In My Mother's Garden

Our Anniversary

2009-05-09T17:14:00.000-07:00

May 10th is not only Mother's day, but also our anniversary!

Douglas and I have been married for 23 wonderful and exciting years.
I thought you would all enjoy a "portrait" of the past 23 years.

Douglas and I were married on May 10th 1986.
Even though we were both unsaved at the time it is amazing and wonderful how the Lord brought us together.

Our first anniversary!

I love you!!!!!

Enjoy the rest of the pictures!

And They Two Shall be One Flesh

2009-04-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

This past Monday I was asked to write a guest post for a dear blogging friend who has a great burden for married couples. Michelle from By His Grace and for His Glory has done a month long series on the subject of Marriage and I would like to encourage all of you to visit her blog and to read the other three posts. They were a great blessing and I am sure will greatly bless and encourage you.

I asked Michelle if it was okay to post here what I had written for her and she said that would be great

And They Two Shall be One Flesh

My name is Kathy and I am wife to my wonderful husband Doug. We will soon be celebrating our 23rd wedding Anniversary We have been blessed with eight children ages 20- 2years old. We are a home schooling family and have home schooled for the past 13 years.

My husband and I were saved in 1992. Since then our lives have changed miraculously.

The Lord has done a great work in our marriage so I thought I would share a few things that I have learned along the way.

In the book of Genesis we read that God created Adam and Eve. We read that Eve was taken from Adams rib and Adam states that she is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh.

Do you know that we are also created for our husbands? God prepared us for the exact man that he has chosen for us

Ephesians Chapter 5:31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh..

We are no longer single before God but we become one with our spouse.

In Ephesians 5:21-32 the bible compares marriage between a man and a women as a picture of the lord Jesus marrying His Bride the church and the type of relationship that we are to have with our husbands.

When we unite in matrimony, when we say those vows before God we promise that this union is for life.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 5 * 4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. * 5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

When we make a vow before God we are to stand by that vow. Todays view of marriage is “If I do not like how things are going I can just throw in the towel and quit”. This is not Gods plan at all. When I finally realized this in my marriage it was a great turning point.

I thought I would share a little testimony from my life since my daughter said that this might be a blessing to someone out there who might be struggling in their marriage.

****************

Before my husband and I were saved our marriage was very different. We followed the philosophy of the world. I should say that I did. My husband was from a divorced home and this was something that he had decided that he never wanted for his own life. I on the other hand had come from a home where my parents remained married.

I must say I was young and so foolish. I did not love my husband as I should and I was very selfish. I wanted things my way and I was difficult to please. If my husband and I got into an argument I foolishly thought that the best thing was for us to just separate and get a divorce. The way of thinking by most people in todays world.

After we were saved for a couple of years the Lord really began working in my heart and life and in my husband’s. I started to learn what a God Honoring marriage was suppose to be like and I knew that I had to make some changes in my life.

One afternoon my husband and I had a disagreement. I was upset and my emotions finally took over. I was ready to say those terrible words again “if you do not like it here you can just leave” Instead the Holy Spirit got a hold my heart and I realized what I was about to say. I quickly changed my words to this - “If you do not like it here that is just too bad. The Bible says that you are stuck with me ” My husband just looked at me, I think in shock. This is when I finally realized that I made this commitment and it was for life

As I share this testimony it is in hopes of encouraging anyone who is struggling to see that God has a greater plan and that through His grace we can have a marriage that is heaven here on earth.

In our church we have a yearly couples retreat I love attending these. My husband and I have learned a lot about having a God honoring marriage. I would encourage all of you to take advantage of such retreats it will strengthen your marriage and your home.

Did you know that marriage can be a part of heaven here on earth?

Here are a few things that I have learned that have really been a great blessing to our marriage.

Share terms of endearments, My husband loves to call me his Sweet Gal :)

Love your man- We need to stop looking through dark color glasses and start looking for the good.

Pray for your Husband! ( I daily pray that the Lord will use my husband in a mighty way to bring Glory to His Holy Name!) (I added this one here. I forgot to write this in my post for Michelle:) this one is the most important !

Be his helpmeet- There can be great satisfaction in helping your man :)

Make him his favorite meal.

When he comes home give him a great big hug and a big smooch and tell him how much you missed him
(Just as a side note our children love to see Daddy and Mommy being affectionate with each other)

Listen to him and make him feel important to you.

Talk some love talk. You know, tell him how handsome he is, tell him how strong he is and what a good provider he is. When I look at my husband in this way things really sweeten up in our relationship. How very blessed we are to have that special someone in our lives to share life with.

As I began to allow the Lord to work in my life he also began working in my husbands life.

Through these past 23 years together things have grown sweeter as we grew closer in our walk with the Lord.

May you all be blessed as you walk together with your spouse in the newness of life.

God Bless, Kathy

I hope that you will hope on over to Michelle's Blog I am sure you will truly enjoy the other posts.

I Need Thee Every Hour

2009-04-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

 I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord;
no tender voice like thine can peace afford.

 I need thee every hour; stay thou nearby;
temptations lose their power when thou art nigh.


I need thee every hour, in joy or pain;
come quickly and abide, or life is vain.

I need thee every hour; teach me thy will;
and thy rich promises in me fulfill.

I need thee every hour, most Holy One;
O make me thine indeed, thou blessed Son.

****

I need thee, O I need thee;every hour I need thee;
O bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee.

Garden Time!

2009-04-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day so my son Brandon helped out and tilled the garden for us to get our summer vegetable garden started!

This year we have decided to make the garden a lot bigger. We will have to till some more when the rain stops.

Sunday night we placed our peas in a bowl of water and soaked them over night. Monday morning my husband and I were able to plant 5 rows of peas. I am planning on planting 5 more when the rain stops hopefully in a few days!

I have never planted peas before so I am excited and I am praying that they will do really well this year.

Other things we will be planting this year are lettuce, summer squash, eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, yellow stringbeans, butternut squash. We are even going to try some herbs basil, parsley, thyme, oregano.

I think we will need to really enlarge the garden! :)

I get so excited in Spring time. I love to see all of the fresh new growth of the leaves and flowers.

(Last years garden!)

If you have never planted a garden before I would encourage you to give it a try.
This really is frugality at its best!

God Bless, Kathy

Trusting in My God!

2009-04-07T03:01:00.000-07:00

Psalm 9:9-10
The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.
And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.

During my devotions this morning I came upon this passage of scripture that was a great comfort to me.

Last week on Thursday afternoon I received a phone call from my husband telling me that he had just been laid off from his job. As the feeling of panic gripped my heart I tried to say words of comfort to my husband.

As the weekend came the Lord had calmed my soul and reminded me that I was to trust in him.

We have heard a lot on the news about so many people being laid off. We have heard about the recession that we have been going through. We have heard about how the government was going to try to fix all of these problems. But you know I always knew down deep inside that our God is in control.

This is not a new thing for us that we are going through. In 1993 when I was eight months pregnant with my 3rd child my husband was laid off. We were new Christians. Saved not even a year. We did fear and wonder how we would ever be able to go through such a great trial.

God did some miraculous things during that time. We never missed a mortgage payment. We never missed a meal. All of our bills were paid and on the very week that I was due to deliver the Lord provided my husband with a job that put us on the insurance the day he walked into the shop and I gave birth to our beautiful son Collin. All bills paid.

We serve a wonderful God.

It is easy to go back to our flesh and to try to figure out what are we going to do to get through this but this time I want to see what my great God will do to get us through this!

I want to give him all of the Praise!

This week our church is having a revival meeting. I had determined last week even before we knew that my husband had been laid off that I was going to go to every meeting at the night services. It is running from Sunday through Thursday. Having little ones makes this a great challenge but I knew that I needed to be there.

Last night the message really spoke to my heart. It spoke about being separate. The Lord has been speaking to my heart about this for a while now and I really want to please him. I am looking forward to the next few precious evenings of some good preaching and some words from my God.

I think of that song often "Count Your Blessings Name Them One By One" How we have so much to thank our God for!

I want to encourage all of you that are maybe having the same struggles that we are having or maybe some other type of struggle and right now you are going through the valley. Keep your eyes on the Lord! He promises to never leave us or forsake us!

May God richly bless you all! Kathy

Proverbs 3:5&6
Trust in the Lord with all of thine heart; and
learn not unto thine own understanding.
In all of thy ways acknowledge him,
and He shall direct thy Paths!

Frugal Friday!

2009-03-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

Here is my Frugal Idea this week.

Spring is in the air and I am looking forward to hanging clothes on the clothes line again.

Of course hanging them out does save on the electricity but what if you do not like how the clothes feel when they come off the line?

Well a dear friend of mine gave me a great tip.

If you want your clothes to feel softer when you take them off the line especially the towels :)
just throw them in the dryer for about 10- 15 mins than put them out on the line. This works wonderful. The towels are softer from the drying time in the dryer and they smell spring fresh from being on the line.

Have a great day and enjoy the Spring weather ! :)

God Bless, Kathy
Check out some other Frugal ideas at Life as Mom Frugal Friday

Super Saving Saturday!

2009-03-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

Well last week I shopped for two weeks again so this week I only needed to get the deals!

I have read a lot about stockpiling so I have been trying to do this a little at a time.

So here is how I did this week.

I shopped at our local Shoprite. I do not do my majority of grocery shopping here but I usually pickup the items that are at a great buy especially if there are some great coupons to go with them! :)

Red Bliss Potatoes 5lbs reg price $2.49 ,on sale for &1.99

4-Secret Flawless Deodorant reg price $4.29 each, sale price $3.99 each
used 4/2.00 mfg coupons and received $6.00 in store coupons for next shopping order

6- Boxes of Kellogg's Cereal 2.99 each on sale for 3/$4.00
used 3 $1.00/2 mfg coupons

2- Reynolds foil reg. price $3.49 each on sale for $2.49 each
used 2 $1.00 mfg coupons

4- Shoprite Zip Freezer Bags 15 Ct reg price $ 1.84 each sale price $.92 each

2-Scotch Brite Scrub Sponge 3 ct $3.29 each on sale for $1.99 each
used 1.00/2 mfg coupon

1-Chock Full o' nuts coffee reg 2.99 on sale for 1.99 ( my sweet husband needed this :)

3-Dannon Lite and Fit yogurt 6 pack reg $3.29 each on sale for $1.69 each (I had a rain check for these) used 3 - 1.00 mfg coupons (these came out to .69 cents each making each yogurt only .12 cents each :)

I also had $5.96 in store coupons

Grand total before sale and coupons : $71.37
Total after coupons and sale : $ 23.75
I saved $ 47.62 dollars !!!

And I have $6.00 store coupons for the next trip!

I am still learning the ropes but I am enjoying the savings !

Menu Monday

2009-03-02T13:21:00.000-08:00

Dinner:
Lasagna, salad, butterhorn rolls (home made) Chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake !

Rebecca's Birthday cake :)

Oven fried chicken, fries, butterhorn rolls, apple sauce, peas
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, quick yeast bread, apple sauce
Pancakes
Shepard pie, corn bread

Lunch:
Sandwiches, fruit
chicken nuggets, yogurt, fruit
bagels, cream cheese, fruit
sandwiches, fruit
hot dogs, pickles

Breakfast:
Cereal, Bananas
bagels, with cream cheese
oatmeal
cereal
coffee cake

Snacks:
cheese sticks
yogurt
apples
bananas
cinn. rolls. (purchased these last week on sale for .49 cents at Aldis)
thin wheat crackers with peanut butter

Check out "I'm an Organizing Junkie Menu Monday"
Check out my blog In My Mothers Garden

Happy 20th Birthday Rebecca!

2009-02-26T15:07:00.000-08:00

Our oldest Daughter is turning 20 today!

How times flies by!

I know that we hear that saying often but it is so true.

Rebecca has grown into a lovely young lady. She has a heart for God and a sweet and warm spirit.

Our prayer that God will use her in a mighty way to glorify Him!

Happy Birthday Rebecca!

Love your Family!

You can check Rebecca's Blog Here !

Losing Weight Part 3

2009-02-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

In this post I thought I would mention a great site that I found Spark recipe.

You can read my other two posts Here, and Here

This site can be a great help in our quest to eat healthier and to lose some weight.

Having a family of ten and trying to save money we end up cooking most of our food from scratch. So how do I figure out the calories, fat, fiber in my recipes.

Most recipes do not have this information :)

At Spark Recipe you can enter all of the ingredients and enter the serving size and it will give you the information for your recipe.

They also have over 131,000 recipes to chose from that are lower in fat and calories.

This site has been a great help to us. My homemade bread that we make from whole wheat grain is pretty high in calories. So for now I am eating some wheat bread from the store that is light.

I know that I am getting more nutrition from the whole wheat bread that I am making, but I thought for a while I would try to reduce my calories to help me lose weight.

So far I have lost 8 pounds. This is quite exciting. It has taken me a while but I feel good and hopefully I will continue to lose.

The most important thing though that I need to do to lose weight I feel is trusting the Lord to help me to continue to eat right.

Praise the Lord for all of his love for us.

