Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

I’m So Excited…That’s Why I’m Crying

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Prerequisite information:  Two weeks ago there was a “Soccer Shoot Out” sponsored by the Elks Club in town out at our soccer complex after our regular soccer games. (Yes, I think it was held on my bad hair day.)  Whoever wins first place gets to go to the State Soccer Shoot out in Hastings (about an hour away).  On October 4. 
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All this week, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. Too many apples, too many dishes, too many soccer games, too many field trips, too many other events coming up that I have to get ready for. Oh yes and there’s also that homeschooling thing we do where Mommy opens books and teaches the kids stuff out of them. 

I LOVE everything I’m doing and every apple and every event I’m preparing for. I’m just a bit overwhelmed at the moment. It’ll all be better soon. There won’t always be apple trees exploding all over my kitchen.

On Wednesday, all of the things I needed to do were really piling up…and I was feeling the irony of how I had posted about Doing the Funky Kitchen  when all over my countertops were apples, and dirty dishes, and a stinkin’ pile of mail. So then besides being overwhelmed…I had guilt, because I was writing about one something and not doing it myself. 

And then I looked at the garden and saw that I really should go out and pick tomatoes because it looked like quite a few more were ready to be picked and made into sauce. 

Not only was I overwhelmed with the tasks of the day, but I started looking ahead toward the end of the week. We had a field trip to the pumpkin patch Friday, Matt was going to be out of town Saturday for college soccer, Sunday we’re all going out of town and I have all kinds of things to do to get ready for that… At one point in the day, I thought to myself, “I am SO glad none of the boys qualified for the State Soccer Shoot Out on Saturday”. 

It was precisely 6:17 pm on Wednesday evening when I was trying to wade through the dishes on my countertops and throw something edible on the table before leaving for Bible class that there was a knock on the door.

I recognized the Elks man before I even made it to the door. He was holding a brand new soccer ball and a plaque and a letter. And I told myself, “Now, don’t cry. This is a good thing. Be happy.”

So I smiled and stepped over a bunch of marbles and greeted the man at the door. And he apologizes for the late notice…but “Congratulations, Asa has won first place and qualifies to go to Hastings for the State Soccer Shoot Out on Saturday.” I kept smiling and being a proud Mama until the guy left.

Then I went out to the garden where Matt, bless his very sweet heart, was picking tomatoes for me. And I started to cry and tell him how proud I was of Asa for winning the soccer shoot out, but now I have to go to Hastings on Saturday (sniff) and I don’t have time to go to Hastings on Saturday (sob) and I have so much to do and now I’ll need to make tomato sauce… 

Matt just kept kindly picking tomatoes for me and smiling encouragingly and letting me verbally feel sorry for myself and cry for a while. Because he knew that’s all I needed and that after a good night’s sleep I’d be okay.

And I was. Okay. Just fine in fact. It’s amazing what a good nights sleep will do for all of your apple and tomato (etc.) anxiety.

So today I’m in Hastings watching Asa compete in the Soccer Shoot Out. But now I truly am excited and THAT truly is why there are tears in my eyes today. Oh my word, I’m so proud of that kid. He’s so awesome. What a great day to spend with my son.

Ever get so overwhelmed with everything you have to do, that all you can do is…cry? (Oh, I could cry just thinking about it.)

:)

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Hey. I Can Have a Post about Something Girly If I Want To…

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 …even though I only have boys in my life. 

I’m very okay with my lot in life because I think my four little boys (and their daddy) are THE BEST. I wouldn’t trade in all of my sons’ frog catching, noise making, light saber fighting, tooting loudly at the table and laughing because it must have broken the world’s record for something tooty boyness for all the pink and lace in the world.

But sometimes…it’s fun to hear about what it’s like to live with all girls. My friend Tonya has four little girls…all very close in age to my boys. We find it fun to compare notes on life. When I heard her talking about the birthday party she was planning for her oldest daughter Bailey, I thought it sounded like SUCH a fun party, and I wanted to hear more. So she agreed to write a guest post for me so that you could all enjoy hearing about this exciting event that I will never, ever be able to participate in with one of my sons: 

A Shopping Mall Scavenger Hunt Birthday Party

Here’s Tonya describing her fun party for Bailey:

Bailey wanted a birthday party that she could invite a lot of friends to. I of course, waited till the very last minute to come up with an idea. I have always wanted to try and do something at the mall and my sister-in-law had done a mall birthday party when her daughter was younger too. She told me about a scavenger hunt that she did. I also just googled scavenger hunts online and there happen to be a mall one online as well. So I took what I learned from both sources and made one that worked for me.

