Farewell 2009

It is hard to believe that I am looking at the last day on the 2009 calendar already. It seems as if this year has flown by even faster than previous years!

Miss Drama Queen was born in 2006, the Beast was born in 2007, and the Spud was born in 2008. I guess one thing that makes 2009 a banner year for us is that I have not been pregnant or given birth this year! :) I love love love my kiddies, but it was nice to have a break this year.

Apparently however, I am a glutton for punishment, and didn't allow myself much of a break before I "gave birth" again, this time to The Framed Frog. My husband had been encouraging me for some time to take this step, and on February 6, 2009, I opened The Framed Frog on Etsy.com. It took me nearly a month and a half to get my first sale. Then the sales started trickling in here and there. Even though I had grandiose plans to build my new business, I still thought of it as more of a hobby than a business. In September, sales really started to pick up, and by November, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the Christmas rush. Over a third of the 80 sales I have made online this year came in November and December. God has blessed my little business so much - now I just have to figure out how to balance it all with taking care of my kiddies, taking care of my man, and taking care of my home. Yeah. That's definitely still a work in progress!

2009 was also the year that I was able to faithfully blog the entire year. :) Although I primarily started my blog back up to chronicle all the events of our chaotic life for the kiddies (I mean, the Spud's baby book is still in the shrink wrap!), I appreciate all the support from my followers and commenters! Your encouragement helped make The Framed Frog a possibility, and I love having all these new cyber-friends! Sara, thanks especially for all your faithful commenting! It feels like we have know each other a long time - I hope that someday, before our kiddies get too old, we can get the whole crazy group together for a playdate. We have family in Ohio, so it could happen, right?

Despite some tough trials this year, our family has been immeasurably blessed by God. I look forward to 2010's adventures, although I'm not sure I'm ready to be the mom of a 4-year-old (in two weeks!).

And in case this post isn't long enough for you already, here are my top five favorite posts of the year:

1. A Quick Trip to the Post Office
2. It Hit the Fan
3. Mexalian
4. He Cares About the Little Things
5. Future Preacher :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wordless Wednesday - gingerbread architects

more wordless fun at 5 Minutes for Mom...

A Few Glimpses

into our joyous Christmas celebration:

the Spud bringing his cookie to Santa's plate

reading Luke 2

special treats from my parents to the Nerd - he better hold on to those tight!

amused by all the crocheted fruits and veggies

a dollar-store Wall-E puzzle creates great joy

the Spud is ecstatic to get anything Little Einsteins, especially Rocket!

broke out the new Hungry Hungry Hippos game

The Drama Queen immediately tries out her new scooter

the Beast stands solemnly on his new scooter, waiting for action

big hit among all three kids - pedal-giraffe. I think I need exercise equipment more than they do!

just like Mommy, and now she has her own art desk!

awww sweet baby dolly!

many more moments like these, but maybe I was just enjoying it too much to pull out the camera. :)

Future Preacher?

Merry Christmas from all of us to you!

Love, Jeanette, Chris, Drama Queen, Beast, and Spud

Wordful Wednesday - Yule Yumminess

This yummy Yule Log has become a traditional treat for Christmas at our house. I promised I would share the recipe; and since the computer was misbehaving yesterday, I am getting it up today.

Ingredients:
4 eggs, separated
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 squares semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
some powdered sugar
1/2 batch of chocolate cream cheese frosting
1/2 batch of peppermint buttercream frosting

The Cake:
1. Let the eggs warm to room temperature before using (about thirty minutes). Grease a jelly roll pan and line it with waxed paper. Grease and flour the waxed paper, and set aside. (Unless you are fortunate enough to have a flexible jelly roll pan, such as the Flexi-Pat from DeMarle - no greasing or wax paper needed!)
2. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla on high for 5 minutes. Beat in the chocolate and water on low until blended. Add flour and baking soda and mix in. Using clean beaters and another clean mixing bowl, beat the egg whites on high until stiff peaks form. Carefully fold them into the chocolate mixture.
3. Spread the mixture evenly into your jelly roll pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, checking with a toothpick to make sure it comes out clean. Keep cake in pan and put on a wire rack to cool for five minutes.

