My Sunday Six on Saturday

I am posting my Sunday Six a day early because tomorrow I have church from 9 to 12 a.m., a luncheon open house to attend at a friend's home 25 miles away from 1-3 p.m., dinner at my house with Mindy and family from 5-7 p.m. and then I have little Austin and will be watching "Thomas the Tank Engine", reading stories and cuddling with him until bed time. I could post my Sunday Six after he goes to bed at 9 p.m. but I when I lie down him to get him to sleep I often fall asleep too...so there you have it....Can you see why I am posting today?

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As you all know we had a wonderful time with all of our kids visiting for the holidays. I had so much to smile about that I couldn't post it all last week. So...the Sunday Six blog rules say that when you have too much to smile about in one week you can carry it over to the next week... or...for as long as you need...(of course I made that up...but it works for me.)

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Here I go: Our silly traditions make me smile

1. Grampy and Lonica's Buttermilk tradition makes me cringe...uhh...smile

I use Buttermilk for cooking. It makes good pancakes, salad dressing, biscuits and Erin even makes a great syrup recipe from buttermilk that is to die for.....but have you ever heard of anyone drinking buttermilk and liking it???
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Actually my mom loved buttermilk. That is one of the few things in life we ever disagreed on. One time in a restaurant when I was about 12 she switched her buttermilk class with my milk class when I wasn't looking to play a joke on me. I took a big gulp and threw up on the table....I guess the joke was on her!... but I digress...Little Loni and my John love buttermilk.

Since no one else in the family can stand the stuff they always make a big ceremony of having a buttermilk toast every time they get together.

Grampy and his buttermilk girl make us all smile and shudder at the same time.
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2. Our lizard hunt tradition makes me smile.

We live on an acre up on a bluff with a river behind us. With so much wilderness land around us we get lots of critters in our yard....some I like more than others. We have 2 resident snakes that have been with us for years. They have gotten really big...the last one we saw sunning himself in our patio is 7 or 8 feet long. They are harmless and only come down around the house occasionally....I hate them.. but John says they help get rid of a lot of the rodents that also make themselves at home in our yard.... but again... I digress...
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We also have hundreds of lizards... some are tiny...some are big.

I like the lizards.
Some are quite friendly and poke a head up to say hello to me when I go out to water or weed my garden. They love to sun themselves in the patio and around the orchard and garden.

Every time our grandchildren visit we have a Lizard hunt. Each kid runs around seeing how many lizards they can catch. After catching them, putting them in boxes, counting them and declaring which child is our champion lizard hunter....the children take the lizards back to the place they found them and let them go. I often wonder if they deliver the right lizard back to it's rightful home or if they get them mixed up. However the children assure me that they have named each one and know exactly where it lives and they take each one back to it's proper place to release it..... that works for me and the lizards don't complain.
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3. Our jacuzzi tradition makes me smile.



No matter what the season or the weather when the kids come we fire up the jacuzzi and they play in it day and night. In Dec. a few of the braver souls even jump in the cold pool....but not me...brrr. (After all it was only 72 degrees outside ..which is cold for us spoiled Californians) Most of us stay in the nice hot jacuzzi and have lots of fun.

Grampy adds soap to the jacuzzi and we play in the suds. This is the only kind of "White Christmas" that we can get around here.

Do you think that we could count this as the kids group bubble bath for the day???

No??? Oh well...
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4. Our turkey bone soup tradition makes me smile.

For as long as I can remember, I have made Turkey soup to eat the day after we roast a turkey. I put all of the turkey bones into a soup pot and simmer them with seasonings and veggies for hours to make a good broth. I then strain the broth, pull all of the turkey meat off of the bones and add carrots, peas, corn, celery and noodles and we have a "souper super". The simmering broth fills the house with the smell of turkey and makes us wait in anticipation for it to be ready....just like it did the day before when we were roasting the turkey in the oven. It is an inexpensive dinner, warm ,yummy and suits our tummy just right. It is a fun tradition that my whole family seems to enjoy and look forward to.
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5. I love the tradition of music in our family.

I've told you before about how much we enjoy singing karaoke. This is always fun and we spend hours singing and dancing around and being silly...

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...the music I love the most is the more serious kind our family makes. Except for me, the whole family is very musical. Mindy and Ernie both have BAs in music education. Ernie has his Masters in conducting. Most of the family members play one or more instruments and sing well. (I am the only exception... I used to enjoy playing guitar and singing but my voice is gone and I almost never do it any more....)

Mindy plays the flute beautifully. I am in heaven when I get to watch her perform as I did several times over the holidays.

Claire is taking voice and piano. She is called on quite often to sing solos at church or in other programs. In this picture she is singing at a Christmas program that was held at a local Baptist church .

I also love hearing the piano being played throughout the day by various family members. Marla would sit and fill our home with music quite often during their visit.

and so would Claire

and Emma

and EJ....

and so would Jalen but I didn't get a picture of him.

Justin didn't play for us this time and neither did Patrick, but they should have...

Erin and Emma played us duets.

I love listening to my children and grandchildren make music. It always puts a smile on my face.

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6. Our Gingerbread tradition makes me smile.

About five years ago I spent the whole year making gingerbread quilts for each of my children that had children. I embroidered, quilted and painted each square and they turned out really cute. In fact one got first place in our local fair. That is how I became the "Gingerbread Grammy". Each year since then I have made or bought each family a gingerbread gift. One year I made matching gingerbread pillows.....the next year I made gingerbread Christmas tree skirts....etc. etc.

This year I gave them gingerbread candles with gingerbread candy corn. Of course I gave it to them with a dish of Marie's delicious sticky gingerbread....but I will tell you about that on my next post.

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All these traditions warm my heart and make me smile. What are some of the traditions that you have in your family? I would love to hear about them.

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By the way, if you read my blog will you please sign up on my followers list at the top of my sidebar. That would make me smile too.

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Have a good week. Love, Grammy