Our Pet Panda

Merry Christmas

Wishing you the most wonderful Christmas. May it be full of love and wonder at the gift of Christ.

Naomi

for you mama

Christmas Cookies

I LOVE CHRISTMAS BAKING!




Even the mess isn't the end of the world, because the end results are worth it. And after how messy everything gets my kitchen feels super clean after the clean up is done.








I include a couple childhood favorites from when we were small. I have a recipe that my great-grandma always made. Terran's family always has these cherry cookies that are waiting for their chocolate sauce. They never last long.




Along with the old; one has to have something new.... White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies are one of this years newbies.










My lovable, huggable, kissable sugar cookie decorator; he does fabulous work















And when the end comes I'm so glad that this only happens once a year. I made 10 types of cookies this season and ended up with 42 dozen cookies that are guaranteed to cling to your hips and enlarge your .... um .... heart.

Thanks for all the comments about the butterfly photo. I hope to post more photo shop stuff in the future. We'll see what T. & I come up with. :)

Naomi

PS. We give almost all the cookies away, I don't want you to think that we are little piggies.

The Butterfly and The Camera

Playing with photoshop, which is fun and unique.

OR

The original full of color and life.

I can't decide which one I like better. Can you?

Naomi

Thanksgiving Flop

I love cooking!! Usually what I try turns out ok, not always great, but pretty good. We are celebrating Thanksgiving Friday (tomorrow) with Terran's family, so today T & I went hiking, had yummy pork tenderloin for dinner, and I worked on a cake I asked to bring to our dinner.

I have been drooling over this cake since I saw it on the cover on Bon Appetit Magazine. It definitely is a cake that needs to be shared. What better occasion than a family dinner? None that I can think of until I made the cake. It's a good thing that someone else is bringing pies.

Here's what has been tempting me all month. It's a devil's food cake with chocolate ganache filling and white chocolate peppermint cream in the center. The outer frosting is marshmallow peppermint. It sounds sooo yummy to me. I know it's a bit of a Christmas cake, but Christmas is already such a sweet holiday and I really wanted to enjoy this.

This is my cake!!! Please don't laugh, because I might hear you and start crying.

I have no idea what happened. The whole cake fell apart and frosting billowed out of it.

The first idea was to cover it with the marshmellow frosting and call it good. It would take a lot of frosting to fix this and even then....?

Finally out of desperation I just tore the whole thing apart and...

made a trifle. Lets hope it tastes good. :)

Picking up the pieces,

Naomi

Monday Doings

Monday is always a busy day. It usually means lots of cooking, catching up from the weekend, and getting the week started. Here is what it took to get this week going.

Made applesauce for the first time ever today. It came out tasting wonderful, but really smooth. It's like eating apple pudding creamy, silky, and truthfully a little odd. Next time....

Made our favorite Beef Stroganoff. The best thing about this recipe is the taste and then how easy it is. Gotta love easy.

Walked the dogs farther than a mile for the first time in two weeks. It's so nice to be feeling better.

Asked my cousin for her address, so that I can mail the baby gift I've had for her since May. I thought I should get it to her before she has grandchildren.

Ate left over Chinese food and loved it.

Started thinking about Christmas baking. It's never too early to think about cookies and cakes. yum

Washed four loads of laundry and will put away six. Don't ask where the other two loads came from.

Here's to hoping that this small jumbled summery of my day wasn't too boring.

Naomi

A Little Cheer

I have been sick the last week. Yesterday was my first day waking without a fever and headache, which was marvelous. I actually got up and put some dishes in the dishwasher. My sweet Mom decided that I needed a little cheer. She sent these beautiful blooms to brighten my day and they really did.

Thanks Mom, you really blessed me. The house smells so fresh with the flowers too. It's nice to have something bright and beautiful to look at. I love you and your thoughtfulness!!!

Love, Naomi

Look Who Came to Visit....

Waiting for our special guest to arrive.

Country First! Go McCain and Palin!!!

Palin girls and Hank Williams Jr.

Hank Williams Jr singing a little ditty about Alaska's Governor.

Sharing her views and making her promises; I hope that Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain get a chance to keep them.

Sarah on her way out. She impressed me as a really nice, direct person and very into her girls.

