New Year!

Happy 2010 to all! I missed the ushering in of the year, with the whole ball drop thing. I was sick & sleeping, so I hope it was a wonderful thing for those of you who made it til midnight. Blessings for what God will bring you this year. Make it count.

Busyness

I have been extremely busy these last couple months, as well as most of you I'm sure. I've slowly been getting into the holiday spirit, even though the idea of decorating my home when I have little ones who like to play with everything they see has been daunting. We have our tree up, but there are only kid friendly ornaments on it, and the candy canes are clustered at the top. Also, my kids think the stockings are fun to wear on their feet ~ I can't help but giggle when they slip around the house in them.

Most of my gifts for family are homemade, or bought with frugality. We've limited our budget, & it's interesting what you can come up with if try. I found a target coupon for $5 off a Kodak camera and was able to print 4 of them. I then bought 4 disposable cameras with them & paid less then $5 for them. My in-laws love these, so they're going in their gift baskets! One of my relatives is getting a blockbuster gift card that I "bought" with points I earned using my american express card. And for my daughter, I'm making some blankets & pillows for her dolls. I really like some of the frugal living blogs out there. My 2 faves are www.frugalcouponliving.com & www.moneysavingmom.com
They have helped me save some cash on groceries & gifts. You should check them out.

I hope you all have a blessed Christmas!

Famous?

Ian is in today's local paper! Why, you ask? We went to a train show in Batavia yesterday with my in-laws and he was just too cute to resist photographing I guess! Anyway, here's the link & picture: http://www.thedailynewsonline.com/

Eating Better - Recipe Review

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I'm trying to eat (and feed my family) healthier foods. For Christmas I recieved the book Deceptively Delicious. I've tried some recipes already, but mainly just the easier ones. Tonight I decided to try the recipe for Macaroni & Cheese with Butternut Squash. Even though it looked daunting, it was fairly easy to make. However, it calls for 4 oz. of cream cheese and that is all I could taste. I was not impressed. I might as well have just chewed on the brick of cream cheese, it was that strong. I wonder if you could make it with only 2 oz? Hhhmmm? I'm not sure I'll try, though. One recipe from the book that I absolutely love, is the Chocolate Chip cookies with Chick Peas. YUM!!!!! I cannot eat just one. They're even better fresh from the oven. I'll let you know if I try any more of the recipes.

Sweet Treat

A couple weeks ago I found a cookie mix at the batavia farm market. It wasn't just any old mix, it was labeled as "All Natural 8 Grain Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix". I like easy, healthy food, so I bought it. It has all sorts of good-for-you ingredients. Including, 8 types of flour and sunflower seeds. Ian and I whipped it up this morning and by golly; they were great! I highly recommend that you check out their website: www.allenshillfarm.com They even have an 8 grain brownie mix, which isn't bad either.

Cleanup

I'm so glad today was rain free! I've been looking at my poor, neglected garden. It needed to be cleaned up in the worst way! So after supper tonight, Ian and I went out to work on it. I pulled out dead plants and Ian picked the stakes out of the weedblock. [Of course, the stakes needed to be transported in his dump truck :)]. It felt so good to be outside working in some of the last nice weather of the season/year. Maybe when it's time to plant next year, we'll have a new house to garden at! That would be nice, but I'm ok if that's not the case. How did you enjoy the day?

Weekly Recap

I decided that because I'm so busy and hardly ever home that I would do a weekly recap. Here's what happened this week:

1. I made applesauce. 2 different types of apples. Canned 11 quarts and 7 of them separated. Chucked them down the drain. Don't know what happened, but not pleased that I only have 4 quarts left.

2. We went to the apple farm in the dreary rain. The highlight of Ian's trip was that he got to "go into the apple frigerator which was only 40 degrees!". We got to pick Red Delicious apples which you can't use for anything but eating the way the Good Lord made 'em. I thought maybe I could replenish my sauce reserves with the apples we picked, but apparently not.

3. We had preschool open house, which we weren't supposed to bring the kids to (even though no one said otherwise). It's kinda hard not to when my mom is out of town and my friend Julie, who's my backup, is at open house with her kids, too!

4. I attended calling hours & helped with the funeral dinner for a young man who died way too young. His mom (mentor) & ex-wife (mops mommy) are part of our MOPS group. He had a motorcycle accident last saturday.

5. Today, I found fresh brussell sprouts at the farm market! SO excited! They are my new favorite food and taste great when roasted.

6. My aunt moved to Tennessee yesterday. The doctor told her she needed surgery to remove the cancerous spot on her liver. They don't believe it has spread, but she'll need chemo in 3 months as well. Please keep her in your prayers.

7. We are meeting with the mortgage broker from our bank tomorrow. We looked at a house we really liked last weekend and want to put our house on the market. Anyone want to live in the Wildlife Refuge? We'll see what happens. If this is in God's plans for us, then He will put everything into place. If not, then we will just keep praying and looking.

So, I'll probably just end up with another weekly recap next time, unless I somehow end up with a little extra time to blog.

Blessings for now!