Show & Tell Friday -- Outdoor discovery

The boys were out playing in the snow, climbing up into one of our large pine trees (I always wonder why they climb such a prickly tree but that's just me). George was at the top of the tree and Missy was calling for him so he slid down the branches. On his way down he saw a fox under the branch right were he was about to land and he jumped quickly to the side. Re-Pete came to get me and I said, "Are you sure it isn't a bunny?" He said, "NO! It's ORANGE!" Okay, I went out to check. Yes indeed it is a dead fox. I took a few pictures and then we looked for tracks. We were able to see the paw prints in a nice straight line as foxes walk with one foot in front of the other (this we found out in our "Fun With Nature" book) and drops of blood were here and there. We followed the trail and it looks like the fox must have been injured, possibly on the road and came up our driveway and lay down under our tree. The orange of the fox looks so pretty against the green of the pine tree. It was a great science lesson for the day! The DNR said to throw it away, so we will wait for Daddy to take care of that.

Three fox paw prints. You can see a spot of blood next to the bottom right one.

The fox curled up under a branch with just it's ears sticking up.

If you would like to join Show & Tell Friday hosted by CanadaGirl click on the link below.

Show & Tell Friday -- Outdoor discovery

The boys were out playing in the snow, climbing up into one of our large pine trees (I always wonder why they climb such a prickly tree but that's just me). George was at the top of the tree and Missy was calling for him so he slid down the branches. On his way down he saw a fox under the branch right were he was about to land and he jumped quickly to the side. Re-Pete came to get me and I said, "Are you sure it isn't a bunny?" He said, "NO! It's ORANGE!" Okay, I went out to check. Yes indeed it is a dead fox.


I took a few pictures and then we looked for tracks. We were able to see the paw prints in a nice straight line as foxes walk with one foot in front of the other which we found out in our "Fun With Nature" book, and drops of blood were here and there. We followed the trail and it looks like the fox must have been injured, possibly on the road and came up our driveway and lay down under our tree. The orange of the fox looks so pretty against the green of the pine tree. It was a great science lesson for the day! The DNR said to throw it away, so we will wait for Daddy to take care of that.

Three fox paw prints. You can see a spot of blood next to the bottom right one.

The fox curled up under a branch with just it's ears sticking up.

Working

I have been trying to come up with something interesting to blog about this week when I realized one thing I haven't mentioned.

My husband works for a company that designs/makes parts for cars and his position was a "component engineer".  A few weeks ago he suddenly announced that he received an unexpected promotion at work. He wasn't sure what to make of it at first as him and a friend were both promoted to "project manager" in a sort of restructuring. He now has a new boss, moved to another building and has more responsibility as he oversees a new project of building an engine block for Hyundai. This also involves a bit of travel mainly to Alabama for a day at a time and possibly to Korea. Unfortunately his new boss had a stroke a week after the promotion and so my husband now finds himself with jobs on the financial side of things which as an engineer he doesn't enjoy quite as much. I am so proud of my husband and am always amazed at his ability as I am quite clueless when it comes to this field of work!

Congratulations honey!

Along those same lines as I have been reading blogs lately I have thought, "I wonder what she did before she had children? Did she work outside of the home?" So I thought I would share what I did before life at home with children. (I wonder if I mentioned this before -- if so, sorry!)

After high school I really did not have any idea of what I wanted to do with my life beyond marrying the love of my life. He was going to a school for engineering and so I went to an area technical college and started off taking classes to be a secretary. I soon found I had the knack for computers (at least the software side of things) and so I changed and ended up getting an associates degree in computers. After completing that I worked through a temp agency doing various jobs and finding that I could never enjoy being a secretary.

I then got a job at a large company in the area at their computer helpdesk. For the life of me I can't believe I ever did that as it seems so "not me!" Listening to complaints and trying to help people with their computer over the phone was not ideal. I did enjoy the people I worked with and it seemed we were always finding some reason to celebrate and bring food.  If I had it to do again I would do something more creative as photography or gardening have always intrigued me.

