Living Simply for God

Indoor Bible Scavenger Hunt!

2015-09-18T19:13:00.001-04:00

My children have been very into creating scavenger hunts for each other lately. I'm not at all sure where that obsession came from, but it's been fun to watch them. So when I was trying to decide on something special to do for Friday night worship, it just seemed like a perfect idea to create a scavenger hunt using the Bible! It was so much fun that I thought I'd share it here. :)

We started off the game by reading Psalms 119:105 - "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." I told them that God's Word was really going to guide their path this night! And I sent them on their way by giving them their first Bible verse to look up and try to figure out where it was leading them. They were off and running!

We went through all of the clues and the final clue led them to a bookcase where I had hidden cake! It was quite a hit. :)

So here you have it! An Indoor Bible Scavenger Hunt... make it your own... use as many or as few clues as you'd like. Make up your own clues - there are so many options in that Great Book! Look around your home and find an object that you could hide a clue in/on and then look up that word in a Bible concordance or online and find a Bible verse that you could use as a clue. :) For instance, my son Nicholas has a feather collection on his wall. Most people wouldn't have that, so I didn't include it in the PDF, but we used the verse Psalms 91:4 - "He shall cover thee with his feathers..." It made it a little extra special. :)

Click on the graphic above to download your copy. Enjoy!

Sermon Book for Kids!

2015-02-10T21:04:00.002-05:00

"Mommy, how much longer is this going to be?!"

Surely you've heard it before! The kids are finished reading the handouts from their class, and now they want to know when it's going to be time for potluck!

I've been wanting to put something together for my kids for a long while now. Something that would encourage them to listen during the sermon. We've been blessed with a really great pastor, and I thoroughly enjoy every sermon he presents. And we've had some great guest speakers as well. At eleven years old, I feel that my older boys could certainly gain something by listening up!

I found lots of ideas online and just pulled them all together and made a bunch of different pages. I am sharing them here for free. I'll include a separate link for each page and you can choose to print out as many of each as you would like.

My Sermon Book - cover page

Key Word Alphabet and Count - Listen for keywords and fill in all the letters of the alphabet! Additionally, see how many times you hear certain words during the sermon.

Key Word Hangman - Play hangman using a keyword or phrase from the sermon.

Key Word Scrabble - Create your own scrabble board by writing sermon keywords in the grid.

Sermon Drawing - A page to draw something related to the sermon.

Sermon Notes - More advanced sheet to record songs, prayer requests, scripture reading and other scriptures mentioned as well as a place to write something more about the sermon. Also includes a place to write words that they don't understand so you can help them with them later.

I hope these pages are helpful to you as well! Enjoy!

Our Journey Thus Far

2015-01-23T14:08:00.000-05:00

Looking back on our life to early 2011 it's almost painful to remember how different it was. Up until that time, we were completely caught up in the rat race. We owned a huge house in a beautiful, suburban neighborhood with a gorgeous pool and a bunch of cars, including my husband's dream Porsche.

I shopped at Nordstrom and had clothes in my closet with tags on them that I never wore. Our kids had everything they could possibly need or want. And yet, it was never enough. That's how society taught us to live. I remember Eric's former boss telling him to buy more things - big things - because he wanted him in debt so that he would continue to be a motivated worker.

But our kids were in a private, Christian school where I was the Home & School Leader (think PTA) and we attended church. Wasn't that good enough? Weren't we living the American dream?

Nope.

It wasn't until I became part of a women's group at our church/school that my mindset began to change. I developed a deeper relationship with Christ than I ever had and I started to see things differently. I began to have very different desires in my heart. Things started changing in my personal life - I no longer had the desire for certain things and so I let them go.

Eric and I started to talk about our future in a much different way. We realized that this was not the way we wanted our kids to grow up. We could already see the entitlement issues in them. They had no appreciation for everything that they had, even after several trips to Thailand where they had seen a much different way of life.

In July of 2011 we started talking about selling our house. We were seriously considering relocating to Thailand to do some sort of missionary work. Neither of us had any skills that typical missionaries have, but we knew of a family that had done a similar thing and just jumped in with both feet and were being quite helpful. We figured we could go help them!

After thinking long and hard about moving away from all of our family, we decided to let that part of our dream go for a while. My mother-in-law was battling cancer at the time and it just didn't feel right leaving. We were still unclear about what our next move would be, however.

In December of 2011 we put our house on the market. It was an ugly time to be selling a house! We put complete faith in God. He knew our desire to shift our hearts and we knew He would bless us.

