Advent- The second candle

Today is the second Sunday of Advent, and so we lit the second candle called "the Bethlehem candle".




Thinking of what this candle symbolizes, I think of what happened right before Bethlehem...Joseph, who finds his betrothed expecting a child, that he knows for certain is not his. He plans to "divorce her quietly", drawing as little attention to it as possible. Then a surprise~ an angel comes to Joseph in a dream and tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, for the child she is expecting was conceived from the Holy Spirit. He is told Mary will have a son, and Joseph is to name him Jesus. This is because Jesus will "save His people from their sins". So Joseph trusts God and marries her. (Matthew 1: 18-25)

I also try to picture being nine months pregnant, traveling on a donkey, all the way to Bethlehem. Did Mary think to herself, "What in the world was I thinking saying yes to this" like I probably would have? We know she also trusted God. (But I'm not sure she wasn't at least a little cranky~ I mean she was human!)

Verse for the candle of Bethlehem:

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world...And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child." ~ Luke 2: 1, 3-5

O Little Town of Bethlehem

O Little Town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him, still
The dear Christ enters in.

A quick (pictureless) update

I hope you all had a great Wednesday! We are over half way to the weekend! I don't know about you, but I am so ready for it! My husband is taking Friday off so that we can Christmas shop for the kids while they are at school! I guess that means tomorrow is my Friday...

I wanted to clarify something from my last post. I think I was confusing in the way that I wrote. I tend to be quite wordy, and sometimes the point gets lost in all my rambling! I wanted to tell you that I won't be just showing BEFORE pictures without showing you AFTER ones! I wouldn't torture you so! ;) I am still putting all the furniture back and cleaning the rooms, so first I will show you bits and pieces of the room redo, the parts that are ready, and will give you a whole room picture hopefully in the next week or so. I am working on some Christmas things to add a festive mood to the living room, and will be sure to show you those too! Okay, now I think I am repeating myself!

I hope you all have a peaceful night, and hopefully I will be able to post on this little renovation! :)

A sneak peak

Well, this was intended to be a bit more of a sneak peak than it is, but my camera ran out of batteries in the middle of downloading. This wouldn't have been a problem, but we are OUT of the ones I need! Can you believe this?! So I'm afraid what you will be viewing tonight is a super sneak peak!

Okay, I have another confession to make...I am not ready for Christmas yet! Can I press the pause button until I can catch up a little? Too bad I can't! Now when I say I'm not ready for Christmas, I do not mean I'm not ready mentally, because I am so excited about it. I just mean that this enormous undertaking, this crazy plan of mine to completely redo our living room and hallways before November was, er, a little of an underestimation on my part. Ah, life with a fixer-upper! Now mind you, I thought if I started in September, I could do it. I had it all mapped out in my mind. But unfortunately, I did not figure in us all fighting a terrible cold or two, our son's homework growing so much, adding extra children's activities, and so forth. SO...I am wrapping it up to take a break for Christmas. I didn't get as far as I would have liked, but I am at a good resting place! So far I have: removed the popcorn from our living room and both hallways, primed the ceilings, we textured them, and then I primed and panted them again. I painted all the rooms, and we have put new moulding up in most of the living room. (With the fireplace project due to begin in January and new windows in the spring.) So for now it's about putting the room back together and...decorating! I am sewing some pretty things for the living room, and painting furniture. I wanted to show you more, but hopefully tomorrow...

I am so inspired by all the beautiful things you are all up to for Christmas; you are all so gifted! I hoping to start some of my Christmas ideas and decorating in the next few days here, and will be sure to show you as I finish them! My question for you is, do you mind seeing some room renovating? I know it's not exactly "Christmas-y", but I'd like to show you a little of what I've been up to, especially as I am in a decorating phase of it all. As soon as I pull the room up by its boot straps, so to speak- i.e., put all the furniture back, dust and clean the floors- I will be adding the Christmas decor! Would you like a peak into the process of putting some love into a room?

