Saturday, January 31, 2015

Sausage Time

We put off our annual New Year’s Day celebration with the McMurrys until Saturday, invited the Cummings and spent the entire day making 160 pounds of sausage! I am really glad that we will be enjoying this stuff for a while! That’s a whole lot of work!!! :)

I got to try out my new knife set I got for Christmas and boy is it SHARP!!! I cut myself twice before we even got started just cutting up the meat… I got blood everywhere! As if the kitchen wasn’t bloody enough already. ;)

sausage 08They looked pretty good the next day! 

But we had a lot of fun visiting and working and at the end we had Italian, breakfast, potato, cajun, and ground pork to take home.

sausage 01It grinds better a bit frozen

sausage 04 sausage 02 sausage 03 

the guys cut it all into chunks while the ladies figured out the shopping list for ingredients

sausage 06 sausage 05

sausage 07We even put the cajun into casings for the grill! Mmmmmm!

By 10:30pm we were all exhausted and the kitchen was a mess! But thanks to a container of Lysol cleaning wipes and an hour’s worth of work, the kitchen was sparkling clean!

Now that’s a good way to start off the new year!

Friday, January 30, 2015

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve means party at church! Playing games, eating snacks, and fireworks are all part of the fun!

NYE 09

For the most part, it’s grown-ups and board games downstairs and youth group and video games upstairs. But this year, some of the youth joined us old folks… :)

  NYE 06 NYE 07

NYE 04

 NYE 13NYE 10 NYE 11

 

This year, we also got to spend the evening with the Graber kids! :)

NYE 08 NYE 01 NYE 02 NYE 03  This was their very favorite game! Lily loved it (and the snacks)!!!

We ended 2014 and welcomed in 2015 with an epic 15-minute fireworks show in the parking lot! Thanks so much to all the kids for cleaning up the BIG mess in the morning!

Already looking forward to all that 2015 has in store…

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Astoria After Christmas

We’ve tried a few times to take Mark to Astoria and it never seems to work out. But this time it did! We ran to the coast in hopes to buy Andy’s birthday present and have lunch at Rogue. The weather was pretty nice and Mark had never been, so we popped up to the Astoria Column first…

 astor column 14 astor column 12

It’s quite a hike up all those stairs but the view is totally worth it!

astor column 11 astor column 05 astor column 06 astor column 07 astor column 08 astor column 09 astor column 10

Unfortunately, they were out of the books we wanted but we did pick up a new Keurig… :)

astor column 02And we did have lunch at Rogue…

astor column 15

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Christmas Day

Now that the boys are grown, Christmas mornings are much more relaxed. Everyone gets up not too early, we have some hot cocoa and then we mosey on down and do stockings and then open gifts before our baked French toast breakfast.

christmas day 02christmas day 01christmas day 04 christmas day 03 christmas day 05Not a great selfie, but I really like Will in this one! LOL 

Not a ton of gifts this year, but when you get really good ones you don’t care. :)

christmas day 06 lock pick set

christmas day 07

christmas day 08fell in love with stemless wine glasses in Hawaii with Shawn & Karen

christmas day 09 

I finally got a study Bible!!! Now Will can have his back!

christmas day 10

quill pen and journal

christmas day 11

christmas day 12

An Office gift set for the biggest fan ever!

christmas day 16 christmas day 13 christmas day 14 christmas day 15Mark came back for Christmas Day and after a leisurely afternoon we went to my parents’ for dinner…

  christmas day 18 christmas day 17Someone got caught playing with presents under the Christmas tree… :)

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Scandinavian Christmas Eve

This year’s theme for Christmas Eve was Scandinavia. The food was pretty tasty (expect for the fish flavored paste in tubes) and Theresa even decorated her gifts to match the theme!

christmas eve 08 christmas eve 01  christmas eve 02 christmas eve 03 christmas eve 04 christmas eve 05 christmas eve 06 christmas eve 07From top to bottom: Burning Love (potatoes with bacon, mushrooms, cheese & onion), Swedish fish, fish pastes & rye crackers, beet & potato salad, lefse, fruit soup, drinks, salmon sandwich cake (we had other things, too)

christmas eve 10 christmas eve 13After eating we opened gifts…

christmas eve 12 christmas eve 11 We played some games while we ate desserts…

christmas eve 18 christmas eve 14 christmas eve 15 christmas eve 16 christmas eve 17  Then it was off to Candlelight Service!

family 01(not technically taken on Christmas Eve… LOL)

We got home, cleaned up and relaxed… Whew!

christmas eve 19christmas eve 2 01   Then off to bed so Santa could come…

christmas eve 20