Updates

I can’t believe April was the last time I posted.  That’s just awful.  But, much has happened since then.  I’m 27 weeks pregnant and our little girl is due in mid-March.  That was a HUGE surprise for us.  I think it took my husband 2 months to get through the shock of it.

Honey Label

My son has started has beekeeping adventure and what was once one hive has now grown into a total of 5 hives.  I just finished his honey label last night.  We’re hoping to have a bumper crop next summer so stay tuned for prices, etc.

Our new addition has been completed (although there’s still some detail work that needs to be finished), but the new addition has now become our living room.

I’ve been busy canning and baking, as usual.  I took a break this summer due to morning sickness.  I would get nauseated just walking into the garden so it made gardening and canning almost non-existent to me.  I hope to continue our garden in the spring again. 

That’s just a quick update for now!  All I really know is that God is good and He provides all that is necessary to survive – and then some!

Product Review: DNG Ben Franklin

It’s hard to think of Benjamin Franklin without certain images popping into my head:  electricity flowing down a kite string, bifocals, a printing press and the American Revolution (to name a few).  But, thanks to this month’s new DNG series, Benjamin Franklin, we’ve learned so much more!  It’s incredible the talents, ambitions and successes (and failures) of Mr. Franklin.  And, the wonderful lapbook, weekly activities and reading material made this DNG Series very enjoyable and memorable.  While the activities are too simplistic for my 5^th grade son, they were perfect for my 2^nd grade daughter.  However, this was a nice “educational” break for my children (considering we’re all experiencing a little spring fever right now).  If your family is studying the American Revolution, this would be a great supplement to the curriculum you’re currently using.  That’s another wonderful benefit of the DNG Series – there are so adaptable to what you may already be doing!

Garden Update

Our garden is coming along quite nicely.  The sweet peas are vining up the tomato cages and have lots of beautiful white blooms.  I even saw an itty bitty pea pod (so cute!).  The lettuce is to the point that I can start pulling leaves for small salads.  We planted a second “square” of lettuce and it’s starting to come up now … although I can see that my children planted WAAAAYYY too many in one little spot.  Oh well…lots of thinning to come.

We prepared several squares today and planted three zucchini plants, three squares of green beans (about 135 seeds) and one square of okra (about 18 seeds).  If it doesn’t rain tomorrow I’m hoping that Johnny and the kids can prepare more squares tomorrow.  I’d like about 3-4 more squares to plant the tomatoes.  If we have 4 squares total and 12 little squares per larger square, that’ll be 48 tomato plants (which I need to get this weekend as well). 

The potatoes are doing great also.  We planted both Yukon gold and red potatoes and both sets are growing really good.  We need to put another layer of dirt over the potatoes – hopefully we can do that this weekend as well.

I still need to buy several bags of potting soil for the cucumbers (our soil makes cucumbers taste very bitter).  Hopefully we’ll be able to get those plants in bigger pots this weekend and put them outside by the garden fence.

Other than that Johnny is going to rent a tiller for the larger garden so we can plant the corn and black-eyed peas.  I’m hoping that we’ll get lots of rain this year for a bumper crop of corn on the cob!!!

Oh yeah!  We’re buying pepper plants this weekend as well and those will go up here in the garden we’ve been using for the past three years. 

It looks like the heirloom seeds I planted aren’t growing fast enough.  I may have to transplant them into bigger pots and transplant them for the fall garden. 

I’ll try to post pictures later this week.  The sun was going down too quickly tonight for me to snap a few photos.

Happy Easter!

The 2 Most Beautiful Children

We had a wonderful Easter with my in-laws.  I’ll keep this short with a few pictures, but trust that God has blessed each of your lives with a beautiful Easter as well.

God bless!

Easter Cake

Our New Addition!!!

Our home is relatively small (less than 800 square feet) and my sweet hubby finally has time to expand our home!!!  It’s been a work in progress for the past several months but it’s slowlybeing completed.  Life has taken many dips and turns since we started but now we’re moving along quite nicely. 

 Our goal was to add on as inexpensively as possible.  So, a lot of what we’re using has been salvaged.  The framing material was salvaged from a new neighborhood that went up about 2 years ago.  We received permission from the builders to take their scraps (anything with nails in it).  We then removed all the nails and straightened them to be re-used later.  The boards then went under our home and we’ve been using them as needed.  The door and window were given to us through a wonderful family we met through  www.freecycle.org.  And, the siding was salvaged from my boss’ home.  Johnny has been ripping the 2x4s over the past few days and now we’re finally starting to put it up.  We debated on whether or not take the 2x4s to a sawmill to be ripped, but we don’t have the money and Johnny’s pretty handy with his skilsaw. 

So far, we’ve only spent money on the tar paper, tin for the roof, screws and plywood (subfloor).  Everything else has been salvaged!  Eventually we’re going to paint the entire house so it’ll look much better then, but it’s looking really good now!

Anyway, here’s how our new addition is shaping up:

The New Addition

 

The Siding & "New" Window

For God So Loved the World…

That he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

That one little verse sums up Easter to me.  God loves his us sooooo much, that He sent His beautiful son, Jesus, to die for us on the cross.  Jesus was born to Mary, grew to the ripe young age of 30 and then ministered for a total of three years.  He performed miracles, taught everyone he met about God’s love for them and above all else, He showed God’s love through His actions and words.  He made the ultimate sacrifice and died for us – ALL OF US (you, me and your crazy cousin Sue).  He became our sacrificial Lamb of the Old Testament Jewish Passover and through His death, overcame death and rose from the dead three days later – victorious over the grave.

