Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: Practicing Our Spanish With Gladis

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Our older boys have been learning Spanish with Rosetta Stone software for three, going on four years. It has been fantastic! Asa was really able to use what he’s learning when he went to Ecuador this summer. We love it when these great skills can be applied to real life.

Last week, Matt took advantage of a perfect teachable moment. We received a letter from Gladis, the little girl we sponsor from Honduras through One Child Matters. It is written first in Spanish with help from Gladis’ teacher. Then it is translated to English for us to enjoy.

I typically pull out the letter and start reading it to my family (in English, obviously). But Matt started reading it, one sentence at a time, in Spanish. The boys then got to have fun working together to translate it as he read. They did really well! It was a fun activity with our lunch, and hearing the phrases in Spanish made it seem as though we were getting to know Gladis more fully.

“The girl Gladis is very happy for your present, and is very happy for your prayers.”

gladis head shot

I find it amazing that I can feel so connected and love someone so dearly even though we’ve never met face to face. Praying for someone will certainly do that for you!

I’m very thankful for One Child Matters. Because of them, children’s needs are being met. Most importantly, these children are learning about Jesus and finding hope. While our family has the opportunity to bless this little girl, we are finding more and more that she is the one blessing us. I love how God works!

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday?

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Always Go to the Store When You’re Hungry

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shopping cart 2

Yep, it’s just like Grandma used to say:

  • Be sure to go outside with wet hair on a cold day.
  • If you can’t say something nice, be sure to say it really loudly. While sticking out your tongue.
  • Sit very close to the TV. It’s good for your eyes.
  • Always go to the store when you’re hungry.

Best advice ever, right? Good ol’ Grandma. How’d she get so smart?

Obviously, I’m a little mixed up on what I remember hearing from Grandma. Cold day…stick out tongue… I think what she actually said was that when I go outside on a cold day, I should always stick out my tongue to lick the fence post. Yes, that was it.

Before I get any more carried away, let’s set the record straight:  Don’t go outside on a cold day with wet hair or stick out your tongue (fence post or not). Never say unkind words or sit close to the TV. There, now you can’t sue me if your kid reads this and says, “That Heavenly Homemaker Lady said I should.”

But going to the store when you’re hungry? Now that’s a different story. Grandma never gave me advice about this, but I’ve heard it from plenty:  “Don’t go to the store when you’re hungry. You’ll come out with a cart full of junk food you don’t need.”

I beg to differ.  Just hear me out.

Always Go to the Store Hungry

Last week, I went to the store before dinner. I wasn’t “passing out hungry” because I do know my limits and realize that the grocery store manager would appreciate it if I don’t faint beside the display of plums. I had snacked, and I was just on the verge of “Mmm, food is starting to sound pretty good right about now.” You know that feeling?

That is when you should go to the store – to the produce section. For the love of Doritos and Dolly Madison, do not go to the cookie aisle, the bakery, the bread aisle, or the potato chip aisle when you’re hungry. But I dare you: Go to the produce section of the store when you’re hungry.

The pineapple, the asparagus, the cucumbers, the mixed greens, the apples, the pears, the fruit you’ve never heard of before much less tasted – it will all look fantastic to you! You will begin to crave it right then and there. You will imagine crisp slices of cucumber, dipped in fresh ranch dressing, and you will think that you might die if you don’t have some this very night. You will long for vegetables roasting in the oven. You will have to fight the urge to bite into a Honey Crisp apple right there on the spot, but for goodness sake, don’t do it because we all know Grandma told us we always have to pay for food before we eat it and that is the absolute truth.

Don’t cross your eyes. They might stay that way forever. But do go fill your cart with fruits and vegetables when you’re hungry. Buy them. Don’t complain about the price. They are cheaper than junk and our bodies crave nourishment- so don’t even get me started. Bring fruits and vegetables home by the bag full, then start crunching. Eat your fill. Enjoy the goodness.

