Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Homemade Vanilla for Christmas

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vanilla

In case you were wondering (and I’m just absolutely sure that you were), there are only 164 days left until Christmas.

In the midst of gardening and other summertime activities, Christmas isn’t on my mind very much right now. However, Homemade Vanilla Extract is a wonderful Christmas gift. It takes 4-6 months for your vanilla to be ready to bottle and give away. So, if you’re wanting to get on this project in time to be able to wrap bottles of homemade vanilla and put them under the tree this December – now is the time to get it going!

I love that making homemade vanilla saves money, and is so pure and good to use. It helps that it is completely delicious!

Here are complete instructions for how to make homemade vanilla extract. Trust me, it’s easy and super fun to do! Also, be sure to take advantage of the 10% discount on vanilla beans, offered by my very favorite vanilla bean source, Olive Nation. They are super high quality beans for an excellent price! (Use the code hhm2012 to receive 10% off.) And take a look at these pretty labels that my friend designed! They are customizable, and come in a variety of designs. So fun!

Merry Christmas everyone! (Ugh, it’s too hot and humid to pull that statement off with a straight face.)

Stay cool! (There, that’s better.)

 

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What to Do About Crystallized Honey

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When I shared that I buy a year’s supply of honey at one time, many of you wondered if it crystallized and if so, what I did to solve that. Yes, my honey does crystallize, but it’s very easy to fix that issue.

By the way, have you ever read the words “do not microwave” on the side of your Honey Bear? That really means, “DO NOT MICROWAVE”. Many a Honey Bear has quickly become a sticky, melted mess within just a few seconds of being in the microwave. In fact, I believe you’d even be able to hear your Honey Bear moan, “I’m mellllttttiiiiiinnnggg….” as he turns into a plastic honey pool. Bless his little heart.

So, don’t microwave your honey to solve your crystallized honey issues. (I don’t recommend using a microwave for anything actually, but that’s another post for another day.)

Instead, I put my container of crystallized honey into with a few inches of water and heat it on the stove. If your honey is raw and you’d like to keep it that way, you want to heat the water very slowly and at low heat. It will eventually dissolve the honey.

The following picture is a little bit blurry – that would be because my Honey Bear is in a steamy sauna, and the steam fogged up my camera lens.

If you have a larger jug of honey, simply use a larger pot of water. Then, I find it helpful to pour the runny honey into smaller containers, preferably jars – go figure! :)

A little post update – myhnymybb makes a great point in her comment about not heating anything in plastic. I totally know that – and yet I did it anyway, then took a picture of it. Perhaps this is one of those “Duh Moments” I was talking about. I don’t want plastic leaching chemicals into my honey, which is why I usually store and heat my honey in glass jars. I just so happened to have a honey bear with crystallized honey, so I grabbed it and took a picture for this post. But yeah, plastic isn’t great, especially when it’s heated. So don’t follow my example. Put your honey into glass if possible.

But I still say don’t use a microwave to melt down the honey, no matter if it’s in glass or in a honey bear.

“I’m mellllttttiiiiiinnnggg….”

 

How do you store your honey? Do you buy bulk amounts of honey? Have you ever melted a Honey Bear in the microwave?

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Free Preschool Activity Ebook

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Two years ago, we put together 101 Pre-School Projects ebook. All of the ideas in the book were contributed by Heavenly Homemakers readers – smart and creative people that you are. The book is loaded with over 100 fun and inexpensive ideas to use with your young children.

There are loads of summertime activities in the book. It occurred to me today that many of you might not be aware that we have this FREE resource in our Heavenly Homemakers Shop. I decided I’d better remedy that and tell you about it! 101 Pre-School Projects is free, on the house, complimentary…and it also doesn’t cost anything. Go download your free ebook and learn all kinds of fun activities to do with your kids!

101 Preschool Projects Free Download

Grab this FREE 101 Pre-School Projects book here!

I’m excited to share that signing up for these freebies will connect you to our new Heavenly Homemaker’s Learning Zone. It’s free, of course. You can unsubscribe at any time, your info will never be shared or sold, and being on this list means that you’ll be the first to know of the other fun (yes, FUN!) educational tools we’re putting together!

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Gratituesday: Oh, Hello Summer

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I’m so close to the finish line I can taste it.