4. Prepare a kitchen towel by sprinkling it with powdered sugar. Carefully turn the cake out of the pan and onto the towel. Peel off the waxed paper.

5. Roll up the cake in the towel, starting on a short side. Lay it on a wire rack to cool COMPLETELY.

6. When cooled completely, unroll cake.

7. Spread your 1/2 batch of peppermint buttercream frosting (recipe below) on the cake, leaving an inch margin on all sides. (In past years, we have done coconut-pecan frosting, chocolate fudge frosting, and vanilla buttercream frosting. Choose your favorite flavors!)

8. Roll the cake back up.

9. Using a serrated knife, cut a one-inch piece from each end of the log.

10. Frost the entire cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting (recipe below). Add the two cake pieces you sliced off to the sides of the log.

11. Frost over the two pieces with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Use a fork's tines to make marks in the frosting to resemble tree bark. Add any other garnishes - I used peppermint marshmallow stars for mine. Store, covered, in the refrigerator.
Here's the frosting recipes. I make full batches of each and save the remaining frosting for decorating Christmas cookies.
**Peppermint Buttercream Frosting**

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
a box of confectioners' sugar (or four cups)
5 tablespoons or so of milk
3/4 tsp peppermint extract
1/2 cup crushed candy canes
---Cream the butter and extract until light and fluffy. Add confectioner's sugar, a cup at a time, and mix in thoroughly. Add milk until you get the desired consistency. Stir in the crushed candy canes.

**Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting**

Ingredients:
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
box of confectioners' sugar (four cups)
1/2 cup baking cocoa
milk (optional)
--Beat the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and salt together until smooth. Add confectioners' sugar a cup at a time and beat until smooth. Add a little milk if you desire a better spreading consistency.

Yum, all this talk about peppermint and chocolate is making me want a Starbucks Peppermint Mocha! I hope Santa leaves me some Starbucks cards in my stocking!

(more wordless or wordful fun at 5 Minutes for Mom...)

Christmas and Food

It can be a very good thing to have a computer nerd for a husband. I can call him in desperation during that day if I'm having a computer issue, and he, with the calm of a brain surgeon, can direct me through the steps to curing my issue.

However, that same computer nerd may also suddenly decide that he is going to "fix" a lot of "problems" (only detectable to himself of course) and spend a great portion of the evening doing so. Then I sit down early Tuesday morning to put together all the wonderful pictures of my Yule Log cake along with a tutorial on how to make your own, only to find that the pictures are not accessible due to hubby's "fixing" of the problems.

Sigh. So the Yule Log post will have to wait until later. Until then, I would love to share some yummy Christmasy links with you:

A very well-illustrated post on making tiny delectable gingerbread houses to perch on the side of your mug of hot cocoa.


Some easy and very yummy brown sugar shortbread cookies.


A recipe for Coffee Toffee that makes a great gift (if you don't eat it all first!)

And finally, if you are thinking, "Forget the homemade! I'm going out and getting food instead", here is a very helpful chart in determining where you should go.

And now I'm going to have another spoonful of the extra frosting that I made for my Yule Log cake...

Held

"This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held"

(Natalie Grant, "Held")

Just wanted to let everyone who was praying know that God took Rachel's mom Home this morning. As you can imagine, it is a difficult time for the whole family, especially at this time of year. Please continue praying for the family, that God will hold them tight during this trial of life, and that God will give them wisdom in all of the decisions to be made. We rejoice that she is now singing with the angels in Heaven, pain-free, but are saddened for the loss of a dear family member and friend.

Thank you for all your caring words and prayers!

The Rain Comes

It has been so dark and rainy lately here in Oregon:

But you don't have to live in Oregon for it to be cold and rainy in December.

