Christmas Eve

I wish we had taken a picture of the food...
Because, as Joni says, no matter what we do in Cohagen, it really all comes down to being about the food. 
(I've decided this is a compliment and we've all noticed that she, the self-proclaimed "don't-expect-big-things" person is now cooking and baking and reading recipes.  She's come over to the dark side...it's a happy place, where butter and heavy whipping cream resides.) 
Anyway, we had food covering the counter in the living room and all over the table.  It was an appetizer evening and you know how those can get out of hand.  It starts out as chips and crackers, and pretty soon there's bacon wrapped shrimp, teriyaki chicken kebobs and seven layer taco dip with two kinds of tortilla chips.  Hot artichoke dip and sausage/cheese meatballs.  Peanut butter fudge and pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting. 
I'm telling you, it got ugly.
When we finally limped away from the buffet, wishing we'd thought to wear stretch-y knit clothes, the kids (who had eaten 3 crackers and a meatball, each) were dancing on one foot and another, wanting to open presents.  Technically, they'd been doing that dance since 10 a.m.   ACTUALLY, they were up at 5:30 a.m., cleaning their room and fighting.  I'm not even joking.  I hadn't had coffee, yet, and I was handing out threats.  Isn't that cruel?  (I mean, cruel of THEM.)

So...
First, a package from Huntsville and the Hickams:

Okay, you can't see it very well here, but this is a dinosaur muffin pan.  We can now make dinosaur muffins and cupcakes! And be the coolest kids on the block...
(Of course, we're the only kids for 10 miles.  It's pretty easy to be the coolest ones on the block in THAT sort of scenario...)

Rocket Boys caps!

*DISCLAIMER: It gets sorta crazy after the first package, so do realize that I didn't get pictures of every single gift.

Two people who will remain unnamed but who are related to us, checking out the packages...

Another guest who ALSO will remain unnamed, but who might teach 7 brilliant students for a living in the world's best rural school....

Nerf gun...

Another Nerf gun...

(You see where this is going, don't you...?)

The evening disintegrated after this....

Sparky, with our kitten and a foam dart that is just about to enter his right nostril....(well, all the OTHER holes in his head were already plugged!)

The kitten, Cap'n Barbosa (or, I think it may be Barbara-osa) thought we were unwrapping things for HIM.

I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have a cat around on Christmas Eve!  You reach down to pick up a pile of wrapping paper, it twitches and then explodes...cats love Christmas.

 Oh! This was one of the coolest gifts, ever!  Our very own hotel mini-bar, from Wayland's sister Pam.  Snacks, frou-frou sodas, coconut water, liquor, PopRocks, tea...everything.  Tonight, we're checking out the teeny cocktails. 

And Maggie got an art kit from her grandparents that made all the women say, "Awww! I ALWAYS wanted one of those!"  It has everything.  She's already producing art that we should frame....

One last picture....

Santa brought me a Joseph Ribkoff dress that I told Celestia I'd take a picture of.  I love it!

Please excuse the "just out of the shower" appearance, but check out the cut and colors...

Ready for Boston or Huntsville or anywhere life's adventures might occur!

Do you hear what I hear?

Do you have soundtracks; albums or songs that play in the background of certain moments of your life and whenever you hear that song (or songs) you remember that time?  I don't know if I'm overly sensitive to music or what, but I almost always end up with life soundtracks.  Sometimes it's a wonderful thing, to have an instant transport to an earlier time and place...like the Rhinestone Cowboy moments.  Sometimes it's a very hard thing, to be bumbling through the day, not a care in the world, and a song hits right in the gut. 

I almost always try to have new music for big road trips. It seems to make the miles go faster, especially if I'm taking really familiar drives.  And it's almost essential for night driving; this time of the year, it's almost ALL night driving, hm?