Anyway, we were married a year later and two years later we had our first child. We decided that I would no longer work but my boss convinced me to try working part-time and could do some work from home and go in a day or two. That seemed ideal but it did not work out very long as our first baby was colicky and I had a hard time getting work done, especially having to be on the phone when I had a crying baby. So that ended my life in the workplace. I have never regretted that decision nor have I had any desire to work outside of the home. I love, love, love being home with our children! Oh, they drive me crazy from time to time but I wouldn't trade this job for the world!

So how about you? What did you do before you became a stay-at-home mom?

Willing Helper

At times I am easily frustrated with how foolish the children can get, or how I feel as if I am the only one working around here. However, there are so many more times of how proud I am of the children for one thing or another. My boys can definitely be a big help to me and as they get older they show that more of their own volition. While George is still just a boy, at times he acts so grown up. Here is only one example of the many ways he helps...

A few weeks back my husband was on a business trip and of course it had snowed. Our driveway has an incline and when it is snows you need to get a running start to drive up. For some reason this winter I have had more problems getting up our driveway and have been stuck more than once -- but typically my husband is there to help out. This time the children and I were coming home in the late evening to wait for Daddy to come home. They were all in their pajamas as I had them ready to go in case any fell asleep on the way home.  It was cold and snowing and while I did try to get a running start I ended up stuck in my usual spot, halfway up the driveway. I attempted to back down again but ended up in a bush. I kept working at it but always stuck halfway up. I figured we were going to have to park the van and trek the rest of the way up to the house.

George decided that he needed to try and help me out. He got out of the van (in his pj's) took the ice scraper and started to move the snow from around the tires, each time waiting for me to make a little more progress. He kept on until we finally made it up (about 20 minutes in all). I was so thankful for George's willingness to help. He then stayed awake (or kept me awake) watching movies to wait for Daddy as his flight had been delayed. While he may only be 8 year old George can be quite the little man!

Valentine Pictures

I wanted to share a few pictures from our Valentine's Day. We all had such a good time together.

My day began to flowers, a cards, dark chocolate M&M's (my favorite) and a necklace waiting for me. This was a sweet surprise!

Individual heart pizzas were on the menu for the evening.


Playing pin the car on the track. The kids did better than Mommy and Daddy. We got too dizzy! :)

Show & Tell Friday -- Racing

This is a short post for Show & Tell Friday hosted each week by CanadaGirl.

For those of you who don't know, my husband races a "Super Buggy" off-road. His catch phrase is, "If you're not racing in the dirt, turning right and flying over jumps, is it really racing". (He does enjoy watching NASCAR and such -- despite that it is not "in the dirt").

The season begins May 31st and our summer is a busy one but we enjoy the time together as a family and as our "pit crew" grows I think it will get all the more exciting.

Today we are excited that his new website has been launched. For those of you who do not know what off-road racing is all about check out the Mason Motorsports website.

Valentine's

Today the boys were able to attend a homeschool Valentine's Day party. They all enjoyed the time giving and receiving valentines, playing games, and making valentines for a local nursing home.

Me, being the person that I am began working on our valentines yesterday. (I may work best under pressure but I sure wish I wasn't such a procrastinator!) This year we made a valentine using an idea from Family Fun making heart crayons out of leftover crayon stubs. After making 60 crayons I think we have the art perfected! We have found that crayon stubs are okay but using the pack of 64 crayons and using the brighter colors chopped by Mom make the most colorful crayons. This was a project that any age child could easily participate in and didn't involve arguing over who is first or some such thing as they each put their favorite color into the heart shaped pan. The boys had fun making the crayons, although putting everything together in the end got a little tedious, but thankfully attitudes for the most part remained cheerful --I worked hard at not getting frazzled also in order to not ruin the "fun" of our creativity.

Here is the finished valentine. We ended up putting them in small plastic bags as the crayon would not stick to the paper no matter what we tried.

Show & Tell Friday

I thought I would do something new and join CanadaGirl for Show and Tell Friday.

