mix & mingle

John & Stacey hosted our Elders Christmas dinner yesterday afternoon in their lovely home. A gorgeous sunny day in the low 70's. Lots of yummy food and sweet fellowship with dear friends.


Check out the sign above their outdoor fireplace. "It's a Wonderful Life"



Some of our friends and fellow-elders from the church Randy and I have gone to for almost 28 years... since before we were married. It is a precious place where we are known and loved for who we are. Our kids were free to grow and thrive in an environment of grace. We are forever grateful for the sound teaching and ministry expressions we have been a part of for many years.

I'll be home for Christmas

Well, not really... but the memories of "home" are always with me as I celebrate Christmas in our home.
Growing up in a Scandinavian community, we carried on the Norwegian traditions from my Dad's side. My Mom made the usual sandbakkles, rosettes, krumkake and sprits cookies. We always had Lutefisk & Lefse on Christmas Eve along with Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes & gravy. Traditions do not demand that you like them, some you just tolerate... like Lutefisk... but I loved Lefse and Swedish meatballs!
We would open presents on Christmas Eve after my Dad came in from milking. We'd be waiting upstairs while my oldest sister read the Christmas story from the Bible and then my parents would call us downstairs to a living room filled with gifts from Santa! I never could fiqure out how the presents got there... we didn't have a fireplace... we saw neither hide nor hair of Santa & his Reindeer...


That's me on the right at 4 years old... the year I got my pink metal sink, stove and refrigerator. They seemed so real to a little girl! I played with them for years! They were my most memorable Christmas gift!

Then there was the year I was going to get a horse... or so I thought. I wanted one sooo bad and in my little mind I was absolutely convinced that I was going to get one! It was while my Dad was still in the barn that Christmas Eve that the phone rang and it was a man that needed to talk to Dad. Oh my gosh, it had to be the man that was calling to see when he should deliver my horse! Why else would he be calling on Christmas Eve?
Well, long story short, I didn't get my horse that year... or any other year for that matter. But I'm ok... I really am... no really!

Then there was the year that I asked for the 12 inch GI Joe doll. He was brand new in catalogs. I had a couple Barbie dolls... and of course Ken... but when I saw what Joe could do!! He could bend and pose and actually wrap his arms around Barbie, Midge or whomever I planned to hook him up with. So let me tell you what, I was the envy of all my friends when they saw how hunky and masculine Joe was compared to that stiff, uptight Ken... they too wished they had thought to ask for a GI Joe.
Several years ago I saw an article on toys from the 60's and read that if my GI Joe was one of the first made with a scar on his cheek, and MINE DID, he was worth over $300.00! But no way was I breaking up Barbie & Joe... he was a keeper.

Voices singing let's be jolly

DECK THE HALL WITH BOUGHS OF HOLLY (or mittens) !

These are a few of my favorite things

I love my Waechtersbach German dishes! Years ago I bought 6 dinner plates at a Christmas liquidation store for $6.00 each. They were irregulars with tiny imperfections but I was thrilled to have them... never dreaming I would ever afford more! Well, years later at an Elders Retreat up in Pine, Arizona, I found more of these treasures at a little antique store... 4 complete place settings for $25.00! That's like the cost of one plate! But the best deal was when my cousin Shelley in WI sold me her entire collection along w/ 4 wine glasses for only $10.00!! They were even bought in Germany!! Oh and the serving bowl was found at TJ Max for $5.00! Am I blessed or what!


We love when it gets cold enough that we can use our woodstove. We love the smell of burning wood, staring into the fire through the stove window and stockings that were hung by the chimney with care.
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I love my Carolers collection. I named the older gent after my Uncle Stan when he passed away... the woman to Uncle Stan's right is after my Aunt Eva that died a couple years ago. The other woman... well, is just too homely for me to name someone after... sorry, but she is... but she is loved.


I am a smitten mitten nut!! I always have been! My Mom was always knitting mittens and still does. Hey, with 6 kids, she had to! We went through a ton of mittens growing up. So my "mitten garland" has many mittens that my Mom made for my kids and even includes a pair of mittens that I knitted in high school, the varigated blue pair in the far left. Otherwise I have found the others at thrift stores over many years.


Trees, trees and more trees... love em all! Over the summer I bought these trees at a yard sale... all for only $2.00! Such a deal! I couldn't wait to add them to my Village! They seem to be settling in quite well in Newberg.


