It's a cold Saturday here, currently 8 degrees, feels like negative 4! The sun is shining, so it looks much warmer than that. I haven't stepped out there yet.
Here are a few pictures of the sky I took last week.
Last Sunday (9th) we had an ice storm. Our church service was cancelled. We had a relaxing day at home enjoying the beauty of the ice.
And now for some pictures of this little man in the house!
How cool are we??
He watches the song, "No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" and shakes his finger.
One evening we were relaxing in the living room (the adults, that is) and Dick got this picture of him ready to pounce on us like a cat!
He looked so adorable in this outfit on Saturday morning.
On Friday evening we watched grandson J'von's basketball game against my alma mater, Lancaster Mennonite. His team (Columbia High School) won AGAIN. They have had no losses this entire season. On Saturday they played another game and won again. Their record is 12/0! The Lancaster newspaper had some amazing pictures the following day. J'von is #2.
Like Frank always says, "Remember the name!"
Monday
Last evening the storm that was coming up from the south reached us.
During the night we got some rain mixed in with the snow, so this morning it was a heavy mess. Dick used the snow blower before he left for work, and later Alex shoveled everything else. Destiny and I both had appointments today, but we cancelled them. It has been snowing lightly and blowing most of the day.
Look who is thirteen today!! Austin Mitchell Stauffer!! I cannot believe it! We lived in Lancaster County in 2009 when he was born, but nothing was stopping us from making the trip to State College to see him that day! How we had earnestly prayed for Lori to get pregnant after several years of failure and treatments! I will never forget this first glimpse of him when we arrived. It was a Holy moment seeing the goodness of God.
Because of the snow coming, Dick and I went over to their place yesterday afternoon to take him his card and gift and the chocolate chip cookies I had made for him.
Tuesday
And now it's Tuesday morning. Gotta get this finished up!
I'm going to end here with a video of a song I sang for our prelude on Sunday morning. It's one from the 80's that I used to lead at Grace Community Fellowship in Manheim, and I have always loved it. Just a simple cry of the heart from the Psalms. My dear friend Cheryl in Ohio has breast cancer, and at this point there do not seem to be any good solutions. Singing some of these favorite songs for her is a simple thing I can do. And of course I pray - for her and for several dear loved ones facing cancer and experiencing treatments and side effects.
It's a dark, dreary Sunday morning with freezing rain. Our church, as are many here in our area and beyond, is closed this morning because of it. We actually were going to be having church via Zoom this morning because COVID has come too close, but we aren't even doing that because our "skeleton crew" of which Dick and I are a part, would need to go to the church building for that to take place.
Here are some sunset pictures I took this week.
On Friday morning we had a few inches of snow.
Alex was excited for Elizer to get his first chance to play in snow, so we bundled him up. He LOVED it!
It was very cold and windy, so we couldn't let him be out there very long. He was SO upset when he had to come inside! A full blown melt-down!
Destiny and Alex cleaned the snow off our cars. Alex even helped a lady up the street to clean off her car. She was so surprised and said that in the years she's lived in this community no one had ever offered to help her before. Bless him!
I didn't take a lot of pictures this week, so I'm trying to remember what I did all week, haha! I know I cooked for Anthony and Lori's family three times as usual - Jamaican Rice and Peas and Curried Chicken on Monday, Szechuan Pork and Green Beans Stirfry on Wednesday, and grilled sausage sandwiches with onions and peppers on Saturday. I always make extra for us too. Destiny cooked on Thursday - rice and beans and fried chicken. Last evening Destiny and I got groceries and got some pizzas for today. Our fridge was so full we decided to keep them in the van overnight. I hope the van doors can be opened when we need to get them out, haha! Freezing rain out there, you know, ha!
Of course I have a few cute pictures of Elizer. We brought out the tunnel one evening when he seemed bored and cranky and he had fun with it.
When he sits down with a book I need to get a picture QUICK because he doesn't sit very long!
Yesterday was Dick's stepmother, Grandma Arlene's 90th birthday! Four of us daughter-in-laws were planning to have a take-in breakfast with her in her apartment at Pleasant View Communities. Dick and I were planning to leave at 6:30 am so I could be there by 9:00. But on Friday our plans had to be cancelled due to one of us having a cold which we did not want to take the chance of spreading. I talked with her on the phone yesterday morning and she was so calm and gracious no matter what, just as she has always been. What a treasure she has been to the Stauffer family since she so bravely took on the whole crew when she married Dad Stauffer in 1982. (Dick's mother had died the year before at the age of 53 after battling cancer for a few years.) Can you find Dick and me and our four children, Miki, Lisa, Anthony, and Jeremy on the picture below?
I posted the above collage on Facebook and Instagram yesterday and said that if anyone wanted to write a birthday greeting I would pass it along to her. There were many! If you want to do that in the comments here I will pass it along to her as well.
I saw that people are doing a "ten-year challenge". I have no idea what the challenge is, but here is mine, 2012 and 2022. Sometimes I really miss my brown hair, but I do not miss the upkeep.
I saw this yesterday and loved it! One of my former students said that her due date is that day and I told her she needs to name her little girl "Tuesday." Wouldn't that be a great story as to why she was named that, haha!
Yesterday I got our Christmas things put away. We didn't have nearly as many things out because of Elizer, so the job wasn't as big as usual. I took this picture of my sink window before I dismantled it. I will miss this.
I came across this ADORABLE picture last evening from ten years ago. Destiny playing her violin for Sammy. He loved it!!
I think that's it for this week. It's 8:45 am as I finish this post, and the rest of the household is still sleeping!
