Children are a heritage from the Lord,

offspring a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.

Psalm 127:3-5

 

As some of you know I was asked to be a mentor mom for the group MOPS (mother’s of preschoolers). I didn’t think that I was very qualified for this position at first, but after praying about it the Lord lead be to Titus- where he tells older women what they are to do in their later years.

Titus 2:3  Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. ⁴ Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

This year, I will try to share with them what I have been through in my journey raising children, lend an ear and be a friend.

All women when raising children have questions- “Is this normal?” “Did your child do “this”?” and how about “What is the best way to discipline?”

I have a few books that I have read and read again and read again and have used as resource books continually through the years. Having raised 4 children to adulthood, I will tell you I know nothing about raising children! lol.  Having children kept me on my toes but more importantly "on my knees". It is a constant battle to keep it all in perspective. I will say to keep your sense of humor, love them with all of your heart, pray for them continually, and don't be afraid to ask of others that have  been in your shoes. All children are different and what works for one doesn't always work for others. All children, although, "crave" to be disciplined and "have boundaries", it makes them feel secure. They need to know that you care enough about them to say no. Here is a list of the books that I used-

The Bible- first and foremost! God is the ultimate Father and the main reason that we want our children to learn to obey and respect us, is so they will learn to obey God and trust Him with all of their heart; have a relationship with Him and be saved for eternal life with Him. Isn't that the ultimate?! To know that we will be spending eternity in Heaven with our Lord and have all of our children there as well??!!

So, when asking for advice, you would want to listen to (or read) books and advice written from other Christians. Correct??!!

   (click on the book to bring you to the site~)

Home Grown Kids~This book will share what children are able to learn and comprehend and at what age.(Great book even if you don’t homeschool) How frustrating to everyone when you ask someone  to do something they just are not capable of. Can you imagine someone asking someone to turn off the light switch when they don't have any arms?? Frustration turns into anger in children. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.  So knowing is half the battle- knowledge, just keep learning and growing yourself and trying new things.

Another book- Dare to Discipline- Dr. James Dobson- I have read certain parts over and over….He is an amazing man of God and gives wonderful advice for disciplining children.

~and if you should have a strong willed child (and who doesn’t??!!), well, there is a book for them as well. 

Sometimes it just helps to know that there are others out there going through the same things that you are and you will make it through.

 

Blessings and happy

child rearing

~Sara

 

I have many wonderful Godly Christian women friends here and I would love to get their input as well. So please, any of you that follow me, Feel free to comment and add any useful tools that you have used in child rearing. Thank you so much!

Baked Pumpkin French Toast ~ recipe

 

Baked Pumpkin French Toast with Streusel Topping

Ingredients

1loaf  Texas Toast bread, cut into 4slices                                                              6 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 1/2 cups liquid-your choice of milk, eggnog heavy cream or a combination ( I used 1 cup of heavy cream and the rest milk)                 1/4 c brown sugar (dark brown if you have it)
1/4 teaspoons of each  cloves; nutmeg;  ginger    (or pumpkin pie spice)                                                                                                                                       1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla
margarine for greasing pan

Streusel Topping
1/3 cup packed brown sugar (preferably dark brown sugar)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup whole rolled oats                                                                                        1/4 teaspoon cloves                                                                                           2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter

grease 9 x 11 dish; cut bread into 4 squares; arrange with corners “up” in casserole dish

whip eggs  (I used my Kitchen-Aid) add pumpkin and keep mixing; add liquids, brown sugar, spices,salt, vanilla

pour liquid mixture over the bread covering every edge- cover with foil and refrigerate overnight

Topping- melt butter and mix with other ingredients and refrigerate

In the morning preheat oven to 350; sprinkle topping mix over the top  and bake casserole for 45-55 minutes

serve with warm maple syrup

ENJOY!

The Seasons They are a Changing~

 

It is time for Pumpkin Everything~

I have a recipe for Baked Pumpkin French Toast I will post this weekend.

Hope all is well~ Blessings~Sara

The last we talked……….

