Christmas Eve preparations

Cooking day....as we so affectionately call it, is my favorite day of the year. All of my kids are home cooking together. They tease each other as siblings do and for me, it's heaven.


The matriarch of our family Marion (mom, grandma, nona, mamasita) enjoys herself watching Pete and the grandkids prepare for Christmas Eve. For many years while living in Wayne, Nebraska food preparation was her sole responsibility. Pete also started out making all of the food on his own, but now he has many helpers.

Here is Pete working with the pasta machine. Nicole is waiting patiently for him to get out of her because that is her job!

Nick cooking away. Of course, he looks much better showing off his sleeveless pecs :)

This was a very lively conversation between Pete and Tommy. I think it may have been about the cookie press and I am quite certain that they "both were right". And again, Nicole just waiting for them to get out of her way.

And here we have some fashion posing with the dishes. Doesn't every family do this? I think it is a little scary how much Nick looks like Adam (well, smaller) in this pic. Someone at the party thought Ashley looked like Taylor Swift (her daughter Elizabeth's favorite singer). What do you think?

Tommy's Homecoming 2010

The Group. They met at Tommy's friend Brennan's house. It was a surprise for Brennan's mom who found out that she was having 18 kids at her house for dinner at 11:00 that morning. Boys. It was potluck...so thankfully there was food being provided. Although, several of the boys did not bring anything. Again, I say ....boys. Regardless of the odd selection of food, they all had a good time.

Tommy and his friend Chloe. They have been good friends for a long time and they had a blast.
Weren't they cute!

My handsome son.

The Sound of Music

Tommy was in the Fremont High School's production of The Sound of Music this weekend. He played Fredrick the oldest son. Fredrick is a 14 year old boy just coming into manhood so Tommy with his very low voice had to sing a little high and squeaking. That along with the shorts and knee highs provided some nice comic relief :)


Here the children have just met Maria and she is teaching them to sing. Do...a dear, etc.



The children and Maria in their jammies singing another number.

The children in their play clothes made from curtains. Maria the lead is on the left and the Captain is behind the youngest child Gretel.

The Children performing at the Austrian festival just before they escaped over the mountain.

The full cast.

The play was fantastic! I am really proud of Tommy and the new adventures that he is bringing to our lives!

My Fall Vacation

My school is now on the continuous learning calender, so the for the past three weeks I have been on our Fall vacation. My goal was to paint Nick's room and the "penthouse" bedroom. As you know, in an old house it is not as simple as just painting walls. Painting leads to looking at the woodwork, the windows and look at that carpet!

I started with Nick's room which we painted the lovely shade of red when we moved in. Then we had the wall patched and never did painted over the white patch. The carpet was in terrible shape....but yes, we let Nick live in it. It never seemed so bad while there were posters on the wall and clothes all over the floor.

After two coats of primer to cover the red and then two coats of "First Frost" we now have a nice peaceful room. Nick is rarely here and likes the new look. The room still is Nick's with his books, trophies and Lego drawer :) It is now so much more guest friendly. Andy and Kelly won't have to worry about what Michael may be scrounging out of the carpet any longer!

Every thing has a fresh new coat of paint including those paned windows which my husband graciously scraped for me after I had finished painting.

The "penthouse" bedroom, aka....Nicole and trolls abode has also received a makeover. We moved Nicole in before we were able to paint the room. As you can see it was the former bedroom of a free spirited artistic teen. By the way, Never let your kids use sticky tack to hang things on the wall. In this case it was on the ceiling.....thousands of little pieces of sticky tack. After you scrape it off with a scraper or in this case my fingernail worked best you get to mess with your nervous system by inhaling tons of Goo gone to get rid of the residue.

Again, after many coats of primer and a lovely new shade of pick....the carpet is fuchsia ..what choice did I have besides boring beige, it has become another comfy guest room.

I am thrilled with the results. I am looking forward to going back to work so I can get a little rest!

My Men of September

Tommy turned 17 on September 12th. Here he is with his traditional Mickey Mouse pancake. He had to go into work early on his birthday...so this was kind of a forced pancake cake feed. :) He was a good sport about it.


Tommy and Nick clowning around while Tomm was opening his presents.

Pete turned 50 today! We had a party for him on Sunday. We had a lot of fun with friends and family.

Pete checking out the salads. He made Italian Beef for his birthday and also an anti pasto salad. (spelling?) I made the desserts. And...yes, he wanted to cook for his party.

Lots of friends and family. We had a lot of fun.

I love my husband!!!

Pete feeds my passion for good chocolate. He brought these home from Belgium. They are Neuhaus chocolates. I did not want to remove this beautiful paper, but the temptation of the chocolate was overwhelming!

Pete found this beautiful shop in Mons. The chocoltier was a very entertaining woman who spoke French and through lots of hand gestures and guessing Pete was able to communicate with her that he was buying chocolates for his wife. She hand selected the chocolates while wearing white gloves. How elegant! I wish I could have been there. Pete said you could smell the chocolate a block away. All cities should smell like chocolate.

So far, each chocolate that I have tried has been a little piece of heaven. My favorite chocolate up to this point had been See's truffles. While I will never turn down a See's truffle, the Neuhaus chocolate is on a whole other level.

This is their website should this prove to be too much of a temptation. They can be ordered on line....a dangerous thing for me to know! www.neuhaus.be

New Computer...

There is so much to catch up on! Nick was home from college for the summer. Here he is with his siblings in his HyVee duds before he heads off to work.


Our newest grandchild was born. We welcomed Dominic Anthony into the world on July 7th. If you would like to see more updated photos of him...go to Ashley's blog (I have a link on the right side of your screen). She has wonderful pictures of him smiling and rolling to his side.

Fourth of July bar-b-cue. John -3, Zach - 6, Elizabeth - 7, and Taylor -8. I would like to tell you that the cousins get along really great, but that would be a fib. Zach and Elizabeth squabble, squabble....so we try not to give them to much alone time.

My puppies are growing up :) They play fetch...together. Here they are both bringing back the toy to me. House training had been an arduous affair. I think that they are finally catching on, but it may be awhile before they are allowed to leave the kitchen.

This is a new plant that I tried this year. It is an annual vine called Hyacinth Bean. It's part of the legume family, so I planted far away from Pete's part of the garden. We certainly do not want any strange allergic reaction.

I really love it and the neighbor kids have been really great about it growing on to their trampoline net. I believe that I will have to rethink the location next year.