suziebeezieland

merry christmas!

Merry Christmas, suziebeezieland! I sure do love you ladies.  Thank you for sharing 2009 here.  You are a great blessing and joy to me. ♥

It has been so warm this past autumn, that we have roses for Christmas! Isn't that funny? That's a first for us. You can pretend they are snow if you are disturbed by warm Christmases. :)

What are you doing for Christmas this year? What are some of your family's Christmas Eve and Christmas day traditions?  Are your kids bubbling over with excitement? Are you? :)

I hope your Christmas is wonderful.  xxoo

get to know our samara

Today is a good day to introduce you to another, newer suziebeezielander.  Let's see if you can figure out why today is a good day to introduce her as you read. :)

Samara and I have just become friends during the past year. We were in book club together, bonded over the Twilight series together (she's the friend who brought me back the coffee), and are in a "small group" together -- a group of women who get together periodically to pray for and encourage each other. But I've known about Samara for several years, because she is a teacher at the school Claire attends.

What I know of Samara is that she is thoughtful, romantic (she likes all the best books!), open, and faithful.  I really like her.

Samara was born and raised here in nearby Pasadena, and teaches at the school where she was formerly a student! :)

Here is more about Samara, in her own words:

I was born December 22, 1971, and brought home Christmas day in a Christmas stocking. My parents named me Samara, which means "guarded by God."

I was very blessed to grow up in a home that loved the Lord. I heard His calling at a young age and began my personal relationship with the Lord with the help of my mom.

Christian schooling and close friends and family have helped in the growth of my relationship with Christ. I am grateful to say that the Lord has really guarded me from many of the struggles that many people experience.  That is not to say that life is always easy and wonderful. The Lord has placed other challenges in my life.

Fourteen years ago, when I started teaching, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Treatment was started immediately, and it seemed a wonderful testimony and encouragement for other men to have themselves checked.

In the process of seeing if the cancer had spread, while checking the lymph nodes, a cut was made in my dad's intestines, causing peritonitis. Emergency surgery was performed successfully, and during the recovery process, on an x-ray that started up too far on the torso, his thyroid cancer was found. It did not metastasize or spread from the prostate.

Dad’s thyroid was removed, taking with it some of his vocal cord nerves, which resulted in his talking with a raspy voice. He was still struggling a bit with eating and such, and with further investigation esophageal cancer was found, again not having spread from another source.

Three months after having his esophagus removed, he passed away. I lost my dad, one of the few people who knew me so well.

Talk about rocking one's world . . . if I did not have Christ as my anchor, I really don’t know where I would be.

The Lord was patient with me and graciously encircled me with his love as I got frustrated and mad and sad. My dad was the person in my life who knew exactly when I needed encouragement and what to say.

Having that taken away was hard, but it’s forced me to turn to the only one who has the answers, the one who is the truth. How do I know it is the truth?

John 7:17-18 says, “If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.”

Christ spoke to honor and glorify his father. Today, as I struggle with still being single, and as each day presents itself with new challenges, I know that I am here to do God’s will, to glorify Him. He is my anchor, He is my joy, and He is my all-in all because I am found complete in Him.

What am I up to now? After graduation from Azusa Pacific University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, I spent a number of summers working summer camp under the camp name "Moonchaser." In 1996, I began my teaching career by teaching sixth grade. I went back to school in 2000 to earn a Master of Arts degree in Educational Technology, which complemented my second role at school as curriculum technology coordinator.  Then, in 2004, I took the position of my former history teacher, who was retiring, and became the seventh grade geography and eighth grade U.S. history teacher, as well as the annual Washington D.C. trip coordinator.

In addition to traveling, I enjoy hiking in Washington State with family, reading up a storm, and expressing my creativity through scrapbooking and quilting.

get to know our valeria

I have really been wanting some of you older suziebeezielanders to get to know some of the newer suziebeezielanders, who are, for the most part, my real-life friends! So I have asked several of these friends to share about themselves over the next couple of months, and I hope you enjoy getting to know them better.

