PREPARING FOR FALL PART 1

I dug out my boxes of Fall decorations this weekend, so I could peek in and remember what I had.  Doing it this soon may seem crazy to some people,

but I find if I do it now I have time to be on the look out for anything I might want to add and

I have time to get any projects I want to do, done. 

I am so thankful I took that little peek

because it reminded me of my poor shrunken tablecloth

from last year.

The first time I washed it it shrunk,

I continued to use it last year,

but had a great idea to fix it up for

this year.

Add a fabric trim.

I have been eyeing this fabric at Walmart since early Spring but I had no where to use it.

Until, I found my tablecloth that is.  I love how it adds a playful punch.

And of course with the cool new tablecloth I had to go ahead and put my pumpkin on the table,

his smile makes me smile.

While I was at it I dug out some Fall dish towels and gave them a little love

also.

So, what do you think?

Are you ready for Fall?

Cha Cha

I am linking here

and

31-40 one thousand gifts

As I sit this morning drinking in a lazy Monday morning, have have been reflecting on the chaos that Summer had to offer.  I have enjoyed much of it, but could have just as easily done without other parts.  During my reflection I realized that is what I have missed the most over Summer, time set aside to reflect.  So,  I purposely took that time this morning and I am thankful for it.  So I will pick back up and continue with my list of 

One Thousand Gifts

31.  The return of routine

32. The gift of teaching my daughters

33. The gift of teaching other girls

34. Cooler weather over the weekend

35. Family time

36. The gift of an old Coke bottle found by my husband this weekend

37. The gift of end of Summer flowers picked for me by my oldest girl

38. The time to sew

for more info. go here

39. The gift of family heirlooms (handwritten recipe cards) to hang on the wall

40. The gift of kind words written by a sweet student

FAMILY RECIPES

I have had an idea floating around in this crazy head of mine for a couple of years.

Finally, I have gotten busy and started working on it.

You see it all started when I was looking through my recipes one day and found I had a recipe card from each of my grandmothers and one from Hubby's Granny.

I knew they could NOT just continue to live closed up in a recipe book.

But I wasn't sure what to do with them.

Well, I wasn't sure until my sweet friend (more about that here) move to SoCal and brought me a huge stack of empty frames.

Suddenly, I knew what I wanted to do with them.

I got busy painting the frames the same color as my kitchen cabinets.

Found some pretty scrapbook paper

Glued it to the frame backs and then glued the recipes onto that.

Put the frames back together and this is what I have

I love how each of the recipe cards are different.

I thought I knew exactly where I was going to hang these

but........................

that of course has changed now,

so I can not show you the finished product yet

because I have more to do.

More frames to paint

more scrapbook paper to buy.

And I have to beg my Mom, Glenna and Grandy to

Please, Please, Please

make me a recipe card.

Please ladies

Cha Cha

**THE FINAL PRODUCT**

JUST A PEEK

For those of you who are new around here, we live in the house I grew up in.  I have a goal of writting about it to pass on to my grandkids one day, so far I am failing.  So when this little circle of history was uncovered this weekend I had to write about it.  When we first move in to this house 5 years ago, we did some wallpaper removal and painting and then waited until 2 years ago to start any big remodeling.  One of the rooms we removed wallpaper from was the girls bathroom which is the same bathroom that was mine and my sisters when we were growing up.  Our toilet paper holder died this weekend so when we took it off the wall this is what we found.

Cute little dots.  I know these dots well, they were there everyday of my life and I am so happy that I found this little piece and could take a picture to keep the memory.

One day soon maybe I will give you a real tour of this room, it is actually one of the best rooms in my whole house, but today there are towels on the floor and toothpaste in the sink

so it will have to wait.

Cha Cha

Cha Cha's New Bag

Guess what I got in the mail on Friday?

Isn't it the cutest thing you have ever seen?

Don't you want one?

My sweet friend Kellie sent it to me.

You can have one too,

just go to her Etsy shop

Bag Full of Posies

I plan to use mine as my teachers bag

it is nice and roomy and I can get all my supplys

to and from school in it.

Thank You Kellie

I love it.

Cha Cha

Tomato Pie

So what do you do when your dad plants 125 tomato plants?  Eat tomatoes, then eat some more, give them away and eat even more.  So thought I would share one of favorite ways to eat tomatoes.

Tomato Pie

Don't panic it is savory not sweet.

Ingredients

2 large tomatoes or 3 medium

1 pie crust

1 T. Italian seasoning

6 slices cooked bacon

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 mayo

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese

1T flour

cut tomatoes lay the out to drain extra moisture

cook bacon

blot tomatoes to get even more moisture out

add sour cream, mayo, flour, Italian seasoning, and cheese to a bowl

mix well

crumble bacon in the bottom of pie crust

layer tomatoes

cover with cheese mixture

bake at 350 for 30 minutes

then enjoy.

