Boys will be Boys

So I'm doing a 'photo shoot' with my boys.  Surprised, I know, right?!

Which if you haven't already see some of the cutie patootie pictures on my photography blog, or on my photography facebook page. :)

But here they come booking it back over to me in the middle of taking pictures.

For what you say?!  Because....

Mom!  Look at this teeny little baby frog?!  Can we keep it?

Awwwwwww......sooo cute Bear says.


 

Photos Photos Everywhere!

I have a problem....I have too many pictures on my computer.  Like....I have over 26,000 pictures on my computer.  I'm pretty much out of hard drive space.  Ok, not pretty much....I am!

So what now?  How trustworthy is a back up hard drive?  I mean in theory it seems like it should be the same, but I have this OCD problem, and I don't trust it.  What's the best way to save them, yet not be paranoid, and still easily see them when I want to, and not be paranoid, and did I mention not be paranoid?! :)

I'm obviously going to take more pictures but where am I going to put them now that my computer is out of space?

HELP!

Can you solve my problem, or at least give me peace of mind about my back up hard drive?





 

Randomness v32

1.
Monkey- Mom, do you have a sweet tooth?
Me- Yes I do.
Monkey- Oh, can you show me which one?!
(lol)

2.
Bear is holding 4 Caterpillars in his hand.  He looks down and sees yellow stuff on his hand.
Bear- "Oh no!  One is getting dead."
Me-Why did you squish it?
Bear- No.
Me- Oh, they are just peeing all over you.  Yuck!

3.
Monkey is holding 11 Caterpillars in his hand.
Me- Watch out.  Don't let them climb up your arm or they will get lost and crawl all over your body.
Monkey- Ewww

Later they put them all in the bucket, but there is only 10 now.
Monkey- We lost one!  There are only 10 now.
Me- I bet its crawling around in your pants.
Monkey- Ah!
And he runs into the house to pull his pants down to check!  hahahaha

4.
My mom came to visit and said she forgot to feed her fish in her pond before she came over.
Monkey later to my mom said, "Too bad you forgot to water your fish grandma."
lol

5.
One of the twin 2 year olds was crying and Monkey walks up to him, and in a little sweet high pitched voice he said, "You're going to cry yourself a lake".

6.
One of the twin 2 year olds was in his car seat....one hand in the air and one hand on his chest.
Bear says, Look Mom, he's praising Jesus with one hand and saying the pledge with the other.

To which Monkey replies- "Yeah, he's like, 'I pledge allegiance to the american idol....?!? What?!?  Did I just say American Idol?!" (insert loud laughter here) lol



 

I could never do that.

This is something I've been hearing from people a lot lately.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what this saying is supposed to mean to me.
(I've thought through some explanations that I was going to list, but I'm going to leave that part out for now)

But you're right, You can't do it, and to tell you the truth I can't do it either.  But my God makes all things possible for me that HE wants me to accomplish.  So if you believe in God's word, than you actually can do it.  Because God Word says,  For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.  Phillipians 4:13

Isaiah 55:8-11
⁸ “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
      “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
 ⁹ For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
      so my ways are higher than your ways
      and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.  
¹⁰ “The rain and snow come down from the heavens
      and stay on the ground to water the earth.
   They cause the grain to grow,
      producing seed for the farmer
      and bread for the hungry.
 ¹¹ It is the same with my word.
      I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
   It will accomplish all I want it to,
      and it will prosper everywhere I send it.


Did you catch that last part?  It will accomplish all, what?!!  All HE wants it to...so if HE wants me to do this, it by HIS strength that I will be able to accomplish the task he has set before me.

Just like foster care...and living and loving precious little children with all your heart and painfully having to give back, let go and move on.  

In these 'hardships' in life I've been making it a personal goal to make sure my prayers say, Not my will Lord, but Yours be done in my life.  I need to stay on the path he has set for me, not the side trails that I tend to stray onto.  Because there is no safer place for me to live, than in the will of God.

