Russell Family Blessings

I am not sure what was so different, but we had the best Christmas this year! It just seemed that everything just went well. Praise the Lord for our family!!! It was great getting to spend time visiting! I've included some pictures from "The Day." Maybe I will be more regular in updating. I really do want to get back to blogging! My children are growing up so fast, I can hardly keep up! As you can see, I don't have babies anymore! Eli is 12, Max is 9 and Oki is 4... Last but not least...our traditional family picture at my sister's house on Christmas night...

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This recipe is super yummy! I have gotten so many requests for the recipe that I thought I'd share it here. As much as I would like to, I can't take credit for the recipe! I got it several years ago from a friend at work...I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! Santa Fe Soup Ingredients: • 1 lb. Ground Beef • 1 lb. Baby Link Sausage (sliced) • 1 med. Onion (chopped) • 1 can black beans • 1 can red beans • 1 can pinto beans • 2 cans white kernel corn • 2 cans diced tomatoes • 2 packages taco seasoning mix • 1 package ranch dressing mix • 2 cans water Brown ground beef, sausage and onion together. Drain. Place in crock pot and add other ingredients (do not drain water from any cans). Cook for about 2 hours. Serve with shredded cheese and sour cream. Corn Chips are also great with it. Sometimes I substitute ground venison instead of beef. Using spicy sausage and seasoned tomatoes also gives it a little extra kick! Happy Cooking!

About the only thing I like about hunting season, aside from the fact that my husband loves it, is that I am afforded a little free time. Wayne is usually occupied at the hunting club this time of year, so I often find myself with some extra time. This year has been especially good already. Wayne has been helping out at home a lot more by organizing things (anyone who knows me well, knows that I am anything but organized!) and insisting that we ALL pitch in to keep things neat. I have been so pleasantly surprised at how much better our home is running and how neat everything is! With the house staying in order and hunting season upon us, I have really been able to do a lot of sewing lately! I have had the best time the past two Saturdays at my friend, Valerie's house sewing with her. She is so gracious to allow us to intrude and make a huge mess! Our girls play while we talk and sew...I am including a few pictures of my recent projects. These two were shirts that I embroi

Anyone that knows me and has been around me at all knows that I love to bake a pound cake! I have been using this recipe since I was about 18 years old...if you know how old I am, that's a long time! My sister gave me this recipe, where she got it I don't know. For years, I made it using margarine. I always got compliments on it, but it wasn't until I switched to butter that it really did become "THE BEST EVER!" I promise you this: BUTTER REALLY DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE! I'm not one of those people that doesn't share recipes so here goes... BEST EVER POUND CAKE Ingredients: 3 *4 Sticks Butter, softened 1- 8 oz Bar Cream Cheese, softened 3 Cups Sugar 2 T. Vanilla Flavor 3 Cups Cake Flour 6 Eggs Cream butter and cream cheese together. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add 1 cup flour and 2 eggs. Beat at medium speed. Continue adding 1 cup flour and 2 eggs until all are mixed in. Beat until smooth. (About a min

I do realize that this post is...oh, something like 4 months late. But, I still wanted to post it! I actually uploaded all of the pictures about 3 months ago, but never typed the post. I wish I had enough energy, time and productivity to do all of the things that roll around in my mind. I might be dangerous then!!! Anyway... During Opp's Spring Break in March, our family took a trip to Bryson City, North Carolina. A couple in our church offered us the use of their cabin there and we jumped on the opportunity. We had never been to the mountains before and we were so in awe of the beauty of God's creation there. We had a very low-key get away, not "doing" and "going" constantly. We left after school on Wednesday and returned on Sunday afternoon. It took us about 9 hours to get there. We couldn't believe how well the children did on the drive! One day, we went up the road a few miles to the Cherokee Indian Reservation. There, we enjoye

Wayne and I have had a wonderful day!!! I am super worn out from walking, walking, walking eating way too much! We both enjoy history, so Natchez is right up our alley. We began our day at the Natchez City Cemetery. I know I'm not well traveled, but I have never in my life seen such a large cemetery. The tombstones, gravemarkers and mausoleums were amazing. It's neat to think about all the lives that are represented by each marker. It is also very humbling to know that really all that will be left of us in a few years is a marker. I was so saddened to see all of the children's graves. As I walked around looking, I mourned for their mothers. I can only imagine their heartbreak. The view below is from one of the Jewish sections of the cememetary. The next photo was taken on bluff in the cemetery overlooking the Mississippi River. Our next stop was St. Mary's Bascillica in downtown Natchez. I've never been inside a Catholic Church before. This building was beautiful!!!

