Time to clean out!

Not sure if it's nesting or spring fever but I have the urge to clean out junk. It feels so good to unload stuff and see space that isn't so cluttered. I started in Baby Girl's room today. Her toy box was overflowing with mess, now it's only 1/2 full. That looks better. Next I went to the boys' room but didn't find much in there. I think Honey just cleaned that out a couple of months ago. Now I'm headed to the games. We have a lot of loser games that no one likes.

It'll be good to be in the school room again. It's too cold to stay in there long in the winter but now that it's warmer, we can open it up again.

Oh, good news! The guy comes tomorrow to start working on the leak! It'll be nice to not worry with that when the rainy season hits. His name is Mr. Christian...I like that.

Soccer and Piano

A big CONGRATULATIONS to my girls for doing so well at the piano festival!! Way to go!

Tomorrow is my son's first game of the season. I am *really* looking forward to this since I know I'll miss some games once baby comes.

Baby girl can say about 3 words. Not much yet. She bats a soccer ball through a door way and shouts "Goal!" Definitely a Taggart.

A "Big" Week

I can no longer look at the scales when I go to the Dr. It's too sad. I've passed my "target" with 6 more weeks to go. My own scales are bad enough but Dr. Bell's are even worse! I always reach this point so I never really know how much weight I gain in all. I just sort of guess...on the generous side.

All of a sudden I've outgrown almost all my favorite clothes. I'm now in what I call my gigantic clothes. I went to buy some new gigantic jeans Friday. They looked fine in the store but when I wore them around the house....oh no! Every time I bent over, well, let's just say it was a revealing sight. Those certainly won't do.

6 more weeks until we meet this little guy. I can't wait!

God is here!

I was listening to a Third Day Christmas song today. I don't remember the lyrics exactly but the chorus was "Hallelujah, the King is here......" I love Christmas music because it is so worshipful. Most songs are just about Him only and not about us or what we have to do with anything. I love this song!

So I was thinking about some of the things that are rattling around in my mind and how trivial they are in light of eternity. They probably won't matter at all in a few years (or maybe even days!). And even if something is worrisome or sad.....I can REJOICE right now because the King is here!! All the time. Hallelujah!!

It didn't snow yesterday so I got to go to my ultrasound. Oh, you should see this sweet baby! With 6 1/2 weeks to go, he is already over 5 pounds!! That was a relief b/c he had been measuring small. Well, he's obviously not small at all! All is good and he is head down.

Here's the plan for today....

Read Daniel Ch 4 aloud. So many good things to point out about him to my kids. I like Daniel. So do my little boys.

I have to apologize to Baby Boy for acting selfishly toward him last night. I don't want to forget this.

School, school, school.

Today #4 goes to Dr. U for part 2 of her mouth appliance. Part 3 happens next week.

#1 goes to babysit around the corner for a couple of hours. She'll take school with her to do after her charge is asleep.

Extra jobs for my kids today:
MTT- make cereal
LMT- make pizza dough in the bread machine
CT- sweep the front porch and pick up dog poop
LB- vacuum her jurisdictions

This afternoon the girls have a make-up piano lesson. Piano festival is Saturday.

Soccer practice this evening so I'll drop #3 off at Honey's office and he'll pick up the girls and take all three to practice. If the day is warm I may join them with the little ones later. They have all had a lot of fun at the practices this week. Last night all three girls got to play with the coaches in a scrimmage. Our son has 2 back -to- back games Saturday. Baby girl needs to learn to enjoy this so I think practice will be good practice for her too!

For dinner tonight we're having chicken pizza with the left over BBQ chicken from last night. We'll have to finish making it early so we can take it to the park tonight. I'm trying a new chunky spicy sauce to go with it. It's a Rachel Ray recipe. I don't think I have all the ingredients, but I'll make do.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! One of the other soccer parents sent 3 huge bags of boys' clothes home with Honey. Today we get to go through them. Apparently they are clothes that should fit my oldest son. God is good. We will enjoy shopping through those today!

A Free Day

My 15yo posed the question: If you had a free day to do whatever you wanted without any restraints or restrictions (meaning you don't even have to brush your teeth if you don't want to) what would you do?

I've been thinking...

The day before my free day, I would clean up the house really good and get all the laundry done. I would buy new candles for the whole house. Then on the actual day I would leave for the whole day so the house would stay clean! I'd spend it with Honey in Eureka Springs or some other good spot. We'd have a picnic outside and just spend the day doing whatever we wanted. Maybe nothing in particular. I'd get a pedicure. Then when we came home, after dinner out of course, the whole house would be nice and clean and I'd light the new candles. We'd have some sort of desert in bed and maybe watch a movie.

A Smile

Honey has been having some bad days at work. So today I prayed for him and asked the Lord to send something to make him smile. Know what? He got 4 somethings! The UPS man brought all the boxes he ordered to upgrade his computer. Also the camera store called and told him his lens was in. That made the day better even though he did have to work late. Thank you Lord.