Today I thought we could get to know our Valeria.  Valeria is married to our Mark (also known as "our Resident Dude") and they are a really fun, neat, talented couple. 

I have to admit that I really look up to Valeria in a lot of ways.  She is really fun to be around, and is also one of the smartest women I've ever known, but not at all in a "know it all" way.  It's one of those things where the more you're around her, you realize she doesn't miss a thing, and has a whole lot more going on in her head than she actually talks about. 

Valeria would not describe herself as a "girly-girl," and if you went to her house it's more likely that sports would be on the television than HGTV.  (She's a huge fan of USC football and Dodger baseball.) 

She would probably not mention that she is an awesome scrapbooker, but she is!

She's easy-going, she laughs easily, and she has this busy, boy-filled life, but she has this solid core of seriousness on the inside that I am really attracted to as a friend. 

I think everybody at our church just feels blessed to know them.

Mark and Valeria live (literally) down the street from me, with their three boys – Josiah, Isaac, and Luke.

Valeria works part-time as a physical therapist, and teaches kinesiology at a community college in the area. Besides the aforementioned USC Football and Dodger baseball, she also likes baking (when she has the time) and helping others recover from physical ailments.

But her most precious treasures in life are God and her family.

Here's what she has to say about that, in her own words:

I grew up attending church and Sunday school, and don’t really remember a time without a sense of God in my life. As a young child (maybe 8 or 9 years old), I worried a lot about what would happen if I died. What would it be like? Would I ever see my family again? Would I go to heaven? I felt fearful and unsure during those years, and was always doubting whether I would be "good enough" to get into heaven.

I had a sense that God could be more than just “insurance”, but did not know how to find that peace. Even though I heard all the Bible stories and sang of how “Jesus Loves Me”, something was missing.

In seventh grade, my parents took me to a Billy Graham Crusade. Along with thousands of others, I heard Billy Graham give the clear message of hope that if I trusted in Jesus and gave my life to Him, I could have peace that passes all understanding, a life without fear, and eternal life.

That message hit home with me, and that night I walked down to accept Jesus as my personal savior for the LAST time.

I finally understood that it was not me who had to work to be good enough for heaven, but it was God’s free gift that He allowed me to have because of Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross.

That night I really understood grace for the first time, and it has changed my life. After that day in seventh grade, I no longer live in fear of what will happen to me when I die. I am SURE that God has a place for me in heaven when that time comes, and that being there will be better than I can imagine.

Although I do my best to live a life of integrity, I am not strapped with guilt over my past wrongs because I know that God forgives me. And I know that it is what Christ did on the cross that ultimately saves me, not anything I can do or say.

That is freeing because I don’t need to worry about whether or not I’m good enough. Jesus is good enough… and he vouches for me.

I am so thankful for that!

This past year has been a rough one for my family and me. We had a son who was born six weeks premature, my younger brother had heart surgery, I went through a lay off from a good job, and my husband fell and suffered a pretty serious arm fracture, to name a few things.

I am not sure how I would have managed the stress of this year without God. Knowing that God is in control, that He has a plan and purpose that will work for my good and His glory, and that my hope does not rest on temporary things of this world, but in Him, has made all the difference. These truths gave me peace and hope even when life seemed dark and scary.

As the year comes to a close and I look back on a tumultuous twelve months, I can see God’s hand in all that has happened, and am beginning to see His plan for my life unfold just a little. Those hard times have drawn me closer to God, and God has also shown his goodness and faithfulness to me in this past year.

Things are not perfect by any means, but God gives me hope and has blessed my life in ways I would not have expected because of the circumstances of the past year. I am thankful for that, and continue to trust Him for the uncertain things that still remain.

Because of this past year, I can more honestly say with my whole heart, “for I am convinced, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities; nor things present nor things to come, nor powers; nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing; shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, my Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)  Those are my favorite verses. 

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Valeria's Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe

Valeria says, "I got this recipe, along with a spring form pan, from my very first mentor in physical therapy back when I was an aide at USC University Hospital. It kinda started my love for baking. I have been making this cheesecake since then (1996) and it’s always a hit. The actual recipe card is worn and taped together now, but the dessert is just as good! This recipe is best made the day before you want to eat it."

