Puffy Coat Paralisis

Poor, poor Paxton.

This is the first year he has had to wear a coat.  Last year he was a newborn in his warm cozy car seat.

I’m not sure what the poor guy thinks is happening to him, but the second he is enveloped in this warm, puffy red coat, his little arms go straight out and his legs turn to spaghetti and he falls to the floor.  No kidding.  It’s like I’ve paralyzed him with puffiness or something.

{Giggles}

Poor, poor Puffy Coat Paxton.

  You’ll get used to it soon…….

Right!?

 Mommy sure loves you! 

Havarti Ham & Potatoes

    I just adore you all so much! Have I told you that lately?! You bless me daily with your sweet words & thoughtful gestures!

  Let me tell you about a friend, whom I have gotten to know through this blog the past couple months……She is the one who literally read 4 little Ferguson’s from stem to stern the weekend she found us! 🙂 She is also the one who shared the Peaches & Cream French Toast Casserole with Yogurt Sauce from her darling Bed and Breakfast menu. I simply adore her!

Look at what thoughtful Mary sent us yesterday…..

Christmas Banners!

She used these flag banners in her Christmas family photo session, and I commented on how darling they were and asked her where in the world she found them.  Turns out she MADE them!

Imagine my surprise when, amongst all the boring junk mail and bills, a package came today with these inside! Bless her heart! 🙂

(Look at this photo and guess who didn’t have access to her wrapping paper this year? ME!  My Mom is between homes and everything is in storage, including the things I used to store in her big basement storage room.)

Naturally, I had to put them to good use until my next Christmas photo session, especially since they matched my color theme PERFECTLY!

I’ll smile every time I walk into the living room and see them, Mary!

Thank you so much!!

Moving on to dinner:

Enjoy this comfort food! The Havarti cheese makes this dish so creamy and so unique!

Havarti Ham & Potatoes

• 1 can (10 3/4 Oz) Cream Of Celery Soup
• ½ cups Sour Cream
• 8 ounces, weight Havarti Cheese, In Small Cubes Or Shredded
• 3 whole Large Baking Potatoes, Sliced
• 1-½ cup Cubed, Cooked Ham
• 1 cup Mini Sweet Peas
• 1 container (6 Oz) French Fried Onions

Heat oven to 350*. Spray 9×13 casserole dish. In a large bowl, combine, soup, sour cream and cheese (reserve some for top), mix well. Add potatoes, ham and mini peas. Scrape into 9 x 13 pan and cover with reserved cheese. Cover pan with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Uncover casserole and sprinkle with French Fried Onions. Bake uncovered for another 30 minutes, or until bubbly.

Enjoy!

~T

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Tastetastic Thursday

4 little Ferguson’s Photography: Family Sessions

My friend Heather is a photographer, so she didn’t really need my services, but the trick is, how do we photograph our own families?!?!  We can’t!  So she and I swapped favors and one day, when we are ready, she will photograph my family as well.  🙂  She took her card to do her own edits, but I couldn’t resist playing with a few of my favorites too.

  This next session was with our new Music Minister and his precious family, they just moved here from Venice, Florida.  Poor cold souls!  Their sweet little one’s teeth were chattering by the time our session was done.  I am afraid my outside photo shoots are over for this year, at least until I have a brave family call for snow photos!  I do not have any equipment for indoor shooting, but one day would love to build a natural light studio so we can shoot rain or shine!

 

Head over to Post 2 for today: Havarti Ham and Potatoes. SOOO good!

~T

Easy Pecan Toffee Cookies

I got this recipe off of a site of one of my favorite bloggers, The Better Baker. 

Mrs. Baker is an amazing cook, a dedicated wife & a child of God.  She and I have become great friends over the good ol’ http://www.  She encourages me and makes me smile with her sweet comments and kind words.  Go check out her site soon!  For now, check out her delicious and EASY cookie recipe below.  It uses a cake mix, how fast is that?!?!

• 1/2 c butter, softened
• 1 (18 ozs) box yellow cake mix
• 2 lg eggs
• 1 Tbsp water
• 1 pkg heath toffee bits
• 1/2 c pecans, chopped fine

Preheat oven to 350. Mix butter, add cake mix, eggs & water. Mix well. Add toffee bits and pecans, mix by hand. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Transfer to cooling rack.

