Christmas 2012

We had an awesome Christmas. Wonderful family time. This year we had a new appreciation for each other. It's hard without Nannie and Papa West. It's so different. But I looked around the room and seen their legacy. Such a huge legacy. Then I looked at sweet Landri and my heart was overwhelmed with thankfulness for the Lord's healing touch. I'm so thankful for every member of our family, and every spouse, and every friend. I'm thankful for every moment, every memory. I cherish my time with them.

Yes, Christmas was awesome this year.

I've enjoyed my off time thoroughly. It took me a few days to wind down. I was so stressed coming out of last semester. I have a lot of peace going into this one. I do have a lot of studying to do which will commence on Saturday.

2012 held many events for us.

I was accepted to nursing school. Savannah Sky spent a month in Ethiopia and a month in Uganda. She also graduated. A whole year early. Who would have ever dreamed? Landri was diagnosed with a brain tumor and then healed, never having to go through radiation. Tony and I enjoyed our 19th Anniversary. Heaven turned 22, Savannah Sky turned 17, Meadow turned 11 and my sweet Treyton turned 2.

I'm really looking forward to 2013.

I have some Christmas pictures but Meadow's camera is missing in action. Hopefully it'll turn up soon.

Looking forward to the New Year!

Mimi's Little Man

I sure do love this little guy......

and he sure was happy with his no sew Mickey Mouse blanket his Mimi made him and his Mickey Mouse sippy cups his Mimi bought him.

Christmas 2012 Family Photos

Just a few.....

The Bowman and Dalton family. 

Meadow, Matt, Heaven, Jenileigh, Roxy, Tony, Treyton, Sky

My man Tony and I on the couch. 

 Pappy, Treyton and Mimi.

The joy of my soul. My grandson. 

It Has Come and Gone

Christmas was wonderful. It's sad without my nannie and papa. This was my first Christmas without the both of them. It's hard letting go but I know that one day I will see them again. I think of them together  in heaven cheering us on and being so proud of the large family they created. They really taught us the meaning of family.

My sister came in from the beach and everyone was in the Christmas spirit. We loved, hugged, cried and celebrated. Priceless moments and I am so thankful for each and everyone of them.

Mom and dad got Tony and I a special gift and we get to go and enjoy the New Year's together alone in an all expense paid hotel room for a night with dinner and breakfast included. I thought it was the best gift of all. Tony and I don't always get to spend that alone time together with our work, school and family schedules.

My little Treyton has been a sick boy this week. I only had to work Tuesday and Wednesday, so my other days are spent with him and the girls. Heaven took Trey to the dr. today and he had an ear infection in both ears and pneumonia. He is spending the night with  me tonight because his mommy has to work tomorrow. He fell asleep around eleven but woke up around 1:30 coughing so hard he strangled. The little booger is still up!  Hopefully when we go down again he will sleep in tomorrow. We shall see. I'm keeping Pedialite in him because he has no appetite. I've had a pot of pinto beans cooking with a ham bone all day. Well actually Tony has! Trey has eaten a few bites of beans but not enough to count. Please pray for his speedy recovery. Thank-you.

I forgot to update about my school. I did pass my Algebra 1. I was so excited to discover this. I had 2 A's, a B and a pass. We don't get grades for Algebra classes because they are still considered developmental class so it's a pass or fail. So beginning the new year I'll be taking Algebra 2, English 112, Human Anatomy and Physiology 2 and ITE (which is a computer class.) Another full-time semester. I'm looking forward to it though. Once I get through this semester Chemistry will be my last required class before I can apply to the Dental Hygiene program. I have a few other classes that I will take to lighten my load once I'm accepted but all the required classes will be finished. I plan to take Chemistry alone during the summer so I'll have a light load and a bit of break. I'm surely enjoying my break now. Classes do not resume until the 9th.

Almost Christmas

Today has been a laid back lazy day. I kept Treyton this morning and his dad picked him up around one. Meadow and I have been laying around in bed all day, just talking, reading over some old posts here. We've especially enjoyed the ones titled, "A Meadow Moment." These made us laugh so hard! It's fun to have nothing to do but snuggle and talk. I've been so busy lately that we haven't gotten to do a lot of that. Tony went out and brought us back chicken nuggets, subs, pizza and candy bars. :) So we've remained in bed for meals as well! What fun!

Tony and Sky are wrapping the last of the presents for me. He's done all of my wrapping this year and I am so thankful. Usually I have to get Heaven to stay over late on Christmas Eve and do my wrapping. This year we are on top of things.

Tomorrow we have Christmas at my cousin Jane's house and then my mom and dad's. I can't believe Christmas is really here. Wow! I'm trying to slow down every moment and cherish it, listening to the music, feeling the spirit in the air, loving the fact that my family are all here together and getting along. This has been a great year. 2011 was much better than 2010 and I'm praying that 2012 will be better than 2011.