Yesterday was my grandma's funeral in Lewistown and that was a lot of driving in familiar country.  On the way up, the roads were a little dicey from Jordan to Sand Springs, so I played music I knew well....it's best not to be trying to focus on ice AND new lyrics.  But on the way home, I remembered I had downloaded (uploaded? I'm never sure...) a couple playlists from Frank-the-gravy-stealer and thought I'd try them on for size. 

He apparently missed the 80s, too, because he'd told me these were songs he'd discovered this summer; happier songs that made him smile. A LOT of the 80's songs WERE sort of crazy, and bouncy, for lack of a better word.  I have to tell you, I have not listened to much (if any) INXS or U2 or Chumbawumba.  The 80s-est *new word alert* stuff I know is Bon Jovi and Madonna.  And only because my friends were listening to them.  Loudly.

It was like some sort of music history class, driving through the Musselshell country, thinking "O-o-o-h-h-h...THAT'S what Bono sounds like!".  And it was crazy to think that when I hear a-ha, I'll think of Grandma Mosby's funeral.  But it was just what I needed, because I can tend to think too much when I'm driving.  It was delightful to have some odd music to eat up the miles and heaviness.

I can tell you this:  I like Dire Straits, U2, and Tom Petty, predictably.  My favorite song was "I Would Walk 500 Miles" by the Proclaimers.  I was not so impressed with The Pet Shop Boys or Talking Heads, but Shaggy surprised me and won me over.  And the jury's out on UB40.  I be 40, too, actually...*sniffle*.

(In a sidenote, here...Grandma's funeral was beautiful, and it was so good to see family I've missed for years. I won't name them here, because as I've told you before, they're very private and I can't take the chance on being disowned because I revealed identities...   :)

The Big Mystery

I told you that Maggie wants a detective kit because she is, after all, a REAL detective.  She just lacked the kit and the mystery...two major components of detecting.

Well, we have a mystery!

It's so exciting!

Yesterday, in the mail, this incredible cookbook showed up with a gift receipt but no indication of the sender.

It's a cookbook that I've been looking at for a couple years, but could never justify buying, simply because it's gorgeous and ostentatious and rahther expensive. At least it LOOKED gorgeous and ostentatious in the pictures.  It's gorgeous, alright.  And if you drop it on your face while reading it in bed, you'll need stitches. But the recipes are completely useful and wonderful!

Maggie is enthralled with the mystery and was looking for scotch tape to lift fingerprints.  She was ALSO speaking of getting a bloodhound, which seems a bit over the top for this sort of case, but every good gumshoe has a sidekick I guess....if nothing else, for effect! 

I thought I'd go the blog route and see if I could find anyone who would actually admit to sending the gift!

If no one comes forward to accept their hug and culinary thank-you present, then I guess I'll have to ask you all to submit fingerprints, DNA samples and a worn sock for the bloodhound.....

Isn't it beautiful?!

Cookie Day 2011

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I'd written or how many life things had happened in the meantime, until yesterday when I was visiting with a friend about Christmas plans and was asked when my family was doing Cookie Day.  Well...
"We did that two weeks ago!" I replied. 
"Thanks for telling me..."

Oops.

I forget that there are some Chronicles readers who have been here long enough that they share quite a history (virtually) and look for certain annual events to be reported. And this is my online album and journal...not like I'm keeping this big scrapbook on my table that I'm adding memories and pictures to all the time. 

So.
Cookie Day.

It was little and quiet, nothing like the big, noisy apron-smocked gathering of last year!  In fact, due to distance, work schedules, illness and other appointments, everyone but Cari Mae and my little family missed it this year.  In looking back at all the Cookie Days we've had...8 in all...we're the only two who've never missed!  (A point we want highlighted and underlined in the annuls of Cookie Day History...)  Thanks to SKYPE, we were able to spend a little long-distance virtual time with Meghan and B.J. and their families, but it only made us miss them more, I think. 

