Wordless Wednesday

Good Family, Good Eats

My wonderful Brother Nate and I have been working on our lack of grilling expertise. I am thinking that this meal shows no such lack! AND it tasted as wonderful as it looked! Mmm Mmm!

Nate found a smoker for an awesome price, cleaned it up and modified it (as per his name 'Nate Mod Anderson'), then asked if he could store it here while he hones his skills. Seriuosly!! HE ASKED!! Gotta love that guy! I have always known him to be a special gift from God, he just seems to be out to prove it these last few years :-)

Little Man LOVES to work on his 'Vooms". Spends hours doing it even. I think he is striving to be like Uncle Nate :-)

Here is a picture taken at church with some of Mini Chips buddies.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - July 4th Style

Monday Musings

I baked a cake for a friends baby shower.

I love baking but it is not really the time of the year to get too carried away. It was 112 degrees outside when I seriously thought about skipping out and heading down to pick up a Costco cake. I am glad I stuck with it though. It turned out pretty cute, I think :-)

Grandpa and Grandma Cookie arrived and promptly got to playing and teaching the young ones. So grateful that they had a safe trip and are here to visit. :-)

Too cute! We were at our Pool Day with our Homeschool group and Mini Chip was getting tired. He built his own bed and tried to take a nap :-)

VBS Wrap-up Night's singing made the boy's eyes open and make him appear awake, but that doesn't mean he had to act the part. But Daddy sure makes a great recliner to safely check out the noisy business from. 

Mini Chip is plain pooped from all the learning, playing, and sweltering temperatures.

The big kids (including Mr. Cookie) swimming with Grandpa Cookie. After swimming around for a bit, Grandpa informed us that he had never been in a pool before. WOW!! The girls sure had fun showing him how fun it was to get a little excercise in! :-)

Grandma Cookie receiving singing lessons from the littlest one.

Sometimes random pictures turn up on my camera... LOVE IT!!

Oreo hanging out with her best buddies at Pool Day>

Beef... It's what's for dinner

So, we bought a beef, cow, freezer meat... whatever you call it.

It always amazes me how much there is and how little there is. Decisions and me... :-) I tend to be able to see two or more sides to things. Sometimes this makes me look wishy-washy I think. Sometimes it makes me look compassionate. Sometimes it just doesn't matter.

Either way, what you see here is actually half of our beef.

We took Grandpa Cookie to see Mr. Cookie's jobsite. The kids can never stop themselves from playing dressup even there :-) Lol.

Our Favorite Mayor

This is Oreo Cookie. I would like to share with you the story of her life this past week.

Amy is the real Mayor of Junior Achievement's BizTown.

The story behind her running for mayor in the first place warms my heart and makes this Mama well up with tears.

Two weeks ago, as we were wrapping up our studies associated with attending JA BizTown, we looked over the citizens running for Mayor and DJ in the town. We discovered that there were 8 people running for DJ including our very own Butterscotch Cookie! Oh, the competition! So exciting!

However, there was not one citizen running to be the towns Mayor. This was upsetting news to Oreo. She was concerned that there could be no town without a leader. She seemed to be distracted most of the rest of that day. She approached her Dad and I late the same day and asked loads of questions, as her sweet self is prone to do, and then asked if it would be okay if she prepared a speech just in case no one else stepped up to run for Mayor. After all, if the town needed a Mayor, someone had to step up and do the job.

The next morning when we checked there were 4 others running for mayor. We went to church and afterwards Oreo told us that she had thought about it alot and was going to run for mayor anyway! So exciting!
The following day at BizTown she gave an awesome speech to her fellow citizens. She stood tall and spoke loudly and clearly. The other candidates did very well also. When the votes had been tallied, she had won! She was voted in by her peers and will make an excellent Mayor!
Due to an unforeseen and sad display of adult behavior, Amy was unable to perform her duties as Mayor that day due to absolutely no fault of her own. Many tears have been shed by her, this Mama, her dear friends, and their Mama's too. These people know who the REAL MAYOR of JA BizTown was that day. No one can change that. The life lessons, hard, sad, and real... will be with us always.

Amy is amazing to us as her parents. She is the most caring, sensitive girl we know. This has been a week so full of emotional ups and downs that it has left us exhausted. But God has got our backs! He has lifted us up, brushed us off, and prepared us for the next wonderful challenge this life has to offer. Go Oreo!!

Advent Time

As a child, I celebrated Advent with my mom and siblings. I can tell you that I have the memory of the candles in the wreath and a peaceful feeling and that the candles were pink and purple.

This year I have made our own Advent wreath. The candles are not colored the same as when I was a child but we are celebrating Advent just the same. We light a candle every Sunday of Advent and read specific verses from the Bible about the Old Testament prophecy and the New Testament fulfillment of that prophecy.

Also, each one of the kids have made an Advent calendar and together we are reading this book: Jotham's Journey.

It is a wonderful and fun book. We truly look forward to reading it each day. The story is very entertaining and exciting even while it teaches us things we did not know and reminds us of things we did know about this awesome time of celebrating Jesus birth.

Celebrating,

Mrs. Cookie

Sweet, sweet girl!

This is such a sweet girl!

This girl is truly exceptional!

Just so you know, it is just after 12 noon as I am writing this post!

She has been very busy!!