The new book I’m writing…well, it turned into two books because two seemed better than one with what I was purposing for this project. I’ve been working on them for months and since May I’ve been doing little else but writing, taking pictures, inserting pictures, formatting, editing, writing some more. Occasionally, I also did my fair share of whining and feeling defeated. In the middle of this exciting but very labor intensive project, I had to pray often and remember to put all of this into perspective.

(Here’s a sneak peek at the covers of each book. I can’t decide if I’m done with those yet or not.)

Overall, I’ve loved writing these books. Because I’ve adored cooking since I was a little girl, writing Teaching Your Kids to Cook (written for parents of kids ages 2-12) and Learn to Cook (written for students ages 8 and up) has been my most enjoyable writing experience. All throughout, I’ve felt that if I was a child again and someone gave me these books, I’d melt into a puddle of happiness. Yes, I’ve gone from giddy to exhausted…from exuberant to cross-eyed and back to giddy again – all within a thirty minute time period of writing. Bless my family for putting up with me.

Now, I’m on the home stretch. I’m down to the nitty-gritty details of perfecting and tweaking and perfecting some more. The books are almost ready to turn over to Matt and others for the final editing process.

In the meantime, I’m giving myself permission to unglue from the computer screen a little more often. Yes indeed, I feel like I can finally say hello to a bit of a summer break. Instead of just sending my kids out to run in the sprinkler, I’m watching them shriek and play. Instead of waving to my kids as they run outside to jump on the trampoline, I’ve joined them a few times. Instead of only asking Matt how the garden is doing, I’ve dug into the dirt beside him.

Check out these baby birds in a nest on our porch, waiting for their mama to feed them breakfast…

Ahhhhh…it’s summertime. I’ve enjoyed it, but now I’m really enjoying it. I think I appreciate it even more than I ordinarily do, simply because I’m so giddy with excitement that my project is almost complete. (I’ll share more details as soon as I can.)

Bring on the sunshine and popsicles! :)

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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How We Afford Buying in Bulk

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I’m working through a series on buying whole foods in bulk!
If you haven’t read them yet, you may be interested in :
Why I Buy in Bulk, Buying in Bulk:  Do You Have the Space? and
Buying in Bulk:  A Year’s Supply. And now:  How To Afford Buying in Bulk:

Guess what? Last Thursday was Maple Syrup Day! We now have five gallons of maple syrup to last us the year:

The total price tag wasn’t small, and yet, we got an excellent price per ounce on high quality maple syrup for our family. This means that even though we had to pay quite a bit upfront, we just saved quite a bit of money!

I’m sure many of you are wondering how we afford to purchase our year’s supply of maple syrup all at once, or three months worth of meat at one time, etc. Hopefully you took the time to read the following posts:  How I Grocery Shop and Our 2011 Grocery Budget which will answer some of your questions.

But overall, I would say that we can’t afford NOT to buy in bulk. We are a family of six big eaters, plus we feed a lot of extra people each month. Buying large quantities of many different foods saves us hundreds (maybe thousands?) of dollars each year. I can pay $1.60 for a small 21 ounce bag of organic rolled oats – or I can pay almost half that amount per ounce and buy 50 pounds of organic rolled oats for $35.55. It may feel like I’m spending less if I only pay $1.60 for a bag of oats, but since I’d have to buy so many bags of it, overall, I’d actually be spending more.

If it’s food that will keep well without spoiling and I know it’s food that we’ll eat – buying in bulk is usually the better option for our family.

And now, a little bit more about our budget and how bulk purchasing is possible for us:

We have $550 in our monthly grocery budget, which equals $6600 for the year. Some months I only spend $200, some months I spend $800. It all balances out. I don’t need a bulk quantity of every single food, every single month. Some months I buy a huge amount of wheat and a few months worth of organic brown rice. Some months I buy a case of butter and order several big bags of organic nuts. Some months I hardly buy anything at all, except for milk, eggs and produce. And by the end of the year, all the purchases have averaged out to $550/month.