 

Trials are blessings in disguise

There have been other songs before that I've noted and marked and listened to over and over again and shared with you all. Well here's another new one. A great encouragement to all of us who at one time or another have gone through trials and disappointment, etc, etc, etc....

How can you enjoy the happy times if you've never experience the sad?

Listen to the song below and let me know what you think.

South of the Border Chicken Skillet

1 box noodles*

1 lb chicken

1 jar salsa (about 15-16 oz)

1 pkg frozen corn*

1/2 a pkg of cream cheese (4 oz)

1/2 tsp.  ground cumin

1 cup Shredded Four Cheese

Cook pasta and set aside.  Cook and dice the chicken.  Using a large skillet, (or I used my wok to mix everything together)  mix together the cooked chicken, salsa, corn, and cream cheese.  Simmer on medium-low until the cream cheese is melted, stirring occasionally.  Drain the pasta and add to the chicken mixture.  Top with 1/2 cup of cheese.  Simmer 3 minutes more, stirring occasionally.  Top with remaining shredded cheese; cover.  Remove from hat and let stand until cheese is melted.  Then serve!

-Helpful Hints- *It really calls for 2 cups of noodles.  But I used the whole box instead to make it fuller and to feed more people. :)  Then I used a can of corn instead of frozen corn just because that's all I had at the time.

 

Strawberry Lemonade Bars

Crust
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups flour

Filling
1 cup fresh lemon juice*
2-3 tsp lemon zest
1/2 cup pureed strawberries*
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking pan.
Make the crust first.  Cream together sugar and mutter until smooth.  Add flour at a low speed, mix until crumbly.  Press into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.  Bake for 17 minutes at 350.
Meanwhile, make the filling.
In a bowl or food processor, combine the lemon juice, lemon zest, strawberry puree, sugar and eggs and process until smooth.  Add in the flour and baking powder and blend again until smooth.  Gently pour the filling over the hot crust and bake for another 23-26 minutes.  There will be a slight crust on the top.
Let cool completely and store in the frig.

-Helpful Hints- *It took 4 lemons to get the cup of juice.  It was almost exactly 1/4 cup of juice from each lemon.  Then I didn't use fresh strawberries because I didn't have any...but I did have a container of frozen strawberries so I used about 3/4 a cup of that instead of just 1/2 a cup.

 

Grilled Pizza

So how exactly do you make pizza on the grill?  Well, let the mystery be told! :)

My sister told me she did this, so she happened to come over and stay for the evening so we did it together!  This is totally wonderful!  YOU HAVE TO TRY IT! :)

First make your own homemade dough.....really easy just mix it together!  Click here to see the recipe for mine.  Plus I added some Italian seasoning to the dough to give a little extra flavor.  yummy.

1 dough makes a regular size pizza.  We found it easier to use 1 dough to make 2 smaller pizza instead.  Here's the dough made and ready to go outside.  We had 11 people here so we made 6 pizzas. :)

Do all your prep work first and then bring it outside.  Here's the extra ingredients we were going to use...
Pepperoni, cheese, bacon, chicken, ranch, pizza sauce, green pepper, black olives, hot peppers.  All prepped and ready to go outside.  I put a little card table next to the grill so I could set this stuff out there and have it handy.

Bring out a pan, pizza cutter, olive oil and a grill flipper. :)

Next use the pan to roll out the dough, making sure it doesn't stick.  If it does coat the pan with lots of flour first.  Spread Olive oil on the side that will go on the grill.

Flip it from the pan to the grill or slowly place it on the grill with your hands.   Now put some Olive oil on the top of the crust so you can flip the crust over after 3-4 minutes of browning the bottom of the crust.

FLIP!

As soon as you flip, start putting your ingredients on the top grilled side.

 When the cheese is slightly melted it should be done!  Slide it back onto the pan so you can cut it and enjoy!