Hello Stacey and Nick. How fun you made into our picture. :)

Naomi

The Guard Dog

I really count on Kojo when I am home to be the protector of the house and of me, especially against intruders. You'd think he'd be good at it, because he's a big dog for his breed, tries to be the leader more often then I like. And then...

...there are times I wonder who would have to protect who.

Naomi

Fall Colors

Last Sunday was Color Sunday and we joined the masses reveling in the surrounding beauty. It an incredible day, we drove the Sprite enjoying the sun and wind to the fullest.

The sun and wind weren't the only thing that we enjoyed. The colors this year were beyond what we have seen in past years. I think that we sometimes miss the peak day, but hit it dead on this year.











We took loads of pictures

Cold coming with winds of gold

And frosts of yellow

Colors all aglow

Fall has come

Walking with Trinity

Ok, I know I said vacation photos were coming, and they are. I first had to share this last weekend and the time we had with Trinity. We spent Friday running errands with him tagging along with us and we had a blast grocery shopping, messing around the house, and fun stuff like that. Before we took him home we wanted to take him to an apple festival that was going on in town over the weekend. Well, the fun stuff ended just before we got there and the evening military music had started. (Not quite what we had in mind) At first we were really bummed, but leave it to an eleven year old to create his own fun and of course we had to join in.

Trinity and the apple on a string.

You can do it!!!

It's harder than it looks. :)

It's hard to believe that we have been spending time with Trinity for two years. He has really created a spot for himself in our hearts.

Naomi

Home Again

We are home from our lovely, lovely vacation, while it's nice to be in our own place again, it's sad that our trip has come to an end. I keep telling myself that Monday it's back to life as usual. It makes me happy and a little bummed too. I will post pictures later. We have to sort through them a bit.



I went through our newspapers today and found this one tucked in the bunch. We were a little shocked and had a good chuckle.

Naomi

JUST A QUICK REMINDER

A Great Deal!

Wednesday on my way home from work I stopped by Target to pick up some dog food that was on sale. I love sales and love them even more when they are on something that we need to buy. I also had a coupon to go with this really great deal.

I honestly was looking forward to the time shopping and have a chance to refocus on my own life. I had just spent the day with two kidos who were projecting the stress of their families move by fighting. It had been a day of shoving, hitting, toy grabbing, and book stealing. Did you know that there are two ways to move to Africa? I didn’t. Did you know that both ways need the same dump truck to move? I do now.

Anyway, I needed to unwind. I walked into the store grabbing a cart while relishing the air conditioner, spent a little time browsing the sales rack, (found a cute pink top that looked good) and headed to the dog food. I found it right away, because of the great sale it had been moved to the main aisle of the store. I smiled at the store stocker working an aisle away from me and grabbed the 40 lb bag of food.

R-r-r—i-p is what I heard as all of the small, crunchy bites my dogs love started pooling around my feet and I was holding an empty bag. 40 pounds is a lot of anything and it most certainly is lot of dog food. It was up over my ankles and spread out all around me. The store clerk just stared, people were poking their heads out of aisles to see what the noise was, some sweet lady walked by telling me how sorry she was, a man told me I needed a pack of dogs, and I had too decide whether I was going to be embarrassed or look at it as funny. The latter won. The difficult part was trying to extract myself and my cart from all the food while a cleanup crew was called. I did have a moments hesitation when I went to grab another bag for my cart, because a repeat performance would have been embarrassing.

Naomi

Birthday Hike

Yesterday to celebrate Terran's birthday we hiked one of our favorite trails here in the valley. Crag Crest runs about 10 1/2 miles, long enough to challenge, but not completely exhaust. It was a great way to escape the heat, enjoy each others company, and celebrate God's creation.



Starting out.

A bit of beauty on the way.

This is one of our favorite spots. The trail opens up to a boulder field with a small grassy meadow, filled with wild flowers, and a flowing creek. It's lovely.

Local wild life, a Marmot.

The trail follows along the top of the crest a far you can see. It drops down the other side just over the peak covered with trees.

Happy Birthday most wonderful husband.

Some more wild life.

View from the crest, this is one reason we try to hike this each year.

Made it at last. See you later.