Our Memorial Day

We had a nice, full day yesterday marking the occasion of Memorial Day. The city of Tupelo does a really nice job hosting a ceremony to honor those who paid the ultimate price for the freedoms we all enjoy today. It is a somber, reflective, and patriotic ceremony, and I am so proud and happy to attend it. This year, our own Uncle Kelly, Colonel, Judge, and dear friend, was the keynote speaker. He gave an excellent speech using the Gettysburg Address as the basis for his encouragement and personal reflections from serving our country. I was so proud of him!

Uncle Kelly

The ceremony began at 9:00AM. The weather was beautiful, the chaplain who spoke before Kelly was inspiring, and the patriotic music was touching. 

Here we are with Uncle Kelly

It was great to be with Lynn and her family during and after the ceremony. I briefly forgot about the coronavirus during this outdoor event. Of course, people were social distancing, but the Mims family and our family hung out together just like normal. 

After the ceremony, we came home and got ready to go to Julie's house for lunch. The only picture I took was of the cute, patriotic table she had set for us. We enjoyed a delicious lunch and a fun time playing with Mae. 

We left Julie's house around 3:00PM, and I enjoyed about an hour outside reading beside my pool. I fixed some more food, and then we went to Kelly and Lynn's for supper. It was so exciting! Our first social event (besides the Memorial Day Ceremony that morning) since the beginning of March. Kelly grilled chicken, and we enjoyed another wonderful meal and even better company.

The four of us

So good to be together!

Mother's Day and More

I had a wonderful Mother's Day! Three out of my five children were here to help me celebrate, and the other two were here in spirit! The weather was so pretty, and I spent a good bit of the day outside talking to my mother on the phone, planting a few flowers in pots, and watching Mae run around. 

I awoke to this beautiful table setting prepared by Leah after I had gone to bed the night before. 

Julie prepared a delicious meal that she brought over for all of us to enjoy. After eating, I opened my gifts from my children and also from Jimmy. The gifts were all so lovely and thoughtful. Everyone was so kind!

We planned to take some pictures with Julie and Mae...but Mae was sleepy, and then we just never got around to doing it. Leah and I did have Sam take our picture just before our evening Zoom church service. Leah is actually taller than me more so than this picture shows. I have on heels, and she has on flat sandals.

A very fun and exciting thing that Leah and I did Saturday was to attend a drive-by, social distancing baby shower for our preacher's wife, Jordan. She is expecting her third baby really any day now. It was so good to see people from our church family in real life and not on a computer screen. (I am thankful for technology! But I miss everyone so much!) The idea behind the shower was to drive by, hand your gift from your car window to the host (who would wipe it down with clorox wipes), and wave at Jordan, Trey, and their children. And some people followed that protocol.....but some of us parked our car and got out! We tried to stay 6 feet apart. (For sure we kept our distance from Jordan), but I did get close enough to Lynn for a picture. 

 the happy family of soon to be 5!

Yay! Together!

(Leanna was there before we took this picture.....I'm so sad we did not get a picture or all three of us.)

The Thanksgiving Celebrations Countdown

Whew! Yesterday afternoon I typed my to-do list and timeline for this week. This is my first time ever to prepare the Thanksgiving meal all by myself and serve it at my own house! My mother is unable to host this year, so I am using all her traditional recipes and hosting my immediate family. There will be eight  of us for Thanksgiving lunch: Jimmy, Me, Clay, Leah, Sam, Julie, Big Sam, and Mae.  I plan to serve the meal on my fine china that I have used only once or twice in our 27 years of marriage.

Thursday night we plan to take our leftovers over to Kelly and Lynn's house to eat with them and watch the Egg Bowl on TV. Friday night we are having a Thanksgiving dinner at Russ (Jimmy's brother) and Megan's house, and on Saturday we are going to Rhett (my brother) and Amanda's house. Lots of fun and food ahead!

Here is the timeline: As I just read over it, I realized that I forgot to list actually buying the Christmas tree! We will buy it sometime Wednesday and decorate it Friday.
Oh. And we will do some school today and tomorrow, and we also have CrossFit and piano lessons today.