It is really amazing how this is the exact same pizza crust mix I always make my pizza with but it tasted so much better when it was cooked over a real fire on the grill compared to in the oven!  Yummy!

We made pepperoni pizza, chicken bacon ranch pizza, pepperoni and black olive pizza, and another chicken, bacon, ranch as the sauce, with hot peppers, green pepper and black olives.





 

Caterpillars!

While on our walk the boys found a whole bunch of caterpillars and decided to hold them all and bring them back to the house.

Here's Monkey holding 11 caterpillars on the walk back to the house.

When we got the house Bear took a turn holding some.

Then they put them down and Monkey went to wash his hands....can you see the left behind 'residue' from the caterpillars crawling all over their hands? Slight yellow tints. :)  ISH!

Now Bear is keeping guard....but they are all trying to get out of there!

So they decided to put them in a bucket instead to keep them from getting away so quickly.

And now flashback.....to our caterpillar fun from last year! :)

 

You might have a problem if.....v2

Cherry Coke

You might have a problem if....it's only 9:30 am and you REALLY, really want a Cherry Coke. :)




 

Photography-Wedding

Swing on over to my Photography Blog, or my new Facebook Photography Page to see my Wedding pics from Saturday!


 

Alphabet Song Challenge

My son gave me a challenge....well it was more of a this would be hard to do, so I took that as a challenge! :)

Sing the Alphabet song, but you can't just say the letter, you have to say a word that starts with that letter.

Now sing the song and don't skip any letters, and be fast while thinking up those words!



















Here's mine....

Apple, Banana, Carrot, Dog, Elephant, Fish, Goose, Horse, Iguana, Joker, Kiwi, Lemon, Mango, Nectarine, Orange, Peach, Quilt, Raccoon, Sun, Turtle, Unicorn, Violet, Watermelon, X-Ray, Yellow, Zebra.

That's not so hard when you read it and sing it.  Did you make up your own words and sing it?


Leave a comment to tell me what your words were.



 

Letter G

Have fun with the Letter G!

Letter G Memory Verse

  “Go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone." Mark 16:15

(No picture sorry)

Glue Glitter on your letter G.

A-Z Collage Sheets.
I printed these 2 up on a page.

We used the G that we already had printed from our A-Z Collage Sheets.

I got these wooden blocks from hobby lobby, and had him place them on the letter shape.  

Just another way to have fun while learning how to shape the letter G!

After doing this all week, I had him do it the last day with out the paper underneath.

I made this color puzzle Gumball game myself.

I had the empty gumball machine picture from a homeschool friend...not sure where it was printed from.  I printed add the gumballs, laminated it and then add the velcro to make it a matching game.

A-Z Handwriting worksheets.  

I put them in a sheet protector so he can use the same sheet every day of the week!

Letter Hunt Worksheets.  Download the file here.

Print and use a sheet protector so you can do it every day of the week.

 Letter G size Sort.  Download the file here.

Letter G Puzzle.

(I used the A-Z large floor mats as puzzles) 

This way it doesn't have the lines already in the file and you can cut it however you want.  I wanted to do at least 8 pieces.  I might change it up to more or different shapes or something for a later puzzle...we will see!

 Letter G cutting practice.  Download the file here.

Gumball Counting cards

Use these in 3 different ways.  First you can just put them in numerical order.  Then I have larger clothes pins that I have written numbers on, so they use those to match the number.  And then I bought some smaller clothes pins and that one he puts that many pins on the number card.  

We also lined them up this way and counted by 2's!

See all these examples in picture form in the Number Order Games Post.

Letter Matching.  Download the file here.

Print the letters only once with all these files.  I just laminated the letters instead of attaching them to anything else.  This still makes them durable and long lasting. :)

(No picture)

Capital/Lowercase Sorting.  Download the file here.

 Print smaller size to save on ink and lamination. :)

(no picture)

Roll a Gumball.  These games are my son's favorite. :)

Download the file here.

