We are preparing for Christmas

The Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day is over with and every­one is prepar­ing for Christ­mas. As I pre­pare for Christ­mas let us remem­ber that Jesus is the rea­son for the sea­son. So often peo­ple for­get what Christ­mas is really about.

We spent Thanks­giv­ing Day at sis­ter Emma and Jacob’s house. Emma pre­pared two turkeys. They had the table set for 19 people.

Daugh­ter Elizabeth’s friend Tim­o­thy and Susan’s friend Mose joined us for the day. It is hard to believe that Emma and my fam­ily come to 19 already when we are together.

Besides turkey Emma had mashed pota­toes, turkey gravy, Cal­i­for­nia blend veg­eta­bles, cheese sauce, taco salad, cheese, veg­eta­bles and dip, and dirt pud­ding. I took along home­made bread, dev­iled eggs, cherry and pump­kin pies, pump­kin rolls and Long John Rolls to add to her menu. There was way too much food and plenty of leftovers.

Our 40 new chick­ens are lay­ing eggs for a few weeks now. If chick­ens lays an egg we get 40 a day. I am so glad to have my own eggs again. The dev­iled eggs I took to Jacob’s were our own eggs.

Since we have plenty of eggs we have a break­fast meal for sup­per some nights. Some­times fried eggs and pota­toes or break­fast bur­ri­tos. We like the bur­ri­tos with our home­made salsa.

The chil­dren want me to make egg salad so they can make sand­wiches with it. Another thing I would like to do since I have plenty of eggs is to make noo­dles. Seems hard to find time to do all the things I’d like to do.

I would like to do some sewing soon. I am teach­ing Susan how to do more sewing. She is not too fond of it yet but wants to learn how.

Daugh­ter Eliz­a­beth cut out six pairs of pants for her friend Tim­o­thy dur­ing her time off from work. Tim­o­thy lives alone and he needs new pants for work so Eliz­a­beth offered to sew some for him. I am sur­prised how quickly she has caught on to cut­ting out and sewing dresses, shirts, and pants. I am sure Susan will too once she gets the hang of it.

Tim­o­thy gave Eliz­a­beth a sewing machine last year for a gift. I think she enjoys sewing even bet­ter since she has her own sewing machine.

We haven’t had any snow that has stayed yet. We had some flur­ries last week but they dis­ap­peared almost as fast as they came. Lov­ina and Kevin had their snow pants and boots on and are ready to play out in the snow.

They were a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed that it didn’t accu­mu­late much. I am sure they will have plenty to play in once it starts coming.

Last week Loretta’s ther­a­pist did a recheck on her after hav­ing five weeks of ther­apy since her surgery. The ther­a­pist is really pleased with the progress Loretta has made. She can do a lot more things since before the surgery. She still needs ther­apy once a week plus does daily ther­apy at home.

They want to work on get­ting up the stairs to strengthen those mus­cles. We are thank­ful that we did the surgery.

Only God knows how long this will help her but we must put our full trust in Him and let Him lead the way.

I want to again thank read­ers who have been an encour­age­ment to us in any way.

Daugh­ter Susan baked a batch of out­ra­geous choco­late chip cook­ies this week. With the mixed fla­vor of choco­late and peanut but­ter our fam­ily really likes them.

OUTRAGEOUS

CHOCOLATE

CHIP COOKIES

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 cups margarine

2 cups peanut butter

2 tea­spoons vanilla

4 eggs

4 cups flour

2 cups oatmeal

4 tea­spoons bak­ing soda

1 tea­spoon salt

12 ounces of choco­late chips

Pre­heat oven to 350. Melt mar­garine and mix with sug­ars, peanut but­ter, and eggs. Then add in the dry ingre­di­ents. Mix until thor­oughly blended. Then add choco­late chips.

Roll into balls and bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes.

Cook­ies will spread out and be golden brown around the edges when they are done.

Read­ers with culi­nary or cul­tural ques­tions or to share recipes write Lov­ina at: Lov­ina Eicher, c/o Oasis News­fea­tures, P.O. Box 157, Mid­dle­town, OH 45042. To learn more about Amish cul­ture and the Amish Cook col­umn and to sign up for the twice weekly newslet­ter, visit www.amishcookonline.com or “The Amish Cook Fan Page” on Facebook.

Posted by Lovina Eicher on Dec 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.