Praying for your Husband

Prayer is one of the areas of my spiritual life where I struggle the most.  Revive Our Hearts Ministry has several wonderful downloads especially some challenges for prayer.  Here's what Nancy Leigh Demoss says about praying for your husband:

“She does him good . . .” (Proverbs 31:12a)

Bless your husband by praying for him! The Apostle Paul instructed all Christians to pray for one another (Ephesians 6:18). This includes wives’ responsibility and privilege to pray for their husbands. Earnest prayer for your husband is good for him, for you and the spiritual health of your home (Proverbs 31:11-12).

Satan desires to destroy your husband, especially his character and his leadership in your relationship. Trust God through prayer as you daily surrender your husband and marriage to the Lord’s wise, loving care.

Will you join me for 31 Days of Praying for Your Husband?  Go here for the print out from Revive Our Hearts.


(Also check out the great free wallpaper downloads for your desk top here.)

Mission Family Nutrition - Week Four

This week I attended The Heart Of The Matter conference.  Monday through Thursday I logged into my computer for four "webinars" each day for wonderful homeschool inspiration and practical tips and tricks.  Wow!  Was it good!  After all the audio is edited, etc. it will be available on their website to purchase.  They also have a bigger online conference in August that I am already planning on "attending."  If you homeschool, this is a great inexpensive way to attend a homeschool conference!

So with webinars daily, and Buddy Bear getting sick, I didn't complete my Mission Family Nutrition goal of introducing my family to a new grain.  But I did try two new recipes that were Very well received by my family.  Early this week I received a free issue of Taste of Home's Healthy Cooking.  I was excited to sit down and browse through the magazine to find recipes to try with my family.  I love that Taste of Home always has such practical recipes with ingredients that most average people have on hand and not a lot of ingredients that I have never heard of nor have any clue where to buy them!

Turkey and Black Bean Enchiladas
   This was very good!  Even Ally, my picky eater, ate some!  RaeRae
   had seconds (unusual), and My Man had thirds!  And as a plus, it
   was quick and easy to make.
Prep: 30min  Bake: 15min   Yield: 8 servings

2 cans (15oz each) black beans, rinsed and drained, divided
1 lb. lean ground turkey
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 can (15oz) enchilada sauce, divided
1 cup (4oz) shredded reduced-fat Mexican cheese blend, divided
8 whole wheat tortillas (8in), warmed


1.  In a small bowl, mash 1 can black beans (great way to involve kiddos!), set aside.  In a large nonstick skillet, cook the turkey, pepper and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain.  Add the mashed beans, remaining beans, half of the enchilada sauce, and 1/2 cup cheese;  heat through.
2.  Place 2/3 cupfuls of bean mixture down the center of each tortilla.  Roll up and place seam side down in two 11"x7" or one 9"x13" baking dishes coated with cooking spray.  Pour remaining enchilada sauce over the top; sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake, uncovered, at 425 for 15-20 minutes or until heated through.


Nutritional Facts:  1 enchilada equals 360 calories, 11g fat (3g saturated fat), 55mg cholesterol, 808 mg sodium, 42g carbohydrate, 7g fiber, 24g protein.

This next week my goal is to experiment with making a healthy Ranch dressing from scratch.  Ranch dressing in our house is like white gold... it gets served with everything from vegetables to pizza, from chicken to watermelon (although the later doesn't happen often...yuk!).  Ally has even been known to dip her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in Ranch...YUK!  Personally, I prefer to leave Ranch for fresh veggies, salad, and sometime sandwiches; but I think that sometimes the rest of my family would starve without Ranch!

