Sunflower Field

 Every year a local farmer plants several sunflower fields. They are not always in the same place twice in a row - he rotates his sunflower and wheat fields quite often. This particular field was only a few miles down the road from our house. We drove out one evening during Golden Hour to take our annual Sunflower Field Family Photos. It's so fun to see the changes in our family year after year! This year again, my niece was staying with us so we got to include her in the photos.

  

Snow Family

The week before Thanksgiving our area was hit with a one day windstorm that resulted in near 70 mph winds. Power outages were huge and lasted up to 7 or 8 days - some even went without for 9 or 10 days. Hundreds of trees were lost in the winds - some uprooted completely and some broken off. It was incredible, and to top it all off, the temps were very, very cold.

Playing Games by lantern during our power outage

Thankfully, our home and land were spared, except for being out of power for 3 days. We lost only one small tree that we know of, and it didn't hit anything. We had several branches come off trees, but nothing major. We have a wood stove in our home, so we were always toasty warm - some days it even got up to 80 degrees in the house! And I was able to cook nice hot meals on the wood stove, and we used coolers on the porch to keep our refrigerator food cold, so we didn't lose a great deal of food. We fared quite well in the big windstorm.

           


A local university made good work of some of the many trees they lost on their campus. A few creative souls created this absolutely darling Snow Family out of trees. I love it, and now I am ready to cut down a few trees on our 10 acres to create a Snow Family of our own!

Snow Family at Whitworth University
Whitworth University FB page

Garden Fresh Produce

Love that the garden is still producing yummy goodies. These will be used in my dinner tonight. I've got some country pork ribs to put on the grill, and I'll roast up some potatoes, peppers and zucchini, and have fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers in a salad, and I will use the big zucchini in some bread and brownies.

Canning Day

Today was a fabulous day. I got to spend 6 hours in the kitchen of a great lady and mentor from my church, where we worked together to can sweet pickles, peaches, and then finished up making peach jelly. The peaches were for her daughter, so I didn't bring any of those home, but I certainly brought home pickles and jelly!  17 pints of pickles and 9 pints of jelly. So fun!

What was really great was just spending the day with her and her daughter doing this. My kids are back in school now, so I had the day to myself, to do what I wanted, and I'm so glad that she invited me to her home to work together on this project. She has a garden to die for - beautiful, beautiful! I also came home with a bucketful of grapes from her vines - and they are so yummy and sweet. She is such an example of the Titus 2 woman of God.

I am blessed to have her in my life.

School Year Day 2

New School Year

Today was the first day of school for my kids. They are getting so big! We had a very fun summer, packed with lots of adventures and special days, but it was time to head back. The last two weeks of summer are always our hardest. The kids are tired of playing with each other so much and the sibling fights seem more frequent. They are ready for a regular school routine, and so is this mama! Here is to a great year, full of all sorts of new adventures in learning!

School Year Day 1

Independence Day

 Happy 4th of July from our family to yours! We are spending the weekend at our family lake place. Such fun coming here for the holiday. We have tons of fun swimming and fishing and watching all the great fireworks around the lake.

James and I being a little goofy!

My sweet family

Fishing with Daddy on the dock

Daniel's first fish of the weekend

All of us that came up to the lake

Love this picture with my hubby, mom, and daughter

College is not for sissies!

I took a big step of faith this fall and started back to school. I have decided to study nursing, and get my RN degree, but I have to get through some pre-requisites first. My first college degree was in Small Business Management, and I graduated with that in 1992, so you can imagine that nothing from that time in college transferred over!

This quarter I started out with Psych 100, Biology 160, and English 101. I soon realized that my superwoman cape was just not fitting right - trying to juggle 15 credits with three kids and a husband and a home and then trying to study and do homework for all three classes - yikes! I was not being very successful. So I decided to withdraw from English and just concentrate on Psych and Biology. It was a good choice, but I still feel every bit of my 43 years when it comes to learning all of this new stuff! I am finding that my 2 brain surgeries did affect a bit of my memory capability - trying to ingrain all this new stuff is hard!

