Making Jam!

So... we made a whole lot of tamales this year, and in order for us to get them all in the freezer, something had to go.  We had a bunch of frozen cherries and apricots in the freezer, so Susan, Amy and I decided it was time to make jam.  We made 14 half-pints of apricot jam, and 10 half-pints of cherry.  It was tasty and delicious if we do say so ourselves.

This is Amy taking cherry jam out of the boiling water bath.

This is Susan putting more jars of cherry jam into the boiling water bath.

The jars of apricot jam are washed and ready to label!

This morning, Amy made waffles for breakfast.  We put some of the new jam on them.  Delicious.  (When you make jam, the instructions tell you not to do more than one batch at a time because it may not set up.  Both our batches were double batches.  We figured if it didn't set up, we'd have some tasty syrup.  They set up, so it was tasty jam instead.)

Making Tamales!

Every year, sometime between Christmas and New Year's, we make tamales to eat on New Year's Eve.  We've been doing it for about 14 or 15 years now.  This year, Bill and Sonia Myers wanted to come over to learn how to make them, so of course, since they are part of the family, they helped.  Amy, Susan, Steve, Angela, Doug and I  were the rest of the crew. 

Brian and Chelsea went to Elko for Christmas this year.  They taught Chelsea's family how to make tamales, too!

I think the Myers will be coming over New Year's Eve to help us eat these delicious tamales!  Steve and Angela went home already, but they took lots of tamales home with them!

My Fingernail

On August 20 (I remember it because it was the day after Susan's birthday party), I smashed my finger between the car door and the table saw.  It turned black and got all swollen--not a pretty sight.  After about a week, Lacie Briggs melted a hole through the nail to release the pressure, and the waiting began.  Well, I think I can officially say that today my fingernail has grown back!  It's still bumpy, but it's there, and it covers the whole place a fingernail should cover.  The human body is amazing to me in it's ability to heal itself.  Our bodies are indeed miracles!

No Skyping for Me

So... I figured that since just about all of our children had web cams, I would break down and get a web cam so we could Skype every once in awhile.  The web cam came today.  I installed it, and I could get it to work just fine except for on Skype.  I (with help from Amy) spent three hours trying to get the camera to work together with skype, including well over an hour with tech support.  Needless to say, I packed the whole thing back in the box and sent it back to Amazon.   I will not be Skyping any time soon.  The phone has worked wonderfully well up to this point.  What was I thinking!?!

Some Christmas Traditions... Old and New

We have a lot of Christmas traditions in our family--some we've done for years, and others just kind of sneak in to the tradition reportoire. (I'm sure that's not how to spell reportoire, but I still don't know how to spell check this blog business.) And some things we do just once, and that's tradition enough. Nevertheless, I've taken some pictures of some of the things we've done in the past week or so, and here they are. They are in no particular order:




For the past several years, the girls have built slinky towers out of presents.  They say that they are doing it to make a cool set of stairs to send the slinky down, but they're really just looking for an excuse to shake, smell and feel all the presents.

The making of the annual Decker Fruitcake.  Tradition says that everyone needs to help stir in order for the family to have good luck.  The Lord has greatly blessed us all.  Maybe it's because of the fruitcake?

The finished fruitcake--we ate it for breakfast Christmas Eve morning.  It was tasty and delicious as always.

This year, instead of caroling, we took the family band around to wish the neighbors Merry Christmas.  We passed by one house, and the people inside shouted, "Hey!  What are you doing?  Come play for us!"  And we did.  It was fun.  We had to go while it was daylight so folks could see the music, so lots of places we went, folks weren't home yet.  (Angela had music pinned to her back.  I held Angela's music in the book, and I had Susan's pinned to the front of my jacket while I played conductor.)

Not really a Christmas tradition, but we made homemade corndogs for Christmas Eve dinner!

We spend a lot of time doing this ever year!

Our annual Christmas puzzle!  As far as we're concerned, an easy 500 piece-er is plenty!

I can't figure out how to get back to the "text" portion of the post, so I'll finish it up here in this caption.  As soon as I download pictures from other folks' cameras, I'll post more.

It's Hanukkah!

Today is the first day of Hanukkah! To celebrate, we had Matzah Ball Soup, latkes with applesauce and Challah bread for dinner (and salad). I used to be an assistant teacher at a Jewish preschool. I don't remember too many of the Jewish traditions that I learned there, but we try to at least acknowledge Hannukkah by having a traditional meal. Afterwards, we played a rousing game of dreidel!

My Christmas Quilt Stuff ...or, My First Blog Post Without Any Help

I am having fun being a real "quilter."  I like to work on quilting projects in those brief moments when I have spare time.  With family responsiblities, church responsibilities, and work responsibilities, there isn't a whole lot of that spare time, so I relish the moments when I can listen to an audiobook and quilt away.  Since it's Christmas time, I decided to post a few pictures of some of my Christmas projects.  That way, I can see if I can post pictures without any help.

I made this table topper and the little quiltie on the little rack this year.  I can change the little quiltie on the rack with the change in holidays or seasons.  So far, I have made a fall quiltie, a poinsetta quiltie, and a snowman quiltie.

Doug made me this quilt rack for Christmas this year!  It's wonderful!  (So is he!)  He made it and put it up while I was gone to a Relief Society Super Saturday last November.  I took a Grand Slam Quilt class at the quilt shop.  The Santa Claus part in the middle is a panel.  The rest of it is pieced.  I hand-quilted it because I love to hand-quilt!

The caption button didn't pop up for this picture, so I'll just comment on in right here in the text.  I made this quilt last year.  The pattern is called "Wild Card."  Doug made the cool quilt rack.  Note the cute Kermit next to it.  Carlos Gonzales, a boy in my class, gave it to me for Christmas this year.  Our whole school went to see the new Muppet Movie, and he knew I loved the Muppets.  It looks cute hanging out with our other Christmas toys.

My second post... just so I can learn how to add a post.

L. to R.  Doug, Angela, Steve, Susan, Santa, Amy, Brian, Chelsea, Me

Since I am obviously no techno-wizard, Amy is showing me how to add new posts.  Now I am going to have her teach me how to add a picture.  This is the picture I chose to add.

Isn't it a lovely picture!?!

My very first blog post

Since Amy has been home for Christmas, she showed me how to set up our very own blog. When I say "our" I assume that Doug will post every once in awhile. You know what they say about "assume." Anyway, it's Christmas time 2011. Susan is still living at home. Amy got home for the holidays last Friday. Brian and Chelsea came through on their way to Elko. They're spending the holidays with Chelsea's family. Steve and Angela should be getting here today! I'll have had all our kids here, at least for a little bit, for the Christmas Holidays this year. Seeing as we were all together for Thanksgiving, I feel like a lucky mom, indeed.