Monday Madness: The Lord Is My Shepherd

Dear Friends and Family,

Something that I am thinking about today has to do with our spiritual growth as soldiers for the Lord. As a soldier in the physical world, you are expecting to exercise physically, mentally and emotionally to face the battlefield.

The same goes for the spiritual world. We need to be prepared for battle. One of those ways is to memorize scripture. I find it so thrilling that when you need a scripture, that the Lord will bring it to your mind!

As a parent, you aren't always sure how much your kids are listening. In fact, with my boys, I really wonder! They have minds that are constantly on the move and don't seem to settle on any topic unless it is one they are interested in.

Our six year old loves Jesus as much as his little heart can understand. He loves to memorize scripture and will often quote it to us. Recently while taking Tony to school, I quoted the 23rd Psalm to the boys. They were impressed because so far, they have both only learned a verse at a time. I let them know that they can learn it and I was probably pretty young when I learned it. Noah told me that he wanted to learn the 23rd Psalm that day and we have been working on it.

Early this morning, I was up working at the computer in the trailer when I heard his little voice talking in his sleep. I stopped to listen to what he was saying and realized he was quoting Psalm 23 in his sleep! In. His. Sleep!

It was the sweetest thing to hear!

Lately, I have been going through some things that literally have had me at my Father's feet begging for help to understand. Things I never thought I would have to go through.

The verse that we are learning right now is:

 "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Psalm 84:11

This verse has been helping me. I know that the Lord will not withhold anything that is good from me if I make sure to follow Him and His example for me.

Is the Lord your shepherd?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Praying your week is blessed,
Heidi

Family Friday: A Psalm By Tony

Family Friday:

Listening in Sunday School

Monday Madness: Math~ Dad Style

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!

I found this post from March 23, 2011....

What I Am Learning....

About blogging....what I have learned so far probably makes professional bloggers roll their eyes.

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 Almond Cheese

I have been slowly taking my family to a gluten free lifestyle. I say slowly because none of us have celiac disease or anything that is making us need to drop gluten cold turkey. So we are slowly making lifestyle changes where gluten is involved. And we are also starting to eliminate some dairy products and replacing them with almonds.

One of the main reasons for this is that the children and I, including our son who is adopted, have eczema issues as well as seasonal issues. Changing to a more gluten free diet should help with this. I have to admit that I am starting to see some changes already.

We have been having fun making almond milk, our own almond flour and this week we added almond cheese to our repertoire. Turned out super yummy with just a couple things we want to tweak: needs a tad more salt and we need to puree it a little longer. It was a fun family project and you will find the link to the recipe we used below:

Simple Almond Cheese Recipe

Growing Up...

When my girls hit about 8, I have a talk with them about what is coming up in their future as they grow up into young ladies as well as a little about the "birds and the bees".


  I make it into a girly time full of little presents to make things fun.







 I also include a neat book I found that talks about everything a girl needs to know about taking care of herself as she grows into a woman.


With my older two, a friend and I took our same age daughters together so they could share this growing up moment with a friend. When my next daughter came of age last year to have our little talk, she plugged her ears and said, "No, I don't want to hear about it! LALALA!" Pretty typical for this kiddo! However, a couple months ago, the older girls and I were talking in "girl code" about "stuff". Fred looked at us and said, "What are you talking about?". Her oldest sister looked at her and said, "You know, if you would go on your talk with mom, you would know what we are talking about." Fred looked from her to me and said, "Ok. When can we go?" It was decided that Fred and Bob would go together to make it "more fun and less embarrassing". (LOL)


Today was the day for their talk. They chose to go to a local Mexican restaurant where they decided it would be nice and loud so "no one would hear"!

We had a lot of fun, the girls enjoyed their lunch and presents. They surprisingly were not shy and asked lots of questions about stuff they had heard their sisters talking about. We really enjoyed ourselves and had a nice bonding moment, one of many to come with growing up and becoming young ladies!

I feel so blessed to see my little girls turning into beautiful young ladies!

Pumpkin Patch

Today was a BLAST! A friend of mine organized a pumpkin patch field trip to a local farm that does it up great every year. We had about 30-40 kids varying in age from tiny babies to middle school. And all the parents to go with it. It was a great group! I met a couple people that I had seen on FB on the different homeschool groups I am in and also got to chit-chat with other moms I know. Here are some pics from our totally fantastic day:

All in all, a great day! I was really excited to see how far our little guy has come with sensory processing today...the cannon was pretty loud, but he didn't freak out, he just covered his ears! Go Lil Mr!

Learning Home Ec In The Home: Cooking

Today was the day! I told my 7 year old that I would teach her how to make homemade mac and cheese. I taught her older sisters how to do the boxed kind. However, we have been going back to my roots of making things from scratch. So I didn't want to teach her how to make it from a box. I was just waiting to find a simple easy recipe to teach them all. I finally found it here at Hillbilly Housewife. Here are some pics of the process:

The ingredients needed...

My Chef for the Day...

Stir the milk on medium heat till it comes to a bubble, NOT a boil...

When it comes to a bubble, turn down the heat to simmer and add the noodles. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Then add your cheese, butter and salt. Stir slowly till the cheese and butter melts.

Then pour into a pan. Put in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Ta Dah!

Enjoy!

Family Picnic and Learning Home Ec In The Home: Embroidery Work

Embroidery work is fast becoming a lost art, but thankfully, my kiddos enjoy doing it. I just started my two youngest today while we were out on a picnic. We had a lot of fun today! Here are some pics:

Little boys make their own fun!!!

Fred's...

Bob's...

Mac's...

George's...

Mine...