New Outfit......
The is a present that Anna's grandma & grandpa got her for her birthday. It is so pretty and she loves it and I wish I had a matching outfit to wear with her. Doesn't she look like such a big girl?

She is also wearing a really pretty angel necklace that her Uncle Troy & Aunt Jen got her. She loved it and I will be keep it up so little boy hands don't get on it:)

Happy 6th Birthday Anna......
My little girl turned the big 6 yesterday. Wow how the time flies by and it seems like just yesterday that she was a baby. She had a great B-day with having Monkey Bread for breakfast, which the kids love to help make. Then at 10:00 a.m. I surprised her with going to Bouncy Town with a couple of her friends meeting us there. They had a blast bouncing. We then came home for lunch and then went back to Bouncy Town at about 4:30 and let them bouncy till 6:45 p.m. We then came come from there to open presents and eat cake. What a fun day we had.
Happy Birthday Anna......

Marshmallow Suckers......
The kids love these things and were so excited to get them in the mail from Grandpa & Grandma Kostman. Thank you so much for making the kids feel special.

Jesus is the Gift

Jesus is the gift that perfectly fits every heart
and it is with His love that all celebration starts.
We rejoice in Him as we remember His birth
and thank God for sending His only Son to earth

His life led from a manger to a cross on a hill
where He faithfully followed His Father's perfect will.
He freely laid down everything so that we could live
and there is no greater treasure anyone could give.

Like a scarlet ribbon His love wrapped around the cross
and He offered it to us all at the greatest cost.
So each time that we give we remember what He's done
and honor the perfect Gift - God's one and only Son.

For God so loved the world that He gave... John 3:16

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and will remember the reason for the season.

Into the World Came....

God's purest Light to show the way;
God's perfect Savior to free us from sin;
God's tender Shepard to care for our needs;
God's sure Foundation to make us secure;
God's fullest joy to give us a song;
God's broken Bread to satify our hunger;
God's conquering King to rule our hearts;
God's healing Foundation to make us whole;
God's highest Purpose to fill our longing;
God's quieting Peace to bring us rest;
God's redeeming Love to make us His own.

"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanual, which being interpreted is, God with us." Matthew 1:23

Written by, Roy Lessin

This is just what we need to meditate on this Christmas season and pass on to our children who are learning about what Christmas is all about. My prayer is that I share this with my children and they will pass it on. Love, Renee

Scones.......
I have been trying to find a good scone recipe for awhile. I worked for Victor Allen's Coffee and Tea for about 8 years and they have the most delicious & moist scones. I wish I could get there recipe, but I found one that is pretty good and the kids loved them. Here's the recipe......

Cinnamon Scones
4 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 c. butter
1 egg
1 c. sour cream
1/4 c. milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then mix the first 6 ingrediants together in a large bowl. After they are mixed cut the butter into the mixture well. In a seperate bowl mix the egg, sour cream and milk. Then add to the first mixture and mix till combined. Then with your two greased baking sheets scoup out the mixture into good biscuit size scones. I think I got a total of 16 scones. I also sprinkled a cinnamon sugar mixture on top or you can make up a frosting to drizzle over the top when they are done. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they look done. Eat and enjoy:)

To find more scone recipes go here.

A Couple Recipes.....

Tonight I made up a batch of Peanut Brittle for my mom, since she loves it. I also found out that my kids love it too except for Noah, which is surprising. I first tried to use a microwave recipe, but it ended up getting cooked to long and tasted a bit burnt. So Anna had fun throwing that in the garbage.

I have to say the best way to make brittle is on the stove with a candy thermomater. The recipe I used is called Grandma's Christmas Brittle and it turned out great. It also makes a good amount, so you probably only have to make one batch. That's if everyone doesn't eat in up in a couple of days. I guess I'll have to hide it somewhere saft.

I also decided to make up a recipe that I found in Cook's Country, which I love to read. It is called Crunchy Spiced Nuts. It's amazing how much some of these would cost if someone made them for you. They turned out awesome and I really think my dad is going to love them.

