As the week draws to a close, I wanted to recap and play catch-up. I’m anxious to share what YOU are doing during this first Health Challenge Week!

First, I didn’t draw and post giveaway winners on Wednesday like I said I would. Here you go!

The winners are:

1) Margaret: Mommyischief
2) Melissa: mjeaustin@
3) Tina: teenyfrye@
4) Harriet Glassco: angelhg278@
5) Lisa W: waltonlisa12@

Ladies, please email me with your full name and address and I’ll forward your information on for your prize!

Don’t forget, you can get 60%  ECALOO Stainless Steel Super Fine Mesh Strainers when you use the code KDAYWV4U through September 15, 2016.

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I’m thrilled that so many are joining me for the April Health Challenge! We’ve been chatting this week and I’ve been so encouraged to hear the variety of healthy choices all of you are making.

Take note! No one is trying to change everything at the same time. Each person is simply choosing something to focus on to do better. Isn’t that a breath of fresh air? You can do this!!

When I sent a message to all the Health Challenge Members, asking “What is one thing you’ve done for your health during the past 24 hours?” here are some of the responses I got:

• Ate a variety of fruits and vegetables at meals throughout the day.
• Rebounding on my cellerciser!!!!
• I walked on the treadmill (rainy day!) for 30 minutes.
• Took a nice, long (hour +) walk with 3 good friends. So we got exercise plus fellowship time :)
• I made time in my day to go for a run.
• Drinking more water!
• I made some meals for the freezer (from your Eat Right Away books ;-) ). No need for last minute Sonic stops after co-op. Yay!!
• No sugar today!
• I’m riding my bike with my almost 7 year old every day we can. She is good at reminding me.
• I got 7 hours of sleep!

The responses keep coming in and they are so encouraging! Everyone keep it up!

Want to join us? Sign up for the April Health Challenge here and get started. Being healthy is more fun when we’re working at it together.

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I’ve been resting all week (partly because I planned it and partly because I came down with a cold and didn’t have a choice). My main health focus this month is to rest and recover from a very busy winter. I aim to stay home as much as possible because my health very much depends on it.

We’re enjoying some amazing food this week – simply because real food tastes so incredibly good. Elias (age 14) has become an expert Strawberry Cheesecake Parfait maker. We’ve enjoyed Scrambled Cheesy Eggs with fresh fruit. We made Homemade Stir-and-Pour Bread this week. Cantaloupe is especially sweet right now. Homemade Guacamole is the finest way to eat an avocado.

I just can’t say enough about the joy and health benefit of eating simple, real food. Don’t make it hard. Just buy real food. Eat real food. Enjoy real food.

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Last but not least, Paula at Lilla Rose wanted to be sure you knew about the April special! Get a FREE pair of Bobby Pins with any order over $50!

Here’s this month’s gorgeous Flexi-of-the-Month…

Thanks to all who have joined Health Challenge Week One!

Have a fantastic, health focused weekend!

This week was a huge grocery purchase week. We are now well-stocked on just about every staple, we have oodles of fruits and veggies, and if I want to, I can make my Real Food “Velveeta” and Rotel Dip every day for a month.

You want this recipe.

Who goes to Aldi and buys several cases of food? This girl. (And also this girl’s 14-year old son because he was in Lincoln with me for doctor appointments and was therefore stuck shopping with his mother. At least it was food-related shopping.)

I hardly ever get to go to Aldi. I price-match from their ad every week, but actually going to the Aldi store is rare for me since the nearest store is an hour away. Therefore, I get a little bit ridiculous when I do get to go. I bought two cases of their version of Rotel. It’s a must-have so I can make the above mentioned dip, as well as this amazing Spicy Mac and Cheese. I also bought a case of pasta sauce and a case of tomato sauce. It was a cart full of tomatoes.

You want this recipe too.

In addition, I bought several cans of beans, peaches, and some specialty coffees for my family as a treat. I bought grilled chicken and prepared soup for Asa’s dorm fridge. I grabbed sliced cheese, apples, grape tomatoes, raspberries, and blueberries. Oh, and that sparkling water? It was a great price so we bought a case of that too! The boys have had fun lately making this Sparkling Juice Drink, so we took advantage of the price. You’ll also see brown sugar in the picture. You can read more about that here.

I had just come off an enormously busy weekend, then made this trip to Lincoln – so had made plans to take Tuesday off to rest and refresh. Therefore…pizza. It’s a fun treat, we ate fruits and veggies with it, and I’ve determined that if you don’t read the ingredient list, it isn’t nearly as harmful to your health. (Don’t listen to a thing I say.) Resting on Tuesday was marvelous. The pizza was so-so.

Later in the week, I went to Walmart to do some price-matching because I can’t not stock up when there is a good price on food we love. I bought no less than 18 boxes of cream cheese. Dude. It price matched for $1.18 and I had nine coupons to get $1.00 off two. 68¢ for cream cheese? Yes. Times 18. We will easily use it all before it goes bad.

