Happy New Year

May the New Year bring: peace that surpasses all understanding, abundant blessings, overflowing joy, true and pure love, much prosperity, and personal growth. No matter what your level of success may be, may you have the faith, hope, and drive to continue to persevere and to strive to always "be better than yesterday"!!!

Christmas Foodie Friday

In the previous post I talked about the Strawberry Pretzel Dessert that is sooooo yummy I would post for Foodie Friday. So here it is.

1 1/2 cups crushed pretzels
4 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup white sugar
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 (6 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin
2 cups boiling water
1 (16 ounce) package frozen strawberries


DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together the pretzels, 4 1/2 tablespoons sugar and melted butter. Press into the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan. Bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly toasted. Set aside to cool completely.

In a medium bowl, beat the sugar and cream cheese until smooth. Fold in whipped topping. Spread evenly over the cooled crust. Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes.

In a medium bowl, stir together the gelatin mix and boiling water. Mix in frozen strawberries, and stir until thawed. Pour over cream cheese mixture in pan. Refrigerate until completely chilled, at least 1 hour.

Friends

We just did a quick Christmas visit with our good friends The Nolan's last weekend and took some cute pictures.

Abt Family Christmas

We started our Holidays with Abt Family Christmas at my brother Craig's house. Lots of great food and great family! I was asked to bring Strawberry Pretzel Dessert. This dish is a specialty of my sister-in-law Diane's so I didn't want to screw it up! I forgot to take a picture of it but it turned out great! I came home with an empty dish! I'll have to post it in Friday Foodies if I ever get around to it!!

Here are just a few pictures from our first Christmas.

Beverly Stewart

So I have this small obsession with seeing things crafty and thinking "I can do that." Ever since I was a little girl I've seen Ginger Bread House kits and always wanted to make one. I can remember looking through my mom's Good Housekeeping or Ladies Home Jounals at Christmas time to find these wonderful candy constructed houses. They always looked so pretty and dollhouse-like. So I told myself this year I'm doing it. And I had the perfect excuse, I got to babysit my nephew Nathan last night!!

So I bought the kit and essembeled the house, because it has to dry for like 3 hours before your supposed to decorate it. The box makes it sound so easy, but they forget to tell you that they have PROFESSIONAL cake decorators making these little houses. The icing/glue that you mix to put the house together has to be the perfect consistancy and stay wet or else it will harden. It drips ALL over. (I told Nathan it was melting snow.) Anyway I got the basic house built and when Nathan came over I managed the glue and he decorated it with candies. Nathan did such a good job and was very patient with his Aunt! Here are some pictures of our adventure with Gingerbread...

Jack Playing

Mommy's helper

Jacks new favorite thing is to help me load and unload the dishwasher. It's the perfect height for him to pull up on. He loves to pull and push the bottom basket and to take things out of the utensil basket. Hope he remembers how much fun the dishes are in about 8 years!!

Thanksgiving 2008

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday battling a cold! I am finally getting over it and I am doing my best to keep Jack from getting it. I think I have used a gallon of hand sanitizer! Anyway... we spent Thanksgiving Day with Grandma and PawPaw Thompson. Had some great food and Jack got the play with his cousin Carter. Then last Sunday we traveled to Ste. Gen to see Grandma and Grandpa Abt and have Thanksgiving with my side of the family. Great Grandma Strubbe didn't make it out to the house but we got to see her at the care center. Se looks awesome for 94! Here are some pictures!

Jack's 1st Birthday(Happy version)

We celebrated Jack's 1st Birthday this past Sunday with friends and family. Jack is very lucky to have so many people who love him and want to share in his special day. A big thanks to everyone for helping us celebrate! Here are some pictures from Jack's big day.

Jack's 1st Birthday(Sappy version)

Ayear ago, on November 16, 2007 at 1:40pm, my dream came true. I gave birth to my sweet sugar Jack. I can't believe how quickly the last year has gone by. I remember the days leading up to his birth so clearly. The mixture of excitement and fear when my Dr. scheduled my induction. The very uncomfortable night before in the hospital. How so intently I watched the monitor to make sure his heart beat was staying consistant all night. The suprise at the amount of strength I found to bring this life into the world.(a man could never do it.) The complete and utter fear that ran through my head when I was told his heart rate was dropping and they had to do an emergency c-section. The tears from both Darrell and I when they delivered Jack. The moment the nurse told me Jack was okay. When they place this little tiny wrinkly bundle of blanket in my arms and those big baby blue opened up and looked right at me. And the moment I realize I was a mom. I look at him today and think how did this little tiny 6lb. person grow into such a big chunky monkey. Happy 1st Birthday Jack! I love you very much.

Busy Bee

I haven't had much time to post the last two weeks. I am in party prep mode. My sweet sugar will be turning the big 01 this weekend and I've been running around trying to get all my ducks in a row. I'm sure I'll have plenty to post about after the party.

I think we have officially hit autumn. The leaves on our pretty tree in the backyard have all fallen and it has turned colder. I think I even saw a few snowflakes blowing yesterday!!!!

And the winner is...

Me!

Yesterday at work we had a costume contest and I won, $25. Or should I say Sister Mary Margret won!

Happy Halloween

We hope everyone had a safe and sugar filled Halloween! Happy Birthday Dave!!!!

Last night we all got together at our friends, Dave & Laura, house to celebrate Halloween. The kids had a blast and we had fun handing out candy to all the cute little trick or treaters.

Autumn

We had our first trip to pick out pumpkins this past weekend. We invited, my friend and fellow blogger, Cindy and her two kids to join us at Rombach Farms. Jack was not much interested in the pumpkins so much as the dirt they sat in. Typical boy! Anyway here are some pictures from our visit. And I threw in one of our pretty tree in the back.yard.

untitled

I usually don't bring this sort of thing up in my blog, but an incident in a grade school here is St. Louis has prompted me to.
A local grade school had a student initiated "spirit" week in which they participated in "hug a friend day", "high five day", "hit a tall kid day" and on the next day..."hit a Jew day".
I encourage the kids to interact with one another , however when the word "hit" comes into play this should have been stopped. I am sad to see students being singled out by race, religion, gender, etc. Where were the school administrators while all of this was happening? Where did the students get the idea that something like this would be "ok"? Hitting is not to be tolerated.
The follow up to this incident has been the suspension of some students and sensitivity training for all students.

I am very disappointed in the fact I'll have to explain something like this to Jack.

Say a prayer

My good friend Susanne's dad is having surgery today. Mr. Jersa is my second dad so please keep him in your prayers.

Jack's Favorite Things...Right now

Mom's Day Out

Last weekend my girlfriend Susan and I took advantage of the great weather and headed to Lake of the Ozarks for a little "Girls Weekend". We left Saturday morning and headed down to the Lake. We started our weekend at 7 Springs Winery, http://sevenspringswinery.com/ .

The view and the tasting room were wonderful. We were just planning on having lunch at the winery but ended up staying a little longer. About 5 hours! We had a good time.

Anyway, we also hit the outlet mall and I, of course, bought more for Jack than I did myself. But he should be set for winter clothes.