Mission Family Nutrition - Week Three

My week two goal in Mission Family Nutrition hosted by Melinda at Coming Clean was to make a new bean dish.  I don't cook a lot with beans.  I'd like to do more because it's a great source of protein and it's a great food to store long term.  One of the long term food storage rules is "store what you eat, and eat what  you store."  In a time of emergency or major crisis for our family, beans and rice won't do us much good if I don't know how to cook with them; so I figure I'd better learn now.  And even when there is not a crisis, it's a very inexpensive meal that can be quite tasty.  All that to say, I now have a new bean dish that my family approves of... well... Ally didn't actually approve, but she hasn't been approving of any food besides peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lately...  Here's the recipe:

Red Beans and Rice

1lb pkg. dried red beans

water

ham, salt pork, or sausage cut into small chunks (I used ham)

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

3-4 cups water

6 oz can tomato paste

8 oz can sauce

4 garlic cloves, minced (I used my garlic press instead)

1. Soak beans for 8 hours.  Drain.  Discard soaking water.

2. Mix together all ingredients in slow cooker.

3. Cover.  Cook on Low 10-12 hours, or until beans are soft.

4. Serve over rice. 8-10 servings

I didn't follow this recipe exact.  I used canned beans, so I also used less water.  I also didn't use the crock-pot.  I just combined everything together in a large kettle and heated it through on the stove top while the brown rice was cooking.  It was really good.  I cut the recipe amounts in half since it was a new recipe and I wasn't sure how well it would go over.  It was ALL gone!  My family of 5 (even Buddy Bear had some) ate the whole thing and would have eaten more!  So next time I can definitely make the whole batch.  ☺

My goal for this next week is to introduce my family to a new grain.  And to continue making a menu.  It's way to easy to just throw a pizza in the oven when I don't have a menu... 

....................................

Check out this link here for a free e-cook-book of 22 healthy chicken recipes.

Priorities

Projects.  I have so many projects going on right now.  So many things that need to be done... or rather I want to be done.  I wanted so badly this morning to roll up my sleeves and get to work.  Especially on my decorating projects... I have these dreadfully naked windows and just yesterday got a few things to help dress them up. (I hate naked windows! And I have to come up with something creative for the ugly polished brass rods, and eventually the books in those boxes will find a home on a yet to be built bookshelf, and...)  Yes, it was quite tempting to take a break from "preschool" and work on "house."  Then I was reminded that houses don't build relationships; doing preschool with your children builds relationships.  My kids don't care if our windows have (or don't have) curtains, if the desk is a mess, or you can't hardly walk through the basement sewing/laundry room. 

What they want... what they need ...is quality time with Mom.

Heat wave in the Nort Wuds!

OK, so you know you're living in the "Nort Wuds" of Wisconsin when... you go to the grocery store or gas station and you feel like a wimp because it's 25 degrees (F) and you're wearing a jacket and hat and everyone else is in short sleeved T-shirts...  (and that is a terribly long run-on sentence...)  Only the "old" people were wearing jackets.  Seriously?!  Yeah, I've lived here before; but honestly, I don't remember 25 degrees (F not C) being a heat wave!  "Ya gotta luv it!"  :)

Mission Family Nutrition - Week Two

 

Week Two of Mission Family Nutrition at Coming Clean.  Last week my goal was to create and follow a menu.  Well, the menu was created, but I can't say that I followed it exactly!  Of course right after I make the menu Ally got the 24-hr stomach flu that RaeRae had last week.  Since my whole day was spent taking care of her the only thing that we ate from the menu that day was breakfast (eggs and whole wheat toast, but not the fruit salad).  But it worked out well later in the week, yesterday.   Since I forgot to pull the chicken out of the freezer to thaw for dinner yesterday, I substituted what we were supposed to have for dinner Tuesday.  ...Be flexible...be flexible...

 

Here's a recipe for Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits that we had last night.  It's from Sue Gregg's Eating Better Cookbook series Main Dishes.  (Very educational cookbooks as well as delicious recipes.  I highly recommend them!)