But now I am only a couple of weeks away from the first quarter being over, and I'm still surviving! I have found that I can learn new things, it just takes me a bit longer. I have found some new friends in my classmates - and its been fun getting to know new people. I have found that God really does have a plan laid out for me, and just the fact that I am enrolled in school is a big testimony to what God can do. It's kind of an awesome story as to how I even got to this place, but I'll tell that one another time.

I am glad I took this step, and followed the quiet voice of God speaking into my ear. The next few years are not going to be easy, but I know they will be rewarding. And my family has been such a huge encouragement along the way, even though we have hit a few rocks in the path.

Now, if I can only keep meiosis and mitosis straight, and remember DNA replication, and gene expressions, and, and, and........

Tucson Chicken and Mexican Rice

I didn't do a Meal Plan Monday this week - just too crazy of a weekend. I did, however, plan a menu - at least through Thursday! Still have yet to decide the weekend of meals, but I will get to that.  Tonight I pulled a pre-done meal out of the freezer. My friend Alyson and I spent a whole day back in September making freezer meals. They have been a lifesaver now that I have gone back to school! This morning I pulled out Tucson Chicken - one of Alyson's signature dishes!  It's a mexican dish, so I fixed my own recipe for Mexican Rice to go with it, along with some heated black and pinto beans, corn, and homemade salsa (from a friend) and chips for the side. It smells super yummy here right now, and as soon as hubby gets home from work (any minute now) we'll sit down to eat.

Here is a recipe for Alyson's Tucson Chicken

And for my Mexican Rice:

In a pan, mix together 2 cups cold water, 1 cup regular rice, 1 can petite diced tomatoes, 1 T dried red/green peppers, 1/2 t. chili powder, 1/2 t. cumin, 1/2 t. granulated onion, and some salt and pepper. Stir together. Turn on high, bring to a boil, then cover with a lid and simmer for 20 minutes.

After dinner, my job is to commit to memory Cell Respiration! Sounds fun, doesn't it?! I have a big Biology Test on Thursday, so my night's are filled with homework and studying. I lead such an eventful life!

Menu Plan Monday

It has been forever since I've participated in Menu Plan Monday! I used to use this link all the time, but life just got busy, and my blog evolved into more Facebook time than Blog time. But, I feel like starting my online journaling again, so here goes!

Menu planning is even more important to me now, since I started back to school this fall. I got my first degree back in 1992, in Small Business Management, and now I've decided to change paths completely and get a nursing degree. My goal is to be an RN specializing in either Pediatrics or Oncology. I should be done by 2019. And since I'm loading up on credits - 15 currently - and still have three kids and a hubby to take care of - menu planning is uber-important! And including my family in the planning stages is important too. We sit down on Sunday nights and plan out the week - find out what's going on in the evenings, and plan what is best for us. A lot of times I let the kids pick out their choice for a meal. It makes them feel more invested in what we are eating, and they like to help prepare the meal they have chosen. I also planned ahead before school started and spent an entire day preparing about a dozen meals ahead of time to put in my freezer. They are great to pull out when I don't have the time to cook!

So here is this week's menu.

Monday - Comfort Meatballs  Crash Hot Potatoes
Tuesday - Orange Chicken and Black Rice
Wednesday - Meatloaf (my mother-in-law's recipe) and mashed potatoes
Thursday - French Dip Sandwiches and French Fries
Friday - Pizza - we have our kids' Fall Carnival at school, and then the last home football game, so we need super easy and fast for tonight!
Saturday - Either Pork Roast or Beef Roast - not sure yet!
Sunday - Family Dinner at my parents' house - not sure what is planned yet!

I love The Pioneer Woman - and my kids love her recipes. Three of my dishes this week are from her website or TV. She always has such yummy, down-home, stick to your ribs meals!

 I'm an Organized Junkie hosts these Menu Plan Mondays. Head on over to her blog to take a look!

