Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: The Cousins

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We have had a great big cousin filled weekend. The boys are dirty, tired, and basking in the memory of the past few days.

We were blessed to go to Kansas for an extended weekend where we had two different reunions. I come from a very large extended family. My grandfather was the youngest of twelve children, and my dad was the youngest of nine children. So when I say large extended family, I mean large extended family.

And oh the cousins!

I’m thankful for the blessing of family. I’m thankful for the blessing of a Christian heritage. And I’m thankful that I was able to celebrate both of those this weekend.

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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!

 

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Gratituesday: My Gift

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Ever since I lost my mom to ALS in July of 2004, Mother’s Day has been difficult for me. I miss her every day, but Mother’s Day is always harder.

Matt has always been so considerate each Mother’s Day – spoiling me and making the day special, yet acknowledging and understanding that it is a day that I tend to feel sad. I love his strength and compassion.

We don’t tend to give each other gifts on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. We’ve never felt much need, and instead, fixing special food has always been our fun tradition. That is why I was so surprised to be presented with this on our way to church Sunday morning:

Receiving a gift at all was surprise enough. Seeing that he picked out a Bible with a cover described as “Pink and Chocolate” – well, does that tell you how well he knows me or what? And did you see what he had engraved on my new Bible?

Isn’t he the sweetest?

My husband shows me great honor in how he continually treats me like his queen. He had all of our boys sign the inside of the Bible, letting it be a gift from all of them.

I feel empowered to rise to the occasion and be the kind of Heavenly Homemaker they deserve and desire. I am honored to be the one God has chosen to make our family’s home more heavenly.

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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!

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Gratituesday: Wrapping It Up

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Every year is my favorite school year. This year was no exception.

I love home schooling my kids. I love all the time we get to spend together every day. I love reading piles of incredible books with them. I love having a flexible schedule. I love learning beside them. Seriously, did you know that we have 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies? That’s enough to go around the entire earth almost three times! Yes, I learned that today. I am getting so smart. (It is an added benefit to home schooling that the kids are getting smarter as well.)  ;)

We’ll be continuing to read all summer, but we do usually take a break from “regular school work” for a couple of months. This week, we’re wrapping up our last few math lessons and finishing the final chapters of a few books…

And then? Well, it would appear that we started a new tradition last year on our final “official” school day:  Ice Cream Cones for Breakfast.

And not the healthy, homemade ice cream either. I know. I don’t know how that even came about. But apparently I did it last year, so that’s all the boys have been talking about for the past few days. Hey, why not? We can have broccoli for lunch that day.

I am so thankful for the gift of another great school year with my kids. And…I am amazed at a God who could arrange 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels in my body with such perfection. What an amazing Creator!

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,
please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

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Gratituesday: May Day Preparations

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Because they are growing boys with “big boy” interests, I figured they wouldn’t even give May Day a second thought this year. This morning, they proved me wrong when one of them said, “Mom, tomorrow is May Day. We need to get baskets ready so we can surprise people tomorrow!” Everyone agreed that delivering May Day Baskets was necessary. Who am I to argue?

It is possible that the adventure of surprising people is what draws them in. And yes, it’s very likely that the food going into the baskets is what excites them even more. Quality control is done thoroughly around here to be sure. ;)

But they all chose a family they wanted to deliver a basket to, and plans were made for how we should fill them. Tonight, baking supplies are out and ready so we can start putting goodies into the oven in the morning. (Because yes, I over-ruled the idea that we should buy lots of candy to fill the baskets…)


I’m glad my boys still enjoy these simple, fun little holiday traditions. And as a side note – today I got to have a lunch date with our 10 year old, Elias. Here we are as we were heading out the door to his favorite restaurant…

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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!

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Gratituesday: Date Time

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Since it has been several months since I’ve taken any of my boys on a date, I decided it was time to start another round. When I mentioned it to Matt, he asked if he could please be included in the rotation. I can’t say I would mind that one little bit. Five dates for me with all five of my favorite men? Let me get my calendar!

Today, Malachi and I headed out for a little one-on-one.