This kind of feels like the last day of Christmas. I'm not sure when we'll undecorate around here. I'm not really in a hurry. I know for sure the outside lights will be up through the darkness of January. Maybe longer. We have neighbors who put theirs up way early and take them down way late, so we won't feel too out of place around here, lol!
It's a new year, 2022! For the second year in a row I kept a "Good Things" jar. So last evening I opened it and read all the good things I had written on post-it-notes throughout 2021. It was so fun! We thought of more things I should have written, so I added them to it. So now I will be starting again for this new year.
I want to back up now to Thursday. I mentioned in the previous post about the tragic death of my great niece Jody and her husband Art. Their memorial service was live streamed on Thursday and I watched it all, including the slide show at the beginning. I was glad I was home, because I could cry without needing to hold it in. SO many people shared memories and tributes to Art and Jody, including their two oldest teenagers. God was so very glorified in their lives and in this memorial service. It is so, so hard to understand why their lives were cut short when they were making such an impact. Here are some pictures I snapped while I was watching the slide show on my computer.
On Friday morning Destiny, Alex, and Elizer arrived home exactly at the same time I got home from the grocery store. Well, almost. I got a text from Destiny, "Ten minutes away." I talk-texted back, "Me too! Let's race! Just kidding!!" When I got home they had just pulled into our driveway. Alex said, "We won!!"
That evening we went to First Night in downtown State College. We first went to that in 2007, even before we lived up here. Anthony's band was one of the events that year, and we wanted to hear them. We took Destiny along with us and had so much fun that we never missed again until 2015, the first time she wasn't with us for New Years. We have attended when the temps were in the single digits! But this year it was close to 50. We were so afraid of getting cold that we way overdressed and ended up sweating! We had a good time!
When we stood in line for this picture we thought Destiny would sit on the chair and hold Elizer. But she quickly found out that the rug on the seat was soaking wet! So we instead stood Elizer on it. A lot of people were watching, and he totally enjoyed their attention!
Here's the picture of Destiny in 2007. It was so freezing cold there were no worries about the seat being wet!
More pics at the ice sculptures.
There's little cabin in the playground where some of the activities took place. We waited in a long line for the freshly made kettle corn and hot cider. So yummy!!
We watched the reindeer until it was time for the biggest one to be on a TV interview!
Next was the ice slide! Destiny LOVED that when she was little, and now she got to take Elizer on it!
The wishing well is always a fun place. Lots of coins stuck to the ice. On the left Destiny was probably ten years old.
When we left downtown we drove around for a while looking at Christmas lights.
Then we came home, put stuff out on our charcuterie board again and waited up for the ball to drop in NYC. Elizer had slept in the car while we were driving around, so he was still awake till midnight and saw the ball on TV. That made Alex happy.
On New Year's Day we all slept in till whenever we woke up. I made bacon and scrambled eggs for everybody. It was a rainy, lazy kind of day.
Dick left around noon to go pick up a chest of drawers we had bought on Facebook Marketplace. After he had picked it up he called and said that he was just 15 minutes from the Stauffer cabin, so he was going to go there to reminisce for a while. So many memories of his dad there.
At home I was getting started on our pork and sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Such a bland-looking meal, but so very scrumptious!!
We laughed at Elizer on his Blues Clues chair. We're pretty sure he thinks it's a potty, because he always lifts the lid for the storage compartment and then sits down! Having things to do while he's sitting there makes it look all the more realistic, hahahaha!
Across the room was Great Grandpa being funny too!
After dinner we had story time with Destiny! Last week she had gone through all my children's books looking for the original Amelia Bedelia that she had loved so much as a child. It was nowhere to be found! She was so disappointed. So I immediately ordered it from Amazon, and it arrived while they were away. When I gave it to her last evening I sat down beside her and she read it to me. We giggled over every single page!! So fun!! That is one book we will not let Elizer have until he's older. It is precious!
The chicken that was just as dressed as he could be!
Later we played The Game of Things. If you've never played it you've missed out! Actually four is the least amount of people that can play, and the bigger the group the better. But we still had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs with just four of us. Alex was the winner. He's a very good mind reader.
We tried to keep Elizer occupied while we played - with food and with his own pencil and paper. He did pretty well. It was a good day!
So this morning when I was deciding what to wear I realized I hadn't worn my beloved 2007 "Christmas program outfit" this season. I usually wear it once a year. So this was the day.
I looked up the picture from 2007. I told Destiny we should recreate it, haha!
We came home from church to this sweet scene.
She had recently gotten a kit for making Mickey Mouse pancakes and finally had a chance to do it! How adorable, and in Elizer's Mickey Mouse dish!
Dick and I were watching Shreck this afternoon, and Elizer was trying to sit like we were! So cute!
Later this afternoon we went over to Anthony and Lori's to get our first peek at our pop-up camper. Since summer Lori has been working whenever she had a chance at refurbishing it. And wow!!!! I told her I might be afraid to use it because it looks so amazing. She's not quite finished with it yet, but it's time to pack it up for the winter.
New seat covers, new flooring, new finish on the table top.
New curtains, painted cabinets, new finish on the counter top, a basket near the door.
Fancy pillows, a cozy blanket, a lantern. At the very top right corner of this picture you can see just a bit of the new ceiling.
I wish I had "before" pictures with the very dated plaid upholstery and olive green curtains and cheap-looking woodgrain cabinets, but it seems the only ones I have were taken with people and tons of stuff in it!
Anthony and Lori and the boys were ready to go for a little hike in the woods when we left, and I got this picture! They're a hardy bunch!
And now I'm caught up again! Blessings on your first week of 2022!