By this time I was starting to feel out-of-place in a school that I thought should be everything we wanted and so I made the decision to pull my boys out and begin homeschooling them. This was something we had planned on doing when we planned on having children, but it just never fit in quite right with the life we were living.

Knowing that our house was on the market and not knowing when it might sell, we decided it would be best to start homeschooling right after the holiday break so that we could get into the groove while I still had access to a teacher I adored who was willing to help me.

Towards the end of January, 2012, we visited my in-laws and our property in West Virginia and got the bug for country living! It seemed a whole new plan was to unfold.

In February, less than 3 months after we put our house on the market, we had an offer! Soon after, our house was under contract! Not having a firm plan in place for our next big move, we decided to rent an apartment for a year to get things figured out.

Let me just tell you a little something about living in a house that was over 6800 square feet during a time when we were buying anything and everything our hearts desired! We had accumulated a LOT of stuff!! And we were moving to an apartment that was just 1300 square feet.

I can honestly say we made a valiant effort to pare down our belongings. We sold things, we gave things away, we donated to Goodwill. Lots. And yet, when moving day came, we still had more stuff than we knew what to do with.

We moved to our apartment. And to our two rented garages. And to our five storage units.

Sigh.

Life in the apartment was oddly good! We enjoyed having so much less space. And that year flew!

In early November I took all 4 kids and my mother and went to Thailand for three months! What an experience for the kids! Eric was able to visit us for a few weeks around the holidays. My best friend and my mother-in-law also visited!

Coming back from Thailand in late January meant that our lease was going to be up in just a few short months! We still didn't have a plan for exactly what we were going to do on our property in WV, so we decided to start looking for a rental there.

By March of 2013 we were moving into our WV rental. All of our storage units moved with us and completely filled our oversized 2-car garage! This picture is part-way through filling it - and that was just of stuff that we didn't actually need to live! We'd lived without it for a year already.

Sometime during that year I was led to a book by Joshua Becker called Clutterfree with Kids: Change your thinking. Discover new habits. Free your home. It was life changing for me! It literally changed the way I thought about stuff. I was finally able to really purge.

Plans were under way to get our building spot ready. We had a perc test and got a septic permit. Our property surrounded my in-laws' house and we were excited to get started!

And then things started to look worse for my mother-in-law. :( By May she had decided to discontinue all of her treatments. We knew in our hearts this was the beginning of the end.

Besides being heart-wrenching news for our family, it was also game-changing for our house plans. My father-in-law would be left in a house that was really too big for two people, let alone one. And if he were to have to sell it down the road, that would mean there would be strangers in the middle of our property. Not good.

So we decided to buy their house in August. In October, my mother-in-law passed away.

We started building a new home for my father-in-law. When our lease on our rental ran out in April, he left on a motorcycle trip across the country and we moved into his house.

We love our home. It is a log home built by Eric's father and grandfather which makes it all the more meaningful. The flower gardens out front will be a forever reminder of the hands that so lovingly planted them.

Our house is bigger than what we had intended to build. And we are still working on getting rid of things. But we are definitely living with much less stuff now and it is such a breath of fresh air! I highly recommend it!

We can't wait to see what God has in store for our future!

A bittersweet connection

2014-10-08T10:56:00.000-04:00

We were blessed to be able to attend a seminar this past weekend for families affected by 4H Leukodystrophy. So little is known at this point and being able to connect with other families was so important. What an emotional roller coaster! How wonderful to talk to other moms who feel the same things I feel. How downright awful to hear about the future for my little girl. We don't know when but one day her myelin will decrease and she will lose the ability to function. It downright stinks. There is no treatment or cure in the near future. There are only 150 people world wide with 4H! You can imagine that we don't get much funding for research. So the best thing I can do right now (besides pray a whole lot!) is to try to spread awareness. The more people we can tell about Leukodystrophy the better. When the NIH sees that people care about it, they tend to invest more into research. So - please, like the awareness page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/POLR3/). Learn a little about it. Tell someone here and there about this awful thing. And above all - please pray. Pray for Emma to be one of the lucky ones. Pray for her to have a happy and long life. Pray for us to have wisdom to understand her needs. Pray for the Lord to come quickly!

Tomatoes awaited!

2014-09-24T11:02:00.000-04:00

We came home to a bunch of tomatoes in the garden! So we canned! 17 quarts of pasta sauce ready for winter!

Beach time!

