Dinner Club Christmas

For the past five or six years (girls, how long has it been??) some dear teacher friends and I have enjoyed cooking, sharing recipes, and eating the delicious creations we make at our Dinner Club. We all love to cook, enjoy being together, and the combination of the two makes for many fun times. Every year our Christmas gathering includes our hubbies (though not pictured here). We all missed sweet Sara and her husband, Alex, last night who were busy entertaining family from out of town; and also my hubby, Jim, who was feeling under the weather. At one time we all taught at the same school, and all taught first grade. That's when this club came about. Even though now only two of the girls are still employed teachers (Angela teaches third grade, and Julie teaches kindergarten) we have continued to meet every couple of months to catch up on the "news" and to enjoy a meal together. (I should add that we all continue to teach in one way or another, too. Adri homeschools Cole, her second grader, and Annika, her preschooler; I work as a sub and have "Grandma school" occasionally for Joel and Silas; and Sara is constantly teaching her darling little girls, Caroline (4) and Maddy (2) at home).

Left to right: Me, Angela, Adri, and Julie (Sara is missing!)

We take turns hosting. The hostess's job is to secure a date for the next dinner club, prepare an entre' and provide the beverages. We all enjoy creating a theme-decorated table at times and often include a "favor" for each of the gals, though that is not an expectation. The rest of us take turns opting to bring either an appetizer, a salad, a bread, or a dessert which rounds out a wonderful meal. Each of us bring copies of the recipes we prepared which we then add to our wonderful Dinner Club Cookbooks that Julie made for each of us a few Christmases ago.

Our cookbook

At one point, Sara had the idea to add a DC Journal, passed from hostess to hostess, who records the menu and special events of the night. Somewhere along the way (??) the journal may or may not have been completed, so at times is a somewhat sketchy account of our gatherings. All in all, our dinner club has been a successful and enjoyable adventure for us. Hmmm, let's see . . . who is supposed to be planning the next gathering?? (I think it might be me!)

Wiseman

It's such a blessing to have our grandsons live so close, especially when special events occur. On Thursday Gpa Jim and I were able to go see Joel perform as a wiseman in his 4 year old preschool program at Isaac Newton Christian Academy. He doesn't look like he was experiencing stage fright at all!
The program was so cute. As the school principal narrated the Christmas story, each child had a chance to say a line or two at the appropriate time, for example, several different times during the story, the angel spoke "Do not be afraid!" I love how the kids are all doing such random things in the picture below.

We are proud of our sweet little wiseman!!

Paramedics and Policemen

Well I've finally experienced 911. Last Sunday they came for me! Here's the story: I woke up Sunday morning with bad "heartburn" pain accompanied by an ache in my upper back. I took some Tums, hoping it would go away, and went to church. I felt sleepy during church and on the way home had a sort of sharp stabbing pain right in that breastbone/back area. When we got home, I crawled immediately into bed - felt awful. I did take two more Tums hoping again that it might help. I also knew that for heart disease in women two of the major signs of heart attack are heartburn and upper back pain (one can also have shortness of breath, dizziness, and nausea). I have heard that women having a heart attack can experience just one or all of these symptoms. I might have done nothing, but after I mentioned how I was feeling to Annie when she called, she and Justin insisted that I go see a doctor. (Justin sells drugs to cardiologists and is very familiar with symptoms of heart attack). It was such a drama. I first called the nurse associated with our insurance company to determine if this was really an emergency. After tons of questions, her advice: After you hang up, take an aspirin, lie down with your head elevated, and call 911. What??? Okay, I've never done it before, but thought I'm into this now, so I guess I will. Maybe it will prevent me from having to go to the emergency room. If they come and check me out, say I'm okay, then all is well. They came about 10 minutes later, five guys in all, and I felt so silly lying on the couch. Though the pain was still there, I didn't feel like it was worth all of this attention! When they checked me out, though they couldn't determine whether or not I was experiencing a heart attack, they did say I needed to follow up by going to the hospital. I chose NOT to go on the ambulance - Jim was still home (having to call the elders at church to say he couldn't make their noon meeting, nor pick up the pizza he had ordered!) and said he would take me. Thankfully they took us right away at St. Luke's emergency room, and a couple of hours later I was free to leave. I had an IV, an EKG, a blood test, and was given some sort of cocktail to drink (it numbed my mouth and throat for 30 minutes - weird). I think the purpose of that was to see if it took care of the "heartburn" pain. It didn't. Of course, after receiving discharge papers, I was told to follow up with a cardiologist this week to have a cardiolite treadill stress test. I was now in over my head. I ultimately decided I might as well run the entire gamut and then receive peace of mind for future occurrences.

