a little jaunt down memory lane

I was looking through some pictures the other night, and I thought I would share a few photos of Scott's grandmother. Grandma LOVED children! Especially her great-grandchildren. I will never forget her meeting each one of our children.


She met Lily for the first time when she took her annual summer pilgrimage via train to Pennsylvania. Lily was just a few weeks old and I'll always remember how Lily's little eyes focused on Grandma's face when she held her for the first time. Grandma was SO happy to hold babies...and her own, darling, little great-granddaughter dressed in a precious bonnet? All that much better!


[I have a photo to go along with this memory, but alas, it is from the pre-digital era in our household, and I am currently too lazy to go retrieve it and scan it.]




This will always be one of my favorite-pictures-of-all-time of "GG" (short for great-grandma). She adored Lily (I think the blonde hair, blue eyes, expressive smile and dimples may have had something to do with it. :) We were out to lunch in Florida on this afternoon, Lily was 2 years old. And they couldn't stop talking to one another. GG had so much fun with Lily that day at lunch...just enjoying her smiles and expressive nature. We were at a noisy steakhouse, and due to her poor hearing, she couldn't hear much of the adult conversation, but she and Lily were locked into a deeper conversation... one that didn't require hearing actual words. Where granddaughter only had to imagine, chatter, and revel in the audience of one great-grandmother. And the great-grandmother was equally as entertained. :)




Grandma met Joey when he was a happy, little butterball of a four-month old boy! She couldn't get over how much he looked like Scott...how cute he was ("just like his daddy") and what a content and pleasant baby he was! ("just like his daddy") She always said, "He's such a pretty boy! But I will call him 'handsome' instead, because when Scott was little he corrected me one time and said, 'Grandma, I'm not pretty, I'm handsome!'"


Grandpa (her husband) died about a month before Joey was born, and I think a new, cute, little great-grandson was a bright spot in Grandma's life at that time!




Most of all, I remember the time that Grandma met Gracie for the first time. Grandma and Scott's dad were visiting Pennsylvania about two weeks before I was due with our third child. They were scheduled to fly home on a Monday, but Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida that day preventing them from leaving. Lo and behold, I went into labor and Gracie was born that evening! They all joked that we should have named her Wilma. :)




Grandma had never before had the privilege of seeing one of her great-grandchildren as wee-newborns. And there she was at almost 92 years of age, holding Gracie who was just a few hours old. She was delighted! I mean, REALLY delighted! She was beaming! I think it made her year! Gracie was her eleventh great-grandchild. On the video we have from the hospital, you can hear her exclaiming how beautiful and perfect her eleventh great-grandchild was, and how "There's nothing wrong with being number eleven!" She adored Gracie.

If Lily had Grandma's coloring as a little girl, then Gracie surely has her spirit. :) She is just as spunky and fun-loving and has the same joie de vivre as her great-grandmother had!


Over the next few years, as Grandma's hearing and short term memory got worse, she was able to tune into adult conversations less-and-less. But she always loved watching Gracie skip around and play. As the "baby" of the great-grandkids, she adored her and Gracie needed no conversation to communicate with Grandma. They played a little game with Grandma's shirt sleeve that involved Grandma hiding her hand in her sleeve, and then Gracie would "find" it and Grandma would pop her hand out of the sleeve. They played this for hours, it was great entertainment for the both of them. :) And they always blew kisses back and forth to each other each time they said good-bye.

I'm so thankful that our children have so many good memories of their great-grandmother. A lot of them are from our trips to Florida...




These are from her 90th birthday party...





Here she is wearing what we affectionately refer to as her "Candycane dress" :)




And a lot of their memories are from her trip to Pennsylvania every summer. They loved swimming in the pool at the hotel where she stayed with her son...



We went on picnics...



Here she is sitting on a swing... by the way, she's over 90 years old here. She also went on a hayride at the pumpkin patch at 91 years old!

