Something Yummy for these Cold Mornings

Well, hello blog! Haven't seen you in ages. : ) So sorry to neglect, but busy just cant describe it and along with that is the fact that words for the blog have eluded me. No inspiration at all. I have been crawling the blogs on my blog reader list for encouragement myself. I LOVE  this time of year, I also love homeschooling. I cant mesh the two very well. I should just call December and enjoy it. Do Unit studies and include our baking
and homemaking in our plans. Serve others more......It all sounds so good. Yet, I end up stressed.....BLAH.... I am going to defeat it. Here is where I am starting today in my home. A quote from the beautiful blog that speaks to my soul A Holy Experience. She has these lovely cards I love the one that says, "Only speak words that make souls stronger." That is my motto today. It is no small task. I tend to let the little things frustrate me. Like it taking 3 days to organize the stuff from Christmas. How pitiful, I spent a lovely White Christmas with all of my family and extended family, we are healthy, we are happy, we are blessed. The enemy knows how to steal my joy. It oftentimes comes from selfish thoughts. "Look how I have to spend my time, organizing, cleaning....whine...I'm tired...whine...." Oh, how else would I want to spend it? I am surrounded by blessings. You should hear my two little ones sing "Angels We Have Heard on High." My teenage daughter loves nothing more than to be here, baking with beautiful opera music flowing on her iPod. My son, just yesterday, told me at least 8 times that he loved me. Sigh  So I quietly ask the Lord to forgive me. Change my outlook!! Get some gratitude flowing.

So, I came here to share a recipe. Here it is. Is there anything better than waking up to a warm breakfast that is just waiting for you. This was so yummy and would feed a many hungry mouths!

Crockpot Oatmeal Recipe

• 2 cups steel cut oats (not instant or rolled oats)
• 6-8 cups water, depending on how long the oatmeal will cook
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 apples, peeled and diced
• 1 cup raisins

Spray crockpot with nonstick cooking spray. If you're planning to cook the oatmeal 8 hours or longer, use 8 cups of water. If you want to cook it less than 8 hours, use 6 cups of water. Put all ingredients in slow cooker and cook on low.  Sprinkle with additional brown sugar if desired.

Serves 8.

Hope you enjoy it. I'm going to try to get some Christmas pics uploaded soon.

Have a blessed, beautiful, day!

I'm Just Surprised at How Well that Went...

As you may know, for the last year I have been trying to get healthy and drop a few pounds. Well, I lost my drive earlier this year and for about 6 months just kind of played around with the Weight Watchers program. Not really tracking like I should and not working out regularly. Seemingly, I always get fired up in the fall (go figure, when it is the beginning of the "eating season") Well anyway, although I LOVE  WW. I could not for the life of me get to meetings and for months I paid the monthly fee and really wasted that money. So, I canceled my membership and decided that WW had been a crutch for me anyway. If I could go to meetings I was on fire, if not then it was like a licenses to eat for a couple of days. So went this self defeating cycle.

First, I found many useful apps that would track food and exercise just like the WW app. Then through my quest to find online helps like WW I stumbled upon Spark People. This site is FREE! The more I navigated through it and realized all they had to offer, FOR FREE, I really got a little upset that I had paid so much money to WW for so long. Really, this site is amazing!

So, I said all of that to get to lunch today. I am so thrilled at how well my healthy cuisine went over. In a house that would live on pizza you will not  believe what we had today.

Get ready.....

Do you know what that is? Grilled Salmon.....oh my....I have been missing out! Steamed broccoli  with no butter or cheese and it was GOOD. A spinach salad with cherry tomatoes topped with Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing (not my favorite, fat laden 1000 Island). My kiddos ate it up! Hence, I can't get over how well it went!

A well prepared kitchen took this meal from fridge to table in 20 minutes. I grilled the fish on the George Foreman. The broccoli was steamed in a handy gadget like this:
Which I could not live without because I use it almost daily. It pressures, steams, slow cooks and browns. I have put rock hard frozen roast in it and in 90 minutes had roast that falls apart. A gem in this kitchen for sure! (Mine came from QVC) I have been using it faithfully for at least 8 years!

OK., so will we do this every day? No, I am not kidding me or anyone reading this. There will be days when  we have a Lean Pocket, but they are getting fewer and farther between. I am shooting to increase the fruit/veggie consumption from none a day to at least 3 a day.


Well, today I feel very accomplished. With a 4 mile workout and healthy food, this day is off to a good start. And I have learned to take it One. Day. At. A. Time. Try Spark People, the site is full of health related articles, encouragement and recipes. It may take me another year to lose 30 more pounds, who knows. But, at least I am still going in the right direction.

Have a blessed day!

A little bit of what we have been up to.

Okay!

I am here but where do I start?

