Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: Tidings of Joy…Somewhere

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(Oh look, this post has the Christmas Brunch invitation! 
That means that any comments left on this post will be included
in the drawing for our Christmas Brunch Presents!)

We’ll pause just a moment in the midst of our Christmas Brunch to offer a little bit of holiday encouragement. Can I get anyone a cup of hot cocoa while we visit?
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Silent night…Holy night…All is calm…wait, really? Where? When? All I’ve witnessed lately is loud evenings that are anything but calm. There are holiday parties to attend, Christmas programs to prepare for, presents to buy, presents to wrap, presents to send, goodies to bake, cookies to decorate, and somewhere in there I’m also supposed to keep up with my laundry.

There are Christmas songs playing all around us everywhere we go. I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be offering us tidings of comfort and joy, but sometimes I believe that the joy gets lost somewhere in between trying to figure out what to buy for Great Uncle Gilbert and looking frantically for my son’s left black dress shoe for his music recital. Incidentally, Uncle Gilbert already has everything he needs plus everything he doesn’t need, including Big Mouth Billy Bass the Motion Activated Singing Sensation. And by the way, why must I always have to be the one to draw Uncle Gilbert’s name in our family gift exchange?

My husband had a sad little chuckle one day as he stood in a long line waiting to return an item at the store. Many of the other shoppers in line looked weary and haggard, some of them were grumbling about the length of the line and the time it was taking to be helped and in general, no one seemed happy. The music heard through the speakers was what caused my husband to pause as, “It’s the most…wonderful time…of the year!” was being sung out cheerfully in the background. Wow, if this is what we tend to look like during the “most wonderful time of the year” I’d hate to see us all during the most terrible time of the year (which is what, say…flu season?).

I’m not sure it matters how much we plan ahead and try to stay organized during the holidays. This is just a busy time and there’s not much any of us can do about it. 

This is the part of the article where I’m supposed to smile and kindly say, “So let’s all just take a moment to meditate on the birth of our Savior and the reason we celebrate Christmas.” I’m not going to say that though. If I did, I’d be afraid you’d give me a justifiable bonk on the head with a roll of wrapping paper. Don’t tell me to remember the reason for the season! I’m TRYING to remember…I just can’t find the black dress shoe! WHERE is the black dress shoe?!

While we all look for the perfect gifts (and the long lost black dress shoe), I pray that we also find those tidings of comfort and joy that have been offered. I hear they’re great this time of year.

P.S. I don’t really have a Great Uncle Gilbert but if I did, I would never complain about having to buy him a gift. I think.

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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please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

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Sucanat Powdered Sugar Frosting

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Let’s first do a quick sucanat/sugar review for those of you who are new to these ingredients:

Sucanat:  Organic dehydrated cane sugar juice – my favorite form of natural, unrefined sugar to use in cookies and cakes. Recently I learned that you can use sucanat to make your own powdered sugar. It’s very cool! You can substitute sucanat one for one when a recipe calls for brown or white sugar. Rapadura is the same thing as sucanat…just with a fancier name. Rapadura is usually a little more expensive.

White Sugar and Brown Sugar:  Refined sugars that have been stripped of most their nutrients. 

You can read more about natural sugars and sweeteners I recommend (and don’t recommend) here!

Well…I wish this frosting was a little less…tan. But, what can we expect when we make frosting from our homemade sucanat powdered sugar? The darkness of the sucanat is easily disguised in this Chocolate Fudge Frosting, but there’s no way to make “white frosting” unless you use regular  powdered sugar.

Oh, except that Baking Mama mentioned in my Cream Cheese Frosting post that you use honey granules to make powdered sugar, which makes an unrefined, but whiter frosting. I’ll have to look into honey granules.

I did find that this Sucanat Powdered Sugar Frosting worked great for Gingerbread Men. I’ll share a recipe for those fellas later! I think this frosting would also be good on just about any cake you make…it has a very rich flavor.

Sucanat Powdered Sugar FrostingYum

1/3 cup melted butter
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4-4 1/2 cups sucanat powdered sugar

Blend all ingredients together with beaters, adding your sucanat powdered sugar a bit at a time until your frosting is the consistency you would like it to be.