We started our date at Pizza Hut – his choice. He’s been planning this for weeks actually. In his mind, there was no other option besides Pizza Hut for his time out with Mom. We headed there nice and early to beat the lunch crowd, which was a brilliant idea if I do say so myself. Or at least I thought it was brilliant until we got there and saw a huge chartered bus had arrived there ahead of us. And what do you suppose we found inside the restaurant? Table after table was full. And it wasn’t just any kind of full. It was the full of hungry college age boys kind of full.

I warned Malachi that the buffet might not have any pizza on it for quite a while since there were so many big eaters there. He was willing to wait. We got seated, got our water, talked about important subjects like Legos and ninjas, and we waited some more. Each time pizza would be delivered to the buffet, swarms of college boys would devour it within seconds. And so, we continued to wait. My little man was the picture of patience. Hey, when you’ve got Mom’s ear all to yourself, who needs pizza?

Well, would you believe that after about thirty minutes and the third round of pizza getting snatched up before we could even get out of our seats, one of those nice young college boys came over and introduced himself to Malachi? He told him that he’d noticed how long he’d been waiting for food and he said, “As soon as more pizza comes out, you and I will go up there and get you some.” Sure enough, as soon as some fresh cheesy bread sticks came out, the guy hoisted Malachi up, butted in line in front of this friends and said, “Hey, let’s let this fella get some of those bread sticks, okay?”

Malachi was in such shock, he almost forgot to say “thank you”. But wow, did he devour those bread sticks. He was even nice enough to share one of them with his hungry date. :)

I was able to take another moment to thank that young man for showing my boy such kindness. I hope Malachi remembers this and shows the same kind of love to someone else someday.

It wasn’t much longer until the place cleared out and we were able to enjoy the “all you can eat” part of the buffet. Malachi decided that posing for some pictures was a great idea:

I think that in the following picture, he’s trying to show us that he finally got enough pizza and he’s thoroughly stuffed. Four bread sticks and three pieces of pizza will do that to a seven year old boy.

Next, we headed out to Wal-mart where I promised that he could have several, unhurried minutes to gaze at Lego sets. You would have thought I had offered to take him to Legoland. No need to buy Legos. Just having the time to look at them for a long, long time was gift enough.

He’s been running up to me for hugs all day since we’ve been home. I’d say round one of five dates was a success, wouldn’t you? :)

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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!

Gratituesday: Stretching

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I like hiding behind my computer. I feel safe there. I can write freely – which I love to do. And then I can edit if I don’t like how I wrote something. Yes, my computer is very safe.

This is why, the past few months as I’ve been invited to speak to a few different groups of women, I’ve really hesitated. I haven’t felt sure that I had what it took to get up in front of people and speak. I don’t care what size the crowd – public speaking has been intimidating to me.

God knows best, however, and He decided to stretch me in ways that He apparently felt I needed stretching. He’s wise and fun like that.

Here is what I have learned through the past few months. First and foremost:  I must always have a big bottle of water with me because, wow, my mouth always gets super dry when speaking to a crowd. Next:  I may be the one up there doing the talking, but if I can remember to let go of myself (and my nerves), and embrace the fact that the Spirit can take over and do the talking – then we’re really onto something.

Several months ago when I was sharing my desire to simply stay behind my comfortable computer screen and avoid public speaking, my friend Emily said something very empowering to me. “Laura,” she said, “what you do on your blog is wonderful. You have been able to encourage women in so many ways. But just think how much more you can bless them when talking with them face to face.”

Well, shucks. I hadn’t thought of that before. She knew that I had what it took, and I’ve carried that vote of confidence with me ever since.

Satan has still been working to wear me down – just ask those who have had to live with me. I’ve had many moments of being a bit of a basket case leading up to each event, and have, unfortunately, done my fair share of completely freaking out. It has not been pretty, but somehow, my family and friends still love me anyway. God bless ’em.

What I have appreciated most recently is the army of prayer warriors I’ve had behind me. Matt and I took a trip to South Dakota last weekend so that I could speak to a lovely group of ladies there. The week leading up to this event was challenging in many ways, but God continued putting women in my path each day who were happy for me to share my angst. They all pumped me up with encouragement, and more importantly, they promised they would pray.