2014-09-12T11:53:00.000-04:00

The boys and I are enjoying some beach time this week! We are renting a house with some of our church members next week and decided spur-of-the-moment to head down a bit early and get some fishing in while the weather was so awesome! It's good to be back in the Outer Banks!

Follow us on facebook...

2014-05-10T21:34:00.002-04:00

Life's just plain too busy right now to take time to update my blog, unfortunately! Facebook is a much quicker option. So, for now, please follow us on facebook to see what we're up to! :)

The Waiting Game

2014-02-17T15:24:00.001-05:00

I know you've been there! Waiting at a restaurant for your food to arrive and hearing that non-stop question - "when is our food going to get here?!" Well, I've collected dozens of ideas from across the net (out of necessity!) and compiled them into a list for you (and me!) to pull out when the need arises!

Here they are! You can also download a printable sheet to tuck in your bag. :)

1. Word Association - The first person says a word (for instance, “grass”) and the next person comes up with a related word (such as “green”) and so on…

2. Tell jokes - think of your best ones or make some up! Knock, knock, etc…

3. Pictionary - No, you don’t have to bring the whole game along - just start drawing something and have your kids guess what it is!

4. Which hand is it in? - use a pack of sugar, your straw trash, or a piece of your napkin - it doesn’t matter! Whoever guesses correctly gets to hide it next!

5. Lip Reading - Mouth words, songs, or phrases and see who can guess what you are “saying.”

6. Rock, Paper, Scissors!

7. House of Cards - Build a house of cards using sugar packets.

8. Tic Tac Toe - Don’t have paper? Make a board out of straws or knives and then use Splenda and Sweet n Low packets for Xs and Os.

9. Chopsticks Challenge - crumple up little bits of napkin or paper and see who can move them the fastest with the chopsticks from one pile to another. Don’t have chopsticks? Use two straws. Have little ones? Bend one straw in half to make it easier.

10. Toothpick creations - create letters or pictures using toothpicks.

11. Origami - learn at least a couple of things you can make out of paper to entertain or teach the kids.

12. Coin Count - take the coins out of your purse or pocket and practice counting money! Ask kids how to make 32 cents with the fewest coins possible or to give you a dollar’s change from a 42 cent purchase, etc.

13. 20 Questions - think of something in your head and give the other players 20 yes/no questions to ask you in order to guess it.

14. Beginning and Ending - “I’m thinking of a word that begins with Z and ends with O - what is it?” Whoever guesses gets to go next.

15. Scattergories on-the-go - Think of a category and then try to come up with a word in that category for every letter of the alphabet. Take turns around the table or collaborate - whichever works best.

16. Doodle game - someone makes a doodle on paper and the next person has to turn it into something.

17. Would you rather..? - Make up silly questions to ask your kids!

18. What If…? - Make up a scenario while looking around the room and let the kids carry out the story. For example, “What would happen if the power went out?”

19. Pick-up Stix - using toothpicks!

20. Round Robin - Start telling a story using just one sentence and then rotate through each person allowing them to add one sentence. Could get quite interesting!

21. I Spy - make it more or less challenging based on the ages of your kids.

22. Memory Quiz - group objects from the table (silverware, salt shaker, sugar packs, etc.) or from your bag and give kids 10 seconds to look at them. Have them look away while you remove one object. The first one to guess what’s missing gets to arrange the next round.

23. Twistie ties or pipe cleaners - Save those produce bag ties for your purse or grab a pack of pipe cleaners and let the kids create! I’ve witnessed some seriously cool creations!

24. Card game - keep a favorite in your bag! Uno, Phase 10, Skip-Bo - whatever works!

There were plenty of additional ideas that involved either excessive wasting of consumables that belong to the restaurant or making too much noise or just otherwise didn't fit into my idea of what's appropriate to do in a restaurant, so I didn't include them. ;) That doesn't mean there aren't more good ideas out there! If you have others, please do share in the comments!

Hope this takes the pain out of waiting for all of us!

Gluten Free Vegan Spinach Lasagna

2014-01-16T16:25:00.000-05:00

There are a few comfort foods that I have really missed since going gluten and dairy free. Lasagna is one of them! Mom-Mom had such a great lasagna recipe that we used to make but of course it was full of cheese and gluten-filled meat replacers.

My best friend, Sherri, insists that she tried to get me to try this lasagna quite a while back, and that I turned up my nose at it! I suppose that is possible in my pre-dietary change days. But wow, what a mistake that was! She shared the recipe with me recently and insisted that it was one of her family's favorite things to eat. So I decided to try it. Oh. My. Goodness. IN LOVE. This is all that was left of the huge pan I made! Did I mention how incredibly easy it was to make??

