Winter Is Here!

Yes, you read it right, winter is here! Today it was so cold and rainy. I can't believe how much it has rained lately. The road by our house is being re-done and they are just getting ready to reseal it. They haven't been able to do much for the last couple of days because of the rain, so the road has turned into a pot-hole filled mud pit. I really thought the car was going to get stuck as I was driving this morning.

Today was the perfect weather for one of my favourite meals. Stew. Not just any stew, though, my Dad's stew. My Dad is not known for his cooking abilities, but one thing he can make is stew. He usually makes it with venison, but I had to settle for making it with beef. I think the reason I loved his stew so much was because he only added potatoes and carrots to it and no other scary vegetables or onions. Mine doesn't turn out quite as good as his, but it's still pretty good. I think it lacks one ingredient when I make it - my Dad's love!

Beef stew and homemade bread - Yummy!

A couple months ago I decided to start making bread instead of buying it. It's so much cheaper that way and tastes so much better. I had a fresh loaf coming out of the oven at dinner time, so we ate that with our stew. This is my husband's favourite bread that I make. I thought I would share the recipe for anyone who is interested. This makes one loaf as there are only two of us that eat bread in this house.

Honey-Wheat Bread
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 2/3 cups white flour

Combine water and honey. Stir until honey is dissolved. Spinkle yeast over water and let set for five minutes. Stir. Stir in the whole wheat flour. Stir in 2 cups of white flour and salt. Beat in one cup of flour in at a time. Pour mixture on a bed of flour on the counter. Kneed 8 minutes, adding remaining flour when needed.

Put in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled (about 1 hour).

Put in greased loaf pan and let rise again for 40 minutes. Bake at 375 (F) for 35 - 40 minutes.

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Oh, and in case you're wondering what Abby was doing while I was getting dinner ready, she was lying on her stomach. She usually screams when we put her on her stomach, but the nurse has been encouraging us to keep at it. She usually only lasts for 5 minutes because she cries so much. Tonight she cried for about 3 minutes, and then she figured out how to get her thumb in her mouth. So, she laid on her stomach, sucking her thumb and looking at her teddy bears for about an hour while I got dinner ready.

Tomorrow night we are having a baby sitting night at the church. My husband and I have offered to watch the children so the parents can have a night out together. Should be pretty crazy!

New Family Photo

Today we decided to take a new family photo. After playing around a with it a bit I'm quite happy with it. There's just something about black and white photos. Yes, I'm thankful that we now have colour photos, but black and whites are just so nice once and a while. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you.

A Pig Farmer And His Favourite Little Piggy

The famer and his piggy :)

Friday night we held a progressive dinner for the church youth group. Each time we do this we pick a letter from the alphabet and the teens have to dress in a costume beginning with that letter, and the food at each house also has to start with that letter. This year the letter was, "P." Because we were having the main course at our house Abby and I dressed up too. Abby was dressed as a pig and I was dressed as a pirate. Since Nick was driving one of the cars he had to dress up as well and decided that he would dress as a pig farmer and carry around his favourite little piggy. Although they probably won't admit that they like dressing up, I think the teens really do. They were quite excited about this activity.

The group at the first house - I'm not sure what the boys were doing!

Pirate, Pig Farmer, and Piggy

For the main course at our house we had pizza, pasta bake, potato chips, and pop. We were the second house they came to and some of them had eaten so much at the first house that they weren't even hungry! I hope they all had a great time because I certainly did!

International Dinner

Well, time has once again slipped away from me before I could write a post about it! Last night we had our annual International Dinner at church. This is one of my favourite things we do together as a church. Why? Because I love to eat and there is always so much good food. This year we had food representing these countries:

Mexico (nachos and fiesta chocolate cake)
India (butter chicken, rice, pumpkin, chicken, and some sort of pancake thing with potatoes and onions)
Fiji (casava and fried bread with spicy mince)
Italy (spaghetti, lasagna, and pizza)
Scotland (scones)
Germany (I can't remember)
China (fried rice, spring rolls, and mantou)

Waiting to eat

Two of the countries, India and Fiji, had food made by people who are actually from those countries. It was so good! I was very happy that there was casava made by the man from Fiji. I ate way too much of everything!

My table

I did China this year. While looking for some sort of dessert to make I found a recipe for "Golden Mantou with Condensed Milk." Basically, it's fried bread and you serve it with sweetened condensed milk to dip it in. It was yummy.

