What's for dinner?

I think I've tried them all - Once a Month Cooking, SavingDinner.com, MasterCook Deluxe, planning my own and flyingbytheseatofmypants varieties of dinners. No way around it, feeding a family of 7 is a big task. Add to that teens with conflicting work schedules, teens with youth or school activities, hubbies who work late or who also have out of the house evening responsibilities and its never ending drudgery -err, I mean adventure.



Each method has its merits and downfalls:

OAMC - takes one day of about 8 hours in the kitchen but the reward is great. I have a month's worth - and with our schedules I can often get 6-8 weeks out of it - main courses in my freezer. I just have to come up with veggies and sides daily. It also is more economical since it requires less shopping trips so less binge buying while at the store.



Saving Dinner - This summer I subscribed to 3 months worth of menu mailers. Each week I get 3 menus - one for losing weight (Body Clutter), one Heart Healthy, and one regular menu. It comes with menu, recipes AND grocery list! For $9.95 for 3 months its quite the bargain. I like the body clutter recipes and tried some heart healthy recipes. My family prefers my recipes but they didn't complain too much. They did however eat cereal in the evenings after dinner often.



MasterCook Deluxe- a program on my computer. I have entered many of my families favorite recipes and put together a menu - 1 week, 2 weeks or even a month. The program will then print out the menu and the shopping list. Its a bit time consuming as I have to add new recipes if I want to venture from the same old same old. Often there are duplicate ingredients and I have to go over the list and consolidate them. However, its the only way I like to plan my own.



Anyway I look at it though I have got to have a plan. flyingbytheseatofmypants dinner prep ends up with fat mommy syndrome and too much $$ being spent on dinners out.

I Love You Pink

As this post is published, I am in Disney with my girls and mother. Probably working really hard getting us to a gourmet breakfast with princesses or watching a show or riding some great ride.

As this post is published, the rest of my family is at home painting away, transforming the littles yellow room into a girlie, girls dream bedroom - a room with I Love You Pink walls!

Littles know we are "considering" painting their room pink and have even seen the paint swatches on their walls, but they will be quite surprised when we get home.

What a dutiful daughter am I!

When I told my mama we were returning to my home state after years away, her very first question was, "Can we take the littles to Disney World?" When we had lived here years before, my parents had taken each of the older 3 to WDW for a special trip.

I, of course, said YES! Who wouldn't love for their kids to have a magical trip to WDW with grandparents? Sadly though my dad's knee problem makes all the walking required for such a trip impossible for him. That does not stop him and Mom though from being super generous and still giving the littles a trip to see Mickey, and of course THE PRINCESSES!

So, being the dutiful, sacrifical daughter that I am, I have agreed to stand in for him and accompany Mom and the girls to Disney World.

Do you think there's a Daughter of the Year Award in my future for such an outstanding sacrifice??

MWC doesn't want pie???

Hmm this pie looks pretty good. Wonder why he doesn't want it?
Oh, that explains it!

Yep, he definitely prefers my pie!

Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o'erflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design,
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

From the hymn, "How Firm a Foundation"

She may not have gotten a party

But Littlest got to celebrate her birthday 3 times! First there was the family celebration last weekend. Then there was her birthday dinner and a few more gifts on her actual birthday. Littlest hugs Little after she opens her birthday gift from her - a Care Bears place mat that says Best Friends and a chocolate bar. Its the first gift Little bought using her own money!

Celebrating at a restaurant with grandparents. They brought a nice pile of packages from themselves and Uncle's family. The real gift - ours!

First day of Autumn

The official calendar says its not until Tuesday. However at our house, it begins today. Why today? Because today we close the pool (well actually the pool place closes the pool, we're still pool newbies and have no idea how to do this so are letting the professionals handle it to be sure its done right and survives the winter.)

We haven't been in the pool for over a week, its been so unseasonably cool here. Swan lamented that she did not get her official last swim of the summer in. I urged her to jump in it yesterday but since it was in the 60's and drizzling, she opted to forgo the formality this year.