Monday:

• clean upstairs
• change Clay's sheets, guest sheets, and Julie's sheets
• get out Christmas dishes
• decorate for Christmas (after supper)

Tuesday

• vacuum downstairs
• clean guest bathroom
• make dressing
• make carrot salad
• slice ham
• freeze hambone

Wednesday:

• grocery store early for last minute ingredients

• make sweet potatoes
• make corn/rice casserole
• make orange delight
• make green beans x 2
• thaw dressing
• make chocolate and pumpkin pies
• clean my bathroom/bedroom

Thursday:

8:00 AM

• bake turkey
• vacuum downstairs
• vacuum stairs
• set table—wash and dry tablecloth on quick cycle to remove wrinkles

11:30AM

• set out all casseroles
• boil eggs
• make gravy
• prepare cranberry sauce

12:00PM

• bake dressing
• bake green beans
• slice turkey
• put ham and turkey on platter

12:30PM

• bake sweet potatoes
• bake corn/rice casserole
• set out butter

12:45PM

• bake rolls

12:55PM

• set out orange delight
• set out carrot salad

1:00PM—EAT

Friday

• white chili in crock pot on high (for lunch)
• brown ground beef for tomorrow
• decorate Christmas tree (hot chocolate and popcorn!)
• make banana pudding
• make chocolate pies
• make chocolate chip pound cake 
• bake green beans one hour before going to Megan's.

Saturday

• put 7 can soup in crock pot on low (for supper)
• make strawberry spinach salad
• take cake and salad

Happy Thanksgiving Week to you!

Book Club, Holidays, Running, and More

Hello!
I hope your Thanksgiving went well. I thoroughly enjoyed having Olivia and Julie home along with Brian and Ellie. We filled each day they were here with lots of fun and hopefully some relaxation for them.
We bought and decorated our live Christmas tree. We always say when it's done that it's the BEST. TREE. EVER. This year was no exception.

We drove 3 hours to celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents, my grandmother,  and my brothers and their families at my parents' house. I cannot express how much I enjoy Thanksgiving at my parents' house. It is truly a relaxing holiday for me. My mother does all the cooking for Thanksgiving, and I appreciate that so much!  It is the one holiday/event that I do not help with or do all the preparing/cleaning/cooking for. What a delight! My mother went over and beyond this year---she cooked extra of four of her Thanksgiving dishes and put them in disposable pans for me to take to Jimmy's family's Thanksgiving meal on Friday. I was so excited about this!  What a huge blessing, and I was so thankful. Everyone enjoyed the food she prepared for the Johnson Thanksgiving. It was all eaten!

We drove 4 hours Friday from my parents' house to Jimmy's mother's house on Friday to enjoy celebrating with his family. Ellie and Brian got to visit with all of our extended family in two days. Fun for all!

Saturday after decorating the tree (we bought it Wednesday, but did not have time to decorate it until Saturday), we all went to Kelly and Lynn's house to watch the Egg Bowl. (MS State vs. Ole Miss football game.) To our great surprise and delight State won!  Ellie and Brian got to experience the cowbell, and their hearing may never be the same.

I took the four college kids to the Memphis airport on Monday for their flight back to school. They get out for Winter Break on December 15. Yay!

Ok. The book club. Honestly, I have been so busy with visiting with my children, and then trying to get back into some sort of routine of homeschool and housework this week, that I have not reread our next chapter. I plan to post about it either Monday or Tuesday. Please keep reading, and try to determine which choice you are in each distinction category. For example, in lark or owl?, I am definitely a lark.

Tomorrow is the annual St. Jude Marathon/Half Marathon in Memphis. Jimmy is running the marathon and I am running the half. I am not the best trained for this event.....I have done my long run each week and gone to CrossFit once or twice a week, but that's it for the last 3 weeks. I don't doubt I can run 13.1 miles, I am just afraid that my time will be very, very slow!  I'll let you know!

Have a great weekend!

Book Club Reminder Plus Some Other Stuff

Don't forget that tomorrow we will be discussing the following chapter in Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin:
"Self-Knowledge:  The Four Tendencies."

I am looking forward to discussing which tendency each of us is.

Yesterday my family all ran a 5K (except Olivia, who has been a little sick lately).  Jimmy, Clay, Leah, Sam and I ran a race in Plantersville (close to us) while Julie ran a race in Tampa. It was a good day for running! Leah and Sam have been training so hard for XC all fall, and they wanted to test their training on a road race. Julie of course has been training and running hard with her XC college team as well. All three of them set PRs (personal records) at their 5K races yesterday! I was so happy for them. It is so rewarding to have your hard work pay off!

My college girls and two extras (Julie's roommate and Olivia's friend that is a boy) are flying home for Thanksgiving holidays Tuesday night!  I. CANNOT. WAIT.
Olivia has not been home since she left for school in early August!  I will have the house decorated for Christmas when they get here. We plan to buy our live Christmas tree on Wednesday and then decorate it on Saturday. Fun! Fun!  We will also be driving to visit my parents and Jimmy's mama and celebrate Thanksgiving will both sides of our extended family.

