Refrigerate Your Crab!

On Chrismas Eve day I spent a good hour or more making the same Seafood Bisque that I made last year to eat after church on Christmas Eve. I purchased a large 16 oz can of Phillips crab at the Co-op in the refrigerated section by the meat department. When I got home and unloaded the groceries I absent mindedly put the can of crab in the pantry-where it sat for 2 days. After making a double batch of the bisque Christmas Eve day I was about ready to throw the empty crab can in the recycle when I noticed in all caps: "KEEP REFRIGERATED" and "PARISHABLE". I slowly came to the realization that this soup should be dumped down the garbage disposal. Lesson learned. This is a delicious bisque that I highly recommend--just remember to REFRIGERATE YOUR CRAB!

Visions of Sugar-Plums Danced in our Heads!

Laina chose these bird salt and pepper shakers from Bed Bath and Behond for her mom and dad. She thought they were a decoration and when I told her they were salt and pepper shakers she said her dad likes salt and pepper!


Laina got to open all of Hudson's presents for him.

Bridget with her piles of new clothes and jewelry.

Barry with his pickled beans, beets and asparagus. Yum!
Santa gave everyone licorice pipes in their stockings!

Erik chomping on his beef jerky and......

Jeremy chomping on his beef jerky while checking out some other gifts.

Hudson's more interested in eating than his presents.


Laina making cookies with her easy bake oven.

Laina and her new lap top desk.

Waiting to dig in to the presents.

Laina and Hudson in their Christmas jammies.

Lucy pretending to be a present.


Our neighbor girl suggested I get these picture frames for Laina from her fundraising catalog!

Sarah all warm and cozy in her new scarf, hat and mittens from Terri.

Terri checking out her new purse.

Tom got steak in his stocking!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

Our first major snow fall of the year and our house guest, Lucy, and Elsa loved it. Christmas Eve afternoon we decided to go out and burn off a little doggy energy in the snow.



Elsa with a beard of snow.

Lucy adheres to Theodore Roosevelts policy of speaking softly and carrying a big stick.

Lucy on the run.

Lucy carried this huge branch around with her the whole time we were outside. She tried to bring it in but it wouldn't fit through the dog door and the mean lady that was outside with them wouldn't let her bring it through the big door. She stayed out and chewed the stick down till it would fit through the dog door and promptly brought it in. The mean lady thew it out and the dog brought it back in. In the end, the mean lady won the battle.

All I Want For Christmas is......

One of these Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies for Elsa to play with. They were born in Germany in September in a litter of 17. All 17 puppies survived. I think I'd like the one on the far left.

All I Want For Christmas is.......

my bottom tooth. Laina lost her first tooth Friday at school. Her teacher put it in a zip lock and she got $3 from the tooth fairy!

Foiled Plans and Frosty

Our plans to go shopping last weekend in Des Moines were ruined by the weather forecast. Laina was up at 6:30 she was so excited to swim at the hotel, shop, see santa and eat out. We decided to make the best of it and met at the mall and ate our sack lunches that Sarah had packed for the car trip to Des Moines. Laina got to go see "Tangled" with her dad and we all got some shopping done.


We even got to see Frosty skating around on the ice rink.

Before the Picture

I won't bore anyone with our Christmas card photo but I thought it was interesting to look through the pictures that I took after I set the tripod up and was snapping pictures to test the location and lighting.

People start arriving for the picture.

Bridget and Jeremy goofing off.

One last swig of beer before the photo.

Places please!

The Perfect Day

Recently Bridget, Terri, Laina and I got together to make and decorate Christmas cookies.

Laina was very creative at decorating. After we were done decorating we went out to lunch.

Then Laina helped me decorate the Christmas tree at our church.

When we were done with that Laina and I thought we deserved a nice break so we went home and watched Santa Buddies and ate turkey sandwiches! Oh yes, while we were watching our movie Grandpa brought home a box of candy canes for Laina to put on her tree.

The BIG 30 x 3

All three of our son in laws turn 30 in 2010. Tom turned 30 in March, Jeremy on December 2 (pictured below chowing down on ribs at Jimmy Jacks for his birthday celelbration) and Erik will turn 30 December 30.


Laina concentrating hard on her hoard of katsup and BBQ sauce at Jimmy Jacks.

Hudson looking cute in his hoodie.

Lucy looking a little sad because she didn't get to go to Jimmy Jacks.!

Hula Dancer

In Laina's defense.....she did ask me not to video tape her hula dance.