God Bless, Kathy

Menu Monday

2009-02-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Dinner:
Chicken Kieve, Couscous, corn, corn bread, Salad
Pasta, Butter horn rolls, Salad
Beef Roast, Mashed potatoes, corn bread, peas, fried apples
Ham, roasted potatoes, corn, baked beans, salad
Pancakes, bacon
Homemade donuts. (Rebecca's Birthday Request)

Lunch:
Sandwiches, fruit
chicken nuggets, yogurt, fruit
chocolate chip muffins (home made)
sandwiches, fruit
hotdogs, pickles

Breakfast:
Cereal, Bananas
bagels, with cream cheese
oatmeal
cereal
coffee cake

Snacks:
cheese sticks
yogurt
apples
bananas
grapes
thin wheat crackers with peanut butter
Check out "I'm an Organizing Junkie Menu Monday"

Saving Saturday!

2009-02-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

This week I did not have to go grocery shopping! At least not for a full weeks worth.

Last week I decided to write up two weeks of menu's and I shopped for two weeks.

It was so nice not to have to go to Aldi's and do the weekly shopping.

I thought I would try this out this month and see how we would fair for two weeks on one shopping trip.

So far everything seems to be working out very good!

I actually could not believe my bill last week for two weeks was very reasonable which left a little over for a few extras that I picked up this week.

Since I had a little extra this week I was able to go to a couple of local stores and snatch a few good deals.

Here they are.

At Target this week I was able to buy :

2 Lysol Neutra Air Kits On sale for $5.99 each
Used 2/5.00 mfg coupons and they came out to .99 cents each!
2 Pepperidge Farm Gold fish $ 1.79 each
Used 2/ 1.00 Target coupons paid .79 cents each
2 Nestle Tall house cookies refrig. dough on sale for 2.39 each
Used 2/ 1.00 mfg coupons paid 1.39 each (a treat!) We never buy these!

(Cookies in the oven Great Excitement! )

I also shopped at our Local Stop and Shop grocery store

I was able to buy 4/ Healthy Ones Deli meat

Reg price 3.49
Sale price 3.00
Used 4/ .75 cent coupons which where doubled.
I paid $1.50 each !

The Lord is so good!

Keep looking for those great deals! God Bless, Kathy @ In My Mothers Garden
Go to Money Saving Moms and check out some other great deals!

Spring Cleaning ( Kitchen Oven)

2009-02-19T05:24:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to clean the Kitchen Stove.

First I pulled out the oven and this is what was underneath. Not too bad. Considering I seem to have to do this often.

That was a quick clean not to hard :)

Next I cleaned the outside of the stove.

I then placed the stove back and ran the self cleaning for 2 hours!
Praise the Lord for self Cleaning!

The oven went from dirty to nice and clean :)

You may think that by looking at it did not look to bad but in the 22 years that I have been married I have learned that keeping up with things makes it much easier to keep clean then to wait until it is really dirty which will take me twice the time to clean.

Happy Cleaning! :)
Visit Crystal and Biblical Womanhood to see what other woman are cleaning this week.
God Bless, Kathy In My Mothers Garden

Losing Weight Part 2

2009-02-18T08:20:00.000-08:00

Today I was reading my son a book it told the story about the tortoise and the hare.

We all know that story right. The hare was always in a rush and wanted everything to happen fast. You know quick results. The tortoise was not in such a rush and by his perseverance he completed the race and won the victory!

I have been on many diets that are like this. Eat only meat and protein and lose weight fast or eat only bland tasteless food and lose weight fast. These diets have never lasted.

Sure they produced some quick weight lost but the results did not last. As soon as I returned to eating normal food on came the pounds.

In my last post I spoke about" The Weigh Down Diet" which really is not a diet it is a new way of life changing the way that you feed your body with the food that you have so you can slowly lose the weight and keep it off.

(Again I just wanted to strongly state that I do not agree with the author of this book in her religious beliefs)

When I last lost weight with this program it took me a while to lose the twenty pounds. I felt good and not deprived.

Well this time I thought I would add a little more to my eating or should I say less. I decided to start eating some food that is lower in fat or calories. Not tasteless but just better for me.

I found this great website called "Spark People". I really like this site.

It helps you to keep track of your calories, fats, protein, and fiber intake. I am using it as a tool to help me with my weight loss.

I love that I can go to the site and look up certain foods and see what their calories really are or I can also enter an item that I purchased and fill in all of the info for that item. I just click add to my food for that day and it keeps count of all of the calories that I have eaten and helps me to see what I am actually eating in a day and maybe where I need to cut back a bit.

The best part about this program is that it is Free! It is wonderful. I had thought of joining Weight Watchers but we really do not have the extra money right now so this program is really helping me.

In my next post I will write about another great site that has been a help to me in my quest to lose some weight.

God Bless, Kathy

Spring Cleaning ( Dresser Drawers)

2009-02-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

Well I have been over to Crystals Blog at Biblical Womanhood and she is running a series about Spring Cleaning so I thought I would post about some of the cleaning projects that I have been doing around our home.

With ten people living in our home there is always something that needs extra attention.

While I was lying in my bed last night I began thinking about the boys dressers! They seem to always be in disarray.

My four year old Caleb loves to dress himself so into his drawers he goes and rummages through every drawer until he finds just the right outfit. Here is the results after he is finished!

What a mess!

After about a 30 mins I had the drawers back in order. I removed some of the clothes.
I realized that he had way to much which added to the mess.

So much better!

Now that the warm weather is coming a warm 40 degrees :) I am really itching for Spring!
So getting our Spring Cleaning started sounds good to me! Happy Cleaning!
Check out Crystals Blog Biblical Womanhood and see what others are taking on!

God Bless, Kathy In My Mothers Garden

Menu Monday

2009-02-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

Dinner:
Roast, mashed potatoes, salad, applesauce, home made butterhorn rolls
Pasta, Butter horn rolls, Salad
Orange Chicken , white rice
Kielbasa, Potatoes, corn, corn Bread, fried apples
Pancakes, bacon
Pizza

Lunch:
Sandwiches, fruit
chicken nuggets, yogurt, fruit
chocolate chip muffins (home made)
sandwiches, fruit
hotdogs, pickles

Breakfast:
Cereal, Bananas
bagels, with cream cheese
oatmeal
cereal
french toast

Snacks:
cheese sticks
yogurt
apples
bananas
grapes
thin wheat crackers with peanut butter
Check out "I'm an Organizing Junkie Menu Monday"

New Years Resolution!

2009-02-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

New Years Resolutions. Its that time of the year.

In January I decided that I wanted to read my Bible through this year and to lose weight!

Well my last post I spoke about my devotional that I have been using. You can read it here if you missed it.

So I will talk about what I am doing to try to lose some weight.

About a year after I had my fifth child I decided that I really wanted to lose weight so I began to pray about it because I knew that it would be so hard to do in my own strength.

The Lord led me to this book "The Weigh Down Diet" I began to read it and it had many things that really made a lot of sense.

I prayed and asked the Lord to help me and I began my weight loss.

Some of the things that the book spoke about was cutting back on my portions. Sounds simple right? It was hard for me. I was brought up to always eat what was on my plate.

Of course if the food tasted really good I did not really want to stop.

After eating this new way for a while it became easier and I lost 20 pounds. I was so excited!

I was feeling so much better but as you can guess I did not only have five children so I shortly became pregnant again. :) Sadly my old eating habits came right back and on came the pounds again.

Three children later now and I have decided that it is time to try to lose the extra weight again.

Here is one of my strategies that I am using. I will post again to share some other things that I am trying to do to help me lose some weight.

I realized that I needed to change my way of eating but one of the things that I had liked about "Weigh down" was that I was still eating my normal food just a lot less of it. Changing the way that I thought about food really made the difference.

In the "Weigh down program" I was taught a little more on how my body worked and how it used the food that I feed it.

God created us to feel hunger, when I needed to be feed. God also created us to know when enough was enough you know that " I am full feeling". Many of us ignore that feeling or we eat so fast that we have over eaten before that feeling of "I have had enough" signals us to stop eating.

By reducing the amount I eat I am also reducing the amount of calories I am consuming, and the amount of fat.

I also am trying to take a small plate to serve my food on. This helps a lot. I feel like my plate is full.

I am really trying to be in tune with my body while I am eating. Listening to that feeling that I am satisfied so I need to stop no matter how much is still on my plate. One thing that the author spoke about was eating what I liked on my plate the most first. So I adopted a motto for my self.

"Eat the Best and Leave the rest "

This has really helped me. If I want dessert after I would try to plan for that leaving myself still a little hungry.

I would really recommend this book it gave me a lot of good insight and ideas.

Now with that said I must also state that aside from this book I do not believe or agree with the author on other issues that she is dealing with.

As with any thing I took the information that was useful and discarded the rest.

In my next post I will share some other things that I am doing to make changes and to help me lose some weight.

God Bless, Kathy

Making Yogurt Stretch!

2009-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

Hi, I wanted to share how I try to make our Yogurt stretch. Now I know that there are some of you who probably make your own yogurt I have not gotten that far yet, but with 8 children who all love yogurt I needed a way to make it stretch and to make it tasty at the same time.

My daughter Rebecca and I have been trying to lower our calories and exercising in an effort to lose some unwanted pounds. :) I have purchased some low fat lite yogurt and of course the children all want some.

I usually do the majority of my shopping at our local Aldi's . They have a 32 oz plain or vanilla yogurt which they sell for $1.59. That is pretty good.

So what I thought I would try was to take one of the low fat yogurts with fruit and to put about a tablespoon or so in each serving of the Aldi's yogurt and mix. My children love this. It helps me to stretch that yogurt and to keep every one happy at the same time . :)

Do you have any ideas. I would love to hear them. God Bless, Kathy

Daily Devotions

2009-02-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

("Girl Reading" by Charles Edward Perugini, 1878)

A Dear Friend of mine blessed me this Christmas with a devotional to use to help me read through the entire Bible this year. I am really enjoying this devotion so I thought I would share it with all of you.

A Heart Devoted is the name of the book.

Every day it has a little devotion written to women to encourage us in our daily walk with the Lord.

I love these little devotions. They have really encouraged me. It always seems to be about something I am going through that day and it just comforts my soul. It is a blessing to know that other women have the same struggles. And they share their wisdom on how the Lord has worked in their hearts.

I hope to share some of the things in the week that God speaks to me about.

May God Bless you as you serve Him,
Kathy

Menu Monday

2009-02-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Menu Monday.

I thought it would be fun to share my menu for the following week.

For a family of 10 a menu has proven to be a great blessing.

So here is our menu this week.

Dinner

Pull pork, homemade rolls, chips salad
Ham , Potato and Cheese Casserole homemade butterhorn rolls
Grilled Italian Chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, applesauce, bread
Meatloaf, rice, stuffing, quick yeast bread
Pasta, salad, bread
Pancakes
Pizza

Breakfast

French toast
Cereal
Bagels
oatmeal
Cereal- Banana
Oatmeal

Lunch

Pasta
sandwiches PB & J, yogurt
chicken nuggets, peaches
hot dogs, mixed fruit
Sandwiches grill cheese, pickles, fruit
Mac and cheese

Check out "I'm an Organizing Junkie Menu Monday"

Kathy

Saving Saturday!

2009-02-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

Here are the deals that I was blessed to find this past week.

Rite Aid:

They had Bounty Paper Towels B1G1 Free. At our local store they were 1.29 each reg price.
I had a $1.00 Mfg coupon for 2/1.00 .
I had two coupons so I was able to purchase four rolls for .15 cent each !

Shoprite:

This is a local grocery store up here in New England and lately I have really be finding some great deals.

Here is what I purchased last week.

4- Colgate toothpaste
On sale for .99 cents each (reg 2.19)
I had 4 $1.00 Mfg coupons so they were Free

4- Mennen Speed stick deodorant.
On Sale for .99 cents each (Reg 1.89)
I had 2 Mfg coupons for 2/1.00
.49 cents each

4- Robitussin cough Formula 4 oz.49*
On sale for 1.99 (reg 4.99)
I had 4 Mfg coupons for $1.00
.99 cents each

3- Sucrets Ice 6 pk
On sale 1/2 price 1.49 (reg 2.99)
I had 3 Mfg coupons for 1.50
Free for all of these!

$47.83 worth of items for $6.53 oop

Praise the Lord! :)

Have a great day God Bless, and Happy shopping! Kathy

I'm Back !

2009-02-07T17:19:00.000-08:00

Well Dear Friends I want to say hello! How long it has been since I have written a post!

I want to thank those who left a comment sharing with me your desire to keep my blog up and to keep posting.

Things here have been very busy! With school in full swing the days just seem to fly by.

Many things have been added to my plate this year so it seems hard to find the time to write a post. I do enjoy hearing from all of you. I have made a few friends along the way which has been a great blessing and encouragement.

There were many reasons that I started this blog last summer. I enjoy learning different things and through blogging I have learned a lot about the internet and using the computer. Of course Rebecca is still my teacher in this area. Praise the Lord for her! :)

I also had hoped to be a blessing to other moms out there . I remember what it was like being a young mom and desiring to learn from others.

