Family Times

     This fall we got to take a little trip up the Mississipp to visit Bemidji and see family. Always a good thing!
     One evening we hung out at the Cobb's home right on the Mississippi. Eating and fellow-shipping. Ephriam learned he really liked fried purple onions when Uncle Luke feeds them to him. And Travis shared some Red green episode he thought was funny to some of the guys. I guess they thought it was fun as well.

     It was deer hunting season while we were up there so when anyone was out beyond the yard they needed to wear hunter orange. We aren't too supplied on hunter orange clothes so I brought along the home depot aprons. I thought I was pretty clever. Mostly we just stayed out of the woods and worked around the house and garage. No one was supposed to be hunting in the pasture but it is better to be safe than sorry.

 Eph thought Bea's pink hair was a little overwhelming
;)

 Grandma's love to hold sleeping babies.
Sleeping babies love to be held by Grandmas.

     Several trees were cut down. This one was particularly close to the house so we all came outside and watched from a safe distance. Travis did good and the tree fell just where it was supposed too. Dad was on the skid loader giving it a pull in the right direction as well.

      The night we came home was the super moon. It was so pretty. When we got home we got out the telescope and gave it a viewing that was a little more up close and personal. You could really see the details of it through the telescope's lenses.

          That morning in his sermon Mathew used James 3:17 & 18.

      But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. 

Those words really struck me as who I want to be. Can I be less greedy, more pure in my intentions? More peaceful than grumpy, gentle in my response rather than critical? reasonable rather than jumping to conclusions? Merciful rather than impatient, leaving a trail of good memories rather than angst? Steadfast rather than giving up? all of that without being hypocritical?

 I think I can but I have to try. I want to try. I will try.

     Then, my Uncle Leland died and we took a trip to Wisconsin to celebrate his life.
Uncle Lee was a great guy with a lot of great traits but what we will most miss and we remember about him is his music. Him sitting at the piano, beaming with joy as he played and sang songs of praise to Jesus. Family reunions are not going to be the same with out his presence. He didn't have to be the one making the music he was quite happy listening to others and clapping along. Music was his peace.

 At the Johnson's house with cousins.

Until next time,

~Anna

Crazy how much time can pass without one even knowing where it has gone! So many fun little things happen and are gone in a blink of an eye and without some form of journaling they are forgotten. I guess journaling isn't a word but it makes sense to me "the act of writing in a journal". Something I haven't been good at keeping at consistently. I had an "on this day" memory the other day on facebook that reminded me how much I want to be able to look back and see the fun we have had. The memory was when the 6 year olds in my house were wanting to have a tea party, but I was needing to set up for other company coming to visit so I wouldn't let them set up on the main floor, so they went to the basement and needed more chairs for their table so guess where the party was held? In the bathroom! The toilet was the 3rd chair. That was in 2010. So now I am going to try to jot down those little things once more. We'll see how it goes.
After I took MaMa, BeBe and GeGe to Co-op this morning I returned some clothes to Value Village Arc. I am becoming their Thursday morning regular. This was my third week in a row going there. I don't think I will be back next week because everything I bought today fits. Last week I got HaHa a pair of jean shorts that I think would have fit him great but he refused to try them on! He has such strict rules (these were a bit dated I suppose, but he is so tall it is hard to find them as long as he likes and these might have been :). I found a few good deals today, I think. Then I went to the library for a quick switch of the books that were due and the books I had requested that were in. I am their Thursday morning regular all school year. From the library I ran home, switched laundry loads, hung up the clean clothes and did emails for an hour before I had to be back to correct papers at co-op at 11 am. I had intended to get the bread baked during that time as well, but ran out of time so I punched it down and told it to do some more rising and ran out the door. I am enjoying the ladies at co-op a lot this year. We have such good visits. There are a few new families and then some I have just gotten to know better.
HaHa had another Algebra II test. That teacher doesn't seem to be getting her point across to the students well at all. She misses an awful lot of classes and I guess a lot of the first class of students wasn't able to finish the test and then Haha's class mostly didn't either. They finally, this week, a month after the test, got their first test results back which weren't too great. He is a PSEO student so it is pretty important that he get good grades. Oh well, there are two more months of classes hopefully things balance out there and they figure out her problem.
Haha had band this afternoon and while he was gone Travis woke up (he worked nights) and shortly after that we went to clean the church building. When we got home from cleaning HaHa had our supper ready of spaghetti. DeDe came over for awhile this evening.
I am trying to figure out what to get rid of and what to rearrange to make room for one little foster boy. I need to make some phone calls regarding that in the am.
Good night.

