Life Centers 5K

Life Centers is having a 5K to raise money for their organization.  Life Centers help young women who find themselves pregnant and in a difficult situation.  By helping these women through their pregnancies and being available to help them after the baby comes, they get to show Jesus love to those in need.  If you would like to donate online to Life Centers you can go straight to my Fund Easy page

https://secure.ministrysync.com/ministrysync/event/website/?m=1936061#2

Let's reach that $1000 goal!!

Valentine's Day 2012

Hadley was very excited about Valentine's Day this year. She talked about it the whole week leading up to it. We had decided to bake cookies and take them to everyone at Daddy's work that day and she was really looking forward to it. Since she was so excited I decided to run with it! We had hear decorations all around the house: on the mantle on the TV on the doors, on the cabinets in the kitchen, going up the staircase. The girls thought that was really fun. We also had heart shaped food all day long!

Here is a picture of our decorated living room and the girls are playing with balloons they got when they woke up in the morning!

This is our heart shaped toast for breakfast

After we went to bible class we came home to heart shaped PBJ's for lunch!

After they ate their lunch they got their giant heart shaped cookies. This was the highlight of the day! I think they were very cute eating cookies the size of their head.

Here are some pictures of the cookies we passed out at Daddy's work. Hadley did a very good job walking up to each person and saying in a clear and audible voice "Happy Valentine's Day." I was so impressed by her because that is very much outside her comfort zone and she did an excellent job of it. It helped that we practiced beforehand. Bryan and I really want to teach her that we can make people feel respected and important by making eye contact and smiling. I also wanted to show her how nice it is to give to other people and this was a chance to practice both. And a chance for mommy to use her mixer and play with flooding sugar cookies.

I put John 15:13 on the cards and on the back I put my website for Joyful Bakes so maybe if they like my cookies they'll order some more :) It was a fun Valentine's Day!

Vision Forum

I wanted to take this chance to tell you about Vision Forum. They have a great selection of trustworthy Christian Books to choose from. I like that they offer excellent resources to go with your homeschool curriculum. Or just to read for fun. I know my husband would really love their history collections.
I like they way they categorize things for boys/girls/family/homeschool so it's easy to find. I can't wait till my girls are older and we can read some of their books together!!!

Proverbs Study Guide

Bryan and I believe that the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge like it says in the bible. One of the things we like to do is read Proverbs to the girls during Family worship. A radio host of a pro-homeshcool conservative Christian program we listen to is having a give away of his Proverbs study guide. You should check it out.
You can find Kevin Swanson at generationswithvision.com
and you can find the giveaway at http://raisingolives.com/2011/10/family-bible-study-guide-for-proverbs-giveaway/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RaisingOlives+%28Raising+Olives%29#comment-79271

I hope you enter to win!

Bonnets and Prairies

As many of you know we are into Little House on the Prairie right now and Hadley has to be Laura or Mary all the time. This had made for some fun sewing on my part. We are going as a prairie family for Halloween and today I made a bonnet at nap time. What do you think?



I used a tutorial that you can find here: http://howtodresslikeapioneer.blogspot.com/2010/01/bonnet-tutorial.html
Being that this was my first bonnet I think I did a pretty good job. However, I started out making myself a pink bonnet and messed up so bad I couldn't salvage the fabric..so I guess this is my second attempt. In any case, it was fast and easy and I'll be making 2 smaller ones for the girls tonight when they go to bed. Then we'll be all ready for Halloween!!

Apple Butter

Apple Butter is the opposite of me losing weight. But it is SOOOO good. And I decided to take a crack at making it myself this year. We went to an apple orchard over the weekend and stocked up on Cortland apples. We got 1/2 a bushel to be exact. Hadley and I spent yesterday peeling, but to be honest Hadley did most of the work. We used a counter top peeler and she got to crank it and watch the skin peel off in a long snake! I did not get any pictures of that. Then I put all my apples in the crock pot turned it on and went to bed. When I got up in the morning I woke to the smell of awesomeness! I made a fresh batch of biscuits and we had biscuits and applebutter for breakfast. (We did NOT overstuff ourselves on them, and I did NOT turn around and eat the leftovers for lunch)
Then to preserve all my hard work I bought some cute little half pint mason jars and I canned all that applebutter. It should last us a while and maybe I can give some as gifts. Next on the list is applesauce. I have quart jars for those and hopefully it will turn out as successfully as the applebutter did. YUM and Happy Fall :)

Large Family Logistics

http://raisingolives.com/2011/07/large-family-logistics-four-moms-giveaway/#comment-61864
I saw a book called "Large Family Logistics" at the homeschool convention this year and I've been interested in reading it every since. Go to the Raising Olives blog and you can enter to win a copy!

