I simply adore waking up to this lovely lady each morning... 

Pure joy.  That's what she is!

It's naptime..."Hannah, go lay down for naptime, " I say.

I return to find this:

She's successfully putting on Ethan's karate gear.  (He has to wear an adult sized helmet!  Bless his little pun'kin heart!)

And the video is here.

"Daniel, what are you doing??!!"

"I'm trying to teach Beau how to ride a bike...without training wheels!"  Smiling at his genius plan, he added to himself, "It's gonna be awesome!"

And for anyone who doesn't know...Beau is our fully grown German Shepherd!

Today will probably be another cloudy day, and with a little one obviously coming down with a cold, we'll probably spend the day reading aloud and watching videos.  Hannah started running a fever last night.  Bless her little heart...she went and grabbed a pink princess blanket and curled up on the couch...a very un-Hannah like thing to do.  She's normally very busy!

Poor Beau!

From the mouth of my little sickie:

"Bless food Mommy.  Bless food Daddy.  Bless food Ethan.  Bless food..."  When Hannah prays, everyone's food is blessed.

They sat there, arms around each other for quite a while...

The situation is sad when your husband is the one who asks you to update your blog!  Deron called today and asked me to do him a favor..."Update your blog.  I need new background pictures." 

I celebrated my 27th birthday.  Deron went to Sacramento, CA for a week and encountered quite a bit of scary turbulence on the way home after his layover in Colorado.  Daniel, Grace, and Hannah had check-ups.  (Don't even get me started on taking all four chillins to the doctor's office!  It's definitely not on my list of favorite things to do.)  Daniel celebrated his 5th birthday! (More on that another day.) My sister and her husband have been down to visit twice.  My brother-in-law has been in Iraq for the past year, so we're very happy to have him home in the States.

And my grandmother passed away.

Honestly, it's hard to write about it.  It's hard to think about her being gone from our lives here on earth.  She was a very special lady, and we're all going to miss her very much.  She was the type of selfless example that you don't see very often in this world.  You know,  the type of person who makes everyone feel like they're her favorite.  And she wouldn't be happy with the amount of sadness and tears that have been shed over losing her in this life. 

I know her memory is in our hearts, and I know she's in a better place.  She's with her Lord and Saviour.  And I know she's not really gone .  She's just gone home.

I'm planning to repaint our kitchen this week after the peanut gallery goes to bed, so I'm choosing an extremely simple menu for the week. 

Tonight, we're having Chicken and rice soup with salad or sandwiches on the side.

Tomorrow, we'll enjoy some Ranch Cheddar chicken with broccoli over rice.

Wednesday, we'll dine on Spaghetti with peas and carrots.

Thursday, we're eating up all the leftovers since we'll be out of town this weekend going to a wedding!

For breakfasts, we'll eat anything from scrambled eggs to oatmeal...probably oatmeal.  Lunches will be something in picnic fashion or a nice baked potato bar.  Super simple!

"Um, excuse me...but I am trying to eat my cinnamon toast!"

Have a great Monday!

It's been a good week!

Today we're planning to have a Super Fun Friday!  I'm letting the boys "pick out" their reading lesson today.  We're finishing up some weather and cloud studies.  It would help if there were some clouds in the sky.  It's been beautiful for the bulk of this week, so we've been unable to observe the clouds outside.  Crystal clear and a gorgeous backdrop for the lovely fall leaves but no clouds!  We're also finishing up some research on the Peloponnesian Wars.  They adore history and science!  We have a blast with those subjects, especially.

Math-wise, we're working on time and measurements, so what better application lesson on a Friday afternoon than baking up some of Aunt Ruthie's Snickerdoodles!  If you've never visited the Sugarpie Farmhouse, you must must must!  I'm so inspired to get on in the house to fluff and feather my nest!  She is expecting her first grand-baby, and even that inspires me to have proper perspective for my season in life. I cannot imagine that day coming, but as many of the ladies in my life have reminded me time and time again, it'll happen before I know it!

