I shared here about my quest to shorten my grocery list by making more things from scratch and I have something new I'm making from scratch.
Well, technically it's not new because I've been making it for months and completely holding out on you guys by not sharing this sooner because it is by far the easiest thing I make from scratch.
Maple Syrup!
We eat pancakes and waffles fairly often around here and my husband and kids also like maple syrup on cornbread so I was buying the Aunt Jemima Syrup quite a bit. Until one day we ran out but I'd already made pancakes, so in a panic I searched for a homemade syrup recipe and found one that can easily be made with three (Yes, count them up 3! And 1 of the items is water!) items you likely already have in your home!
I love it, my kids love it, it is so easy to make, and syrup is FOREVER crossed off my grocery list!!
Here's the link to the recipe.Find more
Gratituesday,
Tackle it Tuesday, and
Works for Me Wednesday,
I never cease to be amazed at how different my 3 children can be from one another. Same DNA, same parents, same home environment, yet 3 totally different kids!
This spring both my 8 year old son and my 5 year old daughter are playing soccer, they're on different teams with different practice nights, but in the same league. It's the first time for them both to be doing the same sport and it really highlights some of the ways they're different.
Here's my 8 year old son playing soccer:
As he gets ready for practice I have to remind him about every step and sometimes re-remind. Change into soccer clothes, shin guards, cleats, find your soccer ball!
Then I hand him his already filled (by me) bottle of ice water to take to practice.
Me: "Ball and water bottle. Those are the things you need to keep up with at practice and make sure they make it to practice and back home again. Okay?"
We drive exactly 2 minutes to practice. I park, unload all 3 kids out of the car to walk the 8 year old into his practice area a couple fields over, usher kids across parking lot making sure everyone is holding hands (Is it just me or is there just no good way to do this when you have 3 kids and only 2 hands?). Then I look down at the 8 year old.
No water bottle and no ball!!!
Me (trying not to sound exasperated): "What are you missing?"
Him: "Oh yeah, they're in the car."
My 5 year old daughter playing soccer:
Her (as she gets ready for practice): "Mommy we have to get my shin guards on and my cleats. Here I'll get them, I know right where they are. And my ball. And my water bottle! We can't forget my water bottle! Here it is in the cabinet, I'm going to fill it up!"
Me: "Good job remembering, I almost forgot about the water bottle!"
And needless to say she made it out of the car and into practice with both her ball and water bottle with no reminders or trips back to the car!
I'm thinking I'm going to have to practice some tough love on my 8 year old and maybe let him show up to practice without his water bottle or ball or shin guards a couple times if he doesn't get them himself. It worked with his homework for school. After the one time when I made the hard decision not to rescue him and take the homework folder he left on the table up to school, he hasn't forgotten it again and I don't even have to remind him to put it in his backpack!
So are the differences in my son and daughter boy/girl differences or just their personalities?
One more last funny note about both of them playing the same sport. At her age my daughter's team rotates all the players through all the positions so she got to play goalie at her game on Saturday and I snapped this picture:
When he saw she'd been put at goalie, my 8 year old son had to jump up from his seat on the sidelines (his game was after hers) and go behind the goal to give his little sister some coaching. Doesn't she look like she's thrilled to have his instruction?!!
It's that time again -- the 5 Minutes for Mom Ultimate Blog Party! Welcome to the It Feels Like Chaos party!
Feel free to grab some ear plugs at the door; it's always LOUD around here!
And I must warn you against eating any of the cake!
The ice cream, however, gets rave reviews!
To introduce ourselves, we have 3 biological children ages 8, 5, and 3 years old and are in the process of adopting a little girl from Ethiopia.
As if having 3 young children and an adoption in progress wasn't enough crazy, we recently added a puppy to the chaos. Madeline is a 16 week old golden doodle puppy who really, really loves taking baths, in fact just this week she's discovered a new tactic that nearly guarantees her a much coveted bath:
Yes, that is mud covering her furry blond feet. Sorry for cutting off her head, as it turns out children may be easier to photograph than puppies! And for the record, the puppy is now getting a bath and blow-dry more times each week than I do!
So what's up with the name? Is it really chaos?
Well, there are occasionally backwards jeans.
Teeth have been known to fall out! And we anticipate losing 60 or more in the next few years! And our tooth fairy is way stingier than the tooth fairy for my kids' friends, so I don't know what's up with that! I tell my kids, "Well, their teeth just must be better than your teeth, maybe they brush more!"
I got a sewing machine for Mother's Day last year, The Internet has taught me to sew, and now I make more than half of my daughter's clothes, like this dress I made with this tutorial this week. I delighted in how sweet and girly my daughter looked in it. Then after school, she came home and made mud pies with her brothers while wearing it! Awesome!
There may or may not have been a moment this week when I called my husband at work and said, "All 3 kids are muddy, the dog is muddy, the 8 year old needs to be at soccer practice in 30 minutes, and I really just wish the mom would show up and deal with all this." Yeah, I know I AM the mom, and I did suck it up and deal with it all, even making it to the practice on time.
But the really crazy thing about the mud that made me wish I could turn-over my mom position just for an hour or so? Is that it hasn't really rained here in I-don't-know-when! My children created the mud by toting water from our outside faucet to the dirt under their swing set with buckets!
