Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: Strong Enough

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Through the years, our family has endured difficult seasons in which we were barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Illnesses, hardships, life changes, broken hearts, gut wrenching decisions, pain. Those were the times we curled up at the feet of Jesus and let His people serve and minister to us. We reached up and let our Savior comfort us as only He can. We sought His will, His healing, His strength. Alone, we weren’t strong enough.

Right now, our family is in a season of cheer. We are all healthy and doing well. The sun is shining, soccer is well under way, our school year is going great. I’m humbled by these blessings.

Life is good.

But we still aren’t strong enough.

We’re still not able to do all God has called us to do if we fail to let Him strengthen us and guide us. We’re only human. We’re weak. We’re frail. We’re not strong enough.

Whether the sun is shining in your life or whether the cloud cover has caused this season to be gray – God has promised to be strong enough for both of us. I find so much joy in knowing this. Because of Jesus, we can be strong!! Kinda makes you want to sit up straighter in your chair, doesn’t it?!

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

I love this song by Matthew West, Strong Enough, and pray that you are blessed by the words and by the knowledge that God is strong enough to hold all of us, no matter what!

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!
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The Joy of Boys

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The following is an article I wrote for our local paper a couple of years ago, but never actually posted here. I’m often asked if I regret not having daughters. Though my life is void of pink hair bows, sweet dresses, paper dolls and braids (all things I dreamed of enjoying with my little girls before God gave me this passel of boys), I can answer truthfully that I do not for a minute doubt that God knew exactly what he was doing when he continued to bless us with boys. My life is full of joy – The Joy of Boys…

The Joy of Boys

When our first baby was born a boy, I was very happy knowing that any other children we would have in the future would be under the protection of an older brother. When our second baby was born a boy, I was glad our oldest son now had a brother to play with. When our third baby was born a boy, I decided that God must have something special in mind for our family. THREE boys?

When I was pregnant with our fourth baby, you can just guess what everyone around me was saying. “Finally going to have a sister for all those boys?” or “I bet you’re sure hoping for a girl this time!”

When our fourth baby was born a boy, they laid him on my chest, and all my husband and I could do was laugh for joy that God had given us yet another son!

Boys are so sweet. Boys love their Mamas like crazy. Boys think their Daddys are the best. Boys….ah boys. Boys bring such joy.

The Joy of Boys

I love how boys play (now that I’m used to it!). Our house is usually noisy, rough and fast – there’s not a lot of tip-toeing or sitting down quietly to color pictures at the table.

Generally…I find that the male greeting (between my boys and all of their friends who come over to play) has little to do with words and a lot to do with grabbing onto and pulling one another down to the floor into an immediate wrestling match.

I’ve learned to look the other way, smile, and shake my head about so many things that I used to fear would turn into a trip to the Emergency Room. Boys play rough – they can’t help it. They make noise. It oozes out of their pores. Rolls of wrapping paper become swords or light sabers. Toast and grilled cheese sandwiches are chewed into the shape of little guns. Math books become drums. Little pink erasers become race cars.

Everything (everything) becomes a competition:  who can finish their milk first, who can put their jammies on the fastest, who can get from the kitchen to the living room without touching the floor.

It’s one big, loud, ball game at our house all day long – and I wouldn’t trade it for all tea parties in Boston.

I consider it a huge honor to be the mama of boys. Boys who we pray will grow up and be Godly leaders some day. Boys who we pray will be Godly husbands and daddys some day.

Oh, and some day, when my boys grow up and get married…I’ll have daughters. I’ll take them shopping and we’ll cook and do hair together.

Until then, I’ll just continue to feed mountains of mashed potatoes and huge stacks of pancakes to all these boys while they make all the noises with their armpits that they are so good at making and while they laugh at all the things boys can’t help but think are funny.

They are…boys.

Boys who have completely and totally won my heart.

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Last week’s busyness truly was a joy, even though it was very…busy.

Today starts this new week off with a bang as we had a nice little breakfast to honor our 6th graders at church before worship, plus we had a huge potluck to welcome all the York College students. I was asked to provide muffins for the 6th grade breakfast, so yesterday I made a double batch of both Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins and Blueberry Muffins. I made them into mini-muffins and filled two gallon buckets with the goodies.

