It's Apple Picking Time!

When our girls were younger we used to go apple picking every fall. It was such a fun tradition, everyone excited for a hayride, maybe petting some farm animals, fresh apples and, best of all, homemade apple pie!

As the girls have entered their tweens and teen years, excitement over this adventure has waned. Hay rides? Too itchy. Petting zoo? Too many germs. Fresh apples? Too...healthy.

But this is Lindsey's senior year and if she joins us again next year she'll have to make a trip home from college to join us (at least that's the plan), so off we all went to Afton Apples in Hastings, a place we've visited many times before.

The place was crazily busy — I don't think we've ever seen it this busy before. We waited in a long line just to pick up a bag to pick apples. We walked out to the orchard and found the Haralson's, which make the absolutely best baked goods. 

Within a minute Marissa was fascinated by an apple with a rotten gash on it that had a ladybug inside of it. She took it upon herself to free the ladybug from the gooey interior and marveled at it on her hand for a while before it flew off.

Marissa freeing a ladybug from a rotten apple.

We picked for all of maybe 10 minutes and had two full bags of apples. There is something so satisfying about finding a lovely bunch of apples on a tree, giving one a little tug, and having it easily come away in your hand. 

Back to the store to pay for the apples and get some other goodies; a quart of fresh apple cider, some apple and pumpkin donuts, and fresh apple brats for lunch. Delicious.

By this time it was nearly 1:00 and the crowds were too much for the girls, so we took all of our goodies, including our lunch, and ate in the car. As we were leaving the line of cars arriving was longer than when we'd arrived just a few hours before. Glad we went earlier in the day.

Lindsey re-creating her "I don wanna be here" face.

While Marissa re-created her toddler smile of scrunching her entire face.

They're both taller than the picture board now.

Back home Lindsey declared herself "tired" of apple pie, and wanted to try some other recipes. So she made a batch of beautiful, flaky apple turnovers that were delicious. Later on she baked up a batch of apple cinnamon muffins that are the toast of our breakfasts right now. Both of these recipes used a TOTAL of 7 apples — only 1 3/4 bags left to go!

Today we dropped one of the bags off at my friend's house, their family makes applesauce every fall, so we'll be happy to contribute to their supply for that endeavor. 

Some day the apples will be gone, but the memories will be there.

2008 apple picking

2008 apple eating

Christmas Eve Birthdays

My dad's birthday is on Christmas Eve; he would have been 72. This is the first birthday that he is celebrating in heaven.

Summer 2015

Growing up, Dad would get a single gift from friends and relatives that would be both his birthday and Christmas gift -- he usually didn't have birthday parties, since everyone was busy with holiday festivities. He felt like he didn't have birthdays like other kids did, and carried this sentiment into his adult life.

When my sister and I were kids, my mom made sure that Dad's birthday gifts were wrapped in birthday paper, Christmas gifts in Christmas paper. Every member of our family got to choose what the dinner was on their birthday, and for years my dad chose lasagna. My mom's homemade lasagna was our family's dinner on December 24th for years. All of his adult life my sister and I got him birthday gifts, even though we had stopped exchanging gifts with each other and my mom years before.

The traditions continue though he is gone.

My cousin Sam and his family live in Minneapolis now, and we invited them to join us Christmas Eve for church service and dinner. His parents drove up from Illinois and joined us as well. These are all relatives on my dad's side of the family, so it was appropriate that we were all together. Plus, they are wonderful people, and we enjoy visiting with them all.

We gathered around the tables set with the china from my childhood, china that my dad had bought for my mother while serving during the Vietnam War. We feasted on homemade stuffed pasta shells (the closest I can come to making lasagna), told stories and went through a few bottles of wine.

And, just like old times, we celebrated a birthday. This time it was Theodore's, my cousin's son who was born on December 24th last year.

Theodore unwrapping his gift.

A toy like the ones my girls loved when they were his age.

It was wonderful to spend this day with my extended family, making new memories and new traditions.

