My Blessings

Yes I realize Jeff isn't a child, and therefore he shouldn't be as small as the kids. I didn't draw the picture folks! I had 4 chicks, only 3 kids, and I had to give the 4th one a name. Jeff is a blessing too, so it was only fair he have his name somewhere.

I do need the Lord's help dealing with my little blessings. My littlest ones...not Jeff. They are messy and whiny, which I can't handle well. Of course, they are also snuggly and funny, which I handle perfectly fine.

God, please help me to focus on their strengths. Also, give me patience and help me to correct them in a positive way when they do something wrong...like make a mess or whine. Help me to be the mom (and the wife) that you created me to be. Help my children see me as the authority in charge, someone to respect and listen to not someone to fear. It's in your name I pray, Amen!

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Plans and schedules are a must.

2. I'm happy when things are organized and run smoothly.

3. The last thing I drank was a Pepsi, which I am drinking right now at 6:30 AM. Can you say addict?

4. One of the most valuable things in my life is my relationship with Jesus. Without Him my life wouldn't be as wonderful as it is.

5. I like sausage, mushrooms, & onions on my pizza.

6. Dear November, it's okay if you want to provide us with some snow. I am ready!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to traveling to Springfield with my friend Karen to see Beth Moore live, tomorrow my plans include seeing Beth Moore again and then going to lunch and hanging out with the girls a bit afterwards and Sunday, I want to go to church and make a nice dinner for my hubby who will be coming home from a weekend away hunting! My mom will have our kids this weekend. God bless her!!!

Food 4 Thought Friday

Breakfast~What is the last think you watched on TV? That would be Community. That show is silly and makes me laugh, but not nearly as much as the new show Modern Family.

Lunch~Do you speak more than one language? I would have to say no. I speak English, of course, and I do speak the tiniest (and I do mean tiny!) amount of Spanish. I just don't think that really counts as speaking another language.

Dinner~What are your favorite websites to visit? Yahoo, Facebook, My Sanity Break (a mommy bulletin board), and many different blogs, Allrecipes....and many other random sites

Midnight Snack~You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option in a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000. The second option is ten minutes on the moon. Which do you choose and why? This is a no brainer for me...Europe! I am not adventurous enough to want to go to the moon, but I would love, Love, LOVE to see Europe.

Recipe of the Week~Instead of your Recipe For Life, what is it for just this week? Just keep on keeping on. This week has felt like one thing to do after another. If I look at the big picture, I get overwhelmed. So, I take it one thing at a time, and I just keep on keeping on. ;-)

You can play along by going here! You know you wanna!!

Thursday Thirteen

November is American Indian Heritage Month. So, in honor of that, I would like to share 13 facts about American Indians. Of course, since there are a large number of tribes to study, I decided I should focus in on just one. I chose the Illini tribe, since I live in Illinois. Hope you enjoy reading and learn at least one thing. I know I learned a lot during my research. :-)

1. The Illini originally lived in what is now called Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa. The tribe was nearly wiped out during a war in the 1700's, and they had to move to what we now call Kansas and Oklahoma.

2. The Illini people lived in villages made up of large rectangular houses. The walls of the houses were made of woven reeds.

3. They were farmers and hunters. The women did most of the farming, and the men did most of the hunting. They ate a lot of soups and stews with cornbread. While they lived by many lakes and rivers, they were not especially fond of fish.

4. They did not have good relations with many other neighboring tribes. They fought with the Iroquois, Sioux, and the Winnebago. They did, however, get along well with the Miami tribe, and many of the Illini people joined up with the Miami tribe.

5. They were known for their quillwork. Quilling involved softening and dying porcupine quills. Then they would weave them onto leather or bark from a birch tree.

6. The Illini people were also known for their beadwork. The Peoria tribe, which is made up of original Illinois indians, still does beadwork, and they even teach beading classes.

7. The men wore breechcloth. This was a long rectangular piece of deerskin that had been tanned, cloth or animal fur. They wore this between the legs and tucked it over a belt. The flaps would fall down in front and behind. For years I thought they would be bare underneath if you lifted thos flaps, but this picture helped me understand.

Illini women wore skirts and leggings.

8. Children played with corn husk dolls, child-sized bow and arrows, as well as lacrosse and other sports.

9. They made canoes by hollowing out trees. On land, they used dogs as pack animals, since there weren't any horses here yet.

10. The Illini would hunt with bows and arrows, spears and clubs. The men would use shields created from buffalo hide to protect themselves from enemy arrows.

11. They would paint their faces for different occasions, and they also got tattoos.

12. The Illini spoke their native Miami-Illinois language. Aya (pronounced ah-yah) means hello. Niihka (pronounced nee-ka) means friend.