The Bible says that the older women is to teach the younger. I know that I still have a lot to learn. We never stop learning do we? But it is my prayer to at least encourage other women to love the Lord and to raise their children for him.

I hope to be more consistent.

May God bless you all as you strive to serve Him!

God Bless, Kathy

History comes Alive!

2009-02-04T17:57:00.000-08:00

Many people have dreamed of traveling back in time.
Books have been written, films produced, documentaries recorded about such an event as time travel. It seems an impossibility, doesn't it?

However, I know of a time Machine that exists in nearly every town: The local Library.
Reading historical fiction is my "little time machine", and it makes History come alive!
The library has so many little time machines!

Up until five years ago I didn't like history that much, it was "ok"
but not fascinating or captivating- I thought it was just a bunch of boring facts and dates.
I never thought that history could be interesting at all.

Then, one day I was in our local public library and came upon a book,
It was called "Voyage on the Great Titanic" and it was from the "Dear America" series. I liked the cover painting, and so I thought I would read it.

When I finished the small book a week later, I was hooked. This fictional diary was amazing! I felt like the girl "Margaret" was writing to me about her adventurous disaster on the Titanic. I even enjoyed the true facts and photos in the back! History from a girl's point of view who was about the same age as I was captivated me!

I went back to the library
and found a few more.

History was suddenly coming to
life right before me! I began to
check biographies and other books about the time periods of the diary I was currently reading.

Then I found another book,

I had heard about the Great Queen Elizabeth I, and since the Royal Diaries were from the same writers of Dear America I thought I'd give it a try.

Once again, I was captivated! And the best part was that these Royal diaries were about real girls, who lived and affected history. I looked for more, and found some!

These books were great!

But I kept coming back to the Elizabeth one, I read it over and over. I was so fascinated by the Tudor house, that I got out a whole bagful of books about her and her notorious father, King Henry VIII.

My Mother looked at a few of my books, and then we saw a documentary/film about the Tudors. Since that time my Mother and I have been studying the Tudor house. We have grown closer together, and have fun reading books, or watching films about this famous family.

I LOVE HISTORY!

There are so many stories out there, waiting to be read! If you have a child who is bored to death of history, try Historical fictions.

There are so many books out there that are historical fictions, and non- fictions that take dry boring facts and make them come to life! Most of these can be found at the local library.
God Bless, Rebecca.

Little brother

2009-02-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

Meet Caleb. He is a 3 (soon to be 4) yr old little boy. Blessed with an incredibly innocent face and a "Melt-your-heart" smile. My Mom refers to him as "Little Mr. Edison" Why?

Our Little Caleb is a curious boy.

Did you know that as a child Thomas Edison burnt down his father's barn due to one of his "experiments."

Little Thomas Edison was a curious boy.

Thankfully, our little curious boy hasn't burnt down a barn or house, however. . . .

I remember when my father found red acrylic paint on our basement floor. The Suspect had fled. However, we quickly found the culprit, red handed.

Our little "Edison" was truly caught red handed.

At least it was washable paint!

This one was very "fun!"
Our Sweet little boy dumped an entire can of black pepper on the table! And right before dinner!

Although we scrubbed and scrubbed, our meal was still spicy.

This was 1 year ago, however Caleb still dumps black pepper on his dinner every once in a while.

This actually took place a few days ago. I was making chocolate chip muffins for lunch, when Caleb walked up with a big smile, and a chocolate mustache!

He had apparently stolen several chocolate chips while I had my back turned!

Ever curious, my sweet little brother!

This is a vacuum.

However he turned it into a race car while daddy was trying to fix it!

No matter how curious, no matter how many messes he makes, Caleb is priceless! He's always got a great big smile!

He is soooooo CUTE!

He is a treasure from God.

I'm proud to call him my brother, and my little buddy.

He had a bib when he was an infant that said, "With this Smile I can get away with anything" Not quite true, but perhaps close!

I love you little Brother!

We love Pizza!

2009-01-30T17:52:00.000-08:00

I love this post, it is one of our earliest! 6-21-08
Enjoy!

Any one for Pizza?!

Rebecca and I thought it would be fun to share with you our favorite homemade pizza!
Every Friday night we usually make Pizza for a treat! Of course we are a large family of 10 so we double the recipe. Click Here for the website for the dough recipe.

After we make the dough we let it rest for a while. When we are ready to make our pizza we preheat our oven to 425 degrees and make two round pizzas reg size and one pan pizza in a stone deep dish ( thats for mom!) After many trials and errors we have decided that we like to precook our pizza doughs for about 10 mins.

My husband used to work at Dominoes for about four years until the gas was making it unprofitable to work there any more. One of the perks of working there of course was free pizza!
While he was there he learned to make a very good recipe called "Philly cheese steak pizza".
It is not quite the same but for those who have had it they come back for more!

You will need the following ingredients:
American Cheese
Provolone Cheese
Deli Roast beef sliced (I usually purchase ours at Aldi's )
Mozz. cheese
Peppers, onions and mushrooms are optional. Of course My husband loves these added.

We then return it back to the oven for about another 10-15 mins. The other two Pizzas are one pepperoni and one deep dish cheese.

Ummm, doesn't that look good!

Now the finished product!

This pizza is requested often and goes really fast!
We hope you enjoy the recipe!

Here is our wonderful pizza maker!

Time to decide

2009-01-29T17:47:00.000-08:00

Time! We all could use like 8 more hours in a day! Right?
So, Blogging is on the back burner at the moment.

My mom is considering stopping this blog,
I think she has been a big blessing to many people so, If you like this blog, please leave a comment!

Thanks,

Also we will be doing scads of reposts, I was looking and there are so many nice and great posts here.

So enjoy!

~Rebecca

Hmmm, now what?

2009-01-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

Well, something very interesting happened just the other day!
Actually, interesting things happen all the time over here, but. . . this was a bit unusual.
I had just popped some popcorn in our microwave, after I had taken it out and put it in a bowl I set it on the table.
I was just about to leave the kitchen, when I heard a heavy "thunk" sound, almost metallic.

I thought for a moment.....

"Oh, no, that can't be what just happened!!!!!!!"

Sure enough I opened the microwave, and well...

...Yes, the microwave's glass plate had cracked in two pieces.

When we took the glass out it was extremely hot in the center.
We are not quiet sure what happened to cause it to just crack on it's own like that.
Thank goodness it didn't shatter!

Well, now we need to replace it.

In a family of ten, a microwave oven is Very Important!

Anything like this ever happen to you?

~Rebecca

Christmas Traditions

2008-12-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be fun to talk about are Christmas traditions.

I think that every child loves to have family traditions. This is true of our children.

When my husband and I were saved in 1992 Christmas took on a whole new meaning to us.

It wasn't just the presents any more that mattered it was a time to remember what our Lord had done for us. So my husband and I have tried to make the birth of Christ be the most
important thing in our Christmas celebration.

There have been many things through the years that have become part of our family traditions.
Every year we visit a local park where there are thousands of lights strung through the park.
Many are in shapes of animals and stars and other things. My children Love going to this every year. It is beautiful.

Every year we have our annual Church Christmas program. This year several of our children are taking part. Our son Collin is going to be a shepherd and our younger children will be singing with the Kids Choir.

We also love to watch the Polar Express together. We do not teach the children that Santa is real but that it is just a nice fairy tale.

On Christmas eve the children have decided that they love to have a table full of finger foods so they can just snack and enjoy something special. We attend our Christmas eve candle light service which we always end with the song Silent Night.

On Christmas morning we wait until everyone is up and we start our day with the Christmas story in Luke 2.

We then turn on some Christmas music and then take turns opening our presents that the Lord has blessed us with.

For lunch we all loaded into our full size van and off to Grandpa and Grandma's house and of course more gifts!

Does Christmas end there? No!

We still have to get together with the other side of the family :) So we have them over and you guessed it more food and more gifts!

It is no wonder our children love Christmas time!

My four year old Caleb has been asking every day for the past month is it Christmas yet? :)
I gently reply not yet Caleb. His response ooooh. :(

How do you spend your Christmas? We would love to hear from you. God Bless, Kathy

More Math Fun!

2008-12-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

Well it is Thursday again wow does the week fly by!

This week I am going to talk about another math program that we used for our High School Algebra. It is a program called Video Text.

I used this at the same time for my three older children. My oldest daughter has always struggled with Algebra and as I mentioned before I had tried the Math U See Algebra with her but it did not work for us at all.

This program worked much better. It is a DVD based program that has a teacher teach you the lesson for the day and then you have the assigned work to complete.

This was helpful by telling us more in detail the new concept.

The down side that we found was that it is very expensive. I found that I had to sit every day with my children to listen to the new material or it was very hard for me to be able to help them if they did have a question.

The upside with this program is that they do have a phone number that you can call for help which is why we had decided to purchase this program.

I do believe that it can be a great help to a student if they are good independent learners. This has not be our experience though so I do not know if I will use this program again with my younger children.

You can check their website for more information here at Video Text Algebra

On my next homeschooling post I will tell you about a wonderful math program that the Lord lead us too.

Have a wonderful day! God Bless, Kathy

Books, Christmas, and More!

2008-12-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

Hi to all!

I am so sorry that I have not had a chance to post this week. It has been so busy this past week!
I am sure that you all know what I mean. With Christmas coming things never seem to slow down. :) We have been quite busy. We have enjoyed two Christmas parties. One last Saturday and one this past Thursday night.
The party that we attended last week was wonderful. It was a community party and there was a young lady there who had collected a lot of books from people in the community. She allowed all of the children to pick out some books. God was so good! We took home two boxes full of books!
Our children were so excited! I love it.

We love to go to our local public library so this was like having a library right in our home.
We have been trying to find better things for our younger children to do during the day. I love when they read books, build puzzles, and play games.

In the winter we tend to be in the house more so I want to find things that they can do instead of sitting in front of the TV.

With that said we are still trying to do a little Christmas shopping too.

I hope that all of you are doing really well! I am sorry that I missed my Thursday post I will try to catch up for next week.

God Bless, Kathy

Yummy Chocolate Syrup!

2008-12-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

Our Frugal idea for this week is homemade chocolate syrup!

We found this recipe over at Hillbilly Housewife some time ago and we just love it!

My daughter Rebecca made this just the other night.

It only takes a few ingredients and it comes out really good!

My children love this in their milk and it is great on icecream as well.

Give it a try I am sure that your children will love it!

God Bless, Kathy

I'm no Einstein

2008-12-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

As I have mentioned in some previous posts we have been homeschooling now for over 13 years.

We have tried numerous curriculum's through the years and have tried many different styles of learning so I thought that I would write about one style or curriculum each week.

I will try to make this special posting on Thursday. I asked my daughter what to call this special day? They have Menu Monday, Frugal Friday, Wordless Wednesday. Hmmm. Any ideas?

Well any way today I thought I would talk about a math program that I have used.

This program is Math U See.

I did not start this math program until I was home schooling a for a few years.

I taught this program to our three older children starting in level 4. We went through until Algebra.

I really like this program.

Here are the positive things I found about the program:

The programs main premise is using blocks to help you see the Math problem. It makes the problem concrete to the child.

I love this approach. I am a visual person so this made a lot of sense to me.

They also teach skip counting early on in the program starting right in the Kindergarten level.

The skip counting has enabled our children to go right into multiplication with out a problem.

They see that skip counting is an easy way of multiplying fast.

This program also has fraction overlays which makes fractions make sense.

When our younger children began school I continued with this program and began with the first level.

I also like the fact that this program starts Algebra concepts in the very early stages. Finding what x is for 5x + 3= 13. Or telling them to find the area of a rectangle to just multiply base times height.

I have learned so much from this program and have often said why did I not learn this way?

Here is the down side that I found for our family.

We used this program through to Pre Algebra.

When I tried it with Algebra we did not do so well. It has been a long time since I did Algebra in school and I feel that the Algebra is not taught comprehensive enough for someone who does not know Algebra.

I feel that the Author assumes that all parents have a full hold on the subject but I am sure that this is not so true.

So I would highly recommend this program at least up to Pre Algebra. Unless you are an Algebra wiz!

You can check out their web site here.

I will talk next week of a curriculum I used for Algebra and how it worked for us.

If you have any questions feel free to email me rkmothersgarden (at) gmail (dot) com.

God Bless, Kathy

Enjoying the Little Things!

2008-12-03T17:26:00.000-08:00

Psalm 127:
3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

Have you ever gotten so wrapped up in the day to day tasks that you stopped enjoying the little things that God brought into your life?

This can be said about me.

I have been a mom for almost 20 years and I love being a mom. All I used to dream about when I was a young girl was about getting married and having a large family.

I have always desired to have a lot of children. I think that God placed that desire in my heart all those years ago. I was not saved then but God was working in my life.

After having our first two children my husband was quite content with two. I still felt this strong desire to have more children though. My heart ached for them.

In the fall of 1992 the Lord saved my soul and shortly after my husband received him as well!

With in two months I was pregnant again with our third child!