Then wait 30 minutes before you go swimming. Grandma knows best.

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Menu Plan For the Week ~ With Caramel Popcorn

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Now here’s something I haven’t made for several months:

Caramel Popcorn With No Corn Syrup!

Caramel Popcorn isn’t something I think of to make for a treat in the summertime. Now that it’s fall, it seems perfect. I’m making a huge batch to serve the teens tonight who are coming for Bible study. Easy, inexpensive, filling, and fun!

Speaking of something I don’t think to make very often…I rarely think to make breakfast for lunch or dinner. Why not? I have no idea. It’s easy, it’s inexpensive (usually), and it doesn’t take much time. I decided that today for our Sunday Dinner, we would have pancakes and bacon. No one will complain, I guarantee you that. :)  Do you have breakfast for dinner very often?

Sunday, September 28
Raspberry oatmeal bars, apples
Quick mix pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, pears
High school huddle – Tator tot casserole, tossed salad, carrots with ranch, caramel popcorn

Monday, September 29
Cinnamon swirl bread, fried eggs, clementines
Bean and cheese burritos, pineapple mango smoothies, sweet peppers, olives
Lamb chops, cream scalloped potatoes, tossed salad, green beans

Tuesday, September 30
Pumpkin pancakes, applesauce
Hamburger patties, cheesy cauliflower cakes, steamed broccoli, raspberries
Alfredo sauce with pasta, Italian chicken, tossed salad, roasted asparagus

Wednesday, October 1
Bacon cheese muffins, cantaloupe
Popcorn chicken, ranch potato wedges, peas, carrot sticks
Homemade tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, green beans

Thursday, October 2
Scrambled cheesy eggs, strawberry smoothies
Spicy avocado dip with chips, sweet peppers, nectarine cream cups
Grilled barbeque chicken, honey glazed carrots, tossed salad, fried okra

Friday, October 3
Giant breakfast cookies, apples
Baked potatoes in the crock pot with ham, cheese, and broccoli; olives, cucumbers
Homemade pizza, tossed salad

Saturday, October 4
Crepes with blueberries and cream cheese filling
Leftovers
Lamburgers, homemade fries, carrot sticks, peas

Get free fall menu planners here and here. We’re working on designing new and different planners to use with different methods of menu planning. Watch for those later this week!

What’s on your menu this week?

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150 Jars of Applesauce With the Victorio – You Go Girl!

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Once you get a Victorio to use in making applesauce and tomato sauce, you’ll wonder what you ever did without it.

I got mine two years ago (after many of YOU recommended it to me!) and fell in love with it right away. It makes the process of “saucing” so much easier than anything else I’ve tried. I loaned my Victorio to my friend Jenny, who also fell in love with it right away. She ordered one of her own, and the rest is history. We are now both crazy for applesauce and tomato sauce making.

This fall, Jenny made it a goal to stock her pantry with 150 jars of applesauce. Yes, her family is serious about their applesauce consumption. Anytime either one of us heard of a good source for fruit, we were on it.

It was fun to hear her applesauce updates. I was super impressed when she hit 71 jars, and she just kept going. This week, she emailed me with this celebration picture, stating that they had done it! They had 150 jars of applesauce preserved for this winter!

Tsauce1

I asked if she minded me sharing the picture with you. I think this is super inspiring, plus, those are some of my very favorite people in that picture. And that applesauce all over their countertop? Well, who doesn’t want to stare at that, ooing and aahing for several minutes? It is SO PRETTY!!!

Another word about the Victorio:  Jenny’s little guy, who is barely 3 years old, loves helping make applesauce with the Victorio and is very capable, even at his young age, to turn the crank. See this is how easy it is to use a Victorio.

Tsauce2

Check out this next picture. Here’s what Jenny emailed about this one:

Did you catch the sibling with their hand in the shoot that spits out the skins and seeds? (bottom left corner)  They like to eat the skins–nothing goes to waste! And, I discovered that the Victorio was a little tougher for a lefty; he did fine switching to his right hand.

