Sunday, December 16, 2012

Christmas Program and Lots more

Friday night the Army Band was at the civic center. It was really good--and it was free!
It was really very warm, especially in the balcony, so I was glad we hadn't worn Christmas sweaters. Jasmine was wearing the white shirt she wore in our family photo. She's young enough to get away with "stripping down" in there. 


We had cookies and popcorn at home afterwards.  Adam and Kaleb stayed home from the concert together.
Last night and again this afternoon. Jessica and Jasmine were in the church Christmas program.






The opening orchestra number. Jessica is the inside end saxophonist.




Here is a video of the youth choir:


I received this blender as an engagement present so it's about 25 years old (it's darkened a lot with age). It still runs well, but  the morning smoothies I've been making for everyone don't fit. A standard blender holds 5-6 cups. What I put in is: 1/2 of a 32 oz container of yogurt, 2 cups of  OJ (with calcium added and no pulp), 1-2 bananas, 1-3 cups of frozen fruit thawed, 1/4 wheat germ, 1 table spoon flax seeds. That sounds disgustingly healthy, but it's actually quite good. I don't even like yogurt, but I don't mind it in this. I can't have much due to the lactose though. Jessica doesn't like the smoothies due to the yogurt, so I may have to create something without a yogurt base.

Yesterday I bought an Oster party blender. It holds 8 cups!

Everything fits! With room left over.

If you have any ideas for smoothies, let me know.

If you are shopping for children or preteens please go to my other blog HERE and check out my books.  Authors who write for the Christian market generally only make 30 cents -80 cents a book (unless you're Karen Kingsbury or Jerry Jenkins or another A list author) so it takes a while to add up.


Kaleb and Jasmine with cookies sent from Grandpa and Grandma Cassel.


Watching Rudolph



Another busy week coming up with parties, appointments and games. Jasmine goes to Nemours to check out the ankle problems on Thursday. It's three hours each way and of course that's the day of her band party, but we need to do it. I told her we'd make sure she got to go to the youth group party Wednesday evening to make up for it. Usually she doesn't go Wednesday evenings due to too much homework. Thankfully now that she's in middle school, her choir meets Sundays before the evening service.

Some of us were going to go to Sea World over vacation but have decided not to due to finances--SUV repairs a couple of months ago and everything breaking down. But we'll go another time. We have plenty to do right here.



Jeff in Kyrgyzstan on his way to Afghanistan

Hope you are all having a great holiday season so far. What's up next for you or are you through it all already? Leave a comment, let us know. Sometimes it's too quiet on here.

5 comments:

One Crowded House said...

that blender looks awesome... I need a new blender- we got ours out the other day and noticed that the bottom part where the blade goes was completely melted into one chunk of plastic. I'm not sure if it got stuck in the dishwasher and melted- or a kid used it and the blade was stuck and burned out- but it looks scary!

We are mostly done with everything this week except for the kids' parties during the school days. And trying to keep the rest of the family from getting the flu!

Kathy Cassel said...

This blender was only about $35 at Walmart and it's glass. I'm hoping it has a long and happy life.

Hope your family stays well too!

Hevel said...

8 cups is around 2l, right? That's an impressive blender size!

Most of the festivities are over for us. I almost said that this Year Chanukah was early in the Gregorian calendar, but then next year it will begin before the American Thanksgiving day, so yeah. Some of the kids will go to a Russian New Year's party, but won't stay late, because they have school the next day.

Kathy Cassel said...

According to the conversion chart it's 1.89 liters. So pretty close. I know when we buy a two liter bottle of soda it says 8-one cup servings.

The blender holds a lot but it doesn't seem to have as much power as my old, which would quickly blend the bananas and such.

Do they adjust the school calendar for Chanukah?

Hevel said...

The funny thing is that the only dates determined by the Greforian calendar for the school years is the beginning and the end. Everything else goes by the Jewish calendar, which, btw, is the official calendar for Israel. Even though the school year for primary and secondary schools start a few days/weeks before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, we refer to the year by its Hebrew date. So what you call the 2012-2013 school year we just call year 5773.

Next year it will be like the kids start school, go for a week, then they are off for 2 days for Rosh Hashanah, then go for about a week, then about two weeks off for Yom Kippur and Sukkot. But the year after Rosh Hashanah doesn't begin till a month after school starts. The same works for Chanukah, Passover and all the other holidays. We have the same number of school days each year, it just changes when the holidays are. When my twins were in first grade they didn't start to even work on the foundations of reading till after Sukkot, because of how close everything was to the beginning of the school year, but my nephew, who is a year younger, knew like 3 letters by Yom Kippur.