Through the years the Lord worked in my heart and my husbands and we came to a place of trusting him for our family size. He then blessed us with 5 more children ( I was already in my mid thirties by this time)
The Lord was also working in our hearts about homeschooling. Which we have been doing for 13 years now.

With the added laundry, dirty dishes, homeschooling I forgot to enjoy my children. I let all of these things take that joy away from me and I forgot to enjoy the little things.

The Lord has been working in my heart a lot lately about this. Today I was looking at our little 2 year old daughter and she was singing and talking away and I looked at my husband and said isn't she so adorable! My husband and I never would have thought that we would have a two year old child at 45 years old. We often joke that when she is getting married we will need to retire Amen! :)

Time goes by so fast. My oldest daughter will be 20 next February. I remember bringing her home from the hospital like it was just yesterday. Okay I know that you have heard that saying before but it is so true.

So should I keep my house clean? Should I do all those piles of laundry? Yes, but I also need to remember to stop and to just enjoy the little things!

May God bless you as you enjoy your little ones (and bigger ones :) ) As you continue to serve him.

God Bless, Kathy

(Photo is courtesy of J's Magic)

Busy Day!

2008-12-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to get some baking done. There is a cold going through our home so I decided to let the younger children take a day off from school to recover.

I needed to make some bread. We mill our own grain and my wonderful husband bought me a Bosh mixer several years ago to mix and knead the dough.

So I ended up making three loaves of bread. Next I moved onto some hard rolls. Tonight we are having Barbecue beef. My family loves this. We shred the beef after it is nice and tender and then we serve it on hard rolls with cheese.

After making our own rolls one day my family fell in love with them and the store rolls just are not the same any more.

I made 24 rolls so we could freeze some for future meals. I am trying to learn to make extra's if they freeze well since I already have the mess to clean any way! :)

Next I moved onto making 2 apple pies! I love apple pies! I have a recipe that you can check out here if you are interested! I had some extra apples so I did not want them to go to waste.

We are also going to visit a family tonight so my husband requested apple pie to bring along.

I do enjoy baking but it can be a lot of work :) I am so thankful for my children who help especially my oldest daughter who helped with the cooking and the dishes !

With ten people in our home to feed this food will not last long. For lunch we used almost 2 loaves of bread! Well it does help heat up the house!

I hope that you are all having a great day!

I hope you do not mind my old pictures. I just love them! :)

God Bless, Kathy

Encouraging Words

2008-11-30T17:06:00.000-08:00

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving last Thursday! We had a wonderful time. The Lord blessed us with a lot of food and we had a quiet time visiting with my Father ,Mother and my Brother.

This year we cooked a 25 lb turkey! We still have a lot of turkey left so we have a lot of meals to fill this week on our menu!

Turkey Pot Pie sure does sound good to me!

I wanted to apologize for not writing many posts lately.

I started this blog a few months ago in hopes of being a blessing to a few women out there.

I can tell you that I have had some wonderful comments that really blessed my heart and encouraged me.

I have also received some comments that were not so nice. I received a comment like that about a month or so ago and it really discouraged me.

So I stopped writing a lot of posts. My desire is to be a friend and to encourage others out there not to discourage any one, that is truly not my intentions.

I pray before I write most of my post because I really desire to please the Lord with every thing that I do and I do not want to be a hindrance to any one.

One thing that I have found in my Christian life is the lack of women who take the time to encourage younger women in the Lord.

We all need encouragement now and than. We all need to know that other women have the same struggles that we are going through. I have seen this through many of the other blogs that I have read.

I surely do not have all of the answers and I am still learning but don't we all keep learning until the day we leave this world?

I am so thankful to the Lord that he keeps working in my life changing me! That is my prayer that the Lord will keep working in my life and change me into the Godly women that he desires me to be.

The Lord has sent a few godly women along my way these past few weeks to encourage me and for that I am truly grateful!

So I will try to post more often as the Lord lays some things on my heart.

I thank those that have been visiting my blog! May the Lord encourage us to keep our eyes on him and to continue this race until we have finished!

Ephesians Chapter 4

29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

God Bless, Kathy

Our Wonderful Weekend Getaway!

2008-11-25T10:43:00.000-08:00

(Mystic Ct)

My husband and I attended our Church's annual Couples Retreat which was held in Mystic Ct this year! We had a wonderful time!

The Lord blessed and over 80 couples attended! The guest speaker and his wife were a true blessing to be with.

My children did very well while we were away Praise the Lord! They enjoyed all of their treats too!

There was many things that the guest speaker shared with us but I think that the one thing that stood out the most for me was how important it is for husbands and wives to have biblical communication.

Many marriages fall apart due to the lack of communications in the home.

I am so thankful for my husband, for my children and for his wonderful gift of salvation and the Bible which teaches how to have the right kind of relationships.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Let us remember that we have so much to be thankful for!

May God Bless you all! Kathy

Our Weekend Getaway!

2008-11-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

Hi to everyone! I am so excited this weekend my husband and I will be going to our church's annual couples retreat! This is something that I look forward to every year!

I wanted to make sure that my children will have a bit of fun also while we are away so we are planning some fun and frugal ways of doing this.

Crystal mentioned over on Money Saving Mom that she was going to be baking and freezing ahead of time.

I decided this week to do a bit of cooking and freezing ahead of time also.

Yesterday I made three pizza's. I cooked the dough partially, let it cool and than added the toppings. I froze them so all our children have to do Friday night is just pop them in the oven and enjoy! No major mess. Here is the recipe we like to use.

We are also going to splurge and buy some Costco muffins for Saturday morning breakfast another treat. Off to the Red Box to rent a few movies for the weekend and a few snacks from Aldi's and they should be able to have a fun and frugal weekend!

We have even decided to grab a couple of those yummy muffins for our selves for our Saturday breakfast so we can just relax in our room a little longer and not feel rushed. Not to mention that it will also be much cheaper than running out for breakfast at a restaurant.

I will try to post some pictures of our weekend when we get back! Have a great and blessed weekend! God Bless, Kathy

Happy Aniversary Dad and Mom!

2008-11-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

I want to wish my Father and Mother a Happy 46th Anniversary!

My Father and Mother married 46 years ago on November 10th 1962.
They were both born and raised in Canada Quebec province.
My father came to the USA looking for work.
He came here with some of his brothers and they worked for his uncle.
When he returned to Canada to visit family he meet and fell in love with my mother and they were married within 6 months!

Rebecca recently was talking to my parents and asked them to share about there memories of that wonderful wedding day.
Grandpa replied it was a beautiful sunny day!
Grandma looked at him and said no it was raining and cold!
I guess Memories can change in 46 years!
God has blessed them both with good health and a lot of grandchildren 11 in all!

I thank God for my parents and I want to Wish them a Wonderful Anniversary! Love You Both * Kathy and Family!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Our Decision to Homeschool Part 2 "The First Year"

2008-11-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

In my first post "Our decision to Home school Part 1" I left off with my husband and I deciding to give home schooling a try.

So I thought I would write today about our first year home schooling our children.

At this time of my life I had been blessed with three children. Our oldest daughter was ready to enter 2nd grade and my second child our son was ready for Kindergarten. We also had a 3 year old son.

We decided to stick with the curriculum that Rebecca had used in school for the first two years which was the Abeka curriculum. I ordered all of the work books and teacher books and test books and quiz books, teacher keys and the readers. It was a bit overwhelming but I just figured I would need all of this right?

I went straight to work and set up a little spare room that we had at the time on the first floor.

Our Christian school just happen to be getting rid of some desks and chairs for school and I thought this is exactly what I needed so I was so happy to be able to get these and to place them in our little school room.

I bought our little flags , the Christian flag and the American flag, to make sure that we started our day just like they did in school with our pledges.

We posted our Large letter cards at the top of the wall along the room and I even made some adorable curtains with a school print for the two windows that were in our new school room!

Every thing looked great and we soon received our books.

I even had purchased our teachers lesson planner I was well on my way to a great year!

We started our school year at the same time as our Christian school did. I just figured we would follow their schedule and all would be great!

The first day came and we started out on this new journey. By Gods grace second grade was basically a review of everything Rebecca had learned in 1tst grade so this was a great blessing.

I did not learn reading with the Phonics approach so this was really new to me.

As I began teaching my second child I discovered very quickly that this was not going to go as smoothly as I thought it would.

He seemed to struggle with remembering what he had learned and I did not know how I was going to help him through this.

The other challenge would be to keep my three year old busy while the other two where doing school.

By Gods Grace slowly we began to work out the problems and things began to fall into place.

I discovered that I did not have to keep up with our Christian school and that one of the greatest blessings of homeschooling was being able to work at my children's own pace .

We are not entering into our 13th year of homeschooling and a lot has changed. The room with the desks are gone and the kitchen table is where we do most of our school work. The curriculum has changed some and by Gods grace I have one graduated!

If you are thinking about homeschooling and you feel the Lord leading you to do this then I would encourage you to take that step of faith and by Gods Grace he will help you to accomplish something for His Glory!

I hope to continue this series to share with you some of the bumps in the road and some of the many blessings!

God Bless, Kathy

(repost from 8/8/08)

Photos by J's Magic

Family Trip to Yankee Candle

2008-11-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

Hear ye! Hear Ye!
The Royal children say hi!

A few weeks ago our family was able to visit Yankee Candle!
The Christmas mood is so enjoyable there! The sights, smells and sounds are so Christmassy!

We enjoyed seeing the candles, trains and nutcrackers too!

Collin and I loved the castle!

Mom's favorite display!

This was everybody's favorite!

Yes, we are down to blogging about 1 time a week!
We hope you don't mind!
We would love to hear from our readers about what you would like to see on our blog!

~Rebecca and Kathy!

Enjoy the slideshow!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

An Unusual Game

2008-10-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

Playing "Travis"

The game of "Travis" is so fun and simple!
My 4yr old brother invented it!

He has a Playmobile soldier which he named "Travis".
And this lizard next to him is "Kobi"
They own the castle and all the other toy animals are their friends!

This game has become very popular!
We have a"lookout" Brontosaurus,
A "General" T-Rex, a "cook" named Mooch the Monkey, and on and on!

We have alot of fun playing this game, and alot more fun cleaning up all the animals after!

It's amazing how a simple game can be so much fun!
"Travis" is a great game for my two youngest siblings to play while Mom teaches school.
But sometimes Mr. Dinosaur roars a little bit loud!

:)

~Rebecca

Our Decision to Homeschool Part 1

2008-10-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

I thought I would write about our homeschooling journey and how we decided to take that step of faith to home educate our children.

Back in 1992 my husband and I received Christ which changed our whole lives for ever.
At this point in our lives my husband and I had been married for 6 years and we had a daughter Rebecca who was 3 years old and a son Brandon who was 1 year old. Of course we were not really thinking about where our children were going to attend school up to this point but God definitely had a plan for us that He would reveal as time went on.

The church that we began to attend was a Bible believing church and they had their own Christian school so we began to think along this avenue. We did wonder how we would ever be able to afford Christian education on one income.

As our oldest daughter was drawing closer to school age we decided to enroll her in the Christian school at our local church. She attended there for Kindergarten and first grade. We noticed that she was starting to separate from our family and we were not pleased with her attitude that she was also developing. We knew that we really wanted to have more input in her daily life and that was not very easy to do when she was gone most of the day. Our son was approaching school age by this time and we really did not know if we could afford two in school.

Around 1995 the Lord brought a dear couple into our lives from our church. They had adopted a beautiful little boy who was my older daughters age and they had been homeschooling him.
I had never heard of homeschooling before so I had a lot of questions for them.
Why were they homeschooling? After all we had a Christian school at our church.
How were they homeschooling?
What about the law?

My dear friend was so wonderful, gently telling me about homeschooling and why they had decided to home educate their son.

I began to pray to the Lord about this. It was such a new idea for me. Could I really home educate our children?

I decided to talk to my husband about it.

My husband was not sure if this was really a good idea. It was new to him too.
He really did not think that this was a wise decision for our family. After all we had a Christian school at our church.

At this point I was also doing day care in the afternoon, and the Lord had blessed us with our third child, so it would be a challenge to manage school, day care and all of the many tasks of running a home. As I continued to pray about it my heart grew more and more burdened and I really felt like the Lord wanted me to take that step of faith and to trust Him.

I knew though that it would have to come from my husband to make this decision which was really hard for me.

As we continued to pray about it my husband and I decided that I would attend a homeschooling convention to learn more about homeschooling, and to see the curriculum that was available to parents.

I remember attending with my dear friend who was taking me under her wings. As the day went on every thing went very well until we attended a class about teaching higher math. As the class went on my heart sank and I know that it was very visible on my face. I began to think oh Lord how could I ever teach Calculus? Then I was reminded that my children were only going into 2nd grade and Kindergarten. What a great relief!

I went home that day with great excitement and shared with my husband all that I had learned.
We decided to give it a try.

Was I nervous? Oh yes! But I knew that the Lord would help me if I just put my trust in him.

In part two I will talk about our first homeschooling year.