I feel like the most terrible blogger! Several blogposts sit unfinished in my "dashboard" and many ideas are swimming in my brain, but none ever seem to materialize here. Since I'm on vacation and Wayne is watching a baseball game on TV, I thought I'd take a few minutes to update. My last post was an anniversary post. Let me tell you about my anniversary...I went to VBS! If you read my last post, you will know that my wonderful and romantic husband planned a trip for us...We drove 6.5 hours west to our destination of Natchez, MS. I didn't know where we were going until about 1.5 hours before arrival! We are staying at an Antebellum home called Monmouth Plantation . It is a wonderful and beautiful place! This is the main house. Our room is actually in the renovated kitchen area. This picture was taken this morning near our room on Monmouth Plantation. The grounds here are beautiful and cover about 30 acres. Today, we toured another Antebellum home called Longwood.

I just had to type it out!!! Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband!!! Fifteen years is a long time, but it has flown by! See my post from two years ago to see some pictures of us then. I feel so blessed by God to have such a wonderful and Godly husband and father to my children. We have been so completely crazy busy at our house lately, so I haven't given much thought to our anniversary other than to be a little sad that we wouldn't be able to celebrate on "the day." So, when I went to the kitchen first thing and saw a box of gourmet chocolate on the bar, I thought that was the end of the anniversary surprises...boy was I wrong! After I arrived at work, Wayne called and told me that there was an envelope in the console of my SUV. I was expecting a card or letter (he writes me often) or maybe even a gift certificate for a pedicure...I was definitely in for a surprise! I cannot describe to you how pleasantly surprised I was to find an amazingly sweet card an

This afternoon I took all three children to the beauty shop for haircuts. First of all, getting haircuts for all three children in one afternoon is enough to make me want to run away! I can only imagine how Nonnie felt by the time she was done! Between the volume of the T.V. where Eli and Max were being entertained and Oki running around like a complete maniac, I really needed a pill for anxiety! Anyway, I guess all of the trouble was worth it because I now have two very happy boys (they’ve been begging for haircuts for two weeks) and one cute little girl! As you can see in the picture below, Oki's hair has gotten very long. A few months ago, I began thinking about cutting it for Locks of Love or some other charitable organization. We've been debating about waiting to cut it or going ahead. After talking to Oki about it, she has become very excited about giving her hair to "some little girl who doesn't have any." I've also become quite tired of worrying with a

I came across a blog a few weeks ago when I saw a post on another blog. I went there and read it from the beginning. It brought to the forefront of my mind just how quickly our lives can change. Lane Ann Miller is a woman in need of a miracle. Please check out her story and pray for her... Click here to read her story.

I am really beginning to feel on top of things. Here it is January 4th and I'm writing my second post of the year!!! Yea! I hope this is a prediction of things to come in 2010... Eventhough I may be off to a good blogging start for 2010, I know that I'm actually behind since I'm just now blogging about Christmas. This Season was so very strange and sad, too. I won't mention everything that happened, but the Season began to take a turn 'south' when two weeks before Christmas, Wayne began to get sick. He started coughing and feeling generally yucky...which let Dr. Russell (that's me) to suggest some good cough medicine. After a couple of days on that, he developed a prostate infection. (Which we now know was probably brought on or at the least aggrivated by the cough medicine. He had no prior problems in this area.) I knew he must be very sick when he called me at work to tell me that he had made his own dr. appt. (with no prompting from me!) The dr. prescribe