13. The Illini people told a legend about a woman who married a man, left her people to live with him, and then three years later realized he was a rattlesnake. I suppose that is where the idea that men can be snakes come from. Well, that or Satan in the Garden of Eden.



I found the above information here and here.

Wordful Wednesday

I am just still trying to figure out where the time has gone. How did my little girl go from this....

to this...

?????

Normally I handle my kids getting older wonderfully. Too be honest, I am not the best parent in the baby stage. I do much better when they can talk with me, I can reason with them, and they know they need to listen when I get "that tone." However, with Meggie it is different. She is my last baby. I hold on to that daily! I try to get snuggles all the time. I love taking naps with her and holding her during them. I don't want her to grow up!!!

So, this birthday has just hit me a little hard. I didn't cry. I won't cry. That isn't my style. I will, however, sit here and wonder where o where have the last three years gone? How do they go by so quickly? How can I slow them down?

That last one is the big question. Does anyone have an answer? How can we slow down time? I'll be waiting for some clever, insightful, and brilliant answers! ;-)

Meggie is 3!!

I am having a hard time believing that 3 years have gone by already. So much so that on Sunday evening I asked Meggie if I could hold her just like I did "3 years ago today." I was filled with emotion. She promptly yelled at me, "I'm not a baby anymore!" She did give in and let me hold her, and she listened to me tell her about the day she was born and how big she has gotten. I just love that little monkey!

She chose Dora the Explorer as her theme. I was nervous about the cake. I won't say the cake was my best ever. I can find many flaws. I will say that I was darn impressed you could tell it was Dora!

I was pleased that Meg seemed to like her cake. That made me not even focus on the flaws. I mean look at her little face admiring my handy work. All she has to know is that was done with love. Lots and lots of love!

Meg's was the cutest darn 3-year-old birthday girl!

She is super cheesy, super spunky, and super entertaining. Here she is entertaining us all with cheers while her brother, Josh, entertains with somersaults. Crazy kids!

Of course, it isn't just the kids that are crazy in our family. Oh no! Uncle John, my brother-in-law, is a bit wacky too. LOL! We couldn't help but laugh at him in his party hat, and we laughed even harder when he started acting silly in the darn thing. He is a hoot!

This next picture is of Jeff's sister Abby, John's wife, their son Gavin, and my oldest, Ali. Can you see the family resemblance? I sure can! Ali looks so much like Abby to me.

We had time to squeeze Meggie in for a pic too.

Here is my mom holding Meg's while she tries to figure out her party hat. I despise those darn things for some reason. Maybe because they are so uncomfortable. She wanted them though. Who am I to deprive my 3-year-old on her special day?

Jeff was beating up on Gavin, our nephew, but I must say that Gavin got a good punch in on Jeff. This pic is Jeff walking away from that punch. Who says fighting can't be fun at family functions?

Meg's got lots of great presents for her birthday! Grandma & Grandpa got her a My Pal Violet. I love the songs this dog plays. It has a sleep function. You press it's paw and it will play lullabies for 2, 5 or 10 minutes. Awesome! Today at nap time Meg's was out before the 10 minutes was over. I was out soon after. :-)

Here is Meghan opening up her ironing board from my mom. She also got a stand mixer and blender. She loves playing with dolls and kitchen stuff.

Oh my mom also got her this birthday cake play set and a dancing Dora doll. The thing I like best about this picture though is that you can see all the other kids crowded around her. I love how kids get excited for the birthday kid.

Aunt Abby, Uncle John, Gavin & Emma got Meg's this cool Scribble & Write. I confess I play with it too! I like the words of encouragement. They also got her two books, and I simply adore the one called 'I Love You All Year Long.' It was written by Steve Metzger, and it just has a sweet message. The other one does too. It is called 'I Love You Through and Through', and it was written by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak. If you need to buy a gift for a young one, I highly suggest both of those books.

Meg's liked the Dora card we got her. Check out that smile!

She liked the car we got her too. It goes along with her dollhouse, but she gets mad that the people fall over while driving. Apparently the car needs seat belts!

She loves to ride Ali's scooter, so we got her her very own Disney Princess Scooter. Josh was a bit envious. Can you tell? He is now saying that he wants a scooter for his birthday.

This picture just cracked me up! She is riding away. Check out her tongue. Too funny!

A little after presents we had cake time. Not many of us were actually hungry for cake. We were too stuffed from the sausage-cheese balls, artichoke dip with crackers, and cocktail weenies. Meg's was ready though, and that is all that mattered. I love the picture of the adults here. They are enjoying Meghan enjoying her cake. Precious!

