Category Archives: Colville

My Talented Helpers

These kitchen helpers took over and whew after a few hours things got done.

Addy has mastered the art of kneading. She says it’s because she helps her mom make tortillas often.

After chopping nuts, JJ decided it was more fun to wash the dishes. He said it is fun to wash dishes the ‘old fashioned way’.

We had to wait for a couple hours for this dough ball to double in size. In the meantime we also managed to get one tray of Russian Tea Cookies done. I did not have a resident photo taker available and sticky hands did not help for me to take photos. My helpers went home for lunch and we went out for Chinese giving the dough time to rise.

When we got home from lunch the dough was ready. The finished product will be delicious but both loaves cracked. I think I rolled the dough too thin before rolling it up and baking it with the nut filling.

 

I need to make these more than once a year so I can master the method.

Today is Christmas Eve Day. The main celebrations start tonight into tomorrow. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.

Baking Day & Nostalgia

Today is baking day with the Grands.

Baking with Baba when they still needed a chair to stand on to reach the counters.

2022

2023

Baking day last year! They are taller this year and the mixing and rolling will be simpler for these two! Here’s hoping we remember to take a couple photos this morning!

Back to the present…

We woke up to an inch of snow on Monday but that has been washed away by rain. Between the rain and the snow we’ve had beautiful skies as you can see in the collage above from our Colville kids’ driveway.

Our Westside kids attended a early Christmas Eve service at Canyon Hills. Canyon Hills scheduled several Christmas Eve services this year and last night was their first of 8 services stretched out over 3 days!

We will be attending our Candlelight Christmas Eve Service at First Baptist Colville on Christmas Eve at 5pm.

I’m feeling a wee bit nostalgic looking at some photos from Christmas past…

I posted this one on Facebook yesterday.

Me, my sister Kathy and my sister Vera in Montebello, California 1967.

All eight of the Bagdanov siblings.

Our mom and pop.

Christmas Day growing up we had church on Christmas day regardless of the day it landed on. In the photos above taken on Christmas morning we were all dressed and ready to drive to Los Angeles for our Christmas services. We’d come home for lunch and then back to church in the evening. This might have been the last year we split our Christmas day at the Molokan church in the morning and the Russian Baptist Church in the evening.

I’ll save more nostalgia for another day.

Nativities

…the occasion of a person’s birth. A picture carving or model representing Jesus Christ’s birth.

Even though the Wise men from the East did not appear on the scene till months after the birth of Jesus they are depicted in many traditional Nativity scenes. I like to try to put them far off as if they are still traveling.

“My Christ he is the Lord of lords,

He is the King of kings

He is the Sun of righteousness

With healing in his wings.

My Christ, he is the heaven of heaven

My Christ what shall I call?

My Christ is first, my Christ is last,

My Christ is All in All.”

I had to wait till dark to get a good shot of the nativity set we like to put above our front door.

When JJ was here last Monday afternoon, he set this Little People Nativity on the window ledge.

‘Welcome to our wondering sight,

Eternity within a span!

Summer in winter! Day in night!

Heaven in earth! And God in man!

Great little One, whose glorious birth

Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.’

Quotes taken from Christ’s Glorious Achievements, What Jesus Has Done for You. by C. H. Spurgeon

Here are the last few sentences from this book:

“I hope that among those who have read these pages there will be many whom the Lord Jesus has specially redeemed with his most precious blood, and I trust he will appear at once to them, and say, ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.’ By grace omnipotent may you be  made to yield to the Lord with the cheerful consent of your conquered wills, and accept that glorious grace which will bring you to praise the seeking and saving Saviour in heaven.”

May the miracle of Christmas and the redemptive, saving work of Jesus Christ on the Cross lead you to repentance with belief and new life in Him. He alone gives us grace and peace.

