Monthly Archives: April 2015

I enjoy a good cup of coffee from Starbucks.  Hazelnut Macchiatos are my VERY favorite.  I used to get them more than once per week.  Then we scaled back to just getting them once a week.  I am thankful we live in the land of Starbucks.  There is a Starbucks almost on every corner where we live now, but my pocket book does not like that.  Plus the amount of wasting, I am doing.  Really?!? $5 for 2 shots of coffee plus about 1 cup of milk??!!  So not good.  But I buy them and I need to wean myself off of them.  Or do I????

I used to make these coffee drinks and they taste to me like the Starbucks frappuchinos that you can get in a glass bottle.  But to me they are creamy.  I have since moved away from that taste and moved onto Iced Macchiatos.  They are lighter—I went from nonfat milk to coconut milk that they serve now.  It has 2 shots of espresso and some flavored syrup.  It is less calories and for me, if I am going to get some caffeine power, I want the most for my buck.  I don’t want to waste empty calories on a fancy drink.

After talking with a worker, I know how they make it, why would I not try and duplicate it at home??  Well pure laziness is the answer.  Today was a day, I really wanted a coffee but was not going out, so I thought I would attempt one.  It was a good attempt.

I started out with my quart sized canning jar.

I then opened up my coconut milk in a can.  I added about half of it to the jar.

This is going to be an extremely cheaper drink as the coconut milk in a can is about $1 -$1.25.  You can even make your own by grinding up coconut and water in a blender.  I am out so I opted for a can of the milk.

I then filled my jar up with about 1 cup of crushed ice. 

I am an instant coffee girl.  It is cheaper, it is quicker and its good.  So I heated up my water and put 2 Tablespoons of coffee into my coffee cup.  Use a separate cup to mix the coffee in.

I added about 2 shot glasses of water in with the coffee granules.  I mixed it up so that the coffee granules were dissolved.

I then poured it into my quart jar.

It looks just like my Macchiato.  But how will it taste…….hmmm

Well, for one, I forgot my sweetener.  So I added about 2 scoops of sugar to this.  You can use syrup, honey, or any other type of sweetener.  I just added sugar to test out my drink.  I then thought it was too creamy.  So I added more water to the jar.  I filled it the rest of the way up with more water.  I assume that coconut milk in a jar is concentrated so that made sense.

Then I tasted it…………….and YES it tasted like my Starbucks drink. It definitely has the caffeine power of them.  I only drank about half of this jar and was feeling the effects of caffeine.  So it is a pretty potent drink.  I love it!! The taste from the coconut milk makes it delicious.  When I get the hazelnut syrup from Starbucks I can’t taste it in the coconut milk so this to me, tastes exactly the same.

Try it!! I am sold!! I will save us $50 this month by not buying these drinks while out.  Easy and simple.  Two words I am all about.

When I think of our large family and how mealtimes should be, I envision us sitting around a large table, with the food sitting in the middle, and each person waiting patiently before prayer is said and then we begin by each grabbing a dish and passing it to the next.  Everything is uniform and neat, no chaos, and you can actually carry on a conversation at the table.

But that is NOT a reality in our household and I don’t think we ever will have that.

For one problem in large families is that there sometimes are not enough seats for everyone.  Especially if you have an XL family.  It might be impossible to find a table that fits everyone.  You do what works.  If you have to set up folding chairs or have some sit around the kitchen counter, you do what you have to do.  I know of one family that purchased plastic picnic tables to use as tables for their large family.  Others use tv trays around the couch.  You gotta do whatever works.

I remember going shopping for tables and loving the nice long ones with perfectly smooth tops and envisioned how I “thought” it would look in our house.  Well then reality set in and I knew I would spend my time constantly getting after children for playing too roughly on it.  So I settled for a “worn” weathered look tabletop.  I am very grateful that I did that.  After having ours for 2 years, it definitely has some “real-scrapes and weatheredness” that can only come from 10 children playing roughly on it.  I think my children could go in business by turning perfectly good furniture into that weathered and worn look.  Hmmmm that could be a good business–smile.

Back to meal time.  It seems that it sometimes takes me hours to prepare a nice meal for my family, only to find that they barely sit down for 15-20 minutes to enjoy it!!!  I used to take lots of time and try and prepare that perfect looking meal, then I realized that they just eat and go on.  I learned to be less perfected and make quick and easy meals.  If I had to make a large meal, I would make enough so that we could eat it the next day.  If I was going to go to all that work, at least let me have the next day off–smile.

I really enjoyed this last month taking 2 days and preparing a bunch of freezer meals.  That helped hugely to give me more time in my day.  I know I will continue doing that, especially throughout the warmer months.  I want to spend less time in the kitchen and more time outdoors with my children.  I will probably look for more crockpot style dinners, to help cut back on using the oven.

If I could give any advice to someone struggling with meals, I would say, SIMPLIFY your meals.  You can make many healthy, from scratch dinners, that don’t cost a whole lot and DO NOT take up all of your day.  Look at food as nutrition for your body, forget the whole picture perfect part of it.  I always wanted to have a variety of snacks for my children and then I realized that they were perfectly happy eating the same snack each day.  So we made things in bulk and froze them.   It is just food and they are just as happy.  Keep meals the same.  If your husband and children enjoy a certain food, make a large pot of it and save yourself some time.  Today I made spaghetti for dinner.  It is a dish that my husband can eat over and over again.  My children enjoy it as well.  But in my mind, I think everyone needs variety, why??  They don’t, so I made a big pot  of sauce and will cook some noodles for dinner today and then tomorrow use the leftover sauce and heat up some more noodles. It is much easier and my life is less complicated.  I have salad material in the refrigerator and will eat that myself.