Why is that so special?  Because your sins were washed away through Jesus’ love and sacrifice.  He atoned for all of your sins so that you could one day be with Him in heaven.  We do not have to suffer through death like Jesus die.  Accept Him as your Lord and Savior and you’ll one day be with Him in heaven.  It’s as easy as that.

May you all have a blessed and wonderful Easter.  Remember that it’s not about Easter bunnies, eggs and artificial grass.  It’s about God’s love for us and the sacrifice of the Lamb of God for our sins so that we can go to heaven.  Our sins have been forgiven. 

Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

A Little Late – but Texas Snow from 2010

I didn’t get a chance to post these earlier, but here are some pictures we took when we Central Texas was covered with snow about a month ago.  It’s a rare sight for us to get so much snow (which is really not a lot compared to the northern states), but it was certainly beautiful.

Neighbor's Field

Walking up the Hill

Oh So Simple Chicken Parmesan

I was feeling creative and “Italiany” the other night and came up with this awesome dish.  I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine did!

Oh So Simple Chicken Parmesan

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 cup Italian breadcrumbs (see recipe below)

½ cup olive oil

1½ cup tomato sauce (see recipe below)

½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350°.  Lightly grease a 9×12 pan.  Wash chicken and lightly bread with the Italian breadcrumbs.  To cut down on the calories, I don’t dip the chicken in a milk/egg bath before coating with crumbs.  Since the chicken is wet from washing, I take advantage of the wetness and simply coat with it the breadcrumbs.  Place the breaded chicken into the pan and cook for about 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, heat the tomato sauce in a separate pot and let it come to a slow boil.  Lightly baste the chicken with the olive oil (to keep it from drying out) and turn the chicken, coating the backside as well.   Cook for another 5 minutes.  Drizzle the chicken with the tomato sauce and top with the parmesan.  Bake for another 5-10 minutes.  Serve with a nice green salad, crisp homemade bread and green beans.  

Italian Breadcrumbs

1 to 1½ cups breadcrumbs (you can use homemade)

2 tablespoons dried basil

2 tablespoons dried oregano

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

Combine all ingredients together and store in an airtight container or use immediately.

Tomato Sauce

1 cup tomato sauce

½ cup homemade chicken broth  (or you can use store bought)

1 tablespoon dried, crushed basil

1 tablespoon dried, crushed oregano

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 diced garlic clove

salt & pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a pot and bring it to a simmer.

Reminder – God’s in Control

What do you get when you take a stressful week and give God all control? 

Complete joy!

Here’s the rundown we’ve been through over the past week:

1. Major marketing presentation for work – more than 20 hours of prep, lots of conference calls and team collaboration
2. Transmission problems on our ancient Tahoe
3. Emergency brake problems on our worn-out Chevy truck
4. IRS woes
5. Low reserves in the emergency fund
6. Son with an ingrown toenail – needs to see the doctor ($$)
7. Potential pregnancy (yeah!)
8. And as of today, my daughter is sick with allergies or a cold

But, here’s what happens when you give all the control to God:

1. Presentation was a huge success (praise the Lord!)
2. Tahoe has been “behaving” and the transmission problems appears to be gone (praise the Lord!)
3. Sweet hubby is using a chunk of wood behind the tires to prevent rolling until we can save the money to have the emergency brake fixed (all in the budget)
4. What could have been an issue with fines/penalties ended up being nothing of the sort and our IRS refund will be here in a matter of weeks (praise the Lord!)
5. The reserve will be replenished in a matter of weeks (praise the Lord!)
6. My son’s toe is healing beautifully and the doc said that he hasn’t seen a toenail look that good and that we did a great job in taking care of the ingrown toenail.  (praise the Lord!)
7. I’m not pregnant (which is sad) but I said from the beginning that I’ll praise God if I’m pregnant or not pregnant as it is His will whatever happens.  I left it up to God and He answered.  I’m okay with it (very sad this morning) but definitely in a much better mood this evening as I know that God has a different plan for us!  (praise the Lord!)
8. My daughter’s still sick but her sore throat is gone and her sniffles/cough should be gone in a few days.  (praise the Lord!)

All I can say is that any of these situations in and of themselves is no big deal but when it all occurs in a week – that’s a bit much.  However, my hubby and I did a lot of praying and God saw us through each and every situation (with far better outcomes than we imagined).  We couldn’t have asked for a better outcome on some of these situations (like the IRS or the Tahoe or my son’s toenail).   By the way, did you know that there are some good people at the IRS?  I spoke to a wonderful, helpful (yes, helpful) woman today that really answered my questions and did some research for me as to what was causing our problem.  I prayed the entire time I was on hold that 1) I’d get a really helpful person and 2) that the problem would be small and 3) we’d still get our refund.  And you know what?!!  All of it came true!!! 

All the glory goes to God and I’m so thankful that He’s in control.

So, just when you think you can’t take anymore and the devil’s attacking you from all sides, fall on your knees and lift it all up to God.  He’s definitely the one in control and will fight your battles for you, if you’d just let Him.

So, all I can say is …

Praise the Lord!

Kite Capers – a Homeschool Review

DNG Kite Capers

From the wisdom of Mother Goose, “March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.” And what better way to fly into spring than by learning all about kites in Download N Go’s Kite Capers. As in true DNG style, experience kites through lots of reading and hands-on games and crafts – all wrapped up in a simple, week-long format. So far this year we’ve had wind bring forth rain, snow and arctic cold air. With snippets of sunny days mixed in (on completely windless days), our family is looking forward to soaring through this DNG series – and especially to some windy (and warmer) spring days. I can’t wait to get started!! So, download this series for your family, grab your kiddos and head to the library for the reading material. Don’t forget to pack a picnic lunch, a big quilt to relax on and take your school outside for the week for the DNG series Kite Capers.