(repost from July 7th, 2008)

Nursing home Ministry

2008-10-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Yummy Apple Pie!

2008-10-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

Can you smell that crisp fall air? See the leaves changing colors?
Up here in New England that is what we are seeing and with the change to fall is the wonderful smells of Apple Pie!

I always look forward to fall for those wonderful apple pies. We went to a local apple orchard and we were able to buy some second apples for 38 cents a pound. So my husband bought us 23 pounds of apples.

We have made some fried apples and of course apple pie.

My dear friend Pam moved to upper state NY and she asked me a couple of weeks ago to write a post about making apple pie. Now that I cannot make her one, since she is no longer here, I told her that I would post the recipe on our blog.

Here is how we make our apple pie.

First I pick about 7-8 nice large apples. Peel and core and slice into nice size pieces. If you want the apples really soft you can slice them really thin. My husband likes a little bit of a bite so I do not cut them really thin.

After I place them in a bowl and add sugar, flour and cinn. I set this aside to let the sugar create a nice apple juice in the bottom of the bowl.

Then I prepare the pie crust.

Combine flour, salt and shortening.

Cut shortening into the flour mixture.

Then I ad 7-8 tablespoons of very cold water to form the pie crust
I add ice cubes to my cold water a trick that I learned from a friend to make sure that the crust really forms well.

Then form into a nice ball on a floured surface and I wrap with syran wrap and place in fridge for a little bit. I find that if the dough is nice and cool it rolls out better.

Cut dough into two equal parts and flour counter. Roll out dough for bottom half.

Carefully lift crust and lay into pie dish.

Add apples, pile up nice and high!:)

Add a few pats of butter. ( I often forget this part:) )

Roll out the other crust and lay onto the top of your apples.

I like to fold and tuck the upper crust under the bottom crust to seal the pie and to give me a nice thick crust.

Then I pinch the edges to give it a pretty look.

Add a few slits on top of the pie to release the steam.

Now it is time to bake. Oven temp 425 degrees 40-50 mins

I like to place foil around the edges so they will not over cook. I remove them about 10 mins before the pie is done.

The best way to know that the pie is done is when the juice begins to bubble out of the slits that you made in the top of the pie.

Yum, doesn't that look so good! It smells good too! Add some ice cream and you are all set!

Here is the Recipe:

Pie Crust-
1 cup of shortening
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
7-8 tablspoons cold water (add a little bit of Ice)

Pie filling-
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp cinn.
7-8 large apples peeled and sliced
3 tlb spoons of butter or margarine

Well Pam I hope that you enjoy!

God Bless, Kathy

Fried apples are also good so give that a try too!

Visit Rebecca's blog!

2008-10-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

Are you a young Lady, or a girl, who is unique?
Do people think that you are unusual?
Do you want to serve God with all your heart?

Then please visit this new Blog:

A Rather Unusual Maiden for God

In this blog you will find beautiful photos, encouraging scripture, a heart for God and a few fun and "unusual" things.
And you will also learn more about Rebecca- one of the co-authors of our blog.
We hope that you will enjoy it!

~Kathy and Rebecca~

A Day with Kate

2008-10-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We hope that you enjoy these pics of Kate!

Our Trip to the Zoo!

2008-10-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

G'day mate!

This past weekend we went to a Zoo!

We had a lot of fun!
We saw many animals, and had a great day just having fun as a family!
I'll post a few pics and a SmileBox!

It did look like rain all day long, but God was good and allthough cloudy we did not see a single drop of rain till we were in the van for our long trip home!

Riding Sher-Kahn!

We liked this little guy, he was so cute!

My Hero!

Yes, I know, I'm sooo pretty. Don't you think?

Whoa Bessie! That's the biggest cow I ever did see!

I'm so blue, but not 'cause I'm sad, but if you touch me you will be sad!

That's no pussycat!
A very large tiger growls at the smaller tigers in the next cage.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Raising Children to Serve the Lord!

2008-10-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

My son Jeremiah in the Nursing home being a blessing!

This is my greatest desire to have children that will walk in truth and serve the Lord.

I was reading over at Crystals blog Biblical Womanhood about the older women teaching the younger women and I often ask the Lord when do I become that older women?

My oldest daughter is nineteen and our youngest child is 2 years old so I still feel like I am in the mist of training our children and raising them for the Lord. My husband and I were saved when our oldest two children where 3 years old and 1 years old.

I have thanked the Lord so many times for saving my husband and I while our children were still so young.

So am I an older women? I just turned 45 years old so I feel old some days :) But than I have my struggles and I do not feel worthy of being able to give advise to the precious young wives out there desiring to do what is right.

I prayed about it and I feel that I can at least share some of the lessons that I have learned since I was saved in 1992.

I have been married for 22 years now and the Lord has richly blessed my marriage to my wonderful husband Doug.

So I thought I would start there. I hope that this series can be a blessing and encouragement to some one out there.

Raising our children for the Lord has to start with ourselves. The Lord has really been impressing on my heart that I need to be the example in my Christian life if I desire to see my children serving God. Lately I have felt frustrated because I do not seem to have the quiet time that I need with my savior every day. So this morning the Lord helped me and I was up at 5:00am to do my devotions. Now I am not saying this to make any of you feel that you have to get up at 5:00am to do your devotions I just find that for myself if I do not get up that early I just cannot find a quiet time with no one else up .

With that said I must say that I am not a morning person so getting up at 5:00am is not easy for me but I am praying that the Lord will help me to continue this. I would greatly appreciate your prayers for me in this matter. :)

I can always tell when I have not had my devotions my day seems to go wrong in every area and I just do not have the peace that only comes from walking in the spirit and not in my flesh.

I have learned that I can not train my children for the Lord in my own power. I need Gods intervention.

After my personal relationship with the Lord my relationship with my husband is the next most important thing.

If I desire to have children that will live for the Lord than my relationship with my husband has to be right.

Oh how I struggle with this. I desire so much to have a meek and quiet spirit and to be submissive to my husband in every area of my life. I know that God has commanded me to be in submission to my husband and this is something that he has been working on in my life.

If we do not have the right kind of relationship with our husbands one of respect and honor than our children will not respect the authority in our home.

Also our children need to see that mommy and daddy are happy together and that they have a stable home and a place of love.

I do struggle with this. I love my husband but so often I find myself not talking to him in a respectful tone and I have to ask him to forgive me.

Praise the Lord that he does not give up on me and that he promises to keep working in my life to make me the godly women that he desires me to be.

I have read several books about being a godly wife so I thought I would mention a couple.
The Excellent Wife, and Created to be his helpmeet. I would recommend you to read these books as a help and an encouragement.

God Bless, Kathy

(What adorable little peacocks!)

My Little Helper

2008-10-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

One thing I have learned through the years is to take the time to train my little ones to be big helpers at home.

Our littlest daughter who is now two years old has such a sweet spirit about her and she loves to help!

The other night she wanted to help set the dinner table. So to the silverware drawer she went.

She put out the napkins and than began to work on the forks.

I just could not resist so I grabbed the camera and began taking pictures.

My husband patiently instructed her where to place the silverware , and she was eager to work!

So often I forget how important it is to include my little ones in the daily chores. They like to help mommy but I get so busy and rushed. Such a missed opportunity to teach them to have a helpful attitude.

The Lord has blessed us with eight children and we have been homeschooling now for 13 years so through the years I have learned how valuable it has been to have my children helping me.
Does the work get done always as I would like it to be done? Well not always but what valuable lessons have my children learned about helping.

One motto that we have here is that we are a family that pitches in and works together.
I hope to instill this in my children.

I remember my dad saying to me one day (who is 77 years old now) that he thought it so sad that children today grow up not knowing the real meaning of work. He grew up in a family of 12 children and on a farm so I am sure he knew what real work was all about.

I am thankful that my dad took the time to teach me the importance of being a good worker and that I can hopefully teach these values to my own children.

God Bless, Kathy

I guess this one missed the drawer! :)

A little Bit Under the Weather

2008-10-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

As most of you have probably noticed the posts are a little scarce!
Our family is going through a bit of a "sick" period. Right now it is mostly colds and pink eye.
Please keep my Mom, Kathy, in your prayers, as she is very sick right now.
She has a sore throat on top of the back problems from that car accident a month ago.

Thankyou so much for your prayers!

She would be really encouraged by a nice little comment!

~God Bless~
Rebecca

Zoo pics Coming Soon!

2008-10-03T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Today we went to the Beardsley Zoo!
We had a lot of fun and I was able to take many pictures!
I will be posting them asap!

My younger siblings had a great time, especially when the free roaming Peacocks visited!

Pics coming soon!

~Rebecca~

Happy Birthday Wishes!

2008-09-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

(Photo courtesy of J's Magic )

We would like to wish Rachelle over at Mama's Little Bears a very Happy Birthday!
If you haven't check out her blog yet why not take a look and wish her a Happy Birthday too!

Frugal Friday Make your own cards for free!

2008-09-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Make your Own Handmade Cards!

What do you do with all those cards once the holidays/birthdays are done and gone?
If you were like anyone else, you would probably just throw them a way after a while.
But. . .Did you know that cards are wonderful to use to remake FREE cards that are unique?!

So, keep all those cards!
You can make more cards, or bookmarks too!

I also use paper design sheets that someone gave me.
Other things to collect are magazine pictures that are really nice, and any other odd or end.

My mother had a birthday recently and I was able to make her a very nice card.
I used card stock, textured papers, and even some dried lilac leaves!

The "Happy Birthday" came from a Birthday card I had received. I tore it off the card to give it a nice look.

This design could be for birthday or anniversary.
The word "love" was printed on Card Stock off my computer.
I printed a whole sheet of inspirational words.

These last are for a Mother's day/or Birthday design.

My homemade cards are very special to all those who receive them.
I enjoy making them.

God Bless!

~Rebecca~

(I hope you give this a try!)

Please Check out the Rest of Our Blog!

Take a peek at our new blog "Our Favorite Books!"

Lord, Teach Me!

2008-09-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

I Love Sunday school!

Yes, even at the age of 19 I really do love Sunday school!
I had been attending the "College and Career" Sunday school class for almost a year
(although I currently am not in college nor have a "career" it is my age group, . . . well, they had to put me somewhere!! :)

Anyways, I was really enjoying the class, then summer came. Since our church has a college, many students were gone. Then my Pastor announced a summer Sunday school class for all couples, married or engaged.

So my parents who both teach/help in Sunday school went to that class. (And they REALLY enjoyed it!)
What was left of my Sunday school Class became Sunday school Teachers/helpers!

I was asked to help in the Pastor's wife's class. My mother was originally the helper.
The pastor's wife teaches 1&2 grade.
I was very excited, God had given me a small summer ministry! I was also able to teach the class a few times as a substitute teacher.
As Much as I enjoyed helping I did look forward to returning to my Sunday School Class as the teacher taught wonderful lessons.

10 weeks later The couples' class ended.

The Pastor's wife needed surgery. She would be unable to walk for6 weeks.
So I stayed in the class with my Mother as the teacher.

This past Sunday was the 6th week.
I was really excited to go back to my class in just a week.

But, I found out, I might be needed to help teach a little bit longer.

I was tempted to be upset. I talked to my Dad about it.
He said that he understood, and that he thought I should stay on because I would be impacting these kids lives for eternity.

I suddenly realized how foolish I was being! Here God was giving me an opportunity to serve, the very thing I had been praying for! And now I was pouting?
I asked God to forgive me.

I sometimes wonder how many opportunities God has given me that I have rejected and then lost those precious opportunities!

I have a rock in my room.

I bought it at a homeschooling convention for $3
When we got home My Dad got out his hammer and a wedge and gave the rock a few hard taps
And viol`a The rock broke in half revealing the beautiful crystals of this geode inside it.

The rock had to break to reveal the beauty inside.

This rock is very, very special to me.

Just like the rock, I too have to be "broken" to let the beauty out.
I have my own ideas, plans and ambitions, and sometimes will not listen to God's will.
I have to constantly hand my will over to God.

Just like my dad broke the geode for me, so God has to "break" me so that He can use me!

God has taught me alot, and I still have so much more to learn!

God Bless~ Rebecca

2008-09-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we celebrated my Mom's Birthday!

We had 2 cakes because I made one and so did my Grandpa!

My Mom with a card made by Stephanie!

My Dad and I bought Mom a Special gift.

It is the complete DVD collection of the 1950's TV show "I Love Lucy"!

We LOVE You Mom!

~Rebecca

Having a " Meek and Quiet Spirit"

2008-09-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

IPeter 3:4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

A meek and quiet spirit. Something I greatly desire to have in my life but something I still struggle with so much.

The Lord has really been speaking to me lately about having a meek and quiet spirit.

The Lord has blessed my husband and I with eight children.

Lately things here have seemed to be a little strained and when ever I pray about it I feel the Lord telling me that a meek a quiet spirit from me would make a huge difference in our home.

We home school so our days are quite busy and full and there are so many things that can rob me of that sweet spirit.

Still this is my hearts desire. So I am trying to make some changes in my day that would hopefully help me to keep that sweet spirit through out the day.

