Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting
Need ideas for the best gifts for all the people in your life? Here’s a list of lists!
This post is short and sweet. But boy does it pack a punch of ideas! Click on any of the links to get so many wonderful gift ideas!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I wanted to share a fun way we are counting down to Christmas without spending money this year. It’s also giving us some great family fun time too!
Every year I buy new games for Christmas. But this year? I’m not letting myself. Why? Because we have SO MANY GAMES. And many of them we’ve hardly had a chance to play.
So this year? I’m determined that we’ll spend some extra fun time playing games and reading books in the evenings leading to Christmas.
One day when all of the little kids were at school or napping, I dug out a pile of our favorite games, plus some that our elementary-age kids haven’t played before. I grabbed some of our Christmas books too. I wrapped them all and piled them on top of the mantle.
I ended up with 16 packages total, so beginning December 9, we’ll begin taking turns unwrapping one package each evening. We’ll get all ready for bed, then play a game together before our family singing and prayer time.
My hope is that this will become a new family tradition – and not just at Christmastime! During the long winter nights, I’m hoping we get into a habit of pulling out games to play together or books to read together.
Hopefully, I’ve picked out games that our younger kids can play and our older kids will still enjoy! Our game-gift pile includes:
If you don’t have many Christmas books, and you don’t want to spend the money to buy some, head to the library. They are free, you can wrap and enjoy them, then take them back to the library by their due date!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Have you always wanted to make a Gingerbread House but found yourself frustrated because it’s so difficult? Try this way instead!
Listen, if it isn’t easy, I don’t do it. And that’s not just because I have 387 kids now (plus-minus). I’ve always been this way. Complicated projects don’t work for me. I’m not a perfectionist. I’m not super detail-oriented. I’m most definitely not super artsy. So I only make easy projects.
Hahaha, I just re-read what I typed up there. “If it isn’t easy, I don’t do it.” HAHAHA. Well, that is not even true. I do hard things all day long. #387kids I’ll do the hard things if I feel like it matters. My babies most certainly matter. People matter. Love matters. Detailed projects don’t matter to me.
But shucks if I want to do fun projects with all of these kids that I love! Especially during holidays! Gingerbread houses always sound like such a fun idea to make together. So I finally found a way to make them that is easy!
What I avoid:
Oh, I do when we make Gingerbread Houses. :) This is for an art project, yo. This stuff doesn’t get eaten because “sorry kids, the houses have been sitting on the mantle for too long and now they are yucky to eat. bummer.”
I’m going to give credit where credit is due. I saw this idea here. She does a lovely job sharing how to do this. Go watch the quick how-to video here. SO EASY!
Bonus tips:
This is the only time you’ll ever hear me say this: Go out and get yourself some poptarts, candy, and frosting tubes. :)
Enjoy making these super easy Gingerbread Houses with your family!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Did you miss out on getting your Junior Chefs signed up a few weeks ago? Great news!! We’re all caught up with our initial registrants and able to give you one more chance to get your kids registered!
But here’s a quick breakdown of this week’s final offer:
Sign up for the yearly subscription and get these right away:
Can’t wait to add your Junior Chefs to our list!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!by Tasha Hackett
Dairy-free milk is good to have on hand these days. This simple DIY coconut milk is going to wow you, I’m sure of it. Even if you’re not on a special diet, the chances are high you know someone who is! Of all the nut milk options, coconut milk is the one I’ve landed upon for all my dairy-free baking and cooking. After almost a year of eating paleo to combat migraines, I’m embarrassed at how long it took me to try to this simple method. (Hi! Tasha, here.) If I wanted a yogurt or cream substitute, I used canned coconut milk or coconut cream. If I wanted simple coconut milk for smoothies and baking, I bought the jugs and ignored any added ingredients.
Don’t get too excited. I’m not out there foraging coconuts and shredding the meat into milk. #aintnobodygottimeforthat. But I am side-stepping buying water in a jug. I had convinced myself that making my own was going to be too complicated. Silly Tasha. Once I mustered the proper sense of adventure and ingenuity, there’s really been no turning back.
Not only is this simple DIY coconut milk unadulterated with added ingredients, it is significantly cheaper, and saves the landfill and the factories from dealing with those obnoxious plastic/cardboard jugs. And because I Subscribe and Save my canned coconut milk from Amazon, I don’t even have to think about buying it. It just magically appears on my porch. Poof!
I’m really stepping out on a limb here to call this a recipe. But if Laura can tell you to pour salsa on the chicken in the crock pot and call it a recipe, than we’re calling this a recipe.
You will need a half gallon glass jar and a can of coconut milk. I currently use this brand. I’ll go over all the steps very slowly for you, just be sure you can keep up: Open the canned coconut milk. Pour it into the jar. Fill the jar the rest of the way with water and leave an inch or so at the top. Put the lid on the jar. In case you missed it, that last step is very important. A lidless jar is hazardess. Shake your lidded jar before using the coconut milk in smoothies, pancakes, muffins, and any recipe that calls for milk! As it happens, I pour a splash of it into my coffee each morning.