When the kids and I got to Dad's, we hauled in tons of food and cookies, looked around at the tons of food and cookies that Cari and Karen had already prepared, and decided that we needed to call in reinforcements.  But who would answer the phone? Who would brave the waves of cookies and appetizers?

I'll tell you who....
Maggie's teacher and her husband, who don't know what Cookie Day is!
(We like to put them through all sorts of acid Eastern Montana endurance tests...and they keep answering the phone, if you can imagine.)
They called it Cookie-palooza and chalked it up to another "You people are nuts!" experience.  So far, they've noticed the common theme in all our gatherings is Excessive Food. 
Hey, we have to have SOMETHING!

Not many pictures because I just wasn't thinking.  In fact, most of the pictures were taken by Cari with my camera!  But such as I have, give I thee...


Great Grandma Dutton gave Angus one of Gramps' cowboy hats and he wore that thing all day!  And all day the next day.  And the next.  He's still wearing it, two weeks later, playing "radio" (which we finally figured out was "rodeo") in the porch. But that's another post...)

Piles of cookies...about half of what we usually have, though!  But still a respectable showing...
This year, Cari suggested we have a prize of some sort which turned out to be for Best New Recipe (after much discussion).  We tried to get Aaron Carroll to judge the cookies, but he wimped out after about three. Amateur.  :)
I think we decided that Cari won the prize, but I'm doing research for next year already....

Let the decorating begin! See the apron?  We have been waiting all year to bring them back for Cookie Day!

Every job needs an onlooker with good ideas...
Cari and Angus are a team and have been for a couple years now.  I don't know how that got started, but it works great and they're cute!

Great Grandma, getting in on the action...I don't think she ended up with frosting in her hair, even though she sat by Msr. Dollop.

We really are quite serious about our cookies...

Maggie Belle, taking a little break...

Painstakingly placing the final touches on the snowman.  They laughed at my detailing!  But if I'm gonna make a snowman, I want a little orange carrot nose, darn it.  And the only way to find a little orange carrot nose is to pick through all the little shaker thingees until I can find one.  It's a process.  And apparently it's an artiste quirk-y thing that not everyone has....?

This was the first year that Angus didn't end up with more frosting on his face than on the cookies!

Believe me, he got PLENTY of frosting on his cookies. 
Exhibit A:
(We couldn't lift them or they'd break....we had to SLIDE them to move 'em.)

Maggie incorporated all the possible components to make pretty, sparkly cookies!  I love the star on the stocking; that's hard to do, with a butter knife!

The little overdone snowman and his pal in green pajamas....

I'm not kidding; they laughed at the little touches, like blue eyes and stickie-uppie hair!

 THIS snowman made ME laugh, though, because he looks like he's spent some time at the cookie table and is a bit sugared out...
Love his snazzy red scarf, too!

 

Grandma Mosby

When Angus and I got back from preschool, today, there was a very quavery message from my Mom on the answering machine, telling me to call her back right away.  My heart fell, because I could tell it was something awful; I had an idea, but it was still hard to hear that my grandma had died this morning. 

The Mosby side of my family is very private...to the point that sometimes we don't even know what's going on with each other.  We don't pry, we don't share good news or bad unless it's the big stuff like heart attacks, births and deaths, we don't call just to catch up on how life is going.  It's not that we don't love and care for one another, it's just always been like that, you know?

For that reason, I'm not going to do a huge old tribute post about my Grandma Mosby, even though she was a huge influence in my life.  But I want to say SOMETHING...

She's the reason I know there's a difference in off-white paints.  They have undertints that can completely change the tone of the room; pinkish makes it more cheerful, bluish is more calming.  Grandma repainted her rooms almost once a year, in different shades of off-white.  She'd have little paint samples tucked behind picture frames and quiz me about the subtleties of each strip. 

I get my love of strong coffee from her.  Grandma's house always smelled like coffee and Dawn dishsoap. 

Grandma Mosby was fiercely competitive.  She didn't "let" us win at cribbage or other games...if we won, it was because we played well.