If you’re just getting started with bulk purchasing, it may feel like your budget is taking a big hit. Here are some suggestions for buying in bulk while staying within your budget:

  • Try to hold back part of your grocery budget from one month in order to apply it to bulk purchasing the following month. For instance, if your grocery budget is $300/month, eat a few less expensive meals this month. Anything under $300 that you spend can be applied toward bulk purchasing next month.
  • If there are other areas of your overall family budget that you can cut back on or skip for a while so that you can save up, be intentional about saving that money for bulk purchases. Can you eat out less? Skip the movie? Pass by the coffee shop? Avoid paying the electric bill? Just kidding. Please pay your electric bill. ;)
  • Begin with very basic staple foods that you know your family will eat. I recommend starting with foods such as oats, rice, wheat or flour, sucanat, honey – any foods that you know won’t go to waste if bought in a large quantity and kept in storage for 3-12 months.
  • Don’t buy everything at once. Maybe pick just one or two items each month to get started. If you buy rice in bulk this month, you’ll be able to check that off your grocery list for the next few months, freeing up a little bit of your budget for other bulk purchases.
  • Buy in bulk according to your family’s needs. I tend to buy 50 pound bags of food because we go through a lot of groceries at our house. Ten pound or 25 pound bags may be better for your family.
  • If you find a good deal and buy a bulk quantity of an item, ration it if necessary. It won’t save much money when you find a great deal and stock up on chocolate chips, if your family begins to eat way more chocolate chips than normal. Not that this is easy when there are bulk amounts of chocolate chips in the house. Why did I have to use chocolate as an example? I should have brought up baking powder or salt or something less tempting. Yes, don’t overindulge in baking powder. There, that’s better. :)

Next time, I’ll talk more about what food items work well for bulk purchasing, what keeps well in the pantry and what freezes well.

How do you budget for bulk purchases?

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Menu Plan for the Week + Our Garden Update

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With so many parts of the world experiencing either lack of rain or flooding, we feel very blessed to be in an area where, at this point, we seem to be just right. Our gardens (and weeds) are growing just fine. I thought you might enjoy seeing some updated pictures. The last time I posted any pictures, we only had a tiny bit of lettuce and nothing else. We still haven’t been eating much that we’ve grown, but we’re getting close!

Here are our bush beans…full of little purple flowers!! By the end of the week, we should be picking and eating!!! fresh green beans. I can’t wait!

Here is our raised garden bed of pepper plants. Matt’s actually picked a few hot peppers last week. I’ll be letting him deal with the hot peppers this year. I’m a little bit nervous – go figure. :)


We planted a few okra plants just for fun and are excited to see them doing so well. They like the hot sun, and finally, they are getting their fair share of it.

Corn! Isn’t it all so pretty?


We obviously have more than one tomato plant (so that we can make and can our own tomato sauce and tomato soup and salsa for the year), but I just did a close up picture of one plant to show you the little yellow flowers that will soon be making juicy tomatoes for my tacos!

If you have a garden, please share how it’s doing! I always enjoy hearing about the differences of what grows at what rate in different parts of the world. What are you eating out of your gardens??

Here’s our menu plan this week:

Sunday, July 10
Oatmeal, fruit
Creamy mac and cheese, peas, cantaloupe
Popcorn chicken, potato wedges, green beans

Monday, July 11
Homemade donuts, applesauce
Grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, carrots sticks and sweet peppers
Cheddar ranch burgers, creamy cole slaw, watermelon

Tuesday, July 12
Cinnamon swirl bread, cantaloupe
Turkey ranch pinwheels, smoothies
Pizza casserole, tossed salad, zucchini

Wednesday, July 13
Coconut flour muffins, plums
Cheesy beef and rice, green beans, steamed carrots
Pizza, strawberry-peach slushies, raw veggies with ranch dip

Thursday, July 14
Whole wheat waffles, blueberries
Sweet bean bake, watermelon
Grilled chicken, corn on the cob, tossed salad

Friday, July 15
Peanut butter honey toast, pears
Taco potatoes, peaches
Chicken fajitas with homemade tortillas

Saturday, July 16
Scrambled egg sandwiches, nectarines
Leftovers
Tuna salad on crackers, fresh pineapple

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Dream Together (Part Two)

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~Appreciate Your Spouse~
~Buoyancy in Marriage~
~Consult Your Partner~

Dream Together

When you are already connected as a couple, already working hard together toward common goals, already on the same page in the important areas of life – and then you ask yourselves, “How can God best use us as a couple for His glory and purposes?” – something pretty amazing begins to happen. Read the rest of Dream Together (Part One) here

God’s Marriage Math – Matt’s Thoughts

Dreaming together is part of a healthy marriage for at least three reasons. First, dreaming together implies that you anticipate a hopeful future. That alone infuses your relationship. The power of positive thinking is extraordinary and energizing?. It is exciting to think about what can be accomplished together. It doesn’t end with just a dream though. Act on it. Make goals and have a plan to fulfill the goals. As you make progress, celebrate with each other and keep the momentum rolling.

