Fall Around Here

I just wanted to share what has been happening around our place lately. Fall has set in and I was ready this year. My decorations were up Aug 31st and I hosted a Fall Kick Off Mom's Coffee Night in the beginning of September.
I will just share a bunch of pictures and here there are;

Corner of Dining Room

Above family room window

Under family room window. The bench was from one of our favorite places - the dump!



Above office desk

My newest decorations from my favorite store.

Dining Room

Rebekah taking Molly and Yadkin for a walk on the last day of summer. It was also the last day we had warm weather.

I guess there were disagreements about how hot is really was.  Ben, with no shirt, Jacob with a jacket.

There you have it. Thanks for stopping by!

A 7th Birthday Party

We celebrated our youngest's 7th birthday the other day.  We had such a good time! It was kind of a progressive party.

We had his friends come over in the late afternoon for games and play.

Then we have 2 families come for supper. 

Then 3 more families (one with 13 people) came for dessert, bon fire and fireworks!

 

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Canning Experiment - Carrot Cake Jam & Peach Jelly

Jalapeno Peach Jelly, Peach Jelly on top, Carrot Cake Jam on bottom

I was so excited a few months ago to see a way to use all the peach when canning.   I bought 25 lbs of peaches when they were on sale to can.  But I didn't throw away the peels, I made jelly!  I saved all the peels and a few pits, covered them with water, simmered it for 1/2 an hour and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

The next day, I strained the juice out, using a tea towel.  I got enough juice to make 2 batches of jelly.

4 c peach juice
1 pkg pectin
5.5 c sugar

But for the second batch, I added a finely diced jalapeno pepper to make Jalapeno Peach Jelly.  Wow! It is really good!  It is a lot like pepper jelly.  I would serve it with crackers and cream cheese.  IF, we have any left after eating it on our bagels with cream cheese.

While waiting in line at the grocery store, I picked up the Taste of Home Preserves magazine to look through. It was $11 so I wasn't going to buy it. But, I found a recipe for Carrot Cake Jam that I wanted to try.  I searched it on their website and it is on there.  It is like Fall in a jar!  Rebekah and I really like it on top of our bagels with cream cheese. I also tried it as the filling for a layered white cake. It was really good too. Although, I think it would have been better in a spice cake with cream cheese icing.

Carrot Cake Jam on bagel

I am so happy to have found these new recipes!

This post is linked up to:  Thrifty Thursday  Hope in Every Season  Fresh Eggs Daily Growing Home

Are You Creating Division With Your Prayers?

I was laying in bed last night, just thinking.  I was thinking of things to pray for and thought to pray something about my husband.  I wanted him to do something the way I would do it.  And it reminded me of a lesson I learned not that long ago about being careful how I pray.

I am going to share a personal story about this.  Last year I had that baby itch. You know, when you just want a baby so bad it's hard to think of anything else.  The only problem was, God has decided I can't have any more babies. So I started looking at the local adoption websites and completely fell in love with a brother/sister pair.

They weren't babies, but the girl was only 4 (about the age our little Nathan would have been, had he lived) and so cute and the boy was right in between our 2 youngest. They both had blond hair and blue eyes.  I wanted to run and tell Larry about it right away, but I know him and what his reaction would be. So, I decided to pray for 1 month. Pray that God would soften Larry's heart regarding adoption and that he would at least consider it.

I finally got the courage to bring up the subject and the answer was a big NO!

I won't lie, I was completely heart broken. It was as if I lost 2 children. I was very sad, but I kept praying about it.

I was praying that God would change Larry's mind. That he would see it my way. And you know, all that the praying did was keep the bad feelings alive in my heart and mind. Really, in a way, I was saying Larry doesn't know how to lead our family and he should see that I'm right.  I was creating division.

The way I should have been praying was that God's will would be done. Which is how I eventually left it after I realized the negative feelings I was harbouring in my heart towards my husband.

And now, instead of praying that Larry would do something the way I want him to do it, I should remember to pray that God would help Larry do something the way God would have him do it. Then I know it's done the right!

I don't really know why we couldn't adopt those children, but God knows.  I can find peace in knowing that God knows EXACTLY what's best for us. And let me tell you, I sure am savouring every moment with the 3 beautiful children God has blessed us with.