She had the most beautiful garden and lawn! I loved helping her in her garden, and laying out on her lawn, listening to the pine trees blow.  I don't know who lives in their old house in Lewistown, but I've been tempted to knock on the door someday and ask if I could lay on the lawn for a little while, remembering...

She could get silly, and giggle.  As bullheaded as she was, Grandma was also able to see the funny in a lot of things, too. 

Grandma had a great sense of style and color, and even though she SAID she didn't like the color red, she looked wonderful when she wore it.  She always had a little scarf over her hair when she went out, to protect her hair from the wind, and she put pink powder on her cheeks to dress up to go shopping. 


There are so many other things, but I will stop there because no one needs to know ALL  the family secrets, right, Brett?  :)

Need....Coffee.....

I guess you know we live 25 dusty miles from the nearest espresso shop and three hours from the nearest Starbucks.  (In Eastern Montana, we don't talk about how many miles away towns are; we say how many HOURS away they are.) Coffee should just be coffee, but it's not, at my house.  I need variety. And good stuff. 

About 6 or 7 years ago, I found a little aluminum, stovetop Italian espresso pot in World Market and immediately knew I had to have it!  It's tiny, but it makes THE BEST espresso and I think it may be fairly common in Italy for homes to have these.  I don't know. (Sara?)  Anyway, I thought I'd post some pictures and see if any of you have one or have used one.  It's been one of those months where I've used mine a lot, needing afternoon caffeine almost daily, but not wanting to make plain old coffee. 

The water goes in the pot under this little strainer...

The fine espresso grounds get tamped down as tight as they can in the little strainer cup.

And the top part of the pot is screwed on, creating one little unit about 8 inches tall from the top of the knob to the counter.

The water in the bottom comes to a boil and the pressure pushes it up through the screen, through a little spout into the top part of the pot...

See? The whole house smells like espresso, now!  This is about a 4 shot serving, which is what I use in my...

 ...Vat O'Coffee!  I heat the milk/cream/sugar in a saucepan on the stove while the espresso is being made, frothing the cream with a regular old wire wisk and a lot of elbow action.  But it's worth it!  No fancy froth designs, but to me it's still beautiful...

Voila!

Ho, ho, ho!

Turns out, Santa was in Miles City on Saturday, doing a little PR.  He stopped by the Airport Inn for fingersteaks and fries before heading back to the Pole and we happened to be eating supper there, after Christmas shopping all day.  Maggie couldn't believe our good fortune and was so excited that she was almost in the door of the men's bathroom to fetch up her brother before we got her stopped!  When Angus FINALLY came out...AGES LATER...Santa came over to say hello and hand out candy canes.  He asked them if they'd sent their lists for sure and Maggie had, indeed, but Angus had not.  But ever prepared, he grabbed his little notepad, whipped one out while Santa was talking to other little kids, and presented it to the jolly old elf forthwith. 

Santa sat down across the way to have HIS supper and the kids didn't take their eyes off him the whole time, poor fellow.  Maggie noted that he wore jeans to Miles City because it's a cowboy town and also that he didn't bring the reindeer because they needed to rest up for the big trip next weekend.  After we finished eating, she was dancing on one foot and then the other, asking permission to take Angus over to sit on Santa's lap.  She ALSO wanted photographic evidence of it, so I had to hustle out to the car for my phone as directed. 

They trotted over to see him, very politely saying, "Excuse me, Santa...can we talk to you for a minute?  And take your picture?" to which Santa replied that he had a little time and found a comfortable seat with good photo backdrops. (I'm always suprised to remember that he's a professional sort, with more experience than George Clooney in setting and ambiance...)

First, the obligatory "Good Kids" shot...

 Then I was excused (but stuck around, anyway) so Maggie could remind him that she wanted a real puppy, a bouncy spring rocking horse and a detective kit.  She informed him that she was a real detective, then added, "If only I could find a crime..." 