John and Deb Nemanich, Theodore, me, Marissa and Wayne, Sarah and Sam. Missing: Lindsey, who had a migraine

The Machine Shed

If you stop and listen, really listen, you can hear the life that once was there.

A tractor starting up, its long, slow crank to life. The clanking of tools. A command yelled over the sound of work. Perhaps a word of frustration. 

At the end of the day, the doors would pull shut and relative silence would fall over the machinery, interrupted only by the small scuffles of cats chasing mice, or birds in the rafters.

The machine shed is mostly empty now, or at least more empty than it's been in a long time. Favorite tractors have been hauled away, to be cherished or used by other family members. Cars that were in good working order are living their second or third life with someone else. 

Two cats remain to keep the mice population down. They are friendly and still call this shed home. Perhaps they will stay when the new owners come, and continue their useful lives for a new family.

Soon the final pieces will be hauled away, and the shed will be quiet and empty.

Never Too Old for Toys

Some weeks ago Lindsey began working on her Christmas list.

She wrote down -- with gusto -- fuzzy socks. Pajamas. Lip balm. Manicure set.

"I don't really want the same things for Christmas I used to want," she observed.

She is 11 going on 12, after all, and this year there truly is no doubt in her mind that her parents are Santa. There were no pretenses of asking me to mail her list to Santa this year, she simply handed it to me with a "here you go."

And because she doesn't believe her little sister, for the most part, doesn't believe. There have been a few times over the past few weeks when I've had to stop one or both of the girls from going into a closet that had gifts stashed in them. "Why can't we go in there?" Marissa would ask, "Presents," Lindsey would reply.

Yet Christmas morning, the magic was still there.

Not-so-little bodies filled with excitement as we prepared for bed on Christmas Eve, squeals and giggles as they imagined what was in the presents under the tree, and what other gifts would magically appear before morning.

We played musical beds in the middle of the night due to excitement which made sleep hard to come by. We awoke early, made kids go back to sleep, and finally got up around 7:30.

We had the special treat of having Kristi join us this year, decked out in fuzzy red pajamas with matching Santa hat. She helped me "play Santa" the night before, wrapping the last of the gifts and even wrapping a forgotten one...at 5:30 a.m. (All communicated via text from two floors away.) She really IS a Secret Santa!

Coffee cake, coffee, presents, and glee.

Lindsey wanted to get something for everyone in the family. She spent her own money and bought Caribou gift cards for her parents (always appreciated), a candle for Kristi and a stuffed toy, movie and "squishy toy" for Marissa.

Over the past few weeks when Marissa saw Lindsey wrapping presents for her, she wanted to get something for Lindsey, too. So she wrapped a piece of pottery she had made over the summer and a book that had been laying around the house. Lindsey expressed great delight and gratitutude as Marissa jumped up and down with excitement. Marissa had purchased a gift for her too, but I think the unwrapping of the "here's what's laying around the house" present was more fun.

Lindsey got a pair of boots from her Aunt Kristi, who cleverly wrapped just one, then hid the other boot in a sweater that had been wrapped separately. Wayne got a "gift" of a plaid shirt and plaid pants (non-matching) from his family to make up for the gifts of clothing he got last year. He got real gifts too, don't feel too sorry for him.

Plaid, anyone?

All the gifts were unwrapped by 8:30. One hour is all it took to unwrap every single item under the tree.

And for as much as Lindsey hadn't put toys on her list, she put enough toys that she spent the rest of the day playing with Magnatiles and her new Disney Sleeping Beauty figurines, while Marissa entertained the family with her new karaoke CDs from the Hoyt cousins and microphone stand.

No one fought. No one asked Marissa to be quiet. Everyone said "please" and "thank you" and were polite to each other.

Now that's the true magic of Christmas.

Runaway Train of a Christmas Eve

Coffee cake, anyone?