Oh, and speaking of Christmas, have you been over to The Nesting Place, and seen the Nester's tutorial on how to make a beautiful garland? I found out about this on Rae's blog, My Life on the East Coast, and went over to the Nester's to check it out! I can't wait to start, hopefully in the next few days, on my own garland! Anyway, if you have the notion to make yourself one too, you might want to head on over! :)

I hope you are all having a great week! I can't wait to spend some time tomorrow night visiting your blogs and saying hi! Add a cup of coffee to that, and it will be just about perfect! :)

Advent- The first candle

I don't remember growing up with an Advent wreath, and lighting the candles each Sunday. But I want our kids to, so starting this year, we are going to be consistent about it. Our son brought an Advent candle holder home today, one he has been working on in the craft part of his Sunday school class (which is always woodworking). He still needs to stain it, so today we have a lone candle. Next week, I will have the wreath and candles all arranged...

Each candle has a traditional color, but you can choose any colors for your candles really. I am just choosing colors that go with my dining room. :) Right now, as I don't have it all together yet, I am just using a light green one for now. I may replace it~ we'll see.


The first candle is the Prophecy candle. This candle stands for the promises foretold by the prophets, promises of the birth of Christ.

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." ~Isaiah 9:2

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee,
O Israel.

O come, Thou Dayspring,
come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;
And fill the world with heaven's peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
Amen.

Where is that tooth fairy?

Gracie lost her very first tooth today! She was SO excited about this, and has been waiting for this one to fall out for a while. I was kind of sad about her losing it, because it's just another sign she's growing up...but she looks awfully cute a little toothless! She is very proud and loves to show us the gap when she smiles! :)

A few days ago, she was telling her Nana that she'd had a dream it had fallen out. (This being a good dream.) I chuckled because I sometimes have those kind of dreams, but it's NOT a good thing! These are what I call nightmares! (Someone told me that if you have dreams you lose a tooth/teeth, it means you have unhealthy teeth. How do "they" know these things? Kind of like when they say if you're falling in a dream, and you hit the bottom, you die for real. That one still gives me pause....)




But Gracie has nothing but pure joy at the thought of losing teeth. I made sure she put the tooth underneath her pillow, although she informed me, "I know that the tooth fairy is really you and Daddy." Hey, who told her that?!

Better late than never?

Well, I don't know about that in this case, because I was supposed to give you a few Thanksgiving recipes...but the good news is that these also make great Christmas recipes! I am still going to pass these along~ after all, it is Thanksgiving weekend, right? Although, if truth be told, to my family, this day after the day of giving thanks means the first day of the Christmas season! We are SO excited around here! We have the lights up outside and in the kids' rooms so far...

Now, I must apologize first for not giving the recipes on time...I just know that millions and millions of you were absolutely crushed at not receiving these as promised, but somehow managed to brave it through Thanksgiving without them. Uh, yeah...anyway...our Thanksgiving plans changed when my mom came down with an awful cold. She was really sick, and didn't want to expose anyone to it, so she wasn't able to have Thanksgiving at her house. We have a tradition of spending this holiday with both my husband's parents and mine, and his mother and mine alternate years. (Our house is too small to accommodate everyone who comes.) We missed my mom and dad this year, and Gracie was SO upset that she wouldn't see her Nona! SO...this year my mother-in-law came to the rescue with just two days to spare, bless her heart! And like many of you, I brought out all the recipe books...




Then spent the day before and the day of cooking and baking...




Until I was ready to drop from exhaustion...but then the fun part came~ time spent with family! We ate until we could eat no more...




And everyone else played games, one of which was a very loud game called "Pit"...



With everyone laughing and trying to win...



And then we ate some more...




While they played Pit, I had fun crafting something...




...that I meant to make days beforehand! But maybe at least this is better late than ever! I saw this on Cherry's Jubilee, and asked her pretty please for the directions...promised I'd make it...barely kept the promise, too!