 

1. Blend together:

   2 1/2 cups Whole wheat flour (pastry preferred)

   2 teaspoons baking powder

   1/2 teaspoon baking soda

   1/2 teaspoon salt

2. Cut into dry ingredients with pastry blender or two table knives until crumbly like small peas:

   1/4 cup butter (unsalted preferred)

3. Blend egg and milk, then stir into dry ingredients just until blended; do not overwork dough:

   1 egg

   3/4 cup buttermilk (if using buttermilk powder combine powder with dry    

      ingredients in step one, and add water here.)

4. Knead dough lightly about 10 times on lightly floured surface with flour on hands.  Pat out to 3/4" thickness and cut biscuits with rim of floured glass.

5.  Place on lightly greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

These biscuit are better made with Whole wheat pastry flour (ground from soft white wheat that has less gluten) instead of normal whole wheat flour (ground from hard wheat).  All I had last night was the normal whole wheat flour and the biscuits were definitely not as light and fluffy as traditional biscuits.  You could also use half whole wheat flour and half unbleached white flour.

This week it's my goal to make a new bean dish.  Thanks to WIC we get plenty of legumes.   I didn't grow up eating many beans (except for chili or burritos), so it's a challenge for me to serve my family beans.  If you have any tips, I'd definitely appreciate reading them!

Funtastic Frogs Review

 

I can't remember where I first saw these fun math manipulatives, but I was immediately drawn to the bright colors.  I knew that they would be a hit, and they are.

  

The girls love "playing" with them!  

 

As you can see the large frogs fit perfectly on one's fingertips to make great finger puppets!

The frogs themselves come in a container of 108 frogs in 3 sizes and 6 colors (orange, green, red, blue, yellow, and oops I forgot the purple!), and strings for lacing.  The happy frogs are made of colored plastic (they are not painted) and have a larger hole in the bottom (for putting on fingers or the logs you can get) and a small hole in the top for lacing.  Please note that the medium and small sized frogs make excellent choking hazards so keep out of the reach of any at risk children (you know your child)!  I purchased these from Rainbow Resource for $13.25.  They do have a smaller package available with 72 mixed frogs for $11.25 or 108 of just the small frogs for $9.00.  Keep in mind though that many of the cards and activities require all three sizes.  These are great fun on their own ("how many frogs fit in this circle?") as well as with the activity cards or workbooks.

I bought three sets of activity cards: Matching and Counting, Color patterns, and Number Patterns.  Rainbow Resource is the cheapest place to buy these at only $6.25 each.  Each set has 17 cards, and each durable card has one brightly colored side and 

 

one "coloring book" side that you can photocopy for recording or making your own patterns.

Matching and Counting Activity Cards: Using the frogs, match the color and size of each frog on the card.  Count the frogs.  Great for color and size recognition and learning to count.  The recommended age is 5 and up, but Ally can do this well and she is not yet 3.  This is the easiest set of activity cards.

Number Patterns Activity Cards:  Match the frogs on the card.  Look for a number pattern. Use the pattern to show what comes next or to find the missing frogs.  This set of activity card only uses the small frogs.

Color Patterns Activity Cards: Match the color and size of each frog on the card.  Look for a pattern.  Use the pattern to show what comes next or to find the missing frogs.

There are other products available as well such as counting logs (that the small frogs snap onto. Available on Amazon.), Lacing Patterns Activity Cards, and a wide variety of math workbooks.

"Funtastic Frogs are FUN!"

Edible Number Recognition Game

The morning was starting to get away from us, and the girls were asking for a snack.  Yet still I wanted to work with them on number recognition.  Soon in our piano lessons they will start to number the fingers, so I want to make sure that both girls can recognize the numerals 1-5.  Rather than try to fit in one more thing before giving them a snack, I created this little number game to make snack time educational. 

*Step 1: cut a piece of blue construction paper in half lengthwise.
*Step 2: free-hand cut waves into the one long side of the paper.
*Step 3: write numbers 1,2,3,4,5 (or whatever numbers you want to work
             on) evenly spaced on the paper.
*Step 4: using a green crayon draw wavy vertical lines to create seaweed
             between each of the numbers.
*Step 5: fill a small bowl with 15 GoldFish

Object: For the child to recognize each numeral and place the correct number of GoldFish in the correct part of the sea.

