(And All My) Work Be Praise

What I'm Cooking Crockpot Beef Fajitas . Pumpkin Molasses Cookies , for small group. The very essence of fall. Apple Cider Donut Muffins . I don't know why people bother to call them "donut muffins," since you really don't get a donut texture without frying. But they were delicious anyway, even with whole wheat flour. I only sugared the tops, not the whole muffin, to save on sugar intake AND mess. Crockpot Cheesy Spaghetti . My kids prefer plain old spaghetti, but I find this to be much more flavorful and filling. Hawaiian burgers  and sweet potato fries. The pineapple teriyaki sauce is quite delicious. I cooked everything up in a cast-iron skillet instead of on the grill. What I'm Reading I'm using my nursing-the-baby hours to pre-read literature aimed slightly above Levi's current reading level, to determine when he'll be old enough to read them. The problem isn't reading level itself, but content -- he's a sensitive soul, esp...

Most years, we do some sort of gratitude-collecting project during the month of November. (See old ones 2012 ,  2013 ,  2014 ) I'm never sure whether to post pictures at the beginning of the month, so you can use the idea if you like, or at the end, when we've completed the project. For now, this is the ten minutes I have to write out a quick post, so this is when it's happening. :) Thanks to the ABC Jesus Loves Me five-year curriculum , we're doing an Alphabet of Thankfulness this year. Silas is an early reader and Toby is loving phonetic sounds, so it's a good time in our family to do a letter-based project. A few minutes with some brown construction paper and a Sharpie, and we have this on the wall in our dining room: I thought the plain paper was boring, so one afternoon while Calvin napped unusually long, I grabbed a leaf from the front yard and traced around it with an orange marker all over the paper. It's faint, but the pattern makes me happy. I...