And whether we were in Pennsylvania or Florida, there was always a trip to Crackerbarrel! Her favorite restaurant!

Lastly, I remember what a wonderful grandson my husband was. He honored her and made a concerted effort to spend as much time as he possibly could with her, whenever we were in her presence. He spoke kindly to her and expected our children to respect her the same way, and she noticed it.

One time, Scott took a day of our family vacation to go over to her house and help her hang pictures and rearrange things after her house was repainted and she was alone and couldn't do it herself. He lovingly and willingly drove her to the hospital every day of another of our family vacations, so she could go see her son who was in the hospital dying. Grandma loved Scott and he loved her.

The Lord has been very good to us this week. Again, we were reminded to "number our days" and be prepared for the day when life will draw to a close for each of us.

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;

-- II Corinthians 1:3

thou knowest not what a day may bring forth

Scott's grandmother passed away on Tuesday. You know, the weird thing about death is that even at the age of 94, it is always a surprising thing. Even when you know that it's right around the corner and inevitable, it still seems so sudden. It's been a trying, but still a blessed week. Scott was able to spend time with GG the night before she died. And even though we are sad and miss her so much, we are thankful for how gracious the Lord was to give her 94 years on this earth. There are many other things that the Lord worked out so clearly this week in the midst of all of this, but I wanted to say thank you to those of you who have been praying for us. We can feel it and appreciate it so much!

summery salads

I've been in the mood for summery salads for the last few weeks and have tried out a few new recipes. I'm so looking forward to picking fresh tomatoes from the garden. But until then I am LOVING having some fresh herbs again. They still aren't very big, but I have been able to snip a little to use in recipes almost every day!

This Honey-Citrus salad was awesome!! The dressing was light and refreshing and the chicken on the salad was wonderful! I am going to try it with some chicken thighs this week and make a side of Cumin Beans to go with it!



Plus, I had enough avocados left over to make me some guacamole. And since Scott was working late that day and the next, I was forced to partake of most of it by myself. Tsk, tsk.

I made this Napa Cabbage salad with Buttermilk Dressing and it was pretty good too! I love crunchy foods and this was a nice and light Sunday-night-after-church food.

With the leftover buttermilk, I made this Homemade Ranch Dressing which turned out to be really good! I'm not a big fan of mayo, so I reversed the portions, and used less mayo and more sour cream. It was yummy and I ended up making another batch of it to use this week on salads and fresh veggies (still trying to finish off the last of the free organic carrots).

Lastly, I have the following salad on the menu for this week. I first found it in an Appetizers & Salads cookbook that my mom gave me back before I was married. We have made it many times and it is SO delicious!

Snow Pea Splendor

1/4 c sesame seed

1/2 c oil

2 T lemon juice

2 T vinegar

2 T sugar

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 t salt

1 lb fresh snow peas

4 slices bacon (I always use much more!)

4 c shredded lettuce

1/2 c snipped parsley

Toast sesame seed in oven. In a jar, combine sesame seed, oil, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, garlic and salt. Shake well, cover and refrigerate. Remove the stems from the pea pods, steam 30 seconds, cover and chill. Fry the bacon until crisp, drain, crumble. In a large bowl, toss the lettuce, parsley, peas and bacon with dressing. Serve immediately.

We always garnish ours with "flower carrots"...carrot cutouts using a canape cutter to make the flower shapes. It makes the salad extra-pretty and the girls love cutting things in the shape of flowers!

I have a few more recipes to try in the next few weeks. Do you have any stellar salad recipes? I would love to find more winners!

little miss "daddy"

Forever dressing up...even if it means dressing up as "daddy"

Wordless Wednesday

a field trip with new friends

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to the Hands-on-House to meet up with some new friends, Jen and Joy. The kids had so much fun together and so did the Mommies. :)

Gracie's favorite part was the dress-up room. She wore this little yellow number the entire time we were there. Note the mic and flowers...she was born for the stage. :)

Joey had to try on every animal costume there, but settled on this army one as his favorite.