Everyday Images ~December Prompts

December Prompts – Everyday Images #77
I’ll be linking up with Kym at A Fresh Cup of Coffee.
(at home, collection, love, white, traditional, pine)
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at home (monthly)
collection
love
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
white
traditional
Christmas cards are a tradition that I enjoy and cherish. Hope it doesn’t completely die out!
pine
Pine bough garland around our front door of our former home.
Currently at our home we are surrounded by evergreens but they are more of the fir variety and not pine.
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Hope all is well in your corner of the world as you anticipate Christmas and all that it means to humanity.
We’ve had this little tin for years and the scenes go well with the Bible verses from Luke.
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“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.’
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
(Luke 2:8–14, ESV)
This last scene comes later in the Christmas events before Joseph, Mary and Jesus flee to Egypt to escape King Herod’s evil plans. The Wise men and Joseph are warned by God about Herod.
My little tin also has a scene with a Little Drummer Boy which comes from a popular Christmas song but isn’t in the Bible.

Adorning

Our Christmas tree was finally adorned with ornaments old and new. We do not do ‘designer’ Christmas here. We do a more traditional look, using old and new touches, vintage and modern. As you can see, the presents under the tree are a mish mosh of bags and boxes and wrapping paper. Not much matching going on.

The angel topper has been with us for many years and I’m sorry to say I’m not sure who made it for us and the first year it became our topper.

The ornaments on the tree have no overall theme. Some are from travels to Great Britain.

Beatrix Potter’s characters are represented.

The first Christmas ornament we were gifted as a wedding gift and some early family ornaments represent these special times in our history.

Josh and Dan’s sport photo ornaments have gone to live at their homes.

I’m not sure which one of our 3 kids created this walnut half ornament in Sunday School years ago.

This one above has been around for many of our 51 years of Christmases. The one below is newer but has still been around for years!

Our ‘Grands’ have a representation on the tree, too.

This was our very first Christmas tree at our apartment in West Los Angeles. That is our niece Jenna. We had only been married for 20 days. The fern next to our tree was from our wedding. We had two ferns at the altar for our wedding flowers. After finding these old photos it dawned on me that in our first month of marriage we had both sides of our family over to our apartment for a meal/gathering, including Greg’s paternal grandmother and my maternal grandmother!

This was our Christmas tree in the first home we purchased in 1975 and our second Christmas as a married couple.

Has your tree been adorned?

December Snapshots

On Friday evening our church had a Gingerbread House construction competition. 32 families which amounted to 142 people showed up for dinner and the contest. Our church provided the graham crackers and royal frosting and families chose their own edible decorations.

Our Colville kids participated. Jamie was also part of the committee that organized the event and she was in charge of the food. The committee did an amazing job of planning and pulling off the very successful event!

I was impressed with their creation!

They even included a carport!

On Saturday we finally got some sunshine which was a welcomed sight because of all the rain and flooding in our state. Our community did not have any overflowing rivers or threats of flooding like the western side of our state and places in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and British Columbia.

Our son, Josh, made a stop at Snoqualmie Falls to see the incredible amount of water flowing. These falls are on the western side of the Cascade Mountain range in our state.

falls-w-vera-003

Here’s a photo of the same falls in January of 2017.

Snoqualmie 015

March of 2014 with the runoff from snow. Our daughter, Katie, and I made a special visit to the Falls.

The same falls frozen in 2009.

Back to the present…

Our ‘Grands’ embraced the sunshine on Saturday out of doors enjoying pineapple.

On Sunday in our service we enjoyed the Children’s Sunday School choir performing a special song for Christmas.

I zeroed in on our favorite one in the choir.

Some of you might notice that our Addy now has bangs!

The older set, aka Baba and Gramps, had a relaxing weekend and I’m astonished to report that all our Christmas gifts are wrapped and under the tree! Now I can concentrate on plans for meals and treats for Christmas and beyond while we are all together.

How was your weekend?

Christmas Dinner 2025

On Tuesday night the 9th of December we enjoyed our Staff/Deacon Christmas dinner at our Pastor’s home. The food, the fellowship and the games were all fun and it was a great evening for all twenty one of us!

Greg and I each won our Marshmallow Pick-up challenge!

Oye, I forgot to take a photo of the cheesecakes I made for dessert.

