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.