Abe's Feast...

This is Abraham and he's 12.  Abe is a very good boy.  I doubt you could find a "gooder" boy. He never does anything to get in trouble.  No, really.  He's just good.  He does whatever I ask of him.  He's cheerful about it. He does hate doing the dishes and I can't hold that against him. But he does a very good job of it.  Every three weeks, he has to do the dishes for a week.  No dishwasher with 9 people.  It doesn't take a skilled mathematician to figure out that's a whole lot of dishes. He puts frowny faces on his calendar for that week, but that's the sum total of his rebellion.  Abe's very smart.  He was giving me some obscure facts the other day and I asked him how he knew that. He says, "I don't go looking for information, it finds me."  He's quiet and contained.  Grown up for his age.  He's a good companion, easy going and easy to please.  You would really like him. 

Abe's theme was a romantic candlelit dinner for... 12. He had the table dressed with a white damask tablecloth, crystal candlesticks with tall white tapers, and a small vase with white roses.  Romantic piano playing in the background. Twinkle lights all around.  It was beautiful.  He invited his guests in by saying, "Welcome to the feast.  Those nearly in labor can come in first."  (Mary is 42 weeks pregnant and is actually at the hospital, today, thinking about having a new grandbaby for Will and I.)

Unfortunately for Phil, it was a gourmet restaurant and what are they known for?  Small portions. The appetizer of a tiny scoop of jalapeno popper dip on a Ritz cracker was beautifully presented on its only little plate with an artistic flourish of pepper jelly around it.  The salads were hysterical.  They came out on their own plates- sitting on it was a 2" square of lettuce, a slice of cucumber, half a chip of carrot and a tiny sliver of bell pepper- all stacked neatly one on top of the other.  It came with a side of a single crouton topped with it's own bacon bit and a drop of salad dressing.  In spite of the size, everyone remarked on how tasty it was. The main dish was 6 spaghetti noodles, a teaspoon of sauce beside it and a tiny round of Italian bread.  He garnished it with a little baby spinach leaf, because both stores were out of parsley.  Dessert was a small spoonful of chocolate "mousse" with a Milano cookie beside it. He had 4 bottles of sparkling grape juice- both red and white- chilling in a big pot. Abe was dressed in a crisp white shirt as he waited table for his guests.

Do I need to say that our family is full of big eaters?  The fact that we have "Feast Days" kinda gives us away.  A couple of the kids said they had a weak moment when he brought out the dessert.  Was that all?  It was all very good, but rich people are crazy to eat at gourmet restaurants for a mere appetizer of a meal.  Abe wasn't gonna leave them hanging.  He marched out pots and bowls and dishes full of food and set them on the hutch so that everyone could eat buffet style.  Joe went straight for the dessert. 

I almost forgot his gifts.  He found these little favor boxes that looked like a tuxedo.  Tucked inside was a tiny bottle of bubbles.  Bubbles were floating across the table and the 14 month old thought that was great fun. As did we all.

William moved on to James 2 and focused on the verses about not showing partiality- not something we think of much, but we do that sometimes.  We can be guilty of treating some people better than others.  Oughtn't be.

P.S. I washed the dishes- there were so many!  I just couldn't do that to the boy after all the hard work he did to prepare a special feast for the family.

Phil's Feast...

You may not recognize this guy from feasts past. Phil is our nephew. My older brother's youngest son.  Follow me?  He's from Arizona and he moved to Indiana last summer.  This is his first feast season with us and you can imagine his bewilderment at the first feast.  He's 19. The biggest questions on his mind were "When can eat eat?" and "What are we going to eat?"  The secrecy was cruel.  He's very much a tummy driven kind of guy.  I'm pretty sure he's never missed a meal in his life. And around here, he's been known to eat two dinners because he just can't make it to 6:30 for our regularly scheduled meal. He's a very pleasant young man. He laughs a lot.  When he's happy, nervous, scared.  He just laughs.  Almost a cackle, actually.  We've had a very mild autumn and my kids blame him for it.  They figure the Lord is trying to ease him into a colder climate.  He just thinks it's cold. My kids are still in T-shirts. He never, ever discusses his feelings, but that's something he's going to have to get over if he spends any time with his Uncle Bill. Phil has his own flooring company so if you need tile, hardwood, laminate, carpet or vinyl, he's your guy.  You'll be hard pressed to find a more dedicated worker.