Without further ado, here is my (only very slightly altered) version of Sherri's recipe. :) You can get the noodles at Walmart, but we go through so much of this now that I just get the case on Amazon as linked. :) You can also use regular noodles if you aren't gluten free. The original recipe used regular ones.

Gluten Free Vegan Spinach Lasagna

1 package Tinkyada Brown Rice Lasagna Noodles

Fresh spinach leaves - use as few or as many as you'd like. You can also use frozen spinach.

1 jar of spaghetti sauce

1 cup of water

Tofu Cheese Topping (recipe below)

Layer sauce, uncooked noodles, Tofu Cheese Sauce and spinach, ending with the sauce.

Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour at 350 until bubbling hot.

Remove foil and bake 5-10 more minutes.

Tofu Cheese Topping

1/2 cup raw cashews

1/2 cup water

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

2 tbsp lemon juice

pinch of garlic powder

1 lb tofu, rinsed and drained

Combine all ingredients and blend until creamy and smooth.

That's what it looked like before it went in the oven. So pretty and fresh looking! None of us could believe how much this tasted and had the texture of ricotta cheese! It really was incredible! We've already made this several times!

Thanks for holding out on me, friend! :P Love ya! :)

Crazy Cat Lady?

2014-01-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

I'm afraid I'll soon get that title if I'm not careful!

This cutie (since named Gracie) showed up on our doorstep with two other tiny kittens. The kittens were terribly frightened and we never could get them to come to us. Gracie had to have been around humans before because she was as friendly as could be! She was happy to come into a warm house and be snuggled! We took her to the vet and got her all checked out and shots given.

This is Jamie. Believe it or not, he was a feral cat. We've been wooing him ever since we moved into this rental house. He used to come steal fish out of our fire pit in the summer. He eventually took to eating out of a bowl on our back porch. We moved it to the front porch and made him a bed. It took him a while, but he got used to that. He went from running away when we opened the door to gradually getting used to us and letting us be on the porch at the same time. He would rub up against "us" through the glass door, but wouldn't let us touch him otherwise. We kept saying he wanted so badly to be loved!

Well, one day recently he came to the door with an injured paw - bleeding a little. I decided maybe it was time to try to trap him. The trap was out for a few days before I finally caught him with some yummy salmon! Unfortunately, I caught him on a Friday night and wasn't able to get him into the vet until Tuesday! Thankfully I found a kind, local gal who loaned me a larger cage than I had. I was able to fit a litter box and food and water in it. Interestingly enough, I think all it took was being caged to have him realize that we weren't going to hurt him. He morphed very quickly into a super loving cat! He drools when you are petting him!!

Sadly, the two kittens were never seen again after a few days. Hopefully they didn't spread the word. ;)

My little man!

2013-12-08T13:07:00.000-05:00

Nicholas was quite excited that Grandpa showed him this big, dead tree that needed chopped down. Of course Grandpa could have grabbed the chainsaw and had it down in no time flat, but how proud Nicholas was to be able to use an ax and do it all by himself! I think Grandpa thought it was going to take a little longer to get as far as he did!

Later that day, Nicholas also got to try driving the Ranger for the first time! He was quite the little man! Not sure who was prouder - him or me! :)

It's crazy to have such mixed feelings about loving to see them grow up and prove themselves but wanting them to stay little! :(

Groundbreaking!

2013-12-04T12:57:00.000-05:00

Driving up the driveway to Grandpa's house today we saw that they had finally broken ground for his new house! We are all pretty excited to see things progress, although Nicholas is a bit sad to see some of our trees go... My little conservationist. :)

Vegan Block Cheese Success!

2013-11-13T12:10:00.000-05:00

We've been making a vegan cheese sauce for quite a long time now that we really like, but we have never tried our hand at making something more solid. So when my SIL pinned this recipe on Pinterest, it looked easy enough to try - so we did! And it was a success! Here it is!

Vegan Block Cheese

1 Tbsp agar powder (I use Frontier brand)
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup raw cashews
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
anything you'd like to add to flavor the cheese - spices, chopped jalapeños, etc.

Lightly grease a small bowl or whatever container you'd like to shape your cheese in.

Grind cashews to a fine powder using food processor. Add all but the first two ingredients and process until smooth.

