Family Christmas

Yet another big dinner at the Milligan Farm.  I love having the dinners at my place, I'd rather do all the cooking than be forced to leave my home.  We did a white elephant gift exchange this year.  It was very different, but sure saved a lot of money.  I am not sure we did it correct, but it was sure fun.

My sister was not here with her little kids, that was a bummer.  Little people are so much fun.  I will have to go see her and the family after the Holidays. And my brother stayed home, but sent his family.  My siblings are worse than me when it comes to dragging them away from home.  The hardest part for us to get together is that we are all home bodies.

Dairy theme Christmas

I like to keep to my dairy theme a bit for Christmas gifts.  This year great find was "Milk Stout Beer".  This is a stout beer made with milk sugar, by the left hand brewing company in Colorado.  What a find, they even have a picture of a dairy cow on the box.

The label reads like this:

"Milk Sugar in your stout is like cream in your coffee.  Dark and delicious, America's great milk stout will change your perception about what a stout can be.  Preconceived notions are the blinders on the road to enlightenment.

Udderly delightful.

Sometimes you're not in the mood for what everyone else is drinking."

So each of our haulers got some beer, a couple kinds of cheese (like a smoked Gouda), and a couple types of pretzels.  The paper lady and the mail carrier got porcelain coffee mugs with fancy cheese stuck in them.

Each employee will get some cash, a Milligan Dairy Farm hat with LED clip on head lights, and of course a fancy cheese.

Doughnuts

What sounds better than some fresh homemade doughnuts on a cold winters day?  I love my new kitchen, it makes me want to bake again.  Notice how much lower than the counter my Hoosier is?  That makes it the perfect place for a 5'3" woman to knead her dough.  I never liked standing on my toes to knead bread way up on the counter top, and taking to the table in another room seemed absurd.  I am so grateful to have my Hoosier back in the kitchen where it belongs.

Raising a hard worker

We all have that family member that is good for nothing, some are closer and some are distant cousins.  So when my husband and I discussed having kids, he worried we might raise a non-worker.  So far as I can tell, I am keeping my promise to raise him a man that will work.

Glenn is 11 and has a better work ethic than most teens and lots of adults.  Will he keep it up?  Only time will tell, but if I have had anything to do with it thus far, it is a good sign he will continue. 

What do you think it takes to raise a worker?

So far I have stuck to what I thought it would take. 
1)  I make sure I tell everyone what a great worker he is, mostly Glenn himself.
2)  I lead by example, and so does his father.
3)  I give him fun jobs, like moving our big truck around in the driveway.
4)  I make it very clear that his father and myself have absolutely no respect for lazy people.
5)  I remind him that God declared that men will work for what they get, so it is His will.
6)  I kiss his cheek and tell him how proud we are of him.
7)  I remind him that every gift he gets from me is due to his own hard work, as well as his fathers hard work.

Not exactly how I planned it......

I have been looking forward to this day at home.  I spent two days going up north to be with my dear sister in law while she saw her oncologist. Her and I have been friends for decades (before my brother ever took a shining to her), and she is fighting a great battle with stage four colon cancer.  I go to the big appointments with her.  So far the only one I missed is the only one she left totally devastate.  I won't leave her to go alone again. 

The past two days I had to run my father in law to his appointments.  Some how they seem to get scheduled in lumps and take up entire days.  At least he is always a joy to be around, that sure does help the day.

So, as I was saying, I've been longing for this day at home.  It started last evening, Sadie, our 13 year old with autism got sick.  Well she has a funny tummy and can sometimes do that and never miss a beat, so no big deal.  She even said she was better now.  Every hour through the night she repeated that, tossing her cookies and declaring to be better now.  It cost me two clean beds, her jammies, and two bedroom carpets!  So I am home today, washing bedding and shampooing carpets.

I will say this about my dear little miss Sadie, she can take being sick better than anyone I know.  She doesn't get fussy.  She can get sick, jump around to a favorite song, lay down and take a quick snooze and do it all again.  She even came to the dinner table and asked for food on her plate.  She looked at it awhile and went back to the living room.  Maybe she doesn't know she's sick, what ever is going on inside her mind, it works for me.

Back Home

  We are back home from Chicago earlier than I figured we would be.  There is no place to park in that city, plus a snow storm was pending.  Chicago was fun while it lasted.  We spent our second day at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.  It took the entire day to see it, tons of walking (that about did in Duane), but so many cool things to see.  They have the actual U-505 submarine that our troops captured from the Germans in 1944.  I was surprised at the amount of history we got to experience there.  Both kids loved the old steam engine train. I was a bit disappointed in their farm display.  It just promoted a lot of soy products and confinement operations.

Back home we got the Christmas tree up!  It is so much fun going to the local tree farm with the kids to pick out their tree.  Glenn wants to walk the entire farm to find the perfect tree, while Sadie says get the first one you find so we can get home to decorate it.

Then to top off all the great times, my sister showed up with her 3 youngsters, Ted 7, Tabitha 7, and Marjorie 6.  Tonight I have them for a sleep over.  It is 7:20 pm and I have them all showered and ready for a movie!  I am such a smart Aunt.  Trust me, they earned the move.  They spent the afternoon helping Glenn clean horse stalls before I would let them come in for a snack and movies.

Chicago

We headed to Chicago today to meet up with Teagen.  For those who don't know- Teagen lived with us for years as a teenager.  Now she is like a big sister to Sadie and Glenn.  In fact, Glenn doesn't even recall life before Teagen.

We met up in Macy's.  It's just so huge!  Glenn noticed they are the worlds largest store.

We were all starving so we enjoyed a great meal in the Walnut Room.

Then the kids and I (Duane was too scared) went to the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower.  It was not really scary.  The elevator is just a regular inside elevator, not on the outside of the building.

Glenn is on top of Chicago!

Snow!!!

Today we got our first snow!  I was so excited that I picked up all my painters stuff, packed it away and sent him a message that he was being temporarily evicted from my kitchen.  I'm sorry, I had to bake and make my kitchen smell good.  Besides, I needed to make nice warm comfort food for my husband who is out working in the cold.  So I made chicken and noodles (yum, and warm), and made some delightful cinnamon rolls for later.  Now he can have the kitchen back. 

In the morning the kids and I are off to Chicago.  We are planning to spend some time at the Science and Technology Museum.  I am also planning to go to a week day mass at the beautiful St. John Cantius Church.  We are hoping not to get stuck in a lake effect snow while we are there.