Graham Cracker Crust

* You need one large spring form pan *
1 ½ c graham cracker crumbs, finely ground (14-16 crackers)
¼ c sugar
6 T (3/8 c) butter, melted
½ t cinnamon

Combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Add butter, stir. Empty mixture into spring form pan and press evenly around bottom and sides (approx 1 inch up on sides). Chill in refrigerator while making cheesecake filling.

** Preheat oven to 325 degrees**

Cheesecake Filling

I find it easiest to have three separate bowls ready for mixing.

1 ½ c cream cheese (room temp)
1 c sugar 1 ¼ c pumpkin puree
1 ½ t cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
¾ t nutmeg
¼ t ground cloves
¼ t allspice
2 T flour
½ t salt
3 t vanilla extract
6 eggs, separated (whites in one bowl…yolks in the other)
1 c sour cream

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until soft and fluffy. Add ¾ cup of sugar, pumpkin puree, spices, flour, salt and vanilla and mix well.

In a second bowl, combine egg whites and remaining sugar (1/4 cup). Beat until egg whites stand in soft white peaks.

In a third bowl, beat egg yolks then stir in sour cream. Gently fold both egg white and egg yolk mixtures into first large bowl of cream cheese mixture.

Pour completed cheesecake filling into chilled crust then bake 1 hour at 325 degrees, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes then place cheesecake in the refrigerator to chill for 3 to 4 hours.

Topping

1 8-oz tub of Cool Whip, softened at room temperature

Once cheesecake is fully chilled, top with Cool Whip. Enjoy!!

fort designer's challenge

My sister sent me this email a few weeks ago when she was babysitting Claire. It totally busted me up.

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The kids just completed "Fort Designer's Challenge".

They each illustrated their proposed fort and presented them to me.

 

Designer #3, Grace, had a good design, but called for more pillows than we own.

Designer #2, Claire, had a lovely, creative design, but we do not have any helium balloons or "floaty things" to hold up the sheets.

Designer #1, Jonathan, had a realistic and sturdy design within my budget, so he was chosen.

 

The fort has been built and now they are organizing the interior. :)

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christmas card outtakes 2009

"now, before we learn how to build the latest in extreme graphic chipset processors, let's recite the code of the elves, shall we?"

lesley stowe's raincoast crisps

 

{image from lesley stowe fine foods}

My Canadian mother-in-law brought me back a box of Lesley Stowe's Raincoast Crisps* from her recent trip to Vancouver.

If you have access to a vehicle and can just drop what you're doing right now and drive to Canada (or, better yet, if you are actually a Canadian living in Canada), I strongly recommend that you do that, and buy some Lesley Stowe's Raincoast Crisps*, and eat them all up. Right this second.

Because they are DELICIOUS.

Check this store locator to see if there are any Lesley Stowe's Raincoast Crisps* close to you, if you don't feel like driving to Canada right now.  I entered my zip code, and was very excited to find out that there are some just six "kilometres" away from me.  I would get in my car, but (a) it is 11:12 pm and that store is closed, and (b) I still have a few in a box right next to me right now.

*soaring sponsor of the Canadian ski jumping team

"there never was when He was not"

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little
to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be
ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth
is from of old,
from ancient days. (Micah 5:2)

I was reminded this morning in church of a wonderful Biblical truth.

The humility of the incarnation of Christ isn't that that there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the inn, or that Jesus was born in a feeding trough in a cave. 

The humility of the incarnation is the incarnation itself.

The sovereign God of the universe came to earth as a human. He who was limitless limited Himself.  That little baby who slept under the twinkling stars was responsible for the existence of those stars.

He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation. 
For by him all things were created,
in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—
all things were created through him and for him.
And he is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
 And he is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross.
(Colossians 1:15-20)

John talks about the uncreated Creator, and reminds us that there was no time when He did not exist.  Christ never had a beginning. He has existed eternally with the Father:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. 
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him,
and without him was not any thing made
that was made. 
In him was life, 
and the life was the light of men. 
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

And in Romans we're reminded that everything is all about Him:

For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever.
Amen.
(Romans 11:36)

As I heard in church this morning, my hope for each one of you this Christmas season is that you will experience something more than nostalgia. 