It could be that something has happened that has made life miserably cold and rainy for you.

It's that steady, constant, bone-chilling rain that continues to attack your soul.

When it comes, it's hard to avoid it.

Searching for sunshine or even any ray of hope seems like too much effort.

Friends try to help, but when they leave, the rain is still there.

But you don't have to look far or hard to find the light. Here in chilly wet Oregon, I simply step out on my porch and see this:

Small lights they may be, but still their warm glow takes over the whole photograph.

I am thinking of my best friend today. The dismal cold rain has hit her hard, almost as hard as the driver that hit her mom on Saturday. The rain pours as my friend sits at her mom's bedside, watching an assortment of machines sustain her life. It looks so very dark, and the options presented by the doctors are heart-breaking.

And yet there is light. The "Light of the World" is standing by her side. Our prayers have put Him there, have wrapped His loving arms around her.

Won't you join me in making that light brighter and that faint hope stronger? Please take a moment and lift up Rachel and her family in your prayers today.

"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." James 5:15

Wordless Wednesday - so tuckered out

you know he's tired when he doesn't finish his cheeseburger...

more wordless fun at 5 Minutes for Mom...

Not Always a Mini-Me

In many ways, the Drama Queen is a mini-me. She can talk a mile a minute and fill you in on the most mundane of details. If you let her, she will describe to you the entire plot of a movie she just saw or a really funny story she just made up. She is just like her mother!

She also loves all things artistic and is in her element when you give her crayons, markers, paints, and blank paper. If you give her a pair of scissors, she is in heaven; and I would venture to say that in a few years (when she is a little older), she will swoon if you give her a hot-glue gun. Yep, she is just like her mother!

The Drama Queen gets excited about the smallest things and is very appreciative of them as well. "Thank you Momma for giving me carrot sticks for lunch" and "It's so nice of you to share your house with me" are classic Drama Queen statements. Uh huh, she is just like her mother!

But when I take her to a birthday party full of little girls, princess stuff, games, and cupcakes, she freezes. She hides in the corner and plays by herself. She doesn't join the others in their activities unless prompted several times. On the way home from the party, she will talk on and on about how much fun the party was and how much fun she had playing with the other girls, even though I know she didn't even venture close to them. This is NOT like her mother! I would be the one in the center of the group, playing all the games and being the loudest.

But the Drama Queen is NOT me! (thank goodness). And so I push down all those impulses to "make" her join in the group and be more social. I let her be who she is (without being rude to our host, of course). And secretly I'm a little glad she is a bit of a wall-flower in these social situations. When I hear the mom next to me hollering at her kid to "be nice to the other kids or else" and another mom asking her child to "please lower the volume now!" , I am relieved that all I have to do is watch my calm and obedient child play quietly and happily by herself.

Ha ha , so definitely not like her mother...

Ornament Exchange

on Friday night, in spite of foul weather threats, I picked up my friend Rachel and drove to the Blueberry House for a Christmas ornament exchange.

There was of course delicious food enticing, cozy candles glowing, hot coffee brewing, and ladies chatting. (and chatting and chatting and chatting!)

Somehow we managed to fit an ornament exchange amidst all the eating and talking.

Our ornament exchange always tends to get a little. . . shall we say, crazy??! We organize it like a Yankee gift exchange, in which we all draw numbers to find out the order of choosing. When each person gets her turn, she can either pick a wrapped ornament or "steal" an already-unwrapped ornament from someone else. An ornament can only be stolen three times before it is "frozen" for the rest of the game.

Naturally, there are always a few coveted ornaments. This year's top ornaments were a Christmas spider (unusual but totally beautiful), an entire nativity set of ornaments, a snowman ornament accompanied by a Starbucks card, and a coffee cup ornament reading "Don't Talk to Me Until I've Had My Coffee. And then, I'll Do the Talking." Unfortunately there are also those ornaments that nobody really wants either. If you happen to be the unlucky one choosing that ornament, you're stuck; because no one is going to steal that ornament from you!