This will just be very random. :)

First: School
  I still LOVE, LOVE, LOVE My Father's World. We are not as far along as I would like to be. Since starting school the kids took a vacation with my parents to St. Augustine. (I really want to go next time.) They LOVED it! Then we had three or four different revivals, then we took a vacation.....so, I am trying to settle down before the holidays and pick up the pace.

I am so pleased with how Jenna is progressing with her reading. Just out of curiosity I gave her a Bob Book She read it so well and was so excited. She is in week 7 of My Father's World K.


We had a homeschool History event.  My crew was Jane Austen, Wyatt Earp, Maid Marian.

Thanks to my Mom, who is so sweet to always make whatever they come up with on a somewhat short notice. She made the girls dresses. She made one for Janie too, just like Jenna's, but the little sweetheart refused to wear it!

~

Vacation: The Sunday afternoon  before my husbands "stay-cation" was to start he said "Let's go to the mountains!" and so just like that 12 hours later we were all packed up and on our way to the Great Smoky Mountains.  It is our favorite vacation spot!

One of the most important things we did was to visit the Titanic Museum, for my Titanic crazy daughter.

~

Birthdays: Josh turned 11. Janie turned 2 and Dad turned.....uh.....should I say it? 41. :P

She was caught licking the spoon! :)

Jessie baked the cake for Janie and Dad. She is looking forward to taking the cake decorating classes at Micheal's real soon. She is also a budding photographer. Look at these pictures she did of Janie just yesterday.

:)

~

Autumn: My absolute favorite time of year. We had a Fall Fellowship at church. We did a Trunk or Treat and encouraged the kids to dress as bible characters. Here we have my two: Queen Esther and her maid. :)

This was the first time I have ever seen a Trunk or Treat. Here are some pics of the trunks. My idea was taken from a Google search, but since I am the pianist I thought it appropriate to
 do a song. "Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus."

Daniel in the den of lions.:) and the Empty Tomb

Jonah and the Whale

Another version of the empty tomb.

                                                          ~




So, lets see, what else. Well, I have ran out of time and thoughts. I am ready for rest and a regular routine. I'll leave you with a picture of  what I think is a perfect glimpse of the little things that reminds me to count my blessings.

                                                             ~

Looking through my door as the sun streams through the trees on a crisp autumn morning. Bliss :)

Lamentations 3:22-24 (King James Version) 

It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

Sweet Brother.

 Josh and Jenna August 2007

 Josh and Janie August 2010

=)

Oh no! I just realized....

that I have been such a terrible blogger that I forgot to put a "Happy Birthday, Janie" post.

My little precious, feisty,smart,loving little girl turned two on Sept. 25th. Here is a picture I just snapped of her, dirty face and all. I love those cheeks!

I'm gonna make it a goal to get a decent blog post up real soon, like within the next week. :)

We have had vacations, revivals, school and I have just not felt like I had a moment for any kind of writing that might have a thought that might make sense.

Miss Manners ~ Little Janie

Miss Janie has learned to say "welcome." I know she learned it from her big sister Jenna. Jenna is always so polite and if she says "thank you" to  me  and I don't say "your welcome" she will say, "Mom, I said thank you....."

Janie will look for things to bring me so that I can say "thank you, Janie" so she can then say "welcome" to me. I chuckle every time because it is so cute! I just had to record it.

I'm still here!

I think about blogging alot........I get around to doing it very rarely lately.

I promise, I am composing a post in my head that will give you a glimpse of how we are, how homeschool is going (it is really good, that's why no bloggy) and all of that good stuff real soon.

To all my fellow MFW homeschoolers: I really enjoy seeing what you are doing, even if I don't always get around to leaving a comment. ( I do a lot of reading in the bed at night on my iphone and it is not the easiest way to comment on blogs)


Have a wonderful day.

Oh and if you are in the south don't you just love the little way fall is teasing us?

Glitters

How my boy thinks..

So, we are doing a little picture study. Mind you, I don't tell Cowboy that. I simply show him a beautiful picture of a lovely 18th century country girl who is barefoot in a little path picking flowers and ask him to give me a story.

It goes something like this:

Mom: "Josh, tell me, what do you think she is going to do?"

Josh: "Well, she is going home to make powder out of the daisies."

Mom: (note:he has me interested) "Really? Why would she do that?"

Josh: "She is going to make them into powder so she can make face paint because she is going to war!"


Ok, dear reader, I could not contain my laughter. Of all the things I imagined about that lovely girl on that peaceful day with beautiful daisies, I can assure you going to war was not one if them!



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Comments

If you have recently left comments on my blog and now you don't see them it is because I was trying out an app that was suppose to be like Comment Luv for Blogger but I just do not like it. Comment Luv is on Wordpress and links the person who comments to their last blog entry (if they blog). (Does that make sense?) It is a really neat feature, but the one for Blogger just did not work the same. So, I removed it and along with it went any comments that were added while I was using it. I know their was some on the video of Jenna and a couple of the Homeschool Week in Review. Sorry!

Jenna and the A A Apple Song

Here she is doing her favorite part of school....singing....:)

I did not edit this or make her do it over and over until perfection. (There was a day when I would have) I just love her little voice. :) The sound of X for fox still gets her a little confused. I'm 40 and have been homeschooling for 10 years and the sound of L still gets me, I even called a homeschool friend and asked her to tell me how she teaches the L sound. :) You know, us Southerners just have our own way of saying things anyway.

Homeschool Week in Review

Ok, I only have a few minutes to get this post done. But, I have really been wanting to update how we are doing in MFW.

Well, MFW K is going great. We just finished up with week 2, the lesson on M (Moon), and I really like how I feel that I am becoming familiar with the routine of the program. That is a big plus for me. I am also very happy with how I have it organized. I do find that I am not adding a lot of items to the folders to enhance the lesson. But, with 4 kiddos I have not made time to do that very much, but I don't feel that it is in any way compromising the program. Jenna loves it and she can already sing the entire A-A-Apple song. I am trying to get a good video of that because it is just too cute to hear her sing it. It is the favorite part of the lesson for her.

The big excitement was finally getting to start ECC this week. Although Josh is a 10 year old, all boy, let me outside to chop a tree  kind of kid he has loved this week. I mean really, he is so happy. He still loves time with his mom teaching him one on one and that makes me happy. The fact that My Fathers World has made it so easy for me to do this has just been the biggest blessing of all. After the initial set of of the notebooks I have found it to be one of the easiest programs to implement. When I say it is perfect for our homeschool I am not just saying it to be nice, truly it is a prayer answered. Now I can see why so many MFW users are long time users. I am so tired of the curriculum hunt anyway.

I think his favorite part of ECC was the passport application. He just cant wait to get that little book. He also loves the map work and science. We passed on the Wee Sing, because after 3 seconds of that first song, he very respectfully said "Mom, please don't ask me to sing that." I had to agree that perhaps Jenna would like it, but it is not something that I feel he will miss.

We have these Audio Memory Geography Songs and they are pretty catchy and I think we will just use them instead of Wee Sing for Josh.

I am so excited at how things are going. We had a busy week and I almost put off starting the ECC because of 2 homeschool outings, dentist trips and some church commitments. But I did start and I have to say that we checked off all of the boxes! WOW~ You really don't know how good that feels. I know by now that I am not a slave to the teachers manuals but it was things I wanted to accomplish and we did it!

So now I am praying that much grace will be given in a few weeks when my oldest starts high school. We are  using MFW Ancient History and Literature for her. She also is reading Lamplighter books, one a month (we actually fight over the book :)) Currently we are reading The White Gypsy.

The littlest one in my school is just as happy as can be if she has a crayon and a book.

Oh, and one last thing....I don't know what went wrong but we killed *gasp* our earthworms. :o

Okay, so maybe I won't.....

 Trip To Pine Mountain Gold Mueseum

...do the blog hop after all. Why? Well, because school did start and we have been very busy! We even squeezed in a field trip this week and I have not had time to do the "hop". So here's to knowing when to say no. I don't really want one more thing to be behind on and so far this week I am. So if you want to know about why and what we are using I am sure you can find it under the homeschool and My Father's World labels. Pictures of our school room are on here too (although they are a couple of years old).

I promise I will get a post up as soon as I can about how MFW K and ECC are going. I'll just leave it at this....we are on the hunt for earthworms! :)

Have a blessed day!

2010 (Not) Back to School Blog Hop

Now this sounds like fun and I thought since we are gearing up to start ECC next week it was great timing. If you homeschool check it out!

Blog Hop

Food for Thought

Boy, did Mrs. McDonald nail this one. It is something that I have been studying on for several months.

Your Sacred Calling: Smoking Keyboards and Razor-mouthed Christians: "Why is it that so many Christians (many whose writings I usually appreciate) seem to think it's cool to ignore 1 Corinthians 13:1 while 'pr..."

Click the link above to continue reading.

I Love this Man

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 

Romans 10:15

He works so hard.
He is always smiling.
He is always encouraging.
He is witty.
He is handsome. :) *kids groaning* (the think we are gross and mushy)
He believes in me.
He loves me and I know it.
He is an optimist.
He never complains.
Oh, how he loves the Lord.
He's my favorite preacher.
He's my best friend.
We are still so smitten with each other. (since 1987!)
He's the best father I have ever known.

God smiled on me and showed me great favor the day he sent Greg into my life.

In the picture above he was out on the porch trying to read. I knew that sleep would over take him as soon as he sat down. He was preaching a revival at night while working in this extreme southern heat all day. I knew he was so tired. I am inspired by him and I want to do all I can to make his life easier and to allow him to rest more because he does all of that for me. He even feeds my need for gadgets and books. I am so blessed.