Other good things to do..

This is special for #1.

Other Good Things Girls Can Do That Do Not Involve MP3, XBox, Computer, or TV

1. Read a book....ok you already said that one.
2. Play outside with your younger siblings.
3. Make a sword.
4. Cook.
5. Sew.
6. Help your sister with spelling!!
7. Soccer drills with your brothers. If you want to be Dad's asst you must put in the time.
8. Write a story.
9. Fill up everyone's mailbox.
10. Work on your movie.
11. Practice your photography.
12. Exercise.
13. Look for coins with your brother to fill up his stuff.
14. Scrapbook
15. Make cards.
16. Surprise someone by doing their chores.
17. Learn Spanish.
18. Teach your brothers to tie their shoes.
19. Teach your sister to braid her hair.
20. Draw.

I Hate Shopping

I have decided that unless I am shopping with Honey, it is the biggest waste of time ever. I had errands to do today. One of them was getting 3 pictures framed at Michael's with the 50% off coupon. These are such beautiful pics that Honey took and I wanted them for the parlor. The lady helped me with the first one and rang it up. Can you believe it was going to cost $142.00!! Half price?! No thanks.

So I took them to the frame aisle to pick one and do it myself. Those frames were 40% off so I thought I could come up with something. I found the frames ok but the problem was the mats. They were too big and needed the custom mats. By now the lady was busy with someone else. I left with nothing.

Next I had to return some books. Even though I had my receipt, the lady had to find my name in the computer. She couldn't find it. There is only 1 cashier and there must have been 5 people lined up behind me. I felt so bad for them. I wanted to look for something else, but decided that I had spent enough time already. I left.

I had one more trip to make. My kids were waiting for me at home b/c they wanted to go play outside. I wanted to go home!!

My new business idea is online grocery shopping with delivery. Shipping would cost too much so there would need to be a delivery guy. Then he could haul them all in and put them right into your kitchen. Why hasn't Walmart thought of that?

Saturday today

Today my 4 older kids started painting Baby Girl's room. It's been a noisy operation. Baby Girl has to sleep elsewhere and she doesn't care for that. I hope it is finished quickly. It's good for them to coordinate this project and work together. So far, I think there's been more paint on the clothes than on the wall!

Honey's been busy today fixing pottys, changing light bulbs, soccer practice, all that Saturday stuff. Now he's doing the little kid baths.

Tonight we are going to get our seeds started for our garden. Everyone is excited about that one. 10yo has grand plans of growing lots of watermelon to sell at the farmer's market. I'm starting to think of new summer recipes that I'll use for the harvest. I think everyone has something that they are looking forward to concerning the garden. Everyone will have certain areas or plants to be responsible for. Now that some of the kids are older, it won't just be Honey and me working on it. It's going to be our family learning project. Honey bought me some new books for Valentines Day. Two of them are gardening books.

I made a new recipe tonight that was on the back of the salsa bottle. It seems that no matter how much chicken I make, it's never enough. Someday I'll have to invest in a bigger crockpot! Honey told me this morning that even with potatoes and veggies he's having to use 24 eggs for the Saturday omelets. Everyone is growing!!

Snow again

I had an ultrasound scheduled a couple of weeks ago. It snowed. I rescheduled it to today. It snowed. If you're wondering what the forecast is for next Wednesday, my guess is snow.

Creamed Spinach

We're having this tonight to go with the brisket I pulled from the freezer. It's fast and yummy....

Creamed Spinach

Saute 1/2 onion in butter and set aside.

Melt 1/2 stick of butter
Add 1/4 C. flour plus some salt and pepper.

mix and cook for a minute or so.

Add 1 C. cream or half and half and 4 oz of cream cheese. Cook and stir until thick and creamy.

Add the sauteed onion and stir.
Add 16 oz frozen spinach thawed and drained.

Fold in 1/4 C. parmesan cheese.
That's it! It's a one skillet dish too.

You can stir the left overs into tomorrow's scrambled eggs and make green eggs. My 5yo loves these.

Monday Monday

The family is gone and tomorrow is back to work. Monday is house cleaning day. Not so bad with all of us working together.

Tomorrow's menu
Bread and gravy
Chili with the left over beans
Brisket, mashed potatoes, and I don't know what else yet.

Starting Tuesday we do new chores for everyone. I had a short meeting tonight to let everyone know of their new responsibilities. Most of them liked it. A few didn't. I knew my son wouldn't. He's now in charge of the "food supply management". That means the fridge, the freezer, the pantry, and garage shelves. Oh well, everything can't be good all the time can it? I'll build his strength slowly in this area and maybe he'll learn to like it.

