Thanks-Christmas 2007!

As some of you know, for the last three years, the Rankin girls, their families, and their parents have been getting together for what is now known in our family as Thanks-Christmas. As more of us got married and moved out of state, it become important to find a time to reserve for us to spend a couple of days together for some QT, a good meal or two, and to celebrate both Christmas and Thanksgiving. So, we now do our Thanksgiving and Christmas all wrapped up in one, hosted by someone different each year. Here are some pictures from 2007's Thanks-Christmas celebration...complete with "Gobble til You Wobble" t-shirts Karen had made for us this year. This year's celebration was hosted by Kori and Ben at their home in Indiana.

There are more pix....but this is all I had the patience to upload tonight. I'll do more later....I promise!

Emma...holding Emma.

Kori and Ben scored big time with this little tutu (sp??) for Ella. I can't decide which was the best part though? When she bowed after she put it on, or when she got stuck inbetween some things later on because it was so big!

Anna looking so pretty with her new blue vest.

Nick and I are just sure that this was Scott's favorite gift! (yes, we got it for him!)

All of us girls...with our "Gobble til You Wobble" t-shirts on.

Jacob hanging out with Grandma Cooper...and laughing at his dad on the couch, I think.

Ella getting comforted after one of the many times she accidentally got hurt this weekend!

Jacob - Old Mr. Blue Eyes himself.

A long lost Rankin sister???

I was flipping through the channels the other day and caught a re-run of Oprah. They were showing some makeovers. What caught my eye was this girl! I think she might be a long, lost sister or something!!!

http://www2.oprah.com/beauty/hair/slide/20071102/haircut_003.jhtml

Another picture from work!

Every year at Thanksgiving my office sends thank-you baskets of Amish goodies to the companies we work with. This year we decided to have a picture taken to include in our Thankgiving letter we also send with the box. Our office manager joked around during a meeting that having our picture taken with a grain pile at the elevator would be indicative of this year's harvest. We started out with the photographer at the local pumpkin patch for the more formal, serious pictures. But, he thought the idea of the grain pile was pretty good. So, we headed over to an elevator we work with. This is one of the ornerier pictures we took of just the girls from the office.

Friends from Work

A couple of weeks ago was Homecoming in Arthur, IL...home of the largest Amish community in Illinois. Homecoming in Arthur is kind of neat. Everyone lines one side of a street to see one side of the Homecoming parade. Then, after the parade has passed, you walk over to the next street over so that you can see the other side of the parade. That way you can see people on both sides of a float. Kind of quaint, huh?

Anyways, I went with two friends from work: Bobbie and Genny. On the way back to the car, Genny was walking behind me, and I heard a voice all of a sudden say, "Kelly, can you help me???" I turned around, and Genny had walked underneath a branch and gotten her hair caught in a branch. True friend that I am, I said, "No, but I'll take your picture...hehehe!" So, I snapped away while Genny tried to wrestle her hair away from the tree.

Sorry for the bad pix...I've been meaning to edit them for a month and haven't found the time...or perhaps the patience!

You Know You're Married to a Farmer When....

....you look up one day and realize someone has been 'decorating' with their hat collection. At this moment I'm wondering where the belt buckle collection is at....

Happy Birthday, Claire

Claire turned two last Sunday. We got to see her open her gifts at a family cook-out. Depsite the fact that Claire's dad despises Dora the Explore, someone actually got her a Dora activity book. Hmmmm....wonder who that was.

Nostalgia?...or Insanity?

So, a few of my new friends down here are big 'canners'...aka they are really into canning salsa, homemade ketchup, tomato juice, jelly, etc. I had forgotten how good canned tomato juice was until Arlene gave me a couple of cans the last couple of winters. Nick and I couldn't believe how much better our chili tasted with the home-canned tomato juice; so, we would save our precious few cans of it for 'special days.'

After we moved to the country this past spring, we decided to put a few tomato plants out (well, we put other vegetables out too, but honestly the tomatoes are the only thing that we actually harvested besides a few green peppers).

A few weeks ago, me and two friends made plans to can tomato juice. When I was growing up, mom used this tomato juicer contraption called a Squeezo; so, I got onto ebay (what I like to call 'the digital attic' where you can find all crazy things from your childhood....like the book "Little Visits from God," an Ethan Allen trundle bed set, etc.), and I started bidding on Squeezo tomato juicers. I'm glad I did, because it saved us a ton of time compared to the hand-sieve style that you can also get!

Anyways, it's very sad when you can tomato juice. You have buckets and buckets of tomatoes, and you get, like, 6 quarts out of the deal! But we finished the job, and I've actually canned twice since: once with my sister Kori (she'll not visit me again in August when the tomatoes are ripe!) and again today I finished up the last of the tomatoes. There actually might be more, but at this point the garden is so overgrown with weeds that I'm giving up rescuing anymore.

After three hours of work and a couple of buckets of tomatoes, here is my bountiful harvest today: