Encouraging One Another Link Party

It is time for another link party over at Women Living Well.



This link party is a way to encourage each other in a variety of ways so check it out and do some blog hopping to read what ideas other people have out in blog land :-)

I'm linking up with this Post about Simplifying my Devotional Life.

Too Cute Not To "Toot"

One of the "dangers" of doing this post every week is that I find so many things I want to make!  I've found that if I copy the info into a word doc and save it in the corresponding folder, when I come back later, I can pick my favorites (instead of trying to make every single one at once!) 

Enjoy :-)

Tammys Sweet Spot gives a great idea for making alphabet magnets.  These would be a wonderful teaching tool and very easy to make.

Over at Creations By Kara, she gives a really easy tutorial for baby wash clothes.  You can follow the same general guidelines to also make burp cloths and even the warm fuzzy blankets.  I have some baby showers to go to in the coming months, I think I need to get sewing!

This recipe card holder from Lifes Sweeter with Chocolate is adorable and would make a great Christmas or Birthday gift.  Include some of your favorite recipes written out or typed up on cute recipe cards.  (I hope my sisters-in-law don't ready this . .LOL)

Here is an adorable Crayon wreath that is super easy to make.  It is another great teacher gift idea - it would look cute on the classroom door!.  Check out the full tutorial here

Over at Big Sis Lil Sis is a great idea, again with crayons, but this one is a way to recycle all of those broken crayons.  It is easy and would be great for both home and a classroom.  In the case of the tutorial, she actually purchased a new box from the Dollar Store to create these toddler  sized crayons.

Finally, over at Serving Pink Lemonade she gives the beginning of a tutorial for something called a quiet book.  I've seen these before and like the concept - it would be something great for my kids to use any time we have to sit somewhere - whether it be the doctor's office or a church service.  I'm going to be following this one closely and hope to be able to make one book for each of my boys - we'll see!

Once again, tons of great ideas out there. 

Happy Crafting!

Simplifying My Life - Daily Devotions

As I shared in this post, my theme word for 2011 is "Simplify" - to make everything in our lives and home more simple or, not so stressful.  I often tend to be an "over-achiever" not so much that I always go the extra mile on everything but more that I  plan way more than I can ever accomplish and put too many things into one day.  Even as I planned to Simplify my life this year, I found that everything I wanted to do to Simplify was causing me stress LOL  So, I decided to just tackle one little area at a time but as I work on any given area, I'm always looking at it saying "does this simplify?" 

I digress, the purpose of this post really, was to share how I am Simplifying my devotional plan for the next three month commitment with Good Morning Girls.

In September 2010, I joined up with several other women to form a Good Morning Girls group which is designed for accountability through the Women Living Well website.  It was great getting to know these new friends and I'm looking forward to another session starting soon.  When I wrote about it at that time, I shared what I was going to be doing for my devotions which included, at the time, five different things.  It changed slightly during the 3 month session as I switched out one devotional book because it had no substance and I didn't use the prayer journal, because it is actually is a very detailed devotion book in itself.  Instead I made a prayer journal in the back of my devotional journal.  I've thought alot about what I want to do this time around and decided to pick my focus.  When I really thought about it, I realized that my main focus needs to be reading through the Bible in a year.  I am a little behind due to missing quite a few days between Thanksgiving and Christmas (or should I say now :-) ) and need to catch back up.  So, the main item I will be doing for my daily devotions will be reading 3 days worth of daily Bible Reading for this goal.  I plan to read the current days reading and than go back to where I stopped and read 2 days worth until I'm caught up.  One of the nice things about the plan I use is that it only has you read for 25 days leaving the last 5 days of the month for me to catch up even more.  If you would like to see the program just click here. 

To challenge myself this year, I've decided to try a Scripture Memory challenge to learn 24 verses over the course of the next year.  I found this challenge at Living Proof Ministries and liked the Simplicity of it.  I have chosen a passage to learn so I will actually end up learning more than 24 verses if I learn the whole thing.  I'm excited about this little challenge. 

And the one final thing I will be working on is a Study in James being led by the Good Morning Girls "leaders".  It is a 14 week study through the book of James and is really pretty Simple to follow.  I feel like I need this specific study to give me something to really study.  In reading through the Bible in a Year, I find that is what I'm doing, reading.  In order to complete it, I don't really have the time to study everything I read. 

So yes, it took a lot to write it, but I have simplified my plan to these three things:
1) Daily Bible Reading
2) Scripture memory
3) Bible Study. 

