Other Mother Oreo Dessert

My other mother, Sue Hawley, used to make this dessert for the riffraff hanging out at her house. Great memories at my home away from home. 

Ingredients: (sorry babe, not for the lactose intolerant)

32 Oreo cookies

1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

8oz cream cheese

16oz cool whip

1 small box INSTANT vanilla pudding

1 small box INSTANT chocolate pudding

3 cups whole milk 

Start by crushing 28 Oreo cookies and spreading the evenly on the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. 

Melt 1/2 stick of butter, pour over the crumbs and pat to make a crust. 

Mix 1/2 cup of powdered sugar with 8oz softened cream cheese. Once mixed thouroughly, beat in 8oz of cool whip. 

Spread this mixture over the cookie crumb crust. 

Next, mix one small box of instant vanilla pudding and one small box of instant chocolate pudding with 3 cups of whole milk. Whip for about 2 minutes while the pudding thickens. As you can see, I don't like to dirty any more bowls than I have to. 

Spread pudding mixture over cream cheese mixture. Top with cool whip and cookie crumbs (crush 3-4 more Oreos) and enjoy. 

Happy New Year!

~Jay

Maddie and her cast

Last Tuesday we went to LCC for Samantha to meet the lady who is in charge of the 1st ever Arthritis Walk in Eugene. She wanted to meet Samantha and talk to her about being the Youth Ambassador for the walk.

While we waited for the lady arrive we entertained ourselves in the court yard. Andrew and Maddie were running up and down the concrete stairs. Then they started jumping down the stairs. Maddie hit the concrete ground and fell. She was more concerned about her cut up hand then she was about her ankle. I took off her boot because her ankle was swelling. I had to carry her because she wouldn't put weight on her ankle.

The interview took a couple hours and at one point Andrew decided to go get Tag so he could take him for a walk. Before I could stop Maddie she had hopped on one foot after Andrew. He carried all the way to the parking lot where he tripped and dropped her on the ground. A college student heard Maddie crying so she picked her up and carried her all the way back to me. I was so embarrassed and thankful for that young lady. Maddie said that girl was like an Angel to carry her all the way back.

That night we waited in Urgent Care for 3 hours for them to x-ray her. It was about 11 pm when the dr. felt her ankle and decided she was just fine and had only sprained it. Once we got out the door Maddie informed us that it really hurt when he pushed on her ankle. I asked her why she didn't say anything and she told me she didn't want him to think she was "a big cry baby."

The next morning I called our Ped. dr.'s office and they got ahold of her x-rays and sent us to Slocum. The Dr.'s there looked at the x-rays and told us that she had fractured her growth plate in her ankle.

She'll be in a cast for 3 weeks. Then in 6 months they will take another x-ray to make sure everything healed correctly.

Below is a picture when Maddie got home on Wednesday with her cast on.

This last picture is right before bed and she is showing everyone owie on her arm from when Andrew dropped her.

Hoodoo with the Youth Group

We spent our New Year's Eve with the church. I hung out with the 4th/5th graders taking video and pictures of all the fun stuff they got to do. Jay hung out with the middle school group.
Then the next day (Friday, Jan. 2nd) Samantha and Jay got up early to go with the youth group for a weekend at Hoodoo. They stayed at Big Lake Youth Camp. The roads to Hoodoo were bad so it took 6 hours to get there.

I really wish Jay would of had a camera to take pictures because it sounded like they did a bunch of cool stuff in the snow (inner-tubing). When they arrived at Hoodoo the only way to get to camp was riding behind Snocat on innertubes. It takes about 45 minutes to get pulled into camp.

Jay and Sam arrived home Sunday evening. They are looking forward to doing it again next year. Also next year Andrew will be able to join them because he'll be in the middle school group.

Below is a picture of Samantha in the youth room before they loaded the buses to head over to Hoodoo.

This picture shows the piles of stuff (sleeping bags and clothes wrapped in plastic so it doesn't get wet) to be loaded onto the buses.

This picture was taken after Jay and Sam arrived back Sunday night.

Here is Andrew helping out by carrying the "bags" to the van.

Camp Jam!