Thank you to everyone who thought of me and said a prayer for my wee little surgery yesterday. Everything went well and I’ll be sporting a nice black eye for several days. I appreciated your kind thoughts and prayers.

Embracing the Days…

Catching up with some events from the last week. The super moon lit up the sky and our acres. So bright, it was almost as if we had street lights.

Addy’s last basketball game of the short season was on Saturday morning, the 6th of December.

As usual she played hard and well.

After the game all the ladies and JJ took in the Lady Lion’s craft fair in Kettle Falls. When we saw all we wanted to see we met up for lunch at TJ’s in Kettle Falls. Addy and JJ sat across the table from me and I took this shot of them.

Before the rains came and while the snow was still good enough for sledding, our Colville kids searched out their Christmas tree for 2025.

On Sunday while on greeting duty, I took this photo of the entry at our church. The Joy is real.

Our son planned a very special weekend in Nashville to celebrate Laura’s birthday. When they arrived an unexpected surprise for Laura was that cousins David and Kristin joined them for the celebration. It was an epic weekend for the four of them.

This is Nashville, not Iceland. Ice at Gaylord Opryland Resort.

All four of them described this weekend as unforgettable.

Monday was cheesecake baking day here at our country bungalow. I made two for our annual Staff/Deacon Christmas dinner which will be on Tuesday the 9th. While I mixed and baked our Christmas CDs were playing. While I was finishing up we got these two photos of our grands helping their Great Grandmother decorate her little corner tree.

This was our comp dessert at our anniversary getaway last week that I wanted to remember. It is a cotton candy sundae and it was delicious and unique.

In other news, I’m happy to report that our Christmas cards were mailed on Monday. This always comes with a sigh of relief and a smile of satisfaction.

Hopefully, I’ll remember to take photos at our dinner party tonight along with the finished cheesecakes.

Everyday Images #76

November/December Prompts – Everyday Images #76
I’ll be linking up with Kym at A Fresh Cup of Coffee for the latest photo prompts.
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Here are the prompts this time around.

Current season (quarterly)

We’ve had our first and our second snowfall.

Together

Together around the table to enjoy Greg’s Swedish pancakes. This is a family favorite!

Lights

We enjoyed some Christmas lights at the Coeur d’Alene Lake Resort

Silver

Our silver and gold Christmas wreath.

Vintage

Christmas Angels from Greg’s mother Verna’s Christmas stash.

Neighborhood spot (quarterly)

Barmans on Main Street in Colville all decorated for Christmas with a Santa Sleigh, too.
I’m in the process of decorating for Christmas here at our Country Bungalow. Trying to get inspired to write our Christmas letter and get going on our Christmas cards!
How are you getting along with Christmas readiness?

Shopping and Celebrating Auntie Lolo!

Saturday the 29th of November we shopped small on Main street in Colville.

While we shopped the guys entertained themselves with chopping a lot of wood and then enjoyed table games.

Plans were afoot on this day to celebrate Auntie Lolo’s birthday early since we wouldn’t be together for her actual birthday on December 3rd. The birthday theme was lemon/lemons, a favorite flavor for Laura.

Jamie embroidered this special sweatshirt for Laura with her beloved title, Auntie Lolo! Addy and JJ helped with some of the embroidery.

Laura looked at this purse while we were shopping and she admired it enough that Katie snuck it up to the register to purchase it for Laura’s birthday gift. I didn’t take a photo of the solar decorative hummingbird lights that we gave her for their outdoor patio.

Lemon and pistachio Macarons that our son Dan made were the ‘birthday cake’. Dan has mastered the art of making them!

There is a back story to this drink that Katie had never tasted. While the guys were at the grocery store Andrew found it for her to try.

More Skyjo rounds commenced. The younger ones among us stayed at Bayles Mountain well into the evening while Gramps and Baba headed home.

Sunday morning most of us were in church together filling out a row.

Before the last of the Westsiders left for home after church there was some fun in the snow to document.

Another full and thankful time was spent over the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Our focus shifts now to preparations for Christmas.