Bring agar and water to a boil in saucepan. Continue to boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add mixture from food processor. Mix until smooth and creamy. Pour mixture into greased bowl and allow to cool. Move to fridge and allow to chill.

----

The first time I made this, I followed these directions exactly, but used my Vitamix instead of a food processor. The Vitamix was rather hard to get clean - the cashew mix was very sticky. So, the next time I made it, instead of adding the cashew mix to the pot, I added the water/agar mix to the vitamin and whizzed it up in there and poured it out into the container. Both worked fine. Next time I might try the food processor and see how that goes. I'm not sure it would get the cashews as fine as the Vitamix, though.

And LOOK!! It slices AND shreds!!!

We've had this cheese with pizza, quesadillas and grilled cheese - all with great success! I don't think it melts quite as nicely as Daiya, but the family has all called this the best vegan cheese they've ever had, so I'm happy with that! I know exactly what goes in it - and it's all good!

More cheese? Sure, why not!? It's good for you!! :)

Planting garlic!

2013-11-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

We had so much garlic leftover from our CSA this year that I decided we should try to stick it in the ground and see if we could grow more! The kids helped me pull apart the heads of garlic into cloves, being careful not to peel them. Then we stuck them in a little trench in the garden pointy side up and covered them up and added compost.

Grandpa helped us with this project - he dug the trenches for us and then went to fetch some straw for us to put on top to protect it this winter.

Come spring, we sure hope to see some little garlic scapes poking up! Grow garlic, grow!

Not a simple spider!

2013-11-10T21:00:00.000-05:00

Now I really am all about living in the country, don't get me wrong. I don't, however, enjoy certain aspects of it - like snakes and bugs and spiders! But I get along. Until this day...

We have this really cool tool that we all love. I love it because it keeps my distance from any bug or spider that I need to dispose of. The boys love it because they feel like hunters with a big gun! It's called a BugZooka.

So, when Michael was cleaning out our coat closet and said he found a spider, I simply told him to grab the BugZooka and get it - which he did.

Two days later, Nicholas picked up the BugZooka and was looking in the capture tube because, well, he just likes bugs and likes to see what was caught. And when he said, "Mommy, did you know there's a black widow in here?!," I was dearly hoping he was wrong! But looking through the tube, this is what I saw!

I found some old bug spray in the garage and sprayed it into the tube. When we were very sure that it was dead, we finally took it out to get a little better look at it. ICK.

Now I'm just pretending that there are no others like it anywhere in our vicinity - much less our house! We will all be pretty careful to shake out our coats and shoes when we get them out of that closet!!

Garden prepping

2013-10-27T20:30:00.000-04:00

We are so excited to start thinking about our garden for next year! There's much work to be done as we have broken ground for a brand new garden space in a field. Long ago (way before hubby's grandfather bought the property initially) this area used to be used for tomato farming. Currently, it looks like a rock farm! Grandpa (Eric's father) rototilled about a 100 x 100 foot space a few months ago, so the rocks were "ripe" and ready for picking! We all got out there and picked up load after load and threw them in the little dump trailer. Even Emma really enjoyed tossing rocks!

The best part, of course, was getting to ride in the Ranger to go dump each load! Sometimes the big boys rode along, and other times they rode their dirt bikes along side.

After we had picked up the majority of rocks, hubby rototilled again.

And then we ran around and picked up even more rocks! Even Grandpa was out helping. :)

When all was said and done, we stood back and enjoyed the view of our new garden space. Dreams of row after row of scrumptious veggies danced in my head! There's a lot of work to be done in the months ahead, but the reward will be worth it!

Serious Applesauce making!

2013-10-21T20:49:00.000-04:00

After my first little dabble in applesauce making, I could barely wait to dive in deeper! So off we went to a local farm. While I would much prefer to buy totally organic, I settled this time for a farm that practices Integrated Pest Management. They were referred to us by a local organic restaurant that trusts their practices. Not my ideal, but I absolutely couldn't wait to try this! While they didn't have the orchard open that day for picking from the trees, the kids still enjoyed picking out of the bins and filling up our boxes via their bags. We ended up with four bushels of apples - three for us and one for my friend who was going to share in this experience. :)

My father-in-law was kind enough to dig out the old galvanized tin buckets on stands from the barn for me. I gave them a good washing and then filled them up with water and lots of apple cider vinegar for a nice bath for the apples. The boys enjoyed agitating them. They are good at agitating. Lots of practice. ;)

Next, we cut up the apples into about eighths and threw them into big pots. The big boys helped with this step, too.