  You know Toffee is one of my two weaknesses, (caramel is the other) and these are just straight AMAAAAAZING!

Enjoy!

~T

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This Chick Cooks

Saran Wrapped Christmas Tree

   Welcome to Works For Me Wednesday!

I had a reader and friend ask me about my Saran Wrapped Christmas Tree and I realized that some of you weren’t with us last year for “The Big Reveal”. 

   I saran wrapped my Christmas tree for the first time in 2009, and had Dale haul it out to the shed, where it spent the next year sitting in the corner.  Every time I saw it, I prayed that no spiders or mice were living inside it, waiting to spring out in my house next Christmas when I opened it. 

  So last year, 2010, when no spiders, mice, or other yucky creepy crawlers emerged with my lovely tree, from under the abyss of layer upon layer upon LAYER of giant restaurant quality Saran Wrap, I decided this was TOTALLY the way to do this “Tree with 4 kids thing”.  Someday I imagine us all working as a family to decorate the tree, but until then, I’ll take this fast method instead!  🙂  They like to help with the other stuff better anyways, like decorating their rooms or putting out snowman figurines.

  The only thing I did different at the end of Christmas last year, was I left ON all the breakables rather than removing them as we had done the year before, hoping none would get broken.  AGAIN, it worked.  I literally was done with my tree and the teeny bit of sprucing in 15 minutes this year.  NICE.

  If you can get your hands on some commercial size saran wrap and have a shed for storage, Saran wrapped, fully decorated Christmas trees are the way to go!  (we have a skinny tree by the way, not sure how you’d carry a full size one out your door)

    It may not work for you, but IT WORKS FOR ME!

~T

This post linked to:

Works for Me Wednesday

Wild Rice & Potato Soup

   Be sure to check out Post 1 for today: Old Timey Photos.

  This is a family favorite! And it’s SO easy, just make some rice, open a few cans and dump!  Creamy, hearty and delicious!

Ingredients

• 1 box (6 Oz) Uncle Bens Long Grain Rice, Cooked According To Package
• 1 package (5.4 Oz) Lipton’s Mushroom Rice, Cooked According To Packet
• 1 cup Diced Onion
• 2 cups Diced Celery
• 2 packages (3 Oz Each) Real Bacon Pieces
• 2 containers fresh sliced mushrooms
• 2 cans (10.75 Oz. Can) organic Potato Soup (Wolfgang puck is really good)
• 1 can (10.75 Oz. Can) Cream Of Celery
• 1 can (10.75 Oz. Can) organic Cream Of Mushroom
• 2 cans (10.75 Oz. Can) Chicken Broth 
• 2 cups Shredded Cheese
• 1 quart Half-and-half

Cook rice according to directions on the packages; set aside. Sautee mushrooms, onions and celery in the bottom of a large pot (8-quart pot) over medium heat. Add all remaining ingredients (including the cooked rice) to the pot except the half-and-half. Heat through. Remove from heat and add half-and-half. Then place back on the stovetop over medium-low heat and warm until serving. Don’t boil or this soup will curdle. Makes a nice BIG batch!

Tastes best with a loaf of crusty French bread with an herb and garlic butter. Oh man, is it good together!

Dig in!

~T

This post shared with:

Tasty Tuesday

Wonka Wednesday

This Chick Cooks

Tastetastic Thursday

Old Timey Photos

  When I was working on the tribute to my Grandpa, I came across some really cool old timey photos from my Dad’s side of the family. 

This is my Grandpa Bontrager and his wife, Nora. She died from cancer when my dad was young.

This is the Uncle my dad was named for.

  See that cart in the background, we HAVE it here on our property! We used it to haul wood last year!!  Cool, right?!?!?!

 

I love that these family photos are safely in an album preserved for generations to come!

  Here are a few more pics I came across on my photo hunt that made me smile.

Guess who looks like Mommy when she was little?

Take off the pigtails and it’s PAXTON!

He makes this face too. 

Fun, right?!

~T

Be sure to check out Post 2 for today, Wild Rice & Potato Soup, YUMMMMMMMMM!