So all's well that ends well. It was a great Thanksgiving, and to top it all off, I got to craft a bit. What could be better? (Besides my mom and dad being there of course!)



I hope that you had a wonderful day, too! What did you do for Thanksgiving this year? :) And my next question is...do you still want these recipes? Well, okay, you twisted my arm! :)

Sweet Potato Pie

3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix and put into greased casserole dish or pie plate.

Topping:

1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup soft butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans)

Mix until crumbly and spread over entire casserole. Bake at 325 degrees for approximately 30- 35 minutes, until top looks hot and bubbly.

Pumpkin Pie~

Pie Crust:

*This is a recipe for a double crust, but I LOVE this recipe. You can just cut it in half if you only need the one crust, and this is a great recipe for a double crust pie, especially fruit pies! :)

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, cold, cut into bits
1/3 cup very cold water ( I puts ice in the water)
I have found it necessary to add more water, about six teaspoons more.

1. Combine the flour, salt, and butter in bowl. Work until mixture is crumbly; the butter should be about the size of small peas.
2. Add the water all at once and work until just mixed.
3. Without handling the dough any more than necessary, divide in half and press each half into a disk.
* If using this for a double crust pie, wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate while preparing the filling.
For the pumpkin pie, prick the sides and bottom of unbaked crust with the tines of a fork, and bake in a preheated 450 oven for 10 or so minutes, or until lightly browned.

Pumpkin pie filling:

This recipe uses real sugar pumpkin for the filling, but you can use canned pumpkin as well.

2 cups sugar pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted
3 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Cut up pumpkin into fourths and remove seeds; steam. Remove skin and mash like potatoes. Mix the two cups mashed pumpkin with all the other ingredients. Add to baked pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees F. for about one hour.


Well, there you go! Just in time for Christmas! (SMILE!) Have a fabulous, fun-filled weekend! :)

A Thanksgiving recipe

I told you that I wanted to share a few recipes before Thanksgiving with you that are very important around here. Important in the sense that, if I didn't make these, it wouldn't go unnoticed! What I love about all of them is that they are so easy and uncomplicated! :)

I like to bake way more than I like to cook, and one of the things I love baking is for Thanksgiving morning! It is a recipe my husband grew up with, and my mother-in-law shared, so I can make it for my family. :)

Grandma's Secret Cranberry Bread

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
3/4 cup orange juice
1 cup raisins
1 cup fresh/frozen cranberries




Mix dry ingredients into a large bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Add egg, orange peel, and orange juice at all once. Stir just until mixture is evenly moist. Do not overmix. Fold in raisins and cranberries. Spoon into a greased and floured loaf pan.




Bake at 350 degrees F. for one hour or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Enjoy! :)

And yes, it did sink a tad bit in the middle, I am not sure why. I don't think it's ever done that before...but anyway, I will be back tomorrow with a couple more recipes...Sorry that I'm posting these too close to Thanksgiving! It's been SO crazy around here lately, and two out of three of our kids have been sick AGAIN. But thankfully the prescribed medicine for our youngest is working and everyone is back to school! :) But, did I mention that these recipes are also great for Christmas as well? Yep, it's a fact! :)

On a side note, guess what came in the mail? I mean besides bills, advertisements and the like...my first copy of Romantic Homes, my second favorite magazine! (Romantic Country is my first.)




I decided to just subscribe since I always end up buying them all anyway! Then Better Homes and Gardens came (a gift from my mother-in-law) and I am just happy as a clam. There is nothing like fun things in the mail! And now I will have good things to read this Thanksgiving break! :) I just love the front cover of Romantic Homes this month, featuring a beautiful fireplace...



We are still searching for the "right" mantel/surround for our living room. (The mantel we have now is not going to be long enough after we redo the brick around our fireplace.) But we'll keep on looking, and while we do, I can look at pretty pictures like this and dream! :)

Well, I had better go~ tomorrow is going to be a full day! I hope you have a great night! :)