Second, dreaming together demonstrates how two become one in marriage. The concept of two becoming one, as stated in Genesis 2:24 and quoted by Jesus and the Apostle Paul, incorporates more than a physical union. You are uniting numerous facets including your ambitions. Instead of two people going in different directions only pursuing their own goals, a merging occurs. Your combined abilities, experience, and passions create an incredible God blessed synergy. The two of you, empowered by God, produce more than the sum of your work individually. God’s math equations look like this:

Two become One 1 + 1 = 1
Synergy 1 + 1 > 2

Third, dreaming and praying together about those dreams unleashes God’s promise in Ephesians 3:20-21 which  reads, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” In our dreaming phase we are imagining great works being accomplished for the Lord. Then the Lord takes it and multiplies it beyond what we can even imagine. We bring a sack lunch to Jesus – like the boy who brought some bread and fish (John 6:1-15) – and He multiplies it into a feast for all…with leftovers. So dream big!

Sack Lunch – Laura’s Thoughts

Because food is “my thing”, I love what Matt said about bringing a sack lunch to Jesus and watching him multiply it. As a couple, we can and should dream big. We can fill our lunch bag with some pretty exciting foods, including juicy fresh fruit and rich desserts – but Jesus is the one that actually makes our offerings become something wonderful. That’s what he does with our dreams.

Or sometimes, He might exchange our sack lunch offering with a different one – one that we’d never thought of and one that is much better for us as a couple and as a family. This can sometimes be painful, but as we see God’s great plans for us unfold and recognize that these plans were born out of our kingdom focused dreams, we see that God’s plans for us are truly more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Start dreaming. God is huge!

How have you dreamed together and then saw how God made it more than you could imagine?

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 Ato Z – Dream Together

 

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Dream Together (Part One)

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Dream Together

From Good to Great – Matt’s Thoughts

From day one of our marriage Laura and I have had a good marriage. Most importantly, Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Thus, we have similar values which has meant very little conflict in important areas of life. We try to live by the Golden Rule of treating each other as we would want to be treated. Better yet, we are friends, not just roommates. We had a good marriage.

But, in our opinion, a good marriage is not enough. We want to have a great marriage. Not for ourselves, but for God’s Kingdom. We believe great marriages honor the Lord. We see Him using couples to accomplish His purposes and we want in on that. Yes, He can and does use anyone in any kind of relationship, but a great marriage is what we are pursuing.

About a year ago I got into an evaluation phase. I put in writing the priorities that were in my head and heart. Then I took a serious look at how I was spending my time. What was on the paper did not fully match up with my real life. The next day I asked Laura to do the same activity. After we reflected on our lives and considered what changes we needed to make, we were then on the launching pad for a great marriage. We would not be satisfied with cruise control in our marriage. We were ready to lift off.  We began to dream together by asking, “How can God best use us as a couple for His glory and purposes?”

 

Good is Good, but Great is Better – Laura’s Thoughts

Matt and I are both a little bit “visionary” in the way we think – always coming up with ideas and trying to be creative. Who am I kidding when I say “little bit”? Matt is very visionary, a quality I admire and appreciate (most of the time). :)

Because we’ve always been a couple who “looks into the future” and talks together about our goals and dreams, it’s been interesting to recognize how recently we’ve watched our marriage go from good to great. Having a good marriage has been very, very good. Thank you God for a good marriage!

So how did God make it great?

I believe it has a lot to do with the evaluating we’ve done recently. When you are already connected as a couple, already working hard together toward common goals, already on the same page in the important areas of life – and then you ask yourselves, “How can God best use us as a couple for His glory and purposes?” – something pretty amazing begins to happen.

To Be Continued – Come back tonight for Part Two of “Dream Together”!

Assignment: Brainstorm and discuss how God can use you and your spouse’s abilities, passions, and experience to serve together.

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“Duh” Moments

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My days are full of “duh” moments. Is it just me? It seems like the older I get, the older my kids get, the more I have on my to-do list…the more “duh” moments I have.

I say “duh” to myself frequently. Like when I walk all the way to our storage room to retrieve something, but by the time I get there, I have absolutely no idea what I had intended to get. Duh. Or when I stir the wrong ingredient into the wrong bowl because I’m trying to make too many recipes at the same time. Duh. Or how about the time I stuck a wooden spoon into a running food processor. We had splinter-filled cookie dough with that smart move.  Duh.

