Family – Page 3 – Allyson Daniel

December 1, 2014

I’m still stuffed

Well this had to be one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember. The children were all here with me, we have a new family friend that joined us too, and the rest of the family all gathered at Ma-maw’s house through out the day. Some came for dinner and some just for desert. It was wonderful.

The kids stayed with Ma maw so I could hit the sales Friday. I really saved some money and got most of my shopping done too. I got one of my sons a remote controlled dragon fly. He’s going to love it. I got my oldest son a ‘boom box’ I guess they still call them but this one is remote controlled and he can plug his MP3 player into it and play it through it. Pretty cool I thought.

My daughter is in love with the movie Frozen so I got her several things related to that. I know she’ll be thrilled with them. I’m not finished shopping yet but I’m getting close.

November 26, 2014

Let the cooking begin!!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We’re all getting together at my mother’s house for dinner. Well we’re supposed to meet around 2:00 but I’m sure some won’t be there until around 3:30. My family has a habit of being late. It’s almost a family tradition!!

Yes we are even inviting my childrens new ‘adoptive grandfather’ Charlie too. He’s bringing the turkey. I’m making a carrot cake and everyone else has a dish they are too bring. I love carrot cake and have a recipe my great-grandmother gave me a long time ago. It’s the best carrot cake ever. In fact, here’s the recipe:

Carrot Cake

2 cups grated carrots
1 small can of crushed pineapple not drained
1 1/2 cups Wesson oil (doesn’t have to be Wesson oil)
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (may use 2 if desired but I use 1)
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 eggs
1/2 cup chopped pecans.

Cream oil and sugar together. Add Carrots, pineapple and nuts. Add eggs one
at a time and beat well. Add dry ingredients sifted together.

Bake in 3 layers at 350 degrees approximately 45 minutes or until done by
sticking a toothpick in the middle and it comes out clean.

Frosting for Carrot Cake

1 8 ounce package of creamed cheese
1 stick of margarine
1 box of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup of chopped pecans

Have cheese and margarine soft. Set out of refrigerator a few hours.
Use electric mixer to mix in powdered sugar, vanilla and nuts.

Put in refrigerator after you frost it to make it set better after frosting.

Enjoy!!!!

November 20, 2014

Starting The Christmas Shopping

As much as I hate to do it, I’ve decided that I need to go ahead and start my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. Last year there were a few things that I wanted to get for gifts but ended up having to order them because the stores were out of stock, and the gifts did not arrive until late January! Mark told me that he wants to get his nephew an inexpensive electric guitar for Christmas, so I’m starting now to look online for electric guitars for sale cheap to try to get the best deal and have it arrive in time for Christmas. Wish me luck!

November 17, 2014

Excited

I love holidays and getting together with the family. I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year and cannot wait for the day to arrive. There are a few things I can get done and out of the way early, but the rest will begin on the morning of. I hope that everyone shows up, as I know that many of them have more than one place to stop at in their travels.

I prefer to stay at home anyway, so cooking doesn’t bother me at all. Plus, I have the added bonus of not having to really cook for days afterwards because there are so many left overs. There is nothing better than turkey sandwiches and such. I think I will start on a couple of the pies tomorrow. That will keep me busy anyway, what with all the cleaning I have to do. Time to get all of the laundry done today, so I won’t have to mess with it later. Have a great day!

November 11, 2014

Veterans Day

I’m not that close to my family and am not sure how many people within my family have served in the military but today is the day to honor those that are veterans. There’s a local steak house that gives a free meal to all veterans that come in. It’s amazing to see the range of ages of these that served.

In this time of two wars, it’s easy to thank a veteran but there aren’t many left from WWII. I hope they know how much our country appreciated them. They fought one of the worst wars our country was ever in. They fought for people around the world that couldn’t fight for themselves, the Jews.

Let’s all make sure to thank a veteran today. If you don’t know one personally, it doesn’t matter, find one. Just look on their cars and you’ll see a Marine Corps sticker or maybe a ‘Retired Army’ sticker. Go up and tell them ‘Thank you for what you did for me and my family’ and shake their hand. They deserve to stand tall today and every day.

