Hummingbird Webcam!

Apparently one hummingbird has already hatched and there is one more to hatch. 

Thought this would be fun to watch. 

Just go to Phoebe Allens Webcam and see what you can see!

Update on me!

For One, my hubby sent me away on a week long trip to visit with my momma and daddy in Wisconsin!!!

Then when I got back, there was Easter....

Then......drum roll............we FINALLY had the judge sign papers on Lil Mr's adoption! It's a done deal!!!

Now, Lord Willing, we are back to our normal life of well...what is called normal around here! I look forward to getting back to my regular posting!

God bless!

Back To our Schedule!

So I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I wouldn't be able to post much for a couple weeks. There were several reasons for that...

For One, my hubby sent me away on a week long trip to visit with my momma and daddy in Wisconsin!!!

Then when I got back, there was Easter....

Then......drum roll............we FINALLY had the judge sign papers on Lil Mr's adoption! It's a done deal!!!

Now, Lord Willing, we are back to our normal life of well...what is called normal around here! I look forward to getting back to my regular posting!

God bless!

Here is a happy heart...

I was out cutting tulips in the front yard and my Bob was sitting on the ground watching me. I could hear her singing a song quietly to herself but couldn't make out what it was. Soon she says with a sigh, "I can't remember it all." So I asked her what she was trying to sing, she said,"....just a closer walk?" So I started singing, "Just a closer walk with thee, grant it Jesus is my plea..." Her eyes lit up and she started singing with me. These moments are what I live for! I am so glad that the Lord called us to home-school. It has been a blessing that just grows every day. I pray that her heart will always desire a closer walk with Jesus!

Just a Closer Walk With Thee

I am weak, but Thou art strong; Jesus, keep me from all wrong; I’ll be satisfied as long As I walk, let me walk close to Thee. Refrain: Just a closer walk with Thee, Grant it, Jesus, is my plea, Daily walking close to Thee, Let it be, dear Lord, let it be. Through this world of toil and snares, If I falter, Lord, who cares? Who with me my burden shares? None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee. When my feeble life is o’er, Time for me will be no more; Guide me gently, safely o’er To Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore.

Whew...I Am Worn Out!

I didn't understand when I was younger and my grandma would tell me how when they were putting a garden in, the house just seemed to limp along. You maintained it, but it was never completely clean. I understand now! After all, you can only focus on one thing at a time. Today we got a break from outdoor work as it is really cold out. So we are working on different projects in the house. For me, it was tackling my desk that had piles of junk mail and books from this past week sitting on it. Rather an eyesore! For the kids, it was tidying up their rooms and helping clean up our messes in the living areas of the house.

Just to give a head's up, I won't be actively posting over the next ten days or so. I might post once in a while, but certainly not like I have. We have another week and a half left of our break and it will be rather busy. When I come back, I may double up some of my posts with my Homeschooling Happy Hearts. As alot of the homemaking things we did and are going to do, tie up with homeschooling!

So have a wonderful Easter week coming up! Remember our Lord and Saviour who died and rose again to set us free!

God bless!

School Break on For Another Week And A Half..

Just to warn you, I may not be on too much in the next week and a half. We have alot that we will be jam-packing in and possibly not alot of time to blog. So please be patient and I will give you a million blog posts when school starts back up after Easter! In the meantime, I will probably post some ABC posts from my Facebook blog as they are already done. For some of you they will be a repeat, for others it will be something new to read!

Just to give you a taste of the blog posts to come:

• Worm Farm Fun!
• Gardening Comes To Life
• Art Comes In Many Forms
• When The Cat's Away, The Mice Will Play
• Baking With Dad

And more to come! Stay tuned!

Break? What Break?

While on a break from school we have been working on our garden and lanscaping. My hubby wrote such a nice blog about it, that I will just link up to his blog for you to read! Just go to PTSGP to read about our adventures.

April Field Trip: Art Night

We are on break! Our field trip for this break was to go to our town's art night since we are doing a art class. So here we are starting out! (Unfortunately I wasn't able to take pics in the art museums, but we got some fun shots of the evening...)

Mac teaching the cricket the proper cello stance!

The girls!

The boys!

The art of music! These are called slit drums and are made here locally! They are so beautiful.

 On my wish list!

This is our "go-to" music store. The girls took piano lessons here several years ago. They are very family orientated and love to have the kids in. Speaking of...I should have some music coming in..

.they are called Great Northwest Music Company.

These are called Kalimbas. You play them like you are texting! 

They sound kinda like wind-chimes and can be tuned to certain keys.

This art was done by Lil Mr's Early Head-start class! 

Yay for Miss Victoria and Miss Danielle!

This is The Glass Forge. 

They actually make things for our small car business that we have.

 (VERY small business!)

We happened to get there right when they were training and we had fun watching them make a bowl. 

Posing outside one of the art museums!

All in all, it was a very fun night and we were so thankful to be joined by our friend Sue, our friend Grace and her son!

Today: Less is....well, less!

For weeks now, I have been going through the house...giving away so much that I think the kids might start wondering if they are next!