Be sure to check out our other recipes using Sucanat Powdered Sugar: 

I hope you’re having a lovely time at our brunch. If you haven’t had a piece of Easy Breakfast Casserole, go ahead and help yourself. Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win one of our Christmas Brunch Presents! Coming up next on the menu:  It’s Gratituesday time…which will hopefully offer you a little Christmas Brunch encouragment during this busy time of the year!

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Easy Breakfast Casserole

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I used to think that making a Breakfast Casserole was a big deal, difficult, complicated and tricky. It seems that the recipes I found called for ingredients I never had and they always overwhelmed me.

One day a few weeks ago, I had an abundance of eggs and a few leftover ingredients from other meals so I decided to experiment. What do you know? You can build an egg casserole with just about anything. Quickly. Inexpensively. Without difficulty. I am very excited.

Here’s the beauty of this recipe:  You can build your breakfast casserole however you want.  This recipe has a few “base ingredients”, then you stir in whatever “add ins” you want…then you top it with cheese…then you bake it. It doesn’t get much easier than that! (And did I mention that this recipe is naturally Gluten Free?!)

Care to take a peek at how easy it is to put together this casserole? Here’s a quick video my son helped me make!

Easy Breakfast CasseroleYum

5.0 from 2 reviews
Easy Breakfast Casserole
 
Save Print
Author:
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 8 eggs
  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 cup shredded cheese (I use white cheddar, but you can use whatever cheese you want!)
Instructions
  1. Begin your casserole by whisking together the eggs, cream and salt.
  2. Pour the ingredients into a 9x13 inch casserole dish.
  3. Sprinkle in any "add in" ingredients you wish.
  4. Stir them around with a fork.
  5. Top casserole with cheese.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the middle doesn't jiggle.

Add In options:

Cooked sausage (I have a wonderful recipe for turkey sausage here.)
Chopped ham
Chopped and cooked bacon
Leftover baked potatoes, cut into chunks or shredded into hashbrowns
Sauteed veggies

Add anywhere from 1/2 cup to 2 cups of any of these “add ins”. You can use a different sized casserole dish, you’ll just need to adjust the bake time. The thicker your casserole, the longer it will take to bake.

breakfast_casserole[1]

Want to make this ahead of time and freeze it? I do it all the time, making for a super easy breakfast!

Prepare the casserole as directed, then freeze unbaked. Place frozen casserole in the fridge overnight. Bake the following morning as directed, adding a few additional minutes if necessary.

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Menu Plan for the Week

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sloppy_corn_muffins_4

Well, my baby is turning six on Monday. He is incredibly excited and has been counting down the days for months (not an easy thing to do). I showed Matt a pair of new jammies I had bought for Malachi for Christmas and he said, “Is our baby really that big?” At least it’s not just me. Sigh….

Incidentally, I started this blog about a month before Malachi turned three. I wrote (way back then) about My Baby Turning Three if you’d like to take a look at how little he was (and read about what an issue I have with my baby having birthdays).

You can imagine that now that he’s (almost) six, he just loves it when we call him “our baby”. 

Aaah, I call all of our boys “my babies” every once in a while. The thirteen year old especially appreciates it. ;)

Here’s our exciting Christmas week menu! Be sure to download your free Christmas Menu Planners!

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Sunday, December 19
Oatmeal, peaches
Taco potatoes, applesauce
Pizza casserole, raw veggies

Monday, December 20 (Malachi’s birthday choices)
Cereal
Hamburgers, chips, apples
Pizza (yes, the kind you buy at the store…it’s a Christmastime compromise)

Tuesday, December 21
Mini breakfast pizza, applesauce
Chicken veggie quesadillas, clementines
Toasted sub sandwiches, carrot sticks, fruit salad

Wednesday, December 22
Honey whole wheat bagels, bananas
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas
Dinner with friends

Thursday, December 23
Monkey bread, pears
Sloppy cornbread muffins, green beans
Chicken alfredo, steamed broccoli and carrots

Friday, December 24
Whole wheat waffles
Leftovers
Soup and sandwiches, relish tray, cookies

Saturday, December 25 (MERRY CHRISTMAS!!)
Applesauce bread, fruit
Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, bread, pie
Leftovers

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If you’re looking for some menu planning help, I highly recommend checking out Say Mmm! 
It’s a wonderful free resource to help you get organized and on your way to great menu planning!