Don't forget to read the book.

Deck The Halls

Monday night "the other Kelly" (what my children call our friend who was one of Jimmy's college roommates--not to confuse him with "Uncle Kelly"--Lynn's husband) helped me decorate our house for Christmas.  Well, actually he does all the decorating, I just help unload the boxes and watch him work his magic.  This is the 11th year that Kelly has done this for me.  He makes our house look so pretty and festive!

 the top of a chest in my dining room

 the chest in the foyer

 the mantel

 my collection of Santas

 the metal tree Clay made me….I keep seasonal decorations on this tree year round.  

For December is has handmade ornaments (made by my children) and personalized ornaments with our names on them from years past.

 the bookcase in my den

 a little table in our den

 the Christmas card tree….

This is what it looked like when we brought it down from storage.

It looked like a Grinch tree!

 our kitchen table

Julie made these placemats a couple of years ago.

the Christmas card tree--all straightened (and propped up and taped together)

I picked up Olivia and Julie and Julie's roommate from the airport last night and we got home around 11:15.  The are here for 6 nights for their Thanksgiving break!  Woo! Hoo!

Happy Days

Olivia is home for her short fall break, and we are all so excited! She has to go back on Sunday, so we are squeezing in all of the rest, food, and fun that we can.  We are taking off from school today, but tomorrow we plan to have a regular school day.

This week has gone by so fast!  Tuesday, Julie and Clay made the 11 hour round trip for a XC meet.  Thankfully, our two Spartans coaches each drove an 11 passenger van and took the entire team by themselves.  I was so weary from traveling--I was so thankful that Heather and David did that.  Our boys and girls teams both did fantastic!  The boys won 2nd place (coming behind the first place team by only 2 points), and our girls won 3rd place.  We also had some individual runner's awards too.  Go Spartans!

The weather is getting cooler here, and the leaves are changing on the trees. God's creation is so beautiful!

***Holiday Tip***
It's time to start thinking about your Christmas cards (if you send them).  I wanted to take the picture for our card this weekend, but the boys need haircuts.  So, I will take them during Olivia's Thanksgiving break.  I will be thinking about and planning what I want them to wear.  I may look at the cards on Shutterfly and choose my card.  Then I can match the children's clothes to the card.  Anyway, that's my goal for now.  Choose the card and plan the outfits.  I'll take the picture during Thanksgiving break and order them right away.  I should have them ready to go out by the beginning of December.

December is Approaching

In keeping with my quest to simplify my life (and enjoy the process) I have decided to simplify my Christmas holidays.

While I LOVE wrapping paper, ribbon, tissue, and tape, I plan to buy only one roll of wrapping paper this year (red, from Hobby Lobby, as soon as they put it on sale), and to use all of the paper I have from previous years.  I also do not plan on buying any ribbon.  I have enough.  And if I run out of a particular color, I will just use a different color.

I also love buying and wrapping gifts for my husband, children, family, and friends, but this year I am putting a limit on myself.  Three gifts per person.  I tend to get "just one more tiny thing" for my children and nieces and nephews each year…..as I visit cute gift shops or our Celebration Village (a one-stop shopping extravaganza here in Tupelo, held for a few days at the end of October).  Limiting my purchases will also simplify my wrapping.

I got out my Christmas binder the other day.  I had already put in a divider for 2014, so the next thing I have to do is to print out a master gift list template.  (With 3 spaces beside each name!)  This is just a list of every single person that I will be giving a present to during the month of December.  It includes family, friends, teachers, hairdressers, etc. As I purchase or make each gift, I record it on the list.  I also include a column to check off when the gift is wrapped. I keep my list each year, filing it behind the appropriate year. I also keep a separate list of gift ideas (crafts, baked goods, cute things I see online or in a store).

One last thing that I am changing for this holiday season is to not have my sibling store.  It has been a good thing…..but this year I am asking my children to give handmade gifts to one another. I will help Leah and Sam plan their gifts, and assist them as needed.

I have fabric that I purchased last year for special gifts for my family…..and I never got around to even starting the project.  I plan to do it this year!

My birthday (September 16) marks 100 days to Christmas Day.  I am not sure what day it is today in the countdown, but it's not too early to at least think about your holiday plans.

