Blast Into The Crazy Past: How Fostering Changes Your Life...

Welcome to memories...my memories....welcome to a Blast from my Crazy Past!

It is interesting to see how things change in your life. I wrote this a year ago, in 2015 to read to a few close friends one night. I ran across it recently and decided I would share it here. It was hard to decide whether I should have it go out on Fostering Friday or today since it isn't current events. So I went with Blast Into The Crazy Past.....

Monday Madness- It's His Birthday....

Welcome to Monday Madness where I will talk about pretty much anything that comes to mind. From homeschooling to special needs to strange blog posts about silly objects to interviewing a family member...

You never know what you might read on Monday Madness! 

Enjoy!

The man I love, the one I am so grateful for, is celebrating his birthday today....if you want to read something mooshy and oozing with love, you can read what I wrote about Peter in this post from October.

I am so thankful for this man....he is an amazing father and husband. He deserves so much more than he gets most of the time. There are times when he struggles like anyone else. But the Lord knew what He was doing when He made Peter the head of our home and father of our children.

I hope you enjoy these Pictures and please, wish Peter a Happy birthday!

Someone Dear To My Heart....

I met this person 20 years ago......no....no....the VERY first memory I have of him was when I was 13 years old.

EEK.....

I. Am. So. Excited!!!

Where To Go From Here....

I'll be honest...I really haven't known where to go with this blog. I had numerous family members and friends let me know over the past couple years that they missed my blog and wanted me to write again...

So I did. On October 9, 2016, I got back on the band wagon and was really excited to do it!

However...

Making Memories and Messes: Meatloaf

So I hated Meatloaf growing up for several reasons. (Don't worry, I already confessed to my momma!) However, when I was back in Wisconsin visiting my parents, my mom served up meatloaf and to my surprise, I LOVED it! I even went back for seconds! I introduced it to my family a couple weeks ago and they loved it also. In fact, they were disappointed that I only made half a recipe!  It was so moist and delicious....after a couple revisions, I came up with a little different recipe yet. So here is the recipe with my couple revisions, let me know if you try it:

Marvelous Meatloaf

2 pounds ground turkey

2 eggs beaten

2 teaspoons onion powder 

Several stalks of green onion, chopped up

Several stalks of fresh chives, chopped up

(My kids don't care for chunks of onion.)

2 cups oatmeal

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 teaspoons Worchestershire sauce

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup bbq sauce 

(Our favorite is Sweet Baby Ray's)

Top with BBQ sauce.

Mix together. 

It will fill two bread pans.

Bake at 420 degrees for 1 hour.

I do a double batch of this and freeze one half.

Here are some pics of my Miss Bob helping me tonight:

Picture update on our backyard!

So I promised pics of our backyard and here they are:

Here is the fence I had to put up...

Then I realized that I needed to put some burlap on it cause my baby plants were not fairing so well...

They get the wonderful morning sun though....

What's over here?

Why....it's tomatoes and pumpkin!

Compost pile...

The privacy shield I was talking about...

From the sidewalk side...really looks nice and gives us privacy...

Working on a flower arrangement...

Finished product...

The lovely shade cover over our patio that I mentioned I wanted to do. 

Hubby so sweetly did it for me! I sure love him!

Outdoor Dining...

Love this area!!!

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.

Chores:

If you have any questions about when you should start training your children on chores or how, check out my post called E is For Everyone Helps on my homeschool blog!

TODAY: Planting Starters, Pizza Dough, a Challenge and so much more...!

We had so much fun this afternoon that I HAVE to share, complete with pictures. So enjoy!

So I admit, when we get the "bug", we get the bug. We haven't had a garden for two years for reasons out of our control. This year, we were so antsy that we decided to start our plants indoors!

Spooning the soil into containers...

Some of the plants, ironically, none of this are the ones we started. But I wasn't in charge of the camera the whole time! LOL

Ahhh....some cantaloupe and bell peppers...I can taste them already!

Jalapenos and small sweet pumpkins. 

(This variety is great for pie and canning.) 

I had lots of help...

Fancy watering pot, eh?

My Kindergartener showing off her printing skills! Not bad!

My First Grader helps as well...

First person to tell me what kind of seeds these are will get some in the mail! Put your guess below!

My hubby fixed up this lovely spot for my seedlings...

"I'm gonna watch them grow...!"

My wonderful hubby made pizzas with home-made dough for dinner!!

Yum, yum! This one is ours, can't wait to taste it!

And THAT was our afternoon in a nutshell of pictures!

Making Memories and Messes

So I was working on my project indoors and hubby was working on the backyard...he comes in the house and says, "Can you be ready in a hour or so and we will go cash the cans in." Now, I haven't paid attention, but I figured there were maybe 5-6 bags of cans. No...he had to take the seats out of our 8 passenger van and the back end was FULL! Where were these for the past five months? Apparently it proves that we rarely go to the side of the house where we store cans in the winter time. No, we do not drink that much soda! Alot of them are water bottles and then we have different relatives that give us their bottles and cans. It adds up...

So we figured that we were there at least 1.5 hours, but possible two. Cashing in cans is hard, nasty work. I don't know if you cash in cans, but in the winter time it is cold, miserable, dirty work. However....we made a decent amount of money in that short amount of time, I am happy to say! The kids worked hard. I didn't think ahead to how the noise in that echoing, loud room would affect Lil Mr's Sensory issues. He was having a hard time dealing with it, so the girls all took turns playing with him in the little area outside the building. The ones that weren't playing/watching Lil Mr all took turns getting cans/bottles from the van, loading the bins, taking caps off the bottles, cleaning up garbage and various other little tasks. They were troopers! I was so proud of them. Not a single one fussed till the last 15 minutes or so when they started getting hungry. It was hard work, but daddy is treating them to some of that hard earned money by picking up one of their favorite foods for lunch! Yay Daddy!

It was messy and we all have dirt shoved up under our fingernails and streaks of mud across our faces, but it was productive and we left thankful that we do not have to do that for a living as some people who were there. God is good and I am so thankful for Him in our lives!

Bread Making Recipes

So we have a unique situation in our home. It took several years to get used to this idea for me: My husband LOVES to bake and cook! He loves it! He informs me that it helps him relax. After seeing how much his father loves the kitchen, I have learned to relax and let my guy take over at least two-thirds of the kitchen. Not that I hate cooking or baking, but he loves it SO much more than me!

Anyway, for years we have made home-made bread off and on. We love it, but never baked it as a necessity, more as a treat. After seeing the cost of bread rise and considering that we go through almost a loaf of bread a meal, I have decided that we will start making our own bread from now on! Besides, we like our bread better than store bought anyway!

I would love to collect recipes from people and am hoping that I will get some responses to this blog!

Yummy Bread Pics:

Doesn't that make you want to get your hands in some flour right now???