First, we made the guest list. Bailey had 15 friends that she wanted to invite. For some people this would not be an issue but since we live an hour away from the mall, that meant that I would need to search for enough car space and I would need to allow for enough drive time both ways. I really didn’t think I would have too much of a problem with the whole car space thing because I thought that it would be unlikely for all of the girls who were invited to be able to come. (By the way, they all came.)  

 I made the invitations myself. I just typed them up on the computer. I used a cute font and color and printed them off. I folded them in a trifold and sealed them with a sticker that I just had on hand. The invitation explained that it would be a scavenger hunt, I would provide dinner and bring money in case we had time to shop.

I prepared a list of things to “hunt”. I decided to do mostly pictures. Some of the things they had to take pictures of were the entire team wearing hats and posing in their best gangster look, entire team modeling formal attire, one team member kissing a manequin, entire team modeling sunglasses, purses, one team member posing in a window like a mannequin and entire team posing in childrens’ ride, to name a few. I also gave each team $5 to buy an accessory from a store of their choice and they had to think about what the birthday girl would like (the item ended up being a gift for Bailey).

We left about 3pm on a Saturday. We decorated three vehicles with paint for the windows. It said stuff like, “Honk it is my birthday” and  “Honk it is Bailey’s 12th Birthday!” I had snacks and water bottles in each of the cars since it would be an hour drive and we were going to do the scavenger hunt first. The girls really talked non stop the whole way. I had thought about some games we could do on the drive but it was not necessary. Go figure!

When we got to the mall, I divided the girls up into three teams. I did give a few rules like, don’t run, listen to a store associate if he asks you not to take pictures, make sure that all team members get turns in the photographs and if the entire team needs to be in the picture, then have someone else take the picture. I handed them their lists and a digital camera along with a $5 bill and off they went. This is the part that was really fun and surprisingly, relaxing. My husband Tim and I, along with two of my friends who were helping me with the party and driving, walked and shopped through the mall for the next hour while the girls were scavenging. It was great. We would run into them once in awhile and they appeared to be having a great time.

We met back at the food court. I had them leave their cameras with me. I gave each girl a five dollar bill to go and get their supper while I downloaded the pictures to my lap top. As the girls ate, they watched a slide show of the “hunt”. They went off for a bit to do some shopping and then we met back at the food court to eat big birthday cookies that I had made earlier that day (cookies the size of a pizza pan) and for the opening of the presents. After a little more shopping (boy those girls could shop!), we left for home.

We were gone for a total of 5 hours (remember that is about 2 hours of driving time). We had a wonderful time. The guests went on and on about what a great time they had. The parents have commented on how much their girls loved it too. It was a huge success!

To top the party off, I used my Windows Movie Maker to make a video of the pictures I had put on my computer. I used some of Bailey’s favorite songs in it and at the end I put a “Thank you for coming to my party” page. I put the movie on DVDs and made envelopes out of cardstock so that Bailey could give those to her friends for thank you notes.
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Thanks Tonya, for letting me live vicariously through you just this once! Doesn’t that party sound like so much fun? 

The amount of money it took to feed the girls dinner did add up (fifteen girls, Bailey?)  :)  But aside from that, I thought that the scavenger hunt at the mall was a great idea for an inexpensive birthday party that included a lot of kids. And that’s why I wanted to share it for Frugal Friday. 

Now, if you’d like to read about the kind of birthday parties we get to have with our family you can read about them here and here. They include absolutely nothing about shopping, or accessories, or cute invitations with sticker seals. They do however include things about toots and stink. Read them at your own risk…

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Once Upon a Bad Hair Day

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Ever since I cut my hair too short a couple of months ago, I’ve been blessed with dorky looking pony tail stubs and the inability to french braid my hair. The layers have just been too short.

But the hair is growing. Slowly but surely. 

Two Saturday mornings ago as we were getting ready to head out the door for soccer games, I decided in a moment of desperation to try to get my hair into a quick french braid so that it would be out of my face.

And it worked. Barely…but it worked. My hair went up into a french braid. I was thrilled. I quickly joined Matt and the boys in the van so we could head off to the games.

We were at the soccer complex for the exact length of time that it takes to unload the van and walk to Justus’ game field when the first hunk of hair came out of my braid. I tried in vain to kind of tuck it back into the braid. Nope…it was too short.