We've really enjoyed having a pool this summer--especially now that we have an automatic vacuum cleaner for it--but I'm ready to have it closed and start enjoying cooler weather and walking and riding bikes more.

Farewell summer, hello autumn!

This PS is to my friend who knows who she is: Closing a pool while it is still summer is one thing, eating chili in the summer is a whole 'nuther thing.

Happy Birthday Littlest

Today Littlest is 5 years old. The caboose is growing up. For her birthday celebration, we took advantage of a rare Saturday when all 6 of us still in residence in our home were available and took Littlest for her surprise birthday present, Chinese noodles and Maggie Moos ice cream. (I don’t think you can officially turn a year older around here without that!) Today we’ll have cake at home. She wants a princess cake – what else?

Swan carried Littlest through Walmart. Littlest's eyes were squeezed tight!

She picked the Princess model. No surprises there!

Swan's boss at Maggie Moos gave Littlest her choice of any ice cream - she chose mint ice cream with Oreo's mixed in in a white chocolate sprinkle cone. Yummy!

A real nail biter

In fact, my heart is still pounding! lol!

Swan LOVES volleyball. She plays a LOT. We've had nets in our yard. She plays at church. She gets together with friends to play whenever she can. Have I mentioned Swan LOVES volleyball? Not being able to play volleyball (or softball but that's another post yet to be seen) was a major downer to her about being homeschooled. Well this year, another homeschooling mom had the brilliant idea and the energy and drive to put together a high school volleyball team of homeschooled girls. And that is how the "Flames" were born. There are about 10 girls on the team and Swan is their captain. Last week they had their first game against a private schools JV team. They won easily. Yesterday, they played the varsity team of the same school. The first game they won 25-11. Swan served (pictured below) 10 consecutive points for that game to get a big head start and the other team was never able to catch up. In the second game, her coach had Swan serve last instead of first and the game was neck and neck from the get go. The other team won that game 25-23. It was a nail biter to the end and it was Swan's serve to get the game point back but the other team was able to return the serve and we lost the point on the volley. So we went to a 3rd game. Swan was put back in serving first but lost the serve early on during a volley and that game was also a neck and neck game. They finally lost the game 15-14. Both coaches were surprised that the ref did not make them win by 2 points and there was one disappointed Flames team when he said no. There will be a check of the offical rules on that one I'm sure!

Bikini Soup

Little does not like it. She told me so. "I see bikinis in there and I do not like bikinis."

Well Little, Mommy doesn't like bikinis either but if the soup had such transformational powers, Mommy wouldn't complain. In the meantime, I will lunch on my veggie soup with zucchinis and hope for the best.

Valley of Vision

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine;
let me find Thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
Thy joy in my sorrow,
Thy grace in my sin,
Thy riches in my poverty,
Thy glory in my valley.

taken from the Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions edited by Arthur Bennet

Littlest to the rescue

Littlest rescued this little fellow from our pool skimmer one day this week. She thought he might just like resting on our lily pads so took him to our pond. Turns out, he got himself in trouble there too b/c he jumped in the water and it was too low to get out so she had to rescue him again. She put him in the garden on solid ground. Good thinking!

Where were you?

Our parents generation has JFK's assasination. They know exactly where they were the day he died. I suppose every generation probably does being that we live in a sinful and fallen world.

We of course have September 11, 2001. 8 years ago on a beautifully clear day I was in our school room doing school with the kids. We were working fast so that we could go to the library, where we volunteered every Tuesday morning. The phone rang and it was our friends who volunteered with us telling us to turn on the TV. We didn't have cable but were able to pick up a fuzzy picture of the news using rabbit ears. Fuzzy or not, we were glued to that TV for the next several days.

MWC was on the crisis response team for the Pentagon. We saw very little of him over the next several days. In his brief case that morning was our adoption application for Little. Needless to say it didn't get signed off that morning or put into the mail as we had planned. It would be a week or so before we were able to sit down and discuss whether we'd go forward with the adoption or not. We knew that our lives would be changed as a result of these attacks. Our previous military life whose greatest hardship was frequent moving was most likely coming to an end. We had some anxieties about making such another drastic change in our lives.

