Birthday Wishes to SPI

Happy 60th Birthday Grammy Koney!

Christmas 2012

Christmas brunch w/ the Makis



Opening Presents

Poor attempt at family photo

Beautiful Christmas flowers from David & Elizabeth

Brooks/Rowland kids

New baby doll from Gramma & Papa along w/ a homemade cradle & blankets

New ornament from Grammy & Papa SPI

Stockings

Brooks' Family Christmas with Great Grandma Ruth

And Popo stole the show...

Hide-n-Seek & Football w/ Papa Gary

Learning the ins & outs of Hide-n-Seek...its a working progress...

Papa Gary playing football w/ Elizabeth after helping us blow insulation into the garage attic.

December Happenings

T'was the weekend before Christmas

And at the House of Brooks

Was a crazy December

With Movers, Shakers, and Cooks

Pie, Fudge, & Cookie Spritz

Sweetie Baby So Sick



Decorating the Tree

Mom's Group Christmas Party

Schaefer Family Munch

Fun with a Brush

Stockings Hung with Care



Christmas Carolers Flair

New tree so Bright

Our Friday Fort Night

Yellow Dress Pictures

Elizabeth 2012

Isabella 2012



Ruby 2011

Christi 1983

Sharon 1954

Holiday Cooking is Under Way

Gluten-free: pie (no crust pumpkin) choc. chip cookies & Spritz

My helper, who loves to cook!

"Food" for Thought

Have you ever thought of this? 
I heard this on a Christian broadcast the other day and I thought with Advent starting, it was appropriate to share:

Jesus said,  “I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35) & “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

John 4:14 "But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life."

When the Jews were wandering in the desert for 40 years, God rained down “bread from heaven” to sustain the nation (Exodus 16:4).

Jesus is equating himself with bread, Jesus is saying he is essential for life.  The life Jesus is referring to is not physical life, but eternal life. Jesus is trying to get the Jews’ thinking off of the physical realm and into the spiritual realm. He is spiritual bread that brings eternal life.

And where was he laid as a babe?  In a manger -- a nicer word for a food trough.  Jesus was destined to be our spiritual food from the beginning. 

Luke 22:19          
And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Simple, but beautiful.

2 Year Check Up

My Itty Bitty is getting bigger. 

Height: 34" (74%)

Weight: 27# (55%)

Head: 19" (84%)

She also had her 1st dentist check-up to count her teeth. She did OK, but got a new tooth brush, toy, and lots of stickers for being such a good girl.

Election 2012

This is my blog, my on-line journal. Here I can write what I want. It's mine. My opinions, my record of events for my children to look back on in the future. So here...I write.

Tuesday evening I voted. I voted conservative and I voted YES for the marriage amendment to be defined as "One Woman & One Man". I voted YES for people to bring photo IDs with them to vote. I vote the ETHICS. But (sigh) America and MN went against the grain that God has set out.

OBAMA: A man was voted into the white house who wants to cut our military budget, and already has, making us a more vulnerable country.
He takes tax-payers money to give to places like Planned Parenthood to give free abortions to the low income (I know of women personally who use abortions as a method of birth control and have multiple abortions versus taking the Pill). Obama once was quoted, regarding abortion, "I wouldn't want my daughters to be punished with a baby." Punished? Really? And he supports partial-birth abortion - where the baby is near full term, partially delivered, and then it's brains are sucked out through a syringe in order to kill it. Disgusting and degrading.
This is the man who let us believe, for 14 days, a terrorist attack was really a "demonstration". He LIED to the American people. And later when he said he called it a terrorist attack, he did not, he said "The American people will not tolerate terror". That's not the same thing.
And this is who we RE-elected to run our country? A man who lies, kills. A man who claims the responsibility to have "...gotten Bin Ladin" when it was President Bush's decision to go after him in the first place while Obama said he was going to pull all troops back home as soon as he became president the 1st time?
Now he is going to raise the taxes on "wealthy" small business owners (anyone making over $250K - which is not a lot for small businesses), leaving these businesses with less money to hire more employees. Therefore more unemployed Americans. More taxes taken out of everyone's pockets to support the unemployed. He is going to put Obama Care into place, which is just devastating, and a joke once one reads into it.

I woke up Wednesday morning, barely got my robe and glasses on before turning on the TV to find out the election results. Living in a blue state, I wasn't much surprised by the MN results. Disappointed, but still not surprised. But my heart still sank as I saw that the Christians had been defeated all around. I kept thinking, "My God, my God. Why have you abandoned me?" Then I started to think: God didn't let us down. He didn't abandon us. God is a 'gentleman' and He won't go where he isn't invited. If a majority of our country does not want God here, He won't be. And maybe this is God's Will. We won't know why certain things happen until He comes again.

Christi: why do you vote conservative? I vote the moral & ethical issues. And even if the candidates aren't perfect, I vote for the least likely to go against God's will. My Liberal friends don't tend to like my answer because usually the ethical topics I bring up "don't apply to me", per them.  Hmm.