Oh, if only I had a bobby pin, I thought.

I decided to rummage through my purse, because you just never know what might be hiding in there along with the dirty kleenexes and Walmart receipts.

And there, much to my delight, at the bottom of my purse…was a bobby pin!

Stuck to a raisin.

I’d never been so happy to see a bobby pin. 

I flicked the raisin off (before Malachi could see it and ask to eat it), and used it (the bobby pin, not the raisin) to stick the hunk of hair back into the braid.

Satisfied that my hair was better now…I went about the business of watching and cheering as my boys ran up and down and up and down the soccer field. 

After about the first game and a half, Malachi needed to go potty. It was when I took him into the bathroom and looked into the mirror that I saw it.

My hair was indeed up in a braid…but it had all loosened up into a big messy, stringy puff ball with wispies flying out all over.

I swallowed back my urge to cry out in horror at the sight of myself. How many thousands (okay, hundreds…our town isn’t that big) of people had seen me like that? It’s a wonder I didn’t scare the soccer balls out of the goal box. 

Well, I quickly pulled the barely hanging on rubber band out of my “braid”…used my fingers as a comb and decided to settle for the dorky pony tail stub. 

Oh yes, and also, while I was noticing my freaked out hair, I also noticed that the shirt I was wearing had apple juice splatter stains all over the front from the last time I had made applesauce without wearing an apron. Lovely.

Tying my jean jacket around my waist took care of the apple juice splatter stains by hiding most of it.

Oh, if only the raisin could somehow miraculously help with my hair….

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Gratituesday: Our Camping Trip

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We had such a wonderful time camping over the weekend with about eight other families from church. The weather was gorgeous, all the kids played well together, nobody got hurt (too badly anyway!). We adults got to just sit around and visit…the kids rode bikes, played soccer, caught frogs and played on playground equipment. The kids played so hard and got so dirty…it was great! 

Here are a few pictures from our trip:

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Here are Malachi and Elias along with some little girls…
they are gathering leaves for their make believe dinner. :)

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Justus is discussing the upcoming camp soccer game with our friend Hannah (who WILL become one of my daughters-in-law some day if I have anything to do with it) (which I realize I don’t…but a girl can dream)

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Asa, Justus and Elias roasting their hotdogs for dinner
(since the leaves didn’t look all that great after all)

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Justus with one of the frogs he caught. 
Too bad he wouldn’t let me have a turn holding it *cough*

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Malachi and Elias getting snuggled into bed in our trailer

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Our group coming together for worship time on Sunday morning.

I’m so grateful for the chance to spend such a nice time with our friends. (And since I’m pretty much a home-body…I’m also grateful to be back home where it’s a little less…froggy…)  :)
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Share what you’re grateful for this Gratituesday! Read the guidelines here then come link up with us!

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Check This Out! My Favorite New Bread Pan

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I have decided to begin doing product reviews here on my blog, since I keep thinking of cool things I want to brag about to you. Have a product in your shop or on your site you’d like me to review here at Heavenly Homemakers? Email me! 
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I recently broke down and got something I’ve been wanting for a long time: These very cool Pampered Chef bread baking crocks.

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I love these crocks for several reasons. 

1. I love baking in stones no matter what I’m baking. Stoneware bakes breads and pizza and cookies wonderfully. I have a round pizza stone, regular loaf pan stones and a big rectangular stone. And now I have these cool round baking stone crocks! I know my food is safe when I bake with stones.
2. These crocks really produce a nice loaf of bread. I think it’s something about the way the dough just has to rise upward instead of sideways and upward. (You now know by that explanation that I’m not a scientist.) 
3. You’ll find them inexpensively at the Pampered Chef Outlet (the regular catalog doesn’t carry them anymore). I was so excited to only pay $7/crock. That’s a great price for stones! 
My favorite reason to love these crocks…
4. They make awesome round slices of bread. Which are the perfect shape for sloppy joes or hamburgers. I LOVE that about these crocks. And, having round slices of bread…well…that’s just fun!

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One or two draw backs to these lovely crocks…

1. They aren’t the easiest to clean…which really just means that it takes 45 seconds to wash it instead of the 30 seconds it takes to wash a regular loaf pan. Woe is me.
2. You have to take the top rack out of your oven to bake the loaves…otherwise your bread hits the top of the oven and gets stuck and you feel like you may never get it out and when you finally do, it looks like this:

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Or it’s dented like this:

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And we all know that having dented bread is just tragic. ;)

Ooh, and if you want to bake yourself some of this delicious Honey Whole Wheat Bread, you’ll find my recipe here. I’ll try to do a tutorial for you soon about how I bake bread. Because if you don’t know how, you really should learn…because it’s not hard and there’s NOTHING like freshly baked bread. With butter. Melted all over it. On a cool fall day. With a glass of milk. Ahh….