Back to the "Is it really chaos?" question.
Random face decorating is common around here.
There's usually a science experiment going on.
And somehow my toilet paper always ends up looking like this:
It used to be a toddler wildly unrolling the t.p. and this frugal momma rolling it back up (I mean it's not really used t.p., just unrolled)! Now, the puppy is the culprit!
My in-box pretty much always looks like this:
And while sometimes being the main manager of all the chaos leaves me feeling like this very tired bear.
I wouldn't have it any other way!
This blog is about sharing the crazy journey God has us on -- the messes, the fun, the joy, the pain, the struggles, the crafts (for the uncrafty, of course), the cooking from scratch, the attempt to live frugally for a greater purpose, the learning, the loving. The chaos! But, as the Sanctus Real song says, "It feels like chaos, but somehow there's peace." The peace comes from the only thing truly good about our home, and that is Jesus. I am so glad that He's "up to something bigger than me"!
Thanks for joining our party! Feel free to come back any time for a front row seat to all the chaos. And the best part? You get to enjoy it without having to clean up from it!!
We have had some truly beautiful weather the month of March. It has been cool in the mornings and evenings and sunny and warm in the afternoons, perfect for being outside a lot, which I love. Having 3 kids and a dog, my house stays much cleaner when everyone can eat/snack/play, outside!
This past weekend it was even warm enough to drag out the old baby pool!
This may not come as much of a surprise considering how very much our puppy loves taking a bath, but we found something else she loves:
Oh, she had a fine time jumping in and out of the pool over and over again, then she found some nice dirt to lay down in and combined with her wet self it created, you guessed it, mud! So to cap off the joy of the baby pool Madeline the puppy got her first hose bath!
It's going to be a fun summer and I'm imagining a plastic wading pool in our future, Madeline came very close to popping that inflatable one; it's only a matter of time!
Find more
Thankful Thursday here.
Lunch in the treehouse.
Just my 3 year old son and me.
It's something I've done with all 3 of my kids many, many times.
Sometimes all together, squeezing in.
Me worrying someone will sit too close to the side and fall out.
Sometimes one-on-one, just one child and me.
It's a cheap date.
One day too soon when their whirlwind of childhoods are over, I hope they'll remember their mom eating lunch in the treehouse with them.
But mostly I want them to look back and know, "I was loved, special, cherished, treasured, important!"
Find more
Works for Me Wednesday,
Wordful Wednesday,
Wordless Wednesday, &
Not So Wordless Wednesday.
I'm not going to lie, this morning was one of the harder ones for me in terms of our adoption wait.
There were a variety of reasons, I'll list just some of them.
First, we are rapidly approaching ONE YEAR waiting for our referral for the child we will adopt from Ethiopia. One year into a wait that was averaging around 4 to 6 months when we signed up!
And, lately I've been bombarded with various sign-ups for next school year and I have no idea what next school year will look like for me! I don't know if I'll still have just 3 kids and with my youngest starting pre-K he'll go to school every day next year, just for 3 hours each morning, but still it will be the first time in the 8 years I've been a stay-at-home mom for me to have more than 2 mornings each week where all the kids are in school at the same time. Or, hopefully, prayerfully, we'll have our new daughter home from Ethiopia by then, in which case not only will she not be in school, but she will need nearly all of my attention for a long time! And then there's the fact that we don't know if she's going to be an infant or older toddler, and that affects what activities I can and cannot do next year as far as Bible studies, volunteer positions, activities for my older kids, etc., etc.! So, you see, the lack of ability to plan was beginning to get to me!
Already I'd adjusted to the summer being a big unknown. I haven't signed the kids up for any camps and we cannot plan any family vacation because we don't know when either of our two different trips to Ethiopia will fall! But now with the unknowns leaking into next fall and beyond, it just began to feel like too much. I'm more than happy to put my life on hold to help my new daughter adjust to her new life and family, but I'm tired of putting my life on hold to wait!
Have I mentioned before that I'm a planner, as in we found out the sex of all 3 of our biological children in utero because I needed to plan -- rooms, clothes, names, etc.!
It was a gray morning, unusually cloudy, and the frustration and depression over the adoption situation was definitely getting the best of my mood.
I checked my email right before lunch, hoping for news, there was none, sigh.
After lunch, my 3 year old and I made chocolate chip pumpkin bread and then I put him down for his nap while it baked.
I headed downstairs from tucking him in and the whole house smelled yummy like pumpkin bread, only it reminded me of Thanksgiving when I always make that bread and then all I could think about was how we really thought we'd get our referral, see the face of our new daughter, before Thanksgiving and here we are pushing Easter of the following year!
I sat down with my Bible and before doing my lesson for my Bible study, I turned and read randomly from Psalms. My eyes locked on Psalm 18:6, "In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears."
It was just about an hour later I learned of some big, good news relating to our adoption. Not a referral yet, but a huge barrier holding up our adoption (and many others) has been cleared! Praise God for some much needed good news! Praise God for hearing our cries! Hurray!
Find more
Gratituesday.
Thankfully, mothering is not always a thankless job!
The card my 5 year old daughter made me today:
"Dear Mom,
You or the beast mom in the wold."
And yes it does say "beast mom" but I'll have the record reflect that when she read it to me, my daughter read it as "best mom"!