 

Madly In Love, plus Brats & Tots Soup with Homemade Crescents

Ahh! Sorry this is late posting today! I was up until midnight wrapping gifts with Dale and I guess I didn’t hit “schedule”.  Here it is, better late than never! Happy Monday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Dale and I had the privilege of investing in our marriage this weekend at a Madly In Love seminar we went to with my best friend, Kasey and her husband, Monty.

In the Madly In Love marriage seminar you will learn:

• What is at the core of conflict
• Why she keeps bringing things up from the past and what to do when she does
• Why he doesn’t talk much, and what you can do to help
• The best time to work through conflict – and it’s not when you think
• How to actually benefit from conflict – not bury it or just resolve it
• A tried and true process for working through conflict
• What to do when no amount of talking seems to work
• A required shift in thinking to becoming madly in love once again
• A gift to give your children
• Laughter, tears, hope and much more!

We had so much fun, the interaction between speaker and audience was fantastic!

Here are some of the highlights from my notes:

We all have a story to tell, one that makes us who we are today.  One that makes us respond the way we do to certain situations, if you keep this story in mind, it will help you better understand your spouse.

Ephesians 4:1-3 “….lead a life worthy of your calling…Always be humble and gentle.  Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because off your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.”

 Make a habit to read I Corinthians 13:4, but put in your first name in the place of LOVE.  This is a good check point:

Tonya is patient, Tonya is kind, Tonya keeps no record of wrong, Tonya endures through every circumstance, Tonya never gives up.

Proverbs 10:19 “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tounge is wise.”  Keep the peace in arguments by limiting “Word Vomit” and pushing the pause button to think and pray before discussing said argument. 

  “What if God designed marriage to make us HOLY, more than make us HAPPY?”

Wherever there is conflict, there is a STORY to be heard…..

Seek to discover your spouse…  Proverbs 20:5 “A man of understanding draws out his deep thoughts from inside.”

The glass is half empty AND half full, what you choose to see is your right and opinion, but both must be recognized as truth.

“Understand this:
In marriage, if I choose to live for self, my marriage will die.
If instead I choose to live for my wife/husband, I must die to self.
Make no mistake about it: in marriage, death is always involved.  Either we both die to ourselves, or the marriage itself WILL die.”

“Seek first to understand, and then be understood.” Steven Convey
Choosing to deny the part of you demanding to be heard, allows grace, understanding and disarming of the conflict.  This begins the healing process.

How to be a Gracious Giver:
1) Be honest
2) Understand my spouses story: past and present, to soften my heart and give me understanding.
3) We, as wives, call our husbands to their best, even when they are at their worst. We can do this with soft words and a gentle touch.

When we learn to appreciate each other’s story, it helps us to be gracious and loving to each other.

Satan loves nothing more than to turn couples against each other so that they are in a Tug of War against each other rather than united in a Tug of War against him for their marriage.  He knows he can’t win when 2 are united with Christ, a cord of 3 strands is not easily broken!

In a world of divorce and hurt, we can have HOPE.  Our hope is in Jesus and the strength He brings to a marriage when we totally wrap ourselves around Him.  We must do things to win our spouses heart, we must invest in each other and date each other! 

 We MUST find DAILY “Together Time” to talk and interact face to face, not staring at the tv, but having fun, connecting and seeking God together.

The whole purpose of this seminar was learning to “Fight Fair” and doing everything in Love.  They had it broken down really nicely into an acronym for the word PLEDGE.  I am not going to share it with you because I am scared it’s copyrighted and I don’t want to get into trouble!  It was REALLY well stated and simple really as long as you stick to the steps during a disagreement.

These marriage conferences are such a good way to invest in your marriage!  We learned a lot, but also, it felt good to know, that we had been “fighting fair” in our marriage and hadn’t even realized we were doing something right.  Those pats on the back are nice too. 🙂

If Madly In Love ever comes to your town, make sure you go, it is GREAT!  Check out the website:

http://madlyinlove.org/

  On to the recipe part of this post:

This unusual soup was delicious!  I especially like where you take your immersion blender and puree all the veggies;  makes for a nice thick soup!