(no picure)

Gumball Magnetic Page.
Find the instant download link here.
We used our homemade pompom magnets for these.

Alphabet Sorting.  Download the printable file here.

 

Bean Bag Toss.  

Capital letter file.  Lowercase letter file.

Have fun aiming for the letter G! 

(Yes, I'm not going to take new pictures each time so pretend the bean bag landed on the letter G!)

(no picture)

 Read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom every day.  

And at the end of the week put the letter G on your coconut tree!  

I used the A-Z Collage Sheets.

I put them 4 up on a page so the letter would be small enough for 

them all to fit on our little coconut tree. 

I made my own circle the letter files.

Download my A-Z Circle the letter file.

You can print them full page or 2 up.  

We used pencil on this and did it as a one time use.

A big thanks to other blogger friends for some of the printables and ideas. 

 

Heart Check

Do you need a heart check?  We all do sometimes.  Some days multiple times.


Obviously, I'm not talking about the physical heart check here, but the spiritual.

Today has been filled with naughtiness, bad actions, selfishness, anger, and lots more things!

To spare the details it started early in the morning and snowballed through everyone's actions.

And to be honest that really gets to ya!  So it started getting to me, and I thought....whoa!  I need a heart check here!  No matter how naughty they are I need to not let it get to me.

Proverbs 15:1-2 A gentle answer turns anger away.  But mean words stir up anger.  The tongues of wise people use knowledge well.  But the mouths of the foolish people pour out foolish words.

Proverbs 12:18  Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Wow aren't those verses a slap in the face?!  Am I softening my tone when I get upset or frustrated with something, or am I learning from the proverb that says a gentle or soft answer turns away the anger?!  And what is that coming out of my mouth....wise knowledge or foolish words?!

I wish I had a little recording or something that could go off before something like that happens.  Like...."STOP, don't pour out the foolish words!  Use the soft answer!"

Well, I guess the one thing I can do is post these verses in plain sight and work on them over and over until they are ingrained in my head a little better!  So, I'm posting one by the sink, and one on the pantry door. :)


Do you need a heart check?

What verses are you going to work on to help with that?

 

Randomness v31

1.
Me- Should we do the sprinkler inside or outside?
TJ- (sarcastically) Uh, I think we should try outside this time. :)
Me- ooops I mean front yard or back yard.
Bwahahahaha

2.
I'm in my closet picking out clothes....the 3 yr old comes downstairs stands by my room door and says, My shoe came off!  I said, ok well take the other one off too!  He can hear me but not see me so his response is...."WHERE IS YOU?!"

3.
Some of the sweetest words ever....from my 3 year old foster boy while putting him to bed..."I like you.  I like it here."
(Awwww....Melt my heart)

4.
The nightly question routine...You wake my up?  Will you throw my onto the bed?  Can you open the door? Will you turn the song on?  You wake my up?  Where my tag?  My want more kissies!  Is that yight on?  You wake my up?!  My final response before leaving the room....The closet door is open, the music is playing, the night light is on, MWAH, and Yes I will wake you up in the morning.  Good night! :)

5.
Me- Uh, why is Mr. Potato Head's ear in the dishwasher?!




 

You might have a problem if......v1

We'll see if I can keep this volume going but I thought this was a funny first one....

Facebook...
You know you might have a problem if you pull up the internet to look up a specific item, but instead you 'accidentally' click the facebook tab....thumb through it for way too long and close down the browser without ever looking up the real thing you wanted. :)


 

Object Lesson v1

This was a quick object lesson we did a while back with our story about Abraham and Isaac....and traveling through the dessert.

We talked about how God made the camels with big feet to help them not sink into the sand.

So first we used a pencil, and pushed it into the sand.  It was really easy to push down into the sand.

Then we taped a quarter to the bottom on the pencil making the wider "foot" and that was much harder to push into the sand.  It keep the pencil on top.  Just like the big feet of a camel help it not sink in the sand.