Changes

And not brought to you by Obama. These are good changes.

School has been in session for a couple months now. We have managed to take a week or so off each month but I think even with our breaks we have truly become smarter.

We have grown older,

eating her birthday breakfast of biscuits and gravy

Margaret is now 12,

 Beatrice in now 9,

Singing Happy Birthday and getting ready to receive her  birthday "spankings".

 And Harrison is 14.

For Harrison's birthday we went to Fogo De Choa for lunch with a couple of his friends..

and to Kade's, a special little friend of Harrison's with whom he almost shares a birthday, birthday supper.

My hair was craving a change so I finally gave in to it and got it cut. Here are some before pictures for posterity.

An immediately after the cutting picture.

Lest you worry my hair was wasted I did donate it to Locks of Love so I guess it will  be worn by someone else some day. 

We are now among the people who can say they have cured, cooked and eaten corned beef tongue. It truly is tasty but some of us are having a hard time eating it. It is just a bit different in texture and in looks than what we are accustomed to.

Peeling the beef tongue.

Travis lost his schedule at work that I was so loving. He is now working the road which he actually likes a lot better so it was a good and bad change.

We thought about changing our washing machine but turns out we don't need to change that. Now I have a spare machine in my laundry area. Anyone want to buy a overhauled and cleaned top loading washer? I like the storage I get on top of the front loading washer better. Besides I guess front loaders are more energy efficient and definitely they are much quieter.

More later,
~Anna

Milk Tart

So recently I have been desiring a milk tart. I just never get the thought when I have the time to make a pie crust and the filling and so on. So finally this evening we ate a milk tart. I about put the recipe card away when I was getting started because I really didn't know how much I should bite off for my baking evening since it was already 6pm and I hadn't made our supper, just had the tortilla dough made up and resting and a vague idea about what was going to go in them. (Turkey, beans, salsa and corn cooked together with guacamole is what it turned out being - very good). I still had a pumpkin pie to make, and a double batch of graham crackers. Bea also created an apple pie when she came in and saw the extra crust.

This recipe goes back a ways in my history. When I was about 11 or so a family from South Africa lived near our community for about a year on a farm that a missionary in S. Africa owned. They were a really sweet family and it was fun getting to know them. I taught their daughter Zoe piano for a little bit even. One of the times their family came over for supper Wendy brought Milk Tarts for desert. They are a mild treat but something about them really endears them to me. I am sure you will like them too, if you try them. I probably shouldn't share this recipe because the last few times I have made it, it has been very weepy and I am not sure why, I don't remember hers being weepy and I don't think mine always have been either. Although I hadn't made them for years until I thought of them last year or so, for some reason I can't remember.

I tried to make them on Tuesday when I made Bobotie also from South Africa. I thought we would have a proper ethnic meal from another continent. But it was not to be, I had too many places to be.

I guess Thursday is a good day for making milk tart, too. You can probably make them anyday of the week you wish. 

I think I will give you the recipe now.

Milk Tart

Scald 2 cups milk in a sauce pan with some cinnamon in it.

Remove from heat,

Gradually stir in 4 Tablespoons of sugar

                           6 Tablespoons of flour and a pinch of salt

Whisk this all up until it is well incorporated 

Return to burner on medium heat and heat stirring regularly until it is thick and bubbly,

Remove from heat again.

 Put 2 Tablespoons of butter into the milk and mix well.
Allow to cool for a bit,
then add 2 well beaten eggs.
Stir well.

Pour milk mixture into an 8 inch pie pan lined with a pie crust and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake in a hot 425 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for 10- 15 minutes, or golden and set.