Because this recipe is very complicated, I decided to go the extra mile and show you the process step-by-step. I hope this clears things up for you.
Set out your supplies.
Open the canned milk and pour it into the half gallon glass jar.
Fill the remainder of the jar with water.
I hope you don’t mind, but I combined a step in this picture. See how the lid is on the jar?
Store in the refrigerator and give it a shake before using. That’s all, kids! I hope you enjoyed learning a new skill that will impress all of your friends the next time you’re at a party in need a parlor trick.
Tasha Hackett is a friend of Laura and loves to eat homemade chocolate bars, potato chips, and yes, even salsa on chicken. A homeschooling mom of four, author, and recovering DIY addict, she loves to take a walk on the prairie as time allows. Her debut novel, a historical romance set in 1879 Nebraska released Summer 2021: Bluebird on the Prairie. (Print and Kindle options available.) Though Tasha likes to do All The Things, most of her time is spent with four chatty children and an incredibly supportive husband. They give her the kind of love people write books about.
To learn more about Tasha and her works of fiction, find her at www. TashaHackett.com.
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I love sharing our favorite games!
It’s much trickier now to find time to play games as a family – mostly because we have a lot of little ones who like to put game pieces into their mouths. But whenever we can, we like to pull out a game to play with our 6 and 7-year-olds. And once all six little ones are put down for the night, we can get out some of the more detailed games for the grown-ups!
In case you’re looking at games to enjoy during the holidays with your family, we wanted to share these lists again. We’ve added new ones too!
Family Games Little Ones Enjoy
Family Games for Bigger Kids and Adults
Your turn to weigh in! What are your favorite family games?
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!Are these really the BEST Pumpkin Bars? I guess you’ll have to try them to see!
I love how moist these are! And how cool is it that they are made with whole grains and no one can tell?! (I use freshly ground soft white wheat, which is a whole wheat pastry flour, to make these.) I love that they are lightly sweetened instead of loaded with sugar. And this:
I LOVE THE CLOVES.
There’s something about the flavor that the cloves gives this recipe that makes is so very good. Cinnamon? I’m always all in with the cinnamon! Sometimes I skip other spices just so I can enjoy the cinnamon in a recipe.
But don’t leave out the cloves in this one. Oh, it makes the Pumpkin Bars – well – it makes them the BEST Pumpkin Bars.
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!I love lots of recipes in the fall. But these are my favorite fall recipes!
Because it’s fall. So it’s soup time.
We need a lot of these quick ideas handy because we are on the go for soccer games during the fall!
It’s a great year for apples. We love making these fun treats with all the fall apples!
There’s something about pumpkin recipes from September to December!
What are your favorite fall recipes?
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!It’s that time of year again! We have a batch of our delicious Heavenly Homemakers Vanilla Extract bottled up and ready to ship out to you!
Our vanilla is:
We make it like this – it’s the best of the best. It’s better than what you can buy at the store, yet it costs about the same or even less. Shipped to your door!
When you buy 2 or more 8-ounce bottles of vanilla, or 3 or more bottles of 4-ounce bottles of vanilla, we’ll send you a free sheet of these gorgeous Made With Love stickers ($8.95 value ~ 20 stickers per sheet!)
Use these beautiful stickers as you give gifts of homemade goodies this Christmas season! (You can personalize them here if you want to purchase them separately!)
Usually, we sell out within less than 48 hours.
Made with only the best ingredients, this vanilla extract is 100% pure! Ingredients include high-quality vanilla beans and vodka - that's it! Slow brewed for 6 months, this vanilla is delicious and perfect for your baking needs. Because this extract has such a strong, pure flavor, feel free to cut the amount of vanilla in half when following a recipe - then you can get even more bang for your buck. FREE SHIPPING included with your purchase.
Made with only the best ingredients, this vanilla extract is 100% pure! Ingredients include high-quality vanilla beans and vodka - that's it! Slow brewed for 6 months, this vanilla is delicious and perfect for your baking needs. Because this extract has such a strong, pure flavor, feel free to cut the amount of vanilla in half when following a recipe - then you can get even more bang for your buck! FREE SHIPPING included with your purchase!
Want a peek into how we make our Vanilla Extract? Here you go! We highly recommend that you try this at home. ;)
Want to make it quickly – even in time for Christmas? Here’s how to make Vanilla Extract in your Instant Pot!
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!It’s that time of year again! Baking season! I think we’re going to need us a list of Delicious Pie Recipes.
I’m here for you. I have such a list. Oh, and if you recall, I also gave us all permission to buy pre-made pie crusts if we need to.
If you make several pie crusts ahead and freeze them, or if you purchase them already made in the freezer section, it is super easy to put together any of these great pie recipes!
Just for kicks, I wanted to re-mention this fun Chocolate Pie Crust idea.
And it only makes sense that I end by telling you more about eating Pumpkin Pie for breakfast. In March?? Read about that here.
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!