Tsauce3

If you want to make your own applesauce or tomato sauce, I really encourage you to look into a Victorio. The investment is soooo worth it and will save you money in the long run when you have homemade applesauce to feed your family!

Have you done much preserving this fall? I’d love to hear what you’ve stashed away in your freezers and pantry shelves!

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A Great Deal on Rice, Recipes Using Rice, and How to Cook Brown Rice

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You know why I love brown rice?

  • It is a real food
  • It is wholesome
  • It is affordable
  • It can help stretch a meal, saving lots of $$
  • It can be eaten plain as a side dish, or stirred into a casserole, or made into a pudding
  • It’s naturally gluten free – a perk for those who need to avoid gluten
  • It tastes good

So blah, blah, blah…rice. An entire post about rice. Life does not get much more exciting than this.

Unless there’s a sale on rice!!! Now this is turning into an exciting post! (Not really, Laura. We’re still talking about rice. Keep trying.)

I told you this was exciting!

{snore}

Well, while I’ve got you, I would like to share that cooking brown rice is very easy. Here’s a full tutorial if you’re new to brown rice.

How to Cook Brown Rice

Below you’ll find many of my family’s favorite recipes that include rice. Admit it.  This post is making you giddy. Talk of brown rice is as exciting as talking about vacation plans and chocolate cheesecake. Yes, it is exactly like that.

Our Favorite Rice Recipes

What are your favorite rice dishes? Chime in by leaving a comment. This conversation is clearly shaping up to be the most fun we’ve all had in the past three minutes.

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Banana Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting ~ Share Your Story

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Stories of how you are using the recipes you find here have been coming in rapidly, making my day every time I get one! Do you have a story to share? Take a picture or two, then email me with the details of how you use your favorite Heavenly Homemaker recipe. Share your story!

Share Your Heavenly Homemakers Recipe Story

Today’s story comes from a gal who loves cream cheese as much as I do. Check it out:

Laura,

We use your recipes A LOT! And LOVE them…especially the ones with cream cheese as an ingredient. :)  Recently I made your Banana Cake for my littlest girl’s first birthday. You can tell it went over well by the photo.

Thank you for sharing,
Charla

share your story 5
I declare this baby to be sweeter than the cake she’s eating.

You’ll find our Cream Cheese Frosting recipe on the same page as our Banana Cake recipe. :)

Now your turn!  Use our recipes, take a picture or three, send them to me along with your story. I love this!

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How the Story Ends

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Ephesians 210

I am the mother of a high school senior. Can you guess what the question of the year is from every family member, church friend, grocery store employee, neighbor, and person we just met five minutes ago?

“So Asa, what are you going to do next year?”

Mmmhmm. It’s a fair question. People are curious, and in fact, I appreciate that so many care enough to ask.

It would be nice if we had an answer. It would be great if there was plan in place. But right now, the answer is a solid, “I don’t know yet.”

Not only does he not know, I mean – he does not know. The options are pretty much without limit, which makes the decision both very exciting and occasionally very overwhelming. The months building up to this school year as I was figuring out his senior year curriculum just about did me in. What should we focus on? How much should we work to improve his ACT? How should we guide him? What will be best for him?

All are valid questions. But when I started losing sleep and noticing a shortage of oxygen at the very mention of Asa’s future, I recognized that I had taken this all upon myself and landed myself in a pool of worry. I hate it when I do that. I know better.

So I’m wrestling. I’m walking a brand new path and learning as I (let) go. I started to tell someone recently, “Hopefully, this time next year we’ll have a great story to tell about how God opened and closed doors to lead Asa to whatever he’s going to be doing.” Then I stopped myself. Hopefully? Hopefully?!!?  Have I not experienced God at work before? Do I not know the truth from Ephesians about God preparing works in advance for us? How about we switch the word “hopefully” with “definitely”? Definitely, this time next year we WILL have a great story to tell about how God opened and closed doors to lead Asa to whatever he’s going to be doing.