Abortion is a sin, yet it is legal. Homosexual marriages are a sin, yet becoming legal (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Just because something is written into law, does not make it right. 

What happens when we go to heaven some day and ask God, "Why didn't you give a cure for cancer? Or AIDS? Why didn't we have world peace" God's reply: "I did. You aborted the baby I gave you to solve your problems."

We are going to have to answer to God, face to face, someday as to the decisions we made and the people we voted for in our lifetimes here on earth. God isn't going to say, "well, who had the best tax plan?" He's going to say "who did you vote for who preserved life?" Is God really going to say "Well done, my good and faithful servant" after we explain to him that we voted for a weaker economy, a liar, and a baby-killer?

I'm not posting this on Facebook.  Like I said in the beginning: this is my blog for me and my family. If you disagree, create your own blog and write your own thoughts. I am just writing this down so that there is never any doubt to anyone as to where I stand. What more can you say than:"Jesus Christ, thy Will be done." 

October/Nov Catchup

All dressed up for Calgaro Wedding Reception

Groom the doggy before we go (See Lexie smile?)

Grandma & Papa

Say "Cheese" Brooks

Yeah ELMO!

3 Blind Mice and the Farmer's Wife

My Monkey ($3.99 @ Goodwill!)

Elizabeth's birthday pic with Grammy Koney & Papa Earl

3 Generations

Mmm, mmm good dinner Mom!

"2" "CAKE!" And she blew out the candles ALL by herself!

Birthday Girl with Papa Gary & Grammy Candy

"Cheese" with Auntie Grandma

Vegetable Spaghetti Sauce

Mommy's Little Cook

Vegetable Spaghetti Sauce
Brown in large pot:
1# ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped

Take 1 whole butternut squash, cut in 1/2. Scoop out & discard seeds. Put face down on plate and microwave 10 min. Let sit in microwave another 5 min. Scoop out inner flesh, mash w/ potato masher.  You could always put in blender, too.

Add following ingredients:
(2) 29 oz cans tomato sauce
Mashed butternut squash
1-2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 to 1/2 C. shredded carrots
Spices to your taste (basil, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic/ onion salt and/or powder, Mrs Dash, Lawry's Seasoning -- whatever is in your cupboard.)
1 bay leaf (take out before serving -- I always forget :))

Bring to boil.  Lower heat to simmer 1-2 hours.  Use what you want and freeze the rest.  This is an awesome recipe and a good way to get kids to eat their veggies.  Elizabeth LOVES spaghetti, and esp this recipe.  She was even helping me taste test and ended up w/ her own bowl of it, eating it like a soup.

Some recipes call for tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, fennel, or even broccoli and cauliflower.  But this is my doctored-up version that I thought I would share.  Plus I always lose this recipe and thought it would be easier to keep it on my blog to refer back to.

Family Fun with the Parks

Excited for Elmo!

ELMO!!!

Everyone was there: Elmo, bert, Ernie, BigBird, Telly, Honker, Zoe, Cookie Monster, Count, Oscar

Teeter Toddlers

Yeah Slide!

Nummy food

 

 

Elizabeth & I spent the night at Auntie Jen's one weekend and she treated us to an awesome Sesame Street production.  Super Grover had lost his Super Powers and his friends from Sesame Street helped him get them back.  It was amazing.
The following weekend the Parks stayed over night @ our house to help us with our garage floor. The girls had so much fun.  After they had left, Elizabeth was going around the house saying, "Auntie.  Ady.  Where are you?".

Coupon!

I label this "hobbies"...because I'm a nerd and I like couponing.  The other day I spent $207.54 and total savings was $100.94 -- a savings of 33%.   No, I'm not as good as some eXtreme couponers, but I also don't buy 33 tubes of toothpaste that I dislike the taste of either.  However, I do have 10 boxes of cereal on my pantry -- but I have a toddler and spouse who love kiddy cereals and go through them quite often.

This is just by clipping the Sunday paper's coupons and doubling them up with items that are already on sale -- so I buy an item on sale or use an in-store coupon and also use a manufacturer's coupon.  I've never tried printing out my own coupons because some stores don't accept them.  Maybe someday I'll look into it. But for most things that I buy: if its not on sale and it could be, we don't buy it (unlike milk which is rarely on sale).  If it is...clear a space for 10 of them! :)

Feast Day of Guardian Angels

 

"Guardian angels are not just for children. Their role is to represent individuals before God, to watch over them always, to aid their prayer and to present their souls to God at death.  The concept of an angel assigned to guide and nurture each human being is a development of Catholic doctrine and piety based on Scripture but not directly drawn from it. Jesus' words in Matthew 18:10 best support the belief: "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father."  A feast in honor of the guardian angels was first observed in the 16th century. In 1615, Pope Paul V added it to the Roman calendar."

We thank God daily for our Guardian Angels and pray God's love, devotion, and guidance for them to aide us in our journey here on earth.  Thank your Guardian Angel today and celebrate them on their feast day.