Crunchy Spiced Nuts

Ingredients:
1 large egg white
1 Tb. water
1 tsp. salt
1 pound unsalted pecans
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves

Directions:
Heat the oven to 300 degrees and spray baking sheet with non-stick spray. Then whisk the egg white, water and salt in a large bowl. Then pour the pecans in and coat them with the egg white mixture. In a smaller bown mix the sugar and spices and then pour it over the nuts and mix well. Then pour the coated pecans onto the baking sheet and put in the oven. Bake until dry and crisp, which takes about 40 to 45 mins. Let cool and enjoy:) These can be stored in an airtight container for 3 weeks if they last that long.

So those are a couple of favorites around our household. We have also been busy baking cookies, which seem to disappear very quickly. I think I am going to wait till we get to grandma's house before we bake to many more.

May You Find Him.....

May you find Him to be-
the peace for every struggle,
the supply for every need,
the solution for every problem,
the escape for every temptation,
the release for every burden,
the balm for every pain,
the comfort for every sorrow,
the victory for every battle,
the wisdom for every decision,
the strength for every endeavor,
the hope for every tomorrow,
the song for every day.

By Roy Lessin, DaySpring co-founder and writer.

Christmas Happenings........

Yesterday the kids and I wrapped up the cousins gifts and mommy got together some of the adult gifts. The kids were also very busy yesterday making some Christmas cards. Unfortunately a little 4 year old is impatience with letting the glue dry and wrapped up a few cards, which may end up sticking together in the end, but I'm sure the one receiving the card will understand. Now I just have to focus my kids creativity in another direction before I have 50 cards made up and wrapped up.

Also the fire has been going non stop here. It is cold outside and I don't like being cold and paying the gas bill. I am very thankful to have a good pile of wood out in our garage and my dad said they could bring us up some more here in January if we would like.

I also wanted to share with you about little Noah. He is such a sweet, smart and funny little boy. Last night I was laying down with him before bed because he always wants mommy. He started making this loud breathing sound. I asked him what he was doing and he told me, "I'm snoring like daddy." That made me just giggle inside.

Well hope you all had a wonderful week and have a great weekend....

YUMMY......

Yesterday at my mom's group we had a Christmas party and everyone brought a dish to pass. One friend brought this wonderful casserole and I had to share it with all of you. The best part is last night I was grocery shopping and they had cubed ham on clearance for $1.50 a package, so I bought up what they had. This will be a great Christmas morning dish don't you think????

Ham Hash Brown Bake
1 (32 oz) package of hash browns potatoes, thawed slightly
1/2 cup butter or margarine melted
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 to 2 cups cubed pre-cooked ham or turkey ham (the recipe called for 1 12-ounce can of SPAM cubed, but I used turkey ham)
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
1/ 1/2 cups sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cups of crushed potato chips

Combine potatoes, butter, salt, pepper and garlic powder. In a separate bowl, combine ham (spam) soup, cheese, sour cream, milk, onion, and chilies. Combine both mixtures and place in 2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with chips. Bake 45-60 minutes or until heated
Serve & Enjoy:)

Our Greatest Need

If our greatest need had been information,
God would have sent us an educator.

If our greatest need had been technology,
God would have sent us a scientist.

If our greatest need had been money,
God would have sent us an economist.

If our greatest need had been pleasure,
God would have sent us an entertainer.

But our greatest need was forgiveness,
so God sent us a Saviour.

-Roy Lessin

Chore Charts.......
I have been looking for a good way to motivate the kids and came across this great site. It has a lot of different charts to choose from and even one's we could use. I thought some of you may be interested. To find the link go here..... I'm planning on letting them put little stickers on the sheet when they get something done. If anyone has a site them like let me know.

Enjoying the Fire......
The kids were all laying in front of the fireplace the other night enjoying the warmth. This is a espically nice picture with the Christmas tree in the background. I am still trying to figure out how to use my camera with night pictures, but I think this one tured out great.

Chocolate Cookies.....

I am planning on going easy on the cookies this year. I tend to eat too many of them (don't we all) especially if they are chocolate cookies. I have started to get the e-mails for the "12 Days of Cookies" and one of the first cookies posted was the Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies. These look really easy to make and would be a great recipe to use with kids. So what are your favorite cookie recipes to make with your kids during Christmas time???

