Coffee With Elly

Just a couple shots I took at the tail end of church today. It is fun to see my darlings all dressed up and enjoying each other. :)

This morning, Judah and Ezra celebrated Thanksgiving with the rest of their school at a Thanksgiving Feast.  The children were broken into two groups: Indians and Pilgrims (go figure!). I'm told the Pilgrims politely invited the Indians to their feast. Here are some pictures! The Indians come bearing gifts: I think it is safe to say that this was SO much more fun than anything we would've done at home. :-)

I realize that I haven't blogged for... well... about two months, at least, and it's time for an update. We've been busy, lots going on, blah, blah, blah, but I think I really lost momentum with the whole blogging thing in August, when we got head lice. Eww. It's gone, for sure, now, but for about 4-6 weeks in August and early September, we were persona non grata and it was quite a trial.  During and since that time, Elena turned 1, we had our 12th Anniversary (big plans, sabotaged by the plague of beasties), I went to Tri-Cities with my kids, we spent Labor Day weekend near the head of the Metolius in central Oregon, the boys started soccer season then their new day-school, Ezra turned 8, and we had a visiting Ukrainian pastor stay with us for over a week. So... nothing much going on! :-) School boys!   Elena’s birthday party: At our cabin at the Metolius Ezra’s birthday party:     There. Now we are all caught up!

Yes, I have become a soccer mom. This isn't new info, but it IS the first posted soccer picture of the season. Unfortunately, I don't have one of Ezra playing yet. They've been enjoying the season, no injuries so far, and the weather last weekend was fabulous! 

Sunday afternoons are an ideal time to have people over, right? We've already blocked the day off for church and rest, and, coincidentally, so have many of our friends and family. But, being a day of rest and all, and since we're gone all morning and into the early afternoon, preparing food has it's challenges. Also, we have a potluck lunch at our church every  Sunday, so usually nobody needs a huge dinner in the evening. I decided recently that I needed to write down a list of sample menus for Sunday hospitality so that I didn't have to start from square one every time. And, since I just recently started this blog, and it's on my mind, I figured I might as well post the list, and maybe update it as I go along. So here are some of my ideas: Menus for Sunday Entertaining For a late afternoon repast, when you have some time to prepare: Pre-marinated Chicken on kebabs with whatever grillable vegetables you like Bread, home made or artisan, served with jam or m

Just a few more pictures – my dad got some great ones!   What could go wrong?

It was a lovely evening for a concert. We got there at 6:30, and by 8 we had sat and listened to the music, the kids had gotten the free popcorn and free balloon animals, we had taken a tour of the Oregon City Trails End Center and we had bought two exorbitantly priced cups of beer and four snowcones. So we figured we had tasted all there was to taste and sampled all there was to sample. The kids had enjoyed themselves, the younger three were tired and we were exhausted. So we went home, tired and slightly grubbier than when we started out the evening, but happy.

And the brothers who love them! Judah sat outside with Elena on his lap playing together with that toy guitar, for probably 15 minutes this afternoon! I ran to get a picture, and for a wonder, I wasn’t too late! That’s the first one:   Then the boys requested the use of my camera and did an impromptu photo shoot of their beloved baby sister:   I love having kids!

I discovered that you can bake bread on a gas grill! By discovered, I mean that I wondered, "Can you make bread on a gas grill?" And then I googled it: "Can you make bread on a gas grill." And the answer is, YES! I tried it last week and accomplished two huge loaves of a basic white bread, which my family was happy to gobble up, even though the inside was just slightly doughy. So this time I tried my mother-in-law's famous oatmeal bread recipe, but made it into 4 small round loaves, rather than two big round ones like last time. The results were delicious and much appreciated. But Seeing is Believing! (Sorry for the fuzziness of the photos)