His feast... well, it was a first.  I had the day off.  He wanted to do the shopping by himself and the meal prep by himself. Okey-dokey- I handed him $50 and he was off.  This made the other kids nervous, but I had faith in him.  He had a "Bachelor's Feast."  The table was hysterical.  Styrofoam plates and plastic forks- no dish washing.  His beverage was Dr.Pepper in cans.  Again, no dish washing. Our gifts?  Rolls of toilet paper.  No, I'm not kidding.  When asked why, he said he had 7 bucks left in his pocket and toilet paper comes with 4 rolls in a package and that would work out for 10 people. Economics. Weird that my kids were actually excited about their own roll of toilet paper.  His appetizer was milk bones.  Again, no joke.  I asked if milk bones were safe for human consumption and he said he'd been eating them all day... I wasn't convinced and abstained. The main course... 6, yes SIX, pounds of bacon, 30 corn dogs and a huge pot of instant mashed potatoes.  You know, stuff a bachelor likes to eat and can cook on his own.  I can say unequivocally that my children have never sat down and eaten all the bacon they wanted.  They did last night.  And there were leftovers.  Again, a first.  His dessert was Little Debbie bear claws. We all had such a good time.  All in all, I'd say his first feast was highly successful. 

William read the last verse from James 1- "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: To visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."  Sometimes we make things more complicated than they really are.  Help the helpless without expecting anything in return and be clean.         

 Feast Days!!!

The moment we've all been waiting for has arrived.  How thrilling!  For those of you who may not be familiar with our feast day tradition... 

Quite a few years ago we decided that the season was filled with too much "Give me, Give me!"  So we came up with the Feast Days as a way to encourage the "Serve you, serve you!" that needs to be in all our hearts.  We drew upon the example of Queen Ester and how, by serving meals to her King and also her enemy, she changed the fate of an entire nation. 

At the end of each November, the children draw a number from a bowl to determine the order of their feast- we have about two feasts per week leading up to Christmas.  Each child meets with me, individually, and we secretly plan a special meal to serve to the family.  They give special attention in choosing foods they know the other children love. On the day prior to their feast, the two of us go out for lunch together and then shop for their feast ingredients.  They choose simple, inexpensive gifts and decorations- spending no more than $12, usually. Everything is hidden and, on their big day, the kitchen and dining room is curtained off and the cooking and decorating begins.  (The children tend to choose a theme for their feast to simplify the meal planning and the decorating.)  When all is ready, they invite their guests into the feast with great ceremony.  Will reads some scripture and after a prayer, the child goes around serving each person the meal. Clean-up is their responsibility, also.  It's a real treat for all of us. So without more ado...

Eva's Feast...
This is Eva.  She's 16 and a real peach.  She's a very sweet and thoughtful girl.  Conscientious and friendly. She has a natural concern for others- no matter their age. She's been described as a "work horse."  That's true, in spite of her small stature.  When others give up, she keeps going.  Reminds me of her Daddy that way.  She's emotional but not sensitive, if you can imagine that combination. She's a very talented artist and makes bookmarks with these incredible, imaginatively dressed dolls on them. Eva is a blessing to be around.

She had a Pinterest themed feast.  If you don't know what Pinterest is... well, I don't know what planet you're from, but you can google it.  Eva says it's a website for virtual hoarders.

Eva and her sisters love Pinterest.  They find a lot of artistic inspiration there and have "pinned" hundreds if not thousands of items. So everything for Eva's feast was found on Pinterest. Her table was set with pretty lights and pine.  Pinterest has thousands of beautiful table settings.  She made place setting cards with screen names on them- every one had to guess what their screen name was. For some reason the guys all wanted to sit at the "2HOT4U" seat. That was her seat and a joke to see who thought it was theirs. For her gifts, she made little bows and arrows from popsicle sticks, dental floss and Q-tips.  You know the guys loved that, right?  A bit disconcerting to eat a meal at a table with Q-tips flying past you. 