Here she is blowing out the candles. She got them all with the one blow. She kept trying to blow out the sparkler though. It wasn't going to blow out so we waited for it to be done.

Ali & Meg enjoyed the cake. I'm not sure how long Meg kept her fingers in her mouth, but it seemed like forever. They must have had some yummy cake on them.

Josh enjoyed his cake too! Today I caught him several times picking and eating the leftover cake. Silly kid!

Emma wouldn't let me take her picture. She was being a silly goose!

Finally I wore her down!!

Abby, John and the 3 oldest kids all played football. Actually Grandpa was playing for awhile too. I opted to just take pictures. I didn't want to hurt myself or anyone else. ;-)

This picture is blurry, but I love all the action going on here. They were having such a good time!

I'd have to say a good time was had by all. After everyone left, I was in my office uploading pictures and Meghan was sitting on my office floor coloring. She said to me, "I'm having a nice birthday, Mommy!" I told her I was so glad! :-)

We Had A Happy Halloween

Brace yourself for a couple of picture posts, and I do mean Tons-O-Pics!! Between Halloween and Meggie's birthday there was a lot of camera time here lately. ;-)

On Halloween I finally made the chocolate pretzels. I'm not the best when it comes to working with chocolate and molds, but I didn't do too shabby. The kids seemed to enjoy.

Meg enjoyed hers later than Ali & Josh because she took a power nap. She needed to be rested up for the long night.

We carved pumpkins on Halloween. (Note to self...Don't do that again! Too stressful!!) We found out that Meg's pumpkin was rotted, and when Jeff went to set it back down, it bit the dust big time. Check out the mess we were left with.

Thankfully I got that cleaned up before the trick-or-treaters stepped in that mess. Ick! Daddy did a great job carving the pumpkins. He gave the kids what they wanted. Of course, Meg supervised to make sure he was doing a good job.

After pumpkin carving, we had our traditional Halloween night dinner...sloppy joes. Yum!

Then it was time to get all the kiddos in their costumes.
Meghan was Raggedy Ann.

Josh was a Motocross racer. He was quite the poser. Here he is all sassy like a true model.

This pose says, 'I have got to go poo.'

This pose says 'Oh, I threw my back out!' I'm tellin' you he was cracking me up!

Ali was the devil.

I highly doubt the real Devil is as beautiful as my baby girl.

I love this picture of all three of them together. Ali is her cute self. Meghan is being cheesy, which is so normal for her, and Josh is too interested in Meg's to even look at the camera. Those are my munchkins!

Either we got ready early or it was taking longer to get dark than usual. Daddy was convinced they shouldn't go trick-or-treating until dark, and the waiting was killing all of us. So, of course, I took more pictures. Here they all are with their treat bags.

We had a bit more time, so I took a few more pics. ;-) I love Meg's eyes in this one.

And I think Josh just looks like a handsome little guy here. Notice that his cast is off (Yahoo!), and also notice that the fingers on his right hand are curled under. He starts therapy on this on Tuesday. They are just so stiff. Also, his dr. thinks he bruised his ulnar nerve when his bones broke, so his pinky and ring finger on that hand may take quite awhile to go back to normal.

Ali is just such a beautiful little Devil!

Finally the waiting was over, and Daddy took them out trick-or-treating. They started going around our neighborhood, but it was quickly apparent that not too many people were handing out candy. We are assuming they weren't home. Kind of sad! They went on to my mom's neighborhood. Jeff stayed at her house and passed out candy. She took the kids around, and while they were out they went to the haunted house that is located at this home. Apparently Meg's got scared and cried, but Josh & Ali enjoyed it and went through twice. After they were done at my mom's house, they went on to Jeff's parent's house. They hung out there for awhile.

While they were doing all of this, I was enjoying passing out candy at our house. I had the Halloween lights on, and I had candy in our ghost head.

I lit candles and enjoyed the scent, as well as the coziness.

I even went outside to check out our pumpkins. I had plenty of time to do this, since we got less than 30 trick-or-treaters all night.

The lights inside the pumpkins change colors quite often. Fun!

I got to talk to both of my sisters while the kids were out. It was odd not being interrupted a million times or trying to hear them over the screaming.

Of course, my little goblins got home safely, and they were only on a minor sugar high. Meg was all smiles as she wore her bag around her neck.

Josh looked like he was coming down off of his sugar high. More like crashing down hard and ready to sleep.

Ali, as usual, was wide awake and ready for more action.

Eventually we found Meghan doing this on the kitchen floor. I think Raggedy Ann had just had too much. She isn't sleeping, but she is pretty darn relaxed.

