my blessed life

Today the kiddos and I tackled a fun and simple craft for the 4th~patriotic rock painting! I saw a post on The Crafty Crow (love that blog!) that inspired us! And we did really enjoy ourselves. First, I raided our craft supplies and got out the tempera paints in red, white and blue, plus an assortment of paint brushes. Then I set up a painting *station* of sorts for each kiddo, complete with paper towels and a cup of water for rinsing the brushes. Then I sent the kiddos to choose some good rocks from their *collections* (aka: random rocks from the yard:). They were SO excited! Then they got busy painting. I kept having to remind Mr. B to let one color dry before applying a different color over it. The hair dryer helped with this, fyi. But finally their masterpieces were complete and I think they turned out GREAT!! These are The Princess': And these are Mr. B's: I even got in on the fun and painted one. I have to say, painting rocks could be addictive it was so mu...

Yesterday I tea-dyed some flags. They were just cheap little flags that I've had for over 10 years. I've used them in a million different ways over the years and when I saw this tutorial I thought making them look vintage would be fun. Here they are looking all *new* and *modern*:) So I took a large bowl and filled it with hot tap water and tossed in about six tea bags (Earl Grey, in case you're wondering). I let the water get all nice and brown, even squeezing the tea bags gently to get a good color. Then I put all the flags in to soak. I probably let them soak a good four hours or so. Then I laid them out on a towel to dry over night. They had definitely gotten tea-stained and were looking much more vintage than before. I know it may be hard to tell in a photo because the change is slight, but they really do look more vintage! I tucked them into a little patriotic bucket filled with shredded shiny *paper*. They are standing up so nice and flying so strai...

It's been a while since I've talked about homeschooling, but we're on summer break, ya know?:) I have had a few things I've been wanting to share with you though and Shoebox Phonics is one of them. The concept given in the book is to create shoebox *learning centers* for different aspects of learning phonics. One of the moms in our homeschool group taught a class from this book during our Spring co-op session and Mr. B just loved it. Of course, he absolutely loves anything that's a *craft*, so this was right up his alley. Each week the students got to create their own phonics game or activity in a shoebox to bring home. Each shoebox was very unique and fun. We enjoyed using them over again with Mr. B's phonics lessons at home. If you're looking for something to liven up phonics with your child, this book would be a great investment for you! Here are a few of our boxes: 1. *Button Up With Words* was created by gluing each letter of the alphabet o...

(google images) 0201. a much-needed summer rain 0202. listening to the rain pitter-patter on the roof 0203. the smell of the earth after the rain 0204. letting the rain water my garden for me 0205. listening to a summer thunderstorm 0206. watching God's fireworks, aka: lightning 0207. being safe and snug at home during a thunderstorm 0208. snuggling with my kiddos when the thunder scares them 0209. falling asleep with a peaceful, contented feeling 0210. knowing that God is holding me in the palm of His hand

My first attempt at Tres Leches Cake turned out great~make that mine and my sister's first attempt. She was my sous chef today! And I can honestly say it did turn out great because although I've never even had it before, my dad has eaten it lots and he said it was great:) It's actually more of a pudding though with a mild, sweet taste and a yummy meringue topping. If you'd like to try something new or are looking for an authentic Latin dessert, this is just what you need to make. Here's a link to the recipe that I used .

As I sit down to type this, I am in the midst of preparation for a belated Fathers Day celebration for my dad. He has been out of the country for a couple of weeks, so I am looking forward to having my parents and sister over today for lunch~then we're all going to see Toy Story 3 together. My kiddos can hardly stand the wait since they knew the movie came out on the 18th, but they've been waiting for Papi to return to go with them:) For our lunch I'm making Tres Leches Cake for the first time. It's my dad's favorite cake, but he usually only gets it when he's in Mexico. I thought it would be fun to try making. I'm also whipping up a fresh Blueberry Pie with those berries we recently picked. I'll serve it with some of the Homemade Ice Cream from last week that I've been saving in the freezer~yum! I promise we're not just having desserts though... Also Vince's brother is coming to visit this week. He lives in the Los Angele...

Can you see that beautiful double rainbow? That was so nice to come home tonight! Rainbows never fail to make me think of God's promise~and how faithful He is! And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatu res of every kind on the earth." So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth." Genesis 9: 12-17

Here it is nearly the end of June~how is it that I've just gotten my garden started, you say? I keep asking myself that same question. Then I remember...I was traveling too much in April and May to have a chance, and there was also that pesky reminder in the back of my mind that our lease was up at the end of May and we may be moving soon . So see, I really wasn't just being lazy. In case you were wondering... But I decided to take a leap of faith and plant a garden anyway. And then I remembered that I'd really let my little raised bed go since last summer's garden . The only thing I'd thought to do was to release our *pet* earthworms into the dirt at the end of our *worms* coop class this past Spring. The weeds had taken up permanent residence. So first I had to clear out the bed. I tried to convince The Princess that using her new set of gardening tools would be great fun as she helped me dig up and pull out weeds. A hour, a sunburn and what felt like bu...

A few months ago, I saw a similar creation at a local meal-preparation business . I wasn't the one preparing this particular meal, so I really didn't know any of the seasonings, etc., just the basic concept. But I thought it sounded great! So a couple of weeks ago, I experimented with making it. It turned out pretty well, but the seasonings needed tweaking. I decided to go with the same seasonings that I use for our favorite grilled burgers . So yesterday I tried it again and it was a HOME RUN! This one is definitely going in our *favorites* file! Cheeseburger Meatloaf 1-1/2 lbs. ground beef 2 Tbls . flour 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. onion powder 1 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. pepper 3/4 cup plain dry bread crumbs 1 egg 1/4 cup milk *** Ketchup Mustard Pickle Relish (sweet or dill) Sliced Cheese BBQ Sauce ***** Combine the ground beef in a large bowl with the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, egg and milk. Mix very well. Then, after covering the...

This past week I heard that the blueberries were ripe at our favorite local farm. If you live in the Western Arkansas/Eastern Oklahoma area, you should really check it out! We always have so much fun there. And even though it is ridiculously hot here, we were having visions of blueberry muffins, blueberry pies, blueberry pancakes.... You get the idea. So we headed over to pick us some berries! The bushes are really big and they were loaded with berries: both ripe ones and some yet to ripen. The kids started out really excited, but the heat took over before long and soon they were hiding in the shade at the bottom of the bushes. So I just made them pick the ones down there:) Aren't they gorgeous?! They were a really good size and so yummy!! Yes, that is the face of someone sneaking blueberries:) We ended up with 2 buckets full, which made one flat, which made two full gallon-sized bags for the freezer. Yum! We've already been enjoying our favorite muffins . Next up, our...