Pictures from Friday Night

It's Christmas at the Rhoderick house!

It has been our tradition since the kids started school that we do our own personal family Christmas the day that they get out of school for their holiday break. It is a great thing for the boys to look forward to on the Friday before Christmas. Tonight after daddy gets home I am making Potato soup for us. We will eat Christmas cookies, drink hot chocolate, open our gifts, play with our gifts, then watch a Christmas movie while we eat popcorn! Our children know the true meaning of Christmas as a time when we celebrate Jesus' birth. The birth of our Savior who would come to the earth, be born in a manger, live a perfect life and die a very painful death on the cross for our sins! Thank you Jesus for your mercy and grace! We will live our lives to serve you each and every day.

Ice Day

The boys were out of school today, but you could barely call it a "snow day"! We had very little snow, but slick icy roads that made getting to school a little too dangerous this morning. It was a mere 14 degrees here so we stayed in and tried to stay warm. Our trampoline had a sheet of ice on the surface that Jakob and Jaden were interested in ice skating on. I thought that sounded a little too dangerous and wasn't interested in a trip to the hospital so we just stayed indoors. Hopefully if we have another snow day it will be more fun for the boys to be outside playing.

Jameson by our tree

Our little man was trying out his new jammies and riding his horse in front of our lovely Christmas Tree!!!

I would die for that

I saw this emotional and powerful video over at my friend Crystal's blog Serving God and Family. I thought I would share it with you all. The music video hit very close to home for me as I spent many years wondering these very same thoughts. Would God bless me with a child of my own?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqfGqOx2iDQ

If someone can help me figure out how to insert the video into this post that would be AWESOME!! :)

Hustle and Bustle

The holiday season seem to be in full swing. We are running around like crazy people trying to get shopping done, attend all the parties, and just plain enjoy this time of year. On Friday night the adults at our church had our annual Christmas party! It was a wonderful night at our local German resturaunt Roemer Topf. The food was amazing and the company was pretty great too. We did a White Elephant gift exchange and Matt and I ended up with some pretty interesting gifts. Matt's selection was some hand soap and a bag of Cheetos, and mine was a gift set that had Reindeer Poop and Magic Reindeer food in it. The children were all taken care of at the church and they had a complete blast playing together while the mommy's and daddy's enjoyed some grown-up time.

Saturday was the Santa Parade down Main Street. The Cub Scouts got to be at the tail end of the parade with the most important guest of all... SANTA CLAUS!!! Jakob was walking along side Santa's sleigh and Jaden was riding right up in the sleigh with the Jolly fellow himself. Daddy was pulling the sleigh with some crazy antlers on his head. As soon as the Santa parade was over we went to church and had the Children's Christmas Party. We told the story of Jesus' birth as the kids put the pieces to the Nativity Scene in place, played some games, make a christmas ornament and decorated gingerbread houses.

Bath Time

Jameson has a new-found fear of bath-time. He used to love getting into the tub with his brothers and taking a warm bubble bath. Now it is more of a fight. Poor thing, he truly is afraid of being washed and I can relate. Getting water in my eyes when my dad would wash my hair was an all out battle when I was young. Anyway, so for a couple days now he has been saying he did not want a bath and I had been the nice mommy and was letting him get away with it. The time had now come that not bathing him was just wrong and it had to be done!!! So we attempted it this morning and he cryed the whole way through. The funniest part of the whole experience was him putting his foot up out of the water and saying " Wash my toe, Wash my toe" He was trying everything to avoid the inevitable head washing! Jameson did survive bath time and I am sure it won't be without a fight before he agrees to get bathed again.

Papaw & the grandboys

More from the tree farm

Tree Farm

Friday morning was our annual tree day where we pick out our Christmas Tree for the 2008 holiday season, decorate it and make Christmas cookies with the boys and their cousins Jackson and Jacoby. I was set on a tree that was tall and slender so that it would be a little easier to decorate and wouldn't take up quite so much space in our living room. The one we ended up with is about 8 ft. tall and with the snowman on top touches our ceiling. It is a beautiful tree and is all decked out and ready to go. Jameson is enjoying all the ornaments and thinks they are more like toys than pretty things to look at.