I would have to say that our Halloween was a success! Fun was had by everyone!! The kids got up earlier than mommy, and when I got out of bed, this is what I found.

They were trading candy. Too cute! I was actually awaken by Meghan who wanted me to open a Tootsie Roll for her. Thankfully she hadn't eaten any candy before that. None of them had, so I rewarded them with a piece. Josh tried to make his piece a full size 3 Muskateer bar. Crazy kid! He must think I am nuts to give him that before 7:30 in the morning. LOL!

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween too!

Our Menu For 11/02/09 to 11/08/09

Monday~Beef Barley Soup with Grilled Cheese
Tuesday~Pineapple Cranberry Ham Steaks, Mac 'N Cheese, Applesauce
Wednesday~Polynesian Sausage Supper with Botan Calrose Rice
Thursday~Mustgoes
Friday~Nachos
Saturday~Pancakes & Bacon
Sunday~Pot Roast, Mashed Potatoes & Corn

If nothing else, I swear to at least cook Mondays and Tuesdays meals this week. They have been on the menu for a couple of weeks now.

~~~Food Holidays~~~

This week:

November 2nd~National Deviled Egg Day
November 3rd~National Sandwich Day
November 4th~National Candy Day
November 5th~Doughnut Appreciation Day
November 6th~National Nachos Day
November 7th~Bittersweet Chocolate With Almonds Day
November 8th~National Cappuccino Day & National Harvey Wallbanger Day

Next Week:

November 9th~National Scrapple Day, Cook Something Bold & Pungent Day
November 10th~National Vanilla Cupcake Day
November 11th~National Sundae Day
November 12th~Chicken Soup For The Soul Day, National Pizza With Everything Day (Except Anchovies)
November 13th~National Indian Pudding Day
November 14th~National Guacamole Day, National Pickle Day
November 15th~National Raisin Bran Cereal Day

More Music I Love

My sister, Tammy, asked for more songs like the ones I posted here. So, here are a few more Christian songs that I love. They help me worship Him, feel His presence, and know that I am loved. I hope you enjoy!

Also, in the past I have posted this song here. I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think. :-)

Happy November!!

"November comes
And November goes,
With the last red berries
And the first white snows.

With night coming early,
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.

The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring."
- Clyde Watson

Boo!

I hope everyone has a fun, safe, and happy Halloween!

Don't Forget!

Time falls back an hour tonight. So, don't forget to set your clocks back an hour before you go to bed, and enjoy that extra hour of sleep. I know I will! ;-)

Friday Fill-Ins

1. It was a dark and stormy night, and my children found me curled up in bed with a good read.

2. My aunt was giving away some of grandma's old books, so I offered to take the books myself. I now have a ton of old Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and I am looking forward to reading them.

3. Rushing out, I forgot to put my pants on. Okay, this has never happened to me, but I have had this dream several times.

4. Late at night, if you listen real close, you can hear the coyotes...I think I heard a howl! I always think they sound like kids up to no good.

5. Shhhh...my kids don't know I am in the office yet. Once they find me, I will have to answer a thousand questions and listening to a bunch of tattling.

6. I'm hungry! I get mean when I am hungry, so if you know what is good for you, you will give me something good to eat! :-)

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to carving pumpkins with my kiddos, tomorrow my plans include decorating Meghan's 3rd birthday cake and passing out candy while Jeff takes our kids trick-or-treating and Sunday, I want to go to church and then we are having Meg's birthday party in the afternoon!

Thursday Thirteen

13 Halloween Books I Have Read To My Children...And Enjoyed!

Pumpkin Town by Katie McKy

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

Halloween Is by Gail Gibbons

The Littlest Pumpkin by R. A. Herman

The Bumpy Little Pumpkin by Margery Cuyler

Gus Was a Gorgeous Ghost by Jane Thayer

Gus and the Baby Ghost by Jane Thayer

The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat by Stan Berenstain

Froggy's Halloween by Jonathan London

Scary, Scary Halloween by Eve Bunting

My First Halloween Board Book by DK Publishing

Halloween Makes Me Batty by Fran Posner

Dora's Halloween Adventure by Sarah Wilson


Happy Halloween! :-)

Wordful Wednesday

These pictures were taken last Thursday. I was in a cleaning frenzy, since my sisters were coming to town. I had roped my mom into my cleaning frenzy too, so poor Meggie wasn't getting a whole lot of attention. We let her watch Caillou, one of her favorite shows, and this is what happened.

Isn't she just precious? So peaceful!

Of course, her brother came home from school a short time later, and he woke her up. He is such a pistol! ;-)

Join in on the Wordful Wednesday fun!