Coming Soon...

Pictures of a homemade diaper bag...I love it! Waiting for my husband to finish the pics. He is soooo great to help me in this way. :)

Oriental Style Chuck Roast...

One of my favorite things to make for my family is a chuck roast in the crock pot. It is easy and they always enjoy it. This time I tried something a little different. I put the roast in there, dumped a can (with the juice) of pineapple chunks on top, piled some chopped onion on there, then I poured some soy sauce and honey over it all. I do not know the measurements. If you try this just do more than less, you do not want it to dry out. Cook on low for eight hours or until done. About an hour before it was to be served I put some sliced carrot over it all. I did not want them to be too mushy. I served all this over rice. We really enjoyed it. And then the next night, because there wasn't as much meat left I made fried rice with it. Basically the same thing, but the little variation was fun. :) Happy cooking for your families!

You Know it is Cold When...

~ Your feet burn when you get in the shower.

~ You have to put on the second pair of socks.

~ You have not gone anywhere in almost a week.

~ There is a little girl's bouncy ball frozen to the ground (Ellie was sad about this, and confused:)

~ The idea of sitting in front of the huge fireplace in Bass Pro sounds blissful!

~ There is frost on the INSIDE of a window.

~ Your heat is set to 58 during the night and is still running, ALOT.

~ And just because you haven't been anywhere in almost a week doesn't mean you want to change that. :)

~We are thinking of having a play day in the bathroom because it is the warmest room, no just kidding. We did think about it though.

~The icicles you thought were so beautiful a few days ago have lost their dazzle.

So...who is ready for Spring? The gal from FLA is. :) Enjoy your day and Christ wherever you are on the map. Even with all this cold there is MUCH to praise Him for!

New Recipe

My husband makes really good chocolate milk. He mixes some cocoa powder, sugar, a little water and makes a syrup. Then when he gets the consistency he wants he pours the milk. But last night he added some white chocolate liquor. He calls it---Adult Chocolate Milk. It is 8 degrees outside I think that constitutes for a chocolaty treat!

Snow + Floridians = FUN!

Here are a few pictures from when my family was here for Christmas...


Me, Ellie, and my Mom!



I love this little girl...those eyes!



Eleanor was already at her limit, hands and face burning and then a big gust of wind came. It made for a fun picture. (The wind I mean, not her suffering!!)



My Dad made this sled thing out of junk from our garage. Matthew (my little brother) had a great time being pulled behind my Dad's truck. And of course Clay is sitting in the bed of the truck to the good shot. They looked hilarious going down our street!

We had a fun and quiet visit with my family. We were so thankful they came here instead of us traveling with two little ones to FLA. Thank you so much Dad, Mom, and Matt. We know it was a sacrifice for the born and raised Floridians!

HAPPY~

All are excited in the little yellow house tonight...we have family coming to visit this weekend. I pretty much always miss my family and sometimes feel like we are in the middle of nowhere. So far from the truth. Abbey and Paul (sister and hubbie) arrive tomorrow afternoon. It has been over a year since we have seen them. And my parents and brother arrive Sunday! It has only been seven months since we have seen them.

My husband and I had this LONG to do list that we wanted to accomplish before everyone arrived. But ya know...we got most of it accomplished. :) Then again my Dad, who tends to fix anything broken in our home will be here so maybe we will be able to use our front door by the end of the visit. Yeh, the key broke in the dead bolt while it was locked. It may be an easy fix we have not tried yet. The new dead bolt is sitting on the shelf waiting for its turn. We were climbing in and out of the front window but thought that was a little too obvious. We are ridiculous, but Ellie thought it was great. :)

Needless to say we are happy, thankful, and excited. We are also praying for good health all around. :) Have a great night enjoying YOUR family!

~This is super random, if you want to see a cool leopard seal video click here. We did not know they were SO huge. ~

One Year Anniversary

One year ago today we got up early, went to this building, sat around in a waiting room, practiced our signatures what felt like a hundred times and the end result...we closed on our Little Yellow House! One year and one baby more we are still loving it so much.





House Description~ It was built in 1910, high ceilings, old beautiful doors and knobs, three bedrooms and one bath. The upstairs is fun with two bunker windows, one of the bedrooms and enough room for a sitting area and our great computer/sewing table that a good friend made us. A cute (messy right now) little mudroom that leads out to small deck. Beautiful hardwood floors that I am sure we will scratch up in no time. A one car detached garage. A moderate country kitchen, meaning, our table and chairs are in there. We love this house, and know we do not deserve it.

God amazed us when He gave us this home. For many reasons: like most we had a limited price range (we looked at some homes that were so disgusting inside we did not make it past the front door), this one had ALL the updates for an old house, electrical, central heat and air AND it was beautiful inside, the price had just been reduced, and location wise it is exactly where we wanted to be. We made an offer (which was significantly lower than the already reduced price) and naturally they did not accept it. But we didn't budge, we walked away, a little sad but hopeful God would bring us something else. Three days later they called our realtor to say they changed their minds and will accept our offer! I cried. At the time we were living in this old 1917 farmhouse with NO central heat or air. We did have a wood burning stove that I miss (my husband doesn't --- he was the fire starter :) --- We moved into this house looking at it as an experiment "Is living in the country for us?" We really tried to make it work, my husband bought some laying chicks , because there was a hen house so why not. They loved him --- he would do this crazy whistle and they would flock all around him, there was one that would even sit on his arm! I had a vegetable garden that ended up only producing a lot of tomatoes and cucumbers. The cucumbers took over and killed all the other stuff I really wanted. I ate cucumber sandwiches almost everyday that summer, I don't like cucumbers (lesson: do not grow things you do not want to eat). Now, we went to FLA for a visit, came home to chicken body parts all over the place. Yeh, gross. We had someone taking care of them, but these things (chicken massacres) just happen. Also, there was a wasps problem upstairs (where our bedrooms were) I did not handle this well. Wasps out here are different than in FLA they are big, red, and awful looking. I know there is some movie out there about city folk moving to the country, well we should have been the cast for it. Conclusion...we are city folk and that is ok.

God has given us a gift and we hope to be good stewards of it. And we hope to fill it with happy, creative, God's glory reflecting kiddos!


Ellie and I enjoying sidewalk chalk on the front porch, we did this about everyday. :)



This is to the left of the porch, Ellie and I planted some herbs, two sweet pepper plants, and two tomato plants. She had a blast picking the produce. My dream is to make our entire front yard a veggie garden, it would be more than our small family could handle but it would be nice to bless our neighbors with. But that is one day down the road...we will get there!



These are some Zinnias and Sunflowers Ellie and I planted from seeds. They did so well and we enjoyed them all summer long.



This is one side of the living room, just so you get a feel of what it looks like inside. Miss Ellie reading Better Homes and Garden, so cute!