 

 

I know it has been a while! So much has happened. Well last we talked we were waiting the arrival of a new little granddaughter~

 

 

well….here she is!

Ruthann Grace ( Ruthie)

and as it is with little ones- they are continuously changing and growing!

See how alert she is! She was watching me and following me as I took her pictures.

Big sister!

 

While mom was recovering in the hospital for a few days we had the privilege of having Ruthie’s older brother and sister stay with us. We had so much fun together. We went to story time, visited their little sister and mom and dad in the hospital. Learned lots of things about a hospital and we even planted some sunflowers! phew! It was a busy time. When they went home we missed them.

Telling mom all about what they had been doing.

Well they start school next week~    so ……

One last sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's before school starts next week! Connect Four tournaments and Little House paper dolls  <3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have also been trying to find healthy meals…

This is breakfast most mornings- fat free plain yogurt; frozen strawberries; a few frozen blueberries and a banana- blended

…… ummm I mean snacks

 

We have also been back to business created a few new things for our business.

(you can find us on Facebook or etsy)

 

Fall is coming soon and we are excited to share some of that with you all.

Have a great week. Blessings~Sara

Celebrating life

We had an enjoyable weekend with lots of celebrating! Father’s Day with hubby able to celebrate with his children.

Our oldest daughter Lizabeth hosted an amazing shower for her expecting sister Amber this weekend as well. She did such a great job with all of the details, every thing looked so nice. I have been a little preoccupied this past week or so and I felt bad that I wasn’t able to much help. She had asked to use my some of my Ball jars for glasses as well as my Ball Jar water cooler that I had found quite a while back.

 

I was trying to see how the glasses would fill and I was not very happy with the way the glass jar would need to be on the edge of the counter. So as I usually do ~ I get these wonderful design ideas and need a little help pulling them together. As most of you read in my last post the my hubby Craig is still recovering from a heart attack and having stents put in, so he  wasn’t able to help me much with my “idea”. We do have my nephew here helping us and so with the three of us we pulled together MY DESIGN.

I am getting pretty good at using my band saw, although I prefer hubbies work as he is so much better. So any way this pic below is the design that I came up with, it was a joint effort between the three of us.

Hubby is getting so ancy and hates to sit still for any length of time. He is mostly supervising now.  So I have these for sale in my etsy shoppe if anyone is interested. Sadly I can see that MY IDEA has already been copied. If you are a designer/ artisan that designs your own patterns and creation you know how long it takes to bring something to fruition with all of the tweaking and wasted material. I guess that is what happens with the internet, everyone thinks that since the picture is out there it is fair game to “use”.  I know that everyone gets ideas from others and sharing goes on all of the time, but to come out and say that you took their picture to copy?! Idk maybe it’s me and all of the emotional crap we are going through. Life gets tough sometimes.

Craig is out of work til the Dr gives the ok to go back. I am not sure if  he will be able to do the job he was doing. I am trying to keep things pulled together and selling what I am able to do myself. I have updated my etsy shoppe with a few new items and I also have a new selling site on ~Facebook ~ if you are in “need” of anything. Thanks for looking.

A few more pics of the shower. Amber  had her 34 week check up today and is doing fine and right on schedule.

Her first two pregnancies were cut short with unexpected early deliveries. Our first granddaughter was born too early and we were all the way across the country and didn’t get to see her for 2 weeks after she was born. With her second child we were in California but 3 1/2 hours north of them and he was born as we were in the midst of our travels. Sooo now we live in the same town and will be able to take the two older ones when she goes into labor.

 

I would appreciate your prayers for safe delivery for mother and child.

 

Thank you all so much for taking this journey through life with me. I truly appreciate all of the prayers, friendship and concern from all of you. Blessings~Sara

What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that."

 

James 4:15

 

 

We make plans and then…………life happens.