We've built a few Christmas traditions for our family, based on carrying on old ones that I grew up with. One of those is having homemade coffee cake while opening gifts on Christmas morning. Another is having a baked pasta dish cook during Christmas Eve service, to be eaten upon the family's return from church. There's nothing like coming home from church, opening the door and having that good garlic-tomatoy smell waft out of the house. Aahhh!

For my family, this means that both dishes need to be prepared on Christmas Eve. My mom -- being the master organizer and planner that she is --  used to prepare them in advance and store them in the freezer until they were needed. Of course, that requires not only chunks of time not taken up by work, family and household chores, but also a nice-sized freezer in which to store the food, neither of which I have.

Christmas Eve morning started out with the highest of hopes and expectations to have everything done by the 4:30 church service. But this was soon derailed when we discovered at 8 o'clock in the morning that the pipe to our dishwasher has frozen. The appliances in our basement, located just under the dishwasher, looked like they had been rained upon, the floor trusses above were saturated and the floor was sopping wet. It was no longer leaking, but clearly had done so while the dishwasher had run overnight. A call was made to a plumber, with a promise of coming out to look at it...after the holiday. In the meantime, no running the dishwasher until we can determine the cause.

This means breakfast dishes had to be washed first, and THEN coffee cake started a bit later than initially scheduled, with dishes washed again while the cake was baking.

Coffee cake, or ugly cake?

Coffee cake! (See last year's post. And the year's before. Etc.)

In the meantime, I could feel a sniffle and occasional sneezing creeping up on me. Ignoring it, I told the girls we could go to the mall for lunch and possibly a visit with Santa, since we hadn't seen him yet this year and I was not up to making a lunch and washing those dishes as well.

But first... the eldest had to bathe and wash her hair which was long overdue for a washing.

They both put their new holiday dresses on and off we went to the mall. We lunched, and then got in line to see Santa. The line was relatively short; it didn't look like we were going to wait long. But this was a really good Santa, and he took his time with every child who came to him to tell him their wishes. There was a girl with a disability a few families ahead of us, and he took extra care in talking with her and her family. Seriously, how can you not love that?

Except that I was watching my watch as it crept toward 2:00, then past, then towards 3:00. And all the time I was standing in line I was feeling more and more run-down. I debated even going to the church service, but...really? Isn't that the whole point of Christmas, to hear the Christmas story and celebrate Christ's birth?

When it was finally our turn to see Santa we had been waiting an hour and a half. There goes my cooking time for dinner. Hmmm...how is this going to work?

We arrived home at 3:20 and I shooed everyone out of the kitchen while I got to work, whipping up our traditional pasta dinner of stuffed pasta shells.

I learned that I can cook that dish in 45 minutes. Rock star. By 4:10 I was upstairs changing and we got the family out the door in 10 minutes.

All during the service my nose itched nonstop and dripped endlessly. My head was feeling heavier and heavier. This was now a full-blown cold and I felt like crap.

We arrived home and final preparations began for dinner. My blood boiled briefly when I heard "When's dinner? I'm hungry," from the child playing in the living room, the child who is perfectly capable of filling salad bowls and putting salad dressing out. She was promptly recruited for the job.

While hand-washing the meal's dishes after dinner, I informed my dearly beloved that there was no way I could do all the Christmas prep myself as I had previous years. Thankfully I had done most of the wrapping the weekend before, but there were still a few late gifts that needed to be wrapped, along with stockings to be stuffed and Santa gifts to be found from their hiding places and set under the tree. Of course, only I knew where the stocking gifts were hidden, which presents needed to be wrapped, and where the Santa gifts were hiding.

The two of us got it all done and went straight to bed. Thankfully I slept all the way through the night and was awoken at 6:30 by two excited little girls, which is relatively late for Christmas morning in our house.

It felt like it had been a runaway Christmas Eve, starting out slowly and calmly and eventually ending in a race against the clock and a cold.

I'm thinking that we may invest in a freezer so I can avoid this runaway train next year. Ah-choo.