Just last week, I had a very busy day and just so happened to be wearing a cute but long sun-dress that went all the way past my ankles. This information about my apparel is only relevant if you consider that after going out to check on my husband who was busy painting the outside of our house, I tripped on my long sundress while going up my porch-steps. (duh)  Thankfully, my shins didn’t suffer too much for this move, and I’m almost certain none of the neighbors were outside to see my gracefulness.

But that’s not really why I told you about the sun-dress. You just needed to know about how I tripped over the sundress so that you could understand my next and very silly “duh” moment.

You see, a couple of hours after my graceful sundress-tripping-up-the-porch-steps incident, I had to make a stop at the post office. There are a good 10-12 cement steps in front of the post office. Because I’m never (sometimes) one to make the same mistake twice, I was very careful to hold up the bottom of my dress as I decended the post office steps after mailing my package. I was able to avoiding a foot-tangled-up-in-sundress-in-front-of-post-office mishap and managed to make it down the cement steps with both feet on the ground and all was well.

I was focused on rejoicing in my success – so focused that I went to the nearest silver mini-van in front of the post office, opened the door and hopped right in. Aaaa!! (Yes, I believe that was exactly how I said it.)

Wrong mini-van.

Duh.

(It was way too clean to be my mini-van – that should have been my first clue.)

Three parking spaces down was MY silver mini-van, which I am quite sure I made it to in record time (after looking both ways twice to see who had witnessed my “duh” moment.)

The minute I got home, my husband, from his perch on the ladder while painting, said, “We just got a phone call. Malachi was supposed to be at a birthday party 15 mintues ago.”

Oh duh.

Yep, the “duh” moments just never stop around here.

Have any “duh” moments you’d like to share?

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What to Do with Coconut Oil

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I’m always sharing good deals on coconut oil, telling you how nutritious coconut oil is, encouraging you to try coconut oil.

Many have asked what I suggest that you do with your coconut oil once you buy it. Here are a few of my favorite ways to use coconut oil:

~Apply Coconut Oil to your Skin – Sometimes I rub it on my face or hands if I have dry patches. It is especially soothing and healing after a sunburn. If ever we accidentally stay in the sun too long, we slather our skin with coconut oil. It’s incredibly soothing, plus helps keep us from peeling.

~Use Coconut Oil to Make Popcorn – This is probably our favorite use for coconut oil. Sometimes we pop our corn on the stove using melted coconut oil in a pot with the popcorn. But, since we have an Air-Popper, we usually use that. The boys pop the corn in the Air Popper, then we pour melted coconut oil and sea salt over the bowl. SO yummy.

~Make Granola Bars – Coconut oil is fantastic in these Chewy Granola Bars. Because it is a solid oil, once it is stirred into these granola bars and they are allowed to cool, the coconut oil keeps the bars from being too soft and squishy. Plus, the coconut oil gives them a delicious flavor!

~Stir Coconut Oil into Muffins – For just about all of my muffin recipes now, I use coconut oil instead of butter. It works wonderfully and the flavor of the muffins is fantastic.

chocolatechocolatechipmuffinssm

~Subtitute Coconut Oil for Butter when Baking Dairy Free – When we’ve needed to bake for someone who has to eat a dairy free diet, coconut oil is our fat of choice. It almost always substitutes for butter when baking. (Check out these Dairy Free Gluten Free Muffins that use coconut oil!)

~Bake Cakes with Coconut Oil – Coconut Oil is great used in just about any cake recipe.

~Fry Foods – Coconut Oil is a very stable oil, which means that it can be heated to very high temperatures and not become rancid or bad for you. This means that you can fry foods in coconut oil and still be healthy!!! I prefer to fry foods in Expeller Pressed Coconut Oil instead of Virgin Coconut Oil, as the expeller pressed coconut oil is flavorless. I love the coconut flavor Virgin Coconut Oil provides in muffins and granola bars, but I don’t really like my Chicken Fried Steak Strips to taste like coconut. Therefore, I use Expeller Pressed coconut oil for frying.

To learn more about where to buy coconut oil, how healthy coconut oil is, the flavors and qualities of coconut oil…read this post:  Coconut Oil:  Why it is Good for You and Where to Buy it.

Please share your favorite ways to use coconut oil!

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