Today we finally got to one of the things that has been on the back burner for weeks: the clothes. We LOVE hand-me-downs and get them frequently. When hand-me-downs come into the house, I don't let them get any farther than the couch. I sort them and decide what we can use. Since the last batch of clothes, I read that after you have sorted through the hand-me-downs, take them out to the car to be taken to the next person or donation drop off. Then they are not in the house to be "absorbed"! I will be doing that from now on. Last time I was not so careful and the extra clothes were cluttering up the hampers, the closets, the bedroom floors, the laundry....TOO.MANY.CLOTHES.

Some people have the misconception that the more clothes you have, the more you have to wear/the less laundry you have to do/etc... There have been studies done that show we only wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 skirts...you only wear two of them 80% of the time. You wear the others, just rarely. I believe this is a very accurate study. Also....you have MORE laundry to do, especially with little ones cause they change their clothes more often...after all, there are more in their drawers...And, you have more laundry to do because you are going through more clothes. The clothes take up space, which takes up your time to dig through and find what you actually do use.

I proved this recently with our towels. We had a ton of towels...when I say a ton, I mean you could probably have filled a small row boat with our towels. Seriously. At least 80% of these towels were from our wedding almost 13 years ago!!!! What annoyed me is how often I had to wash a load of towels!  We had so many, that everyone (yes, including me!) would use a towel once and in the laundry it went. They weren't getting hung up for a second use, thus making me have to wash at least a load of towels every day. So....several weeks ago, I went through the towels. I saved enough bath and hand  towels for two per person as well as some for company. I gave away at least 3-4 garbage bags of towels....did you read that? THREE TO FOUR GARBAGE BAGS! (What I want to know is: How come almost every person that gave us a gift for our wedding gave us TOWELS? Sigh....) Anyway....back to laundry...I now only do about one load of towels a week. YES! I love it! We use a towel, hang it up to dry, use it again. After the second use, it is thrown in the laundry.

Side Note:The same concept can be used with anything in your house. If you haven't used it in the last 6 months to a year, give it away. 
There is only one exception for me and that is holiday/seasonal stuff. You only use it once a year, so of course you need to store it. However, what I do is when I bring it out to use, I mentally look over what is in the box. If I find that I haven't used it for the last year or two, out it goes. When you buy something new, find something to give away. Even better, when you find something new, give two or more things away. Then you are always on top of it!

Now...back to what we were doing today with the girls' clothes. I had them bring ALL their clothes out to me in the living room. We sorted through everything, putting aside things that were ruined/stained/or for donation etc..then they folded their clothes back up and put them away. We ended up with several bags for donation as well as a few pieces of clothing that will be used for rags or something. Now, to finish this job, as the clothes come through the laundry over the next couple days, I will be sorting them and putting aside any for donation.

I hope you don't have an over-abundance of stuff. But if you do, and you are not sure where to start, try this:

• Start small. Pick one drawer, one cupboard, or one shelf. 
• Make three piles: to keep, to give, and to throw away.
• Re-organize what you are keeping. 
• Promptly give away or put in your car what you are giving away.
• Toss what is not being saved.
• Move onto the next small area.

Good luck!!!

Tutorial: How to Make Frozen Burritos

So if you have been reading my blog for long, you know that I am trying to completely go back to the basics and cook/bake everything from scratch. As a result, you don't have a whole lot of "fast" foods for when you are in a hurry. So now I am working on making some things that are fast to have in the freezer for those times.

This first one is frozen burritos for on the go! So here is my pictorial tutorial (say that ten times fast!):

To start, you need tortilla shells, refried beans mixture or whatever for your filling and cheese. 

Now, we usually make our own tortilla shells from scratch. But wouldn't you know it, we were out! So I picked up some that were on sale. For our filling, I used refried beans, rice and olives.

These are small shells, so I used my small cookie scoop to put the beans on.

Two scoops...

 Then some cheese....

 Fold one...

Fold two...

 Fold three...

 Fold four...

Place on cookie sheet...

 Rereat above steps till you have a full cookie sheet...

 Place in the freezer for about 20 minutes...till they are firm.

When they come out, they should hold their form like this...

Somehow I deleted my last pic, but what I did was then place the 20 burritos in two freezer bags. Wrote the contents and the date and popped them in the freezer to be used later!! 

When you are ready to eat them, take out as many as you need, put them in the microwave or toaster oven and Enjoy!!!

See how our seedlings are doing:

We are having SO much fun watching our plants come up! Starting work on the backyard raised beds on Saturday, Lord Willing...

Bread Making...

On my other blog, Homeschooling Happy Hearts, I talk about teaching my kiddos to use the bread machine!

Spring Break Activities: Art and Baking

All during our break, we are doing an art class. It is done by Thomas Kinkade and is a load of fun! Today's class was about realistic drawing. You watch a clip where Thomas Kinkade explains a technique, then you practice yourself. Here are some pics from today:

While they were working on art, I went to see what Lil Mr was up to.....

He was busy re-organizing his toy box! 

Today we also had a baking class. Fred and Bob learned how to use the bread machine and made a simple white bread. Very tasty for sandwich bread:

Sorry the pics are a little fuzzy, my camera was being difficult!

Here is their finished loaf of bread:

My oldest also had a bread machine lesson. She made a potato bread. 

We had it for dinner and it was YUMMY!

(Don't you love her pretty braces? I do!)

We had quite the productive and fun day!