Here is also another of my favorite Chocolate cookie recipes......

Caramel-Filled Chocolate Cookies

• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup chopped pecans, divided
• 6 (2-ounce) packages chocolate-caramel cookie bars, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 (2-ounce) vanilla bark coating squares

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add sugars, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla, beating until blended after each addition.

Combine flour, cocoa, and soda; add to butter mixture, beating at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in 1/2 cup pecans. Shape 1 tablespoon dough around each candy piece, covering completely, to form balls.

Combine remaining 1/2 cup pecans and 1 tablespoon sugar. Gently press the top of each ball into pecan mixture. Place balls, pecan sides up, 2 inches apart on baking sheets.

Bake at 375° for 7 to 10 minutes. Cool on baking sheets 2 minutes. Remove from baking sheets; cool completely on wire racks.

Melt coating squares in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Drizzle over cookies.

*These chocolate cookies are my absolute favorite. If you don't want to go to as much work this cookie dough is also wonderful if you want to add just some white chocolate or peanut butter chips to the batter. Also you can just roll the balls in some red & green sugars and bake them. There are lots of variations that can be done with this batter. I have also cut up little bites of Snicker bars and wrapped the dough around them. Those are also yummy.

Photo Cards....

I found a link at a blog I enjoy reading about Christmas photo cards. You can go here to find it if your interested in getting some. I am going to try and get some pictures of the kids here in the next day or so. This is the one time of year that I try and get a good photo of the kids.

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to wish all my family and friends a Happy Thanksgiving. We all have so much to be thankful for and today is such a wonderful day to think about them and thank the Lord. Last night I was talking to the kids about Thanksgiving and also sang a song with them called, "Give Thanks" here are the lyrics.

GIVE THANKS
WITH A GRATEFUL HEART
GIVE THANKS
TO THE HOLY ONE
GIVE THANKS
FOR HE'S GIVEN
JESUS CHRIST, HIS SON

AND NOW LET THE WEAK SAY
I AM STRONG
LET THE POOR SAY
I AM RICH
BECAUSE OF WHAT
THE LORD HAS DONE
FOR US

GIVE THANKS...

I believe those words sum it all up. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Chickens and lots of them.....
I know many of you have been waiting for me to post some pictures of our chicken butchering adventures. It was over a week ago that we went to my parents house in Iowa and ended up getting 86 laying hens and butchering 80 of them. It was a 5 day event and the participates were my husband, my self, my mom and my grandma. We not only butchered them but canned all but 6 of them that were left whole for the freezer. So here are the first few steps.....

1. Catch a chicken, chop the head off and let it lay for about 3-5 mins to let some of the blood drain out a bit.
2. Have a big pot of boiling water ready and dunk the whole chicken in for about 30 secs.

3. Now the chicken is ready to have the feathers plucked off.

Here is the hubby working at getting the feathers off. They come off pretty easy and I would have to say this was my favorite part of the process if there is one.

More pictrures to come another day......

Chicken's Part 2
After the chickens have there feathers plucked off....

4. They have to have to be singed because they have small hair all over them. That was my grandma's job.
Anna was so proud that she had the courage to hold a chicken.

5. Then it's time to scrub the chicken up clean, cutting the chicken into parts and taking the guts out.

It was my job to scrub the chicken and clean the parts that were cut up. We had to keep the water changed in the buckets, so it was nice and cold. My mom and grandma did the cutting up part.

Chicken Part 3
Here I am cleaning the chicken up and getting it ready to cut up. We worked out in my parents dog building where we had nice running water and a counter to work on.

Here we are in my mom's kitchen and we are getting ready to put the chicken into the quart jars. We would can 7 quart jars at a time with the pressure cooker and had another pot for chicken up stock.

Here are some of the jars of chichen that we canned. We also made many jars of chicken broth.

Also the few days that we were working on chicken we also collected dozen's of eggs. This is the container of eggs that my mom sent me home with. I boiled up a good dozen eggs this past week and have been enjoying egg salad sandwiches.

So that is the details of our chicken butchering adventure.

