Makes Me Happy

Did I ever tell you how much I love stepping outside my door and seeing my grandkids playing outside?  My parents live on one side of me and my daughter and her family on the other.  
Blessings upon blessings.

Veggies in a Vase and Hiding In our Food

 I'm sure, positively sure, that our new commitment to eating healthy won't last very long as I have approached it with wild abandon -  exercising zero moderation.  One minute my children are happily tossing down chips, pop-tarts and sour cream laden casseroles and when they turn around the mashed potatoes are not mashed potatoes at all, but just cauliflower masquerading as mashed potatoes.  The favorite side dish has gone from Kraft macaroni and cheese to creamed spinach. Dried fruits for chocolate.
  Can I just say that everyone is not happy with our new "feel good/ be healthy " eating plan. Maybe I should take this a little slower...

Put It Down

  We have these great rocks in the garden in front of our front porch and this afternoon Elijah had the task of blowing the leaves out that had accumulated all winter.  It was actually an enviable job as the boy who got the job also got to wield a loud leaf blower.
  As I watched him I thought about the story in John 8 that Pastor Tim talked about in church today.  A woman had been caught in bed with her lover.  If that had happened today it would have been made into a sitcom, but at the time it meant death by stoning.  As this bad guilty woman waited for her punishment to begin, Jesus challenged those who had no sin to throw the first rock.  As the crowd dispersed He showed His heart of mercy and forgave the woman.  Not a rock was thrown and she was free to go and "sin no more".  
  I don't know about you, but I have needed that same forgiveness from the Lord on a regular basis and I have many occasions to offer it to my kids as well.
  Pastor Tim said it well - "Forgiveness is about dropping the rock".  
They look better in the garden anyway.


  
  
  
  
  

You're No Cheese Puff

We love junk food around here.  Cheese puffs are my- go to feel good all time favorite - thing in the world.  Little Debbie calls me mom.
But I know that it's bad for us.  And I've resolved to make some changes.  
This week, my grocery cart kept trying to turn down the chip aisle but I wrestled it over to the "organics/health food" one instead.
So what do you eat when you can't have chips?
Here are our two new home made snack mixes.  They're filled with dried apricots and apples, granola things and puffs.  The kids were all excited about helping me mix them together and declared them delicious.
I'm mostly okay with all this.  Although I miss the orange dusted fingertips and the hydrogenated crunchy curly goodness.

"I Should Have Been Good"

  With so many people in one house, you can always count on at least one person being in a funk.  This afternoon was Ezra's turn.  He earned the bad mood the night before while James and I ran an errand.  The narcs  sisters informed us that he was less than an angel and just shy of rotten while we were gone.  So on this windy, sunny afternoon all the kids are out playing, celebrating the end of the school week, except for Ezra, who was laying on the back porch, contemplating his misdeeds and I just wanted to run over and kiss him.

Glub, Glub, Glub

 This year our science class is studying physics and with every unit there is a project requirement.  We just finished learning about weight, mass and density and the properties of floating and sinking.  The kids had 3 weeks to design an all metal boat that could carry a load of 50 pennies and float for 10 seconds.  We filled up the aquarium and one by one they tested their project.  We only had one sinker and I won't tell you who it was.  I love science!

Take a Bite My Little Pretty

  Our homeschool celebrates each and every day of the year and today was National Dog Biscuit Day (I don't make these up).  We did a little research into the history and found that there was none.  I believe that this particular holiday was proclaimed by a consortium of dog biscuit manufactures as a cheap publicity shot, but finding nothing else even remotely interesting on the "What's Happening Today in History" calendar, we went with it.  And what better way to enjoy the festivities then to cajole my children into tasting them.  The first few tentative nibbles went off without a murmur, but then the experiment apparently went bad.  The taste was likened to blood, poop, worms and cardboard.  I personally refrained from indulging and it sounds as though I made a good choice.  
The whole affair was monumentally more interesting than our math lessons.