Pineapple Fluff Salad is a favorite cream cheese user-upper at our house.

It goes without saying that Stevia Sweetened Cream Cheese Frosting is amazing.

Enough about cream cheese. You want to see my 11-year old chef. He doubles as an FBI agent, thus the suit.

He and I ate up (kind of but not quite literally) the free Knife Skills for Kids course. Then we started working our way through Katie’s Kids Cook Real Food Course.

I will admit to you that when Katie from Kitchen Stewardship emailed telling me about her new eCourse, I got a little sad. Wait! thought I. I wanted to put together a kids’ cooking eCourse! But then I quickly turned around and realized, Dude! Katie did all the hard work! Your job here is done. Boom diggity, check that off the to-do list.

In short, it took about 7 seconds for me to go from sad to excited. I’ll move on to other projects on my list and do the simple work of saying, Look what Katie made! Her eCourse is more amazing than I could have, would have created. It’s thorough but basic, detailed but simple. It covers every age group and cooking skill level from beginner to intermediate to advanced. It includes 45 professionally created videos, 2 recipe eBooks, and 250+ pages of downloadable material, flash cards, and lesson plans.

So Malachi, who still fits in my lap (barely), has been joining me at the computer where we are working our way through the Kids Cook Real Food course. Inspired, we head to the kitchen to take selfies.

We’ve also gotten to work on Malachi’s kitchen skills. From start to finish, this kid turned out a double batch of his favorite Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins (while his hot stuff dad rinsed some dishes).

I fully intended to give a shout out for the Kids Cook Real Food course earlier last week, but cream cheese and rotel bulk purchases detained me. So you should know that today is the final day to sign up for the class. It’s rockin’. Work yourself out of a job while your kids take over your kitchen and find themselves prepared for cooking success in the future.

Saturday morning we headed out the door while it was still dark for basketball games out of town. I made Ham and Egg Breakfast Bowls to go with Malachi’s muffins. There were only four of us home at the time, so only making 9 Ham and Egg Bowls seemed really strange. The picture quality is terrible since the kitchen was fairly dark, but I highly recommend you checking out this easy breakfast idea.

We arrived home to our wonderful Bountiful Basket order which had been dropped off by a sweet friend. We are so set for this week!!

Would you believe, after all these grocery purchases, my brain actually had the audacity to think, “What do I need at the store?!?” when it started snowing heavily on Saturday night? I must be crazy. Relax, Brain. I’m pretty sure our family can eat for months with all the food we have on hand right now. Getting snowed in would not be a problem.

As it turns out, it snowed beautifully but we are not snowed in. It takes a lot to keep a Nebraskan from getting out and about after a big snow.

Here’s to a great week!

Do you get to shop at Aldi often (or ever)??

Not that paying full price is altogether bad, but who wants to pay full price when you can…not pay full price?? That’s why I’m talking about next Christmas already. Look at me! I’m worse than department stores. They put their Christmas stuff out before Halloween. Well, I win. I’m putting this out there before Valentine’s Day. Hurry, folks! Only 352 days until Christmas. There’s not a moment to lose!

Figured I’d get my Christmas cards out early too.

Here’s why I’m talking about Christmas at the beginning of January:

This is the time to buy wrapping paper for next to nothing and get ready for next year’s Operation Christmas Child. It all goes back to that why pay full price thing. And I’m totally kidding about getting my Christmas cards out early. I don’t even get Christmas cards out at all because I’m that on top of my to-do list.

What is Operation Christmas Child?

We finally did it! After hearing about Operation Christmas Child for several years, our family jumped on board this year to participate, thanks to a friend in our homeschool group who planned our Christmas party around this service opportunity.

Have you heard of it? Does your family take part in the joy of giving this way? Through Operation Christmas Child, children in impoverished countries are provided with a gift at Christmastime. These gifts are supplied by people like you and me. Typically it is the only gift these children receive, so of course the kids are overjoyed to receive their box. Best yet, Samaritan’s Purse places a little book (written in the child’s language) inside each box titled “The Greatest Gift” and they follow up with the kids too. These boxes are not just fun. They provide an outreach opportunity for the local churches!

Preparing For Next Year’s Operation Christmas Child

I’m not affiliated with OCC in any way. I just love the program and found this to be a great way to serve with our kids. I thought I’d put a bug in your ear about it just in case this is a way you and your family can serve, too. But first – a bug in your ear? What a terrible cliche. I wrote that without thinking. Matt got a bug in his ear once (a moth. thanks for asking.) and had to go to the ER to have it removed. There’s nothing cute or fun about that, so why do we say, “let me put a bug in your ear”?? In other words, let me do something disgusting and memorable, incredibly annoying and slightly painful so that you can’t move on with life until you do this thing.

