around here. Last time I was here we had just returned from three days in South Dakota. Hmmmm....a few things have happened since then. The day we returned, Lancy's visa for Thailand arrived in the mail. She had been waiting for that to make her return flight to Thailand. That was a Friday...she left on the next Tuesday. Mario also had a flight out on Tuesday to Portugal, so I drove them both to the airport in Denver. That is a looooong trip for one day (4 1/2 hours each way). Janelle spent the night with Rose in order to be able to get to school the next day, and Taylor and LiAnne went with us to the airport. We left at 4:30 in the morning, dropped them off at the airport, and headed back. The last hour it was hard to keep awake, and I was glad to have the two kids in the backseat to keep me going.

Richard spent four weeks working in Gillette, about 2 1/2 hours north of here. Caleb and Matt had a big project at their work, and Richard was hired as an independent contractor to help. They left Monday morning at 4:00, and returned Friday nights around 9:00 for four weeks, working over 60 hours each week. Richard enjoyed working with the boys.

Last Wednesday I started a job as Wednesday night cook at our church. We have been attending Wednesday night dinners since I arrived in March, and then the kids go to Awana, teen Bible study, and adult Bible study afterwards. The lady who had been cooking got married in June, and the church was looking for someone to take the job, so I applied. Last week went well. I fixed Popover Pizza, green beans, salad and brownies for 103 people. Tomorrow will be chicken enchiladas, ranch beans, corn and banana bars. I did have some pictures, but Taylor and LiAnne were playing with my camera the other day and erased all of my week's pictures. I'll try to get some tomorrow.

School starts tomorrow. Where did the summer go? We have had busy days here in Casper, and it's hard to believe that summer is winding down.

Janelle starts school tomorrow, and will be taking just one class at the local junior high. She will take ELL, English language learners every day at 1:25. I had hoped that she could also take her math class there, but that would have been an 8:00am class, with three hours or so in between that and the ELL class. So, we will do all of her other classes here at home. We will also be involved in a homeschool co-op here at our church starting September 11th. I will be teaching a Spanish class. Sign ups are this Friday, so then I'll see what other classes the kids will take. It will be fun to have this new opportunity.

Lancy is still here with us, but will be leaving this week. It has been so nice to have her home. It is the most time we have spent with her since she left home more than 5 years ago. She heads back to Thailand as soon as her ticket is confirmed.

My folks were here last week for a few days, then we headed out to Mount Rushmore for a few days of camping. We wanted to take Mario, who is visiting from Portugal, to see something special here in the States, and this was it. We had a great time camping.

Richard is working with Caleb and Matthew for a few weeks up in Gillette. They are installing radios in some 350ish trucks. It is a big job, and they needed extra help, so Richard is able to work. They are working 12-14 hours a day and are pretty tired once they get home on Friday.

Here are my layouts for the last few weeks. Remember, if you click on the page, it will open up in a larger window.

Chocolate Flan Cake

Chocolate Flan Cake
Cake:
1 (18.25 oz.) box chocolate or devil's food cake mix

Topping:
Melt 1/2 cup of dry sugar in the bottom of a pan on the stove, and pour into the Bundt pan.
OR:
1 (10.9-oz.) jar cajeta (caramel topping) or Smucker’s caramel topping or homemade cajeta

Flan:
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz.) can evaporated milk
1/2 C. fresh milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
5 eggs

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Spray a large (at least 12-cup) Bundt pan with nonstick coating. Soften the cajeta in the jar in the microwave and pour into the prepared pan. (If you can’t find the cajeta or do not want to make your own, substitute Smucker’s Caramel topping, but the Mexican cajeta has a richer flavor).

Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Pour the cake batter into the cake pan over the caramel.

To make the flan, pour condensed, evaporated and fresh milks into a blender with the vanilla and eggs. Mix well. Pour the flan mixture very slowly over the cake batter. Cover the pan TIGHTLY with aluminum foil. Covering tightly is very important.

Set the Bundt pan into a large pan and set on the oven rack and slide in. Carefully pour hot water into the larger pan to a depth of 2 inches (The Bundt pan will be sitting in 2 inches of water).

Bake cake for about 2 hours; do not uncover during this time.
5. After two hours, remove cake from water and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Invert cake onto a large plate with rim. The cajeta will drip down the sides of the cake. Cool completely then refrigerate.

Note: Even though the flan is poured on top of the cake batter, it will sink to the bottom of the pan.

Click on the page to open it in a larger window so that you can see the pictures and read the page.

What happened to the lazy days of summer? Seems like all of our days are full to overflowing. We continue to work on remodeling our house here. We are enjoying the library--all three of the kids were in the summer reading program and got prizes for reading--McDonald's coupons, tickets to the local baseball team and today a t-shirt.

Wednesday nights I am helping with the 3rd - 6th grade kids at church. It has been a lot of fun. The kids are looking forward to Awana starting in another month.

Janelle is off to youth camp this week. We hope that she is having a good time, and know that this is good for her.

Reunion

We are enjoying the visit of Bob and Rita, and their kids, Drew and Ellie today. Ellie is also known as MinYi, and was Taylor's best friend as they were children in China. The day we met Taylor, the orphanage director told us that we needed to find Taylor's best friend, who had already been adopted to the States. The amazing thing was that we had already found her through a China adoption internet group. This is the second time that we have been able to get the kids together. This morning their shyness lasted just a few minutes, and they were best friends again.