There's my bestie stirring up her brew. :)

And then we ladled the soft apples into the mill to turn it into applesauce! We tried two methods - the first was using an old food mill that my FIL got out for us. It worked quite nicely - especially since one of the boys was the one cranking the handle! The other option we used was an attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer - that certainly made things go quickly and I'm not sure I'd like to be without it for doing these large batches!

Here are the attachments I used:

We only made it through two bushels of apples. I'm sure we'll get much better the more we do it! :)

Spur-of-the-moment Applesauce!

2013-10-17T20:37:00.000-04:00

While looking through my fridge this morning I found a bag of pears that we had forgotten about. They weren't bad, but they weren't pretty anymore - you know the type. Basically, my kids were going to look at them and refuse to eat them as they were. So, I thought I'd just cut them up and make a sauce of some sort out of them. Well, my mother-in-law happened to be at our house that day and she offered to cut them up for me. As she was cutting them up, I thought about the apples that were in the fridge and asked if she would mind doing some of those as well. I got more and more excited about this, knowing that she had made applesauce before, and I decided to get a whole bag of apples out. I used my apple peeler/corer/slicer and we ended up with a pot full of cut apples and pears. :)

We added just about an inch of water to the pot and cooked them down for about 30 minutes. When it was done, I put the apples into the VitaMix and blended them up.

Voila! Easy peasy applesauce! I am totally inspired to dive into this a little further! I can't wait to go get some apples (in quantity!)! What's funny is that I don't even like applesauce. But my kids do, and I love knowing exactly what's going into it (as well as what's not!). They loved it with some cinnamon sprinkled on top. We use the Vietnamese Cinnamon from Frontier and love it - it's a great quality cinnamon!

Homeschool at the beach!

2013-10-06T07:21:00.000-04:00

I would be hard-pressed to declare my number one favorite reason to homeschool, but I can guarantee that right up at the top would have to be the ability to take our homeschooling anywhere! How awesome is it to be able to hit the beach when the weather is still lovely, yet pay low-season rates because everyone else is back in school?!

That's what we did for a couple weeks in September this year (again). And to make it even sweeter, we joined in with another homeschooling family (who we adore!) and had a grand old time! It was so neat to see the kids jump right into their school work each morning to get it done so that they could have the day to themselves. Sometimes they even got up before the grownups!

Beyond the normal curriculum, another thing that I love about homeschooling is the opportunities to learn things beyond textbooks. Real life learning has proven to be so valuable for our children! I am always amazed at the things that they retain and tell me about far beyond when we actually learned it. Who knew that fishing could provide such a vast learning experience?

We had such a lot of fun on the fishing pier in Sandbridge. The kids were so eager to learn so much, they were very good about talking to the "real" fishermen on the pier. They asked them so many questions and learned so much about feeding habits, weather patterns, effects of hurricanes on the beach, fishing tips and techniques, fish species - the list goes on. They even got to pet a shark that another fisherman had caught! I had so many nice comments and compliments from tough looking fishermen! ;)

Of course the kids got to enjoy all sorts of other beach/vacation fun, too. Digging in the sand was a daily event - I've never seen such big holes in the beach! Boogie boarding was another favorite. But most of all, we all really enjoyed spending time with our friends. Never mind that we had plenty of bedrooms to spread out a little, the kids loved piling in one room!

Proudest mommy moment at the beach? At family worship one night, the kids told us how they stayed up really late the night before (as if that were news to us! ha!) - it's what they were talking about all night that brought a tear to our eyes. They were discussing heaven with each other - what it was going to be like and what their favorite things were going to be. Those are the moments when you feel like maybe, just maybe, you're doing something right. <3

Green Eggs!

2013-09-18T13:53:00.002-04:00

It seems I'm constantly looking for new ways to get veggies into our kids. Don't get me wrong, they are really good eaters. But we still get stuck in ruts and it feels like we eat the same things over and over again. Trying new things is always a challenge - with four kids, it's hard to please everyone!

Getting greens into my daughter especially has always been a challenge - you could hide a teeny tiny piece of something green in a bite and she would find it in her mouth! It's like a little green filter hides in there. There are a couple of exceptions to that, namely broccoli and spinach, and so I try to find ways to exploit them. *giggle*

I don't remember where the initial idea came from, but I decided one day to try to use the novelty of old Dr. Seuss and see if I could sneak some greens in. Of course, we don't eat ham, so we just had them with ketchup! ;)

It really couldn't be easier to make green eggs! I cracked a dozen organic eggs and put them in my Vitamix. Then I dumped a bunch of spinach on top! I didn't really measure it - I just pretty much filled the container to the top - but I didn't push it down and pack it in, just threw it in. Then, starting on low and working up to full speed, I blended it for about a minute.

