Christmas Eve

It was so wonderful to have our family together for Christmas this year.

For some reason I was a little more stressed than planned on Christmas Eve day and my darling EMILYS totally came to my rescue! They made two desserts and dinner! Bless Their Hearts!

Our Christmas Eve traditions begin as we gather in the kitchen and eat warm soup (Pasta e Fagioli, which is totally not German, but oh, so yummy) by the light from the candles on our Advent Wreath. We then move to the living room where we sing Christmas hymns, open gifts from the Zwick side of the family, munch on yummy traditional German cookies and candies, have mini-performances by members of the family (this year we added the Nash tradition of reading a spiritually focused Christmas story), sing more Christmas carols together, and hear the story of the Nativity from Luke 2.

It's nice to be able to spend the evening with family and have our focus be on our Savior, who has blessed us with the greatest of all gifts.

Oma picked the perfect outfits for the girls - Gotta LOVE Old Navy when they have good sales!

Opa sent a beautiful bi-plane ornament for Mark & Emily's tree. They loved it, but unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture of it.

We found Lebkuchen (that was ALMOST as good as the cookies from Schmidts Bakery), the almond windmill cookies, Pigs Ears (although I can't remember what they are called in German) and Pfeffernusse at the Christkindl Market in Chicago along with Dominos and Marzipan (since we'd long finished off the candy that Oma had sent). We also found the candles for our Pyramid so we bought 2 boxes. Hooray for kids who really, really wanted to go into the city even though it was very cold and very snowy!Mark's Emily made her family's traditional Christmas Cake Roll. Oh, was it tasty! We had so much fun visiting and singing and talking and laughing and eating that we stayed up until after midnight.

A Peek at pre-Christmas

Gift Card Holders

Emily's Early Christmas Gift

A night at the Lyric watching "Porgy & Bess"

Since James had late finals, he wasn't able to make it to Chicago in time to go with Emily so Alaina agreed to accompany her. The girls enjoyed dressing up and Alaina finally had an opportunity to wear her swanky gloves. Mark and Emily drove them into the city and spent the evening with a good friend who lives in Chicago. You can read more details about their evening on their blog.Deep Dish Pizza at Lou Malnatti's

Sunday afternoon Emily kept getting updates from James as they worried about the weather and whether his flight would be delayed or not. He arrived around 10:00 pm (just an hour late). We spent Monday morning getting acquainted and headed out to Naperville for lunch at Lou Malnotti's. We made James watch family videos with us Monday night! We enjoyed meeting and getting to know James. We spent Tuesday in Chicago. It was cold and snowy, but it was a fun day. Again, I will refer you to Emily & Mark's blog for more details & pictures. I didn't remember to bring my camera...and I'm not sure I would have used it much anyway.

OPENING GIFTS WITH JAMES

Since James was supposed to fly out first thing Wednesday morning, we opened gifts with him Tuesday evening after we warmed up with chili.

Afterwards, James and Emily sightread "The Prayer" as sung by Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion (I tried to sightread the accompaniment and they did much better sightreading than I did). Then the three guys stood around and sang Christmas songs from the hymn book. They sounded great and Rob couldn't have been happier to have a tenor!

Ward Christmas Party

We had our annual / traditional ward Christmas Breakfast the first weekend of December. (yes, I'm slow getting pictures up)

My friend & neighbor had been asked to be in charge of decorating the gym. She asked me to come help. I remember the conversation going something like this....

"Hi, Sue, are you busy Friday? I need some help decorating for the Christmas party.
Well, yes, I am, but I could probably spare a couple of hours.
Okay....Great! See you at 10:00"

I figured that I'd be there for four hours and still have an hour and a half to do a little Christmas shopping and get the house straightened up before Rob arrived home from Denver (or was it Florida?)

I was late getting out of the house. My friend was even later because she had to fill her van up with tubs and boxes of Christmas decor (and I mean that LITERALLY - every inch was full). She finally arrived at 11:00 and we proceeded to unload her van.

There were two other sisters there to help. Two of us strung thread on paper snowflakes while the other two tried to figure out how to get wire strung from the eye hooks in the wall. One of the sisters had to leave mid-afternoon. We had men show up to set up tables and chairs and a couple of their wives came with to help. Rob called from the airport and I said I was still there so he had the cab drop him off at the stake center. Rob and I finally left around 10:00 pm! I had been there for ELEVEN HOURS. Of course, my friend stayed for another hour. But at least we were far enough along that she didn't stay till 1 or 2 in the morning.

The decorations turned out great! It was very rewarding when everyone walked in and we could see the delight in their eyes. I loved how the Santa Chair was set up on the porch of a life-sized gingerbread house.

The centerpieces were homemade gingerbread houses and each table was provided with Royal Icing and Candies. All the finished houses were set out to display and then lucky "winners" (the ones with a sticker under their chair) got to take the house home.

One of my favorite parts was the buffet tables set up in the middle of the gym - which created six serving lines...instead of the traditional end of the gym configuration which only allows for two long lines. Way to think outside the box! We didn't have enough tables and chairs set up, which is always a good sign that the activity was a hit.

Is high school Supposed to be like this?