Our Weekend

I finally finished getting my flower beds all cleaned out, pruned (severely, I might add), and mulched.  Of course I had some help from Jimmy and Clay with the hauling of the mulch bags, and Jimmy put out a good bit of the mulch too.  Anyway, my flower beds look so pretty.  And just in time for our Easter Egg Hunt.  (That was my goal.)

Julie, Clay, and I hid around 500 candy-filled eggs early Saturday morning for our friends and family to find.  The morning turned out hot, and so the chocolate turned to liquid inside the plastic eggs!  We still had lots of fun, and we just encouraged the children to put their eggs in the refrigerator for a while before opening the candy.

 Patiently letting the parents take pictures….ready to go find some eggs!

Back in February, Julie and I undertook a major sewing project:  making Easter dresses for all the girls in our family--including me and a dress for Leah's American Girl doll too!  Except that mine was a shirt, and not a dress.

Julie made her dress and Olivia's dress too.  She used the same fabrics for both, but just switched around the placement on each dress.  We gave Olivia her dress when she was home for Spring Break.  She took a picture of herself and texted it to us Sunday morning.  She looked so pretty!

I made Leah's dress, the doll's dress (those were the same pattern), and my shirt.  Making my shirt (it was actually called a "tunic") proved to be the most difficult by far.  But, I finished it Saturday late afternoon.  The only way that I was able to finish it was because Julie did ALL the cooking for our Sunday meal, and Saturday night's supper as well.  She is a treasure!

I bought new shirts for Clay and Sam in coordinating colors, and Jimmy chose a shirt and tie that matched as well.

We all looked so springy!

 Julie, Clay, Leah, and Sam

(we missed Olivia!)

 The Mama and Daddy

 The whole family, minus Olivia

Grandmomma and Pop with all of their grandchildren, except for Olivia and Millie Janalee.

Aunt Jenny and Julie prepared our delicious lunch that we enjoyed at Grandmomma and Pop's house.  The weather was beautiful, and the children spent most of the afternoon playing outside.

It's a New Year

I'm excited about 2014.  January usually is a very busy month for us--we have two birthdays in January, and then there is the getting back to school.  We are starting our homeschool back on January 7.  I have prepared everything.  (I think.)  I even have Leah's and Sam's spelling words written on the board!  We have all enjoyed a nice long break from school, but next week, we will be working hard.

New Year's Eve we celebrated at Kelly and Lynn's house.  My children wanted to stay until midnight, so we did! It was a nice night of food, fun, and fellowship.  I played Mexican train dominoes and drank lots of Coke!

I began 2014 with a 10 mile run with Leanna.  That was my longest run since December 7, and actually only my 4th time to run at all since then.  I took a much needed break from running during the holidays.  But I am back on track now!  I began Monday with my current exercise plan:  run 3 days a week (3-4 miles two days and 10 miles one day) and do T25 3 days a week.  Jimmy gave me T25 workout program for Christmas, and I am really enjoying it so far.  (I have completed 2 workouts).  I changed my registration for the Mississippi River Marathon from the marathon to the half marathon.  It's about 4 weeks until that race.  My goal is to complete it faster than I did the Disney Half Marathon in 2011.  Since I won't be stopping to take pictures with Disney characters, I hope that this is an achievable goal.

It's the time of year for resolutions and goal-setting.  Also for choosing focus words and reflecting on the past year.  I have set some goals and I am still selecting a focus word.  I began the B90 Bible reading plan for the 4th time this past Monday.

Have you set goals?  Are they general or specific?  I am leaning towards more general goals this year.  I'll share when I get my thoughts together.

Happy New Year!

Fun Day at the Mall

In case you can't tell, we are taking an extended holiday break from school.  Our last day of school was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and we are starting back January 6 or 7th.  I have to take Olivia to the airport on January 6th, so I am not sure how we will begin school that day…..we will see!

Anyway, up until a couple of years ago, we always took a school break from Thanksgiving until after the New Year.  I shortened our break as my older children entered high school and had an increased work load in their schoolwork.  However, this year I realized that my 2nd and 4th graders could afford an extended break--just like their older siblings did when they were their age.  Julie (11th grade) worked ahead in her schoolwork so that she could enjoy the long break too.  Clay (9th grade) has a few loose ends to tie up in geography, 1/2 of a math lesson to complete, and one more module in Apologia biology.  He is in a weekly science class that meets until December 19!  Poor Clay!  He also has an exam on the first 7 modules of the book on that day.  So, even though it is Christmas break around here, Clay is still doing schoolwork for a short while each morning.  