I stopped long enough to take pictures of my buckets, because buckets full of mini-muffins – that’s just fun. :)

After not really having a menu plan last week, I was excited to put one together for this week. Here’s what we’ll be eating:

Sunday, August 21
Chocolate chocolate chip muffins, blueberry muffins, fruit
For potluck:  frosted brownies (this frosting, these brownies), chocolate chip cookies, sweet baked beans, baked turkey ham with pineapple, cream cheese corn
Leftovers

Monday, August 22
Simple soaked pancakes, blueberries
Homemade corndogs, carrot sticks with ranch, watermelon
Shepherds pie, tossed salad

Tuesday, August 23
Mini breakfast pizza, honeydew melon
Creamy mac and cheese, peas, sweet peppers
Grilled chicken, creamy cole slaw, angeled eggs, watermelon, coconut flour cheddar biscuits

Wednesday, August 24
Creamy orange cooler, toast
Alfredo sauce with pasta, steamed broccoli and carrots
Cheesy salsa enchiladas, tossed salad

Thursday, August 25
Coconut flour banana muffins, cherries
Corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, fried okra, milkshakes, peanut butter on celery
Chicken fried steak strips, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans

Friday, August 26
Scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, turkey bacon, cantaloupe
Black beans and rice with salsa, fruit salad
Hamburgers, ranch potato wedges, peas

Saturday, August 27
Mini apple pies, sliced cheese
Leftovers
BBQ meatballs, cream scalloped potatoes, tossed salad, zucchini

I wanted to let you know that while this upcoming week is less crazy than last week, I still haven’t found time to get much writing done. I have posts started in my head, but those are undoubtedly much harder for you to read. (Consider yourself blessed, however, not to be able to read the posts I write in my head.)  We’ll see what I’m actually able to type this week, but I’m kind of thinking about re-posting some older posts during the next few days, just for fun – and also so that I can maybe take the time to find my missing flip-flop and to finally put away the rest of my Azure Standard order from last Tuesday. We’ve been in survival mode here. :)  I’m also hoping to simply sit and read to my kids a little bit more this week. The Hobbit is calling our name.

ALSO, I’m working on some very fun surprises for the blog during the week of August 28, and that is taking a little extra time and work. Just you wait to see what next week holds!!!!!!!!!

And so, thank you for your patience here while I play catch-up and get my act together. You are all awesome!

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Does Organic Food Make a Difference? (a guest post)

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Welcome guest poster Carrie Vitt, author of the cookbook Deliciously Organic and publisher of popular food blog, Deliciously Organic. Carrie focuses on recipes using unprocessed, organic ingredients with vibrant flavors and simple dishes everyone will love. She is the wife of an Air Force Test Pilot and mother of two daughters.

If you had two girls under the age of two, and your husband, a fighter pilot, was flying cover during a war in Iraq – would you be thinking about converting your diet to organic, whole foods? I wasn’t. My life had enough stress without another distraction. But that’s what happened in 2003.

Two years earlier, after the birth of my second daughter, I began having daily migraines. I was 25. As migraines often are, they were both baffling and debilitating. I often had to lie down in a quiet dark room, which was almost impossible with toddlers to care for.

I was taking several medications to manage the pain. After two years of struggle, my neurologist suggested adding yet another daily medication to my prescription regimen, a treatment that wasn’t working anyway. I kindly rejected her suggestion and drove home thinking:  There must be another way.

That same day, a tiny newsletter article caught my eye. It was about the benefits of organic foods. I knew migraines could be related to diet, so I wondered if changing to organic foods might help. I was at the end of my rope and willing to try something different.

At the time, I was eating lots of vegetables to lose the last 10 pounds of baby weight. I replaced my lettuce with organic – my first step, since lettuce was a food I ate most. Within a week I noticed a significant difference. The frequency of my migraines decreased and it was now easier to take care of my kids. I didn’t need any more encouragement. I next switched all produce to organic with the intent of increasing the amount of pure and untreated food in my diet, while decreasing my pesticide intake. As I dug deeper and learned more, I continued making changes in my pantry and refrigerator.