Today in the mail we received a letter from the Arthritis Foundation. Our good (they are like family to us) friends in Kentucky made a donation to a camp for kids who have JRA (juvenile rheumatoid arthritis) that our family will be attending in August.

Here is what the letter says:

Dear Samantha, Jay, Amy, Andrew and Maddie,
Mr. & Mrs. Hatter have made a very kind donation in honor of Samantha for Camp Jam!
I look forward to seeing your family at camp in August. This camp is going to be so special and I hope the weekend will be filled with lots of excitement and memories for you to cherish.
We appreciate Mr. & Mrs. Hatter's very generous donation in your honor to help with our 1st Annual Camp.
Sincerely,
Janet

SNORTA

When our Christmas package arrived from Kentucky we got this fun game- Snorta. Right after we opened Snorta! we had to play it.


We had a lot of fun playing and giggling.

Then when Gary, Sara and Cari spent the night at our house we played a couple rounds of Snorta. We got laughing so hard that we could hardly breath. They told me that they liked it so much that they got it for their New Years Eve party up in Portland.

If you haven't played this game then you should check it out. It is made by Apples to Apples.

Santa is on his way

Andrew did his traditional calling Norad tonight (Christmas Eve) to find out where Santa is....

We also sent an e-mail and we got this back as a response:

You can follow Santa's progress here. The white line indicates where he is delivering presents now!But he won't visit your house until you are in bed and asleep!http://www.noradsanta.org/en/home.html

Grace Manor- thank you

I got a thank you today from Grace Manor for our service.
------------------
Thank You so much Amy we are greatly indebted to you here at Grace Manor for brightening the lives of so many seniors who do not have loved ones to charish Christmas with. We truly do appreciate all you do.

Thank A Million,
From the bottom of our hearts
Daniel and staff

Adopt a Grandparent (service project)

We did our 2nd annual Adopt a Grandparent program that I set up with the rest home. This year we had 16 more boxes than we did last year.
Here is more info about the program from last year. And here is one more post about it from last year.

After our Christmas party we loaded up our girls and met the rest of the SU at the rest home.

This year I decided instead of having us go door to door that we would come at the end of lunch and sing in the dining room. That would cut down on the chaos in the halls (which you can see in these pictures from last year).

The residents were so nice. As you can see in this picture below one of them wore the Christmas craft the girls made them on their head.


The girls sang Christmas songs and had their presents ready to pass out.

Here are some of the residents opening their gifts and showing me what they received.

Daniel (the Activities Director) took the girls whose recipients weren't in the lunch room to their rooms. This lady was so precious. She told Samantha that it was her birthday and Jesus birthday and she was 94 years old. She kept smelling the gifts and letting us know they had an odor to them. She clarified that it was a pleasant odor. It got the girls giggling that she liked smelling her gift. Daniel told us as we were leaving that she has no family. So, no one to visit her.

Now an update on Samantha: Thursday (Dec. 11th) Samantha didn't feel well. Her stomach hurt so much. It would hurt after she took her medicine. She had the same problem on Friday and that was her best friends slumber party. I talked to the mom about Sam's issue with her stomach and the medicine and we decided to let her go ahead. Sounds like she had fun at the sleepover. Then she was dropped off in the morning at the GS Christmas party. She was doing well to start with but by the time we got to the rest home I noticed Samantha had withdrawn from everyone. Her friends noticed also. Samantha told me her stomach hurt so badly and that she was in a lot of pain and felt weird. She did make it through the "adopt-a-grandparent" project. When we got home she spent the rest of the afternoon resting at home.

Currently she is making sure she eats enough food before she takes her medicine to help keep her from getting sick to her stomach.

Girl Scout Christmas Party

We had our annual Christmas party on Sat. 13th.


The girls did several crafts and played games.
One of the games they played was a 3-legged race with huge Christmas stockings.

This next game was decorate your leaders. The girls broke into two teams and each team had the same supplies. They decorated us with all the supplies.

Not sure if you can tell but I have bows on my shoes. The girls had a great time making Jill and I look like a beautiful Christmas present.

This year instead of doing a cookie exchange and recipe book we did an ornament exchange. The girls did a cake walk and when you land on the number that was called ...then you got to pick a wrapped ornament. We did not do where you steal the ornament from each other.

Pretty Cool