OK, I made a killer pie last night and well, warm apple pie & ice cream just happen to be a few of my favorite things! So there!

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem

Do you notice anything unusual about my Christmas village?
Take a moment to clic the pic to enlarge... and you'll see...

That's right... churches... it's a village of churches... it's my little town of churches. And did you know there is a town in Oregon that is known for having the most churches per capita? So we even named our little village... Newberg.
I know what you're thinking... why a village of churches? Well, it just kinda happened... it wasn't planned. I would get a couple churches every year or so from friends and family and before I knew it, I had a collection and loved each and every one. We just never got around to adding homes... other than the outhouse I added a couple years ago... oh and the coffee shop I got last year after Christmas.



Randy's ministry has taken him to hundreds of churches all over the country for the past 25 years, doing concerts for every denomination you can think of. So each church in our village sorta reminds us of one of those denominations we've been privileged to share Jesus through our music. Ironically the very first church that started my collection looks alot like the little Lutheran church I grew up attending in rural Wisconsin. And there is even one that looks very much like the Baptist church that Randy was attending when he accepted Christ.


But the best part of the village is the train that runs through it... the N-gauge train that Randy has had since 1970! Don't you just love it? Do you know that my husband loves his train... that he spends hours setting it up and will sit in his chair and watch it go round and round every night? I love that he has the heart of a little boy that still watches in wonder as the train is coming around the bend. I love that he delighted as each of our kids shared in that wonder. I love that he even finds pleasure in sharing it with Koda and Wiley... they get sooo excited when the train starts running for the first time each year!


Miranda sets up the Village every year and well, this year her and her Dad decided that the Halloween Haunted Mansion should be included in the Village... set high on a snowy hill overlooking the Church Village. (the far left corner in the top pic) Rather creepy if you ask me, but then, nobody asked me...

The most wonderful time of the year

Yes it is... wonderful, magical and oh so memorable.


Miranda had no idea that the year Santa brought her a dollhouse... it was really her Daddy's masterful handiwork. He'd work late into the night, day after day, for several weeks till it was completed. Even though we made sure the kids believed in Santa... they also knew they got gifts from us that we wrapped and stored in Randy's office. (which we called Santa's Workshop) So it never occured to Miranda that her Daddy was building her the dollhouse of her dreams in that workshop.


And the look on her face that Christmas morning.... priceless.

Let heaven and nature sing

Sat. Dec. 2nd- Tonight is Randy's Annual Christmas concert.
For the past 15 years his Christmas concert has become a tradition for many around the city as they start the Holiday season. I'm excited and nervous... and anxious to tell you all about it... more later.

It's 11 PM, I'm tired... but so grateful and filled with such peace! The concert was awesome... such a blessing! During the concert, I had this moment where I was totally in the moment... I looked over at Randy as he was sharing and I thought, Lord, you have Your hand on this man and I can't believe I know him, that you have blessed me with this man as my husband. I could hardly sing at times, I was so moved by the music, the lyrics, the powerful message. I had another moment where Shawn is doing this amazing guitar lead on "The Angels Sing" and he is cookin big-time ... and I am bursting with pride, and for a brief moment I remember that I am his Mom, and not just this huge groupy! He's so stinkin good! I am so thankful to have been a part of such an event... and get this... I got to share it with my whole family! Yes, we are all involved in the band... Miranda is on vocals with me, Shawn on lead guitar, and Tyler also sings background vocals. Randy even wrote a song a couple years ago for our whole family to do... it's on his "Through Different Eyes" CD. OK, enough said, I'm really tired now... I'll be posting pics when I can see straight.

Thank you Nancy for taking such great pictures at the rehearsal the Thursday night before the concert. The last one was taken the night of the concert. Love em!

Oh Christmas Tree

how lovely are your branches.


