Mom's Potato Soup

 Mom's Potato Soup
(this is NOT organic in any way or very healthy for you, but once you taste it you really won't care. Maybe someday I will work at making it healthier but at this point I'm not interested in changing an already perfect and soothing to my soul recipe of my momma's.)

6-8 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped bite size
one bag of frozen mixed veggies (or whatever veggies you like)
one large onion, finely chopped
6-8 large polish sausage links cut bite size (I usually use John Morrell polish sausages. I've also used kielbasa, or left over spiral ham. YUM!)
8 cups of water with 3 heaping Tbsp of chicken soup base OR 8 cups of chicken broth
1 Tbsp finely chopped garlic
8 American cheese slices
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a big soup pot or crock pot. Cook until potatoes are tender. Easy Cheesy.
This feeds a large group or makes for really good left overs!

LOVE: A Variation on a Theme

A very dear friend gave this to me years ago. It hangs on my fridge everyday. I don't read it everyday but it's there. Today it's soothing to me. 

LOVE
A Variation on a Theme

If I live in a house of spotless beauty with everything in it's place,
but have not love, I am a housekeeper ~ not a homemaker.
If I have time for waxing, polishing, and decorative achievements,
but have not love, my children learn of cleaniness ~ not Godliness.
Love leaves the dust in search of a child's laugh.
Love smiles at the tiny fingerprints on a newly cleaned window.
Love wipes away the tears before it wipes up the spilled milk.
Love picks up the child before it picks up the toys.
Love is present through the trials.
Love reprimands, reproves, and is responsive.
Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adutlhood.
Love is the key that open's salvation's message to a child's heart.
Before I became a mother I took glory in my house of perfection.
Now I glory in God's perfection of my child.
As a mother there is much I must teach my child, but the greatest of all is love.

I don't know who the author of this is. Whoever it is, she understands how fast time goes and what's really worth her efforts.


I hope my kids don't remember how dirty or clean our house was or how I often put THINGS before LOVE. I hope they mostly remember the times we snuggled, played, read, prayed, laughed, served, created, and danced together.

Now go sit on the dirty floor with your kids and PLAY.

The Cross Centered Life

The Cross Centered Life
Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing
by C.J. Mahaney

"We sit back and let our view of God and life be shaped by our constantly shifting feelings about our ever changing circumstances. . . . Is it any wonder we're so often unhappy? We're listening to ourselves. . . . Our emotions shouldn't be vested with final authority. This should be reserved for God's Word ALONE."

If you haven't read this book . . . . you need to! It's a VERY fast read and VERY powerful! I'm reading it for the second time. Probably half of my copy is underlined!

BE AT REST JESS

Got the invoice today for our next adoption payment due.

I say, "OY!" 

He says, "BE AT REST JESS."

"Ok, God. THANK YOU for preparing my heart with joy today.

AND this --- Running Towards Love
AND this --- The Ivy Family
AND this ---Experiencing-the-Power-of-Christ 

AND for what you've already provided!!! WOW!"

Baked Oatmeal

Baked Oatmeal 
by Erin Meschke (although I think she's changed this recipe in the last few years by making it even healthier, but I haven't gotten the updated one...yet.)

1/2 C apple sauce
1 1/2 C sugar
4 eggs
1 T baking powder
3/4 t salt
2 C milk
2 t vanilla
1 T cinnamon
6 C Old Fashion Oatmeal
1 bag craisins

Preheat oven to 350. Whisk together apple sauce, sugar, and eggs. Add baking powder and salt and blend well. Add milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour oats and craisins on top and mix thoroughly. Spray 9x13 pan and fill with oatmil mixture. Even out and bake 45 minutes.
Serve warm with milk poured on top (this is how my kids like it) or just plain (how I like it).

This is seriously the easiest thing to make! I whipped it up and got it in the oven in the amount of time it took Jason to read the kids a book...in the other room! The kids finished up the granola tonight for a bedtime snack so I decided to make up this baked oatmeal to have for the next few mornings. It's in the oven NOW. I'm currently smelling the rain and cinnamon! Yum! Maybe I will have some tonight with a cup of tea after the kids go to bed! Which I hope is very, very soon. Please God make it be soon.

I hope the neighbors don't call the cops!

Today I worked a lot in the yard. We are trying to get prepared to plant some grass in our half grass half dirt backyard. There were lots of sticks, rocks, dog poos, and leaves to get cleaned up. Along with getting that done I was also able to trim down a few bushes that had branches resting on the fence. This meant that I used muscles that I haven't used in a while. I'm tired tonight.

Shortly after Caedmon got home from school him and Payton were both playing up in the tree house. Soon playing turned in to arguing and arguing turned into full on fighting including a stick being thrown in someones face. Fighting is not cool. Fighting UP in the tree house is FORBIDDEN! So naturally when I heard the full on fighting, aka thrashing around and screaming like you are being murdered, I turned around from trimming the lovely lilac and yelled to get their attention. Yelling VERY loudly because remember, fighting UP in the tree house is FORBIDDEN! Both kids were scolded sternly and sent inside to have discipline and lay in their beds until I had finished my jobs outside. This wonderful afternoon out in the beautiful weather was turning gray fast.

As I went back outside to finish my work and the kids finished their punishments, I grabbed my little hand saw and got back to the bushes and thought about how embarrassing my kids were to me at times . . . even in our own backyard. Then I realized how this whole scene may have looked to some curious neighbors. THE SCENE- Kids crying, mom yelling, "Both of you go inside! You're in HUGE trouble. YOU'RE DONE!" and . . . A HAND SAW IN TOW. Oops. I hope the neighbors don't call the cops.

At supper we learned what the fight was about. Payton wanted a piece of wood up in the tree house to write "club members" names on. Caedmon did not. 

Oh, of course. Now I understand.  That's such a big deal. I would have probably thrown a stick in someones face over it too.

Tomorrow I will send the kids out to play again (minus tree house privileges) so that the neighbors can see that I did not saw up my children. In the meantime, they are all finally sleeping peacefully in their beds . . . I promise.



HUG O' WAR
by Shel Silverstein

I will not play a tug o' war.
I'd rather play a hug o' war.
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

Life with young kids. It's always something . . .

Sorry if these pictures offend you. Just try not to look too long I guess.

Really Reagan?! Really.