(And All My) Work Be Praise

At the beginning of all of this , back in mid-October, I mentioned that I had a pesky thirty pounds  I wanted to shed. Three and a half months later, I'm happy to announce that I'm halfway to my goal! The going is slower than I would have liked, and I really set myself back by allowing so many indulgences over the holidays, but progress is progress.  I even reclaimed another pair of jeans this week. Since my birthday is twelve weeks away, I'm going to make that my next deadline. The goal is ten more pounds gone by then, but if it seems like things are going well, I might up that a little bit. Silas continues to nurse exclusively, so until I can convince him that food is not the enemy, I'm still afraid to push too hard. But, like I said . . . progress is progress!

Thanks to the influenza of near-death, we've been at home a lot more than normal. A LOT. Having been completely wiped out myself last weekend, I had no time -- okay, I had plenty of time, but no energy or mental capacity -- to plan our normal preschool for the week. By Wednesday morning, everyone was yelling at everyone pretty much all of the time, and it was high time for Mommy to kick it back into gear.  We ended up doing two reasonably fun activities: 1. I've seen this idea floating around pinterest for quite some time now, and it was pretty easy to execute. Pour some baking soda into a tray, set out some vinegar colored with food coloring, give each boy an eye dropper, and let them make their own fizzy fun. This kept Levi occupied for over an hour, and Owen for about twenty minutes. It always amuses me, what you can see on my counters in these pictures. I'm such a mess. Not very pretty, but lots of fun to watch the fizzing. Reminds me of th...

I forgot to include my favorite blog post of the week: Daily Bread . Since Silas's arrival we've been using machines instead of kneading by hand, but when I was doing it regularly, I loved it for many of the same reasons. It's good work, making bread for one's family. And my favorite pin:  http://pinterest.com/pin/282671314083585407/ Have a great week!

With apologies for being a day late . . . What I'm Cooking: Cheesy beef and rice . One of Levi's favorite meals; he asks for it regularly. It's been a while since I made it last, though. Tacos. I make a batch of the recipe out of Dinner's in the Freezer , and a batch of these lentil tacos , and then I combine them and divide into meal-sized portions to keep in the freezer. Most of the time I like to have it on a bed of tortilla chips and raw kale, but we were out of chips so we used whole wheat soft flour tortillas instead. Roasted potatoes, chicken sausage, and peppers , which has recently become one of my favorite meals (only I use one yellow and one green pepper instead of red, as I don't prefer red peppers). It's such a shame that good chicken sausage (as in, without MSG or added nitrites) is so expensive. What I'm Reading: Technically, I'm still reading Standing on the Promises , but it hasn't seen much action this week. The Reluctant P...

Playdough, dry spaghetti noodles, and cheerios: book activity [ Jan Brett apparently loves hedgehogs], fine motor skills, and a morning snack. Win-win-win. They got more prickly as the morning went on. :)

Did you know Jan Brett has a website with tons of activities for her books? It's so awesome. Just type the name of a book into the search bar, and you'll get tons of links to ideas, crafts, games, and more. Somewhere along the line in 2012, I must have found a copy of The Mitten   for sale and picked it up for a future Christmas gift. I have a file box on the kitchen counter for storing loose papers and the like, and when I opened it up early in December (for the first time in months), I discovered the book in Levi's folder. (This is what happens when you try to get organized, but it only lasts a week or two.) Last week, the suggested book of the week in our (free, online) preschool curriculum  was Jan Brett's The Hat.  Since I owned The Mitten  but not The Hat , I figured we'd just use what we had. The curriculum website directed me to Brett's own website, however, and I was delighted to find fun activities to enhance our reading. So, I printed of...

My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear; He owns me for His child: I can no longer fear. With confidence I now draw nigh --  With confidence I now draw nigh And "Father, Abba, Father," cry. ~Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems , 1742

Once again , our family spent the New Year's holiday with my college friends Jon and Jenny. She and I both had babies this year, so our fun included five kids under age four instead of the three under three we had last year. Not a dull moment to be found! Mamas and babies.  As always, we ate fantastic food during our three-day stay: Olive Garden chicken gnocchi soup . Levi, who hates anything foreign, actually spit gnocchi out of his mouth. In the end, he got PBJ as a reward for swallowing one bite. Ah, three-year-olds. Crispy Southwest Chicken Wraps . Jen and I have both made these before. Yum! Honey Sesame Chicken over rice. Two thumbs up. Don't be stingy with the sauce. Balsamic Honey Pulled Pork Sliders . Topped with homemade coleslaw and sliced sweet pickles. Mmmmm. Apple Nachos  (with nutella, homemade caramel sauce, chocolate chips, shredded coconut) A Graeter's pecan pie that got re-gifted to me by my mother-in-law White Chocolate Chip Pumpk...

This weekend, my parents are here. 3 1/2 years ago, when we bought this house, my dad spear-headed the campaign to paint nearly every room over a 10-day period while my husband was on the youth group missions trip. My mom, Isaac's parents, and a handful of friends all contributed, and amazing work was done. In the end, though, there were a few corners that never got a second coat of edging, and I finally decided it was time to get the job done. Dad volunteered to come down and finish it off. Hooray! What I'm Cooking: Carmelitas  (oatmeal caramel bars), for young adults' Bible study at our house. Cajun Chicken Pasta . Second time I've made this, and I love it. Last time, I threw together a cajun spice mix as somebody offered up in the comments of that recipe post, so I had some leftover for this time. I think the first time I actually got linguine, but this time I just used thin spaghetti because that's all I could find whole-wheat. Chicken Corn Chowder , only I...

One of the blogs I follow, Keeper of the Home , recently started a "weekend links" series in which she re-caps her week. I thought it sounded fun. One of my goals for this year is to get back to reading more (you know, instead of checking Facebook and Pinterest endlessly), and I'm hoping this will hold me accountable to keep reading. Also, people are always asking me what kinds of things I'm doing in the kitchen (so random), so this will be your glimpse inside my meal plans (or lack thereof, sometimes). Without further ado: What I'm Reading The Debt: The Story of a Past Redeemed  by Angela Hunt. Got this one from the church library and read it in two days over the holidays. Fairly cheesy and predictable, but still a good reminder for this homebody of a girl that there is a world outside of the church walls. Standing on the Promises  by Douglas Wilson. This is a re-read for me from several years ago, and I'm only two chapters into it this time around. With...

Last weekend, when the snow was still new and fresh, all five of us bundled up to play on the back deck. This was mildly frustrating for the big boys, who wanted to be able to push their cozy coupe and bubble mower like normal, but kept getting stuck in the snow! Silas was not terribly happy about being outside, although it was awfully close to nap time so it's possible he was just tired and not in the mood to be bundled up.  Love that face. Thanks to my mom for lending me her snow pants. So, Silas and I came back inside, but not before Isaac had the great idea to try out snow ice cream. The boys, Owen especially, seem to think that the only purpose of going out to play in the snow is to eat it, so we figured we might as well capitalize on that. I knew I'd seen recipes for it online before, so I simply googled it and then improvised. Most recipes call for either a can of sweetened condensed milk OR one cup of sugar and one cup of milk. I didn't want ...