When our kids were little they would sit for hours looking at the ornaments. They knew the stories behind each and every ornament. They knew how traumatized we were the year the tree fell over and broke some of the precious glass ornaments that had hung on their Daddy's tree as a little boy. And they remember THAT being our last "real" Christmas tree. And that's what brought about the tree from Sears. It was 1989, our youngest, Tyler, was 9 months old. My friend Angie and I and Tyler were shopping the after-Christmas sales and came upon a fully decorated floor model Christmas tree at Sears that had been marked down several times to $150.00! Without even talking to Randy, I bought it! That was so not me. They told me to give them a couple hours to take it down and box up everything. Later as they helped load it all into my van they kept throwing in boxes of lights, bags of garland, packages of ornaments, a new tree skirt, extention cords... this was over and above what came with the tree! Why were they being so generous? Well, that Sears closed a couple months later because they had plans to level the entire Mall the next year! I'm thinking they just wanted everything gone! We later calculated my impulsive purchase as retailing close to $1000.00! And after 17 years, we still think it's the most beautiful tree!


Every year when we decorate the tree as a family, we retell those stories, laughing till we're in tears... recalling the year that Tyler insisted on hanging a glow-in-the-dark Halloween bat on our tree... which we now affectionately call the Christmas Bat. We adopted these funny looking space-age glass ornaments from Randy's Aunt Evelyn, that Miranda dubbed Battlestar Galactica ornaments. They would probably bring us a chunk of change on Ebay, but our tree wouldn't be the same without them.


Shawn's favorite is the Sugar Bear ornament that came free in a box of Sugar Smacks cereal in 1990. You squeeze the bear's tummy and it plays Jingle Bells. Well, last year the music stopped. Poor little guy... so we gathered around Sugar Bear and performed open tummy surgery... I opened his tummy... Randy removed the old battery... Shawn replaced it with a new battery (which cost $8.00!)... I sewed him back up and he was as good as new! Sugar Bear lives on. Shawn is now bidding for a Sugar Bear on Ebay so he and Nicole will have their very own... the tradition lives on.

It's beginning to look alot like

CHRISTMAS!

I love Christmas! I love all the hustle & bustle, the giving & receiving. I love the true meaning of what CHRISTmas is all about!
I love that it is cold... for Phx anyway. I love that every day I'm decorating a part of my home for Christmas. I love that we don't do it all in one day... that we drag it out for several days. Let me put it this way, we have to! We have so much! Hey, we didn't get the title of Mr. & Mrs. Christmas by doing the usual tree and Lego Santa collection. Oh... not everyone has a Lego Santa collection? See what I mean. And yes, we did kinda give ourselves that title but most everyone agrees. I admit, we get a little carried away with all our collections and traditions. We do have one of the most extensive collections of Christmas music. We literally decorate every nook & cranny inside & out. But hey, I plan on giving you a little taste, a little peek into what that looks like. I plan on telling you the stories behind the numerous traditions we honor each year. I plan to do this mostly for me... it's a way for me to reminisce and document and photograph and journal and eventually to scrapbook, so that I will not forget... and so that generations will know why they do what they do year after year after year.
Welcome to our home! I hope you enjoy Christmas at our house!

tornado shelter

This is a tornado shelter. This may be the only way you could survive an F5 tornado.
Back in May of '99, an F5 tornado came through the Oklahoma City area destroying everything in its path and killing many people. We're talking winds of 318 mph, the fastest wind speeds ever recorded on earth. I even read that had it measured 1 mph stronger it would have been an F6 and there has never been an F6. We were in Oklahoma City a couple months after the devestation and we could not believe what we saw. You could visibly see the mile wide path of destruction that went on for miles and miles and all that remained was dirt and concrete slabs where homes once stood.
Since then we have been seeing more of these concrete tornado shelters each time we visit ... usually built in the front yard so that many can seek shelter in an emergency. They can hold upwards of 15 people and pets, depending on the size built. Here's the thing, very few homes have basements in Oklahoma. How crazy is that! When I think back on those scary nights when our family had to wait out a tornado in our basement (in Wisconsin), I felt so safe and secure... and to think there are those whose only option is to crawl into a bathtub or a closet and cover themselves with a mattress.
I am very thankful my sister has a neighbor that has invested in one of these state-of-the-art shelters and have made it available to her and others on their street. Of course I'm praying they never have to use it.

our Thanksgiving trip

We made it! The trip to Oklahoma went better than we could ever have dreamed! Let me just say, that we Thompson's are the best travelers ever! We had a blast telling stories, singing, laughing, answering Christmas questions from this fun book that Nicole brought called "The Conversation Piece Collection", watching DVD's and listening to Christmas music. (Imagine watching "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" at 80 mph!) I brought along a knitted scarf kit & my Cathedral quilt to work on, books, magazines, my camera manual, and did not do one of them! I did read a good book on the way home, "More Than I Could Ever Ask" by Lori Graham Bakker. I just love her!


