Archive - December, 2011

Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2011 in Lana's Journal with 3 Comments

Five years ago we traveled to Guatemala to meet the baby girl we were in the process of adopting. We timed our visit around the holidays, the second week in December. The hotel, the parts of Guatemala City we visited and Antigua were decorated for Christmas. We spent an amazing week, enjoying our daughter-t0-be, loving Lauren’s ecstatic reaction to being a big sister, and soaking up the holiday spirit. The day we said goodbye and landed back in the U.S., we found out the adoption paperwork was complete and Carmen was ours. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s and then flew back to Guatemala to bring our daughter home.

Can it really have been only five years? Really? It seems like 50 years ago.

I don’t remember much about the Christmas of 2006. I am sure we were super excited to be going back to Guatemala to bring Carmen home. I am sure we were relieved to be done with adoption paperwork. I am sure we had plans for how our new daughter would fit into our family and plans for her life. Maybe they were unspoken plans. Just things we expected. Like that she would be alive five years later.

I bet Mary didn’t expect to outlive her son either.

The day Mary gave birth to Jesus was simply a day of rejoicing, wonder and awe.

As we celebrate Christmas this year, may we reflect on living today, for we do not know what tomorrow brings. Say “I love you.” Give a hug. Have some extra grace for those in your life who need it. Serve. Remember the reason for this season…

We are taking the week off from blogging to enjoy time with family. Have a very Merry Christmas and we will see you in 2012.

Love, Dave, Lana, Lauren and Hope

Carmen, 5 years ago, in Guatemala

O Christmas Tree Twinkles

December 20, 2011 in Lana's Journal with 2 Comments

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!
They are green when summer days are bright,
They are green when winter snow is white.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How sturdy God hath made thee!
Thou bidst us all place faithfully
Our trust in God, unchangingly!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How sturdy God hath made thee!

(Especially true when O Christmas Tree is a fake one from Target! Although it appears that we didn’t quite spread the bottom branches out. That was my side!)

Every morning Hope runs to the tree and points to the outlet, waiting for us to turn on the lights. She loves the pretty, twinkly lights!

What Can We Pray for Today?

December 19, 2011 in Community with 15 Comments

More About You Mondays

[This post is part of an ongoing blog series to get to know each other better. Have you read and participated in the other "More About You Monday" questions?]

***

The holidays are a time of excitement and cheer but for many they are also painful.

Do you have anything you would like us to pray about? Do you need a job? Are you fighting an illness? Do you feel discouraged? Is a loved one going through hard times?

Lauren, photo by Rashmi Pappu

Today’s More About You Monday question is: What can we pray for today?

All I want for Christmas is…

December 17, 2011 in Lana's Journal with 10 Comments

All I want for Christmas is….

for no one in this house to be sick!!!!!!!

After last week’s croup and viruses, I was hoping for a long, long healthy spell. Nope, Hope has pink eye and Dave has bronchitis!

We are downing BarleyLife and Vitamin C and eating chicken noodle soup.

Lauren and I are well but we are loading up on the vitamins too and praying for the best.

Quite sure these cookie exchange cookies don’t qualify as vitamin-fortified but they do look pretty!

Have a super great HEALTHY weekend!

One last recipe…Amish Breakfast Casserole

December 15, 2011 in Recipes with 5 Comments

Today ended my cooking streak for the week. Maybe I won’t cook again until the New Year. I love to cook but with Dave out of town (Indianapolis and Chicago) this week and holiday festivities at every turn, I am a wee bit exhausted!

I guess I need to up my percentage of successful dishes because I made a totally yummy breakfast dish for my MOPS group today. Seriously yummy. I am not bragging. At least, I don’t think I am. Just in case it comes across that way, I will add that I BURNT the sausage to ashes and had to start over and cook entirely new sausage. Burnt sausage stinks. I can still smell it in the air today! Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to assemble the dish last night and bake this morning, so I had time to redo the sausage!

Here  is the recipe, courtesy of allrecipes.com, with a change or two by me:

Amish Breakfast Casserole

  • 1 package sausage links, sliced (I used Trader Joe’s Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage With Pure Vermont Maple Syrup….so good! If you use chicken sausage, you will need to brown it in a little olive oil so it doesn’t burn. Pork sausage doesn’t need any extra fat.)
  • 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
  • 6 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 4 cups frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed
  • 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
  • 1 1/2 cups small curd cottage cheese
  • 1 1/4 cups shredded Swiss cheese (I didn’t have any Swiss so I used some random package of shredded Italian cheeses but I think Swiss would have been great.)
 Directions
  1. In a large skillet, cook sausage and onion until sausage is browned; drain. In a bowl, combine the remaining ingredients; stir in sausage mixture. Transfer to a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish.
  2. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until set and bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

The MOPS ladies ate the entire casserole except for one small piece. Thanks ladies for leaving a piece for me to photograph! :)

***

Yesterday, the Tay Sachs community lost a very precious little girl. Rachaeli had Tay Sachs and was 9 years old. Reaching that age was nothing short of a miracle. If you would like to read a very touching tribute to Rachaeli, click here for her mom’s Caringbridge site. To Rachaeli’s family: Thank you for sharing your beautiful daughter with all of us. The day we found out Carmen most likely had Tay Sachs, I came home and googled and found your website. I was grieved and inspired and amazed. Four years later, I still feel the same for Rachaeli and your entire family. Dave and I will be praying for all of you.

Page 1 of 41234»