The Joys Of Family and Hearth

It's been a busy and fun Christmas Week here in our home. We have prepared much food and enjoyed many days of just listening to Christmas Music and baking, or cooking for our Annual Christmas Eve Celebration. We started by baking several dozen of cooking, excellent sugar cookies, chocolate chips and oatmeal butterscotch. Then we made several dozen batches of Cinnamon Rolls, they were handed out as gifts to our friends and neighbors. Then we started our Christmas Eve Cooking extravaganza!! Each year we host an open house and have tons of fun seeing who will come and celebrate with us. This year we had a full open house. And we even did some cooking with our guests. We made Strufoli! We started our open house at noon. We do this so that if anyone is in the area and would like to stop by for a quick lunch, some tea, or coffee or just cheese and crackers they are more then welcome to pop in. Enjoy some food and fellowship and be on their way. :) We had tons of cheese (horseradish, ...

On November 16, 1994, day 3 of my hospital stay/induction. I gave birth to: Ashley Nicole 8 lbs. 11 ozs . 21 inches She was plump and perfect, and happened to be the first baby born, on the 100 th anniversary of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Hospital and was given a $50.00 savings bond from them. It was a special time in our life. We brought this little munchkin home to our chicken coop, I kid you not we rented a chicken coop/apt. Really neat little place! :) Now here we are 16 years later, and four more sibling added to the mix! We arrive at her Sweet 16 party!!! Last night showed me just how blessed I am! If you don't know my daughter, by walking around the room last night you would have figured out her heart for sure. Ashley loves photography, and is really good at it too! :) She covered the walls in our church with about 500 photos of family and friends. And not just plain shots, but really interesting shots, where you could read the person's emotions!!! She had some old p...

A couple of weeks ago we ventured out to our favorite place to camp and attended a most wonderful event. The HayCreek Festival at Johanna Furnace in Morgantown Pa. What a wonderful hands on event... My new favorite pic of my hubby... (swoon) The gentleman is carving table legs, with the leg power of our son. He couldn't pedal too fast or too slow or the machine wouldn't work. My oldest son volunteered at the festival and pedaled the pedal drill for hours that day!! On top of all the hands on activites, there was tons of tractors, and little neat gadgets like this tiny car. :) Here my guy is taking the dried corn cob, putting it through this machine and hand cranking it. The machine would then strip the cob of the kernals and wah-lah, corn kernals that can now be ground into corn meal. Another old beauty.. My husband had the best time looking at all the old machinery and cars, and now would like to make this one of his hobbies. Here's my #4. Learning to wring out the ...

Ok, so most of you know I am anti-schedule. I don't like them, I feel like a slave to them. I just don't like the over all feel of them. HOWEVER, as my family as grown..I am seeing the need for some order. More like an organized chaos, instead of just chaos! SO I've read all the books, and like the idea of a MOTH routine, but still ummm for this skeptic seemed like it wasn't going to happen. One of my biggest issues with scheduling is I personally have a very hard time with not completing things. If it's on my to do list and it doesn't get done, I get down on myself. So the thought of planning the entire day and possible missing something is dreadful to me!! Now MOTH is very clear that if you miss something you just keep going with the schedule..ooo that is hard for me too!! What about the stuff you missed, now you've got to catch up!! See the pressure. BUT.... I knew I needed to develop something! Soooo Here's our basic routine for the day. 6:30 am~Mom ...

This is NOT a Chili, not matter what you say!! This is NOT a Chili!!! :) Ok, so try this out, it's fantastic..We ate it as a side and a lot of people at the bbq we were at, put it on their hot dogs!!! Big hit!!! 4 ounces bacon, diced~yeah right, I did a pound! 1 pound lean ground beef (90% lean)~80% is fine. 1/2 cup chopped onion~whole onion 1 can (21 ounces) pork and beans 1 can (16 ounces) kidney beans, rinsed and drained~you can use a "chili" variety 1 can (16 ounces) butter beans, rinsed and drained 1/2 cup packed brown sugar~I used Damara! 1/2 cup ketchup 1 tablespoon cider vinegar~I did 2! 1 teaspoon prepared mustard 1 teaspoon salt I made this in my cast iron pot, ok I'm on a new kick..loving my cast iron!!!! fry the bacon, drain the grease almost all the way but not totally. -throw bacon in crockpot. :) add the onion, once it starts to get soft and brown..add the ground beef Let that cook till no longer pink then add all the beans, and the rest of ingredients....

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer’s best of weather And autumn’s best of cheer." - Helen Hunt Jackson, September, 1830-1885 I Love September!! The air has a crisper quality about it. I can smell the ocean almost daily. I idea of a new school year has me giddy. And not because I send my kids off to school, but because I get to be with them as they learn so many new things every day.. I love the smell of new books, I have been known to occasional huff them. :) I love new boxes of crayons, I have 20 right now. Glue and scissors bring back such wonderful memories for me as a kid. You see I was the teacher as a child, I would set all my stuff animals and dolls around this little table I have in my room and pass out worksheets for them to do. :) Then I would correct them, and walk fondly around the table patting my students heads.. Now I get to do that with my own children. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on...

