A City Life For Me

Only a couple of months later (backdating to keep things in order) ...but the little man turned two on August 27th! Henry is thick in the "terrible twos" and testing every possible boundary!  He is the biggest copy cat that I have ever seen...he has to do everything his older siblings do!  This also means that he is a little "ahead" of where the other kids were at his age.  He climbs and runs and does stairs and plays games and rides bikes...if the bigs are doing it he wants to do it too!  Henry loves to color and he watches Bible class with the twins every day.   He isn't talking much yet, but a few words are definitely distinguishable - "Mom!", "uh-oh", and "NO!"  We're working on "help" and "please" but they are more like grunts right now!  Henry does pray for a meal sometimes.  It is always three words, and sounds something like, "sus, ank, me."  (Translation - Jesus, thanks, amen). ...

In the last couple of years, Sara Hagerty has become one of my favorite bloggers. She doesn’t write daily, but when she does share a post its always something I have to sit down and chew on for a bit. No skim reading because its always deep at the same time as practical, challenging while it is encouraging. She writes at sarahagerty.net . Each month Sarah shares a list of daily adorations – attributes of God from His own Word. I love to post the list, and then follow the beautiful photos that accompany each adoration she posts on Instagram. It gives me one more slice of God’s Word in a busy day. There have been seasons of my life where mulling on these daily adorations was my whole quiet time with God. Reading, studying and applying that one verse and characteristic of God to my life right now, today. Sara’s first book, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet , tells the story of her journey with infertility and adoption, and how she met God in a new way through that process. Though I haven’t be...

:: World’s Best Dishcloths. My mom put me onto these, and since I had a house-warming gift card to spend, I went ahead and bought a six pack. I love them! I ditched everything else I had in my kitchen – even my homemade ones! I still change them frequently, but they don’t stink as often. They are soft, sized right, and do the job well!  :: Chore Charts . We are finally settled enough to establish some regular chores. I revamped the chore charts in my scrapbooking program, and the kids have done well staying on track. I am also enjoying the extra help of my now-much-bigger-little-people. Elaine washes the breakfast dishes and sweeps the back porch. (We live on three levels and have lots of drains…so if they’re not kept clean we’ll have a plumbing bill!) Nolan sorts the recycling for me and keeps the front patio in order. Liberty is fantastic at organizing the mudroom, and Nehemiah is learning to vacuum the steps! It’s worth teaching your kids to do chores! :: My house! So many of ...

One of our favorite meals has become Swedish Meatballs.  Honestly…I was never a meatball person.  So I never really cooked them for my family.  But in January we joined BJ’s and I found that a big bag of meatballs was really cheap.  So I started searching Pinterest for recipes, and experimenting on my family. And I found that the kids really like meatballs!  They especially like Swedish meatballs, though I usually take the big bag and make one meal of Swedish Meatballs and one meal of Honey Garlic Meatballs.  So we have Swedish Meatballs night and it’s everyone’s favorite.  There are never any leftovers!  And we really haven’t gotten past those two recipes yet because we like them so much!  These are the original recipes that I found: Slow Cooker Swedish Meatballs Honey Garlic Meatballs But of course… I have tweaked them to be a little more my style. Swedish Meatballs 1 can cream mushroom soup 1 can (15 oz.) beef broth (close enough to 2 cup...

I was very excited to send off my last grade report today!  Nolan finished school a couple of weeks ago, and Elaine completed her last subject today.     Super proud of Nolan!  He’s reading very well, and he excels at math.  In fact, he’s going to do first grade math this summer so that he can bump up to second grade math!  He cried when I told him that he was on his very last math paper for the year!      Elaine is also doing well.  Excellent, actually.  She pulled straight A’s this year, with her lowest average for the year was a 95.  She is beyond bored with her reading program because she is reading at a much higher level than her age.  In reading she was supposed to read three chapter books.  The teacher said, “Have you ever read a whole chapter book before?”  Um, yes.  Dozens upon dozens.  She can whiz through a Boxcar Children book or a Mandie book in a day.  I really need to...

My friend Danielle passed this recipe (don’t really like the title of her blog) for a Quinoa casserole on to me.  We like it a lot!  But I’ve made a few tweaks…  When I went to make the casserole the first time I hadn’t been able to get any enchilada sauce at Aldi.  So I looked up a recipe to make my own.  The result was this super fragrant, delicious (and easy) enchilada sauce that I now use to make the casserole each time.  Quinoa Casserole 1 cup quinoa, prepared according to package directions 1 recipe enchilada sauce 1 can corn, drained (you could also use frozen…) 1 can black beans (or 2 cups cooked black beans.  I like to cook a whole bag at once and freeze in two cup portions so I can pull it out for recipes like this). Cilantro (I use dried, because I don’t cook with it enough to justify buying a whole bunch) Salt & Pepper to taste 3/4 cup shredded cheese 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese Follow the rest of the instructions as listed at the l...

Couldn’t resist this one since its a face I see multiple times a day!    Nehemiah loves all things boy and sports.  He is a very fast runner and gets easily discouraged when he doesn’t win!  He always wants his hair buzzed because he doesn’t like me to comb it.  He is almost OCD about a lot of things…which makes him fairly neat and organized.  He gets dressed and makes his bed first thing upon waking up every morning.  Nehemiah loves Bill Peet books and “Are You My Mother.”  His favorite movie (along with all of my kids) is Wild Kratts, and his favorite animal is wild horse.  (But if you ask him tomorrow the answer may be different!)  Nehemiah loves tacos and anything served with sour cream.  He can usually be easily located because he is always singing.  He tends to be monochromatic but is learning to add more color to his pictures.      These two play well together, although we are already hearing “I’m tall...