I love batter. As a child I would beg my mother to let me bake crazy cakes just so I could eat spoonful after spoonful of the batter before putting the cake into the oven. Sometimes even after it was in the oven I would sneak a few more spoonfuls before the batter got hot. Crazy cake is made without... READ MORE >
Whew, we made it to 2013. It was nip and tuck there for awhile—the year 2000 and the Y2K scare really had me worried. People were stockpiling gallons of water and buying generators right and left. My husband and I decided we would go live with my parents in Schroeder as my mom has unknowingly been a Doomsday Prepper her... READ MORE >
Every day of my life I look for presents from Heaven. They are a daily reminder to me of God’s loving presence in my life. This last week was no exception. As many of you know my brother Gary died unexpectedly last April. Our family was rocked by his sudden loss. We knew so little of the last several months... READ MORE >
If loving my Kitchen Aide stand mixer is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Of all the appliances in my kitchen this is the one I would mourn and bury if it ever died. Then I would buy a new one faster than a cup of coffee cooling in a cold winter storm! Seriously I don’t think I could... READ MORE >
Holiday Pounds! How is it I can work out all summer long, eat healthy, drink tons of water, and lose 16 plus pounds only to gain eight pounds back in a weekend of holiday eating? It just doesn’t seem fair does it? The food is just sooo yummy and warm and comforting, like a big hug from Grandma as you... READ MORE >
On November 2 the kids had a day off from school. Our exchange student Tim had never been to the Mall of America so we thought this would be a way to make a day of it. Because he is new to our country I was more aware of what we were seeing and experiencing as we walked through the... READ MORE >
Fall is a time of year that is both beautiful and noisy. We have politicians on one side and leaf blowers on the other sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. I turned off the television and relaxed with a book. In it was a chapter about being happy. The first thing I read said that we could choose to... READ MORE >
The standoff between Germans and Americans has become daily warfare (of the friendliest kind) in the Holthaus home because with the arrival of our exchange student from Dusseldorf we now have two proud Germans under one roof. Yes, my husband is 100 percent Deutsch. Neither Tim nor Mike likes to be wrong about anything… ever. Spoiler alert: I’m buying them... READ MORE >
This October we will have lived in our house in South Haven for 10 years. It seems like time has flown by. Both boys are now in middle school and our daughter graduated Annandale High School in 2011. When we moved here I was not worried about nature as I thought growing up in Schroeder had prepared me for just... READ MORE >
When I was growing up the saying was “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” It was a good thing I liked apples because I was sick a lot. Imagine how sick I would have been had I not liked apples! I had allergies as a kid and I still do. Apples don’t do much for allergies. I even... READ MORE >