I am a lover of all things kitchen and especially vintage kitchen! I love gadgets and enamelwear, pots, pans, recipe books, etc. here's some stuff I've found recently at a yard sale. Most of the booklets are dated early 1940's. and the recipe enevlope has a rations section..

Proverbs 12:14 From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him. I must say that our tummys have been full, by the work of our hands. My first real big attempt at a garden this year, has been both a success and a failure just depends on the thing I was trying to grow. :) But for the most part, we have enjoyed fantastic tomatoes, fresh basil, eggplant, and little green peppers from the garden. I have totally enjoyed canning this year. Canned more this year then ever before. Pickles, peaches, strawberries, beets, broccoli. etc. What a great time the garden has brought to us all.

Last week the water heater in our house went, AGAIN! I think this is the third or fourth water heater we've had to put in, within the last 10 years. UGH! Anywho, Hubby and I are following Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course and we are no longer using credit cards to make purchases. (check out dave ramsey he's awesome at http://www.daveramsey.com/) So the water heater goes and we know have to dip into our Emergency Fund, one of the baby steps, in becoming debt free. Well we already had dipped into about two weeks ago to fix surburban. SO we were a little short. And becasue we no longer have credit cards, no way to buy a new water heater. So we prayed about it, and resided ourselves to being without one for a few weeks. For me that would mean boiling pots of water to do dishes and give baths. :) Ok no problem this could be fun, really.... :) So about 4 days go by, and hubby notices that a guy as the industrial park where he works happens to have a hot water heate...

Matthew 25:40~And the King will tell them, `I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!' #5 is almost 2 years old. She is a sweet, fun-loving sweetie pie. While traveling to my mom's house, we go through a town that has a huge homeless camp in it. We consistantly see the same people. Often times we will pray for them as we pass, or we talk about how we can help, and where they live. The other day while riding through the town, our windows were down, the weather was beautiful, and the traffic was heavy. As we slowly proceeded through town, we saw the most gentle loving homeless woman, her face showd years of sun and hard work, her back was slightly curved over, she had on clothes 3 times too big for her and her hair was a white wind-blown mess. But one thing we all noticed as we sat at the red light, was her piercing blue eyes. You see we were singing, "holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty..." When she lif...

This is something that has been on my heart for quite sometime. I totally believe that we should make use of our land, and learn to live off it. In colonial times if they didn't grow it, they didn't have it. Even what they could go to market and find was limited. When you think about how readily sugar is available to us now, and back then only the rich had it, or it was a special treat. I remember in one of the Little House Series, Laura talks about how special it was for Pa to bring home sugar and tea to Ma. It was a treat. Back to basics is where we are striving to go as a family. I've always been a from scratch cook, and using healthy ingredients, but now I'm going to try and turn my usual black tumb of death into a green thumb of fresh veggies and fruits. I'm realizing it's a lot more then watering your plants, you have to nurture them, love them, talk to them. ;) Yep, I talk with my plants while watering them. :) Now, I live on a postage stamp! Seriously! I...

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For Mother's Day my hubby treated me and the children to a camping trip. We went to one of my favorite places ~ Amish Country. I love it there. The pace is sooooo much slower and I long to live a slower paced life. Big Daddy and I spent alot of time reflecting on some things we want to accomplish as a family and came home ready to grow and stretch this family. I have such fondness for the plain sect, they don't sweat the small stuff. If you have patience to hitch up a horse and buggy to go everywhere that really is not sweating it. I get annoyed if my truck gives me a hard start. A trip that would take me 10 mins in my truck will take the Amish 30 mins . But man the freedom of knowing you don't have to be anywhere anytime quick. You can sit back and literally enjoy the view. Their focus is not on world or worldly things but on what God wants them to accomplish in their lives. That is encouraging my friends! God is growing and stretching me. There is so much going o...

Mother's Day always is a tough day for our family. It's filled with joy and saddness, or should I say rememberence. You see this May, my grandmother will celebrate her 15th year in the kingdom of heaven, but we will slightly mourn another year of her not being here with us. Grammy was sweet, always ready to feed an army, always ready to hear your complaints or share in your joy. She has the most beautiful voice. We loved to hear her sing some of the old time songs from her era. One of her favorites went like this " put another nickle in, in the nickleodeon, All I want is loving you and music, music, music. I'd do anything for you, anything you want me too, all I want is loving you and music, music, music,...." That is something I sing to my babies at times. I hope someday they will sing it to thier children. Another favorite memory is when I would visit her, she would be sitting in her spot on the sofa doing her grammy thing, but she would let me lay her my head...

Hi Everyone, I FINALLY created a new blog, let's hope I don't forget my password again! Looking forward to having some fun on here!