2 Date Nights In A Row

Oh yes, life is good. Last night the g'mas watched the kids and Honey and I went to dinner and finished Valentine shopping. I guess our favorite spot is the new Academy Sports store. We have a lot of fun in there and spend way too much money! That's where we bought most of our Christmas presents and almost all of our Valentine presents. We also got 12yo's b-day present for next month. It's almost one stop shopping for our family.
It was only about 8:30 so we rented a movie and took it home.

Now it's Sunday. Our real date night. The kids are in their rooms, and I'm waiting on dinner to come out of the oven while Honey is working on photo work. He picked up a frozen key lime pie as a surprise. Yummy! It'll be a good way to end the week.

Family visiting

We've had a good time visiting with Mil and Halmony. I've lost track of the trips to Walmart and all the little surprises. My girls have especially enjoyed that part! G'ma has taken them shopping without me and they've gotten some fun gifts for themselves and others. #1 took me in her room to show me what she got for the little boys for Valentines Day and all the different valentines she picked out. Fun, fun, fun...

Halmony speaks no English but she understands more than she lets on. The little boys haven't been around foreign languages much and this was a little bit of a surprise for them. After they leave, I'm going to use it to illustrate the tower of Babel to them. Mil speaks very good English and she has a unique way of speaking to Halmony in Korean then finishing the sentence with a couple of English words so everyone understands. Pretty clever.

Koreans are a lot different than Americans. I do not mean to characterize the whole race, but just to note the unique differences in the family I've been a part of for almost 20 years. One of the biggest differences is that they are hard workers. Whatever the work, they work hard. Have you ever noticed how many little mom and pop shops are owned by Asians? Donut shops, dry cleaners, nail salons...not so much the cubicle types. They are very practical and usually have a neater way of doing the most simple things.

My mil can chop and peel veggies like no one else. No fancy food processor, just a knife. She's an incredible seamstress. Halmony has a funny laundry fetish. She seems to like doing laundry wherever she is. Even if there are only 3 dirty shirts she'll start a whole load. No dirty sock is safe when Halmony is in the house.

My mil also has a way of just knowing what is appropriate. She is able to help in whatever circumstance and seems to know what is needed. I want to learn that too. She is also willing to learn something new just in order to be of service in that area. She is much more of a servant than anyone else I know.

We've had a good time showing off some of 5yo's soccer games on dvd. It was so funny b/c they were cheering him on while they're watching him on tv just like they would if they were at the real game! Today they went to 10yo's practice and watched from the car b/c it was so cold. When they came home, mil was laughing b/c Halmony complains about her vision but was able to see and cheer on her grandson even though they were parked far away!

Now they are in the kitchen finding something for dinner. It's funny that they just feel so comfortable in taking over. I like that. There was a time that I felt usurped in that area, but no longer. Now I just enjoy watching them and learning whatever little tricks I can pick up.

squeaky clean

I was talking to my mom-in-law today and we got on the subject of fish. She has a beta in a bowl. She hates this fish and wishes it was gone. She was telling me how dirty it was and how much she hated cleaning it. As it turns out, she has quite a unique method. Here goes....

She dumps the fish into a little net while she changes the water and cleans the bowl. Well of course you can't put a dirty fish into a clean bowl so she gives the fish a bath too! Asian women are very practical. She rubs him all over with her fingers under the running tap water until he is no longer slimy. Then she dumps him back into the clean water. She said she doesn't think he likes it b/c he goes straight to the bottom and lies down! Imagine that.

She and Honey's g-mother are here visiting for a week or so. We've had a great time. Halmony (the g-mother) hasn't been in the states since 4yo was a baby so she's missed a few years and a couple of babies. She said she wanted to come and stay for awhile so that she could get to know the kids and not just visit them. Isn't that sweet? The kids have enjoyed them both.

I enjoyed watching them on the couch today. Halmony taught MIL to crochet who is now teaching 12 yo. Together she's helped #2 make a purse, a glasses case, and is working on a hacky sack. It was a sweet picture.

Tomorrow we're going shopping for egg roll supplies. YIPEE! You wouldn't believe how incredible good these are. These are real egg rolls. Not the frozen boxed stuff from Sams. We'll make these and dumplings tomorrow and make plenty for the freezer. She also makes a very spicy hot sauce to go with them that no one could ever duplicate. We'll be eatin' good!!

2 bread machine recipes

These are good....

Cinnamon Raisin Bread
1 1/4 C water
2 T butter
2 1/4 C. wheat flour
1 C. bread flour (you can use all wheat too)
1/4 C. honey
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 C raisins
2 1/4 tsp quick yeast

Put all in bread machine in the order given. Most have an add-in cycle for the raisins but I've found that you can put them in at the same time and it works just fine. Make a well in the center for the yeast. Hit the dough cycle.