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Learn here about how to earn free gift cards…for free! 
Don’t you love it when I’m redundant? You get that for free too. :)

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Please be sure to join us all this week for a Christmas Brunch!! 
There will be fun new recipes, craft and gift ideas and presents!!

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Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

It’s a Christmas Brunch at Heavenly Homemakers!

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I know the upcoming week will be a busy one for all of us.  Still, I was hoping you could all come over for a Christmas Brunch? You don’t need to bring anything, please just show up any time that is convenient for you…and invite along any friends or family members who might like to join you. We love a big crowd!

On our Christmas Brunch Menu:

  • Vanilla Muffins with Cinnamon Crumb Topping
  • Easy Breakfast Casserole
  • Gingerbread Cookies
  • Holiday Goody Buffet

Plus, there will be crafts and…presents!  You don’t want to miss the presents! I’ve got a wonderful Tropical Traditions Gift all wrapped up and ready to give to one of you…PLUS several Heavenly Homemakers Gift Certificates!! Yep, under our tree you’ll find three $5.00 Heavenly Homemakers Gift Certificates and three $10.00 HeavenlyHomemakers Gift Certificates (good for anything downloadable in our shop).

Please make plans to join us! Each comment you leave on this post or our upcoming posts with the Christmas Brunch Invitation (as seen below) will be entered in the drawing for the presents! (Limit one comment per person per post.)

Stay tuned…the Christmas Brunch posts begin tomorrow! Bring your appetites…and let the prize winning comments begin!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Real Tree…or Fake? Question #75

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16 years.  The tree lasted for 16 years.

And then, without any warning whatsoever, the base busted and the tree fell over with a smack, spreading it’s hundreds of fake pine needles all over the living room.

Don’t worry, no one was hurt…and in fact some were even excited enough about the Christmas tree floor smacking drama to take a moment to pose behind the busted tree.

I had bought that tree the day after our first Christmas together as a married couple 16 years ago. I was so proud of that purchase…our first Christmas tree. For half price.   So as silly as it is, I was a little bit sad and sentimental about throwing the tree away and thought instead of trying to rig the base up with some duct tape. You give a mama some duct tape and she can fix anything right? I figured though that it would only hold up for a few hours, or until a nerf soccer ball went sailing through the room…whichever came first. (Yeah, it would be the soccer ball.) 

We made do with a smaller fake tree this year and will see what we find for half price after Christmas this year.

But that leads me to the question of the day. Are you a fake tree family…or a real tree family?

We’ve always done fake. It seems easier to me. But it doesn’t smell  nearly as good.

They should start making scented fake trees.

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Making Food Compromises at Christmastime

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Ever feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with normal healthy food preparations during the holidays? Do you feel guilt because you’ve indulged in too many Christmas goodies?

I wrote my thoughts on the matter over at Deal Moon. Head on over and see what you think…

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

It Happens in a Blink

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Some of you have asked me to share more about what led us to our decision for Matt to resign from his job to work at home with our family. You’d like to know more about what we’re planning to do and what our “new life” will look like.

I can’t share much yet about what our new life will look like as it hasn’t actually started yet. Incidentally, it will start on Thursday the 16th at precisely 3:01 pm, at which time you WILL hear me shouting and banging on pots and pans in celebration. 

We’re setting goals and making plans and praying. Once we settle into January, I’ll be able to share more with you about what we’re doing with our time and how the new plan is working with our family.

What I can share though is a little more about what led us to this decision. I mentioned previously that Matt didn’t want to have regrets about how he spent the time God’s given him on earth. Our boys are growing quickly…and they need the guidance of their daddy. Our marriage is strong and we’d like to keep it that way. We have ministry ideas that we’d like to explore.  Matt’s current job situation hasn’t allowed us to do for our family what we feel called to do.

Ultimately, we had to ask ourselves the questions:  What are we doing for the Kingdom? Is our life in balance with what God wants us to be doing for Him?

We did some evaluating and knew something needed to give. (Later I’ll share a formula we came up with to evaluate the balance of each important area of our lives.)  We asked God to show us how to create a more balanced life, while still providing for our family.

The following song, Blink, by Revive pretty much sums up our thoughts. I’d really like you to listen and read the words as it plays because it’s quite convicting. 

It happens in a blink…what are you doing with your life?