Of course I can not have a meek and quiet spirit with out the Holy Spirit doing a work in my heart and life. I know that I need to walk in the Spirit and not in my flesh.

One of the things that the Lord has impressed on my heart is that I need to take better care of my dear husband. It is so easy to forget this from day to day with all of the other responsibilities that always seem so pressing.

So what can I do to help me to achieve this great desire of a meek and quiet spirit?

Well I know that one of the most important things that I can do is to spend some time with my Lord. As Mary did sitting at the feet of Jesus.

(Painting by Mary Casset)

With eight children this can be quite a challenge! I have tried having my quiet time with the Lord really early in the morning. I am not a morning person by nature so this is really difficult for me. If I wait until 6:00am in the morning this time already seems to late. My husband is getting up at that time and my little ones begin to emerge out of their rooms.

But I have to ask is my time with the Lord more precious to me that that extra hour of sleep?

My spirit says YES! My flesh still struggles though.

Another way to help me to have a meek and quiet spirit is to determine in my day what are the little issues that arise and cause me to loose that meek and quiet spirit?

There are so many things that can cause me to loose that sweet spirit..

A huge mess in the house,
Getting up to late.
Feeling like I am running behind in my day.

And the list can go on.

I have set up a schedule to try to direct our day so that we can try to accomplish the things that need to get done during the day.

Today I decided to make a little list of things that I really need to get accomplished so I feel like my day is being productive, and to remind myself of little things like doing something sweet for my husband.

I am sure that many of you would have other ideas that help you with having that meek and quiet spirit.

In my devotions I have been reading in I Peter. Peter mentions that having a Meek and Quiet Spirit was so important. That struck me as this was coming from a man who was a bold person.
He knew that having a meek and quiet spirit is of a great price to the Lord.

I know that this is a process in my life that the Lord is working on.

Hopefully someday I will be able to look back on my life and see that finally the Lord allowed me to have that much desired Meek and quiet Spirit!

God Bless, Kathy

Our Little Visitor

2008-09-17T07:03:00.000-07:00

A Squirrelly Friend
Drops by for a snack.

"Mmmmm, something sure smells good. . ."

"Ooh! It's bread!"

"Ohhhh, that tastes so good!"

"Yummy, Yummy, Yummy!"

"Ahh, what a snack!"

"Well, better head home, oops I got an itch!"

The End.

Bible Club sure is Fun!

2008-09-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

This past summer we had a CEF 5-day club at our house.

My Brothers (Brandon and Collin) and I scoured our neighborhood, knocking on doors and inviting kids to come.

We received varied responses.
Some wives said yes, but their husbands said "no" flat out.
Some said they would come and never showed up.
Some were interested till they heard the word "Bible" then they wanted nothing to do with us.
Some told us they had nothing to do with "religion"or the Bible.
Others "didn't believe that kind of stuff."

We were chased by 3 dogs.
Told to "go away" quite loudly.
And one person swore while we were there because his dog got outside.

It was quite discouraging.

BUT. . .
We Had 3 different families respond and bring their kids!

Isn't God good?

We had a team of 5 girls teach our club. They did a great Job!

These 4 girls taught

This young Lady was the Team's Leader
(My sister is in her lap)

This boy is our next door neighbor, I was able to lead him to the Lord in July of 2007. His twin brother accepted Christ a month later at a VBS.

This is a Picture of me, The girl in front of me is my sister, and the one next to me is a neighbor.

This is the neighbor girl's big sister, and of course my little sister!

I love this song!

The Kids were enthusiastic!

I love this pic of my little sister telling her little Brother to "SHHHHH!"

Please enjoy this SmileBox of that Week!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Who did it?

2008-09-12T17:13:00.000-07:00

We had a busy day to day,

As I was heading to the Computer room, I turned on the lights. And what met my eye, but a plastic castle that had been bombarded by. . .

Cheerios!

courtesy of wikimedia

"Oh NO!"

I was so looking forward to just sitting and relaxing! But, I held my complaints in and lugged out our hand-held Oreck xl and began to clean up the "debris".

I still haven't found the culprits.
I think it is probably the infamous Mr. "I-Don't-Know" and his wife "Not-Me"

:) I am learning to smile, and not to groan.

God Bless, Rebecca

Our New Blog!

2008-09-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

We wanted to invite you to check out our new blog that we just started!

Our Favorite Books!

My Daughter and I love to read books so Rebecca wanted to have a place to review them. We started a poll so Check out our new blog and let us know what kind of books you like to read!
God Bless, Kathy and Rebecca

We Remember.

2008-09-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

I was only twelve years old at the time.

I was washing the morning dishes and enjoying the late summer when our phone rang.
My mother picked it up.

"What? What do you mean? Manhattan?" she was talking to my Father.

The tone of her voice caused me to stop a moment and listen closer.
But she left the room with the phone still in her hand.

Moments later she returned and hung up the phone.
She called my brothers and I to her and brought us to her bedroom where the small TV was on.

In moments she explained what we were seeing on the screen. Our nation had been attacked right as I was washing dishes.
I sat in disbelief as I watched the second tower crumble to the ground, and watch a panicked news reporter explain to a stunned America what was taking place.
I understood that thousands of lives had just been taken.

I remember the feeling of worry and concern for the many days thereafter.
What was going on?
Nothing this catastrophic had taken place in our country since the bombing of Pearl Harbor during WWII.

It has been nearly 7 years later.

Yet, tears still come unbidden when I think of that dark time.

I have 4 newspaper articles from the days following 9/11
Fear clings to every article.

I love my Country.
And my prayers are for her to turn back to God continually.

Please Click here for a touching Memorial

Click Here to see my America slide show.

A Memorial By Kids4Truth with scripture can be viewed here

Frugal Friday!

2008-09-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

This week I thought I would mention a wonderful quick recipe that my family really enjoys!

One day about a year ago I was watching The Food Net Work and I saw Paula Deen making this really easy recipe.

Now I am always looking for some side dishes to add to our dinners to fill up all of our families hungry tummies! Bread is one item that I like to make. It fills them up and tastes great.
The problem is that I do not always have time to make bread that requires rising time.

This recipe is for Sour Cream Muffins. These really work out great and are quick and easy to make! Even your children could make these with a little help.
The Frugal part of my recipe is the flour. This recipe requires using Self Rising Flour.
I bought this the first time I made this recipe ,but I could not believe how much more the self rising flour cost compared to regular white flour.

So to the internet I went to find a recipe to make my own self rising flour and here it is.

Self Rising Flour:
1 cup of white flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt

So for every cup of flour you use you just add these amounts of the other items.

This works out great and you could even make some up for later use.

These muffins are so good you just whip them up before supper and they come out of the oven smelling great!

You have to try them ! You just won't believe how good they are!
Here is the recipe just check them out here at The Food net work.

I hope that you give them a try and let us know what you think of them!

Oh I just realized that I forgot take a an after picture of them I am sorry!

To find some other great Frugal ideas just check out Biblical Womanhood.

God Bless, Kathy

Check out the rest of our Blog @ In My Mothers Garden!

The Look Says It All!

2008-09-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

I just couldn't think of a perfect caption. . .so
feel free to leave a nice comment as to what you think Caleb might be thinking!

God Bless, Kathy and Rebecca

2008-09-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

Rebecca and I would like to thank Rachelle over at
Mamas Little Bears

for giving us an award for our Blog!

What a kind gesture !

Rebecca and I have been blessed by her blog as well so we want to thank
her for thinking of us.

Many have emailed and have been an encouragement to us as well what a great blessing!

Now Rachelle has written on her Blog Mama's Little Bears that I am to pass this award onto seven other Blogs that I enjoy reading so I will list them below. So here they are!

The first site that I would like to mention is by a woman named Michelle.
She is new to blogging as Rebecca and I are but her posts have been a blessing
Check her out at By His Grace and For His Glory.

Another site that we enjoy is by a young woman named Courtney.
You can visit her blog at Courtney's Contemplations and a Keeper in Training.

Another site that we enjoy and is new by a dear friend of my daughters
Lina's Life Lessons

Another blog that I think deserves this award is Keeping the Kingdom First

Another blog that I really enjoy is Biblical Womanhood

Well I am pretty new to blogging so these are the blogs that I enjoy.
I think they all deserve this wonderful Award!

Thanks again Rachelle!
God Bless, Kathy

Our New Look!

2008-09-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

Yes, you are at the right blog!

"In My Mother's Garden" has just gone through a makeover!

What do you think? We hope you like it!

Background design by: "The Cutest Blog on the Block"

God Bless! Kathy and Rebecca

More of "The Wild Side of Gardening!"

2008-09-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Gardening on The Wild Side
part II

The picture below is of a Cicada, that has just shed it's larval skin.
We find their discarded skins all about our yard, and the little ones actually enjoying seeing how many they can find.

You are probably wondering why in the world we would do that!
Well, their little skins are absolutely amazing! It is a perfect "replica" of the living creature, every claw, wing impression and hair is preserved on the discarded skin.
The little ones love to hunt for them and find out who has the "best one."

Now we rarely find a real live one, these 2 little guys above had just come out of their skins. And we were ecstatic to find them!

This one we found hanging onto some clothes on our clothesline!
They are really calm, and "friendly" but they seem to fly so clumsily!
This one took off of my hand and bumped into a window twice before smacking into a tree! Then he just flew off, and left my little brother and I laughing!

This video is of my younger brother and a "find"

To Learn More about these amazing little Creatures, click here!

Little Gentleman

2008-09-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Little Gentleman

It was Sunday Morning and my 2 younger Brothers were all dressed up. Their shirts were clean and wrinkle free, their ties were free of tooth-paste, and their pants were presentable.

We had about 20 mins before it was time to go to church, so I grabbed my camera to snap some pics of my brothers before they mussed up their clothing.

For the most part they cooperated, gave really big smiles, and sat nicely. . .

But Matthew (he's 6) and Jeremiah (he's 8) had other ideas. . .

They soon began giggling and hugging each other.

I kept taking pics and let them fool around a little bit.

All in all, we had a great time!

God Bless, Rebecca

Frugal Friday! Cooking from Scratch!

2008-09-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post today about frugal cooking!

Several years ago my wonderful husband found this great website called Hillbilly Housewife. On this site there are many wonderful recipes that you make all from scratch!

My daughter and I have made many of them.

We have made homemade pancake syrup, homemade chocolate syrup for some yummy chocolate milk.

There are recipes for pancakes and muffins too. There is so many recipes that I could not possibly name them all here.

It has been fun making the many different recipes from scratch and paying pennies for these items.

With a large family we go through a lot! So it is great to be able to make your own and not have to pay the higher store prices. Not to mention the fact that you also know what you are putting into your recipe.

Now I cannot say that I always make these items every week, but when things are really tight or I just do not have the item on hand it is wonderful to know that I can just go to this great site and find a recipe to use to make what I need.

There are many convenience food recipes as well.

Last night my daughter made this favorite bread for supper. It is great because it does not need any kneading and not much time for rising. It is called Quick yeast bread.

It really is very easy and so delicious so why not give it a try and check out this great web site Hillybilly Housewife !

God Bless, and have a great Week! Kathy

Back to School!

2008-08-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

Well we started school again this past week and things have been very busy!

I am homeschooling 6 of our children this year.

Our oldest son Brandon is in the 12th grade this year so we are hoping to get him through and graduated. Our son Collin is in 10th grade according to his age but he is doing the same work as his older brother.

Our daughter Stephanie is now in 4th grade and Jeremiah is in 3rd.

That leaves our 6 year old Matthew who is now in first grade.

Caleb our 4 year old and Katelyn our two year old are busy learning their colors and letters, counting and some phonics sounds.

In just this one week I can hear my two year old singing around the house her ABC's and counting 1,7,9 just so adorable!

Our day is very full and some times I wonder how I will ever get every thing accomplished but I know that I must trust Gods grace to help me get through each day.

This is our thirteenth year of homeschooling and it is always changing.

I often think what will it be like when our little ones are homeschooling as well?

Homeschooling with toddlers does make things challenging. Our four year old son is very busy! We have to keep a constant eye on him. I have learned through the years that sharing the responsibilty of playing with and watching the younger ones with my older children has truely been a blessing and a help.

Our oldest daughter is home this year and so she has been a tremendous help in this area. I also have my nine year old helping and our eight year old.

This enables me to have one on one time with each of the children in their school work.

Well I hope that you all have a great school year this year. Enjoy the time with your children, because it flies by so quickly!

God Bless, Kathy

God's Protective Hand!

2008-08-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

We had just bought this car 4 months ago to save money on gas. With a family of 10 the only thing that we had to drive around in was a large van so this was awful on gas as you could imagine.

Two Fridays ago I went grocery shopping with our 17 year old son Brandon and our 4 year old son Caleb.

I was so happy that we had managed to get shopping done early and we were heading home to enjoy the rest of our day and to prepare for company that we were going to have over that evening.

We had just finished grocery shopping and I remember that for some reason that day I chose to double check my sons car seat to make sure that it was secured really well.