I wasn’t doing this alone. This has never been about me. God knows what He’s doing every time.

For this, I am thankful.

And as a selfish little aside, I am also thankful that I’ve checked all of my speaking engagements off my calendar for now. Yep, here I am, waving from behind my safe little computer screen. Stretching has been nice, but relaxing again back in my comfort zone is awfully nice too. ;)

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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!

Gratituesday: God is Faithful

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I have so much to be thankful for and truly, when I look at the big picture that is my life – all is well. Life is good. I have Jesus in my life, I have the best husband in the world, my children are incredible, healthy, and happy. I am so blessed that I can hardly see straight through the beauty and gifts around me.

But today has been a challenge for me. I am emotionally exhausted. Even though doing the right thing is the right thing to do, it can also be very hard. (I’m pretty sure you’ll need to read that sentence three times for it to make sense.)

God is faithful. He never asks us to do something difficult, and then shoves us away to muddle through it on our own. Never.

God is faithful. When we pray for something, and the answer is “no” – He is waiting to comfort us, because truly, our Father knows what is best for our lives.

I mess up. Life doesn’t always go the way we think it should or wish it would. But God is faithful. And because of that hope, I can sleep peacefully tonight.

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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!

Gratituesday: Gardening Season Begins

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I know it doesn’t look like it yet, but there will soon be lettuce and spinach in this garden plot you see here…

Talk about exciting! I didn’t even know Matt was planning to get started on our garden until he already had this space dug up and some seeds planted. With the weather being unseasonably warm for days on end, we are starting a little earlier this year.

We’ve begun making plans for the rest of our garden. Matt even found some asparagus to plant, which will be a fun new addition this year. Now we just have to work on not getting too hungry for the fresh produce while we wait for it to grow!

I’m so thankful that we have space to plant a garden – and that we were able to get started with our growing season already. Bring on the fresh salads!

Share how God is working in your life 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! Please read through the Gratituesday Guidelines so that you understand what kinds of posts you can link up to share here. Posts that are linked but do not fit our Gratituesday theme will be deleted.

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!

What Gratituesday Is All About (and how I plan to keep the focus on gratitude)

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I began writing Gratituesday posts when my blog was just a baby – I believe back in January of 2008. I loved the idea of focusing one post each week on God’s work in my life – plus it helped keep my thoughts focused on what I was thankful for.

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A few months after I began writing my own Gratituesday posts, I opened it up for my readers to also participate in this weekly blog post theme. I added a “Mr. Linky” so that other bloggers could write a Gratituesday post and then link up here. Over time, more and more people began joining in, and soon, we were able to click over and read many Gratituesday blog posts which shared about God’s provision and care. I found it to be inspiring, and a huge dose of God-focused encouragement every Tuesday.

Hey, guess what? I still do. I LOVE reading your Gratituesday posts.

Except for when they aren’t really Gratituesday posts.

I have to say that I can find it a bit discouraging to click on your Gratituesday link and instead of reading about what God is doing for you and your family, I find a tip about how to clean purple sharpie marker ink out of my carpet. As wonderful as it would be to learn this information, this does nothing for my spiritual walk. Nor do your recipe tips or your ideas for decorating on a budget. Again, these are some great posts and wonderful tips, they just don’t really fit with the Gratituesday theme.

Somehow over the course of four years of Gratituesday linking, gratitude got lost. Don’t get me wrong – many of your posts do share what God is doing in your life. Many of you are writing specific posts about what you are grateful for – keep it up!! I love it!

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But I’m finding it hard to find the grateful posts among all the posts that tell me how to organize my sock drawer.

I feel yucky writing this post today. I’m not trying to be the mean neighborhood lady who stands on her porch grouching at the kids who are just trying to have fun. I’ve not cracked down on this earlier because I don’t like to be the bad guy. Plus, enforcing that Gratituesday posts remain Gratituesday posts will take a lot of time that I really do not have each week. Do I really want to go in and analyze each post and then decide whether or not to go delete it? No ma’am. I sure don’t.