Thankfulness

* Listening to my boys play in the tree house we built this summer. Dream come true!

* Gretchen playing with arts and crafts in her bedroom. I love her creativity!

* spending family time together watching high school volleyball

* hubby helping with dishes and laundry when I am knee-deep in homework

* God opening so many doors for me to go to college again

* teacher friends that help my daughter when she is sad

* friends who encourage me when I have a bad day

* God providing the funds needed for a new school computer

* a day spent cooking with a good friend means great meals in my freezer - and a good day spent with a friend!

* encouraging and loving texts from my husband to keep me going when school is hard

* love notes from my daughter hidden in my backpack and left at my dinner seat

Baking Day

It's baking day at my house. Today is the day to turn in the culinary arts entries to our local fair. I'm excited to be entering baked goods for the very first time. I am hoping that everything turns out well, but what I'm really looking forward to is the feedback that the judges give.  Plus, my family loves it when I bake - I only have to turn in 3 cinnamon rolls and 3 brownies and 1 loaf of each bread, so we have lots of extras at the house to nibble on! This afternoon I have to make a batch of my Red, White & Blue cookies (dried cranberries, dried blueberries and white chocolate chips) and a pan of my Peanut Butter Finger bars, which is something my mom used to make all the time when we were kids.

Teacher Appreciation Week

Orange you glad it's almost summer!

This was the theme for the Teacher Appreciation Gifts I did this year. Of course, if it weren't for Pinterest, I would have no ideas at all! I saw a couple of samples of this theme on Pinterest, and decided to create my own basket of goodies.  It was actually lots of fun to create them, and I lucked out and was able to get almost everything at my local Dollar Tree store. And I was able to get name brand goodies too. Each basket cost me around $12.50, which I thought was a pretty decent price.

I put in a combination of school supplies and yummy treats.

I used a plastic tablecloth and just cut off the orange patterned strips on either side of the white center. Some went into each bucket, and some I cut into strips to tie bows.

               
I found the orange printable from Sun Scholars blog and I hand wrote the "almost".






After delivering all the gifts yesterday, I'm happy to say that the teachers loved them! Have fun creating your own Teacher Appreciation Gifts.

Geocaching

A little over a year ago, on our Spring Break, we explored the world of geocaching. We had just gotten new smart phones, and with that, the ability to have portable GPS. I had several friends who loved geocaching, so I thought I would give it a try with the kids. Unfortunately, although we had lots of fun looking for our first cache at Holmberg Park, Gretchen picked up a tick on her head during that search, and we never really did it again.  But this year, we are back at it, and this time, more excited than before. The kids understand it more, and we have found lots of caches in our area. We have one of our own ready to hide tomorrow, and have three more in the works that each of the kids are creating. It really is fun, and something the family can do together.

So today, after Austin's cub scout meeting, we decided to find a couple of caches on our way home. One was a traditional cache, and one was a micro cache. The kids are addicted now I think!

To see more ideas for fun things to do with kids, follow this link:
Sun Scholars: For the Kids Fridays

Halloween

This year for Halloween, the kids got to pick out their own costumes. In years past, I have alternated years - I get to pick a coordinating theme one year, and they get to pick anything they want (within reason, of course).  So this year, Gretchen chose Queen Cleopatra, Daniel chose Anakin Skywalker, and Austin chose Darth Vader. I'm not entirely sure that the boys understood they were essentially the same person, just at different points of their lives, but oh well! They enjoyed it. Gretchen was especially excited to get to wear "adult make-up" with her costume. 

We went out Trick-or-Treating, which for our kids, means getting spoiled rotten by all our close friends. We have 4 houses that we go to every year, and this year we added a 5th, all people that we have known since before we had kids, and who always beg to see the kids on Halloween. They put together special treat bags for the kids, and love oohing and ahhing over costumes. It's nice for us, because we know that it will be a fun and safe night. We usually trick-or-treat a few of the neighbors houses at each stop along the way, so by the end of the night, the kids have definitely got full pumpkin buckets!