I pray that you will experience awe that Christ, who has existed without beginning from all eternity, chose to humble Himself and come to earth as a man to offer us reconcilation with God.

anthropology

I've been trying to be good lately about keeping my little silver PowerShot in my purse so that when I'm out and about I can take photos for you guys if I see anything interesting.

So as it happens, a few days ago I ran some errands in Pasadena, and parked behind Anthropologie. When I got in the store, I thought, boy, I wish the girls could see this, and then I remembered happily that my camera was in my purse and also had batteries in it. (An important step I often overlook.)

I think photo-taking might have some added benefits. I got out of the store without buying anything, which is unusual for me in Anthropologie. Interesting, ay?  Is it some deep psychological thing, where I had the sensation of "taking" and "owning" because I took photos? Or is it simply because my hands were full of camera, thereby leaving no room for candlesticks, latte bowls, or similar? I do not know, but I will have to always carry my camera into stores I really like.

Claire and I saw this ostrich being put together a few months ago, out of newspaper cones. So interesting!

advent calendars

 

{image via oh so beautiful paper}

Happy December! Are you in need of an advent calendar? I found out via a post at oh so beautiful paper that mibostudio is offering the above adorable advent calendar as a free download.  If you try to download it and get a message that they've exceeded their daily download limit, follow their directions for emailing them, and they'll send it to you as a pdf attachment. Cool, huh?

Our family tradition is that Bob brings home one of the chocolate-filled 99-cent advent calendars from Trader Joe's, and Claire has a piece of chocolate with her breakfast (Bob and Claire eat breakfast together because they are early birds) for the entire month of December.  It's a little dad-daughter thing, and very cute. 

So I spend the entire month of December being woken up by a little kid saying things like "mom, look, it's a bell!" or "mom, look, it's a reindeer!" and holding a piece of chocolate in front of my unfocused eyes.  I love this tradition. :)

hee hee hee. "dazzling chisleyness." hee hee hee.

I myself am not conflicted over or ashamed of my love for all things Twilight, but I laughed out loud at bits of Monica Hesse's recent (November 19) Washington Post article:

People, be warned. "New Moon," the "Twilight" movie sequel, open[ed] on Friday. Everyone is vulnerable. . . .

The people who have not read "Twilight" do not get it . . . They're so smug, talking about how they once read a chapter of "Twilight" in a bookstore and the prose was just awful. Meyer never uses one adjective when she could use three, and most of the time that adjective is a hyphenate combining "dazzling" and "chiseled."

The people who have not read "Twilight" think they are astoundingly brilliant when they point out the misogynist strains of the series, like how Bella bypasses college in favor of love, like how Edward's "romantic" tendencies include creepily sneaking into Bella's house to watch her sleep, like how Bella's only "flaw" is that she is clumsy, thereby necessitating frequent rescues by the men in her life, who swoop in with dazzling chisleyness and throw her over their shoulders.

In response: We know. We know.

The women who have succumbed to "Twilight" have heard all of these arguments before. They wrote those arguments. This self-awareness is what makes the experience of loving "Twilight" a conflicting one, as if they had all been taught proper skin-care routines but chose instead to rub their faces with a big pizza every night.

oreo cookie turkeys

It's still November, so I figure I can sneak in a turkey. You can come back and read this next year. :)

My sweet mom brought this fun Oreo Cookie Turkeys recipe for the kids to do on Thanksgiving. She is good about finding fun food crafts on the Internet for them. 

We ran out of time to do it, what with the feasting and whatnot, so she left us with the ingredients, and Claire and I finally made some this afternoon.  I did one sample, and Claire did the rest herself.

I kind of gagged thinking about actually eating them because I am not fond of most candy or very sweet things (I bet you're surprised to hear that, but it's true),  but Claire and Bob each ate one and said they were perfect.  

You could also just stick your face down into the sugar bowl and chew for awhile and get the same taste, I imagine.