Over the next year and a half, I converted my family’s diet to whole, unprocessed organic ingredients. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. I had a hard time finding recipes that were equivalent in flavor to what we were accustomed to. Nevertheless, I avoided such ingredients as white sugar, white flour and partially hydrogenated anything. Recipes using whole grains were especially challenging. We weren’t ready to leave the world of paninis, pasta and pizza. As my husband likes to say, “We ate some terrible pancakes during the transition.” This was disheartening because I had grown up with a great love for cooking that I inherited from the women in my family.

I decided that if we were going to eat organic dishes, they were going to taste every bit as delicious as the ones I used before.

Over time, I shared with my friends and family how I overcame my health problems. Many were earnestly interested in learning more or in making changes to their own diets. I continued to tell my story, share my recipes and give encouragement through my blog, Deliciously Organic and my recently published cookbook, Deliciously Organic.

Through organic, unprocessed food our family of four was able to overcome severe asthma, eczema, IBS and migraines. No drugs – just good, natural real food.

If organic, whole foods are something you’ve thought about, I encourage you to give it a try. I hope you’ll discover, as I have, that eating food direct from the source is not only perfectly doable and beneficial but perfectly delicious! And don’t be surprised when your friends and the whole family (including the kids) say, “I can’t believe this is organic. It’s delicious!”

 

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Gratituesday: So Far, So Good

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I always intend to take lots of pictures. I always think it will be fun to document the entire week with its mountains of food, grateful soccer girls, helpful boys, dirty dishes – the whole thing.

But year after year, as I’m feeding the YC ladies soccer team, the pictures never happen. Occasionally I have half a brain and snap a shot, but generally I’m too busy to remember to get out the camera.

So far, I’ve taken exactly one picture. (Brace yourself for the excitement.)  I made eight loaves of Honey Whole Wheat Bread and loaded them (sort of) into my cake container to transport to the church building where we’ve been serving the meals.

The meals have gone wonderfully so far and the YC ladies are so sweet and appreciative. It’s been great to grab hugs from returning students and to get acquainted with new students. I am so thankful that our family has this opportunity to serve the team this way and that Matt is able to help coach. We love being a part of York College (our Alma mater) and being a part of these girls’ lives!

 

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

 

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17 phone calls

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As of this month, I am now 38 years old and have been married to my beloved for 17 years. Speaking of my beloved (because it’s more fun to avoid talking about how old I am and to instead focus on my anniversary) – do you want to know what Matt did for me on our special day?

He was out of town all weekend at a soccer retreat with the college team he helps coach, making it impossible for us to be together on our anniversary. (Don’t worry, the story gets better.)  We’d decided to celebrate later and I happily supported his decision to go be with the team. His cell phone broke while he was gone (no really, the story gets better), so he was unable to call without borrowing a phone and going to a little extra trouble. He called in the morning to wish me a happy anniversary, and then later in the evening when he had a moment. And that’s when the fun started.

No sooner had he and I hung up from our conversation that the phone rang again. It was one of the soccer girls, Isabelle, calling to wish me a Happy 17th Anniversary. I hung up with Isabelle and the phone rang again. It was Katie, another soccer player, calling to wish me a Happy Anniversary. Then Jen called. Then Jordan. Then Anna, then Macy, then Hannah, then Morgan. And so it went for 17 phone calls.

Yes, my husband had arranged for 17 soccer gals to call and wish me a Happy 17th Anniversary. It was the sweetest thing ever. The girls kept saying things like, “Coach Copp has been talking about you all day.” and “Thanks for sharing your husband with us this weekend.” It totally made my night (and totally kept me from washing dishes because who can wash dishes when the phone rings 17 times in a row?).

And that is why I made him a peach cobbler when he got home with 17 peaches from our peach tree. (Okay, just kidding, I don’t really know how many peaches I used, but 17 peaches sounded more romantic.)