Lily loved the face-painting area the best, and the grocery store was a close second.

Here's Gracie in her signature "cashier" outfit. :)

We had a great time with new friends! Jen and Joy both took more and better pictures than I did. You can see them here and here. Thanks for taking the time to meet up with us, girls!

for the record

I never want to look at another yard sale sticker again. Ever. In my whole life.

I doubt this will happen, but I thought I would just put it out there for the record. I was at my sister's until 11:00pm tonight pricing yard sale junk. Ugh. So not fun.

However, I did start the evening by lying on the couch, snuggling with my newborn nephew and eating a Shortbread Brownie. Or maybe two. But I look at that as "fuel" for my yard sale labors, so I don't think I can be held responsible for two Shortbread Brownies. I guess the evening wasn't entirely devoid of its indulgences.

And the sad part is... I'm not done. Yes, I have to go back to finish the job. I am so ready for the yard sale to not consume my life. My original goal was to earn at least half of my "cow" money. (We buy beef to put in the freezer for the year.) But after all of this, I think I might be upping my goal to hopefully purchase the whole steer. :)

organizing and yard sale progress

Well, I got all of the yardsale stuff hauled over to my sister's garage. It took FOUR van loads. I priced about 1/3 of it already and I'm going back over there to price the rest. My father-in-law is coming to visit us this week, so I want to get this done in case there isn't time later this week. (The yardsale is Friday and Saturday, for any interested shoppers.)



In the process of hauling the yard sale pile, I basically cleaned out the entire basement. You should see it...it's clear! :) And while I had a burst of energy I finally cleaned up our dining room. When school ended, I was in the process of cleaning out the homeschool armoire, taking inventory of what we had and what I need to buy for next year. Then I got sick, and the dining room sat in its disheveled state...made worse by my kids daily crafting. This is what it looked like on Saturday morning...









It was bad. Very bad. But I'm happy to report that it's all cleaned up now! I have no "after" pictures, but it looks 100% better. And note the lovely wall color and curtains in the dining room in the above, atrocious pictures. I don't think I ever blogged about my pretty dining room...maybe one day.


All of this cleaning, organizing, de-junking has me thinking a lot about my philosophical views of "stuff." I came across this article awhile back and I think it accurately expresses how I feel about "stuff" these days. This looks like an interesting book on this topic.

I hope you are having a productive Monday! I think I used up all of my energy on Saturday. We're moving pretty slow in these parts today. :)

something is missing in our house

Joey lost his first tooth!

It had been wiggly for a little while, but wasn't quite ready to fall out yet. But apparently it's inherent that boys lose their teeth by violence. Because yesterday he and Scott were wrestling and tickling under a blanket, and when they came out from underneath of it, Joey had blood all over his face! And they had to go searching for the missing tooth!

So now my boy is a toothless wonder again! And we are entering the "de-teething" stage with the second child. Ick.

almost crying

I'm going to attempt to tackle the yardsale-beast today. Pray for me. Last night my Man carried all of the junk...I mean "stuff" upstairs to the garage for me. He took the van seats out and packed in one load. And I'm sorry to say that there are about two more loads to go. Ugh.

Our yard sale is next weekend at my sister's house, so if any of you want to come over and peruse our stuff, feel free!

We have clothes, toys, books, lots of household stuff, a vacuum cleaner, a weedwacker, trashcans, drug store items, end tables, lamps, you name it, we probably have a department for it. Please come. Shop. Next weekend. It's a neighborhood yardsale so there should be something for everyone.

Gracie + berry popsicle =

= laundry

anyone have a good idea for staking tomato plants?

At our last house, our garden was small and was up against our house (where it got wonderful southern exposure), so Scott built a beautiful lattice trellis right onto the garden and I tied up our tomatoes all summer. It worked swimmingly.

This is Lily sitting on the edge of our old garden when she was about 3. How I miss her round lusciousness!