As we were heading home a car struck the driver's side of our car and sent us spinning!
Our four year old was screaming as his door was hit the hardest.

By God's grace no one was in front of us and no one was coming behind us. This truly was Gods grace.

This street has been so busy lately due to construction and the building of a new Target and Lowes.

When we finally stopped and I saw us pointing now in the wrong direction I became panicked all I could think of was getting out off the road before someone else came down the street and possibly hitting us again.

I pulled the car into the gas station that was right where we were. The car was a mess and it didn't move to easily but by Gods grace I was able to get us out of harms way.

The elderly gentleman continued on his way to the pump to gas. My oldest son could not believe this.

A police officer was near the construction and came right over to see if we were ok. He called the gentleman back over to us to wait for another police officer to come.

By this time I realized what had happened and it began to sink in. My heart just sank when I knew that the new little car (new to us) was hit.

My oldest son was wonderful taking care of me and my youngest son. He called 911 and called my husband. He even went into the gas station and bought some candy for our little one to calm him down.

God is so good He was always in control and took care of us all. I did hurt my neck and back which I am getting care for and our other two sons were not injured.

Our car was totaled which really saddened us. I had to remind myself that everything we own is Gods so I have to trust God for all of his decisions.

I once heard a preacher preaching a sermon and he mentioned that his vehicle had been in an accident and he just prayed and said ,"Lord you are not taking very good care of your car."

God does own everything that we have here on this earth and I just thought of that sermon and had to remind myself of this truth! God does own everything and I need to just trust him for meeting all of our needs!

This is something I often find myself forgetting but I do desire to trust and obey his will for my life.

The funny side of this , if there could be one is that when my husband opened the trunk to retrieve our groceries a gallon of milk was crushed and was pouring out all over the place.

When we went to retrieve all of the rest of the items from the car it smelled so bad that I do not think anyone could have removed that stench.

I am so thankful that we have a God who cares for us and is always watching over us!

We are now praying and looking for another car.

Praise the Lord for his Goodness!

God Bless, Kathy

Home Made Sauce Fresh from the Garden!

2008-08-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

Homemade Sauce fresh from the garden hmmm can you smell the aroma?

This is my frugal idea for this week.

Our garden has not done as well as I had hoped this year but the tomatoes sure are doing great!

This year my husband had bought a few tomato plants and some cherry tomato plants so we thought we would have enough to make salads and just enjoy.

Well shortly after my dad called and told us that he had some tomato plants for us and we now had 12 plants!

As you can guess we now have a lot of ripe tomatoes so it was time to do something with them!

Here is our sauce recipe!

First pick some ripe tomatoes, and wash them.

I than blanched them in boiling water for about 2-3 mins each until the skin began to peel away.

I removed them from the boiling water and placed them in some ice cold water to stop the cooking process.

I than proceeded to skin them and to cut into chunk size.

I placed them into a large pot to cook down.

(Note I did not remove the seeds but you could if you wanted too)

As this was simmering a little bit of foam began to form so I skimmed this off the top.

When the tomatoes were cooked down I added some other cans of tomato sauce that I had on hand and some paste.

I than added all of my spices. (oregano, salt, pepper, hot peppers) I also added some sugar I like our sauce sweet.

I let this simmer for a little while.

I now had my base sauce.

This past Sunday I cooked up some onions and ground beef. I added a little minced garlic and added some sauce to the pot. Yum this was so delicious over spaghetti!

Add some fresh bread or our pepperoni bread that we posted about here, and a salad and you have a very frugal meal that is absolutely delicious!

God Bless, Enjoy! Kathy

"A Day in Space"

2008-08-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

I LOVE the violin!
I always wanted a violin when I was a little girl but my parents wanted me to do piano first. I did take piano for a little bit, but I still loved the violin! I would listen to a music tape of violins over and over! I loved the sound and the look. A violin just sings! I think it is the most beautiful instrument that God had man invent!

Well, in the fall of 2007 I finally received a violin from my parents!!!!!
I was sooooo excited! I loved the deep tones, and the high soft ones. I quickly fell in love with the feel of the wood and the smell of the rosin on the bow. The violin felt natural in my hands and my fingers seemed to know just what to do.

There was just one problem, I would have to teach myself!
We didn't know anyone who could teach me.

I wasn't very concerned though! I was pretty sure that I could teach myself, maybe.

So, I began to practice, I had a ''beginners Violin'' book, along with a cd to demonstrate the sounds of each song.
I practiced.
But I came to a song after a while that I just couldn't get.

Well, it is now almost fall 2008
And something wonderful happened!

A few weeks ago my church had a Band Camp, for voice and instrumentals.
The orchestral suite was "A Day in Space". My brother, Collin played the trumpet so he was going. I wondered if I should go for the choir.
I talked to my mom, and soon came to the conclusion that I would take my violin and just "see what happens"

So, I went the first day, and tried to play along, but became very frustrated. The song was centered on the notes I had the most trouble with! I considered just doing choir instead. But God prompted me to keep going and stick with the orchestra.

There were 2 other young ladies playing violins, both had lessons for 6+ years. They soon became my "little angels"! both were 5 yrs younger then I.
These 2 "angels" were sent by God!!!

These 2 young ladies went through the different movements in the songs with me, showing me how to properly hold my bow, and position my fingers. When they could have been practicing they were helping me! They were truly treasures! I quickly made progress. Both of my "little angels" couldn't believe how well I was doing. I told them that they were my first teachers, and good ones too!

I wasn't sure if I was going to play in the concert.
I couldn't play the entire piece. But some parts I picked up on very well. My mother and the girls encourage me to play my violin, so I did!

(my brother, Collin, is right behind me playing his trumpet)

The day of the concert came and I was nervous. Through God's infinite Grace I was able to perform in the concert!! I know He guided my hands!

After the concert I told the orchestra director that I had never had a lesson.
He was very surprised!

God is so Good,

~Rebecca~

What's A Girl To Do?

2008-08-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

"So, What are you doing for college this fall?" a lady asks.

Inwardly I sigh, I know she's just being friendly. But I am not fond of this question.

"I'm staying home this fall. I am going to take some online writing courses, and help home school my younger siblings," I try to add a smile,"it's real hands-on elementary education!"

"Oh,"

So What's A Girl To Do?

It has been one of the toughest decisions I have ever made. Yes, I might go to College for a 1 yr Bible degree someday, if that is how God leads me. But do I need a degree in Elementary education to home school my own children someday? I believe God wants me to be a homemaker, and I have never seen a degree for cleaning kitchens, staying up all night with a sick child, or on how to be a good mommy. :)

(My little Buddy sneaks in for a hug!)

Now, College might be right for some girls, it might be right for me someday. But right now, God has lead me to stay home. One of my best friends went to college. That was how God was leading her. A dear older lady I know waited 1 yr before going to college to help her mother at home. When she did go to college the next year it was the same year a certain young man was starting. She and that young man eventually were married! She was blessed!

(I treasure this photo a friend took of me and a little boy reading the Bible for a class)

So, what am I going to do in the meantime?

1) I am going to help teach my younger siblings. My goal is to get my little brother Matt to read really good.

2) Take writing courses. I would like to write good books for preteens-young adults.

3) Continue working on my stories that I have started.

4) Help out as a Substitute Sunday school teacher.

5) Learn how to play the violin better!!!!!

6)Help out wherever I am needed!

So, What's A Girl To Do? ~Wait for God's leading and ALWAYS trust in Him!

Are there any young ladies out there who are choosing to stay home?

I would love to hear from You!

God Bless
~Rebecca~

A Fun and Frugal Dino Craft!!

2008-08-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

What do you do with all those empty laundry soap bottles hanging around? Throw them away? No! Inside those little bottles is a Dinosaur waiting to be born!

So, We are going to make a dinosaur craft/toy out of a couple of ALL laundry soap bottles! Completely Frugal and completely free, (not to mention better then throwing them away!) Don't think I can? Just wait and see!

First, remove the wrapper of an empty bottle. ANY bottle with a similar shape works great! Wash out the inside really good. (if you don't rinse it out really well you are going to have a BIG mess! Believe me!)
Also, this craft requires parental assistance!!

Next, make 2 marks with a marker like so on both sides of 1 bottle. The top mark is for the arms, the bottom for the legs.

Draw a leg template on a piece of paper. On a 2nd bottle trace the template.

With a craft knife or a good pair of scissors cut out the leg peice, cut out a 2nd from the other side of the bottle. (don't forget to give him a left and right leg! so flip the paper template over!)

OK, with what is left of the 2nd bottle- make a paper arm template, trace and cut.

So, we now attach the arms and legs to the 1rst bottle with the 2 marks. We do this by first drilling a small hole through the leg/arm and body and then drilling a screw. Does it look more like a dinosaur?

Using the remains of the 2nd bottle trace and cut out a tail shape. Screw it on , for extra strength I taped it on too. Although not shown, I also taped this little guys legs too.

The head is up to you! I used more bottle parts and kind of taped it on and"into" a head shape!

OK! Now we are ready to paint! Do whatever you want, or whatever your child wants! This part is more kid-friendly! depending on the paint you use, it will chip off. If you wrap the whole Dino with tape this will be less likely to happen! Glue on some googly eyes for a really great "look!"

So here is the finished project! Isn't he cute???

My little brother, Matt, actually won a contest for "Most Realistic Dino!"

So, start crafting!!

God Bless, Rebecca!

New Perspectives

2008-08-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

"New Perspectives"

I love this photo of my younger brother, Collin! He and Brandon (another brother) worked together and built this K'nex tower in about an hour. Brandon took the picture.
The boys always loved building with legos and K'nex! WE always were finding little pieces of these EVERYWHERE!

That was in 2006.

2 yrs later, my brother has built all kinds of things! It all started with building with legos. . . now he's built a sled, a playhouse and so on!
So, enjoy all those little pieces of legos scattered around! You never know. . .

Fun in the Sun

2008-08-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

This year for vacation we decided to just stay home and to find some fun things to do close to home.

With eight children it can be a challenge to found something that everyone would enjoy to do.

Our oldest daughter is 19yrs old and the youngest is 2 yrs old.

Well we decided to head to the shore!

We always like to wait and to go later in the evening when the sun is starting to go down. This is a great time!

The beach is pretty empty and we can just enjoy the wonderful breeze the fresh sea air and enjoy the waves that come crashing in. Ok around here the waves are not very high but for our smaller children they are just the right size.

We first headed to a favorite restaurant that is down by the shore! I love sea food so this was a real treat!

We than headed to the beach. This is a public beach and we had been hoping that it would be a free entry since it was later in the day but that was not to be! The small fee for parking was worth it though!

The children had a wonderful time. When we started talking we realized it had been about 8 years since we last had been at the beach! Time does fly by.

(With my last 5 pregnancies being much closer than my first three we seemed to be so busy!)

Well the Lord really blessed and the children all had fun! It was a perfect little get away which pleased everyone of every age!

Daddy and Katelyn share a kiss!

To end the evening the Lord blessed us with some free pizza!
We happen to be on the peer to get the children kind of washed off. ( hmm) and a kind women came up to us and offered us almost a complete pizza. She had been sitting there with her children and they could not finish all of the pizza that they had bought! God is so Good!

The children were eager to accept her kindness and the Pizza was delicious!

God is so good! Enjoying his creation is the best kind of vacation that we could have!

Our Pastor had been preaching a lot lately about slowing down and enjoying the simpler things in life! I think we all need to remember this!

I hope that this will encourage all of you to see what is in your back yard and to just enjoy the simpler things in life!

God Bless, Kathy

(Enjoy the SmileBox!!)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Dear Lord, Grant Me a Little Bit of Patience!

2008-08-16T07:23:00.000-07:00

My Mother has often told me that when she would have her morning devotions and prayer something interesting would always occur when she prayed for patience! Something would go "wrong" that day, among other things. . .things that try our fragile patience. This is true for me.

I am not the most patient person in the world, but I am trusting God to help me. It seems so easy to just "get upset" when things don't go "my way". My Father told me something very wise once: "If its not going your way, be sure to know that it will always go God's way!"

So, the other morning I was determined to be kinder and exercise more patience. I prayed for patience and a "meek and quiet spirit."

I was in the middle of breakfast dishes when the angry wail from my 2yr old sister sliced the air! She was cranky and mad about something. My mother corrected her and reminded her to "be happy." Minutes later however, she was crying again.

After a bit the crying began to annoy me. I looked out the kitchen window and sighed, then my eyes fell on the index card my mom had posted in the window, on it was written:

Proverbs 31:26,
"She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness."

God sent me an idea right then and there! I quickly dried my hands and picked her up, "Katy, do you want to help me wash dishes?"

Instantly she stopped crying smiled and nodded her head. We pushed up a chair and she climbed up to "help wash the dishes."

Whatever she had previously been crying about was long forgotten and we had a great time "bonding." I am thankful that I didn't get upset and impatient with her, and instead spent some time with her. We are 17 yrs apart in age, so I want my little sister to have good memories of me when I eventually leave to start my own family someday.