However, in talking about it, we reminded ourselves that God is sovereign over ALL things. He knew these attacks would happen even as He lead us to pursue this adoption. Our world may have been rocked but our sovereign Lord was still the same and still in control. Fear and anxiety had no place in our decision.

So hear we are 8 years later, with not only 1 more child in our family but 2. We've moved 3 times and MWC has deployed 3 times. Some of the many changes in our lives these past 8 years have been quite joyful, others painful. They have all come from the hand of a loving God though for His glory and our good. We put our trust in that.

Day 2 was a big success

Little had her second day of "Victoria", as Littlest calls the tutorial, today. After her rough start on Tuesday, she was eager and excited to return this morning. Last night she picked out her uniform for today, made sure her backpack was stocked. and packed her own lunch. I walked her in this morning with a promise to return at lunch and a kiss good-bye. Littlest and I joined her for lunch and Littlest played with her at recess and then we left. At the end of the day she walked confidently, and even more importantly, with a huge smile on her face, to my van in the car line. She is also begging to do tomorrow's homework this evening and planning what she wants to pack in Tuesday's lunch. I think she's going to do just fine!

Charlotte in Charlotte

This weekend we had the privilege of going to Charlotte to see some wonderful friends. They have a very unusual pet in their front yard. Let me introduce to you, Charlotte the writing spider from Charlotte.
Having just read Charlotte's Web this summer, the littles were fascinated by Charlotte. We met Charlotte shortly after our arrival. The next morning before breakfast, they had to run out to see if she'd written anything new in her web.It seems we interrupted her breakfast.

If you look closely at her web, she did indeed weave a new one in the evening and "wrote" in a new design for us to check out.

A big day

This morning Little went to "school." it was an exciting morning. The backpack was packed, the lunch bag was stuffed, she had on her uniform and was ready to go. She attends 2 days a week and learned History, Science and English and I teach her the other 3 days.

At lunch, I needed to go see her and give her a little confidence for the afternoon. She missed her mommy. Didn't take too long and she ended the day happy and ready to return on Thursday. Phew!

2 thumbs up for American Airlines

MWC was away last week for some training and took an evening flight out so he could get home in time to turn around again and leave to go to his mother's house for Labor Day weekend and do some labors of love for her. Sleep was important but his tall self being able to sleep in coach is always an iffy proposition at best.

He was in uniform and American Airlines upgraded men and women in uniform to first class. He was able to snooze comfortably on his flight home.

Thank you American Airlines for your support of our men and women in uniform!!

The Christian ideal has not been found tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried. -- GK Chesterton

Who says working can't be fun?

Our family recently had the privilege of organizing a bunch of great teens from our church youth group to go on a work service project. 2 old homes on the same property are being renovated into a home and culinary training school for young women and a conference center where they can apply their new skills.

MWC went up early with the teens and got to work. The little girls and I joined them later in the morning and brought lunch. Frog the "Amazing" Painter Swan and a friend climb the ladders to scrape paintMWC the project superviser with his assistants

Little and Littlest supervising from the sidelines.

MWC and Little firing up the grill to cook the burgers and hot dogs we brought to feed our crew.

Annmarie Gardens take 3

God,the Master Artist. left some of His own handiwork for us to observe and marvel at:

Annmarie Gardens take 2

These are MY favorite views of the day.

We were there to see art after all.
This reminded me of my Creepy Internet Friends who know who they are

Annmarie Gardens

Just before Clone returned to college, he, Swan, the littles and I went to Annmarie Gardens in southern Maryland. It is a public sculpture park and art gallery. It is small but nice. The exhibit while we were there was titled "Wild Things"

The pictures I share with you today are his favorite things from the exhibit. He didn't tell me, well exc for the fish prints, which fascinated him, that they were his favorites, but I could figure it out very easily. There were multiple pictures of these on my camera.

I will share my own photos at a later date.