My children wanted me to put this picture on to honor the soldiers so this is from my children.

October 23, 2014

Meeting Charlie for pizza

Charlie had invited the kids and I to Pizza Hut for dinner tonight. At first I wasn’t sure but since I did check him out pretty good, I thought we might enjoy a night out so I accepted his invitation. I have talked to him a couple times over the past couple of weeks and so far, he seems harmless. I just hope it stays that way.

He says he has a surprise for the kids. I have no idea what to expect but I’m not going to accept much from him until I’m sure he’s just what he seems to be and that’s a nice older man looking to share a moment or two with kids to help make his life fuller since he’s all alone. I feel sorry for anyone that is alone because I know how that feels.

October 17, 2014

Need a new guitar bag

I am so angry at Shawn’s dog right now I could just scream! I have asked Shawn repeatedly to not let that dog roam around the house un-supervised when I am not at home. Do you think he would listen to me and honor my request? Yeah, right! That stupid dog has chewed up my guitar bag, so now I need to go online to see MF and try to get a new one delivered by the weekend. I don’t have the time to run into town to pick one up. I’m going to make Shawn pay for the new bag and the expedited delivery charge, too! I guess I should just be glad that the stupid dog didn’t ruin the guitar, too!

October 11, 2014

Well I checked him out

I found a web site that tells you if there is a child molester in what ever radius you choose. There was no Charlie Benson listed which was a relief to me. I even looked up the number he gave me and it is registered to a Charles Benson so I think he’s okay so far.

Then I found a web site that lets you check criminal records. Again, no Charlie Benson. This seems so far to be just a nice older man who is lonely and wants a family to love. I’m going to take it slow and easy and see if I can learn more so I can really make sure my kids are safe with him. You just can’t be too careful these days with yourself and especially your children.

October 5, 2014

Time to find a pumpkin

Today the kids and I went to a local pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkin to make a Jack-o- lantern from. We found it and the darn thing cost $25 dollars. Needless to say, I couldn’t afford it. As we were walking away with one screaming and crying “I want THAT pumpkin” and the other two with long faces, a kind older man heard what was going on.

As I was getting everyone in the car, someone tapped me on my shoulder. It was the gentleman that had been near enough us to hear the children cry and me say “I just can’t afford $25 for a pumpkin.” There he stood with that pumpkin in his hands saying “Here, this pumpkin really needed to go home with your kids. It was crying when you left it so I had to get it for the kids so they all could be happy.” My children started hooting and hollering and each one gave the kind man a big hug and said thank you.

There I stood with tears in my eyes. This kind soul was my guardian angel at that moment and I could plainly see it in his eyes. I gave him a hug and told him that he had no idea how much I appreciated his selfless kindness. He told me his name was Charlie Benson, gave me his phone number and told me that if I needed anything to help with the children for Christmas, to please let him know. He didn’t have any family to spoil and would love to adopt my children as his grandchildren if that was okay. He then asked if he could call from time to time to just speak with them and hear how their day or week had been.

I’m a bit nervous about giving him my number and I hate to say it but I will check him out before I allow him to be much of a part of my children’s lives. You can’t be too careful in this day in time but my heart tells me he is what he appears to be, just a kind old man with no one who wants to help. I sure hope so because my children would love to have a ‘Grandpa’ to spoil them all.

September 29, 2014

I just had to share a laugh with you!!

Granny is eighty-eight years old and still drives her own car. She writes:

Dear Grand-daughter,

The other day I went up to our local Christian book store and saw a ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ bumper sticker. I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting. So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper.

Boy, am I glad I did; what an uplifting experience that followed. I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn’t notice that the light had changed. It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn’t honked, I’d never have noticed. I found that lots of people love Jesus! While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy, and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, ‘For the love of God! Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO!’ What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus!

Everyone started honking! I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love! There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach.

I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air. I asked my young teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant. He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something. Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii, so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back. My grandson burst out laughing. Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!! A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed. So, grinning, I waved at all my brothers and sisters, and drove on through the intersection.

I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that. I had to leave them after all the love we had shared. So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!!
Will write again soon,
Love,
Granny