While I’m not in the UK, people in any region of the world can enjoy delivered flowers. Who wouldn’t love fresh flowers by post uk?

This is the time of year when I can usually stand a dose of color in the house. It’s cold, gloomy and snowy day after day outside. Inside, life can get a little monotonous as we traipse through day after day of the same school routine.

I may not have anyone standing by ready and waiting to perk up my life…so why not do it myself? I can totally see ordering a bouquet of flowers for myself… or maybe a blooming plant that will get me through the winter until it’s time to get out into the garden and dig again.

If I feel like I need a little inspiration, there’s always great websites out there with a plethora of useful and helpful flower information. Take a quick peek at the pages here and it won’t be hard to choose a bouquet or plant that I would love to have.

So, how about you? Need a winter pick-me-up?

Have I mentioned that our family is growing again?

Lora and her hubby are happily expecting number three for their family at the end of June. Not the ideal season for baby hats, but little people can use a hat in any month of the year. They already have a girl (five in March) and a boy (he was three last October). Our tally for grandchildren is three girls and one boy…so I readily admit that I am SLIGHTLY partial to the idea of another grandson…but obviously we will be thrilled with whatever comes.

The big ultrasound is in early February, so we don’t have long to wait until we find out…as long as babe is feeling cooperative!

Hospitals always have a generous selection of newborn hats available for the new baby…but I’m particular. Many times, I’ve brought along my own hat for a new little one…one that I’ve made myself or purchased especially for the new little head. I would especially a knit baby hat, so I think this new baby might like one, too! What could be better than a first hat from Grandma?

It’s a bittersweet thing to write about this. David has loved drums since he was a little boy — always drumming on something or another. This naturally led to him learning how to play drums and becoming quite talented at percussion. He’s had a full drum set sitting in our front room for as many years as I can remember. Now that he’s turning 18, getting ready to graduate and formulating his plans for after high school, he’s decided that he wants to sell his drum set. I admit the prospect of having that monstrosity out of my living room is appealing, but I’ll be sad to see it go, too.

Maybe instead we could settle on an electronic drum set. Something that doesn’t take up as much room, yet delivers the same sound and playing experience. I hate to see him turn his back on his drums and it seems like an electronic version of the same thing would fit our purposes well.

For the first winter in a long time, we here in our household are actively praying for tons of snow! Why? For playing? Well…we do have lots of little people who enjoy a good snowman and ride down the sledding hill…but we have another reason, too.

Hubby is going back into the snow plowing business. When we met back in 1989, this was his thing. He then sold his two plow trucks and moved on to other endeavors. Now, he’s decided to dabble in it again.

I sure hope we don’t need any breakdown service while he’s out and about this winter. And I sure hope we get dumped on so it’s worth it!

I know the whole life insurance thing is not a pleasant subject. It’s a necessary fact of life though, when you have a family. It sure does give you peace of mind to know that you’ve made provisions for your children in the event of your passing.

If you haven’t researched life insurance lately, you might want to do a little research and compare insurance quotes for various life insurance policies.

Do you understand the difference between whole life and term life policies? I’ll clear that up for you quickly, if you’re not sure.

Term Life Insurance: An insurance policy that is in effect for only a specific period of time — hence the name. You make payments and if you die while it is in effect, your beneficiaries receive benefits as long as you made your payments.

Whole Life Insurance: An insurance policy that is in effect for your entire life. Yes, this insurance is more expensive but the premiums won’t ever go up over time and they also won’t expire.

I urge you to put aside any negative feelings about life insurance and make sure your family will be provided for after your death.

As I’m sitting here at my desk, I have a steaming hot bowl of homemade cream of tomato soup in front of me that my darling daughter just delivered. There is nothing quite so satisfying and soothing as a hot bowl of soup when the weather’s cold.

Here in Wisconsin, we’ve settled into real winter with a few snow storms and some really cold temperatures over the last few weeks. I find I reach for my soup recipes when winter whips through. How about you?

Isn’t it comforting to have a big stockpot simmering on the back burner of the stove when it’s blustery outside? What’s your favorite soup to serve?

Here is our homemade tomato soup recipe to get the juices flowing!