He will. God will do it. We will have a story. Our job is to trust.  And maybe to cry a little here and there.  Hey, he’s my firstborn. You want to try and tell me it’s easy to think of launching this fantastic kid out of the nest a year from now? (I know. 11 months from now. Hush.)

One particularly weepy day for me last week, God put a dear friend in my path whom I haven’t visited with in several months. I didn’t tell her I was wrestling with this. In fact, I didn’t use many words at all. I didn’t need to.  Just sharing the words “senior year” was enough for her to read my mind and heart. See, she’s done this before…four times. Her youngest graduated last year. She knows. She knows. God used her to bless me, encourage me, and to remind me of what I already know to be true:

God already has this figured out. He will make it happen.  Our job is to listen and walk with Him.

She told me about a fun card someone had given her last year when she was going through a difficult time with her dad’s illness. I loved what it said and decided to recreated it for you (and me).

I hate to spoil the ending...

Yes, yes, yes! We know this.  We’ve experienced this.

The end of the story? We already know how it’s going to turn out.  We might not know the specifics, but we know it’s going to be great, because God is in charge, not us.

Oh, God. You’re so good. You know what we need, and you bless us constantly with your truth. Help us to hear it. Help us to live it. Help us to accept your continual gift of peace. We trust you.

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If you’d like, feel free to download the images on this page to print and use. Click the links below:

I Hate To Spoil the Ending ~ Create a Card

I Hate to Spoil the Ending ~ Full Size Wall Print

For We Are God’s Handiwork ~ Full Size Wall Print

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Gratituesday: The Library

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Confessions:  I took a few years off from going on regular library visits with my kids. What kind of homeschool mom am I, anyway?

A busy one.  One who works from home and finds that when she’s not home, it’s very easy to get behind on work. (Imagine that.)  Something had to give, and committing to go to the library regularly was one of them.

Sad, I know. But we have full bookshelves in five different rooms in our house. Trust me – we are not without books. Purchasing books to have for easy school access became much easier than going to the library once a week to get what we needed for assignments. Books are a great investment, after all. I don’t mind spending money on good books that we’ll use over and over again.

So here we are, with our full bookshelves, saving a fair amount of time each week on the chore of finding our resources at the library. I’m grateful to check that off my list of jobs I need to do. But what about activities we want to do? Well now, that’s become a different story.

library books2

The past few months, the younger boys and I have started going to the library more frequently again. We go because we want to. We go because the boys are older now and have new and varied interests. We search the shelves, finding books that seem intriguing, and we go home with a big pile. I love that these books are used in addition to our school books. These books are “just for fun.” (You know, because for some reason, we can’t call school “fun.” Oh please.)

We’ve learned new recipes, become experts on volcanos, tried our hand at drawing comics, learned new card tricks – and by “we” I really mean “they.” I love watching the boys take off with a book and come back full of new ideas and knowledge.

Today was a library day for us. Looking at all the amazing books available to us made me pretty excited. Yep, today I’m thankful for the library – one of the most basic perks of life there is.

And how about you? What are you thankful for this Gratituesday?

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Menu Plan for the Week ~ Lots of Apples and Dip

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basket of apples

We are loving all the apples available to us right now! We are now completely stocked with homemade applesauce for this winter, plus we’re eating a lot of apples for snacks and with meals. One of our favorite ways to eat these apples is with Cream Cheese Fruit Dip. If you haven’t tried this recipe yet – do it. It’s amazing. My kids think it’s kind of like dipping your apple in cheesecake. :)

You’ll notice in my menu plan below that I am serving this dip twice today – once this morning for a college age Bible class Matt teaches at church; and again tonight for the teens who come to our home for Bible study and fellowship.