So what are you doing this year for your Bible Study? If you are interested in more info on the James study just click here

What I'm Reading - Book Reviews

1. Unlocked by Karen Kingsbury - Before You Take a Stand ... You Got to Take a Chance. Holden Harris is an eighteen-year-old locked in a prison of autism. Despite his quiet ways and quirky behaviors, Holden is very happy and socially normal---on the inside, in a private world all his own. In reality, he is bullied at school by kids who only see that he is very different. Ella Reynolds is part of the 'in' crowd. A cheerleader and star of the high school drama production, her life seems perfect. When she catches Holden listening to her rehearse for the school play, she is drawn to him ... the way he is drawn to the music. Then, Ella makes a dramatic discovery---she and Holden were best friends as children. Frustrated by the way Holden is bullied, and horrified at the indifference of her peers, Ella decides to take a stand against the most privileged and popular kids at school. Including her boyfriend, Jake. Ella believes miracles can happen in the unlikeliest places, and that just maybe an entire community might celebrate from the sidelines. But will Holden's praying mother and the efforts of Ella and a cast of theater kids be enough to unlock the prison that contains Holden? This time, friendship, faith, and the power of a song must be strong enough to open the doors to the miracle Holden needs
My Opinion:  If you like Karen Kingsbury, you will enjoy her writing.  This story was heavier than most of the books she writes and one story line, I felt, could have taken a different turn.  It does give great insight into the world of Autism yet is too short of a story to really get into depth on the many story lines going in within the entire book.  Would I recommend this book?  Absolutely! 

2. A Bride Most Begrudging by Deeanne Gist - When Lady Constance Morrow finds herself held against her will aboard a ship bound for the American colonies—a ship filled with "tobacco brides" and felons—she is quite sure that as soon as she arrives she will find a reasonable man who will believe her father is an earl and send her back on the next ship to England. Instead she meets Drew O’Connor, a determined Colonial farmer who is nearly as headstrong as she is. Drew wins Constance as his bride but soon realizes he has taken on much more than he bargained for.
My Opinion:  This is my 2nd read through this book and I really enjoyed it.  It is a pretty easy read but yet is a nice story.  It is a sad reminder of how life was for the early settlers here in the America's yet has a light hearted humor written in it as well.  Would I recommend this book? Absolutely - it's a "cute" read.

3. The Measure of a Lady by Deeanne Gist - Gist follows her popular A Bride Most Begrudging (2005) with a -damsel-in-distress tale set in 1849 San Francisco, where Rachel Van Buren is marooned when her gold-crazed father dies. Rachel must also care for her two young siblings. She finds a city filled with mud and sin, and there is no other decent woman, or "sunbonnet," in residence. She'll have to adjust her straitlaced outlook or die, and adjust she does in this amusing, often almost titillating tale brimming with period detail.
My Opinion:  Again, this is a second read of this book and I enjoyed it again.  It follows Gist's writing where it has a great story, with reminders of how difficult life was like in the time period it was written (during the Gold Rush), has a good lesson embedded in it, and has a fun love story involved.  Would I recommend it?  Absolutely - again, it is a cute read.

4. Courting Trouble by Deanne Gist - a 30-year-old single woman who draws up a list of the eligible bachelors in 1890's Texas
My Opinion : This was another 2nd read and I enjoyed it.  It has a little stronger story line about how this 30 year old single woman gets taken advantage of and than how she figures out what she really needs is just Jesus Christ as her Husband and also learns to forgive herself for what is considered unforgivable.  It still as the same humor and lightheartness throughout but also is a little bit of stronger read than the others I've read by Deanne Gist.

Just to note - the three by Deanne Gist are not related to each other - they are all stand alone books.  As I was looking up the descriptions on these though, I did find that there are many more I don't have!  I may have to check out half.com and pick up a few more :-)

As you can see, I'm reading for fun, alot.  I am in the middle of one of my goal books and really need to find time to concentrate on that one so I can get it finished up :- )

Keep reading!

New Recipe Index

I finally took time tonight to add a Recipe Index - you can find it at the top of my blog, below the header.  There are two tabs currently, one that says "Home" and one that says "Recipe Index". 

Then, I went through all of my recipe posts and linked them into the correct category.  I did this for all of us!  For you, so you can search more easily for what you are looking for and, for me so that I don't wonder if I  already posted something.  There was an added benefit to this - I had forgotten already about some of the new recipes I made that we loved! 

