More weekend.....

The Christmas Community Concert was held Sunday evening at the high school. This is an annual event, and I get to conduct the adult choir. For the last year I have been playing percussion in the orchestra. (They were desparate!) So I ran back and forth. It was lots of fun.

I had Dawn's daughter, Mary, play the violin with one of the choir numbers. She did an excellent job.

We always end with the Hallelujah Chorus. It is getting easier every year.

Big December Weekend

It WAS a big weekend.
All was done with an abundance of snow piling up all around. We are going to have a white Christmas! The view is from my kitchen window, where you cannot see the stairs going down from the deck, and another view of our front steps. Greg used his 4-wheeler to push snow around for the neighbors. I think he was having fun.

We had an Anderson Christmas party at the church because there are getting to be too many people for our houses. We had a great meal, and lots of games and activities. There were eight little boys, and two tiny girls, so it was lots of fun. Most everyone played the games with gusto.

The Wise Man and Reading

Jamie's three boys got to stay at our house for two whole days. We had a great time, and read lots of books, among other things. Casey knows how important it is to read to your children. His baby will know lots of stories!

A cute story: Caleb (6 yrs old) was at my house to help unpack to nativity sets. He carefully unwrapped each piece, and we identified them all. As he unwrapped another one, he asked, "Who is this one, Grandma?" I said that it was a wise man. When he unwrapped the next one, he said "Then this must be the foolish man."

A big Achievement

These are my achievement day girls, minus one who couldn't be there. They are charming girls, and very active and talented. Two of them take piano lessons from me. We made chocolate waffle cookies this day, and had cocoa powder all over Colleen's kitchen. But they were GOOD cookies!





After this last week, I am looking forward to a Thankful Holiday. It was a busy week with a funeral, community choir practice, achievement day activity, helping Adrienne after her surgery, quilt guild, doctor appts for grandma and me, piano recital for my students, and helping Jamie with her booth at the Unique Boutique. (I thought I had a picture of that, but I guess not). And then the best part was when Barb and Curt Pollard came with son Curt, to spend the night. We certainly enjoyed having them, visiting, and eating cookies and ice cream. They went to church with us, and I think the ward wanted to keep them. But now, on to the happy holidays............

Trip to Provo

I have been really busy in Provo the last three days. Avery and I decorated cookies, baked little cakes and bread, wore our aprons, sang songs to Max, played games, practiced trick-or-treating, read books, laughed at Max, went for walks and collected leaves, and ate good food. Oh, yes, Kallie was there, too, and sometimes Ryan. It was a good vacation, and you might even notice that I got my hair cut.

Story about Avery: She babbled some nonsense syllables, and then clearly pronounced, "That is a different language", and resumed her babbling.............

I Love Harvest

Yesterday was my second applesauce day, and I did 42 1/2 more qts. I am closing the home canning shop for the year! (I think). So here are most of my home canned products. Aren't they pretty? Some of my kids still hate to go into the food storage room to get something, but I love it. What is their problem?

Beautiful Bottles

Today was applesauce day. It only took 12 hours to make these 42 quarts of applesauce. A long hard day, but I did have a little help for some of the time. Caleb and Braden are "experts" (Caleb says) because they helped their mom with the same thing. And then Greg did all the dishes, or I would still be in the kitchen!
The thing is, I only used about half of my apples. Do this another day again? Oh, dear.

Greg wanted a picture of his pumpkin patch. This one weighs in at 60 pounds. He had fun watching these grow, and now giving them to his grandchildren. We worked hard at getting everything in before the early winter weather comes this weekend. We only kept 7 boxes of apples from our trees, and Dawn took about 8, but there are more if anyone needs them!

I keep forgetting to take pictures of all the canning I have been doing. Not just peaches and pears galore, but tomato everything: salsa, chili sauce, spaghetti sauce, and plain tomatoes. But I did take a picture of going out to lunch for Adrienne's birthday. Jamie and boys met us, so that made 3 adults and 6 children. What a great idea! And a good break from canning.......

Spud Day Fun

Yesterday was Spud Day in Shelley, an annual gathering for the public to celebrate the famous Idaho Spuds. So..........the community orchestra was invited to perform, and since I have been playing percussion lately (they begged) here we are. After we played about half the program, the rain started, and we had to run under the cover. We regrouped and finished our numbers. Funny, but it worked! I like playing the cymbals and xylophone, but mostly I play the big bass drum. Great fun.

New Rooms

I promised some pictures of my newly refinished rooms, so voila! (I know, it has been about six weeks since we finished, but I am taking my time at decorating, and figuring out what I want in here. I want to be like Vickie when I grow up!) Things are still pretty bare, but I like it that way right now. Come visit whenever you want......

By Popular Demand!

Here is what they look like. Enjoy!
For Adrienne's wonderful (they really should have won) brownies, go to her recipe web site, Taste the Joy.