She first cleaned both bathrooms, by herself without my asking her to, while I was working with Mini Chip. She then proceeded to pick up Mini Chips toys, dust, and vacuum the family room while I read her read-aloud to her, more chores that I did not ask her to do. She finished school before she made lunch as she usually does on Wednesday. This time though, she wrote a sweet little note to each of us and hid it in our water glass!

She has blessed each one of her sisters, her family, and especially her mama today in her own special and wonderful way!

And she reminded me to be grateful for my wonderful, thoughtful, sweet daughter.

Thank you Chocolate Chip Cookie!!

Happy Birthdays...

Nate and I got to celebrate our birthdays together at Benihana! We have not celebrated our birthdays together in person since we were kids.

 One of the VERY GREATEST things about being in Arizona is getting to know him again after all these years :-)

 He's a great guy!

He stopped over later to test his scuba gear in our pool...

... AND taught the girls and Jim!!!!

 WOW!!

 Very Exciting! But first he and I had this idea crazy idea! The pool was really warm, like 95 degrees warm, so we thought that putting some ice in it would maybe cool it off...

... we put 20 giant ice blocks in the pool! TeeHee!! LOL!!!
It didn't cool the pool off any, but it sure cooled the kids off! They stood on them, hugged them, swam around and licked them! HeeHee!! Very fun!

Christina's Cacklings

I have much on my brain today and thought I would type it instead of write it and create a post and organize my thoughts at the same time. :-)

Cactus in bloom.

My family is a very snacky family.

I aim to change that!

Mommy's Little Helper.
Organizing books by topic on the shelves.

This morning I woke up and decided to make some of the changes I have been thinking, talking, and dreaming about a reality.

Hiking while on our camping trip June 24, 2011.

For starters, I made hard boiled eggs and celery/carrot sticks for the refridgerator, and washed some grapes for the counter. I know, you are thinking that this is encouraging snacking... TRUST me! We are already snacky and fast foody thanks to our recent Minnesota trip. My idea is to take the junk out of our snacking first and make our meals more nutritional and filling which in my mind will automatically reduce the snackiness of our lives.

Time will tell.

Hiking while on our camping trip June 24, 2011.

Then, I have this crazy idea that my family needs to love beans... must be something southern... or something. In Minnesota, we called them legumes. YUCK!! I do NOT want my family to love legumes! I want them to love beans. Beans are so nutritional and filling and just good for you.

I also have this idea in my head to make chili flavored pinto beans. I can find no recipe for them, so, I made it up. I'll let you know if it works out. Anyways, these yummy and filling beans can also be in the fridge for quick meals in tortillas, cheese topped, or whatever.

Hiking while on our camping trip June 24, 2011.

Today, I definitely need to get more school planning done. The trip back home was not very good timing for school planning type things. It was very good for other things, just not for school planning. Which reminds me, please be praying for my Dad, I do not want to explain it right now, but he is not in good health and has started chemotherapy last week.

I purchased a new curriculum, Tapestry of Grace. I like to make my own curriculum/schedule but this is such wonderful curriculum and so flexible and covers so many levels and... I think it will help me to not stress out about covering everything. Also, I LOVE that all of my children study the same thing, at their own level, and that their writing, reading, etc. is all based on history. Last year it seemed that history and science were the first to go if something else came up, which was often. This year, they are in a science co-op with some members of our AWESOME homeschool group and the rest of their studies center around history.

I love the exciting feeling of a fresh new year!

Oh, the potential!!

:-)

Anyway, I also purchased the teacher training cds for Tapestry of Grace. That is what I am trying to get through yesterday and today. Then, I will finish planning the first 3 weeks of school so we can go school shopping and get started on the 15th. It feels very rushed, probably because it is, and like not enough planning, but by only doing the first three weeks, I won't throw away any planning if I decide to change things up... learning curve :-)

Hiking and shooting while on our camping trip June 24, 2011.

Also, decluttering needs to happen this week. Closets and dressers are overflowing! This frustrates me and needs to be remedied. We usually do this kind of continually, but it has really backed up around here. It frustrates me because everything takes longer to accomplish if there is excess clutter. Laundry, room tidying, and there is not a home for everything. Even the games and books are crazy.

One thing that is harder for me is that my wonderful husband has asked us to not have garage sales and to just donate everything instead. He feels that with being new to homeschooling 3 kids, new to Arizona, and a new baby boy it makes more sense. I do agree with him, not that I have to, it is just hard for my brain to adjust to the idea.

Sweet little monkey boy
Camping June 24, 2011

Okay, I feel the need to DO something now, so, wish me luck! :-

 I think this is going to be a new heading for me to simply ramble about whatever... I am thinking that in this case, less boundaries will mean less stress.

{{HUGS}}

Christina :-)

Adventures in April

The girls love to have friends over and swim.

It is still pretty cold at this point, actually, but they are having fun and making memories anyway!

 Little fella is wearing his lucky shirt... well, that's what it says :-)

See his two cute little teeth there on the bottom :-)

He is into standing up on things now. He is still having mercy on me and is not walking! Yeah!

 The girls practicing archery with...

...the best coaches ever!

 Uncle Nate and Mr. Lloyd

The little boy really loves to do all things "climbing into"...

...even the oven drawer!

 And he LOVES it!

 AND he's super cute about it too!!

Yes. He turned right around and climbed back in!

BOYS!!

LOL!!

:-)

:-)