After they were blended, I just scrambled them like normal - in some coconut oil. The mixture was a little frothy, but it cooked up just fine! And once again, this creation was Kid Approved!! Surprisingly, I didn't feel like you got much taste of spinach! Even the kids said so.

If you happen to be thinking, "Hmmm, sounds like garlic would be a nice addition to those eggs," let me just tell you that I had those same thoughts - and, errr, it wasn't such a good idea. At least not the way I did it! I threw a (way too large) handful of raw garlic cloves on top of the spinach. Yeah, probably not the brightest thing to do, but anyway, it sounded good! haha. It was horribly overpowering and no one liked them! Not even me! LOL Trust me on this. Maybe roasting it first would be good, and not adding so much of it. But for now, we'll stick to just the spinach. :)

Homemade Flax Milk

2013-09-05T20:53:00.001-04:00

I first discovered the simplicity and cost effectiveness of making our own flax milk about six months ago. I'm not sure why we haven't made it since, other than the extreme convenience of buying cases of rice milk at Costco! For around $14 we would get 12 quarts of organic rice milk. That's a pretty good deal in my opinion. Well, it was anyway...

Fast forward to today when *gasp* we opened our last carton of rice milk. Oh, the tragedy! Now that we are in the country, it takes a little more doing to get to Costco. Hubby could have stopped on the way home, but he was already running late and I opted to have us be able to see him a little longer before the kids went to bed. So, I decided to pull the old flax milk trick out of my hat and try it again.

All that you need is a high-powered blender (VitaMix is our blender of choice), flax seeds (I have used both dark and light flax seeds) and your sweetener of choice. We chose vanilla flavored stevia drops from SweetLeaf. Additionally, you'll need something to strain your milk after it's blended. We use something we brought back from Thailand - a Thai tea strainer. You could use any muslin strainer or even a stocking - you just want it to be a fine way of filtering as the particles will be very small that you want to take out of your liquid.

Homemade Flax Milk

Ingredients:

6 cups water

1/4 cup organic flax seeds

15 drops stevia

Directions:

Put all ingredients into your blender. Blend at high speed for about 2 minutes. Strain into a container. Store in the refrigerator. Enjoy the savings!!

Before we even strained it, N wanted to taste it! I got a quick approval and was begged to allow them to have cereal for dinner! How could I say no? ;)

Look how nice that milk looks pouring out of that pitcher. And just look at that face of approval!

And I approve of the savings!! I paid just over $2.50 for a pound of organic flax seeds. There are approximately 3.5 cups of flax seeds in a pound. That's 14 batches of milk for just - let's call it $3.00 to include the stevia drops! Yes, $3.00 for about 21 quarts of milk! Costco can't touch that! :)

I also love that drinking flax milk helps up our intake of Omega-3 essential fatty acids! As {trying-real-hard-to-be}vegans, that's important to us! :)

Let me know if you try making your own!

First day jitters

2013-08-22T23:38:00.000-04:00

Monday we celebrated M, N and E's 10th birthday! They are so excited to be double digits now! Since we had cake at a church outing the day before, they decided they didn't want cake again - so they opted for peach cobbler (which worked out great since we had a half bushel of them fresh from the farm!).

Tuesday we officially started the transition back into school days. Of course our learning hadn't stopped for the summer - they've been crazy busy in the outdoors learning all sorts of stuff in our new home environment! And if I had a nickel for every book they read this summer I'd be well on my way to vacation! ;)

Our day started out great - worship, journaling time, and then math. Math took a while because we started a new curriculum this year (Math U See) and I had to get each kid into their appropriate materials. Overall that went great, although I won't make any early calls just yet.

What happened next (well, after finishing up canning my spaghetti sauce, feeding the kids lunch and getting cleaned up!) was not something that I was prepared for. I hadn't planned on doing history our first day, but since M was bugging me about it (yes, he was dying to get started!) I decided that I would sit down and start gathering what we needed. I had also chosen a new curriculum for history this year - and by first glance, it seemed like a good choice - it started at creation and included God in history, which is something that you don't see often. As I sat there looking through the book, I began to get an overwhelming feeling. Suddenly I was having thoughts like "I can't do this!" and "where is the nearest school?!" My feelings completely surprised me as up until now I had felt fully confident in our decision to continue homeschooling and had even encouraged friends (who were on the fence) to do the same.