Ephesians 4:1-4

New King James Version (NKJV)

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,   with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love,   endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.   There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;

 

 This post is linked up to; Hope in Every Season

Beet Green and Feta Pasta & Grilled Chicken

I came across this recipe for Beet Greens and Feta Pasta and loved it.  It is especially good with grilled chicken.

I found the recipe here.  I added a couple squirts of lemon juice to brighten up the flavour a bit.

I made up a marinade for the chicken and it was delicious.  It was hard to write out the recipe, because I was sitting on the kitchen floor by my spice cupboard, grabbing spices and shaking them up into the dish on the counter. So, I think this is pretty close. (The chicken in the picture is a different recipe. I prefer my grilled chicken, but we ran out of propane on our BBQ)

1/3 c lemon juice
1/4 c oil
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp paprika
1 Tbsp dried parsley
salt and pepper.

I marinaded 6 chicken breast in this for about 5 hours then grilled them.

County Fair Results

This has been a hectic week! We had decided not to enter anything in our fair this year because they have raised the prices so much that we aren't going to the fair. BUT, the bench show is at a different building and we just decided a week ago to enter our work.  Rebekah entered 26 items, Jacob - 9, Ben - 4 and I entered 27.

So, we have just returned from seeing how we did and our family really did well!

Here are some highlights.

Rebekah received High Point in the Junior Division 2 and Runner Up High Point for the Ag Division.

In the following pictures, everything you see is basically all Rebekah's work and all 1st places.

Everything along the back is  Rebekah's (From the left: Christmas card, button bouquet, clay crab, painted rock, painted ceramics, ruffled scarf, perler bead balloon, bottle necklace and cross stitch picture))

Rebekah's Jam, muffins, cookies, bread and fruit

Rebekah also entered items into the adult divisions. She won 2nd against me for the Fleischmann's Yeast competition. Benjamin won first for his Robin Hood Brownies and I won 1st Robin Hood Ginger cookies and 2nd for my Certo strawberry jam.

Here are just a few more highlights.

I made runner up in the Culinary Arts Division



My Peas at the top won 1st. (It's about the only thing I grew this year)

Ben won 2nd for coloring a picture from VBS and Jacob won 1st

Jacob won 1st for his clay animals and stocking he sewed

The boys made this catapults at VBS and Jacob won 1st and Ben won 2nd

So, there is the short version! Ha Ha. Now, we are going to watch the old Disney "Swiss Family Robinson" movie and eat popcorn.

July Recap

Well, here we are, already in August! Can you believe it? I already want to start decorating for fall next week!  Anyway, here are some of the things that happened around here last month.

Larry had a birthday. We went to his sister's, 2 hours away. His parents were there for a few days as well before they came back to our house.

Larry's parents came back to our house and the boys sure enjoyed playing games with them! Everyday they were here I think.

But, all good things come to an end and Grandpa and Grandma left to go home. Larry and his dad are talking just before they left.

Going to the Stampede this year really brought out the cowboy in Jacob.

Larry and Ben found a great treasure at one of their favorite places, the dump.

It took Larry half an hour to get it running, but it started and Ben had fun driving it. We ended up not keeping it though. It ran so good, Larry took it to the auction to sell. The zero turn would have been good for my pumpkin patch.

Our baby donkey is doing great!  You can see in the picture below that his mouth is looking really good.  The kids ended up calling him Yadkin.  You think to yourself, that's a strange name.  Well, a good guess would be it has something to do with Daniel Boone.  People in or near North Carolina might know about this.  When Daniel Boone was young, his family moved to North Carolina along the Yadkin River.  And we know that from the unit study we did on Daniel Boone. 

Finally, at the end of the month, our church had VBS.  They used Kingdom Chronicles from Answers In Genesis.  I really appreciate their material.  The whole week the kids were learning there is a battle for truth between the Good Kingdom (God) and the Bad Kingdom (Satan).  They learned everyday about the Armor of God from Ephesians 6.  There was a very clear salvation message and many kids went to talk with our pastor about salvation.  Rebekah is showing off the stage with her crazy hat on for crazy hat day. You can't really see it, but there is a castle up there.

Well, There are a few more things I'd like to share, like Rebekah riding a camel. But the pictures are on Larry's phone and I need to get them off.  So, they will come another day.