Yeah, so I was one of those people that got a coveted ornament (the Christmas spider) which was immediately stolen from me. My next ornament was one of those "nobody really wants it" ones, and so I was stuck. :(

This is the story of my life, and this year I was not going to settle for the ornament that no one else wanted. I put my negotiating skills to work and managed to make a trade for a much better ornament - a gorgeous and very unique glass chocolate-dipped strawberry! (which I will have to take a picture of and show you all in another post!)

The picture I do have in this post definitely shows how I have learned to exercise my maturity and general "thirtyness" when at a public function. :)

Happy Monday!

Fun with Letters

I've been busy creating, creating, creating lately, and some wall letter sets were in the mix:

a jungly set for a local customer (and friend)

an animal ABC set custom painted to match Kidsline My First ABC bedding

a lowercase set done in polka dots and stripes to match the Bananafish Confetti Boy bedding.

And now I've got 3 custom trains, 5 custom memo boards, a custom Christmas ornament, and 2 custom frames to go work on. Busy, busy, busy!

Sometimes It's Good...

...to spend your whole day in pajamas. :) Happy Friday!

New Obsession

I discovered a very dangerous thing yesterday. Dangerous to our budget, anyway! I'm talking about Amazon Lightning Deals. Apparently, Amazon.com (which already rates pretty high in our family) has been running these gold box or "lightning deals" on their site since Black Friday. Basically, an item is chosen to be put on sale for a fantastic price at a certain time in the day, and it stays that price for a short while until the time period is over or they sell out.

I had been thinking about the Drama Queen's birthday - it comes up just two weeks after Christmas - and trying to figure out what we would get her. Since nothing makes her happier than spending hours with crayons and markers and other crafty things, I had been considering some of the new Crayola products. I especially liked the Color Wonder Magic Light brush set, but I wasn't willing to pay the $40.00 price tag.

And then I stumbled quite by accident on Amazon Lightning Deals. The Color Wonder Magic Light brush set had just been marked down to $17.00 and was already almost sold out! I quickly signed in and purchased the set. Woot! And before I left the site, I had discovered a couple of other deals that I couldn't resist , like this Giraffalaff Limbo game for only $9.50 (there are still some of these available, last time I checked). Not to mention that they are also running a Super Savings Free Shipping deal as well!

So, right now I am trying hard to focus on other things and not allow my fingers to stray too close to the Amazon.com button. Who knows what deals they might have today? Ah, the flesh is weak - I might just go take a look-see...

Wordless Wednesday - that's one way to eat a taco

No hands, Mom!

oh wait this way is a lot easier!

more wordless fun at 5 Minutes for Mom...

A Christmas Tradition

The first year we were married, the hubby convinced me that we just had to go see the "Singing Christmas Tree" in Portland. Although I was skeptical that it would be the awesome experience he promised, we went and I was hooked! There's just something about the hundreds of people standing in a huge tree and singing beautiful Christmas carols, the thousands of lights, the adorable children's choir singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, the precious re-enactment of the nativity scene, incredible violin solos, and more.
Thus we made it our family tradition and have gone every year since then, budgeting to make sure we don't miss it! Last year, the Drama Queen got to go with us for the first time and loved it.
This year, we debated for some time whether the Beast was really old enough to go. I envisioned spending the entire time trying to keep him quiet and in his seat, and it really didn't sound like a good time. However, after some consideration and knowing his love for music, we decided to take him too.

This was the first year that we traveled to the Singing Christmas Tree with our church group on one of our church buses. The Drama Queen loved sitting next to her daddy and seeing all the lights of Portland out her window.

