Adoption movie

I just watched a wonderful movie titled "October Baby".  It is a very touching movie.  I watched it twice.  Of course I cried too.  I really liked to lyrics to the songs too.  I hope others will watch this movie and see the beauty in adoption.

It is SNOWING!!

The snow has come!!  I love it.  I bet it will be gone by Christmas though.

Puzzle Pieces of Adoption

I went to an adoption conference a little over a year ago and I was thinking about it today.  I recall while sitting through one of the seminars, that a thought came to me, "adoption is like a big puzzle".  I remember thinking that my husband and I needed to look harder for our birthmother puzzle piece.  I hope that through our more concerted efforts of late, that we will be blessed with that piece to our puzzle.  Our prayers go out to all women who are considering this great act of love: Adoption.

Our 'Halls" have been "Decked"

All year long our 4 tubes of Christmas decorations sit in the basement.  They exploded into the house and it looks very festive now.  Here's a look at a few of the decorations.

 The stockings are hung by the chimney with care...

 While visions of sugar plums (or candy canes) danced in their heads.

 On Dasher, on Prancer, on Comet...and all the others.

Glædelig jul is Merry Christmas is Danish.  My mothers side is from Denmark and this year I added some Danish style paper decorations.  

 The green tulle wreath I made at a craft day at church.

The reason for the season is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  We are so thankful for Him.  Let us all remember the 'Christ" in Christmas!!  Merry Christmas to all!!

Fall Birthday... x3

So all the guys in our family have FALL Birthdays.

                                                               Andrew is now 16!!

Our family friend, Iona, made Andrew's cake.  She knows how much Andrew loves hot dogs, so she thought hot dog candles would be the perfect thing for him.

Jeff is also 16 plus a few more years.

Oxford had his 3rd birthday on October 17th, 2012.

He enjoyed a yummy meal to celebrate.

Family Recipes...Part Two

**Christmas brings more recipes out.  My mother would make Sunrise Cake as Jesus' birthday cake each Christmas Day.  She got the recipe from her sister.  It is one of my favorite cakes due to the almond extract!!

Sunrise Cake
2 cups self-rising flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup cooking oil
6 whole eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract

Sift the flour and sugar and set aside.  In a large bowl, beat the oil and eggs with a mixer.  Add the sugar/flour mixture and then the almond extract. Beat for 10 minutes at medium speed.  Bake in greased tube pan for 1 hour at 325 degrees.  Cool for 30 minutes before removing.

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 TBSP butter 
Add milk until right consistency.

Pour over cooled cake top.


**Another one I love is the Apricot candy mom would make for the holidays.  I have not been successful in getting mine to set up right, but I do try.

Apricot Candy
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
12 oz. dried apricot, chopped
2 cups walnuts
2 cups raisins

Cook on pan until thick. Roll in waxed paper logs.  Cool.  Cut into disc shape and roll in powdered sugar.
Makes 3 logs.


**No-Bake Cookies were my older sisters favorite cookie while growing up.

No-Bake Cookies

1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
Boil together for 4 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in:
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup cocoa
1 TBSP vanilla

Mix well, drop by TBSP onto waxed paper.

**One of my favorites to make all year long are Sugar Cookies.  I have a very large collection of cookie cutters for all seasons.  I do like to make sugar cookies for my holiday cookie plates that I make for friends. This recipe is from a family friend, Barbara Anderson.  We always used her recipe.

Sugar Cookies
Cream together:
1 cup shortening
1 2/3 cups sugar

Combine:
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Sift:
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp soda
 5 cups flour

Add dry ingredients alternately with the liquid and cream ingredients.  Roll out 1/4" thick. Roll out on powdered sugar instead of flour.  Cut with cookie cutters. Bake on greased cookie sheets, 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees.


** This next recipe was for special occasions.  The French Pear Pie is a yummy treat.

French Pear Pie
5 Bartlett pears
3 TBSP frozen orange juice concentrate

1/2 tsp grated lemon peel

Peel and core pears and slice thinly.  Toss lightly with undiluted juice concentrate and lemon peel.  Place fruit in unbaked 9" pie shell.

Mix together the crumb topping:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/3 cup butter

Mix together until crumbly.  Sprinkle evenly over the pears, being careful to cover all the pears.  Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes or until fruit is tender.

You can maybe understand from this posting, that I really enjoy sweet treats.  I will work to find some savory recipes for the next Family Recipe post.  I hope you try some of these recipes out!!

Momma Duck

This summer a momma duck chose our front yard to be her nesting spot.  We have this quarter circle with flowers, and she started to nest right in the corner, against the house.  I watched her day after day.  I got a look into her nest while she was off feeding and I saw 8 eggs.  A couple days later I saw 10 eggs.  I did some research and it said the momma duck lays one egg a day, once the last egg is laid, then it would take up to three weeks for all the eggs to hatch.  Each day I would check on the momma duck and tell her she was being a good momma.  She tolerated me while I did yard work and watered the flowers from time to time.  I missed the hatching as I was on  trip to Boston.  I was a little sad to have missed this.  I did see the chicks with their momma down in the creek.  They were so cute.

I thought of a parallel with the momma duck and our hopes to adopt.  We need a birthmother to choose our house and us to raise her baby, just as the momma duck thought our front yard would be a safe place to lay her eggs.  I hope we can be chosen soon.

The chicks have all grown up now and spent their days at the pond across the street from our house.  I wish I could tell which ones were our ducks, but they all look the same.  Maybe next summer we will have another nest in our front yard.

The Principle of Compensation

We get our church magazine each month, which is called Ensign.  This month there is an article titled, Learning to Cope With Infertility.  It was a very moving article.  The part I really enjoyed was a side script to the article and these words came from a talk given by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, "Come What May and Love It", given at our church General Conference in October 2008.

