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 ~ january 7, 2013

Last week, we celebrated DH’s birthday. I baked peach pie, his favorite, and the twins helped him blow out his candle. We also hosted a dinner for eight and a Christmas house tour last week. That will be another post. This week we have one more party, then will draw this Christmas season to a […]

snow ice cream treat

Last weekend, we had the beautiful fluffy snowfall. The girls had a great time playing in the yard. And had fun eating lots of snow, too… There was enough snow on the ground to allow us to make snow ice cream. While the girls warmed up with some hot chocolate, I mixed the ice cream. […]

Christmas eve and Christmas day

Like many families, we have a tradition of opening a gift of Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve. We also open one more gift. Not sure how that tradition got started, but it’s one we have. There always seems to be a kitty available for playing with bows and ribbons. Then it was time to watch […]

menu plan monday ~ december 31, 2012

I’m late getting the menu up this week, but it’s been one thing or another, seems like. We had a great time with my family here on Saturday for our annual Christmas party, with 42 attending. We missed those who couldn’t attend. The evening before and morning of the party, we had a beautiful snowfall. […]

menu plan monday ~ december 24, 2012

Only one more sleep till Christmas! It makes me excited and sad at the same time. I hate for this time of year to come to an end. We do have three more parties to host, though, so we’ll be celebrating for a while longer. My family is coming Saturday for our Christmas, we’re hosting […]

house concert 2012

At the house concert last week, Nathan George, Ross Sermons and Robert Bowlin treated us to an evening of wonderful music. Many guests shared with us how much this annual concert enriches their Christmas season each year. We missed Mark Stoffel who has been a big part of the concert in previous years. Mark and […]

helping Pa open his present

While our younger son and his wife were visiting from Seattle, we exchanged gifts with them. They shipped the wrapped presents ahead so we had them under the tree. We save boxes this time of year, and I used their shipping box to wrap a present for DH. Lo and behold, one of the gifts […]

menu plan monday ~ december 17, 2012

We were happy to have our younger son and his wife home for a few days. They live in Seattle and that’s a long way away! While they were here, we had our family Christmas with them, including a big dinner and opening presents. My Dad and my sister Margaret came down for the afternoon, […]

open house 2012

I asked a young friend to take pictures at our annual Christmas Open House last week. She did a great job. Guests sign in as they come through the front door. The living room tree holds our family ornaments. It’s nine feet tall and sits on a two foot high box that DH made for […]

menu plan monday ~ december 10, 2012

I’ve been working on some mid century modern Putz houses for my daughter-in-law. I used three patterns from RetroRenovation.com, and drew two patterns myself. They’ve been fun to work on. I need to finish what I can on the putz this morning, then get busy in the kitchen. Our son and his wife are coming […]