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Menu Plan for the Week

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We got back from our camping trip today…filthy, smelling like a camp fire and worn out, but totally refreshed from a great weekend spent in fresh air and with friends. I must admit that I enjoyed this camping trip more than any other one I’ve ever been on. I think it had something to do with the fact that the weather was absolutely perfect…and the fact that I took an entire kitchen with me. Wow, did I ever feel spoiled. It was great.

As we were packing up to come back home, Matt and I were commenting to each other about how well it actually worked out to take our concession trailer. Sleeping on the floor in there wasn’t so bad. As long as the boys aren’t planning on growing any taller (yikes!), we all fit in there just fine.

I was going on about how we had all the comforts of home. And then I said, “Well, except without the computer…” And he looked at me and said, “Um, yes…and showers.” (Apparently I favor my computer over having a shower. Hey, I like both….)

Now that we’ve all showered…I’ll share our upcoming menu for the week. We have not one but TWO field trips this week and quite a few soccer games too. It’ll be a fun, full week!

Monday, Sept. 29
Peanut butter honey toast, clementines
Pizza, apples
Spaghetti, corn on the cob, tossed salad

Tuesday, Sept. 30
Applesauce bread, bananas
Cheesy quesadillas, peaches
Turkey ham with scalloped potatoes and carrots

Wednesday, Oct. 1
Whole wheat waffles
Hearty bean casserole, bread and butter, fruit salad
Honey mustard chicken, baked potatoes, peas

Thursday, Oct. 2
Scrambled eggs, oranges
Hamburger patties, corn on the cob, strawberry-peach slushies
Potato soup, carrot sticks

Friday, Oct. 3
Giant breakfast cookies
Going to Pumpkin Patch! Sandwiches, apples, carrots, peach fruit leather
Tacos

Saturday, Oct. 4
Whole wheat cinnamon rolls, fruit
Homemade mac and cheese, steamed carrots
Stir fry – chicken, carrots, broccoli, rice

Here’s the link to our free downloadable fall menu planners. Hope to see you back for a week of fun blogging! I’ll share our camping pictures on Gratituesday!

Be sure to visit Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas.

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Schedule Schmedule…Homeschool Hubbub…and a Confession

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As I began writing a post to explain our usual daily schedule to you…I realized that first I should write a post with a few details about our lifestyle so that our schedule, especially the homeschooling part, will make more sense to you. 

See, there’s this little thing called flexibility that, while it doesn’t come easy to me, I have learned to embrace, enjoy and cherish. Flexibility is one of the biggest blessings of homeschooling  (not to mention the fact that I can smooch my kids’ cheeks WHENEVER I want to ALL DAY LONG…). I’ve decided that learning to be flexible just makes things so much simpler. I do not like to be uptight…but oh, can I get uptight. I’m working on it.

So, we have a schedule on paper, sort of…and it makes our life go more smoothly when we work to follow it. And we get a lot of work done when we follow it. And most days we are able to follow it, mostly. But we rarely, if ever, follow it to the letter.

Sometimes Daddy needs us to do something for him. Sometimes we have a headache. Sometimes there’s someone who needs a meal taken to them. Sometimes we need to read some extra chapters of History today, knowing that tomorrow we’ll have to be out the door by 10:30 and we won’t have time to read. Sometimes  we are feeling creative and just get out the paint. Sometimes we have a gajillion apples waiting to be made into applesauce all over the kitchen…

Yeah, it’s called life. And my kids are learning about it.

And Matt and I want it to be that way. We feel like their education happens around the clock…not just when the school books are out. And we’re trying to help our kids understand that too. We want them to understand that they’re learning when we make lists together to organize our camping trip. (Yes, it’s important for me to teach my kids early in life to make lists!!)  We want them to understand that when they’re helping mommy cook, they are learning. And even when they’re playing with legos…they are learning. 

Just wanted to talk about that a little bit before I go into our daily schedule explanation in a future post.