Nick also had some geography games for everyone to play. He split everyone up into three teams and we competed together to win. For the first game he gave each person the name of a country. We then had to go to a world map (no names of any countries on it) and put a dot where we thought that country was. I am horrible at geography and was given the task of finding Vietnam. I marked the Philippines as Vietnam. Oops! Later, after we ate and ate and ate some more, we had a geography quiz. The team I was on was leading the whole way through, but we faltered at the end. We lost by one question.

8 weeks old

Abby is still gaining weight! She was weighed on Thursday and weighs 12 pounds 4 ounces. This Monday she will be 2 months old. I can't believe how the time has flown!

Company's Comin

Tuesday night we had a wonderful time with some people from our church. We invited them over for dinner and also played some games. The menu for dinner was:

Herb Roasted Chicken
Cheesy Potatoes
Steamed Carrots
Steamed Broccoli
Salad
Bread Rolls
Garlic Bread

And for dessert we had chocolate self-saucing pudding and vanilla ice cream. So yummy!

Not only was the food great, the fellowship was even better. There were 12 of us here and we laughed and had so much fun. I wish I had thought to take pictures! Oh, well, maybe next time.

Because the cheesy potatoes were such a hit I thought I'd share the recipe. I got this from one of my students when I taught in America. Yum!

Cheesy Potatoes

2 lbs. frozen hash browns (I just peel and shred potatoes)
1 pint sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cups cheddar cheese (shredded or cubed)

Combine all ingredients except potatoes in a large bowl. Fold in potatoes. Spoon into slow-cooker. Cook on high 1 1/2 hours, then on low 2 1/2 hours.

Enjoy!

Where has time gone?

Don't Daddy and I look so much alike? :)

Six weeks old!

I didn't realize it had been so long since I was on here last. Time flies when you're having fun! I thought I'd give a recap of what's been going on around here since last time I added a post.

Last Saturday was our Soul Winning Marathon at the church. This year instead of going soul winning in our town we decided to go to another town about an hour away and help out a friend who is just starting up a church there. We had 13 groups that went out soul winning (there were at least 2 people in each group) and had 7 people saved. That's quite a few for a town of only 2,000 people! The groups were also able to get heaps of addresses of people that were interested in attending the church there. I wasn't able to go this year. About 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave Abby started to get sick. She started to get really cranky - usually she's quite quiet - and was throwing up most of her bottle. Nick decided we should probably stay home in case she got worse. She seemed fine after a couple of hours.

Sunday was ANZAC day. For those of you from the States ANZAC day is like your Veterans Day/Memorial Day. There is a service at the war memorial here at dawn. Usually I go, but decided I'd better not this year. Nick was up at 4:00am to get ready and pick people up before it started at 5:30am. In church we had a special song about ANZAC Day and the message my husband preached was themed around the day.

Monday Abby was really cranky. We tried all day to get her in to see the doctor, but weren't able to get an appointment until Tuesday. After she had been up and crying almost all day we gave her a bath and put rubbed her down with Calamine lotion. The rash that she had was gettnig worse and spreading on her body. After the bath and lotion she calmed right down and slept from 9:30pm - 6:30am!

Tuesday morning we took Abby to see the doctor and found out that she has eczema. We were given some creams to put on her and they seemed to be helping already by bedtime that night.

Wednesday Abby was much better and the eczema was gone from under her neck. She seemed much happier.

Thursday the Plunket nurse came. Abby now weighs 10 pounds 14 ounces. She's growing like a weed! The nurse was so nice and seems very practical and down to earth. We have been blessed with really great midwives during my pregnancy and for the first 6 weeks after. It's nice to know the Plunket nurse is someone we get along with as well.

Friday was a pretty quiet day at home. Now Nick is sick! :( If it's not one of them it's the other! He's been complaining of a sore throat and he just feels yuck all over. We're praying it won't come to anything. Weekends are not a good time for pastors to be sick!

Today (Saturday) we all went to bus workers meeting and then to visit a couple families. Only one family was home, but we had a nice visit with them. They said they'd be in church tomorrow. Last week they were sick and unable to come. Yeah! I can't wait for Sunday!

Well, that's what's been happening here this week. Hopefully next week I'll be a little better at keeping up with posts! Thought you might enjoy some pictures of the cute girl! She is six weeks old now.