For the record, we are definitely not advocating that everyone should turn in their two weeks notice tomorrow. That family you love so much does need to eat and have shoes. :)  We are just sharing what we’ve felt called to do for our family. We had a financial plan in place before making this leap and have spent many months praying about this decision. We simply want to encourage each person to examine how they spend their time and feel like we should all ask ourselves:  Am I making the most of every moment God’s given me?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Gifts for Men

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I’m terrible at figuring out gifts for men, so why I ever said I would post this is beyond me. I am really hoping all of you will leave brilliant comments of gift ideas for men. Because you all have brilliant ideas, right? Oh good, I knew I could count on you.

  • Games

Most men love strategy games. I mentioned a few in my Gifts of Games post like Risk, Settlers of Catan and Manhattan. If you’re looking for a game you can play with your strategy game lovin’ guy, I really think you’ll both like Manhattan. I like it a lot, even more than Settlers of Catan, which I like quite a bit too. Another fun strategy game is what we affectionately call “the bean game”. It’s really called Bohnanza, but you “plant beans” and “trade beans” and it’s quite fun. It’s just cards and it’s not complicated (but it is strategic) and it’s inexpensive. I love uncomplicated games. I know we’re talking about what MEN like, but hey, if you’re wanting to get him a game you’ll like too, Manhattan and Bohnanza score high on my list.

  • Books

Books are great if the man on your list is a reading kind of guy. My husband is usually reading three or four books at once. His latest favorite is 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller. Together, we’ve been reading Saving Your Marriage Before it Startsby Les and Leslie Parrott. Our marriage started 16 years ago, but we are still enjoying this book. We’ve heard great recommendations for UnCommon:  Finding Your Path to Significance, by Tony Dungy.

  • Clothes

Men usually don’t buy their own clothes, so this is what I usually resort to buying when I can’t think of anything else. Original, I know.

  • Music

Hopefully you know the kind of music the man you’re purchasing for likes. If not, iTunes Gift Cards are great!

  • Coupons

You’re only limited to your imagination on this one. You can give a “Pie of the Month” coupon book, a “Romantic Dinner” coupon book, a “Favorite Meals” coupon book, “Favorite Desserts” coupon book…whatever the man you’re giving the coupon book to would enjoy.

  • Tools

If you’re really lucky, he’ll want/need a tool that actually fits under the tree and costs less than your wedding ring. Unfortunately, he probably already has a hammer.

  • Camping Gear, Sports Gear, Hunting Gear, Fishing Gear

Or whatever gear he’s into. And doesn’t already have.

And that, my friends, is about all my brain could come up with. What are your ideas for gifts for men? Anything. Anything at all. Bring on the ideas!

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Gratituesday: Printing in Progress…

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Guess what?! You asked for it…we’ve been working on it…it’s just about to happen!

Ever since we launched our Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve downloadable curriculum, many of you have asked if/when the kit could be purchased in a hard copy. It’s been several months in coming, but it’s allllllllmost ready! Actually…a few are sitting ready to ship! (Always a funny term to me. What…like we have a boat?)

We’ve researched the best way to go about printing and binding our curriculum and finally settled on investing in a nice printer to create the books ourselves. The printer has been humming for a good part of the afternoon and we’re very happy with the quality of the pages. These 240+ full color page curriculum kits are placed in a nice 3 ring binder, making it easy for you to pull out pages for your family’s use. 

learnyourletters

I can’t tell you how exciting this is after so many months of working to figure out what would be the best printable deal and option for you. That’s why this news becomes the Gratituesday post for this week. That, and I’ve done little else but play with our printer tonight so that’s sort of the biggest thing on my mind right now. It is SO exciting! I love how the curriculum kit looks in book form!!!

The Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve Curriculum Kit in Book Form is ready for Pre-Order NOW! As we have four Books completely finished, the first four of you to order should for sure have yours sent within a couple of days, making it possible to have in your hands before Christmas!! Beyond that, all we can say is that we’ll do our best.  January is a great time to begin using this curriculum so we’ll work hard to get the books out in a timely fashion. (Keep in mind that you can buy a downloadable copy and have it immediately in your possession!)

I’m very thankful to all of you for your patience as we figured all of this out. It sure is nice to see our lovely printer, sitting over there in the corner getting a work-out. Woohoo!

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!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!