In other news, Travis is achy and happy tonight, the last two days we have added to our wood collection nicely so we shall be warm next winter. Always a good feeling to be prepared.

Good night,

~Anna

My Grandma

February 24, 2012 my Grandma Cleone went home to be with Jesus. She was tired and so ready to have a break, so I am happy for her. But I miss her.Miss her insight into teaching my children, planting a garden, sewing, cooking, all the different things that Grandma had done and was interested in hearing about me doing. Miss that connection to a  place in my history. Hearing her voice. Miss all of her little idiosyncrasies that made her my Grandma.

When I was little I always wanted to sit next to Grandma in the evenings or at church so she could rub her fingers on my hands and arms. She had very soft, warm, round fingers that she would slowly swirl and  curve around on my skin, it was so relaxing.

Growing up Grandma always sent a box at our birthdays and at Christmas time. They were very anticipated events and a lot of fun to open. We could count on a box of whoppers, usually something to wear, something fun and on our birthdays there was always a cake mix with a fun flavor to bake and frosting. For our family who always did things from scratch it was fun to have the crumbling box cakes.

Grandma had a unique way of saying hello when she answered the telephone that was more of a 'yallow', she had a lovely alto voice when she sang. I enjoyed hearing her play the piano for church, it was a heavy chording style that was hers. Listening to her read stories was always fun. At the bottom of this post of my sister's there is a video clip of Grandma reading in 2008 if you would care to hear her read.

Saturday mornings was Grandma's day to call us. When we were little we each took a turn talking to her, gradually that faded away. Then in her older years I tried to call her regularly. Each conversation she would make sure I was still home schooling my children and let me know just how important that was, check on Travis and if he still liked driving trains and she always wanted to hear how church was going. If we had  had a VBS that summer, how that went or other seasonal items. Almost any time of the year she also checked on my garden in some way. How it had produced, had I started planting it, did it grow well, if I was able to can anything from it.

Grandma usually made it up a couple times a summer to visit us in northern MN from southern Iowa. She didn't ever want to get caught in bad weather. But she often timed her visits it seems when there was butchering to be done. A part of life that I may have tried to avoid but she knew how to be a help and wanted to help. 

Grandma really liked to craft; sewing, crocheting, ceramics and lots of other enterprises she liked to try them all. When she would come for a visit she often brought a project for us to do with her. We painted lots of lovely figurines, hers always turned out so much nicer looking than mine. She tried to teach each of us how to crochet. It worked well with Peter and Abbi, me not so much, I never developed an even stitch. 

One time when my mom gave Grandma a perm to give her the wave she liked to have, it washed out her hair dye that she had in to give her a salt and pepper gray look that she had all of my younger days. I couldn't believe she would cover up a most beautiful head of snow white hair with dye. It shook Grandma up a bit to have us all see her white hair since she was a very private person. The gray promptly returned for a few more years but gradually she let it go to white. I didn't understand then just how hard change is. Our comfort zone is a very comfortable place indeed.

Some smells make me think of places or people. Cutting open a grapefruit often makes me think of breakfast at grandma's. She set the halved grapefruit into individual bowls and then she had special grapefruit spoons to dig out the flesh.

When I was in college in Ottumwa, Iowa I was near enough to spend the Saturdays I didn't work visiting or shopping with Grandma. We liked to go down to an outlet mall and browse the stores, we rarely stayed together, but we were together and we always ate lunch at Arby's. A few times we went to the Amanna colonies to a sweater factory store where she liked to get her button-up sweaters. She almost always had a sweater with her to ward off cool breezes.

Most all of the Sundays I was at college the afternoons were spent at her house, she made Peter and I and usually a few friends dinner every week after church.

Grandma wasn't a very cuddly person, we didn't get too many hugs and kisses from her, but yet she showed us love in so many ways. I am very grateful to have had her, and to have all the memories I do. So many more than I can tell. It has been emotional thinking about her this evening, but also rather fun. I do hope you have a Grandma you can reminisce about as well.  

Blessings,

~Anna