Saturday, December 18, 2010

10 Reasons Mom Gets Distracted in December

During the holidays, dads are thinking about playoff games, and kids are dreaming about vacation, but Mom’s mind is definitely somewhere else

1.. While everyone else stampedes through stores at 4:00 AM the day after Thanksgiving to buy this year’s most popular toy, Mom is still trying to remember where she hid last year’s most popular toy.
2. While everyone else is trading fruit cakes, if Mom says yes to one more Christmas party where they are yodeling “Jingle Bells,” she’s going to become a fruitcake.      

3. While everyone else is posing for a Christmas picture, Mom is praying that the photographer won’t notice she’s wearing two different colored flip flops. (The dog has hidden one of each.)
4. While everyone else is sporting a giant red Santa hat, Mom is taking a pass this year after last year’s fender bender when she was mistaken for a stoplight.
5. While everyone else is using the Advent calendar to count down to December 25, Mom is counting down to January 5 — and the full body mud spa treatment she promised herself.

6. While everyone else is wearing Christmas sweaters with monstrous reindeer, Mom knows that they actually make you look like a mobile Christmas bulletin board.

7. While everyone else is bragging in their Christmas letters about their kids’ Ivy League educations, Mom is glad that her children have finally quit itching after running into a bad patch of poison ivy last summer at camp.

8. While everyone else is enjoying delicious roast turkey on Christmas Eve, Mom knows she burned her poor bird and must glue sliced turkey pieces from 7-Eleven® onto a basketball — and hope no one notices.
9. While everyone else is asking Santa for toys, games, and clothes, Mom is missing from the picture due to her request for 10 minutes to herself, a clean towel, and a bathtub with no plastic submarines floating in it.
 10. While everyone in Washington D.C. is taking a break from politics, Mom is encouraged by her husband to run for Congress with all the new bills she has introduced into the house.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Cheryl's Christmas Peppermint Mocha for a Crowd


Ingredients:

-1 cup powdered sugar
-3/4 cup cocoa powder
-1/2 cup chocolate syrup
-1 tsp. peppermint extract
-7 cups skim or soy milk
-3 cups very strong coffee
-marshmallows and candy canes for garnish

The Directions:

1.  Combine the dry ingredients into your crockpot and stir with a spoon. Squeeze in a half-cup of chocolate sauce. Add the milk, a cup at a time, and stir well.

2.  Cover and cook on high for 2-3 hours, or until completely hot. Add peppermint extract and stir.  Serve with marshmallows and candy canes. If serving to guests at a party over a period of hours, keep the pot on low with the lid off, and provide a ladle.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Christmas Cheery Cherry Muffins

 Christmas Cheery Cherry Muffins

Made in the crockpot for a Spongy goodness that my awesome husband and kids really love.


Ingredients:
1 white dry regular boxed cake mix
2/3 cup olive or vegetable oil
3-4 egg whites, beaten
21 oz cherry pie filling (cherries and sauce), minus two ounces (dad's taste test  ;)
2/3 cup chocolate chips
Topping:
1 cup shredded coconut, tinted green*
1/3 cup white sugar
1 Tablespoons melted butter

1.  Preheat crockpot on low.
2.  Mix cake mix, oil, and beaten eggs.
3.  Thoroughly mix in cherry pie filling by hand.
4.  Add chocolate chips last.
5.  Ice cream scoop batter into aluminum cupcake muffin papers.
6.  Bake 1 hour on low in the crockpot.
7.  Mix Topping ingredients and sprinkle on 1/2 baked muffins in crockpot.
     Save remaining Topping for remaining uncooked muffins.
8.  Bake for one more hour on low in crockpot.

*coconut, tinted green 

Use a small container like a small yogurt container or resealable plastic bag.  Add one or two drops of green food coloring BEFORE you add the coconut!  Then add the cup of coconut, cover, and shake.  If the coconut is not dark enough, go ahead and add a few more drops but try to put the drops on the side of the container and not directly on the coconut.  Now cover and shake again.


Makes: 2 dozen delicious muffins

Each set of eight muffins takes about 2 hours on low.  We store the uncooked cupcakes in the foils in the frig
on a plate until its time to make.