"The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss.  That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way.  While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude."

I am so thankful for a loving and merciful God, who loves me enough to offer these words of encouragement.  

Starting to Set Up the Nursery

Starting to set up the nursery has been exciting.  We got the changing table from a friend who was getting rid of it.  We added the blue organizing bins on the shelves.  We are glad the table is white.  We plan to get a white crib and we will put my grandfathers rocking chair in the nursery too. 

We had the 3x3 white shelf and just updated the pull-out brown drawers.   I have quilted or crocheted all the baby blankets in the photo.  I've been collecting small white stuffed animals too.  I think that they could be used by either a boy or a girl.

If we get a girl we plan to decorate with white daisy flowers.  I painted the daisy picture in the frame.

  We will wait to finish up the nursery until we have our sweet bundle of joy home with us.  

Family Recipes

Here are a few of my favorite family recipes.  The first, Grandma Goodson's Meatloaf, is a hit every time I make it!


Grandma Goodson's Meatloaf


1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1/2 lb sausage
1 cup uncooked oats
1 cup tomato juice
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, minced
4 eggs


Mix all ingredients well and form into a loaf in a 9"x13" pan.  Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees, than pour cream of mushroom soup mixed with 1/3 can milk over and bake for 45 minutes.  Serve with potatoes and the mushroom gravy.


I am named after my grandma, and as such, I made up my own meatloaf recipe!!


Turkey Noodle Meatloaf


1 1/2 lbs ground turkey
1 can of Campbell's Double Noodle soup
1 clove minced garlic
1/4 cup bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste


Form into a loaf and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.  **Bake the first 15 minutes, then pull out and cover with 1 can of cream of mushroom soup mixed with 1/2 cup milk.  Finish baking for 15 minutes more.  Let sit in oven for 10 more minutes with oven turned off.  Serve with rice pilaf.




The next recipe is a sweet, yummy treat my mom would make.


Apple Hill Cake


Combine:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup oil
1 egg


Add:
2 cups diced green apples


Sift together:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda


Add to apple mixture and mix well.  Spread in a 8" or 9" square pan.  Bake for one hour at 350 degrees.
(This can be doubled and put into a 9"x13" pan)




Each Christmas my mom would make this next cake as our Birthday cake for Baby Jesus.  The recipe came from my Aunt Ann, my mothers sister.


Sunrise Cake


2 cups self rising flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
6 whole eggs
1 tsp almond extract


Sift flour and sugar, set aside.  In a large bowl, beat oil and eggs with a mixer.  Add sugar and flour, then the extract.  Beat for 10 minutes on medium speed.  Bake in a greased tube pan for 1 hour at 325 degrees.  Cool for half an hour before removing.  Drizzle with a powdered sugar icing.  Place a small nativity ornament on top and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.

Family Traditions...Part One

We have set up several family traditions over our marriage.  One that I ready love is one that I brought into our family from my parents.  We hold an annual ICE CREAM PIG-OUT!!!  This is always in the summer and we invite several friends to come 'Pig-Out' with us.  Everyone brings their favorite ice cream and we have all the toppings and sauces.  The goal is the be the person who eats the most ice cream in the set time period.  I have prizes for the top three 'PIGS'.  I am looking forward to this this coming summer!!

Another tradition we have is to go visit our dear friends in Defiance, Ohio for the Halloween Parade.  The first year we dressed up as Ketchup, Mustard and Relish.  We like to go for the candy, friends and the small town charm.

We host a Valentine Couples Dinner each February at our home.  We eat, play games and talk.  We have had some great times getting to know our friends better and enjoy good food.  We feel lucky to be together as a couple and value our dear friends example of being a great husband or wife.  Really every day can be Valentine's Day if you let it be!!  XOXO.

One of our more silly traditions is to jump on hotel beds.  This started when we took a trip together while we were engaged.  We have to check the ceiling heights before jumping, as not all hotels have tall ceilings!!  It is more fun if there are two beds in the room, so one can jump from bed to bed!!

Garage Sale

So I couldn't resist going garage sale shopping last weekend.  There were some great deals on baby clothes.  I know we will get a lot of clothes as gifts once the baby is here, but these were so cute.  At one I got a whole grocery bag full for $5.00, in which I stuffed 8 pairs of girl infant shoes and about 40 pieces of girl clothes!!  At another I got some super cute boy clothes for a quarter each!!  This baby will have a very stylist wardrobe!!

Ordering Adoption Cards

So I set up an adoption email.  It is jmadoption @yahoo.com.  In a few days we should have our profile up on the itsaboutlove.org website. I want to set up our profile onto another free website for adoptive couples, and then I will be ready to order the adoption cards.  I will pass them out to friends and family so they can help us spread the word.  

Let the finding begin!

We are Jeff and Margaret.  We are finally ready to start our finding process for our sweet baby.

Let me back up a few months.  Back in June of 2011 we met with our case worker to get started on our adoption journey.  We got all the paper work... and there were a lot of papers!! We reviewed the items we could get started on. We had to do some reading for our training log, so off to the library I went to checkout the book, Dear Birth-mother.  This book helped us understand how important it is to have positive, open ideas about birth-mothers.  We learned so much from reading this book.


We had to pull letters of reference from friends and family, along with letters from our employers and our bishop from church.  Once all these were in, we had to get the fire inspector to come check to see that our home is safe.  Our case worker came as well to do a more thorough home safety audit also.  We finished all the readings for the training log.  We all had to get our doctor check-ups too.  The last few things were interviews with our case worker and to write a birth-mother letter and put a couple scrapbook pages together to have at the agency office.


We are very happy to have all the paper work done and move into our finding phase!  We hope you will follow us on our adoption journey!