My Mother smiled and turned from folding laundry,"That was a good idea! Thankyou!"
I smiled too. I have not conquered my impatience, but God is helping me! And I know that He will continue to help me!

God Bless ~Rebecca~

(Click HERE to check out Katelyn's dish washing!)

Frugal Friday!

2008-08-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

I am always looking for ways to reuse containers that we get for different products that we use.

One of these are these adorable wipes containers. So I think what can I use this for?

I purchased it from CVS! for a great deal right so now we need to use them to make it a really great deal!

Well my four year old just received some playmobile toys for his birthday, this container would be great for these.

My children love playmobile toys but they have a lot of little parts so this wipe container will work out great!
We also like to reuse our shopping grocery plastic bags for our little garbage cans these work out great.

Two of my younger boys have this job and these bags are very easy to work with.

Well that is my frugal idea for this FRUGAL FRIDAY!

God Bless, KathyPhoto By Rebecca (She loves to take pictures of everything!)

Having Fun with My Children!

2008-08-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

Today is such a beautiful day here in the North East! God is really blessing us!

It is August and in the 70's! Praise the Lord!

Turn off the air conditioning and lets go out and have some fun! Ok we have been trying to live with out the air conditioning as much as possible to keep the electric bill down so this wonderful weather just makes it that much sweeter!

The Lord has been working in my heart a lot lately to slow down my pace and to just enjoy my children more! They grow up so fast! I already have a daughter who is 19 years old and I just see the time flying by so quickly!

I have to confess I really have a hard time with this! All I seem to think about is all of the work that needs to be done. I turn around and there is another mess to clean or more laundry to wash. The list is never ending.

The Lord just gently reminds me that this will not really have any eternal value some day.

My time spent better with my children will. I really struggle with just stopping and going out side to play with the children. Today though I did just that and it was wonderful! So many times the children ask me to come and play.

Soon our school days will begin again and we will busy trying to get all of the work done.
It is my hope and prayer that the Lord will help me to slow down and to enjoy the simpler things because my children are growing so quickly and before I know it they will be gone and married and I will wish again for those piles of laundry, the toys on the floor and the little dirty knees to wash.

May God help us all to remember to just stop some times and enjoy the simple things in life that he has blessed us with!
God Bless, Kathy

Who Can resist this face!

Some Deals this Week at CVS 8/10

2008-08-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, I have found some great deals this week so here they are!

Lamisil/ Lamisilk- buy 2 get $10.00 ecbs! There are $3.00 and $4.00 coupons for these in the 7/20 SS . Well to sweetened the deal Walgreens has a coupon in their Easy Saver Catalog that is for $3.00 off of one. So if your Store will take Walgreen coupons you could use two of these and the Mfg coupon and get a really great deal! Plus receive $10.00 ECBS!

Bic Soleil Razors on sale for $4.99 use 3.00 mfg coupon from 8/10 S/S and Walgreens has a coupon for $2.00 making this free!

M&M Chocolate $2.00 each (if the dark chocolate is included in this deal) There is a coupon for $1.50 off of two plus Walgreens has a coupon for $1.00 on two. These come out to .75 cents each.

Buy 6 bags
use 3/1.50 coupons Mfg Coupon
use 3/1.00 Walgreen coupons
pay 4.50 and receive 5.00 ECBS

My goal this week is to stock up on some Good Nites. Usually these are on sale with the Huggies deal.

I picked up several $1.50 coupons for these from a blinkie.

If you spend 25.00 on these you get 5.00 ECB This is not the greatest but I need to stock up on these so I am going to try to work out these into the deal

I am very blessed and live just down the street from a CVS and a Walgreens which are right across the street from each other so they gladly take competitors coupons.

If you have time check out the rest of our Blog! God Bless, Kathy

Modest Bathingsuit

2008-08-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

I am sorry that I have not been blogging lately as much as I should. This summer has been so busy!

I wanted to write about the need for a modest bathing suit for my daughter who is nine years old.

A few weeks ago she was invited to a friends birthday party. This friend of hers has this party every year in the month of July. So every year she has a group of friends over and there is always swimming!

My nine year old was in need of a bathing suit and of course every store I went too did not have anything that I would consider modest for her.

I enjoy sewing so I thought I would try to come up with something that she could wear to swim and still be modest.

Here is what I came up with.

I had some fabric for swim wear that I had purchased a couple of years ago for other swim suits so I decided to use what was left.

I took one of her shirts and cut around it leaving about 5/8 of an inch extra for the seam allowance. I did not include the sleeves with this piece just the body. ( I cut out two pieces, front and back)

I than measured around her arm and measured from top of sleeve to where I wanted the sleeve to end adding about a quarter of an inch at the bottom of the sleeve for a hem. I also added about 5/8 of an inch at the top of the sleeve for the seam allowance.

I sewed the front and back together at the side and shoulder seams and just turned the neck in about 1/4 of an inch and top stitched. I did the same on the bottom for the hem

I than added the sleeves and the top was finished.

I than made the culotte half with a pattern that I had on hand from Christian Womanhood but just shortened the length a bit!

The bathing suit was done and she was ready for her party!She had a really great time at her party and received a lot of compliments!

Do any of you have any great patterns or ideas for a modest bathing suit?
I would love to hear from you! God Bless, Kathy

Pepperoni Bread!

2008-08-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

.

For all those who enjoyed our Pizza! Pizza! post we have another great recipe using the same basic pizza dough!

The pizza dough recipe can be found here

Along with the dough you will need. . .

1lb of Mozzarella cheese

1lb of Chedder 30-40 pepperoni slices (or as much as you want)

And anything else you want!

We usually double the recipe, so we are able to make four breads. If you make a doubled version and only eat 1 or 2, that's fine! These make great left overs!

After mixing the dough and letting it rise, I place the dough onto a well floured counter and form it into a nice round ball. Then I cut the dough into four pieces.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. These take about 20 minutes to cook.

To make a loaf of Pizza Bread I first roll one of the sections out into a rectangular shape (ok, I try to!)

Next I put about a hand full of cheese on the top portion,

Then I fold the dough over the cheese,

Next part is easy! More cheese!!

Now you can add pepperonis!

My mom doesn't care for Pepperonis, so we make her plain cheese,
OK, now you are ready to fold the dough over again, add more cheese and pepperoni!
Next fold in the ends and place on a well greased pan!
they should look like this. . .

They should look like "logs", now I add slits to the top, and brush on an egg wash (1 egg beaten)
Ok, I pop these into the oven! I set the timer for 10 minutes, afterwards I then switch the pans from the bottom rack to top, and the top to bottom. I set the timer for 10 more minutes.

OK! by now they smell soooo good!!!

The finished products! The egg wash gives the breads a "shine"!
Allright! Being very careful (these are very hot!) I cut the loaves into 2'' slices. I place them on a nice large platter and viola! Dinner is served and boy does it smell good! You could add chips, but this usually satisfies by itself. (yes, including my two teen age brothers!)

Doesn't that look good??
These are great plain, or dipped in warm sauce or Ranch dressing.
So enjoy, and let us know if you try this!!

God bless!
~Rebecca~

Gods Wonderful Blessings!

2008-07-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

O Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Psalm 107:1

I thought I would share with you all a wonderful blessing I received yesterday from our Lord!

We moved to our present home three years ago and with our new home came electric heat. Not a good thing with the rising cost of electricity.

We decided after the first winter to purchase a used pellet stove and we placed it in our basement.

Last winter was pretty cold and the pellet stove did pretty well keeping us warm but the bedrooms are located on the other end of the house over a garage so they tended to stay much cooler.

Now regularly I like to sleep in a room that is a little bit cooler but now that I have not been pregnant :) I am much colder at night. It seemed like I just could not get warm enough and I could never fall asleep.

The rest of the family never complained about being cold but my feet would be so cold even with two pairs of socks on that I could never fall asleep until late into the night.

I must say that I tried many things. I even tried taking a heating pad the kind you warm up in a microwave to wrap around my feet!

I finally told my husband that I could take no more so he had a wonderful idea and we brought out his thermal sleeping bag and that is what I would slip into at night under the other blankets.
This did the trick and I was able to finally get some sleep.

Well now it is summer and hot and those cold nights were long forgotten until yesterday when my husband came home from work with a surprise for me.

A kind gentleman from his shop asked him if he would be interested in having a beautiful queen size duel temperature heating blanket! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!

How excited I was to see how my God was already taking care of this winter for me!

With rising heating costs I know that many of us have been turning down the heat to reduce the cost. It is easy sometimes to say Lord how much more can we endure? I know that our God is able to provide all of our needs even when things seem impossible from a humans point of view!

Praise the Lord for his goodness!

May I always remember to Praise Our God for his Wonderful Blessings!

Psalms 109:
27- That they may know that this is thy hand; that tho, Lord , hast done it.

30- I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.

May we always remember to give God all of the Praise!

God Bless, Kathy

The Wild Side of Gardening!

2008-07-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

A little beetle "dancing"

Gardening on the Wild Side!
Enjoying the beauty of God's world.

This lovely Lilly is in my neighbors garden, but it is very close to our Veggie garden, so we are able to enjoy it too!

This praying Mantis visited our Garden 2 years ago. We were very surprised to find such a large one!

These beautiful pink rhododendrons grow in the front of our house

This is a favorite! My brother, Collin caught the little guy in our yard. Then he found the bigger one in a little pond!

This is one of our first red tomatoes from our Cherry Tomato plant!
Our garden is doing really good!

This is a Cicada, we find their shells all over our yard. In the top picture (on the left) is the skin that this Cicada shed. Isn't it amazing how wonderful God made these little guys?

This a bloom from the Wisteria vine.

Wisteria is a favorite of mine! They have a beautiful scent and the flowers resemble a bunch of grapes.

Collin is holding a monarch butterfly!
(he caught this himself too!)

This is my little sister's tulip. It grew very large and had a gorgeous purple bloom!

This photo is one of my pride and joys!
I have a normal Digital camera, and so this little guy had to let me get close! He kept flitting around and finally relaxed and let me take his picture! He is only 3-4" long!

Some Cute little Buttercups!

3 little Robin chicks snuggled down for a nap!
We got to see them learn to fly this spring too!

Well, here is our last picture!
Collin has a frog that he caught in our garden!

I hope that you all can enjoy the beauty of God's creation this week and every week!

God Bless
~Rebecca~

Our Menu this week for a Family of 10!

2008-07-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hello to all!

I thought I would post our menu from the groceries shopping trip for this week.

So here it goes:
Our weeks menu started today.

Saturday:
Breakfast- Whole wheat (homemade) toast with jelly, and cereal
Lunch- Grill cheese, and pop corn (My husband and I had some fresh corn on the cob instead)

Supper- Whole roasted Chicken in crock pot , Alfredo pasta 2 pkgs, homemade butterhorn rolls, sweet corn on the cob and of course the Ice pops Daddy bought for desert.

My Husband made these this morning don't they look yummy!

Sunday:
Breakfast- French toast (with white bread, I was brought up this way and I just like the white bread better for french toast)
Lunch-Cheese Raviolis ,meat sauce and some more of those yummy butterhorn rolls. Corn sounds good too!
Supper-On Sunday night we eat something easy so we can go to church so Children will
probably have that special treat cereal Coco Pops something we rarely buy. The rest of us sandwiches.

Monday:
Breakfast- Cereal and toast
Lunch- Sandwiches and fruit
Supper- Chicken breast BBQ, fries, quick yeast bread, veg from garden (summer squash)

Tuesday:
Breakfast- Bagels with cream cheese
Lunch- Chicken nuggets and buttered bread, canned fruit
Supper- Finger sandwiches (ham, bologna, cheese) Homemade banana bread from banana's
in freezer and chips

Wednesday:
Breakfast- Instant oatmeal 2 boxes ( we usually use about 1 & a half boxes)
Lunch- Mac and cheese
Supper- Pasta, bread

Thursday-
Breakfast- Chocolate Chip Muffins homemade
Lunch- sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly, or bologna and cheese)
Supper- Hamburgs and Hotdogs, Chips

Friday-
Breakfast-Coffee cake (called overnight coffee cake)
Lunch- left overs
Supper- Pepperoni Bread and Cheesy bread ( My children love this for a meal it is a real treat)

For Snacks we have some extra cream cheese to go with toast (whole wheat homemade)
Pretzels (My oldest son loves these)
Free popcorn from Kettle corn!
crackers and cheese spread

We usually have bananas and some apples too but this week I did not see any apples at Aldis and the children are getting tired of bananas so I thought I would give them a rest.

My oldest daughter likes to eat lowfat cottage cheese for her snack so that is for her.

By the end of the week I will hear those pleas of "When are you going grocery shopping Mom?
We have nothing to eat!"

There are times that I try to stretch a few more days before I shop again. We will see!

God Bless, Have a wonderful day with the Lord! Kathy
Photo by Norman Rockwell

SmileBox of our Museum Trip

2008-07-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox photobook

Here is a SmileBox for our trip to Peabody, they are
alot more beautiful pictures of some of the exhibits,
some exhibits that I didn't even mention in the post.
I hope that you enjoy it!

God bless,
~Rebecca~