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.

Zoo.....
A couple of weeks ago we decided to go to the zoo. The kids were there earlier this summer with friends, but this was the first time we have gone as a family. Madison has a wonderful zoo and the best part is it is free. The kids had a great time and the weather was awesome.

John Deere Pajama Pants.......

I had some tractor fabric laying around and decide to try and make up a pair of pj pants for Gabriel. I had heard of people just using a pair of pj's that fit them already to trace a patttern from. It probably took a total of 30 minutes to get the project done, but as a mom of 3 kids I don't usually have that much time without interuptions.

Now I have some more pj pants to make for little Noah, Anna and maybe even daddy will get a pair if I can find the right fabric.

Homemade Caramel Apples.....

We went to Lapacek's Orchard this past Sunday and got a couple of bags of yummy apples. The kids then wanted to make caramel apples, so there friend came over to help. They took all the wrappers off of the caramels, ate a few, and then.....

got the bowl in the microwave, pushed the numbers and watched impatently as the caramel melted.

Here's Noah working real hard at getting the wrapper off. You can also see on the counter his gum that he is saving to eat later:) What a cutie!

Here is the finished result and they were delicious.

Friday Already......

Wow I can't believe how the week has gone by. We have been working on school stuff all week and the kids have been doing very well. I am still adjusting a bit and trying to see what works and what doesn't. I'm not really happy with the Sonlight K science curriculum that I have because I think it goes through things to fast with not enough activies to go along. I am planning on slowing down and finding extra activities and books to go a long with the lessons. The library is a great resource, which I am planning on using a lot.

Today I had a bunch of tomatoes that have been needing to be canned and so I got started on thoses and got 7 quart of jars to go along with my 8 quart jars that I caned a couple of weeks ago. I also decided to make a batch of applesauce with some apples that I bought. I ended up with 5 pints and am hoping to make more in the next few weeks.

Also as I sit to write this Anna is in the kitchen peeling carrots that we will cook, puree and freeze in the size of ice cubes to use in smoothes or whatever else mom can find to use them in. I use them mainly in smoothies and also put spiniach leaves in for extra vitamines. Since I have been making them that way I have Anna begging me for lettice smoothes. It's makes me laugh! Mommy also has been enjoying her vegitables this way.

Lets see later in the day we have some more school stuff we need to do and then mow the lawn later this evening. It's been a full week of activities, but over all a nice week. Hope you all had a great week.

Menu Plan Monday:

Monday: Labor Day Picnic with Friends

Tuesday: Hard Shell Tacos

Wednesday: Sloppy Joes, French Fries, Corn

Thurday: Pirates Stew

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: House Church Fellowship

Sunday: Hearty Hashbrown Cassarole

To find more menu plans you can visit Organzing Junkie.

Toy Story 3

We took the kids this past weekend to see a movie in the theater. The older kids did well, but Noah got a bit craby. We did make it till the end of the move with the help of some cotton candy. It's amazing how something sweet can help. I enjoyed the movie, but I don't really like movies with a bit of a sad ending.