If that wasn't enough for one week, yesterday I was coming home from a haircut appointment. Shawn (my hairdresser) and I had just finished talking about how much we hate driving in the winter weather conditions. After we hugged goodbye, wishing each other a Merry Christmas, etc., we both told each other to drive carefully. Just 5 minutes later as I was driving home on Blairs Ferry Road, I was rear-ended. Yup! I was doing my best to drive carefully, but it's sometimes the other drive you have to worry about. Katy, the other driver, said she was sorry, handed me her insurance card, and as I was sitting in my car copying down the info, a police officer drove up to assist. He first asked me if I was okay (thoughtful), then asked me to drive onto the first turn-off, and gave us forms to fill out. About 30 minutes later we were free to drive home. He told me that because of the poor road conditions he didn't issue Katy a ticket, but that she was clearly at fault. He handed me her info, gave me his name and badge number, and finally I was on my way home. Ah, the joys of winter!

Jorie's Birthday

Today our firstborn, Jorie Lynn, is 32 years old. So how old does that make us, her parents?? I hate that about our kids' birthdays - their getting older means we're really getting older. But her birthday holds such special memories for us. We had wanted a child so desperately, and then when she arrived right in the middle of the Christmas season, she was the most perfect gift. It was so easy that year to imagine the Christ child in the manger as we sang the Christmas carols and gazed at our newborn daughter.

This year we're enjoyed for the second year in a row the gift of having her and her family live just down the street. I was able to bake her a cake, babysit the boys while she and Mark enjoyed dinner out, and then Jim and I could be there to enjoy a little family party. It is still a sort of miracle to know that God entrusted her to us to nurture and raise, and now the joy continues as we still share in her life with her own little family.

Growing up Jorie was our child who enjoyed music the most. She was in a community children's choir, the high school choir, took voice lessons, participated in voice competitions, and also took piano lessons. Though she never was thrilled about having a birthday so close to Christmas, she HAS enjoyed celebrating her birthday by attending Christmas concerts. Last Saturday (as a birthday gift to Jorie) Jim and I treated Jorie and Mark to dinner out and a Christmas concert performed by Tribute, a local women's trio. Tribute has been performing Christmas concerts now for 10 years here in Cedar Rapids. They have become so popular that by mid-October tickets for their shows are usually sold out. We made sure to purchase our tickets as soon as they were available, and then enjoyed the concert together last Saturday. It was fun to be out with our kids and begin the Christmas season in such a festive way.

Settling In

I just spent three days staying at Annie and Justin's doing my "grandma thing" now that Claire is home. Annie and Justin are already so relaxed and confident with their new daughter. They seem to know what her different cries mean, know her eating schedule, and they tend to her so tenderly as new parents do. They marvel over every tiny sound and behavior their child displays. And they already see her changing daily. They noticed especially while I was there that she seems to be awake more each day, and is opening her eyes for longer periods. They are dealing as well as they can with the oxygen tubes and monitor, even though it makes things much more complicated. We are all praying that on Friday when she sees the doctor, they will say that she is strong enough now to breathe on her own. That would be such good news!

Since the kids were doing so well with Claire (about the only thing Annie really needed me for was to help with managing all of the tubes during bath time), I just spent my time cleaning, doing laundry, preparing meals, feeding and entertaining Sadie (their cat, who is feeling somewhat neglected), and cuddling Claire as much as possible. Annie and I also enjoyed chatting and marveling over the miracle of life and motherhood.

Christmas Sweeties

Two of my little sweeties came over this morning for some Grandma time. We enjoyed some favorite Grandma toys, played hide and seek, and then enjoyed doing a project together. Last year I had seen a cute cookie idea in one of my magazines that I cut out and filed. Recently while looking through my recipes for Christmas baking, I came across it and knew right away who would enjoy making these cookies with me - two little elves who live down the street!

Joel and Silas worked so hard to carefully place marshmallows, red hots, and M & M's in just the right spots to create Santa's jolly face. No one knows just how many of those goodies ended up being popped into their mouths, but there were enough left over to complete a dozen cookies. Joel carefully counted out eight marshmallows for each of his cookies - just the right amount he thought he needed to make Santa's full beard.

Silas proudly displays one of his finished creations.

The boys definitely had a good time and look like jolly elves as they display their Santas. Below it looks like someone really enjoyed that red frosting!

Homecoming and Pumpkin Pie

The day of homecoming finally arrived for little Claire on Tuesday, December 2 (her daddy's birthday!) following twelve days in the NICU. What a happy day that was - cold and wintry, but the Schumacher home was cozy and warm with a new baby sleeping by the Christmas tree. She was sent home along with a couple of 175 pound oxygen tanks which she needs to be hooked up to for awhile. Though the doctor said the oxygen will be needed for about two months, Annie and Justin are hoping and praying that Claire will do so well in her adjustment to home that she will be off of it much sooner. For now it is necessary to walk gingerly and carefully throughout the house to avoid cords and tubes that reach from room to room. Occasionally the monitor goes off, but it is usually caused only by an occasional shallow breath or two. Granpa Jim and I were able to finally bring Thanksgiving dinner to them. On Wednesday, December 3 we belatedly enjoyed turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberries, veggies, rolls, pumpkin pie and chocolate mousse cake. It was definitely worth waiting for. And our hearts were truly thankful as we held and admired our precious grand daughter.