Author Archives: ~~Rhonda

Living in a small town, I share my life with my husband Russell (married in 1977), five children (one still at home), and six cats (one indoors, the others outside).

I teach an online class called “The Christmas Notebook” which is about all things holiday prep. The many facets of celebrating Christmas comprises one of my favorite hobbies. Other favorite things include gardening, reading, cooking, and scrapbooking.

menu plan monday ~ december 14, 2015

We have a house concert scheduled for this coming Thursday evening. Here’s a video taped at a previous concert in our living room. This year will be the ninth year we have hosted this concert with Nathan Clark George and his friends. This year Mark Stoffel and Henry Haffner will join Nathan. This is always […]

Christmas tidbits in the kitchen

I promised more Christmas pictures, so am going to show you some from the kitchen today. We didn’t put a tree on top the fridge this time. It always seemed a tad too big for the space and we were cutting out a few things to save on decorating. Not that you could tell! So […]

open house cookies and candies

The day after the open house, we divide the cookies and distribute the leftovers. I put one box of cookies in the freezer for my side of the family’s Christmas party, one in the freezer for our church’s Christmas party, and one box of truffles in the freezer for the concert we host in our […]

Christmas open house 2015

This was our 25th Christmas Open House. We began with an open house to introduce a missionary family to our church family. The afternoon was so much fun that we decided to have another open house for our church family the next year. And the next. And so on. Each year we invited more poeple. […]

cream cheese mints as truffles

I have a “truffles” board on Pinterest where I save recipes I might want to try. One of the recipes I saved was for Cream Cheese Mints. I added extra butter to mine. Also a pinch of salt. Minty Cream Cheese Truffles 8-oz room temperature cream cheese 6 T room temperature butter (not margarine) pinch […]

quick update

Here is a quick peek at a few things we have going on. I made large Putz houses out of miscellaneous boxes. I’m hoping to get them painted and decorated for the cookie table. Made Brownie Biscotti. Drizzled it with white chocolate after it cooled. Made two big batches of Chex Mix. Made Holiday Petits […]

monday before the party

A few highlights… I baked. Cranberry Orange Cookies Rolled them in sugar mixed with orange zest. Then I shmooshed them with a fork. Shmooshed: technical term. On winter afternoons, the sun pours through our south-facing kitchen windows. It can be difficult to wash dishes between 1:30 and 4:30 because of the angle of the sun. […]

menu plan monday ~ november 30, 2015

This is a very busy week for us. We will host our annual Christmas Open House this coming Sunday. There is a long list of things to finish before Sunday gets here. Today, I did some baking and made some truffles. I have five or six items that can’t be made until Thursday or Friday, […]

thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving was only three days ago, but it seems like a week. We have managed to get a lot done since then! Older Son and his family came on Wednesday evening to stay overnight. They do the bulk of the cooking for Thanksgiving and had prepared quite a bit at home. On Thursday morning, they […]

menu plan monday ~ november 23, 2015

Only four days until Thanksgiving! We will have a busy week, with Thanksgiving and more Christmas Open House prep. There are three or four trees left to put up. Three easy ones and one big one. Otherwise, it’s tweaking and fluffing and cleaning. My sister and I will go room to room today and make […]