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's Snowed!

It snowed about 12 inches and the greatest thing is that they are calling for more. I'm quite sure we will finally get that White Christmas after all these years! Below are a few of our Christmas pictures. The end ones are where Tony got stuck on our road trying to get to the driveway!

Christmas Parade and Banquet

What a busy week. Tony and I went to the Christmas play all alone! Sky went with her friends and Meadow was at a friend's house and didn't want us to come and get her to take her to the play. Can you believe that? I can't. I'd rather go to the parade any day! LOL

We took our comfy chairs, stopped and got some delicious hot cocoa from Honduras Coffee Shop, (Tony got coffee) and laid back and watched the parade while the people threw tons of candy at us. You just can't beat that at Christmas time. :)

Yesterday we had our Christmas banquet at church. It was a lot of work but we had a great time.

Below are a few pictures from our weekend. (I'm still praying that the Lord send us inches and more inches of snow this winter!)

Me

Page and my hubby Tony

Trinity

Pretty Horses

James- my son in law's dad

Sparky the dog

Goats celebrate Christmas too!

Santa

Our Pastors

Callie a sweet girl from our church and me. She loves me so much and I have no idea why. She just attached herself to me. I love it when little ones do this.

This is me with Callie and her sister Grace.

This is Page's daughter Lilli Ann.

Lilli Ann

Meadow and her good friend Mowpheth.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

I love the cold! We have our house all warm, cozy and decorated. Our Christmas shopping is almost finished, just a few odds and ends left to finish things off. AND the baking has begun!!!

Sky is having her sleep over tonight. She just turned 14.

Meadow is sleeping over at a friend's house.

Tony is sleeping right now!

I figured I'd take the opportunity to blog while I had the peace and quiet.

I think one of the main reasons that I am so excited about this holiday season is that the Lord has answered so many prayers for us this year. I can remember in the past dreading the holidays because of family disagreements. Some years Christmas was a complete disaster. This year on both sides of the family God has worked on hearts and changed people and it means so much to know that as we all come together to celebrate the birth of Christ, that Christ has worked miracles and brought us all close together.

I see the joy this brings Tony's mom and my parents too. I love seeing my mom and dad happy and content and I know for most parents one of the greatest gifts that they could receive is their children getting along and being happy. I'm very thankful for this.

I'm very thankful this year. I'm thankful that my family is close and that Tony and I are getting along and continuing to grow in our love. I see so many marriages around us failing. I am thankful that the Lord has called me to be the mother I am, staying at home with my children and homeschooling them. I see so many mothers neglecting their children and the effects of it are heartbreaking. I'm thankful that our schooling is going well and both girls are excelling, I see parents that sit back and do nothing with their children's education and I see them fall through the cracks.

I'm reminded often of what I was and how I done things myself before the Lord so graciously stepped in and changed me. I praise Him for His mercy and grace. Without Him, I am nothing.

Now the one thing I have left to do is to find a day that all of my family can get together so that we can have a family portrait made. I don't want to go to Sears or anything, I have a friend that takes great pictures and I'm hoping I can work something out with her where we can have a picture made that I can use for Christmas cards. Time has really snuck up on me and I'm hoping I'll be able to get them done. Next year I'm going to plan ahead! This year has been really busy. Tony has done a few Santa gigs and we've been remodeling.

Tomorrow is the parade, I've not decided if we are going or not. I guess it all depends on how we all feel tomorrow. Our church's Christmas dinner is Sunday evening and we have three turkeys to bake.

Christmas will be here before you know it.

Remodeling Living Room

I've been talking about remodeling Heaven's old bedroom for a long time. We've truly needed this to be done for a long time. I turned our old living room into a classroom quite a while ago, so when we have visitors they have no real place to gather. We sit at the kitchen table but it's often cluttered and a very busy station in our house. It feels really good to have turned this bedroom into a real living room.

These first two pictures are after the painting is almost complete. I totally forgot to get pictures before painting.

Tony rolling the paint on.

Our Christmas tree, notice the painted walls, ceiling, new blinds, new curtains and new carpet. We also got a new couch but it's way to large for our room. It's 14 1/2 feet long! My mom has a really nice comfortable set and we've agreed to swap. I can't wait! You can see the blue of the couch on the left of the picture-mom's set is brown and beige. A perfect match!

This fireplace wasn't even visable when we started. I removed the boards and cleaned it out. We have plans to put in a gas insert soon. I can't wait to see a fire in this beautiful fireplace. I thought the mantel turned out beautiful!

A close up shot.