Preparation time: 5 minutes (more or less depending on the number of helpers that you have)

Mission Family Nutrition - Week One

 

Melinda at Coming Clean is challenging women to track down healthier eating habits for their families over the next six weeks.  So, here we go...

 

After Ally was born, I did a lot of reading on good nutrition.  We drastically lowered, to basically zero, our refined sugar intake substituting with honey and fructose.  We lowered fat intake. I baked homemade whole wheat bread.  Even ground my own flour (which stopped when my grinder vibrated off the shelf and fell down the basement stairs to land in a multitude of pieces...ouch!).  And we stayed away from commercially processed foods as much as possible (we made homemade Mac 'n Cheese and made our own pizza).  But then something happened.  Somewhere along the line something changed and we got away from many of our healthy eating habits.  So, this challenge is the perfect time to get back on track.  

Here's the problem I need to fix first:

Yesterday afternoon I looked at the clock as we were all busy doing stuff in the living room; and to my dismay, it was 5:00.  What do I make for supper when I don't have much time?!  Box mix Mac 'n Cheese, breaded chicken tenders from the freezer, frozen peas and carrots, and instant Chocolate pudding.  I didn't think ahead and so we ate whatever was handy.  That's pretty typical at our house lately (and a lot of store bought pizza which isn't easy on the wallet either).  Now it's time for that to change.

My first goal for Mission Nutrition is to make and follow a menu...weekly... let's say Monday afternoons so I can do my shopping after Ladies Bible Study on Tuesday.  And I'll work in some fresh fruits and vegetables daily as well.

Look out Bad Habits... this is war!

Giveaway at Putting God First Place

Ashley over at Putting God First Place, is hosting a special giveaway this week.  Moody Publishers has agreed to give a copy of Nancy Leigh DeMoss's book Choosing Forgiveness to three blessed winners.  And to make your odds even better you can enter daily! This giveaway is open till Saturday, February 6.

Check it out!

Word-Filled Wednesday

I am so excited to be living in the country again; I just had to share this picture of the view from the window over my kitchen sink this morning.


Lamentations 3:22-23 (KJV)

²²It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

²³They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

More Word-Filled Wednesdays here.

Preschool curriculum

Finally some "normalcy" so I can finally open the box of preschool curriculum and materials and start "Preschool" with my girls.

Here's the "curriculum" that I'm using, at least for the next few weeks:

For Bible we are reading 365 Bible Stories for Young Hearts (see my review here) combined with coloring pages that I have found for free online. Since the girls' Sunday School class is working it's way through Creation, I decided to start in the New Testament.

For Phonics I am basing a lot of my method on Mommy Teach Me To Read (Montessori method review here). The homeschool teacher project that I mentioned in my last post that is waiting for me to finish it, is sandpaper letter flashcards. I have the sandpaper, I have the templates, I have the glue, I have the flashcards (although not the colored ones that the Montessori method uses), I just have to put everything together. So in the mean time we are using the magnetic letters that I bought at Toys R Us and the 3 period lesson (definition and how to here)

For Math I have a variety of things planned. One that I am excited about are the Funtastic Frogs and a couple sets of the activity cards. (I'll have to do a review on these later, but until then you can find them on amazon or www.rainbowresource.com). My mom has also given the girls sets from the creators of Hooked on Phonics called Hooked on Numbers and Hooked on Shapes. (again, I'll have to review these later)

One of the goals we have as a family is to learn Spanish. We feel that it will give our kids a greater advantage in life as well as ministry opportunities. So for Spanish we are using a workbook program called Flip Flop Spanish, especially for 3-5 year olds.

For "Getting to know my world" (science) I have purchased the book Bubbles, Rainbows, and Worms.