Yesterday, we continued our holiday fun.  As an early Christmas present, I offered to take Leah and Sam to Build-A-Bear and let them choose an animal and one outfit.  They were beyond excited.  They could hardly go to bed the night before, and for days prior to yesterday they were counting the days until we went to the mall!  Such excitement!

Clay was at Lynn's house, so just Julie joined us.  Our fun day included visiting Build-A-Bear, visiting Santa Claus, eating lunch at the Chick-Fil-A in the food court, enjoying seasonal entertainment by a local high school choral group while we ate, and then some Christmas shopping.  The kids were not too fired up about my shopping, but they patiently played with their new animals while I shopped.  They could not wait to get home and play with their animals there.

I think they said, "Thank you Mama!" over 100 times!  

 Sam with his red panda (I thought it was a fox!).  He named it Robert.

 Leah with her rainbow bear in a sparkly outfit.  She named her Katherine.

 Leah, Julie, and Sam in the Santa line.  Well, it was not even a line, but we still stopped at this photo place before we visiting Santa.

Sam and Leah with Santa Claus.

Sam asked him for a walkie-talkie (and then expressed concern to me that he asked for a walkie talkie--singular--and not walkie-talkies--plural--would Santa know that he needs two walkie talkies?)

Leah asked for the American Girl doll, Molly.

I got more Christmas shopping done.  It was a relaxing day, even with the shopping, because we were not rushed and the mall was practically deserted.

We have more fun planned for today!

Making Gingerbread Houses

Yesterday I invited two of my friends, Lynn and Leanna, and their 8 children over to decorate homemade gingerbread houses.  Julie mixed up 4 batches of gingerbread over the weekend.  I rolled out, cut and baked sides, ends, and roofs (6 pieces for each house) for 12 gingerbread houses Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and also on Monday.  As usual with my projects, it took way longer than I anticipated!  But, I learned during the process, and next year it will be easier. 

I bought one pre made gingerbread house to use as a pattern.  I intended to break the house apart and use the pieces for my pattern, but I could not get the house apart!  So I laid the house on notebook paper and roughly traced each part.  Since I am not a perfectionist, the finished houses were less than perfect!  There were gaps everywhere when we glued them together with icing.  Next year I am going to ask Jimmy to help me create a better pattern.

Julie and I made royal icing using meringue powder, powdered sugar, and water and the recipe on the meringue powder can.  I think we made 4 batches of icing, but we did have some left over.  I made labels for each child and taped them on with clear packing tape onto icing bottles (bought in packs of two from Walmart).  After much, much mess and trial and error, we discovered that the best way to get the icing from the mixing bowl into the bottles was to pour the icing into a gallon sized zip lock bag, snip one corner off, and squeeze the icing into the bottles.

I bought several different types of candies for decorating--M&Ms, sour sweet tart balls, red and green gumdrops, chewy rectangle things, twizzlers, and small gingerbread cookies.  I put each candy in a bowl or on a platter, and provided each child with a rectangle plastic tray (bought at Walmart) and clear plastic cups.  They filled their cups with their candies and used the trays to transport the candy to their work area.  Clay and I had glued each house together just before our guests arrived, and we glued each house down on a square cake decorating board (bought at Hobby Lobby in packs of 6).

 Each child has his own bottle of "glue"--edible royal icing

This stuff really is like glue!  Not one house fell apart!

 The gingerbread house decorating supplies

 Cute little gingerbread boys

 The house pieces, before we glued them together

 A glued house, ready to be embellished

The children were so creative with their decorating, and I think they worked on the houses for about 45 minutes.  I was so happy that none of the houses fell apart.  That royal icing is strong when it dries!

 Leah and Lana Kate

 Avery and Annelise

 Clay and Parker

These older boys had so much fun doing this!

 Carson

 Leah again, busily working

 Julie

 Jared and Sam

 Jack, Leanna, and Joey

 What a pretty house!

When each child finished decorating their house, I took a picture of them holding their house in front of our Christmas tree.  I made little signs with their names on them.  I printed the names on labels, stuck them on scrapbook paper, taped them to a cute striped lollipop stick (bought in a package from Walmart), and stuck it into a red or green candy fruit slice.

The children were so creative!

Here is the whole group (with Jack on the far left in the windowsill--he did not want to have his picture made) with their gingerbread neighborhood.

When the decorating was complete, we sent the children upstairs and outside while we cleaned up and set out lunch.  Lynn and Leanna graciously brought lunch for us all--chicken strips, fruit salad, green salad, and croissants.  Delicious!!  We all enjoyed lunch and visiting and then the kids played some more.

It was a delightful day!