A cheery Christmas project to make with your children or grandchildren. 


by Cheryl Moeller loves her crockpot
Author of Aunt Sarah's Alaskan Cookbook

Friday, December 10, 2010

Thanks Sister Cathy for Teaching me Kindness and Unconditional Love - Happy Birthday Today! December 10

Cathryn Webster is kind to everyone including her dog
Cathy comforts Kris Dunbar, who lost his battle with cancer.  Kris is the son of the family where Cathy stays.
                Cathy = Kindness 


While seminary, with amazing professors, taught me on one level, my real school for the ministry was growing up with my older sister Cathy.

Cathy and I are Irish twins so for part of every year we are the same age.  Today is her birthday.

I had to learn to walk early because Cathy needed the stroller for support

Cathy has cerebral palsy, but she does far more than many of us who have our full health.

Some doctors today would suggest she should have been aborted due to her challenges.  While abortion is clearly against Scripture, parents also need to realize that a gift of a challenged child is a taste of heaven.
 

I grew up thinking Cathy was a bright star. 

She was chosen to turn on the Christmas tree lights outside city hall in Warren, Michigan on the day she turned 10, her golden birthday. She was given a Baby Boo doll which was the neatest thing I had ever seen.

Baby Boo Doll - I'm getting her another one on ebay this Christmas

She graduated from Flint Central high school with a standing ovation. 

We liked our teachers; she loved her's.  Shaking a maraca was a trip to Mexico.  Sledding on a cold Saturday afternoon was an adventure on the Swiss Alps.  We were glad to go to our church, but Cathy squealed with delight on the way.   

While some might feel sorry for us, we are the blessed ones.

Cathy taught me kindness and unconditional love, something that cannot be taught in a book, but only through the crucible of life by those who live it. 

"And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
Ephesians 4:32

Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday dear Cathy.
Happy Birthday to you!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

How a Mom Celebrates Christmas


Let's be honest, for most moms, Christmas can be summed up in one word - work.

So how does a busy mom have her own Christmas celebration?  

On an airplane, the flight attendant over the microphone tells parents, if needed, that they should put their own oxygen mask on first.  Then, they'll be prepared to put an oxygen mask on each of their children.  We need to take care of ourselves, so we can take care of those that God has entrusted to us.

As moms, we need to find a little slice of Christmas, early in December.  It could be a concert, passing out plates of chicken at a homeless shelter, visiting a shut-in neighbor, listening to a friend play Christmas carols on the piano, a play, or a worship service.

I have found my own personal celebration of Christmas the last five years at a live outdoor nativity at a church in my neighborhood. .        

Outside with the animals, the donkey, some little lambs, the curious goat, the unsanded wooden manger, and the leaning A-frame shelter.  The sky is the ceiling.  The smelly animals, muddy and bleating, seem to understand.  And, there's me sobbing.  Worshipping the humble One, who arrived on this earth as a baby in the middle of dirt and mud.  Praying I can be more like Him.  Loving Him so dearly and knowing that He loves me, even more. Thanking Him for being willing to come to earth.    
I drive past the outside Christmas scene fenced off with animals several times the week that they are out, as I go to store or the library.  I like to be alone with the animals, before the crowd forms each evening for the musical.  I ponder the shepherds and how they must have felt and the manger that was only the first step of many humilations.

In Philippians 2:5-11, the Apostle Paul urges Christians to have the same humble
attitude that Christ had. Even though Jesus was true God, and would have had every
reason to be proud, what did He do instead? The holy Jesus left the splendors of heaven and came to earth to be our Servant, in order to save us from our sins! He humbled Himself in a manger and then, allowing Himself to be put to death on a cross - a very humiliating way to die.   

Philippians 2:5-11 says, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 

This Christmas, if you need to call me, I'll be at Aspen and Avail Streets, drawn to and awed by the humble Child King.  You are welcome to join me, there's room for all. 

When I've been touched by the manger, I'll be able to work to give my family their Christmas celebration.

Luke 2:12b "...you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."