Quick Post ... Snow!

I'm making a quick post today ...

We had over a foot of snow since last night and it's still snowing!

After breakfast we are going out to enjoy a snowy good time!


Yep ... looks like enough snow to make a snowman to me!


This made us laugh ... our John Deer sign under snow.


There's so much snow the birdhouse developed a "Santa Hat".


John Deere Green ... John Deere Yellow ... now it's John Deere White!


Snow, Snow, Snow!


Fort Griffin!

Let It Snow!

We are supposed to get snow, snow and MORE SNOW tonight and tomorrow.


This is a picture from the snow storm we had in March 2009. I think we had about 12" then. I've heard we will get that much or more.

Oh joy ... I'm sooooo excited!!

Ketchup? No Catch Up!

We've been pretty busy around here the past few weeks.

We decorated the house for Christmas. I love getting the Christmas tree up. Griffin helped me place the ornaments this year. I loved that. I remember a couple of years ago I was afraid he would break my "precious" ornaments. I guess this year I just realize ... it's all about him and he was very good about being careful when I asked him to.

We also put the lights up outside. Mike enjoys doing that each year. We've put the village on the mantle, the nativity on the table as you walk in the door and our stockings are hanging from Grandma Harrison's antique sewing machine. So our halls are all decked out for Christmas.

Griffin has been a very good boy so he should expect some special surprises under the Christmas tree this year.

He was invited to a Christmas party last night with some friends he's know since he was born. It was fun catching up with friends we haven't seen in awhile. Since he's in preschool and his friends are in kindergarten, it's hard for us all to get together like we used to. The highlight of his evening was the gift exchange. He received a set of firetruck Lego's. We put it together as soon as we got home.

I had to go to the doctor today. It was just time for my annual exam. After that I ran by Toys 'R Us and picked up a really cool something for the Gman. Then I went by Dollar Tree looking for a couple of things.

Tonight is Griffin's Christmas program at school. I'm looking forward to that. I so enjoy seeing him and his classmates sing.

Though nothing "exciting" has happened we are enjoying our every day life ...

Downtown Richmond ~ The Lights!

Our good friends Carol and Alan invited us to join them and all our kids for a visit to downtown Richmond to see the lights. This was our first trip downtown to the James Center ... and it was so wonderful!!


This is the first thing you see ... dozens and dozens of lighted deer, lights in all of the trees and a HUGE Christmas tree.


Though you can't really tell in this picture, this is a leafless tree with balls of lights hanging from the branches. Beautiful.


It was F.R.E.E.Z.I.N.G cold so we bundled up in our winter gear.


The kids ... Sara, Zach, Griffin, Sam and Hannah.


I wish everyone could see this in person ... these pictures do not do it justice.


Can you see the kids at the base of the Christmas tree? It was HUGE!!


Oh Christmas Tree ... Oh Christmas Tree!


I took this picture with the flash on ...


Carol, Sam and Alan.


Another view of downtown and all of the glorious lights!

We had such a GREAT time ... thanks for including us.

Fun Friday Scrapbooking Give-A-Way

Hi all ..

I just listed this week's Fun Friday Give-A-Way over on MY FACEBOOK PAGE


This weeks give-a-way is this cute Teddy Bear Christmas Basket.

If interested CLICK HERE for more information!

Feeding Horses ... Florida Style!

How about another Florida memory?

We went to visit Pop and Nana at their house in the woods. Griffin calls it the jungle because they have a very long drive-way that snakes around lots of palm trees and palmettos. And we go over a bridge that is over the creek. He thinks the "jungle" is very cool.

Pop was grilling dinner for us, so Nana suggested we go to her sister's house that is just down the road to feed the horses. Her father had sent home some corn cobs after shucking them at Thanksgiving. He knew the horses would like them.


Janet and Charlie have a number of horses in different fields. Here we see Mike, Griffin and Nana starting the feed.


This sweet baby horse was scared and never took the corn cob. But isn't he just the cutest little guy?


This was Mike's favorite horse ... he would LOVE to have a horse one day.

If you look in the pictures you will see palm trees in the middle of the fields. I just love that. It just screams Florida. I never knew I could miss palm trees and palmettos so much.

One Of Those Moments.

When dropping Griffin off for school this morning I witnessed "one of those moments" that brought happiness and joy to my heart.



When dropping the kids off for preschool we drive around a circle and the director gets the kids out of the cars. I noticed Emma waiting on the walkway for Samantha to get out of her car just ahead of us. After Samantha got out of her car, she walked over to Emma and held her hand. I expected them to walk on in to school.

But they waited. They waited for Griffin to get out of our car. He then walked over to them and Samantha took his hand and they all walked in together.

This was one of those sweet moments I want to remember forever.

They have no idea Griffin was having a bit of a rough morning. Telling me he didn't want to go to school. He was tired he said and he needed to take a rest. I assured him he could take a rest after enjoying a wonderful day at school. I told him he would have a great day with his teachers and friends.

God took care of my little boy this morning in the way of two sweet little girls taking his hand and leading him into the school. Showing him two friends cared about him and wanted him to be with them.

The Lord does work in mysterious ways.

I do believe that.

