Well, I am back to the blogging world J.  My mama and little brother left yesterday afternoon.  It was so hard to say goodbye L.  We had such a blessed time and are left with such delightful memories!  I will share pictures as time allows this next week.

Thank you to those of you who let me know I was missed here!  Those of you who take the time to read the writings on my blog will never know how you bless and encourage me!  And it is so very encouraging when I get to hear from you as well!

As I sit here now my three oldest children are enjoying a game together.  The three littlest are sleeping.  We had a busy morning moving back into our routine.  We tidied up our home and just finished off a pot of chili and spiced oatmeal muffins.  I will leave you with the recipe for the muffins at the end of this post.

We were challenged with finding seating space in our dining room while company was here.  We have more company coming in a couple of weeks so it really got me wondering how I can prepare a better seating arrangement for our meals.  What we have is a oval oak dining set that seats six comfortably.  No…sure didn’t leave much room for even a family of 8!  We still have the one and two year old in high chairs…at least until today.

What I decided to do was bring in our “craft table” from the school room.  It is actually a lunch table we bought at Sam’s quite some time ago.  With the chairs it seats 8 comfortably.  I remembered, though, in the old house I still had some brick and boards in which I used to make shelves for organizing our shoes.  I went out and brought those in and created a bench for one side of the table and then put chairs on the other side.  I put my husband’s chair on one end and a baby seat that hooks to a table on the other end.  SO,  now, with the bench, we can fit 10 comfortably.  We tried it for dinner today and it worked SO nicely and we were ALL at the table!  I took the leaf out of the oak table and set it up in the corner of the dining room with a few of it’s chairs.  That will work for an overflow if needed and the children are enjoying it for games now.

I am now enjoying a bit of rest with a cup of hot cocoa, a kitten demanding my lovins and memories of time with family.  We spent much of the time at home, which is what we wanted, but we were also able to visit the zoo, watch a fall festival parade and enjoy one very rainy day chatting and sipping coffee together.  The nights were ever so late, but filled with lovely memories!

When my mom drove away my children cried, as did I.  It was drizzling and so I decided to take them for a bit of a drive.  We went and filled the van with gas and then drove over to see daddy.  He asked me to go to town to get him some supper and told me to treat the kids to supper as well.  We drove to town and the children got their very own kid’s meals at Sonic.  Boy was THAT a treat!  We came home and all retreated to our beds quite early. 

There is still an emptiness in my spirit this day.  Aside from my husband, children and my Lord, my mom is my very best friend.  The goodbyes never get any easier….they only make me long more for that home I am heading for……………the one where there are no goodbyes…no more tears.

Spiced Oatmeal Muffins

2~2/3 cups flour

1~1/2 cups rolled oats

2/3 cups sugar

4 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. allspice

2 beaten eggs

1~1/2 cups milk

½ cup oil