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The Busy Week (with a partial menu plan)

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The week has arrived. The YC soccer teams are in town, enduring three-a-day practices, and I have the privilege to help feed the ladies’ team! Last year I fed them six meals – this year I’m only needed for three – so it seems “much easier” this time! :)

Added into the mix this week is a Baby Shower I’m helping host on Thursday. Also, a dear friend from church went to be with Jesus last week after battling cancer. Therefore, I’m helping provide a meal for her family on Monday, plus helping with food for a congregational meal following her funeral on Tuesday. We feel very blessed to serve in this way and have been having fun cooking all weekend in preparation! Yes I’m a little tired, but no I’m not overdoing it. If you didn’t know this already – I love cooking. Put me in a kitchen with a bunch of ingredients and I’m a happy girl. Our boys have also been a tremendous help! (They’ve also had the good sense to scram and make haste to the trampoline during the harried moments when Mama is carrying a huge pot of sauce across the kitchen, while the oven timer is beeping and the pasta is boiling over, which has also been very helpful.)

My goal while feeding others (especially in large crowds) is to keep the meals as simple as possible, while at the same time providing very tasty dishes so that the recipients know they are loved by our family.

Friday, we bought half of Walmart then went home to brown hamburger meat, bake cookies and put together lasagnas. You should have seen my shopping cart – I was wishing I had my camera with me! I don’t think I could have fit one more item in without it all falling out over the cart.


We unloaded groceries onto the floor of the kitchen and then worked together to get them
organized and put away. This is about half of what I bought.
As you can see, I do compromise when I’m cooking for a large crowd,
making most of the food from scratch but buying a few boxes and cans too. ;)

Cookies, cookies and more cookies. The sugar over-floweth from my kitchen this weekend.

The following menu plan probably won’t offer you much in the way of suggestions for feeding your family this week, unless you personally have 43 children (in which case, I beg you to please let me come help you wash dishes sometime). But, I needed for myself a very thorough “feeding the masses” plan so that I’m able to knock this week out efficiently. I’ve typed out everything I’ll be making and serving for others, but I didn’t actually take the time this week to type out the remaining meals for our family. For meals that include just the six of us, we’ll likely be eating leftovers from the larger meals or scrambled eggs, pancakes, hamburgers and veggies from the garden.

Sunday, August 14

Meal for Soccer Team (50 people) – Tammy’s Chicken Pasta Salad (x7), Grapes, Angeled Eggs, Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (x4), Sugar Cookies (x2)

Monday, August 15

Lunchtime Meal for the P family (15 people) – Sloppy Joes (x3), Cheese Slices, Angeled Eggs, Sliced Watermelon, Carrot Sticks with Ranch Dressing, Frosted Brownies (these brownies, this frosting)

Dinnertime Meal for Soccer Team – Lasagna (x7), Tossed Salad, Green Beans, Honey Whole Wheat Bread (x4), Butterscotch Bars (x3)

Tuesday, August 16

Take to Funeral Meal – 4 dozen Chocolate Chip Cookies

Meal for Soccer Team – Beef Roast, Potatoes, Carrots, Gravy, Cream Cheese Corn, Homemade Dinner Rolls,  Apple Crisp with Homemade Ice Cream

Thursday, August 18

Take to Baby Shower – Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies, Coconut Flour Muffins, Lemons (for water), Diapers, Cards and Gifts

(Yes I know diapers and gifts are not part of a menu plan, but I don’t want to forget anything so they’re going on this list!)

All other typically accomplished tasks such as science lessons and laundry folding are pending this week. I’ve mentioned before that it is more important to us that our children learn to serve than for them to learn their states and capitals. They’ll still find some math and reading time this week I’m sure. And really, matching socks are over-rated, don’t you think?

I love making lasagnas assembly line style – so easy!!

My posts may be irregular this week as I haven’t been able to spend much time this weekend writing. I do have a guest post and some fun giveaways lined up, as well as a big sale in the Heavenly Homemakers Shop to tell you about!! Watch for news on that soon. :)

 

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Tattler Lids and Flying Knives

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If you recall, I was sent some reusable Tattler canning lids to review several weeks ago. I wrote the review based on positive feedback I’d heard from my friends about Tattler, but I’ve been waiting for my tomatoes to finally turn red so I could actually can something myself and use my new lids!! Finally, last weekend I was able to play with my new “toys”.