But it's impossible to do with the new garden, so I'm wondering what is the best way to stake up tomatoes? Wire tomato cages? Stakes? Build wooden square cages? Hang them upside-down? Anyone have a really great idea?

the essence of parenting and homeschooling

One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.

- Psalm 145:3,4

That's what it's all about. It's so easy to get caught up in the various choices, methods, decisions that we as parents have to make. But when it all comes down to it, this is the essence of what it's all about... showing our living, loving Savior to our children. Pointing them to Christ, allowing them to see the Lord grow, shape and change us. And then standing back and letting Him do the same in their lives.

Just a little thought that the Lord reminded me of today.

it sure is a happy day

The JCPenney $10 off $10 coupon...how I heart thee. :)

With the Mother's Day $10/10 I bought myself a new set of towels for $15 after the sale and coupon. And I think I am going to do the same with this $10/10 to add to my collection. I love this coupon!

a word to the wise

Should you ever find yourself in a position to purchase a swing set or playset, may I strongly suggest that you include a glider like this? We have had this playset less than a year and that glider has more miles on it than our cars, I'm certain. The slide is great, the swings are an absolute must, the sandbox keeps them busy for hours, the buoy ball which everyone is instantly attracted to is the least used, but the glider...it is worth it's weight in gold. That thing is almost never empty. It's great for little ones who can't pump yet, it holds two so doubles capacity, and you don't even want to see how high my big kids can make it go. I cringe and look away every time they get it going. :) Seriously, don't neglect the glider, you won't be sorry.

cake and icing goodness

Here are the carrot cake and icing recipes that some of you have asked about...

I've made Fourteen Carat Cake several times before...and it is very yummy! But this time I tried Best Ever Carrot Cake because it uses a lot of carrots. Awhile back, a friend of ours from church gave away an entire pallet of organic carrots. My sister found this recipe in her quest to use up the carrot and it is a good one too! And since I, too, have a whole bunch of carrots in my fridge that are starting to get hairy, I made Best Ever and it was GOOD and probably somewhat healthy too. :)

And now for Constance's Cream Cheese Icing...

3 bricks of cream cheese (8 oz each), room temp
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup), room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar

Cream the cream cheese and butter together, add the vanilla. Beat the sugar in until well blended. Make sure the cake is completely cool before you ice it.

This recipe makes enough to generously frost a cake and there is usually some leftover also. Which has never one time been a problem in this house.

Enjoy! And if you make it, please save a slice for me. :)

someone tiny and cute...

...came to visit us!

Joey loves Levi!

And when the girls get their hands on him...look out! Sophia (his big sister) who we have named his "Other Mother" and Lily like to have him upstairs in Sophie's room.

They do things like this to him. And I'm sure he adores them just as much as they do him!

my man's birthday

My Man, the Head of this House, my Main Squeeze had a birthday this week also. I made him his favorite Carrot Cake.


And every time I make this beyond-words-wonderful Cream Cheese Frosting, I think of my good friend who gave me the recipe...it's to-die-for-yummy! Thank you Constance.

Incidentally, this is Scott's cake in my birthday present ...the kids picked out this cake plate for me, after Lily, my little scout, heard me telling my mom that I wanted one.

Happy Birthday Darling! We are so thankful for the years with which God has blessed you...and us!

my baby's birthday

My big girlie turned 8 last week. I am still getting used to that number. We haven't had our family birthday party for her due to a little man's arrival, my illness and general May/June craziness. But Lily got to open her presents on her birthday and also our church had it's Memorial Day picnic on that day, so she was pretty excited about that...plus our Pastor lead the choir in singing "Happy Birthday" to her, so she thought that was extra-special.