It's October!

Today is the first day of October, and fall is definitely in the air. I have my garden almost all put to bed for the winter - just have some more potatoes to pull out and the last of the tomatoes and cucumbers. I've been canning lots of cucumbers this year, and making lots of homemade spaghetti sauce, and now am ready to begin making lots of jam and pie fillings with the yummy tree fruits from Greenbluff. And I can finally say good-bye to the 90 degree weather! I'm sorry, but I'm not a huge fan of it being so hot I can't breathe!

This year, I am choosing to participate in a special project - October Unprocessed. It's a month to devote to eating as clean as you possibly can. I am looking forward to this challenge, and hoping I can feel some results.

Does this interest you? Follow the link to the side to get more information.

Project 365 Day 216

We visited the sunflower field today to grab some photos before the flowers started wilting and looking sad. I love this sunflower field - this is the second year that the farmer has grown sunflowers. Since it is right on the highway, tons of people visit the field to get photos taken - even some professional photographers come out with clients for senior photos and such. But I am a bit biased - I think these three are the best looking sunflowers in the field!

Activity Jar

We have a lifesaving Activity Jar at our house. Why lifesaving? Because it was born out of utter frustration and exhaustion of listening to my three devils beautiful children arguing non-stop on the drive home from the grocery store one summer day last year. As I was driving down the highway, I thought seriously of stopping roadside and letting the kids walk the rest of the way home. Yea, I know it was still 10 miles to our house, but really - the noise! Instead, I devised a plan in my head, and as soon as I got home, I put it into action, and that afternoon resulted in 2-1/2 hours - yes, that many hours! - of beautiful behavior and fun for my children. I think what they all really needed was time alone to do a project without a sibling telling them how to do it. And I needed time to actually hear the voices in my head, instead of the arguing ones outside my head!

This activity jar is great to pull out when the weather is too rainy or snowy or stinkin' hot to go outside. It is a cure for sibling tensions. It is a cure for the "I'm bored" whines. I cannot say enough good things about it. You *need* to make one for your family. Let me show you how.

Start with a simple wide mouth container. It has to accommodate a child's hand reaching in. I had found 3 of these matching glass containers at the local Goodwill one day, and loved that they were square instead of round. It was perfect for this project.

Next, get a piece of cardstock and cut it into strips. With a sharpie marker, write down as many activities as you can think of that your child(ren) can do on their own with very limited adult interaction for 30 minutes. We picked toys that hadn't been played with for a while, and things the kids loved doing, and made sure it was a wide variety of activities. My kids are very close together in age (currently, 6,7 & 8) so I didn't have to worry much about different activities for different ages - it all worked. If you have kids further apart than I do, first, you might be more sane than I, and second, you might want to use different color cardstock for each child.

Last, make your jar attractive, because it will be out for all to see. And you can impress your other mom friends at the same time, and share with them your sanity saver.

 And then you are ready for the fun to begin! We let each child pick a slip of paper, and the rule is you cannot exchange it - you have to do what it says. Then we gather the activity, put each child in a different room, and set the timer. 30 minutes of activity. And you know what? It works like pixie dust! The kids have fun, they know they won't be stuck doing the same thing for the rest of the day, and they enjoy playing with something they haven't hardly looked at for a while.

 Giant Picture Page                       Craft Project                                    Trio Blocks

Project 365 Day 168

Today was the first day of Science Camp for Austin.

While he was gone, I took Daniel & Gretchen to our local

library for a program on Underground. They learned about

cave drawings, and got to create their own using sandpaper.

We finished the afternoon off with a movie, The Croods, with all three kids.

Project 365 Day 163

It is officially summer break! The kids are out of school for the summer, 

so we celebrated with fun summer buckets full of goodies!

Bring on the fun!!

Project 365 Day 160

Today was Promotion Sunday at our church. All the kids got certificates if they moved up to the next class.

Austin earned not only his certificate, but also his Bible for completing 2nd grade. He was very excited!