And, after months of constantly making new recipes, I've decided I need to take time to type a bunch of them up for my recipe organizer.  So, for the next several weeks (or more), I'll be following my theme schedule a little more (well after this week - this week I was just trying to keep the grocery list as small as possible so I used things up in the cupboards!). My schedule is:
Friday: Seafood, Grilling, or a family favorite - this is also the night that we most often get something out like pizza or tacos
Saturday: Fun meal, appetizers, grilling - we love snacky foods or homemade pizza so I try to save those items for Saturday evenings
Sunday: Crockpot or "Long" cooking meals like roasts
Monday:  Ethnic - Pasta, Pizza, Chinese, etc - most often we eat Mexican or Italian!
Tuesday: Breakfast meals or Pork
Wednesday: Chicken or Beef Based Meals
Thursday: New Recipe Night (only once a week!!)

Obviously many of them overlap but it sure helps with planning and variety! 

Feel free to share your favorite recipes too - I'm always open to try something new.

Mommy Time - Winter Unit

It's the start of another year and we are kicking off our "Mommy Time" with a unit on, what else? Winter!  I wanted to share links to the blogs where I have found some wonderful things!  There are so many wonderful ideas out there!  Many of them I'm holding on to for future years to use with my kids but I found more than enough to use this year! 

One of my favorite blogs to get teachings ideas from is Musings of Me.  She posted this awesome Winter Unit.  I'm always blown away by her creativity and willingness to share so many ideas.  Make sure and check out her whole blog, this link only takes you to the Winter Unit - but she posts other units and additional "add-on" ideas to add to the Winter Unit too!

Itsybitsylearners has some really great printables too.  They not only have a Winter Unit but several other related units as well

Another site that I grabbed ideas from is Confessionsofahomeschooler  Check out all of the great ideas and printables that she has available too!

I really liked this Trinity Snowman concept found at squidoo

Another site I really love is Totally Tots.  She did a winter unit last year and you can click on the various blog posts to get tons of ideas.  I'm using ideas along with the book "The Mitten" this month.

Finally, I really enjoy the ideas I gain from 1plus1plus1equals1.  She also did a winter until previously and posted a lot of really great ideas!

Hope you enjoy these awesome sites and, again, don't stop with just the Winter Units - whatever you are teaching your kids - there are probably ideas on at least one of the above sites that you can use!! 

So, what are we doing?  You can click here to see my Calendar of Events for the month of January.  Previously, I was working in two week increments but I found that for our schedule, planning for a whole month works better.  I will not get through everything I have planned - if I can get to our Mommy Time 2-3 days a week, I'll be happy.  I'm already behind since this week, I had a lot of lose ends to tie up here at home from the holidays which took up a lot of my time.  I'm planning on getting back into the groove next week though!

So, hopefully next Friday, I'll have some pictures and some more ideas for you that we are going to do this coming week!

Enjoy :-)

Pepperoni Roll

I've seen recipes for a Pepperoni Roll on Allrecipes.com before and have heard people mention them but have never tried them before.  So, when I saw this simple recipe over at What Megans Making, I had to try it.

Ingredients:
1 loaf frozen bread dough
Olive Oil
Oregano
Basil
Pepperoni
Cheese
Pizza Sauce
egg
Italian Seasoning

Thaw a loaf of frozen bread dough in the refrigerator, than let it sit out at room temperature for a little while to warm up and rise a little.  Roll it out into a rectangle and brush it with olive oil.  Layer with cheese and pepperoni and sprinkle it with Basil and oregano.  Roll it up and put it on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray.  Brush the top with a beaten egg and sprinkle with Italian seasoning on the top.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Let sit for few minutes, than slice and eat with heated pizza sauce.

 We really enjoyed this a lot. 

A couple of things I learned:
1) I should have let my dough sit out of the fridge a longer period of time - obviously, here in the North, it is cold outside and my kitchen was also chilly so the dough was still cold when I tried rolling it out.  I wasn't able to get it as thin as I would have liked so the final product was a little dense. 
2) You can't put on too much cheese :-)   I used about 3/4 of a bag of mozzarella cheese (because that is what I had) and needed the other 1/4 of a bag if not a little more.  I'm not sure if you would want to use veggies in this as the moisture might impact on the bread dough cooks

Otherwise - it was really good - my kids loved it and it was neater than pizza since they didn't miss the sauce :-) 

Enjoy :-)