Cream of Tomato Soup

2 tablespoons butter
1 chopped white onion
2 tablespoons flour
1 quart tomato sauce
2 cups milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated parmesan cheese

In medium stockpot over medium heat, saute onions in butter and remove from the heat.

Stir in the flour and then slowly whisk in the tomato sauce.

Return the stockpot to the heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until it simmers but don’t let it boil. Remove the stockpot from the heat.

Let the soup cool 10 minutes then add the milk. Serve immediately and top with a pinch of parmesan cheese.

Guest post from: Natalie Walter

Are there things that you do in your home to make sure that your family feels safe? Any good parent’s main goal is to make sure that their children are healthy and happy and feel safe in their own home. I have found that there are certain things that I do that make me feel better about being at home with my kids and without my husband when he is traveling. First of all I always make sure the deadbolts are locked and that the flood lights on the corners of my house are turned on at night. The other thing that I do is to set my adt security alarm when I get home from work in the evenings. After it gets dark I start to feel a little uneasy so I set my alarm while we are in the house. This way if anyone opened a door or window I would know about it and the alarm would go off. My oldest child knows not to ever open the doors unless we say it is ok but he has set off the alarm just once. Scared me to death!

We’ve been talking about going up to the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells for years and this year we finally decided to JUST.DO.IT. Last Sunday, we packed up the kids and a ton of food and headed out to enjoy one night and two days of playing and splashing in the warmth of the indoor water park slash indoor theme park.

It’s no small undertaking to do something like this with seven kids…ya know? We dragged Daniel and Jessica and little ones along, too, for a grand total of 13 in our party.

They did have FUN, though. The waterpark is big enough to keep big kids busy, also providing splashing fun for little people, too. They visited the waterpark twice — once on Sunday and again Monday morning before we checked out.

The indoor theme park has an indoor ferris wheel, go karts, laser tag, a golf course, a merry-go-round, a climbing wall and a rope obstacle course. There was something for everyone there, too.

We arrived home Monday evening just in time for Sarah’s ballet class.

Unfortunately, we brought a stomach flu home with us, though! Isaiah, Michael, Ruthie and Sarah all got sick overnight Monday into Tuesday. They were all down for Tuesday and Wednesday. Leonard got sick Tuesday night and I caught it Wednesday night. Unbelievably, Rachel, Abby and David never did catch it! Go figure that!

OK power shoppers…have I got tip for you today. If you like deals — and who doesn’t, right? The internet can be a great place to find lots of money-saving deals. You have to know where to look, though. Unfortunately, sometimes it can be almost as time consuming to wander around on the internet looking from site to site for great deals as it is driving around from store to store in search of good deals. What would you say if I told you that you can get an email right in your inbox every morning announcing the new hot deal for that day? I know! It sounds awesome!

Well, it’s true! I’m talking about the nomorerack.com website. This site presents a selection of super hot deals every day. These deals are available for up to 24 hours, but they often sell out much more quickly than this. Every day at 12 pm EST, the nomorerack website releases the day’s hot picks. If you get the email and see something interesting, hurry to the website and get it into your shopping cart so you’re sure to snag it for yourself.

Think about the possibilities. Jewelry, clothing, electronics, accessories — you name it, you could find it on nomorerack. They also have a nifty little section called “Insanity Deals.” These are the unbelievable deals that are so huge you might rub your eyes in disbelief. When you see something you want that’s discounted in the Insanity Deals section, you’d better move fast because it won’t be there for long.

If you’re a little unsure about how good this all sounds, go ahead and check it out for yourself. Look around the website and see all the interesting things going on. I promise you that you’ll be back the next day to see what deals are up for the taking. You might even find something you didn’t know you needed or wanted! This site is great for that, too! Watch for the daily emails and become a regular nomorerack junkie — it’s a fun little pickmeup in the middle of the day! Let me know what great deals you find!

As I write this, we are less than two hours away from 2012. Happy New Year and may 2012 be a year of happiness, prospering and blessings for you and your family.

Winter is setting in with temperatures plummeting over the next day and some high winds kicking up. In fact, our high on Monday is supposed to be 15 and the low that night is supposed to be 6. Nope…don’t think I’ll be shopping for yoga sandals any time soon…I’m gonna need wool socks and my fuzzy slippers!

Anyway…from my blog to you…Many Happy Returns!