Croutons

We had some bread that turned out hard and not so great to eat. Instead of throwing it away, I decided to make some homemade croutons for our salads. I waited around a long time, procrastinating because I thought it would be a lot of work. But it wasn't! It was quite easy, they are very tasty, and I feel very good that I didn't throw away that loaf of bread I worked so hard to make!

I cut up our bread into slices, and then cut little 1/2 inch square cubes out of the slices.

I put all the cubes in a bowl and then added the oil. I tossed to coat them.

Then I also added some onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and parmesan cheese to taste.

I baked them at 350 for around 30 minutes (I used my convection setting to get them nice and crispy). Stirring them often so they baked evenly.

And then I enjoyed my fresh croutons on my salad! Yum. Hadley ate a ton as well....without the salad. I hope you try to make croutons and enjoy them too!

Lydia can walk!

Lydia has been making it her goal to meet and exceed every developmental milestone! Sitting up at 5 months, crawling at around 7 months, and now walking at 11 months! She's such a big girl already :)

Playing Outside!

We got the wagon out for the first time this year. I pulled the girls around the block and then Hadley pulled Lydia up and down our sidewalk for a good long time! It was the first non rainy day we've had in a while, and we took advantage!

Hadley picked out her outfit today :)

There they go!

Big Girls

This is Lydia learning to wave!!

And just because she's so cute!

Learning about Patterns

Hadley and I have table time every day while Lydia takes a nap. We do different pre-school types of activities. Sometimes we work on holding our pencil the right way, and sometimes we work on following directions. This past week we worked on patterns. In the past it's been a difficult concept but this time she really got it! I'm so proud and I feel like it was our first home school moment!

Rainy Day

Hadley got an umbrella for Easter and we've had plenty of opportunity to use it this week!

Easter Time

Here are a few pictures of our Easter activities. We went to an Easter Egg hunt on a pig farm where Lydia got painted up like a bunny. We also decorated eggs at the Drennan's house. And the girls got their picture taken on our fireplace with their Easter gift!

Homemaker by Choice

I like to read several blogs on a variety of topics. Some on sewing, some on homeschooling and large families, some just to keep up with my friends. This is one of them: http://www.homemaker-by-choice.com/ She is having a give away of some awesome DVDs! I've seen several of them before when I borrowed them from the library, but I'd love to have them in my own collection. In the Homestead Blessings videos I've learned several new recipes, and put them into practice. I've started making most of our bread, and we were inspired to start making our own butter. There's one about canning one about gardening that I think would be very useful! Anyway, pop on over and read all about it!

Eating a Cookie

Hadley ate a home made chocolate chip cookie.
What a mess!!!!

I think she liked it.

Beads

My friend Ryann gave us the idea to string beads on pipe cleaners. We gave it a go and it was a huge hit! Look at all the pretty colors!

She seemed to really enjoy it. She was really good at stringing them on.
We made some pretty bracelets.

I like to push the stool around the kitchen

Hello, my name is Lydia and I like to drive this stool around the kitchen!

I'm very cute!

I can drive it over here by the fridge!

Sometimes I like to stop and bang it with a spoon!!

Comin atcha!

A Trip to the Dentist

Hadley and Mandy getting ready to go into the dentist's office.

Mandy had to sit in the chair first. She rode up and down and they looked at her teeth!

Hadley didn't want to sit in the chair by herself, so we all did!

Then she got to brush the teeth of Jeffry the Giraffe.

"Check out my new toothbrush!"

"Hmmm, what prize should I pick?"


Yeah for clean teeth!