Visit To The Beach ... Clearwater!

I know ... I know ... I just showed snow pictures and now I'm sharing beach pictures. But, I really want to share some of the fun we had while on our vacation in Florida during Thanksgiving.

Growing up we always went to Clearwater Beach. It's my favorite beach ... so clean ... so pretty ... and family friendly.

Griffin has been asking to go to the ocean for a few months now. So, we knew we would be going to the beach on this trip and decided Clearwater Beach would be our destination. It's just a little over an hour from my mother-in-law's house.

This is the first time he's been to a beach in Florida. When he was a little over a year old we took him to Virginia Beach ... but honestly ya'll ... that's just NOT the same as visiting the beach in Florida.


Here we are ... at the beach. Yeah, yeah ... that's me in a bathing suit ... not a pretty sight for sure ... but I wanted a picture of all of us enjoying the sunshine and the FRIGID water!


How cool is this ... of course Griffin LOVED seeing the John Deere tractor on the beach.


See how far Mike is out in the water? Ankle deep, right? The water was FREEZING cold! It was in the 70's outside ... but the ocean water was like ICE water! It didn't bother Griffin one bit. He got in and splashed, splashed, splashed around.


We were in the Gulf of Mexico ... the "warmer" coast. I can't even imagine how cold the Atlantic Ocean would be.


He's such a boy ... playing with his tractors in the sand.


Covered in the most wonderful sand in the world. The beach sand in Clearwater is very fine and it feels so good to your feet ... and in Griffin's case his entire body.


We were lucky enough to see about a dozen dolphins swimming and feeding right near us in the breakers. Look just beyond Griffin and you will see them.


What an honest to goodness WONDERFUL visit ...

Can't wait to go back when it's warmer!

On the next two posts I'm sharing a couple of short videos if you would like to view them.

Clearwater Beach ~ Water Fun!

We enjoyed a bit of warm weather while vacationing in Florida.

We decided to visit Clearwater Beach. Though the outside temperature was in the mid 70's the ocean was fridgid cold!

Griffin had SUCH a good time!

Clearwater Beach ~ The Dolphins!

While visiting Clearwater Beach we were lucky enough to see dolphins swimming and feeding in the wild.

This is a short video of the awesomeness!

Family Christmas Night.

Last night we were invited to be part of Family Christmas Night hosted by the church where Griffin's preschool is held.

It was at the beautiful Westview Farm. We had a nice casual dinner of brunswick stew, BBQ sandwiches and lots of cookies to choose from.

The main focus of the event was the re-enactment of Jesus Christ's birth in the barn.


The children were dressed in costumes such as shepherds, angels, cows, sheep, etc. They joined "Mary" & "Joseph" in the barn for the story to be read. Then we all sang Silent Night together ... it was truly beautiful.


It was freezing cold outside, about 30 degrees I believe. We got all bundled up and enjoyed our time together and tried to stay warm by the fire. The kids all ran around playing tag and hide-and-seek. It was cute watching our little "shepherds" and "angels" having so much fun.

Thank you PPC for such a wonderful evening.

It Snowed!

We just left warm and sunny Florida to return home and a few days later we enjoy the first snowfall of the season!

Live in the moment ... and that's what we did!


It was a pretty wet snow ... not the fluffy kind. We bundled up in our warm clothes and headed out to enjoy it.


I love how the icy snow looks on the nandina berries.


After running around in the cold weather we came inside for some warm hot chocolate.

I say it over and over again ... I'm still amazed every time it snows. Being a Florida raised girl snow is still "new" to me even after living here in Virginia for six years now. I'm so glad Griffin gets to experience the snow each year.

I'm on the look out for some water proof gloves for Griffin. He has mittens, but I need to find him some that won't get wet when he plays in the snow. In the little kid department at Walmart/Target the gloves are too small for him. But when we go over to the bigger boy's section, they are too big. Any ideas where I can find some for him? Any suggestions would be welcome.

Ho Cakes.

I made a beef roast in the crock pot yesterday with lots of yummy vegetables.

We decided to make some ho cakes to go along with it ... excellent choice if I do say so myself.

For those of you that may not know what a ho cake is, it's basically fried cornbread.


Mike is the official "fryer" in our family. When it comes to frying stuff, well he's just much better at it than I am.


Look at all that ho cake goodness ... pure yumminess!

Ho cakes is one of those southern tradtions where there really is no recipe and no measuring.

It's basically "guess" how much to put in the batter to make them up. I'm sure you could Google a recipe and find an official one, but this is how we made ours.

Recipe:

Alabama Corn Meal (fine ground)
Onion Finely Chopped (as fine as you like)
Salt
Water

Mike put the corn meal in and some finely chopped onion. He then added a generous amount of salt and enough water to give the batter a cake mix like consistency. You could also add a little baking powder to the mixture if you want fluffier ho cakes. We didn't have any, so we didn't use any.

You want your batter to be runny enough to fall off your spoon, but not runny like pancake batter.

You spoon the batter into the hot oil (we used peanut oil) and cook until golden brown. You will have to flip the ho cakes to cook them on both sides.

As in most southern homes fried cornbread is a tradition ... and oh so good!