We are recovering here from a set back in life~

About a week ago, three in the morning, my hubby Craig woke up sweating and had some pain in his chest and arm. The few days previous he had said that he thought he had a chest cold or had pulled some muscles while lifting in his new job, he is a vendor for Scott’s Miracle Grow and keeps all of the shelves stocked at the large box stores like Home Depot, Lowe’s etc. He went outside to cool off and get some air, then came back in sat on the bed. I asked ”are you ok?” He said I think I am having a heart attack. Up I jumped, through on some clothes, gave him an aspirin and off we went to the ER. They slowly went through their procedures, EKG looked ok, took blood, chest x-ray, cat scan, you might have pneumonia.  They hooked him up to check his heart, he has a low heart rate. He kept complaining his chest hurt. They gave him morphine, didn’t do much, a short while later he asked for more, Can’t give you more yet they said. After a while four of them walked back into the room, we think you are having a heart attack. We are going to send you upstairs and they will take good care of you. Everything else looks pretty good but your triglyceride levels are elevated. Over the course of the day they kept going up. They kept him comfortable all day and tried to keep the pain at bay, they were going to give him a stress test, but a friend of our daughter’s that was filling in that day at this hospital usually performs the stress test a another hospital in town and didn’t like the looks of the numbers. He talked with someone and that test was off and they would take him to the cath lab in the morning for some testing. LLLLOOOONNNGGGG story short, they do these tests all of the time, just routine check and see if anything is going on in his heart and they can stent it if needed while they are in there. Well we waited in the waiting room for the results, should be about an hour. We waited, an hour, hour fifteen, hour and a half… nothing- we waited. Two hours, we were waiting, praying, watching every time we heard the doors open. Nothing. A few minutes later they pushed his bed through the doors  and down the hall. They called for us to follow, pushed him onto the elevator made sure we were all in and then proceeded to tell us…….. what a lucky man he was. The coronary artery was 98% blocked, another major one was 96 % blocked and he also had two others that were blocked as well. They put stents in four in all and had a hard time with two of them and scratched the walls of his arteries in the process.They mentioned that a  couple of times during the procedure the Doctor had called to the OR to get things ready and prep for open heart surgery. He was awake and listening to all of the banter between those in the room. I am sure that is something  that you never want to over hear.

Well that was a week ago~

We (Craig from a heart attack and stents inserted and me from all of the weeks stress) are recovering here at home and taking one day at a time. Life style changes, different food choices, medications, Drs appointments, keeping him still and trying to get him to “rest” and not be so ancy. We can’t thank all of you enough that have prayed, sent an encouraging word and also some practical advice. There is so much to learn, are non fat products worse for you than actual good fats? Is sodium a concern? How should he gain a few pounds without it “hurting” him? and so on……..

 

We sure would be open to any wisdom and advice that you would care to share with us at this time. W so appreciate all of our friends and family that have been so supportive.

For all of you prayer warriors out there, we sure would appreciate your prayers for what lies ahead. Craig is unable to work for now and we are not sure when or if he will ever be able to do the job he was doing. I have started a new page on Facebook with some of the inventory that we have available (ready to ship) for our business- Salmon Falls Prims. Not quite sure how long til he will be able to get back into the workshop as well. I am trying to keep it all together. I have our nephew here trying to pack things for shipping for me as Craig supervises(drives him crazy to just sit but I am trying to keep him still).

So one day at a time is all I can think of now. We are truly feeling blessed to still have him with us and are willing to make all changes necessary!

 

Thank you all for your care and concern. Hugs~Sara

Thankful for those who serve and those that have served; Americana~

Memorial Day~ or Decoration Day as my grandfather would call it. A day to reflect, remember and to decorate the graves of those that have passed on before us.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

 

 

 

 

 

Some gave much,

some gave all….

 

We walked among the crosses
Where our fallen soldiers lay.
And listened to the bugle
As taps began to play.
The Chaplin led a prayer
We stood with heads bowed low.
And I thought of fallen comrades
I had known so long ago.

They came from every city
Across this fertile land.
That we might live in freedom.
They lie here 'neath the sand.
I felt a little guilty
My sacrifice was small.
I only lost a little time
But these men lost their all.

Now the services are over
For this Memorial Day.
To the names upon these crosses
I just want to say,
Thanks for what you've given
No one could ask for more.
May you rest with God in heaven
From now through evermore.(unknown)