Thanksgiving with The Rhodericks

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving. This particular year we did not do any traveling which was such a relief after many years of driving all over God's beautiful creation. We got to just relax and stay home. Thanksgiving dinner was spent with Matt's parents, grandparents, sister Jennifer, Jason, Jackson, Jacoby, Aunt Julie, Uncle Gary, cousins Lisa, Zeff, and his girlfriend Michelle, cousins Mary, Brian, Kate, Kyle and all 5 of us, of course! We had loads of food and pretty much ate ourselves silly!!!

Oreo Truffles...YUM!

I found this recipe on one of my favorite blogs to stop by and check out design ideas. The Nesting Place is a fabulous place to go when your motto is "It doesn't have to perfect to be Beautiful!". So, this is what you'll need to make Oreo Truffles.

1 pkg. (1 lb. 2 oz.) OREO Cookies, finely crushed, divided 1 pkg.
(8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
2 pkg. (8 squares each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, melted
Make It
MIX 3 cups of the cookie crumbs and the cream cheese until well blended. Shape into 42 (1-inch) balls.

DIP balls in melted chocolate; place on waxed paper-covered baking sheet. (Any leftover melted chocolate can be stored in tightly covered container at room temperature and saved for another use.) Sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs.

REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm. Store any leftover truffles in tightly covered container in refrigerator.
Kitchens Tips
How to Easily Dip Truffles
To easily coat truffles with the melted chocolate, add truffles, in batches, to bowl of melted chocolate. Then use two forks to roll truffles in chocolate until evenly coated. Remove the truffles with forks and allow excess chocolate to drip back into bowl before placing truffles on prepared baking sheet.
Special Extra
Sprinkle truffles with colored sugar or sprinkles in addition to or in place of the cookie crumbs.
How to Soften Cream Cheese
Place completely unwrapped package of cream cheese in microwaveable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 10 sec. or just until softened. Add 15 sec. for each additional package of cream cheese

Go Indians!

Presenting...the final product

My first attempt at pottery painting! I was pretty pleased with the end result and my boys were very impressed. Really all that matters to me is that my kids liked it and that I had a complete blast painting it.

Not Me Monday

No way did I wake up this morning and carefully cut a Breakfast Cake into beautiful slices, place it on a beautiful plate as to disquise the fact that it was store bought and not homeade for MOPS this morning! A Pampered Chef lady would never cut corners like that!

I would never skip preparing a home cooked meal at breakfast time for my children before they run off to their bus at the crack of dawn. I did not throw apples at them and tell them to hurry and eat that and be sure to throw your core into the ditch before the bus comes. We never run late on Monday mornings!!!

Mascoutah Football

Matt ventured out with the big boys to the Mascoutah Football game on Saturday afternoon. It was pretty cold and from the sound of things there was a lot of complaining going on!!! I got them all dressed in there purple spirit wear and painted their cute little faces and everything. Matt agreed that it was very cold, so he didn't really blame them for being uncomfortable. They left at the end of the 3rd quarter and the Mascoutah Indians ended up losing 42 to 14.

I was busy up in the boys bedroom the entire time they were gone, cleaning, sorting, throwing away, and just plain going to town on that room! Our landlords are putting in new windows in the upstairs the Monday before Thanksgiving so it was necessary to get up there and organize. The room is coming along and with just a little more work tomorrow after church I think it will be complete. The trick now is to keep it that way for a whole week. We'll see how that goes.

Pottery

I found a new favorite past time! Painting pottery on Monday night with my MOPS group (Mother's of Preschoolers) was so much fun!!! We arrived at our local pottery painting studio at around 6:30pm and were overwhelmed with the selection of pieces to choose from. I settled on a scalloped plate that I thought would be perfect for what I envisioned. By the time we had all decided on our piece and loaded up our paintbrushes it was more like 7pm and the place closed at 8pm. Boy, did that hour fly! The clock struck 8pm and my project was not complete. If you know me at all, you will know that it was all I could do to not beg the lady to stay open just one more hour!!! :) So, I left with an unfinished pottery piece. Wednesday night I couldn't stand it any longer and went back to finish the plate. It was so relaxing to sit and create a masterpiece. In about 2 weeks and after my plate survives the fiery kiln I will have the finished project. You can be sure that I will share my first attempt at painting pottery. I made sure Matt knew that I DO plan on going back. (just imagine the eye rolling that took place)

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

I am making my very first pumpkin pie ever today! I got this delicious recipe from my dear friend Melissa. She also gave me some fresh pumpkin to use!!! Thank you Melissa.