We'll top off the afternoon with a trip to the karate school for weapons training.  I know that sounds scary.  It's not!  Deron is meeting me there and he's taking the kiddos home while I do a little birthday shopping!  I'll probably grab myself a mocha or maybe a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks with my discount and head over to Micheal's, Kohl's, and Target.  Deron has already given me my birthday gifts.  An assortment of Autumn cookbooks from the Gooseberry Patch!  I've been pouring over them like they're novels. I simply adore their cookbooks!

Hope you have a wonderful Friday and a gorgeous weekend!  Check out the videos of my little sugar and spice, Grace-pie!

This will not be a regular edition on this blog, but I did want to share that I was trying out couponing.  I've always been of the mindset that coupons wouldn't make that big of a difference if I stuck to store brands and shopped sales.  And with some items, that rule continues to apply to me.

However, after two successful shopping trips, I'm now convinced on the positive impact couponing can have on your grocery/household item budget.  I've hit Walgreens and Kroger twice with tremendous savings.  First trip: I spent an average of 60% on items I normally buy.  Second trip: I spent an average of 40-50% on items I normally buy. (That means, I'm going to buy milk whether it's on sale or not, but I'm not going to buy certain things like specific yogurt brands unless it's cheaper than the store brand.)  I can't remember totals from the first week.

From the second week:

Before coupons at Walgreens I spent $89, after coupons I spent $46 out of pocket and received $27 in register rewards.  So $19 on $89, and I could have kicked myself because I completely forgot about a $5 off coupon I had.  (Remember, this is only my second shopping trip, so I'm training my thought process.)  So I spent an average of 21% of the total cost, and if I'd have remembered the coupon, it would have been closer to 15%.

At Kroger, after sales but before coupons, I spent $125, after coupons I spent $83.  So that's an average of 66% of the total cost.  Remember, these items are things we normally use and normally eat.  I don't want to start seeing good deals and purchasing items that we don't normally eat or use.  For us, it's not savings if I wouldn't normally buy it. 

This week's trip has us stocked on soap, toothpaste, body wash (which I only got because it was cheaper than bar soap with sales and coupons), and hair care items for at least four months.  We're stocked on toilet paper and razors for at least 6 weeks.  For the next two weeks, all we'll need by way of groceries is milk.  So basically, over the last three weeks, my grocery/household items budget has gotten to $110/ two weeks for a family of six.  This total includes diapers and four to five gallons of milk.  Not bad for us.

After seeing such positive results, I'm convinced that your grocery budget can definitely be slashed with the use of coupons.  It's funny to me because I've always thought that it wasn't worth the time involved.

I know this isn't the best picture ever, but I need to upload some new ones I've taken.  And I haven't gotten around to it, yet.  Please bear with me to my family and friends who come here to see pictures.

We do gratitude drawings every morning.  I ask them what they're especially thankful for that day, and today I got the sweetest little answer from my rough and tumble Daniel-boy...

"I'm so thankful for Grace.  She's so cute!"

It kinda made me grin all over!

Some days he's thankful that I made cookies and that we have milk to go with them, but today was especially touching!

Oh, this child just warms my heart! 

Deron started his new job this week, and so far, things are going very well.  He's enjoying it so much.  We are very thankful that the Lord has blessed him with this position.

My boys advanced to their next belt.  Ethan earned his orange belt, and Daniel earned his yellow.  The graduation was at a local elementary school, so it was fun watching their faces inside this big school.  With them being homeschooled, they've never seen the inside of a cafeteria.  They went up onstage and did a short demonstration of what they'd learned this quarter.  It was a lot of fun, but they weren't terribly thrilled at having to actually go in front of everyone.

I've written time and time again about Daniel's volume when he speaks.  His voice carries.  He's a very sweet boy, but he's loud.  And he talks or sings or hums or just needs to be making some sort of sound at all times.  All times.

Well, we were at the store, and there was a young lady in rather, uh, short shorts...