I’m very excited to share, in response to many of you asking about Tattler lids, “Do they really work?” YES! They really work!

Because I was so giddy with excitement over my first canning experience of this season, and because based on this happy jar sealing experience, Tattler and I are going to become extremely close friends, I got a little bit camera happy.

Here we have my Tattler lids sealed on tomato sauce jars with okra, peppers and cucumbers in the background:

Here we have an extreme close up of the Tattler lids sealed on the tomato sauce jars. I think their smiles look so nice in this one, if in fact Tattler lids can smile (and I think we would all agree that they can, indeed, smile):


Here they are again, sitting next to their box with my water glass to the right, and my bouquet of last week’s birthday flowers in the background:

And here is a picture of three of my boys painting last Tuesday. While I love my Tattler lids, I love my children more. Sometimes I’m guilty of snapping pictures of weird things like butter splattered on pineapple and taking umpteen pictures of canning jars at a variety of angles, and I fail to take pictures of my children painting dots with q-tips.


We have been studying Australia, and came across a special painting style the Aborigines use:  Warlpiri. We decided to try it. Unfortunately, all of our paint colors except red and yellow were dried out and crusty. Therefore, my kids got to paint Warlpiri art using only red, yellow and orange for color choices. All of our paintings looked kind of like an Australian sunset, but it sure was fun.

How does the picture of my boys relate to Tattler and canning tomato sauce? It doesn’t. Although, if you look real close at my pantry doors right behind Elias, you can see a plastic knife stuck through the door handles. I first noticed that Malachi had parked his “weapon of the day” between the pantry door handles while my arms were full of freshly canned tomato sauce jars, which made it impossible to open the doors with my foot, which had been my original plan. After setting all of the tomato jars back down, I may or may not have yanked the knife out with a grimace and flung it into the living room so that I could resume my task.

I bet you didn’t know that sometimes finding my boys’ toys in precarious places all over the house causes me to fling knives into the living room.

Although now that I see a picture of it here, I find the knife through the pantry door handles rather endearing.

Remind me of this cuteness tomorrow after I’ve just tripped over a lightsaber.

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Be Intentional

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~Appreciate Your Spouse~Buoyancy in Marriage~Consult Your Partner~
~Dream Together Part One ~Dream Together Part Two~Empower Your Spouse~
~Have Fun With Your Spouse~Give to One Another~Honor Each Other~

Be Intentional

A Conscious Choice – Matt’s Thoughts

Jim Collins wrote a business book called Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … And Others Don’t (HarperBusiness, 2001). Good to Great shows that greatness is not primarily a function of circumstance; but largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.

In a healthy marriage, both the husband and the wife are intentional about improving the health of their marriage.

If you wanted to get healthier physically by toning your muscles and improving your digestion, but continued to sit on the couch and eat junk, then your health will not improve. The same goes for your marriage relationship.

A plan must be made, action must be taken, accountability should be in place and a regular check-up/evaluation brings it full circle.

Following through with positive choices can help your marriage shift from good to great.

Meet George Jetson; Jane his wife. – Laura’s Thoughts

Our kids have a couple of Jetsons cartoon DVDs (remember this?!), which are always good for a chuckle. The head of the household, George Jetson, complains that while during a particularly “busy” day at work, he actually has to reach up to push his button an entire three times, if you can possibly imagine this exhausting type of assignment. His wife, Jane, is a homemaker. She punches the family’s dinner menu order into her dinner machine thingy, and tada – and out comes dinner. Clean up after dinner happens with the push of another button and when she needs to vacuum? Well there’s a button she can push for that too. Their lives are about as simple and easy as a life can be, with robots and machines doing all of their work. (And yet, good grief, they still complain about having to push so many buttons. Are people – or um, cartoon characters – never content? Yes, I suppose that’s another post for another day.)

I think most of us would prefer life to be as simple and easy as possible. We plan to grow up and meet the man/woman of our dreams. We get married with plans to live happily ever after – the end.

My question would be:  What part of your “plan to live happily ever after” actually contains a plan?