I called a friend. The friend I knew I could count on to listen to my cry for help and talk some sense back into me. The one that would pray with me and reassure me that God knew the answers even if I didn't just yet. Do you have a friend like that? I sure hope so!

After talking with some homeschooling friends, I quickly realized what set me off about the particular curriculum we had and took steps to change up what our plan will be for the year. For as panicked as I was, it still amazes me that I am completely calm and collected again. It's only through the grace of God that happened.

Are you struggling with any kind of issues as you start this school year? I'd like to share something that I put together to print out, fold and stick in my Bible. As I do my devotional each morning, I will see this paper and claim some promises. :) I hope you will, too.

Canning Tomatoes - My First Experience

2013-08-13T11:04:00.000-04:00

Now that we are living in the country, canning is just one more of those "country living" activities that I've been itching to try! I scored a half-bushel of "seconds" tomatoes from a good farmer on Sunday for just $5, so off to Pinterest I went! I ended up mostly following the directions from PickYourOwn.org. They had such nice pictures to go along with the text, and I'm a visual learner, so that worked nicely. I only did two things differently. First, I don't have a lid lifter - instead, I used this handy tool I got from Amazon:

I loved that I could have the lids stacked in this thing ready to go - and when I was close to being ready to use them, I just put the whole thing down in a pot of boiling water and could lift the whole thing back out right next to my jars for easy access.

The second thing I did (or didn't do) is something I hope I won't regret! I didn't have any lemon juice. I had real lemons, but everything I read said to use bottled lemon juice. After speaking with a friend who said she never uses it at all, I decided to proceed without it. Apparently it's supposed to help with not allowing bacteria to grow - so I guess I'll just make a point to use these jars up first! ;)

I used the Granite Ware 21-1/2-Quart Water-Bath Canner on my glass-top cookstove despite all the warnings about not doing so. I tested first to make sure that it could bring the pot to a boil, and it did so fine, so I went ahead. The bottom of this pot is not flat, but it was still able to make enough contact to get the job done! Yay! I bought two of the pot sets and they will actually fit side by side on my stove! Double yay!

A huge lesson learned for me stems from my concern about the water taking too long to come to a boil. I pre-heated the water to boiling before putting my filled jars in, and when I did that, one of my jars cracked. Oh how sad to see all those tomatoes floating in my water. :( I'm grateful it was just one of the 7 jars!

Well, I've got the canning bug now! I can't wait to can something else!!

Sugar-Free, No-Cook Berry Jam

2013-08-11T21:35:00.000-04:00

For a mom who isn't crazy about sugar filled jams and jellies, likes using fresh, organic ingredients over canned products whenever possible, and likes things simple - well, this recipe couldn't make me any happier!

This particular batch of jam was made using fresh blackberries. You could use any kind of berries you want - we've used strawberries before and I think blueberries would be great, too. I'm actually going to try it out with a non-berry fruit like peaches and see how that turns out. Having a half-bushel of yummy peaches on my counter right now might have something to do with that...

Anyway, get ready - here's the big old list of ingredients!

1 cup berries (organic is always best here to avoid those nasty pesticides!)
1 Tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp honey

Throw all of that into your blender (I use a VitaMix and love it!). Whiz it up until it's smooth and put it into a pretty little jar. As it sits, the chia seeds work to make it gel up a bit. I honestly can't say that it has the same consistency as a "normal" jam or jelly, but it's certainly a spreadable consistency and it works! My kids approve and that's what matters to me! :)

Let me know if you've tried this, what you used and how it turned out!

Creatures, creatures!

2012-09-10T20:23:00.000-04:00

We've only been at the beach a few days, but what a bunch of experiences we've had already! The kids are thoroughly enjoying exploring our rented property on the bay! They are constantly bringing in more frogs and toads to show me!

We brought a minnow trap with us, so we threw it off the dock to see what we might catch. On their first check they caught not only a little fish but an American Eel! That was pretty cool in their eyes!

Fishing is quickly becoming a favorite pastime! So far we've caught bass and catfish off the dock. How perfect for teaching the kids about clean and unclean fish!

We've also been to the beach where the kids have enjoyed hunting for sand fleas - little crab-like creatures that like to bury themselves in the sand right in the surf. We've had a good time catching them.