I shape this into a loaf, cover it with a towel, and put it in the fridge to rise over night. In the morning, bake at 350 until done...usually about 30 minutes. Our favorite thing to do with this bread is to slice it, toast it, and drizzle it with honey for breakfast.

Another variation is to roll out the dough into a rectangle. Add butter, brown sugar (or sucanat) and nuts. Roll up the whole thing and put in the loaf pan. Bake it and serve it the same way. That's my real favorite when I have the time to do it.

Here's another

Herb Cheese Bread
1 1/4 C. milk
1/3 C. Parmesan cheese
1/3 C. grated cheddar
3 C. flour (whatever kind you like)
1 T. sugar or honey
1 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp. dill weed (I always add extra b/c I love dill!)
1/2 tsp. basil and rosemary
1 T. quick yeast

Place all in bread machine in the order given. Make a well in the middle for the yeast. Bake however you like best. I'm still playing with my programming cycle so I usually hit the dough cycle, let rise in the bread machine, rise again in the loaf pan, and bake it in the oven. Someday I'll figure out this program business. This is a yummy dinner bread.

God bless you!

This has been a good and full day. If you had asked me earlier in the day how it was going, I don't think I would've counted it as good. It has been full of childish strife to untangle and clean up. Some were sort of funny, some pretty serious.

It was also a day of lots of errands, appts, etc. I'm glad to be home and done.

My 5yo son was mad at 2yo for unrolling toilet paper. He's even tempered and not the type to have angry outbursts but I guess he had had enough. He blurted out, "Stop it, you Fibium!". I have no idea what a fibium is, but I don't think it is good.

Our biggest detour of the day was a teenage girl issue. Ever have one of those? They take a loooong time to untangle.

I've given hours (literally) of speeches today. I didn't have much time to talk to Honey but I did give him a very brief update. By the time I did the piano/dance drop off/pick up, it was time to start dinner. I had absolutely no idea what to make for dinner and it was after 5pm.

I had TONS of stuff to talk to Honey about so I decided to pull something out of the freezer for the kids and declare it date night for us. It didn't work that way though. We ended up eating with the kids while Honey took his turn at unraveling the day's events.

He can cut to the heart of a matter so much easier and faster than I can. I'm glad there's 2 of us to think of the different issues. As he was preaching, I was thinking about how good God is to give us each other and to make us complete. Some of the things that he brought up, I had not even considered. Although he tends to be more harsh in his delivery, he certainly gets his point across a lot clearer than I do when I spend twice as much time at it.

However....he didn't know what a fibium was either.

I gotta tell somebody!

I just have to tell somebody about this. I MADE BUTTER!! That's right. From a real cow! I feel so accomplished.

I bought a gallon of fresh milk to play with. I was a little concerned about the unpasteurized thing, but I think I'm over that now. She told me how to make butter and I had to try it. It didn't go exactly as she said but it was still so easy.

I skimmed the cream, put it in the food processor, and turned it on. TA DA! BUTTER! Why didn't Laura Ingalls think of that? It's a lot easier than that churn and dasher business. Ha ha!

It's very creamy and white and pretty. I took it throughout the house to show off to somebody and (can you believe it?) everybody is still asleep!! I can't wait until they wake up. I'm going to have Honey take a picture of it.

Sweet words

Last week my goal was to speak sweetly. I blew it before we even finished breakfast on the morning I set the goal. So disappointing.

In Ezekiel, God told him that he was going to be tied up and treated unfairly. Then He said he would make his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. Eze would be unable to talk until God gave him words to speak to the people. Wouldn't that be nice? To not even be able to speak until your words were directly from the Lord Himself!? I wish He'd do that to me.

SNOW!

What fun! My kids have been out all morning. Even 2yo stayed out until lunch time. They went sledding, made a very friendly looking snow man, and had snow ball fights. I'm so glad for them. I love to watch them play and be kids. I hope these are good snow memories.

I took pictures. Yikes. Every time I do this, I get a lesson with Honey later about how to do it better next time. Whatever happened to point and shoot?

We were all hoping he'd stay home today and not have to go to work. Nope. I tried not to say too much b/c I knew he didn't want to go either. Our 10yo son was not so sensitive. He REALLY wanted Dad to stay home and play and didn't mind saying so. Well Honey turned it into a good lesson for him about sometimes having to do what we don't want to do b/c it is our responsibility.

Baby girl has had a good day playing with Mom all by herself and watching her brothers and sisters out the window. We made chili, bread in the bread machine, and lots of hot chocolate.

Here's a simple chili recipe....

3# hamburger
4 cloves garlic crushed
1 onion chopped
2 cans of beans plus 1 can of water
1 (28oz) can of crushed tomatoes
2T chili powder
2T cumin
1T salt/pepper

Brown hamburger, garlic, and onion. Add everything else and simmer on low until ready to serve.

This is a take from a RR recipe. Easy, healthy, and pretty good.