The dinner started with three appetizers: Mexican pinwheels, and Mini corndog muffins, and Cherry cheesecake dip. Three new recipes and they were all a big success. I think the mini corndog muffins were the favorite.  We had Curry Chicken with rice and Naan for dinner.  Strictly speaking, I don't think we got those recipes from Pinterest, but I bet you could find them there if you looked.  Her beverage was "Grinch Punch."  Green with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 
Her dessert was a real crowd pleaser.  Chocolate bowls filled with fresh fruit.  Everyone was amazed by them and had to hear how she made them.  She blew up small balloons and dipped them in melted chocolate, let them set up and then popped the balloon.  Tada!  A perfect chocolate bowl.  You should have seen the kitchen- and Eva- when a couple of them popped.  Splattered chocolate everywhere.  But the final result was worth it. 

Will read from James chapter 1, and spoke of how trials are blessings in disguise if we allow them to be.  All in all, it was a great beginning to our yearly Feast Days.         

L-R: Abe, Mary, Jacob, William, Kim, Paul, Nines, John, Dan, Eva, Bekah

Family...

Minus two.  Sigh.  The bigger our family grows, the more difficult it is for all of them to come together at the same time.  But I do enjoy any time that any of them are around and, while being all together is very nice, I'll be very happy and content whichever way the winds blow. The ones that are missing in body are certainly present in all our hearts!

Finish!

I got this wall hanging quilted and bound, this week.  Even have it on the living room wall.  I've been sick over the past could weeks- nothing but the dragging head cold that's been going around- and even though I have a baby quilt to quilt for a client... I figure that's best left until I'm feeling a bit more... more.  Boredom has been setting in and there comes a point where you just want to DO something.  But then, when you try, your knees start to shake and you're back to sitting on the couch.  Even though this is a small quilt, it took me two days to finish.  I did get adventurous in spite of my impaired mental clarity and put feathers in the setting triangles and outer border.  Notice how I didn't include a close-up?  Oh, it isn't bad- good enough for me.  Now, if I could only work up the inspiration to clean my bedroom...

Just a few finishes...

These are the quilts I gifted to my son and his new bride for their wedding.  A couple of the tops were already done and so, considering the short amount of preparation time, it was the perfect solution.  I no longer feel so guilty for having a tub of unquilted tops- they've gotten me out a bind on several occasions.  Paul works for Toyota and, after Christmas, his next vacation is in July and they didn't want to wait that long. The string quilt is huge- we have ten foot ceilings- John and Eva are holding it up pretty high there.  I tried to make up for it's simplicity by more intricate quilting- but not too much because I did mention the time crunch, right?



This tropical kaleidoscope was especially for Kim- she loves hibiscus and brights.  She's from the South Seas and always cold.  Maybe this will help keep her warm. It was a funny coincidence she was wearing her own blue and yellow tropical dress to her wedding shower! (Notice the "Cattle Crossing" sign above the staircase door?  When all six boys lived here, that's certainly how it sounded!)



This picture doesn't do this quilt justice.  Sarah N. of www.alwayswantstobequilting.blogspot.com and I decided to make a challenge quilt.  We went to Joann's and choose a fabric(of which neither of us were thrilled with- rather like a couple.  Neither knowing what they want to do, so doing what neither want to do.  A compromise.)  At any rate, Sarah sewed the batik squares and I sewed the stars.  It turned out pretty.  Paul loves black and Kim loves pink... win/win.

Finally, this blue one is my favorite because Paul made it when he was just a boy- maybe 12y.  He picked out all the fabrics and did all of the sewing(I just put the outer border on to grow it a bit.)  I could tell as I was quilting it that he had meticulously adhered to the 1/4" seam allowance rule.  But if any of you know him, you know that's a given. Meticulous or not at all.

Feeling Blessed...

Ever have something wonderful happen so unexpectedly that it just floors you?  It takes your breath away.  I got home, today, and found a little mailer on my desk.  Never mind the thrill of getting mail- and a package at that!  Yes, I'm still a kid at heart and I love to get mail- of the not-a-bill variety.  But inside was a simple note from Julie W. and the most precious little quilt. I was floored!  What a sweet and thoughtful thing to do and just because... The tiny handle of the basket is hand appliqued and the block is hand quilted.  All that work and effort and it was gifted to me.  I am so deeply touched. I'm going, right now, to find the perfect place for it... Thank you, Julie.