We hit the road by 5 am Wed. morning and 17 hours later we arrived at my sisters home. The next two days were packed with a yummy Thanksgiving spread, Miranda's birthday party, Kathy & I to the park with her grandkids while the others shopped and took in a movie, walks in the woods, snapping tons of pics, finding out Aaron & Brandi are pregnant with baby # 3, singing Christmas Carols while walking through the Festival of Lights in Chickasha, sipping hot chocolate, making turkey noodle soup for the gang, taking more pics of the gorgeous fall colors, raking leaves, holding baby Mya, Randy sore from playing "dragon" with Kennady, Alex & Parker and breakfast at Kristen & Joe's Sat. morning before heading out.
What wonderful memories! What precious loved ones! We are so blessed!










Be sure to click the pics to enlarge!

Miranda's Thanksgiving Birthday

22 years ago your Daddy cried out "It's a girl!!!" You were here! We had our baby girl! Your brother Shawn had a sister! We named you Miranda, meaning "admirable & extraordinary". (the title of Miranda's blog) And you would bring us 22 years of love & laughter, pride & joy and song & dance. You were all girl... imaginative, creative, expressive... just extraordinary! You loved to play dress-up and pretend to be Briar Rose, Snow White, Ariel, and Cinderella.



Before you were even 2 years old you could belt out "Tomorrow" from Annie and "Supercalifragilistic" from Mary Poppins. We were thrilled when you went on to do musical theater in Jr High and High School. You shine on the stage and you shine in life. You are wise beyond your years. Your Dad and I love who you are... a beautiful young woman who loves Jesus, a loyal trusted friend, a precious loving daughter.



Miranda & Disneyland. Magical & Captivating. Need I say more. She's been every Disney princess for Halloween. She knows every Disney song. She is still as excited to have her picture taken with a Princess as when she had her first pic at 2 years old.







Here she is with her brothers and sister-in-law at the Hat Shop in Disneyland. Oh and btw, when Miranda is not watching movies or Grey's Anatomy & Lost or hanging with friends, she is an instructor at the Arizona School of Message Therapy. We couldn't be more proud.


Shawn & Nicole had a "silver & gold" party and Miranda won for best girl costume. See, she still loves playing dress-up!

the meal

How cool that we have a holiday that centers around a meal. We gather our friends and family around a table, give thanks and share in a meal. I love that! A day set aside to come together in thanks for our many blessings. And those less fortunate can share in a meal that has been donated and prepared for them and thousands alike who are lost, alone and hungry. They will be in our thoughts and prayers along with those that are spending the day serving them.

My family is traveling to Oklahoma City on Wednesday to have Thanksgiving with my sister Kathy and her family. The six of us will be in a mini van for 16 hours so please pray for our safety as we travel. We will have two days with them before we head back to Arizona. I can hardly wait to see my niece and nephew and their spouses and precious children. Little ones just make the Holiday Season even more memorable. Thank God for digital cameras and pictures galore!

I am so grateful for the memories of my past, the present opportunities that I have to make more and a future full of hope. Life is about choices... choosing to accept what was and what really matters and what will make a difference in my life. As I have said before, I love a good story. I love knowing that the stories of my life have taught me so much and will continue to teach me about who I am and who I am free to become. I wish I wasn't always so resistant to the process... but I am slowly letting go and letting God take control... so I am free to give my life away... knowing He provides everything I could ever want or need.
THANKS God for GIVING me Your peace and joy today.

fab finds

How cute is this birdhouse! Love the galvanize roof tops and three drawers for storage... only $3.00! And it's big! I have always had this thing for threes. I have plans to do a scrapbook called, "We Three...". (three kids, three brothers, I'm the third daughter... you get the picture)




I have been looking for the perfect storage for my tiny scrap embellishments. Old and new spice racks are the rage for such storage. Well, I finally found mine... perfect size, takes up very little table space and it rotates. AND for only 50 cents! But let me tell you, it was gross... covered in gobs of grease and grim but well worth the hours of soaking and scrubbing. I have plans to decorate the white lids and give it some character and charm.