1¼ hours | 15 min prep
SERVES 8
• 1 round unbaked 9-inch deep dish pie pastry (9-10-inch)
• 2 cups freshly cooked pumpkin, seeded, peeled, mashed
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 3 large eggs, beaten lightly
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated skim milk
• 1/2 cup skim milk
1. (To make your own freshly cooked pumpkin, quarter 1-2 small pie pumpkins, de-stem, seed and de-string them. Then steam them in a steamer over boiling water until very tender--the skin will peel right off. Then mash them using a stick blender or a food processor).
2. Preheat oven to 400°F and have ready a pie shield and a large rimmed cookie sheet.
3. Line a deep dish pie glass pie plate with the pie pastry rounds, fluting the edges decoratively as desired.
4. Combine in order the pumpkin, sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.
5. Lightly beat eggs together with both milks, then add to the pumpkin mixture, stirring well to combine--it will be rather thin.
6. Pour as much filling as you can into unbaked pie pastry and bake at 400°F for 50 minutes (or until knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out without any goo on it). If there is any extra filling use to fill a smaller mini pie plate or discard.
7. NOTE: Set cookie sheet on the rack below the rack you are setting your pie plate on in order to catch any drips.
8. If the pie edges start overbrowning, place a pie shield or a ring of foil over the edges--this will be needed or not depending on the type of pastry you use.

A question from Jaden

Jaden: Is Barack Ooobama going to steal our money and give it to the poor?
Mommy: Why would you ask that?
Jaden: Because that's what Logan's mom thinks!!!

Ha Ha! I had to laugh. My 6 year old is asking tons of questions about politics and this is just one of the many. I love how he says "Oobama" too.

Raking Leaves

Raking leaves at our house is so much fun! The boys love doing it and they even fight over who gets the rake. Too bad the end result looks the same as when we started. Oh well, fun was had by all and I like the leaves on the ground anyway.

Simple Blessings!

Thank you God for the fact that I can stay at home and spend time with Jamie Lukas!

Thank you God for a husband that is providing for us and being the most loving and patient man I know! (I am not the easiest person to be around, shocking, I know)

Thank you God for Jaden and his emotional side and how he enjoys the simple things in life!

Thank you God for Jakob and how he is such an awesome big brother!!!

Thank you God for the season change!

Thank you God for the colors of the changing leaves!

Thank you God for letting us see the face of our daughter Jillian!

Rainbows

Last week we had a beautiful rainbow that stretched across the whole sky! It was the most impressive thing. Jakob, Jaden and Jameson were very excited about seeing it. The pictures really don't even show just how awesome it was.

Prayers for McMuffin

Update: Baby Stellan is here and seems to be doing well. If you would like to follow his story just click on the button above and you can view their family blog. It is an inspiring story of how our God healed this little boy and brought him to full term. Stellan still needs prayer for his heart, but we are all just thrilled that he is here!

One of my very favorite blogs is that of a family who has nicknamed their family members for the sake of blogging. They have a sweet little boy coming into the world via c-section tomorrow with some heart problems and would like prayers. Please pray for Baby Stellan and feel free to stop by their family blog at mycharmingkids.blogspot.com. It is one of the best blogs and I spend a small part of my day checking in to see how things are going with their family! Please say a prayer for the family because of all the unknowns following his birth.

It's MONDAY!!!

I most certainly did not pass two buses in front of the school and go right on by their stop signs sticking out the side without noticing! The assistant principal DID NOT come up to my van and let me know all about it and warn me to be more careful the next time...in the nicest way possible! OOPS!!!!

I did not let my children eat carrot cake for breakfast! Nope not me!!!

Jameson is also NOT watching The Wiggles for the 3rd time already today and it's only 10am!!! That would just be crazy!

Pumpkin Patch 2008

More Pumpkin Patch Fun