Our Wood Piles.......
The kids had a good time helping us unload wood from the truck.

Some people took down a couple of trees down the street and so we picked most of it up. It's going to be a nice pile in our garage after we cut it all up.

This is the pile of wood that my parents brought up to us one day. It's some nice oak wood that will keep the house nice and warm this coming winter.

Caramel Apple Pie......

This pie was so yummy that I ened up making two of them. I used apples that I got from my grandma and the apple combination was delicious. We were able to enjoy both pies with friends, which makes desert even sweeter.

"O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him." Ps. 34:8

Kitted Hat.....
This is my first hat for this season. It was one that I had started last year, but never finished. I'm not sure who will get it, but it will go in my gift bin.

Went for a Drive.......
Yesterday afternoon we decided to take a drive to Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. It's about an hour and 10 minute drive from our house and is located right off of Lake Winnebago. We went up to the top of this light house, but the kids got really scared. So, we were only up on the top for a few seconds before they were all ready to come down.

We also enjoyed walking the trails, watching the geese & ducks, and probably the most fun for the kids was playing at the park. What kid doesn't like playing at the park?

We also took our beagle Ruby with use and she had a fun time walking and sniffing the ground.

The last place we stoped at before we headed home was the Goodwill store. The retail worker told me that they are rated one of the top stores in the area. They had lots of brand new items with tags and new in the box. Some of the items were over priced, but many of the items were awesome deals. I got 3 new items of clothing for $1.50 each and two of them were new with tags. I would love to go back sometime to look, but without kids.

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I have been working on several knitting projects and when I have a chance to take some pictures I'll share with you all what I have been working on. Until then have a blessed week:)

Daddy & the Kids.......
The kids were all piled on daddy's lap the other day, so I had to grab my camera and take a pick.

Fire Station Day......
About a week ago the fire station in town had an open house. The kids were all excited about it. They had a chance to ride a fire truck......

shoot water out of the fire hose......

bounce in the inflatable castle they had set up and see lots of firemen equipment. It was a great day for it. Warm and sunny:)

To find some of our favorite links about Firemen go here.

New Bench......
I picked this little bench up for free a little over a month ago. The colors of it were pink and purple and we had it up in Anna's room for a while. I should of taken a picture of it, but I forgot. It is now a nice green color, which looks nice in the entry way. The seat of this little bench lifts up and there is great storage for kids's shoes, socks, mittens, and scarfs.

I have to say I love it and so do the kids.

Anna's New Bag......

The kids started Awana's a couple of weeks ago and in Cubbies the kids have a bag to bring there book in. Well Anna is now in Sparks and I thought she needed a bag to use to take her book in, so I made this for her this past week. She loves it and it was so much fun to make.

Sweet Potato or Squash Muffins.....

To read more about these muffins that I made yesterday you can go here.

Noah's John Deere PJ's
Since I had made Gabe a pair of pj's I have been wanting to make Noah a pair too and so I did . They turned out pretty good and he was more then willing to pose for a picture. He is such a cutie.

I've been having so much fun sewing up little projects and the kids get so excited. I'll post pictures soon of the little bag that I made for Anna.....

Switching It Up....
It's that time of year to get a new design for my blog. I love to make changes, which I also like to do to my house. I am one of those persons who likes to change curtains, move furniture around and change out a few of the decorations depending on the season. Today I got out my small box of fall decorations and I mean small. The house looks nice and the kids love the change as well.

Also for the next 4 days my husband will be taking two different classes to get some Nursing certifications. It will be a bit strange having him gone all day, since we have had him home all summer. I have a feeling the kids will really be missing daddy by the time evening comes and I will be too. He is also on the search for a job and hopefully will find one within the next month or so Lord willing.

Well it's time to get off the computer and sit down to do some crocheting. I have been working on a afghan for my daughter, which I hope to get done by the end of the year.

The Beach.....
This past weekend we found a nice beach to take the kids to. It is up in Pardeville Wisconsin, which is less then 30 minutes from our house. There is a nice park for the kids to play at, a nice sandy beach and the lake to swim in. The kids had a blast and we will be planning on visiting this place more next summer.