Joshua Eats

Joshua started eating solid food yesterday. He's been taking 7 bottles a day and waking a lot at night, so I just couldn't do it anymore. Check out his little blog. Celeste found a very pretty black dress for our church Christmas social for $40 today. It was fun to go shopping with her!

We're off to a ladies' meeting tonight and Jamie is cutting up some ham for our simple dinner. We're having Ham & Black-eyed peas. I get three cans of the peas, 1 circular thing of ham diced, and 2 1/2 cups of rice and mix them together in a pot on the stove on warm. We're just having broccoli with it, too! The kids love it. I put a little ketchup on mine :).

Yummy Christmas Recipe

Looking Towards Heaven is hosting a Holiday Par-tay today! I thought I would participate by putting a recipe all the kids love below. If you like Rice Krispie Treats, you'll like this! This is a recipe my mother made when I was growing up. I have never seen it at another party all my life.

CHRISTMAS HOLLY CLUSTERS

1 stick butter
30 lg. marshmallows
1/2 tsp. green food coloring (add as much as you like to achieve desired color)
4 1/2 c. cornflakes
1/3 c. red cinnamon candies

Melt butter in saucepan on low heat. As the butter begins to melt, add the marshmallows. Stir constantly. Add the green food coloring when the marshmallows are mostly melted. Stir until melted. Turn off heat. Add cornflakes and stir until they are coated. Drop a spoonful of cornflakes on waxed paper and press 3 red cinnamon candies on each cluster. Let dry about one hour. Eat them up, yum!

Welcome to December!

This morning we had whole wheat banana pancakes. (I may have posted this before, but go here for the recipe.) They are so good that if you close your eyes you can imagine being in some fancy restaurant for breakfast. I do grind my own grain which makes them that much better, but store-bought whole wheat should work fine. They're best when the bananas are very ripe. By the way, Hillbilly Housewife is an excellent site to learn how to save money on groceries and lots of other neat tips. One of my favorites!

I had a great time scrap booking last night! I finished Eden's book up through Christmas last year...okay, now she's 3 months old in her album. The goal is to get it up-to-date before the baby comes. I don't know how it happened, but I'm a year behind in scrap booking right now. Ahhhh!

Today we're going to attempt to get some Christmas decorations and lights up on the house. Our eaves are so high that we need a special ladder. We'll try to borrow it from friends today. I don't know that I will put the tree up this weekend because of Eden. I foresee a tree with ornaments only on the top half, ha! This evening I am going to a "girls" party. The late teens/young 20's girls at our church want to mentor the 10-18 set, so they're having a little event. Moms are invited, too! It's at a farm and there will be a bonfire, so it should be a fun night out.

Notice my new banner? Many thanks to my 16yo daughter, Celeste, for creating a new December banner for me!

A Clean Slate

Ahhh, it's Monday again! (As I sit here still in my pajamas.) I was telling the lady at the place I go exercise that Monday is a clean slate. It's a do-over from last week. You can always make a fresh start on Monday. It's like when we go to Jesus for forgiveness of our sin...He wipes away the offense and gives us grace. Monday is grace to go on. Yay! So it's not too bad that I haven't had a shower. I have made whole wheat banana pancakes for my family, done 2 loads of laundry, home schooled my 2nd grader, and fed the baby twice. It's a start!

Danny won his baseball game on Saturday 5-4! I was not able to go because it was quite cold and breezy. It was best to keep little Eden home out of that. He has a double header this Saturday. I hope to make part of that. Tommy has a birthday party to go to, so I'll have to leave early. We have such a busy week planned. I won't go into all the details, but I've never been so busy in all my life! Jamie and Celeste leave for St. Louis next week for spring break. It will be quiet while they're gone. I think I need the break from all the activities.

We're covering the book of James at church. It's my favorite book in the bible, pretty much. (I love Isaiah, too!) So why don't you read in James this week...

The List

Do you ever have so much to do and you're trying to figure out how to accomplish it? That's what I'm thinking about the next couple of days! (You're probably wondering why I'm on the computer, right?!?) Tomorrow is Max's 6th birthday! I still need to get him a gift. Also, I have a hair cut today and the grocery store is calling. The baby is still asleep. I woke her up at 6:30 to nurse because I couldn't stand it anymore, but then I went back to bed for a little bit.

Max has requested a trip to the butterfly garden tomorrow. There's also the medievil fair in town this weekend, so we're trying to decide what to do. I haven't been feeling well this week, so the thought of taking 6 kids anywhere is kind of daunting to me. I'm just tired and have a bad cold. We've been trying to save money on groceries due to our very tight budget situation. I go to a wonderful website that has great cooking ideas from scratch. We ate homemade pancakes yesterday that just rocked! Go here to check out the full website.

Well, I am off to get busy with my day! I hope yours is blessed and full of little kisses and hugs from your tots!