Cream Cheese Fruit Dip

Hope your week is full of blessing! Here’s what our menu looks like:

Sunday, September 21
Easy breakfast casserole, apples with cream cheese fruit dip
Lamb roast, potatoes, carrots, gravy, peas
High school huddle – Pizza boats, tossed salad, apples with cream cheese fruit dip

Monday, September 22
Dark chocolate almond granola, grapes
Taco salad, fresh pineapple
Sloppy joes on cornbread muffins, peas, apples

Tuesday, September 23
Scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, creamy orange cooler
Tuna salad on lettuce and tomatoes, strawberry ice cream, sweet peppers
Baked three cheese chicken pasta, tossed salad, green beans

Wednesday, September 24
Green machine milkshakes, honey cinnamon muffins, apples
Bacon, egg, and avocado salad, honey whole wheat toast
Chicken fried steak strips, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans

Thursday, September 25
Grape nuts cereal, blueberries
Taco quesadillas, raspberry lemon cream cups, carrot sticks, olives
Easy noodle stir-fry with broccoli, zucchini, and carrots

Friday, September 26
Pancake and sausage muffins, applesauce
Easy cheesy bean dip with chips, fresh pineapple, sweet peppers
Chicken nuggets and french fries, carrot sticks, grapes

Saturday, September 27
Bacon cheesy eggs, raspberries
Leftovers
Italian cream cheese chicken, tossed salad, asparagus

Be sure to download our free new Fall Menu Planners here.

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Planning Next Week’s Menu? Here’s Some Guidance, Plus Fun Free Printables!

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I always spend time over the weekend planning our meals for the upcoming week. I write down most of the specifics from main dish, to fruits and veggies. But I almost never stick with the menu plan completely. In fact, just last week there was a day I fed my family grapes even though I had planned to feed them blueberries. I bet you didn’t know I had that kind of crazy in me. Oh honey, you have no idea.

Once, I forgot to thaw chicken, so we had tuna. I was going to make Fruit Pizza on Monday, but in fact, I didn’t make it happen until…wait for it….

Tuesday.

So hi. Let’s all learn to have some sort of plan so we save money and time. But unless serving Wednesday’s Pasta Salad Bar on Saturday totally messes with you, ditch the idea that you have to follow your menu plan perfectly. It really is okay to pull out leftovers on Thursday if you don’t feel like making the planned Taco Corn Fritters. I have done this and lived to tell about it.

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Are you hitting the restart button with us this fall? If so, you might want to try your hand at planning some simple, real food menus. You’ll find that it will help you stay on track with putting nourishing food on the table more often.

Want some ideas?

I post my menu plan every single week. Look through all my menu planning archives here.

Want menu planning resources in your hands?

Grab our 40 Real Food Menu Plans Downloadable Packet here. You might also like the mix and match approach of our 1-2-3 Menu Planning eBook. (That one is actually still free if you subscribe to our daily newsletter. I wasn’t planning to offer it for free this many weeks, but I haven’t had time to take it down, so hurry, grab it up!)

Additional articles you may find helpful:

Have ingredients you’re not sure how to use?

Use our handy “Search By Ingredient” Tool on the sidebar. You type in the ingredients you want to use, our search box will pull up recipes from our site that might work for you. It’s fun to see what comes up!

Be inspired with our new, free, downloadable Fall Menu Planners:

A piece of scratch paper, a document on the computer, a dry erase board – those all work just fine for writing down your menu plan. But if you want something a little more cheerful and fun, we’re excited to offer you three new printable menu planners that are perfect for this fall!

Take as many as you want, or if you want to just print once and reuse? Print a planner onto cardstock and laminate it. You can attach a magnet, place it on your fridge, then use a dry erase marker so you can clean it off at the end of the week and use it again next week!

Click on the links or images below to download.

Download Fall Butterflies Menu Planner

Fall Menu Planner 1

 Download Good Eatin’ Fall Menu Planner

Fall Menu Planner 2

 Download Fun Fall Menu Planner

Fall Menu Planner 3

Do you typically plan your menus? What works best for you as you make plans?

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