Merry Christmas Meadow!

Merry Christmas blogosphere!

Praising God for the Thorns

This Christmas has not been what we had anticipated. My sister is battling a mental disease. I spent days trying to help her. I was wore down physically and mentally. My children witnessed too many horrid things, we simply couldn't get them out in time. Please pray for her as her very life is at stake.

I had over 550 new pictures from our Christmases taken on my new camera. I came here to blog some of the greatest ones, like the gingerbread house daddy decorated with them, I had days and weeks worth of stories to share with pictures and I was very excited. I pulled my chip from my camera and put it in my computer and alas, all was lost. I have no idea what happened to my chip but its empty. I cried and started to explode, then I remembered that the Lord has been dealing with me on my self-control and that my girls had witnessed enough turmoil so I bit my lip and decided to take down my Christmas Tree.

As we worked on that tree and put away all of our ornaments and decorations together, cleaning and getting our home back in order I thanked God for our Christmas and every blessing I could think of. I thanked Him for the thorns too, like my sister's sickness and my lost pictures because I remembered that God uses all things for His glory. As I did my heart felt lighter and my anger dissipated and I realized that I still had every loved one here with me that was in those pictures and that I could take more. When we moved our real yet very dead tree outside I realized something else....even though this tree was full of water it was very dry and brittle. My husband had been smelling a burnt smell the past few days and it was truly the hand of God that erased my pictures in order to guide me to take down that tree. Had I left it up until after the New Year which is our usual tradition I'm sure it would have caught fire. I cannot believe the tree was not drinking any water and the branches were so brittle they snapped off with the gentlelest touch.

I also baked a cheese cake after Christmas instead of for Christmas due to the emotions flowing through the holidays and I burnt the top of it. I could have screamed, maybe I did, I know I jumped up and down and finally accepted that all I could do is cut the top off. I did and it was delicious. You never knew the top was gone after I added the white chocolate ganache and poured on the homemade raspberry sauce. Yummy. I wanted to post pics but well...you already know where they went. I will however post the recipe and say that if I have any cheese cake loving viewers that this recipe is a must.

My husband was home praise God!! I could not have made it through this tough time without him. The day after Christmas I was so spent I prayed and asked God to please give me more time with my husband and God answered. My husband is still here and is leaving in the morning! Prayerfully he will be home tomorrow night and not have to leave until next Wednesday.

I have much to be thankful for. My sister is still alive, my pictures can be replaced, my home is safe from the dried out tree, my husband was home for the holidays, my cheesecake turned out delicious, I exercised my self-control through the grace of God, God is speaking to me and using me and guiding my husband and myself. God has reminded us through all of this that we honestly do not spend enough time on our knees. God is merciful and faithful and He is a mighty deliverer, and that when I pray I pray in faith knowing He is fully capable of answering my prayers because He is the Almighty!!

I pray that all of your Christmases were wonderful and blessed. I'm looking forward to the New Year. God Bless You all!!!

Grand Finale Cheesecake With White Chocolate Ganache and Raspberry Sauce

Crust
1-1/3 cup fine vanilla wafer crumbs
1/3 cup melted butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp of cinnamin (if desired - I do not care for it)

Cheesecake
5pkgs of cream cheese softened
1-3/4 cups sugar
3Tbs Flour -plain
3/4 tsp grated lemon rind
3/4 tsp grated orange rind
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 vanilla
5 eggs at room temperature
2 eggs yolks
1/4 heavy cream

White Chocolate Ganache
8 oz white chocolate chips
3 tsp butter
1/4 cup heavy cream

Raspberry Sauce
1 bag of frozen berries
1/2 cup jelly (grape or currant)
1/2 to 1 cup of sugar (to your taste)

To prepare crust mix vanilla wafer crumbs, melted butter, sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Press into bottom of springform pan, 3" deep and chill.

Beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Combine next 6 ingredients and gradually add to cheese beating contantly. Add eggs and yould one at a time beating well after each. Gently stir in cream. Pour into prepared springform pan over crust and bake extremely hot oven 500 degrees for 10 minutes. Turn oven down to 200 and bake for 1 hour and a half. DO NOT OPEN DOOR ( Cheesecake will crack)

Turn off heat after an hour and a half never opening oven door leaving until completely cool. Once completely cool move to refrigerator while you prepare the ganache.

Melt butter, cream and white chocolate chips in sauce pan stirring with wisk and pour over top of cheese cake and return to fridge over night.

Take the bag of frozen berries and thaw them, squeeze them through a seive and wisk juice, jelly and sugar to taste. This sauce is very thin. Refrigerate and serve drizzled over each individual slice. Delicious and beautiful.

Merry Christmas ~ 2007

Christmas Glitter Graphics