I'm also planning on teaching my kids piano. I love music and playing the piano. It's my goal to instill in my children a love for music as well. RaeRae has been having fun playing her own songs so I decided that it's time to start. Besides learning to play the piano early on has so many advantages in other areas of life (higher math scores for example). So I will be using the Music for Little Mozarts series.

I also have many other workbooks bought from the Dollar Tree (can't go wrong for $1), activities from Discovery Toys, and many other Montessori type hands on learning activities that I plan on going into in more detail soon.

Laugh if you will at my conglomeration of materials. I seem to be rather an eclectic homeschooler! :-) There are things I love about Classical, Charlotte Mason, and Montessori methods; and so, I mix and match like a crazy patchwork quilt.

I'm back!

Home... yes, our new house starting to look like home. Except for the boxes of books in the living room waiting for some bookshelfs, and an empty shelf in the dining room (I need to put some books there too), and the piles of leftover junk when you walk in the back porch, and stacks of boxes waiting to be organized or moved in what will be my craft room/laundry room, I would say it's starting to look like home. I have a laundry basket of clothes waiting to be put away. There are toys and dvds strewn across the living room floor from kids playing. There's a homeschool teacher project waiting for me to finish (I've got all the supplies in one place so I consider that to have started). I have pictures on the walls (some...), and pillows on the couch (no, wait, they're on the floor too!). I do have a lot of work to do yet, for example my windows desperately need to be dressed. But we are finally to the point where we can start to have some routine again. YAY!

We really are loving this place. Oh sure, our house has its quirks. But then we are a family with some quirks. It's great to finally be back in the country again, instead of in the middle of town. I have some great ambitions for this summer with gardening, and I'm even considering raising chickens... we'll see. But mostly we're loving this place where God has our family. This is without a shadow of a doubt where God wants us to be. Right here, Right now! There have been so many blessings that we have received through this move. Out of all the five moves of the five years of our marriage, in this move we have seen God answer prayer and bless the most.

The fact that we are renting this house on eight acres in the country is an answer to prayer. After talking the first time to the landlord and getting all the information, Matt and I talked it over and decided it sounded like the best place out of all that I called about. So I called the landlord back the next day to set up a time to look at it (this was Christmas week). He told me that someone else was going to look at it the next day and he was pretty sure that they would end up renting it, and besides he thought it would be too small for our family (never assume you know the needs of someone else!). I was devastated. All the other places available to rent in this area cost more and would have been more headache for our family. So I prayed. I told God that if he wanted us to make this move, He would have to work out all the details. And I specifically added that it would be great if the other people wouldn't rent this house. Well, the landlord called be back the next day, the other people never even saw the house. They called him and said that it wasn't going to work for them. God very clearly let us know that He wants us RIGHT HERE! Another blessing was that we were able to sell (on craigslist) some furniture that we no longer were going to need and our oven quickly. Then on the Sunday before we left, our church family surprised us with a love offering. Between the love offering and the sale of the oven the amount of money came to the exact amount that we needed for the moving truck and the load of firewood we had delivered (we heat our house with wood)! Isn't God great! We had perfect weather for moving (sunny and temps in the 30s, wonderful for da nort wuds of Wisconsin in January unlike when my sister and sister-in-law moved New Year's weekend and it was barely above 0.). There were no injuries while moving or accidents while traveling. Then to top everything off, the pastor's wife of our new church brought us a meal (lasted the girls and I four days!), and our new church collected bags and bags of food to get us started and help offset all the extra moving costs. I must admit that I was a little over whelmed at that point! As I said, God has affirmed over, and over again now more than any other move of our marriage that this is where He wants us to be. The best thing of all is that we are together again! I am so THANKFUL! that My Man doesn't have to travel for work any more! Sure, him working nights takes some getting used to, but it's great that he is home and available for us during the day.

THANK YOU LORD FOR ALL YOUR MANY BLESSINGS!