Cocoa Creamies

1 cup sugar

½ c. Saco cocoa powder

¼ t. salt

½ t baking powder

3 T. butter, melted

2 T. applesauce

1 t. vanilla

2 eggs

¾ c. flour

Combine first 4 dry ingredients in medium bowl. Mix butter, applesauce and vanilla, and stir in. Drop in eggs, stir well. Add flour and stir until smooth. Spread into a greased or parchment lined 8x8 inch pan and bake at 350 for 25 minutes until moist crumbs cling to a toothpick when inserted in center. Cool.

Toppings:

½ c. cold milk

2 T. flour Mix these together in a 2-cup microwave bowl. Cook in

microwave 2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute. Cool to room

temperature.

¼ c. butter, softened

¼ c. shortening

½ c. sugar Cream together until fluffy. Add the cooked mixture and

mix well.

½ c. flaked coconut

¼ t. coconut extract (opt) Stir these into creamed mixture. Spread over cooled

brownies.

½ c. chocolate chunks or chips

¼ c. heavy whipping cream

Warm together in microwave 30 seconds, stir, cook 15

Seconds more until it can be stirred smooth. Pour over

Brownies. Store in the refrigerator. Serve cold.

Brownie Contest!

It is Eastern Idaho State Fair week, and Adrienne and I decided to enter the brownie contest. And we won! Out of 15 entries, we took two of the ribbons, and some prize money. They ate all my brownies but I will send out the recipe to anyone who is interested. :) Notice the SACO apron they put on me............

This is a big day. Greg finished the last bit of siding on his new shop. And he didn't even fall off and break anything. Nick helped work on the high parts yesterday. He didn't especially like the height and the shaky ladders!

I got to stay a week with Mom and Dad after reunion , go to lunch, to the Seattle Temple, and work on a few projects. We had a good time but it went too fast.

I think I always forget how beautiful and amazing Mt Rainier is when I am away for so long. Mom and Dad live so close to it. I had a good trip and then flew home.

Here is the way we traveled to Washington on the 4th of July. Three boys in three car seats in the back, three adults in the front. I drove a lot of the way, and Jamie worked on her computer, and Nathan slept. The kids were so GOOD!
We had the Rushton Reunion at Fort Flagler on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. It was so beautiful, and the weather was perfect. The boys had lots of fun.
So much fun visiting with cousins and other relatives. Harold and Jill are always fun to see. There were about 160 people there, the food by Keven and his helpers was great, and it was great.
There was a kids auction for donated toys, and the money used was "Rushton Bucks", given for good behavior during reunion. Casey learned quickly that if he raised his hand, he could get what he wanted. He just kept it up until he finally won the bid. His one desire was the "Cars" book and he got it! Hilarious......

Construction Zone

This is our painter, who took several days to finish, and then we have been living in this construction zone for a month. But tomorrow finally feels like Christmas, because the carpet is to be put in. Then I will post more pictures!

Bird Feeder

Greg decided to get a bird feeder and watch the birds. He has always enjoyed this, so I don't know why it took us so long to get one. We have had some really pretty birds so far........You can see our huge rhubarb and some beginnings of the garden.

More May Adventures

Our second trip in May was to Baby Max's Blessing in Provo. It was a quick trip, but we had a full house of family sleeping over in Kallie and Ryan's new house. Maxwell is a big baby boy, a full 3 months old.



Braden likes to get in on the pictures too.





This is a bag that I made and donated to quilt guild, for a special project.



If you want some great rhubarb recipes, go to Adrienne's blog, Taste The Joy. Yummy!

First trip in May

Dawn, Vickie, and I went to Salt Lake City to attend HMQS, Home Machine Quilting Show. We stayed in a lovely hotel, ate out at fabulous places, saw amazing quilts, and shopped for fun things. A great get-away for four days!

A Project

OK, just notice all the garbage I am creating. I decided to clean out my file cabinet, and that means throwing away college notes, and even some from high school. It took many hours all week, but two whole drawers and lots of files are gone. What a walk down memory lane!

Grandkids

Here I am -- sewing with Avery.
I saw this cute fabric and had to sew matching dresses for my two granddaughters.

More Music

Here is another picture, maybe a better one?

Percussion Girl

This is me playing the timpani for the community orchestra concert. They were "needing" some help with percussion, so I went to a few practices, and just did it. It was lots of fun, and I also played the bells and cymbals. We played patriotic songs, Harry Potter music, and Pirates of the Carribean, among others. This is just before we started. Can you find me in the back?

A Week of Fun

I spent a week with Kallie and Ryan because they called and SURPRISE! we had a baby a month early. So here is Avery playing games with grandma, and baby Maxwell in the NICU. He is doing really well, but just has to learn how to eat before he comes home. It was a great week, and was like a little vacation.