Cha Cha

I am linking here

MOTHERHOOD

I have spent many hours thinking about motherhood the last few weeks.  I remember when I was coming home to be a full time mother a sweet lady reminded me of the Proverbs 31 mother and that her children would rise up and call her blessed.  I prayed that day that God would change my heart into that kind of mother.  I have made many mistakes along the way and given those around me many reasons to call me any thing but blessed, but I have been amazed at how God has changed me into a person that I would have never dreamed of becoming years before.  I see in small ways that scream loud to my soul my children calling me blessed, My little one just today sat on the porch and comforted me as I was having a hard moment.  My oldest trusted me with her heart break  and trusted my advice, oh thank you God.  I am so thankful that God has changed me and used me to raise his children the ones that I birthed but committed back to Him.  He has also trusted me with many other children. Children that I didn't birth, ones that I only get to mother for a short time. I am so thankful to have been who He chose for those moments. This week many of those children have called me blessed.  This week has been so beautiful as I have watched mothers bring their daughters back to me to mother this year for an hour a week, please know how much this means to me and what an honor it is.  To have these girls walk back into my classroom and wrap their arms around me and look at me with love, it  has brought me to my knees in praise.  I have been blessed to also recieve several letters this week thanking me for the moments when I have mothered others, tears have never flowed so freely.  Letters that have come from the "real" mother and even sweeter ones from the beautiful daughter, I am so thankful to be loved by each. I was blessed to spend a couple of hours with another this week talking of her future and it has been  such a joy to watch her become a woman, even though I joke that I didn't raise her ( thank you God for the blessing of moments in her life) to be as brave as she is.  Tomorrow I will get to see another one of mine and I can't wait to see what two months have brought into her life and how her heart has grown.  In all of this I have felt my Father say to me well done my good and faithful servant. 

After all that has happened this week I can't help but think of all the women who have mothered me.
1.  My mother, who loves and has loved me even when it wasn't easy and I was not lovable.  Thank you for choosing to be my mother through the hard and easy times, thank you for now choosing to be my friend, you are blessed and I love you.
2.  My grandmother who thaught me to sew and how to live a servants life, you are more meaningful to me than I could ever put into words.
3.  To my mother in law Glenna, for inviting me in and accepting me with love and always knowing the perfect gift.
4.  To my mother in law Judy for showing me forgiveness and love.
5.  For my Miss Jan thank you for mothering me, mentoring me and choosing to be my TRUE friend.
6.  For my Miss Betty, thank you for being willing to mother me in ways that I have only ever trusted you to do.

Please know there are many others, too numerous to list, I am thankful to each of you.

Have your chidren called you blessed recently, or do you need to call someone else blessed today.
Or....... has your mothering ever been called into question, if so, know that your heavenly Father knows your heart and wants to tell you well done.

So what did I do with my two weeks off from blogging?

You most likely do not care,

BUT....

I am going to share anyway, hehe.

Our school room was a mess.

I use room loosely, it is really just an area in our unfinished basement.

This "room" is also the walkway through the basement

which at our house means it is the catch all for everything!!!!

So for months stuff has been stacking up,

I did not take a picture of it because it is not something I want to remember.

So many hours, and trash bags later this is what I have.

A nice tidy school desk.  These cabinets were a total score off of craig's list.

When we got them they were a less than attractive wood stain (you can see the color in the pictures of the books) I got busy sanding, painting and glazing and this is what we have.  So for $100.00 we got this awesome desk and we even have more cabinets for another project we have planned for later.

We love this globe

We made these clipboards over the winter from cheap pressboard clipboards, mod podge, and scrapbook paper.  They work great at holding the days work.

Here are a few of the books we will be reading this year.  Some I will read aloud and some they will read on their own.  We  use Pogeny Press and Beautiful Feet  for study guides on many of these books.

We read books on History together and use Beautiful Feet Study Guides

For my child who reads me out of house and home, I find Abeka readers to be a safe options and they offer good comprehension questions.  We have tried several Grammar books over the years and found our favorite to be Easy Grammar.  Spelling had always driven me crazy until we came across Steck-Vaughn Spelling, it gives great activities to do with the spelling words each day, that are not write the word 10x.

Do you remember all those stacks of books I had for the yard sale, here are the books I kept.  Now you know why I had to sale so many.  I have a problem with books I love them.

Here is an other view of that same bookshelf.

All those boxes on top are filled with fabric.  Fabric that my grandmother recently gave me when she decided to clean out her quilting room, I only took half of it

my sister got the other half.

I think I know where my youngest got her need to collect.

We will also finish up our study on horses this year.  The girls have enjoyed it and the little one has dreams of owning a horse and once a day we have to talk about why we can NOT.  I had horses growing up and know how much WORK they are and am not signing on for that.  Maybe she will wear her Papa down one day.

The area I have yet to conquer is our craft/game closet.  It drives me crazy and today I just want to throw it all away and have nothing, but I will not because the collecting thing did not skip a generation and I collect craft crap stuff, well that and sofa's but I don't think you guys are ready to know that side of me.

So hopefully one day in the near future this will not look like a Micheal's store blew up under my stairs.

And once that closet is done

I have promised myself play time here, and maybe I will use up those boxes of fabric

Well maybe sometime in the next 10 years I will use them up,

Who am I kidding 20 years is more like it

HOMESCHOOLING the yard sale edition

Just like many of you moms I use every day life to teach lessons.

I found having a yard sale to be rich with life lessons.  The first lesson was how to work hard in 90+ heat  (this was my least favorite lesson).  Then there was how to price things, we discussed if we were pricing it to sell fast and to never have to bring it back in your house or if you still liked it but were willing to part with it for a certain amount of money.  I have to say that one of the girls thought her stuff was worth a whole lot of money, like more money than was paid for it new, I am guessing it is because she would like to be a hoarder if her mean mother would let her.

While making signs we talked about how to think outside of the box when doing art projects.

We talked about how to be very neat and orderly.

We talked about patterns and color wheels, it turned into a very thorough lesson. 

We learned how to reuse what we had,  our lemonade sign is from a outdated calendar.

We learned how to make gallons of lemonade, how to sell something, how to count money and give correct change.  We learned that people really like to buy homegrown tomatoes, so now the girls want a fruit and veggie stand full time.

Last but not least we learned that people buy the weirdest things,  we made a lot of money off of this yard sale but still had over half of the stuff and the half we had is what I would consider the good stuff, just proves that one (wo)mans junk is another (wo)mans treasure.

So there you have our yard sale in a nut shell

Cha Cha