We just finished a 2 week study on Mexico & we wrapped it up with a fiesta. The kids made tortillas (from scratch) & we piled them with meat, cheese, beans, salsa & quacamole.
We also made pinatas & smashed them to bits to get to the candy 
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So far we are loving "My Fathers World" curriculum. It's off to Canada next, eh?
Blessings.
Five years after we should have replaced it. Two years after we needed to replace it. We finally replaced our roof! Woo hoo!
It took my husband and me 3 1/2 days, 38 bundles of shingles & umpteen nails but we are now done. Praise the Lord! No injuries, no major breakdowns & no screaming fests . It really went much smoother than I had hoped for. And faster too! If you ever have to roof use a nail gun. Beg, borrow or steal it if you have too. It makes it go so much faster. We were blessed to be able to borrow one from a friend & my FIL loaned us an air compressor. So wonderful!
The new roof looks great. Our only concern is the weather has not been very warm & it takes warmth to make the shingles seal. So we are praying for sunshine or for 6 inches of snow to dump on it & stay there until summer. 
Gotta hold those shingles down one way or another.
The happy couple...
Birds eye view...
Our cheerful "go-fer" girl (occupying her time between errands with the latest American Girl catalog)
Day one's progress
And the finished project
Some of you may have noticed no pictures of the boys... Well, 2 of them are much too little for roofing and as for the big one...he's not too fond of heights. So he chose to be the babysitter for this project 
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Blessings.
It took 5 long days but my daughters room is finally done. It is painted, cleaned, sorted & put back together complete with new rug, curtains & bedding.
She is a happy camper. (which is good because she's living in THAT room with THAT decor until she is married.)
Sorry, no 'before' pictures.
A thing of beauty is joy forever.
And this is just too cute to pass up
Blessings.
...from unspeakable ugliness.
The Lord is amazing. Do you know that? I mean do you truly know that?
We go thru our lives & we think we know how things should go. We think we know what should happen & when. And when things don't go our way; when tragedy strikes we wonder "Why me Lord? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?"
Sometimes what happens to us has nothing to do with us. It is a means to an end. Sometimes a horrible, unspeakable nightmare has to happen for a dream to come true.
Last weekend was the memorial service for an amazing woman. She was one of those women who made you feel special. Made you feel loved, whether you had known her 20 minutes or 20 years. The kind of woman who had standing room only at her funeral. The kind of woman whose love of Jesus showed in her face. The kind of woman we all aspire to be.
This lovely woman was brought into this world through hatred & violence. She was a product of rape.
Her mother was a teenager when she was attacked & became pregnant. She put the baby up for adoption. The baby was adopted by a couple who loved her & raised her in a Christian home. She grew up, married & had 2 children. She was a grandma to 4( almost 5). She was friend to many. Too many to list. She was a cherished wife who always put her husband first. She was an amazing mom & grandma. Always there for her daughter. I rarely saw them apart. She touched the lives of everyone who knew her. I know, for me, she just always made me feel loved. She always had a hug & a kiss. Always asked about me & my family. Always had an encouraging word. That is what she was: an encourager. She was just beautiful.
And to think, all of that beauty, all of that love & encouragement, came from something so ugly. So hateful & wicked.
We will never understand His ways. His ways are not our ways. But God doesn't make mistakes. And God can redeem any situation.
"But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive." Genesis 50:20
Blessings.
Our 19 degree night last week was the end of our garden. Even under the tarps & sheets, everything was black, dead & slimy. Sigh.
The next morning the kids picked all of the green tomatoes & almost ripe pumpkins. The pumpkins are hardening off in the barn and the tomatoes ~~ all 2 bushels of them ~~ were piled in the kitchen. The biggest, nicest of them are nestled in newspaper to ripen. The 50,000 little ones (okay, okay, I'm exagerating, there can't be more than 45,000) I chopped & chopped & chopped all day today, to make into relish. The last jars are in the canner as we speak and our grand total for the day is 20 pints. Whew! That's a lot of relish. Did I mention, I don't even like relish? Oh well. Other people do & I couldn't just waste all those green tomatoes. Consider yourself forwarned: You will be getting relish for Christmas.
I also got 7 quarts of tomato sauce put up. I hope to do another batch tomorrow & as often as I have enough ripe ones to make a canner load. And then...it's on to the apples! Oh boy!
I see many many long days in the kitchen in my future as we can applesauce, apple pie filling, apple butter, & don't forget dried apples in the dehydrator . You gotta love fall...
Blessings.
My baby girl is 10 years old today. Wow. Double digits. Where does the time go?
How could this ^ suddenly become this
"The young woman was very lovely"
1Kings 1:4
Blessings.
Yesterday was an excellent day for a trip to town. We went to Walmart to get a few supplies for my daughters birthday tomorrow. About the only thing they had was the paint 
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We are re-doing her room for her birthday & wanted to look at the bedding & curtains. They had NOTHING we liked. Well, that isn't true. They did have a few things we liked but nothing that went 'together' to create a whole 'look'. And I couldn't find a dust ruffle in the entire store. So I gave up on that & was going to pick up the few groceries we needed for her party while we were there. They had nothing I needed. I was SO frustrated. After searching, and not finding anything we needed, we gave up & went to the grocery store.
That was our best idea of the day. They were having a 'case sale'. They had cases of all kinds of stuff on sale.
It wasn't technically in the budget but we didn't want to pass up all the savings. And by spending a little extra now, we can spend less later.
We got a case of spaghetti noodles in 3 lb packages, a case of brown sugar, a case of catsup ( we go thru a lot of catsup ), a case of olives, 2 different types of canned tomatoes, a 20 lb bag of white sugar, 25 lbs of 13 bean mix, 40lbs of rice & I think that might be it. Sorry I don't have the receipt so I don't have the prices but, it was an average of 40 % of the regular price.
After we got home I spent about an hour making room in our pumphouse & rearranging the pantry but everything has a place .
Now we still need to order our wheat & as soon as potatoes are available I will get 50lbs of those & we will be set for a while.
I love a full pantry. It just makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside.
Blessings.