Angus is a victim of setting suggestion and couldn't think of anything he wanted except an airplane. (There are model airplanes hanging from every corner of the ceiling at the Airport Inn, of course...)

Maggie kissed him a couple times and they both hugged him big, then took their cautionary "Now be good kids!" statement to heart and told him to fly safe.

We all skipped out to the car...

I thought I didn't believe in Santa, anymore, but now I do, again.

There really IS a kind, jolly man who listens to kids' wishes and cares about thier happiness, who has candy cane breath and knows about reindeer! (Or, as Maggie believes, in Montana he uses mule deer.)

And I'm happy to see that he eats fingersteaks and winks at Martha, the waitress who never takes a day off, EVER.

So, this is Christmas...

Every Christmas, with blind optimism and incredible hope, I think I will have a Christmas that looks like THIS:

(I particularly like her shoes.  I really need to start wearing heels around the house...)

And every year, just as sure as the swallows return to San Capistrano, I end up having a Christmas that looks like THIS:

(You'll note the lack of cute shoes in this picture. Yup...that's how it ends up!)

The Happiest Farmer in Garfield County

Angus brought me this picture of him in a tractor, wearing John Deere clothes, with ONE skinny old stalk of corn and a very hairy looking bale of hay. I can honestly say, I've never, ever seen a farmer THAT happy...period.  Isn't it funny?!  Makes me grin, everytime I look at it!

Out of the blue...

I've been going through hundreds of pictures, trying to sort out good images for the family book I try to put together for the grandparents at Christmas, and found some that I wanted to share with you back in October, but life got busy.  So they are chronologically out of place, here, and will seem really strange now that it's November, but I'm going to post them anyway.

Pluhar Ranch (what it was when I married in), now Lang's Fork is opposed to horses on the place. Pretty adamantly opposed, I might add.  Neither Wayland or his dad are riders; in fact, I think Wayland has only been on a horse twice in his life and never cares to try it again.  Some people are born farmers (this is not a bad thing) and are much more comfortable with machinery as means of moving livestock.  I grew up on a ranch that used ONLY horses (and the occasional bumper of a pickup on bulls) and miss them.  I've been here 13 years and have never seen a horse even come near the border of the place.  So, when my father-in-law told me that our neighbors, Jack and Glen, were bringing their horses over so we could doctor some BIG steer calves, I thought he'd been drinking.  This is big, folks! 

Of course, we took the camera.
It was Wayland's little camera, because I was helping with the process, too, and couldn't very well have my big old Canon hanging around my neck, so the pictures are snapshots.  But still....they're proof that there WERE horses on the place.  And nothing apocalyptic happened! 

Sizing up the bunch...the calves are really big, in October, so it's not like roping them for branding in June.

Caught one!

You see the wrestlers, wisely moving out of the way.  They took a lot of abuse that afternoon and had to step lively on several occasions!

Turned the calf to heel him....

Moving in to doctor.

Concerned mama cow, certain that her baby was being tortured, and not happy about the proceedings!

I love this picture! Check out the cows in the background; you see how they stretch their necks out to bawl for their babies? In books, they're always standing there, rather pleasantly moo-ing, but in real life, when they want to make some noise, they use their whole body.  And they can sure make a ruckus!  The cow in the forefront is suspicious of me with the camera, but she has no time to investigate, really.  We had a tough time with her because she kept rushing the gate when we tried to turn the calf back in with the cows. 

This picture has no significance, other than I liked the perspective and the ropes.



I tried to post the pictures in a larger size, but it cuts off a lot of the image and you miss the WHOLE scene...I think you really need the "big picture" for things like this.

Now.

I'll probably be in trouble for revealing to the entire world that there were horses, here; after all, we have a reputation to uphold.  But I'm guessing it's sort of like those comets that only pass by once every 40 years or so, and there should be some evidence of it for posterity.

JOY