The Beast also really enjoyed the bus ride, often exclaiming that we were getting to ride in the "church train." He handled himself pretty well at the show, considering he is only 2 1/2 years old. Of course, some gummy worms and other sweet treats helped! He was starstruck when the violin soloist played "What Child is This?" and "Carol of the Bells", telling me that he wanted to learn to play violin like that. :)

And of course we took a quick opportunity to get a photo of us - these moments are rare indeed. Making Christmas memories is so much fun!
We love this Christmas tradition and hope to continue it for many years to come!

Ritz Pits

I hurried the kiddies up to their beds last night after church. It was getting late; so i quickly put on their pajamas and madly brushed their teeth. I snuggled the Spud in his crib and tried to get the other two hyper children in their beds. I was doling out hugs and kisses aplenty when the Drama Queen asked me if I wanted to hear her joke. (yeah, she is now at that age where she makes up lots of "jokes" with no apparent punch line and then laughs hysterically at them, especially knock-knock jokes).

"Sure, honey, " I replied. "Hurry and tell me your joke."

"Okay," she said, already giggling at what she was going to tell me. "Guess what smells?"

"I don't know - what smells?" I asked, playing along.

"My Ritz pits!" she screeched with laughter, pointing to her arm pits.

I did laugh then, all the while trying to figure out where she had come up with that one. And then I remembered. We have been listening to a Very Veggie Tales Christmas in the van (a lot!) There is one part in the show in which Pa Grape comes into the Christmas party and asks, "You got any Ritz Bits?"

Apparently my daughter, who has no idea what "Ritz Bits" are, reinterpreted it to describe her arm pits.

I'm still giggling now, thinking of how funny her joke actually was this time...

Well, the other day I announced that I had indeed turned thirty. I celebrated with chocolate and gifts and a smile. Thirty doesn't scare me! Well, either that or maybe it hasn't sunk in yet....

Being thirty means....
1. People start buying you practical gifts, like cookbooks and household appliances; and it's exactly what you wanted.

2. You can suck in the belly all you want or still try to blame it on the pregnancies from years ago, but no one is fooled. Especially not your precocious oldest child, who prays and asks God to keep her mother from "getting any fatter."

3. A much younger mom starts giving you well-intentioned parenting advice, and as you smile and nod, you are inwardly thinking who is this young person to tell me how to parent?

4. You desperately want a Starbucks, but that would mean getting off the couch, getting dressed in appropriate clothing for the public eye, and driving the half-mile to the drive-thru to get it. And you're really just too lazy to go out.

5. If you do venture through a drive-thru, the young punk working there is bound to get on your nerves. Last year, you cheerfully said, "No problem" when he messed up your order three times in a row. Now you sigh and think how incompetent today's youth are.

But, other than that, I am still a young, hip, and positive wife and mom. Haha! Happy thirtieth to me!

Gummy Bears

We have been haphazardly trying to potty train the Beast. A 6 pound bag of gummy bears is aiding and abetting us in this endeavor. Apparently the stubborn young fellow will do a lot to earn these coveted gummy treasures, and his sister cheers him on valiantly in hopes of also getting a treat (preferably green).

One night, I went upstairs to check on the kids only to find that the Beast had a most unpleasant smell. He insisted that he still had to go potty; so I sent him downstairs to get cleaned up and to try using the potty. The hubby helped him get situated, and soon his efforts earned him a handful of gummy bears. We sent him, clutching his gummy bears like a trophy, back to bed.

I had just sat back down to do some more work on a custom name train when I heard a very offended voice over the room monitor.
"Hey! Where did you get gummy bears? That's not fair!"
(silence)
"Daaaaddddddy! Daddy! I need some gummy bears too!"
(silence)
"Daddy? Please may I have some gummy bears? "
(another silence)
"Momma? Momma! I want some gummy bears too!"
(longer silence)
and finally. . .
"God? I really need gummy bears!"

At that point, Daddy could no longer resist, and the Drama Queen ended up with a handful of gummy bears (mostly green) as well.

Wordless Wednesday - yeah it's number thirty

happy birthday to me! everyone please comment and tell me how I don't look a day over 25. . .

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