Like the Jetsons, we’d like to push the “happily ever after” button in life and sit back and let the happiness happen. But a healthy marriage – a marriage full of the joy God intended – doesn’t just happen. You must each be intentional about working to create and maintain a healthy marriage.

Stop sitting on the couch eating the junk food of an unhealthy marriage (selfishness, pride, bitterness, laziness). Stop trying to push the easy button in life, waiting for that happily ever after picture you have of a healthy marriage to just fall into your lap. Stop waiting for your spouse to step up to the plate while you continue to grow more and more discontent.

Your happily ever after begins when you become intentional about being what God calls you to be as a husband or a wife.

Ladies, we know you’re reading here more often than the guys. ;)  We’d love husbands to read this article as well. If you feel so inclined please send the link to your husbands, or if it’s easier, we’ve created a downloadable article for you to quickly print off and share. Healthy Marriage Tips  from A to Z – Be Intentional

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Do You Have Time to Home School?

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How do I find the time to home school my kids?

This is a question I’ve heard quite a bit recently from some who are considering home schooling – or from several who looked at our home school schedule for this year and felt overwhelmed.

Yikes, I sure didn’t mean to overwhelm anyone. Nor did I mean to make you picture me slaving away beside my children all day. I simply shared my schedule because many requested to see it, and because I personally needed to outline my day for the sake of my own organization.

What you need to know is that while we try to hold to this “ideal routine”, there is lots of wiggle room in there. I schedule in thirty minutes each day to read History/Geography to my two middle boys, but sometimes it only takes ten minutes of my time before they take off on their own to finish the lesson. Sprinkled all throughout our routine is plenty of dish washing, cooking, laundry folding and other household chores. I just school my kids around and during our daily life activities. And guess what? They are home to help me with these chores, which means I can actually accomplish more while we home school than if they were away at school!!! Mwoohaha – their laundry folding ability is the real reason I like having them home with me all day. (Not really.)  (Except that it really is nice.)

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I truly don’t believe that home schooling has created extra work in my life. Yes, it is work. Yes, I have to put forth the effort and spend dedicated time educating my children.

But I’ve been reading to and teaching my kids since they were newborns, and I didn’t consider that “home schooling”. I considered it parenting.

When our oldest son became a home schooled kindergartner, not much changed in our lives. We continued to read together and squeeze in all varieties of lessons and activities during the days, just like we had done before – working around nap times and meal times and play times and grocery store visits and all life activities.

I do have to schedule home schooling into my days, so that we can be more productive. But what I don’t have to schedule in? Getting my kids up and out the door with matching shoes and combed hair each morning by 8:00 (or earlier). Driving my kids to and from school. Preparing and packing lunches. Figuring out how to be a room mom (especially back when I had napping babies at home). And homework. When I hear my friends talk about how much time they spend helping their kids with homework at the end of each school day, I often think, “Wow – we spend the same amount of time (or less) on our entire school day.”

Because we’re so flexible and laid back about our home school routine – I actually consider my life to be quite “cushy” and easy compared to moms who have to get up at the crack of dawn to get their kids off to school, and stay up late with them finishing the reports and projects have to be turned in. I personally consider my home schooling life to be easier than the alternative, simply because I get to run the day the way I want to run the day.

So yes. I have time to home school, and it’s not because I have more hours in my day or more patience with my kids or more energy than any other mom. I am simply doing what I’ve always done with my kids – except for instead of reading books about shapes and gingerbread men and the little engine that could, we’re now reading about the constitution and the way a marsupial feeds its young.

I love it.

P.S. Did you know that you could fit twenty baby opossums onto a teaspoon? That’s how tiny they are when they are born before they crawl into their mama’s pouch to continue their development. We read about that just today. See how smart I’m getting to be?

This post was written in an effort to dispel some of the many misconceptions or fears people might have about taking on the task of home schooling. As with all my home school posts, my intention is to simply share my thoughts and offer encouragement – not to convince everyone that home schooling is the best and only way to educate your kids. You do what you do, and I’ll do what I’ll do and we’ll all do it to the glory of God!

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