A wonderful baking day!

What a wonderful day. I stayed home most all

of the day and did something I love to do: bake.

In and out of the oven came Christmas tree

shaped sugar cookies, cinnamon rolls and

Norwegian Christmas Bread. Yesturday my

kitchen saw Chocolate Chip Cheesecake bars

and Almond Paste Cake. Tomorrow I plan

to finish up with Chocolate Biscotti!

One of my favorite things about this time of the

year is making all of these yummy treats. Also,

I love to share them too. Jake and I took a

little drive out to the West side of Stockton to

deliver cinnamon rolls to a new friend. I met

Michelle in the homeschool group and was

instantly drawn to her when she said she has

five boys. With two boys already in college,

I knew she had some experience under her

belt. A few months back we met for dinner

and it was so nice to have someone to just

share life with. I told her today that she has

been an oasis in this desert time of my life.

The boys are so excited about Christmas.

They keep asking what is on the menu.

Drew did a happy dance in the middle

of the living room tonight. Devin is planning

on staying up late tomorrow on Christmas

Eve, so that he will be able to easily fall asleep.

And my Jake, he confessed tonight that he

is really just excited about the gifts and not

really about Christmas being about Jesus.

I assured him that it was okay, and that

for a six year old it is normal to be excited

just about the gifts. I told him that when

people are older they think more about it

being about Jesus.

If I could, I would get a gift for every one of you.

Your gift would be something that you have been

longing for. The price would not matter, just that

your gift would delight you and bring you joy!

I love giving gifts at Christmas, the surprise, the

wrapping, ribbon and bows. I hope that each of

you will have a special gift this Christmas!

Enjoy the day and don't worry about any of the

calories!

Love,

Deanne

Facebook, Gingerbread House, Christmas Gifts

Okay, I was a short term Facebook junky. It was lovely at first, but then it sucked me in, and due to my oversensitivity to the outside world, it was having a not so good effect. I think I'm not normal and have a intense internal response to news of any kind. My husband caught wind of some of the status post and didn't like what he saw. He wanted me to end my Facebook substance abuse and so I complied. Of course I miss it and want to know what everyone is doing, but it is much better for me (no judgement on anyone else) to keep to my own business and not compare my simple life to anyone else. I'm more content living that way.

Gingerbread, it is such a delight of Christmas time for me!! When I was somewhere around 18 or 19 I made my first gingerbread house. It has been a long time since I have made one, due to the fact that there has been many years where little hands would have gotten involved and I would have been frustrated! So this year I let the boys decorate gingerbread cookies days before and then when I went to make the gingerbread house they we're not allowed to help. This house was made as a gift for Drew's teacher. For the first time I made windows out of hard candy and then set the house one a base with a hole in the bottom and inserted a battery operated candle. So with the candle inside it looked like there was a warm fire in the gingerbread house! His teacher loved it and I was thrilled!

Jake was so excited about Christmas gifts this year. He wanted me to wrap gifts as soon as the Christmas tree went up. In years past I would wait close to Christmas to wrap the gifts, so they wouldn't be tempted to sneak a peak. As they got older I would wrap the gifts and then assign fake names to the gifts, so that they wouldn't know which ones were theirs. But this year I trust them and they have gifts under the tree with their names on them.

Today, Devin told me that I shouldn't have put gifts under the tree so early on. What? He said it was to hard to wait so long. This cause me to think, as many things that they say causes me to think. God often gives me glimpses when my children say things.

When we put gifts under the Christmas tree and make our children wait to open their gifts until Christmas morning it is so hard for them to wait. Did you know that you can store up gifts in heaven? Yep, that is right! The Lord has rewards in heaven for his children, waiting there for them when they get there!! Wha - Hoo! These are eternal treasures, not just delights that will fade months, even days after Christmas. Jesus tells us to store up treasures in heaven. Good works store up treasures in heaven. I wonder if sacrifice and obedience stores up treasure in heaven too. Just having Christ now is a treasure enough, but there is more, much more!!! Doing good works, having to sacrifice now and obedience has it's rewards now here on earth, I can't imagine what the rewards will be like in heaven! Our biggest gift will be to continually be in the presence of the Lord. I hope my rewards will include endless resource to do the things that I wasn't able to do here on earth (like, redecorate my house in different motifs)! I also hope that I get to ride a zip line across some beautiful raven (with no fear, but all the rush)!

I am so excited for Christmas! As a parent I have chosen gifts for my children that I know they will love. I can't wait to see the delight in their eyes and feel the joy they feel. If I know how to give good gifts to my children, I know that God will do an infinitely better job than me!

To all who read this blog:

Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas Cookie Decorating

Christmas Cookie Decorating

Last night was the night of Christmas Cookie decorating! Yeah, what fun and what a mess! What the pictures don't show is the aftermath of cookie decorating. We were up to 10:00pm and the 2 out of 3 boys had melt downs and my voice was not all nice and sweet. I'm not sharing this because I'm proud of it, but I'm telling you because if you just saw the pictures you would think everything was wonderful. Pictures are great, but don't tell the whole story, just the part of the story that we want to share!