So, Operation Christmas Child. It’s just a suggestion. Do with this what you will. I hate bugs.

I mostly wrote this post to say:

Start looking now for items to fill Operation Christmas Child boxes.

It is so much fun to fill the shoe-boxes! Just think of the joy a child has when they open their box containing bright toys and games! We paid full price for the contents of our boxes this past November because I didn’t plan ahead to participate. Now that I know the kinds of items that work well I’m looking for sales, walking the clearance aisles, and grabbing goodies I know will work. Come time to fill boxes again, I’ll just have to grab bags out of my closet. How fun!

Read here about the items that are best for filling shoe-boxes. Liquids are a no-go. I’ve already picked up small coloring books, toy cars, recorders, rings, stamps, and a little tea set. I’m watching for sales on socks and mittens. Come August, I’ll grab school supplies on sale. It’s just good to have this in the back of my mind when I come across a sale so I can pick up beneficial items at a good price.

Obviously, this idea works well for purchasing items to bless those in your own community, any time of the year. Consider the people you want to serve, and keep them in mind when you come across sales.

I want to hear if your family participates in Operation Christmas Child!

And don’t forget. Christmas will be here before you know it.

I’m always here to help.

Sometimes the let down after Christmas can be emotional. I don’t know why. Maybe because we’ve been working hard and loving hard and looking forward to all the excitement. Then there’s the day after. There’s a mess of torn wrapping paper and loose batteries on the floor under the coffee table. Sometimes it can leave us feeling a lot of feelings.

I just want to say, “Well done!” You love your family well! You put together a fantastic, memorable holiday for them! Now make yourself some Chocolate Whipped Cream, put it in your coffee or warm milk, then sit back and revel in the memories. Sip your warm drink and thank God for blessing of His salvation and for how He constantly rains down goodness on you.

Breathe in the joy, my friends. God’s goodness is full and free.

How do you make a red salad without adding Jello? You use strawberries.

How do you make a red salad taste delicious without adding extra sugar? You use pineapple.

How do you spend 10 minutes putting together a salad that is delicious and festive, but not have to actually do the work on Christmas day? You make this Strawberry Christmas Salad the day before Christmas and store it in the fridge until serving time!

I caution against buying fresh strawberries this time of year. Tis not the season for fresh strawberries, so they are expensive and flavorless. For this salad, I use frozen/thawed strawberries. Won’t those turn mushy once they thaw, you ask? Indeed. That’s exactly what we’re going for here. Mushy strawberries. (Thanks Laura. Merry Christmas to you, too.)

No really. We’re blending the frozen strawberries with some cream – so the mushiness makes no difference and is actually beneficial for making a smoother strawberry cream sauce for this salad.

Strawberry Christmas Salad

 

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Author: Laura

Ingredients

• 1 cup frozen strawberries, thawed
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 apples, any variety
• 1 can pineapple chunks or tidbits in 100% juice, drained

Instructions

1. Place thawed strawberries and heavy cream into a blender.
2. Whip until smooth. Set aside.
3. Wash apples and chop them into small pieces, putting them into a medium-sized bowl.
4. Drain pineapple (saving juice to drink later!) and stir pineapple into the apples. (Fresh chopped pineapple works great too.)
5. Pour strawberry cream mixture over the apples and pineapple.
6. Stir well. Serve right away or refrigerate until serving.
7. Make this ahead of time for convenience!

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We’ve been loving this salad as a tasty add-on to our meals. I think we’ll make this on Christmas Eve to eat with our Christmas breakfast.

Mmmm, fun Christmas-time food. I love this time of year!

While supplies last, we have some of our deeeelicious Homemade Vanilla Extract ready to send you! This is perfect for your holiday baking or to give as gifts.

We’ve bottled up several 2-ounce bottles which are great teacher gifts or stocking stuffers! Feel free to gift bigger bottles as gifts too, of course. And speaking of which…

We have a lot of 8-ounce bottles this time since that size is the most popular. Hopefully we have enough to go around, but don’t wait if you want it. We’ve sold out in as little as 4 hours in the past!

As always, we encourage you to save money by making your own Vanilla Extract. Get the instructions here. You can even get 15% off vanilla beans from Olive Nation through December 5 (use the code VAN15).

If you don’t want to make vanilla, or if yours isn’t finished “extracting” yet – grab some of ours to get you through! We just bottled it up on Wednesday and it smells heavenly!

The prices below include shipping costs, so the price you see is the final price you’ll pay. U.S. only please. :)

Keep in mind that this is super strong, completely pure vanilla extract. You can use half the amount called for in a recipe to make your bottle last twice as long! Double bang for your buck!

Heavenly Homemakers Pure Vanilla Extract

2-ounce bottle
$8.00

4-ounce bottle
$16.00

8-ounce bottle
$29.00