"Well, she might as well have on a bathin' sou'p'!"  (Please tell me she didn't hear him or at least that she doesn't know what a bathin' soup is!)

Oh my goodness!  It's Fall!  It's Autumn!  Officially...at 5:18 p.m.  It's sad that I know that...

I have a confession.  Wal-Mart is out of pumpkin.  How in the world that happened two days before the first day of Fall is beyond me!  I  checked more than one store and nada!  Nothing.  I plan to track it down over the phone.  If I do nothing else, we're going to eat some scrumptious Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes and Chocolate Gravy today...I hope!

I thought I would share the recipe I've adapted over time.  Everyone eats these up like a horse, getting seconds and thirds, and I always double up the batch to freeze some for the future.

My little kitchen helper, complete with her chef's hat and all!

Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes

4 cups flour ( Most times I use oat flour or half whole wheat half white.  To me, they are far too dense if you use 100% whole wheat, but they're very fluffy if you use oat flour.)
4 T. brown sugar or Sucanat (Seriously, if you've never tried Sucanat, it's very good and you can't tell a difference between it and brown sugar in this recipe.)
4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. salt
cinnamon to taste
nutmeg to taste

3-4 eggs

1 cup of pure pureed pumpkin (I use canned.)
4 cups buttermilk (or regular milk 'soured' with vinegar)
1/2 cup melted butter (You can use canola or olive oil, as well.)
3/4 to 1 cup chopped pecans

Whisk together your dry ingredients.  Stir in your eggs.  Fold in the remainder of your ingredients.  And you're good to go!  Use a 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup measuring cup for pouring on your griddle.  They'll be similar size and take a similar amount of time to cook.

Chocolate Gravy

3T Cocoa

3T All purpose flour

1 1/2 cups of sugar (Don't use Sucanat here!)

3 cups of water

1 t. vanilla

Whisk all your ingredients together and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, and remove from the heat.  It will thicken.

The chocolate gravy is just homemade chocolate sauce.  It's amazing on those pumpkin pancakes!  Enjoy!

Fall makes me want to spend hours and hours in the kitchen!  And if it weren't for my broken a/c, I might just do it!  I love the smells, the colors, the crispness in the air.  I love the sight of beautiful golden and crimson leaves peeking through the trees with the wind blowing just so.  Oh me oh my! 

My little Spartan warrior...we've been studying Ancient Greece.

Join me in the kitchen, y'all, as I drool over the selections for this week.  It's been a while since I've posted one of our menus, but as this is the first week of Fall, I couldn't help myself!

Tonight we'll feast on Chicken and Rice Soup with grilled pimento cheese sandwiches.

To celebrate the "official" first day of Fall, we're having Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes with chocolate gravy and fruit on the side!

Wednesday, with karate in the latter part of the afternoon, we'll have Crock Pot Chicken Cacciatore with pasta and a side salad.

Thursday, we're having herb roasted chicken, butternut squash souffle, and itty bitty peas.

Friday, we'll have Mexican casserole with corn on the side.

Saturday, we'll have Baked Spaghetti and a side salad.

Lovin' the fake little pouty face!

For breakfasts, we'll have oatmeal, probably.  We eat a lot of oatmeal.  Baked oatmeal, regular oatmeal, oatmeal muffins... you get the picture.  Lunches are always either leftovers, picnic-ish food, or homemade mini tortilla pizzas (thanks, Mom!)

Happy Eatin', Folks!

Obviously, we still have a ways to go with modesty.  The towel didn't last long before we had an all out streaker on our hands!

"Um...excuse me...exactly, where do you think you're going there, young lady!?"

Have a great day!

After reading my brother's comment, I felt the need to clarify.  My girls do not sleep for 3 hours..."if only" is right!  Those hours are simply a window for the 1 1/2 to 2 hour naptime that they do have most every day.  

Daniel has fallen asleep at naptime almost every day this week. He's had an ear infection in both ears and a hole in his left ear drum.  Bless his little heart!  I'll tell you what though...he can sleep anywhere!