But the making-these-turkeys part was great. They're pretty messy, with the icing, but if you're not weird about getting your hands dirty, you will enjoy yourself.  If you are weird about getting messy, you could probably wear gloves or something, but then you could also just go sit in a chair and read a book about people making these, if you're going to be that way about it.

Claire and I found it difficult to put dabs of chocolate frosting (for pupils) onto the dabs of white frosting (the eyeballs), and it was hard to make the eyeballs round, so we made a few with marshmallow eyes. (We cut a mini-marshmallow into eight pieces, smooshed one small piece into a small ball for each eye, and dabbed each with a chocolate frosting pupil) and those were funny, bug-eyed turkeys. (The one in the middle has the frosting eyes, which you see are hard to do.)

If you could find those little candy google-eyes, those would look pretty cool.

The wattles are just random blobs of red frosting. They look like wattles because of the context. They are attached to the chin of a turkey, so that's what they must be.

And then Claire wanted to make one with whole mini marshmallows for eyes, and he turned out to be our super-bug-eyed favorite.

Here is the recipe. I should mention that you should barely push the candy corn into the Oreo, or the Oreo will crack.  I don't like candy much, but I like Oreos, and eating the broken ones is one of the perks of making these guys. :)

Oreo Cookie Turkeys

24 Oreo Double Stuff cookies
12 miniature peanut butter cups
12 malted milk balls (Whoppers)
1 cup candy corn
4 ounces chocolate frosting
4 ounces white frosting
red food coloring

Directions
1. Place one Oreo cookie as the base. Put one teaspoon of chocolate frosting on top.
2. Place one small peanut butter cup on its side so that the top and bottom are perpendicular to the base and stuck in the frosting. Place a teaspoon of chocolate frosting on the top (widest part) of the p-butter cup.
3. For the second cookie, stick some candy corn into the Oreo 'stuff' along one edge for the feathers, pointy side down. They should fan out around the edge. If you have trouble doing this, you can help them stick with some white frosting.
4. Place this second Oreo cookie (the tail) on it's edge and sticking to a dab of brown frosting on the back of the peanut butter cup.
5. Place a dab of chocolate frosting on top of the peanut butter up (for the head). Place a malted milk ball on top for the head.
6. Take a small amount of the white frosting in a separate dish. Mix in red food coloring.
7. Use a toothpick with the white and red colors to place eyes, and wattle. You can pinch off the small pointy top of a candy corn and dip it in brown frosting for the beak.
8. Your turkey is complete! Makes 12.

cheerful creativity inspiration: paul smith's evian bottle

British designer Paul Smith has designed a bottle for Evian with his signature cheerful stripes. 

There are five collectable bottle caps.

If this design or his color palette or anything about these neat bottles inspire you to scrapbook, knit, sew, paint, draw, or somehow create something, leave a link on this post to a photo of your creation, so that we can enjoy it. :)

sour cream apple pie

Have you made Alicia Paulson's Sour Cream Apple Pie yet? I recommend it strongly and enthusiastically. I've made it a few times in the past year. It disappears alarmingly quickly around here, as if we were all raised by wolves. Which we weren't, I hasten to say. Hi, mom. :)

I made one this week to take to my sister's house for Thanksgiving. 

Do you have a mandoline slicer? A mandoline makes quick work of slicing the apples. You can fit about three apple wedges at a time on the safety holder, as demonstrated by my cheerful assistant.

Then you just zip them across the blade. (Irreverently, this always makes me think of Sydney Carton. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.)

It makes thin, even apple slices very quickly. There will be some thicker slices left on the holder. Just throw those into the pie, too. :)

Here is what it looks like before you add the topping and stick it in the oven. Creamy apples, yum.

When it comes out of the oven, there are no rules that explicitly state you cannot take a test bite.

goodbye, puffs!

The Super Tough Pink Puffs ended their season today with a total of four losses, four wins, and one tie game (that was today's game against the Soccer Sweeties).

Yay, Pink Puffs!

Bob wants to coach again next year and Claire wants to play again next year, so I'd say the season was a success. :)