Playing in the Creek

Summer in the Backyard

Baby on the Way

Baby number 12 is officially on the way. Life is going to get super crazy and fun around here.  We are asking for prayers as it appears the little one on the way has a cleft lip and palette and will obviously need surgery. This is one of those cases where we are thankful to be able to plan ahead of time and have access to the proper medical care. It will be an interesting few months for everyone. Please keep our little one in your prayers.

Stations of the Cross Candles

This is a project I have intended to do for the past several years. This year I finally got around to actually buying the materials. I think I just couldn't resist the $1 bottles of lodge podge at Target and needed a reason to justify buying some.

This would be wonderful project to do with your kids and then use every week as your family says stations together. Of course, I did the project myself and we have been attending stations as a family at a local parish. The Knights there love having our boys on hand to carry the cross because other than our family, it has almost always been elderly folks. But the kids have enjoyed looking at the candles anyway.

You can find I instructions and printable for your own candles all over the place. I got my printables .here.

Family Rosary Time

Attempts at the family rosary usually don't last long around here. I just don't think the yelling and fighting and craziness that ensues is at all inspiring. A near occasion of sin would be more like it. But I am going to attempt it again for Lent. I'm trying to work the younger ones up to a full rosary. What have I learned tonight? I need to work on basic prayers with the younger ones. The Hail Mary according to the younger ones is as follows:

    ~Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with me.~

Gotta love it. And check out these awesome roses made by Grandma to help the kids pray. They were so cool looking that even Gabe wanted to participate.

Handwriting Prayer Practice

I'm finding so many things to love lately over at Catholic Icing.  I recently printed out these prayer handwriting sheets for the younger children. The perfect combo: handwriting practice plus learning some necessary Catholic prayers. I also printed out these poster type versions of the prayers to hang up in the house to help with the learning thing. 

Whipped Strawberry Butter

Ok folks. We all know that real maple syrup is much better for us than the imitation stuff. Much better. Most of the bottled stuff basically comes down to high fructose corn syrup mixed with artificial colors and flavors. Which is just not the best thing to pour into your body first thing in the morning.  (Yes, I get the irony as I often am found downing a Dr. Pepper in the morning. I'm a work in progress and I'm hoping for my kids to be healthier than I am.) Truthfully, I don't think I'd ever tasted the real stuff until we moved here and I started prioritizing buying more real foods. Seriously, the stuff is awesomely delicious but oh so stinking expensive. Especially if your kids pour the way mine do. Yikes. So sometimes you need something else to put on those waffles. Again, ignore the fact that said children just might be eating frozen waffles this week because only one of our waffle makers still works, I am currently solo parenting, and sometimes you just decide to let something slide.

Anyway, this week we will have both homemade pumpkin butter (so easy to make if you have a crockpot) and whipped strawberry butter to top the waffles because they are yummy. And cheaper than maple syrup.

If you want a REAL recipe, here's the one I looked up. If you want to know what I really did, keep reading.

I grabbed a quart sized bag of strawberries from the freezer, defrosted them, drained them, then dumped them in a mixing bowl and sort of mashed them a bit. Added in two sticks of butter and turned the mixer on. After a while, I decided it needed more butter so I tossed a stick of butter into the microwave to soften it, dumped it in the with rest of the stuff and mixed some more. Yummy. Easy. No strange ingredients. And seriously, strawberries are sweet enough without adding sugar, I promise.  Give it a try.