She got the delight of her heart this year for her birthday... Elizabeth from the American Girl collection. She has wanted her for years and I'm pleased to report that she is taking very good care of her! Lily's middle name is Elizabeth, she really likes Colonial stories and Elizabeth wears a pink dress...all reasons, hands-down, to choose Elizabeth. :)

• Lily is becoming more and more of a little lady this year
• I'm noticing that she needs a lot more one-on-one interaction and structure with me
• She loves doing crafts and projects
• She reads very well, and especially likes historical stories about girls. She amazes me by what she reads when I don't even know it. The other day in conversation, she said, "...you know when I read the book of Ruth in the Bible..." I had no idea that she read the book of Ruth! At the beginning of the school year, I started a list of all of the books that she read on her own, just to keep track...I gave up mid-year after I filled a few pages. I can't keep track of that girl.
• It seems that the Lord has blessed her with a special talent for writing and illustrating. Her "hero" is Beatrix Potter because Beatrix (as Lily calls her) writes and illustrates her own books. Lily has journals and notebooks and folders full of stories. Most of them are about orphan girls. (Have you noticed that most of the little girl heroines out there are orphans? Anne of Green Gables, Pollyanna, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms, Heidi...the list goes on...they're all orphans.) Anyhow, Lily loves to write and draw and I pray that she will use all of her God-given abilities for His glory!
• She's a good big sister and a helper to me
• She likes to lead the neighbor girls in playing "school" even though she has never spent a day in a traditional school classroom
• Lily likes to cook and makes breakfast and lunch for everyone on a regular basis
• She is snuggly and loves physical affection
• Lily has long, running legs like her daddy and loves to run. She also spends hours every week on her bike.
• She is responsible and sweet and I love her even more than I did the moment I laid eyes on her eight years ago! Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

I've missed you all...

Well, I wasn't planning to take a blogging break, but I guess the Lord had other plans for me. Because just as I was beginning to catch up on the entire NIGHT of sleep that I missed waiting for my nephew's birth, I became sick. Not a little sick, like a LOT sick. After a few days, it seemed like I was getting better and from my symptoms and a-hem, self-diagnosing myself with the help of the trusty internet, I was convinced that what I had was viral, and therefore needed no help from my family physician. Only a few days later, when instead of getting better I started getting drastically worse, things got very ugly. I decided to go and see what the doctor could do to save my life (at least that's how I felt) and it turned out that I had a nasty strep infection (but no sore throat...go figure) and after a round of antibiotics, I am feeling much better. (Thank the Lord for modern medicine!) Only I still have ZERO energy and I am still taking it easy so as not to contract some other dread illness in my weakened state. :)

That being said, I've missed you all! The internet is a very lonely and boring place when you are sick and can't do much more than stay in bed with your Bible, a book, and your laptop. It gets old quickly. Now that I have had a chance to rise up off of the bed of languishing, I have had an aversion to sitting here for any length of time. But I've missed you all terribly, and hopefully, I'm back. :)

Scott was a great help while I was sick. He had just finished several big outdoor projects, and I didn't want to spring "Hey Darling, wanna build me a garden?" on him while I was still sick and he was doing so much for the kids and the household. But when our neighbor gave us 12 (yes, TWELVE!) tomato plants, he looked at me and said, "I guess I'm building us a garden." I love that guy!

He built a small raised garden for us at our first house. It was only big enough to hold 4 tomato plants and some herbs and that's about it. But this one is bigger and we can always add on in the future.

I had a few feminine "helpers" the day I planted the tomatoes and herbs...so much fun!

Hopefully I will be able to blog about a few other things that occured while I was sick, but I'll wrap this up with this...

Scott took the kids out to shop for my birthday and the next day Lily wrapped my present all by herself. Don't you love the contrasting stripe of paper "for pretty"? I am so proud of her...she is growing up so fast and is becoming such a little lady already. She was a big help to me while I was sick, too, I'm so thankful for her.

Even though I felt terrible on my birthday, I still had a nice day...my people are the best ever and I am so blessed to have them!

I hope you had a great Memorial Day and last two-weeks! I can't wait to get back into the swing of things!