And I also feel like I need to confess this to you…. (yikes, this is kind of hard)

I often see a person’s daily schedule and it says something like “Get up at 6 am…read Bible”. I think that’s so great that people have their Bible reading time scheduled into their day like that…first thing in the morning. 

Yeah, I don’t have that. I don’t have Bible reading time scheduled into my day. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m taking that flexibility thing too far? Everyday is a little different around here depending on what we need to get up and do…or depending on how late we had to stay up the night before. I don’t have a set time that I get up in the morning. (I despise alarm clocks.)  I get up when I get up (usually between 6:30-8:00). And I’m thankful for that flexibility (oh, so thankful). 

I do wake up talking to my Father and spend most of the day visiting with him right up until I fall asleep each night. But since I don’t have Bible reading time scheduled directly into my day…some days it doesn’t happen. And some days it does. (And most days I read it to my kids…and we work on memorizing scripture…I guess I kinda forgot about that part…but I’m talking about my personal time in the Word.)

So, I guess I felt like I needed to tell you that. Because when you see my schedule, you won’t see “Personal Bible Reading” time scheduled in there. When I began writing out my schedule, I realized that. I am working on it.  And I’m really working on it with my kids so that they establish a good routine of daily Bible reading early in life.

Thank you for providing safety for me to be real with you. I’d love to hear what works for you in this area. Please do share how and when you manage quiet Bible study time. 

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My Randomness Returns

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First, I finally put a search box on my site for you so that if you’re looking for say, my whole wheat pretzel recipe…you just type the word “whole wheat pretzels” into the box and it’ll find the recipe link for you! You’ll find it on the left hand side of my blog, right under all the categories. No, your other left. Yep, you got it. Now you can search to your heart’s content. It’s about TIME I did that, huh?

Second, after peeling 300,000 peaches (give or take) to freeze for smoothies, I finally took Lindsay’s advice and just left the peelings on. And guess what? The peelings just blend right up into the smoothie and you can’t even tell they’re there. They’re more nutritious that way of course. And, oh my word, does the freezing process ever go faster! Now if you’re canning them, you’ll need to peel them, but if you’re freezing them, for the love of all things sane, just slice ’em and flash freeze them.

Third, I have no idea what I used to do with my time before I began canning and freezing and fruit leathering. I don’t remember my life before this fall harvest. I think I remember something about cooking a meal without having to step over boxes of apples or scooting jars out of my way so I could mash some potatoes. And  I wish I had a dollar for every phone call I’ve gotten asking if I need any more apples. Ooh, better yet, I wish I had a dollar for every APPLE I’ve had in my kitchen during the last few weeks. It has been some year for apples around here. Wow.

Fourth, the past few weeks, I’ve been reading Little Britches to the boys. Have you READ that book? It is SO good. I fell in love with the family and how the daddy and the son worked so hard together…and it made me want to buy a ranch and some horses and go back in time 100 years (but I would, of course, take my computer and electricity with me). Anyway…when we got to the last two chapters…it got so sad and I could not read it anymore because tears were streaming down my face and my voice was all messy. I handed the book to Matt and he finished reading it to us. It was all I could do not to sob loudly as we sat around the table and listened. I’m still not over it. Oh, but it was a good book.

Fifth, there is a big chorus of crickets blessing my home. (Do you all have tons of crickets too, or did they all decide to move into my house?)  They are singing so loudly right now I can hardly concentrate to write. I don’t mind them too much (because I’d rather have crickets than say, termites) but I do wish I could turn their volume down.

Sixth, I’m going to start doing product reviews on my blog. Because I have a bunch of stuff that I’ve been thinking about that I want to tell you about and brag about to you and encourage you to have. (Like a blender. You should all really have a blender. Between making applesauce, fruit leather and lots of smoothies and milkshakes…I been using my blender three times a day. I highly recommend blenders.)  But seriously, I’m excited to start recommending other useful kitchen tools and homemaking helps. If you have a product from your home business or etsy shop or whatever that you’d like me to review…email me!

Seventh, I could continue to be random and write about the little lego people on my steps just asking to be stepped on or something like that, but the crickets are distracting me. And really…I should go start getting busy with those apples again. Anyone have anything random to share? Hopefully I’ll be able to hear your comment above the Cricket Sing Along…

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Getting Real With Food: Keeping the Peace

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I have two friends.

Okay, I have way more than two friends…but right now I’m going to be talking about two friends.

These two friends are named Ima and Erma. (While these may sound like ficticious friends…they aren’t…the friends are real…I just changed their names so as not to embarrass them on my blog).