The boys and I enjoy being creative with our food. I used to do more of this when George was a little guy but I can see that the fun of it has rubbed off on all of the boys. They all try to come up with new creations whenever we have mashed potatoes. And they always seem to think we need to use cookie cutters for our sandwiches. When making mini pizzas the designs all vary from a mixed up design to a flower made of pepperoni, black olives, peppers, etc. I have a number of fun cookbooks for kids and we made "Monster Sandwiches" for lunch yesterday. Each boy put their own sandwich together and enjoyed eating their "monster" too! Black olives and red peppers are a favorite here! I think they turned out pretty cute! The boys are pretty cute too! (Okay, I'm partial)

Winter Warmup

After having over a foot of snow dumped on us yesterday I was in the mood for a bowl of nice warm soup. I figured it would be a nice warm-up for my guys as the boys had been playing and my husband spent a couple of hours snowblowing to be able to get his car up the driveway. Last night I made one of our favorites, Stuffed Green Pepper Soup. EEEEMommy shared a very tasty soup recipe so I thought I would share one that a good friend gave to me. My husband will not eat stuffed green peppers (which I love!) but he does enjoy this soup as do all of the children. Now I need to find a good recipe for crusty bread to go with it!

Stuffed Green Pepper Soup

2 lbs. ground beef
1 green pepper, chopped
1 (29oz.) can tomato sauce
1 (29oz.) can diced tomatoes (do not drain)
2 cubes of beef bouillon
1/4 c. packed brown sugar
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1 T. soy sauce (or Braggs Liquid Aminos)
2 c. cooked rice (I use brown)

Brown beef. Drain fat. Add green pepper and saute 3 minutes. Stir in tomato sauce, tomatoes (include juice), bouillon cubes, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 30 - 45 minutes. Stir in rice and heat through. Soup will be thick like a stew and tastes better the longer it simmers.

Serves 4 -5 adults (Our family finishes this in one sitting if we do not have bread or something on the side).

Tank trudging in from the snow to get a cup of hot chocolate! We did end up with more snow than this.

It doesn't look like much snow in this picture but this is our overhang of snow before they knocked it down this morning.

Tagged

I was tagged by Kimalita a few days ago and while I do not like to tag others I don't mind participating.

Book Meme

Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Okay,  I grabbed the nearest book of over 123 pages but the selection on page 123 wouldn't make much sense typed here as it is from "Managers of Their Chores". So I went to the bookshelf behind me and pulled off a book I enjoy -- "Loving God with All Your Mind" by Elizabeth George.

A baby is indeed a miracle, a precious gift from God, and a very good thing in our life, but any mother you talk to will tell you that a baby causes a woman to stretch and grow like nothing else in her life. Being a mother truly is an assignment from God which He uses, for instance, to make us more Christlike by giving us countless opportunities to die to our self. God does indeed use the good of a child for our good and for our growth in Him.

After my previous post this is another reminder to me of the miracle of life. As an update on my cousin and his wife, they saw a specialist yesterday and found such compassion there. Their little boy is perfect in every way, except for the one thing that will not allow him to live. At this time they are going to enjoy the pregnancy and feeling the movements of their little one until the Lord makes it known to them the right time to induce.

I am not going to tag anyone but if you would like to participate please feel free, and let me know you did by commenting so I can come and visit you.

Life is precious

My heart aches right now. My cousin and his wife are expecting their third child in June. Yesterday they had an ultrasound done and found that the baby's brain has not developed. This is not treatable. They will be meeting with specialists on Monday to find out more. She will go through labor and delivery but need to be induced as the baby will be incapable of alerting her body that it is time. I cannot even begin to imagine the emotions they must be going through. As I hold my sweet baby boy and think about the other five children God has blessed us with I cannot help but shed tears as I am reminded again of how precious life is. Praise God that He is in control! Even though we don't understand, God is still GOOD! Please pray for my cousin and his wife.

Psalm 139:13-16
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance,being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.