Brats & Tots Soup

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 whole Small Onions, Chopped
• 5 whole Garlic Cloves, Pressed
• 4 cans Chicken Broth (14 Oz Total)
• 6 whole Potatoes, Peeled And Diced
• 3 cups Chopped Carrots
• 2 packages (14 Oz Each) Johnsonville Cooked Brats, Sliced
• Generous Amounts Of Salt And Pepper

Melt the butter in a large soup pot. Sautee onions, garlic and carrots with some salt and pepper. Cook until tender. Add broth and potatoes, then cover and simmer for 25-20 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Use your immersion blender to create a puree, leaving a few chunks of potatoes. Add in sliced brats and simmer for another 15-20 minutes.  Season to taste.

This tasted GREAT with buttery homemade crescents! You can totally make these, even if you are scared of yeast like I am!

I got my recipe for crescents HERE.

I had lots of good “help” that day, and we all pretty much were wearing flour by the time it was all said and done, thanks to Paxton.

These tasted SOOOO good with the soup!!!!  Try your hand at them, you will be amazed how simple they really are to make….

Especially if you don’t have too much um, “help”.

Enjoy your supper, invest in your marriage daily, and STAY WARM!  It’s supposed to get COLD this week!

~T

This post shared with:
Melt In Your Mouth Monday

Tasty Tuesday

Wonka Wednesday

This Chick Cooks

4 little Fergusons Photography: Kids Sessions

  I recently had the privilege of photographing some precious kiddos from church, as well as doing a mini-session with my niece and nephew at a family birthday party. 

Here are my favorites from their sessions:

Have I mentioned that I am LOVING this job? 

~T

 

Preparing to Say Goodbye

  How do you say Goodbye?  How do you eloquently put into words just how much you love someone, or how much they mean to you?

How do you know what you will wish for later, after they are gone?

“If only I had asked this one last question….” 

“If only I had hugged him a little longer last time we were there….”

“If only I could remember the way he told that story….

  A few weekends ago, my extended family did just that: gathered together to prepare to say good-bye to my Grandpa, who is 82.  He has congestive heart failure and his organs are beginning to shut down, signaling the beginning of the end of his time here on Earth with us.  A difficult reality to face.  But we didn’t let it stop us from having fun;  we sat around and listened to stories, ate yummy soup, celebrated a birthday and just enjoyed each others company!

  I don’t know how a non-believer would ever make it through such a time as this.  I mean, I can be sad my grandpa is preparing to leave us one day, but I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt, that he is going to a better place; a place with no pain, no suffering.  A place where I will one day go as well.  So, goodbye won’t really be goodbye, just “So long for now!”  Praise Jesus!

   In honor of a life well lived and being the best grandpa a kid could ever ask for, I have put together some photographs of him….from my childhood through the childhoods of my children.  Such a special treat to have Great Grandpa within minutes of our home, one who is so involved and playful with my 4 little Ferguson’s. 

  A man of God who loves Jesus first and foremost, who speaks of or sings to Him at the drop of a hat.  A man who can bird call, rock polish, and shoulder rub with the best of them….he is a man I am proud to call my Grandpa!

   I may get some frowns for doing this now, while he is still here with us and fairing well, but honestly – Why wait until he is too sick to read this, or already gone to be with his Savior to post this?  I’d MUCH rather do this now, so he can read it and know just how much he means to me, to our family. 

  We love you Grandpa, and today we honor you!!!

Love and hugs

~T

  My Grandma was my very first babysitter when my mom returned to work at the cafe’.  I was the first grand baby, and Mom says Grandpa would stop to see me almost every single day on his way home from work. 

He says I smiled at him first.  🙂

Along came the Great Grands:

Afternoon Scooter Parade

(Click the bold print to be taken to the actual post if you’d like….)

Birthday Bash: 82nd Style

“Did you say 82!?!?!?! When did THAT happen?”

Recent pictures:

A Goodbye is painful, but we can have hope!  Especially when we know, it’s only a matter of time until we will say “Hello!” again.  What a joyful reunion that will one day be, in Heaven…..together as a family again.

Beginnings are usually scary,

Endings are usually sad,

It’s everything in between,

That makes LIFE worth living.