Yesterday we were alerted by a text from Alaina at 7:55 am that the high school was in lockdown. The students were locked into their classroom with the lights off for over five hours as police officers and school administrators searched the entire building, room by room, from the top down for a gun. We received notification from the school via mass email & phone calls around 9:00 am.

A student had reported that he had seen two students with a pistol at school. Alaina was unable to text (she had snuck the first text to us but didn't want to risk getting caught texting when she wasn't supposed to) and it was maddening to not know what was going on at the school. Luckily, a friend's mother had linked to an online newspaper article that had been updated several times throughout the morning and they had a reporter at the command center who had access to Twitter. I've seen Twitter mentioned before online but not really bothered to find out what it was. Yesterday - it was my lifeline to sanity. I was able to get updates from the web as soon as the police released details - which they did consistently from the time I clicked over to the Beacon website. The police did an excellent job reassuring the parents and community that they were doing everything they could to keep our students safe. There is some discussion about whether the school administration did as good a job communicating with parents, or not. I understand their first concern was for the students. I asked Alaina and she said she thinks they did what was needed to keep the students safe and the situation under control.

I chose not to go to the community center and wait. I think that was the right decision. I also chose to leave Alaina at school to finish out the last hour instead of checking her out. I'm not sure that was the right decision. She came home pretty upset and it took her awhile to settle down. Writing about it helped.

Things I have since learned, that I didn't think about or understand. When the school goes on Hard Lockdown - which is what happened yesterday - the lights go off, the classroom doors get locked, the students get as far away from line of sight as they can and then they stay like that until the lockdown is over. There are no bathroom breaks and it goes without saying no snack breaks or lunch periods. The teacher can make or break the situation for their class. One teacher tackled a police officer as he entered the classroom, because he saw the gun first and was willing to sacrifice himself to keep the gunman away from his students. Alaina's teacher helped her class relax and find bits of strength and empowerment and even humor as it became more clear that they were not in immediate danger. If you haven't already, go read her post about this on her blog http://missalainius.blogspot.com/.

The weapon was found (an air pistol) and the student who brought it in will be facing consequences. No one was injured. School returned to normal. Life goes on.

Governor of Crazy

For Sale

to the Highest Bidder!

$$$$$$

One Senate Seat, barely used.

Only those who can promise a BIG paycheck to Governor Blagojevich (or his wife) need apply.

This was after our ESTEEMED Governor (allegedly) considered appointing HIMSELF to said Senate Seat because he thought it would help him remake his image so that he could run for President of the United States in eight years

He also (allegedly) wanted the Chicago Tribune to fire any writers who wrote disparaging editorials about him, his cronies, or his politics...or he said State Aid, which the company had requested to avoid bankruptcy, would be withheld.

Don't even get me started on the pay to play politics that were (allegedly) going on...

I'm ashamed and embarrassed to admit that I voted for him the first time he ran for office. I believed his promises to clean up the governor's office in the wake of the Ryan fiasco.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Alaina pointed out that we like Open Road Tolling - so thank you for that Gov. Blagojevich. Now, Please Go Wash your Mouth out with Soap and Do Illinois a Favor and Resign.

Communication Counts

Sunday evening I was pulling ice cream out of the freezer for a quick Advent treat

and this is what I saw when I turned around.

This is how Alaina would feel if she couldn't text anymore.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.

It started last weekend when Karin arrived! (Remind me to tell you our ghost story - or maybe Karin will!) We chatted and laughed and cooked and baked and went grocery shopping - Whole Foods is Definitely worth another visit.

Jim, Julie, Cameron, Parker and Brynlee arrived Wednesday evening, just in time for some yummy clam chowder. We were a little behind schedule with pies so we didn't get to bed until midnight.

The kids kept themselves entertained with Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Super Nintendo (or was it Nintendo 64?), and pool. Julie even joined in playing Rock Band on Saturday morning. They were good sports and helped when ever we asked.
Thursday was fabulous. We followed tradition by starting out with chocolate chip / blueberry pancakes. Lunch was deviled eggs (can I just say I have NEVER had such difficulty peeling eggs as we did for that batch), guacamole & chips & salsa, and a veggie tray. Dinner was our traditional brined and roasted turkey (no deep-fried turkey this year because the peanut oil was WAY TOO EXPENSIVE), mashed potatoes and the yummiest gravy, Grandma Hendricks' candied yams, cornbread stuffing, jellied cranberry relish and cran-apple salsa, roasted asparagus, orange rolls, dinner rolls, GF muffins, orange salad and raspberry pretzel salad. Everything this year (except the orange & dinner rolls) was gluten-free so Jim & Karin could partake of whatever they wanted to eat. We were so full that dessert came much later than usual.

Dessert included lots of pumpkin pie (GF and full of gluten) GF Pecan Pie, & GF Peppermint Cheesecake. I found a GF crust online for the cheesecake that ended up tasting a bit like Pecan Sandies so it was a nice compliment to the cheesecake.

GLUTEN FREE NUT CRUST SUPREME

2 cups GF Baking Mix

1/2 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 cup finely chopped pecans

Spray cheesecake pan lightly with vegetable oil spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour mix and brown sugar. Cut in the butter until fine crumbs form. Stir in the nuts and pat into the prepared pan. The crust will be crumbly but will hold together once pressed into the pan.