But enough already of the “how to avoid getting gassy when you eat a lot of beans” posts when Gratituesday is really about giving praise to our Father. (And for the record, I’m making up these non-Gratituesday related blog topics as I go. I don’t specifically remember anyone posting about gas or sock drawers or sharpie markers – just in case you did and you think I’m picking on you.)

The thought has occurred to my husband and me that it might be fun to add some sort of “Heavenly Homemaking Helpful Hints” link-up once a month, so that those of you who do want to link these other wonderful posts full of helpful hints have that opportunity here on our site. We’d love for you to share these homemaking type posts, when it is appropriate, and if we host a link-up for that purpose. What are your thoughts on us adding this feature to our site?? We’d appreciate your feedback on this.

In the meantime, I’m asking you to please join me in keeping the gratitude to God in Gratituesday. Write and share about what you are grateful for. And please thoughtfully link back to my blog on your post, saying something like Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers! – because that’s the kind bloggy thing to do when you link up with someone.

If I feel that a post is not in line with the Gratituesday theme that I know my readers are looking for, I will delete the link. I won’t enjoy myself, but I feel that I owe this to my readers. I’d be ever so, well…grateful…if you’d make this deleting job easier and not give me anything to delete. Simply write and link up a post about what God is doing in your life and we’re all good to go! Because I know that God is working all the time in all of our lives, I’m very sure you can think of something each week to share! And as always, for those of you who don’t have blogs, please continue to share what you are grateful for each Gratituesday in the comments section.

So there you go. Can we still be friends? I’ve been needing to, but not wanting to write this post for several months now. I love and appreciate you all and would like to hear your thoughts on this subject, and on the idea of beginning a new monthly feature/link-up allowing us to share homemaking tips.

Okay. Your thoughts? Questions?

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

Gratituesday: The Great Outdoors

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We have been experiencing some unusually wonderful weather lately in Nebraska.I don’t ever remember a winter this nice, nor do I ever remember experiencing such great spring like weather during the month of March. Recently, while our family should all be in the house cleaning and working on home improvement projects, we’ve instead been outside playing Air Soft and shooting hoops. Not only have we not been cleaning, we’ve been tracking in all kinds of extra dirt and leaves. It’s lovely – and it’s all over the house.

The boys have been asking for popsicles and have been hoping to soon turn the sprinkler on under the trampoline. I think it is a little early to be thinking about both of these, but hey, it never hurts to ask, right? While I can’t accommodate them on the sprinkler, sure, I can make popsicles. Why not? After all, I did ask my husband to grill steak the other night when it was a warm fifty degrees outside. Of course he was happy to oblige.

Over the weekend, I was able to go out and play a couple rounds of HORSE with my boys. Then because it was so lovely outside, and I couldn’t stand the thought of going back in to face the dirt and leaves (which were by that time joining forces to plan a party in every corner of my house), I stayed out even longer to continue to shoot baskets for another half hour with my teenager – just he and I. It just doesn’t get any better than that. And, you should be impressed to know that I got my hair caught in the nearby gangly weeds only twice while retrieving my ball. Not too bad, eh?

My personal trainer (aka, awesome friend Jen) and I have been able to take long walks outside for our work-outs lately. Walking outside in the sunshine for miles instead of walking lap after lap after lap (after lap, after lap…) on the indoor track – there is no comparison. There is just something about the sun and mild weather that is invigorating, making us want to stay out longer and work harder. It probably helps that the bugs aren’t out in full force yet. Seeing several centipedes on the sidewalk is almost endearing, as opposed to breathing in and having twelve gnats threaten to fly into your mouth and down your throat. Yes, this kind of weather totally works for me.

Now, I am Nebraskan enough to realize that this kind of gorgeous weather may soon be blown right down south while a freezing cold northern wind blows sheets of ice right down my pitiful and frigid neck – any day now probably. But as long as the sun is shining and providing ideal moments to spend outside with the people I love – I’ll be abandoning the vacuum and dishwater to catch some Vitamin D and to make some memories.

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!