Ima’s husband has had poor health for years. Once when Ima was visiting with me in my kitchen while I was making honey whole wheat bread she looked into my pantry at my whole foods and said, “Oh, you do try to make everything healthy don’t you? My husband is always on me to cook more like this. I just don’t want to.” Then Ima shrugged. 

Here’s my advice to all the Ima’s out there who have husbands that want to eat healthier:

If your husband wants to eat healthier…then I would certainly think that as his help meet you would want to work to learn a few things about healthy eating. It is not as difficult as you might think. What a great gift you would be giving your husband…which would be a blessing to your marriage and your entire family. 

Now, on to my friend Erma…

Erma has a husband who sort of understands that eating healthy is a good thing…but the guy just really likes his junk food. And he loves to eat out. And he really likes giving their kids fun treats like “Fun Dip” and popsicles and hot dogs, because…it’s fun. Erma is totally into healthy eating and has had a very hard time with the way her husband likes to eat because she knows that licking colored sugar off of a sugar stick (Fun Dip) is not a good snack for her kids. And it really bothers her.

For a while, Erma fought her husband on this. She got mad at him everytime he brought home sugary cereals and white bread from the store. The kids started noticing that that Mommy got mad about the suckers Daddy would bring home for them. It was causing bitterness within Erma and tension in the family.

Finally Erma realized that her husband and kids did also eat the healthy food she prepared. The treats her husband brought home were rare…and he did it because he wanted to do something fun for his children. It was a special thing for Daddy to do. 

So Erma decided that it was more important to have peace in the home than to have a perfect diet. She knew it was better for all of them to eat healthy foods…but the trouble she was creating by fighting her husband all the time about it was not worth the “unhealth” of the family. She began smiling at him and thanking him when he brought home pizza so that she wouldn’t have to cook. And she’d fire up the grill when he brought home hotdogs for a fun cook out. (And she’d get out carrot sticks to go with the hotdogs)  :)

It is amazing the transformation that happened in the family when Erma just lightened up and worked to follow her husband’s lead about food. Now he even works a little harder to make sure the kids eat their veggies!

Erma, you rock. 

I wanted to tell you about my friends because I’ve heard from several of you out there whose husbands aren’t as excited about making healthy changes as you are. I want to just encourage you to follow their lead. Move slowly and try new things. Make tiny changes. Make their favorite foods, just try to make them with the best ingredients that you can. Try healthier foods that are fun (like my Giant Breakfast Cookies or Donuts).

Above all, be cheerful about it.  And don’t give up.  As long as he’s okay with it, keep making small changes to your diet so that your family is given the nourishment they need. And, if he brings home a package of oreos…pour everyone a glass of milk and just sit yourself down and enjoy them! 

What’s it like at your house? Are you and your husband “on the same page” when it comes to eating healthy?   And…what’s it like teaching your kids to eat healthy foods? I’ll be talking about that soon!
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Read more Works for me Wednesday posts here.

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Gratituesday: My Burden is Light

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Every day we have to make decisions. And some of them are hard.

Matt’s boss is looking at possibly moving soon, although we don’t know how soon. We’ve know about this possibility for a while, so for several months, Matt and I have been talking  about our future…what would be best for us to be doing as a family as we raise our boys into godly men…what ministries our family should be involved in that would work for our family as well as be a benefit for God’s kingdom… 

And also, we need to be able to make a living, so that we can eat and all that stuff. 

There are so many good ideas, so many great things to think about…so many hurting people out there who need love from Christians and the hope of Jesus. So whatever we choose or whatever job works out for Matt, we know that it will be one that will glorify God.

And because of that…I’m not even worried. I don’t have stress over the fact that Matt may need to find another job soon. (Okay, maybe I have a little stress…but mostly I don’t.) 

When I look at all the ways God has continually taken care of our family…ways He has provided for us and given us more than we even need…I can’t help but feel peace about it. My husband is a hard worker full of ideas and vision for our family. (BTW, for those of you local readers…we feel pretty strongly that God wants us to stay here. Just so ya know.) 

So, while we know we’ll be making some tough decisions in the near future, we know that God takes the pressure off by opening and closing doors as He sees fit. And that’s a really good thing, since we really have no idea what direction we should be taking. 

We’ll just pray and listen and wait and watch for His direction. I’m so grateful that really and truly, God’s yoke is easy and his burden is light! He knows the plans he has for us! 

Why, it’s all rather exciting, isn’t it!
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