Keep the basics and go from there.

Keep the ingredients for a meal simple and life will be easier.

For the actual mealtimes………..give up the quietness factor.  Remember the last post about noise??  Dinner time is usually worse.  You are confined to a room and most of the time it echos–smile. For our family, it is impossible to keep the food on the table.  We have such large trays of food and it is much easier to leave it on the buffet and let everyone go cafeteria style to fill up their plates.  We normally pray before we even begin scooping.  Then we scoop out the little ones plates.  We are down to only having to make 4 plates.  We keep it small, children do not need that much food.  We then grab forks and spoons and place it on the plate.  We put theirs on the table and then they can sit and start eating.  The rest of us, gets their own food.  Mom is usually last, and by the time everyone is seated and chowing down, someone needs a refill.  Mom is left to get it and by the time you go to sit down, little ones are finished.  If you can train your little ones to sit and wait, then great—but in the land of real, little ones are best to get down and go play.  Then the quietness can occur.  I try and keep a rag right at the table with me, to wipe hands up right away.  I can usually continue eating, as they trail off away from the table.

Drinks—–drinks are something I do not like to worry about at meal time.  We have water bottles and I have all the little ones get their own water bottle from the refrigerator.  I never enjoy refilling a million little cups, each child gets their own.  Usually the 2 year old, enjoys getting them for everyone.

When they were really little, I had to start cleaning up the table right away, as they would sometimes climb back up and start making a mess again.  I just resorted to not eating during meal time.  I gave them food, cleaned them up, and started cleaning up the meal.  It was easier to watch them play and grab a quick bite myself.

Speaking of quick bites,  another thing you learn to do in a large family is to eat FAST!!  For myself, it was out of necessity.  The only way to get my food in me, was to eat quickly.  I can say that now, I can usually sit most of the meal and enjoy my food.  I prefer to eat quickly and start cleaning up right away but if I wanted to sit and socialize, I could.

I have found that clean up can take just as long as preparing the meal when you have a large family.  This is sometimes the hardest part of the meal.  I know especially when I prepare a large, special dinner I spend much time making it and it seems they eat so quickly and then I begin with taking forever to clean it up  I have learned to simplify that.  Over the years, I grew tired of washing so many plates, so for big get togethers or for holidays when I have been cooking all day, I pull out the paper plates.  Yes completely informal, but it saves on having to spend all of my time in the kitchen.  This works well when we have other families visit with us.  No one wants to spend time washing dishes, paper plates work great to avoid this.

Also learn to use only one bowl or plate to put all the food into. If at all possibly, skip using multiple dishes, it only leads to more dishwashing.   I have eliminated cups from the meals by having them use bottles.  Less is best. Hmmmm my next step might be to buy some sporks.  The fork and spoon in one, another time saver.  I am going to look into that.  smile.

Another big waste of time is the amount of serving bowls you use.  I try to wash dishes as I go when preparing meals.  Even if that means washing a few big pots before we sit down to eat.  It saves on much washing afterwards.

Another huge time saver, especially when we have much food at holidays is to use disposable foil pans.  It is much easier to throw away a pan then try and scrub it off.  I don’t recommend it for everyday use, but for a few special meals each year, save yourself some sanity.

Keep everything in one central location and let everyone grab their own stuff.  That includes any napkins, silverware, and salt and pepper.  I loved when I had a container and put all of our forks and spoons in it and left it right on the buffet.  We ate 3 times a day, why waste time putting away something that you constantly used.  Unfortunately it got broken when moving here, I will have to find another.   Simplify.  Use less, always better.

Cooking for a large family is not that much harder than cooking for a small family.  You just use larger amounts of items.  Plus you can usually stretch things more. I know for our family we have started going from 2 boxes of pasta up to 3.  We are sometimes border line and there is sometimes more leftover than others, but it works good for leftovers.  When we make spaghetti sauce, we can usually add a couple of extra cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and it stretches the sauce more.

It isn’t really about making tons of food, just more stretching what you have already.  I know if we are going to have tacos that can get costly, especially if I ONLY used ground beef.  I make up batches of bulgur burger and freeze it and use this to stretch our meat anyways.  I add equal amounts of ground beef and bulgur burger for the meat.  Tastes the same and no one complains.  I also make sure to make up some refried beans–pinto beans ground up in food processor.  I offer this with the meat, to help stretch the protein for everyone.  When we use canned nacho cheese, I add more water to it with some chicken bouillon.  Tastes the same, just a tad more liquidy.

When we use sausage or hotdogs in a dish, I cut them up thinner and it helps stretch the meat.  If we used chunked up ham, I found that if I ground it up in the food processor it stretched it way more.  For soups, if I add more liquid and a thickener like mashed potato flakes, it stretches the soup more.

For chili and dishes with beans, adding a few more cans of beans always stretches the meal without any noticeable difference.

Haystacks are a great dish to make that is inexpensive, but looks like you have a lot of food, plus it tastes great.  Check out Danielles haystacks and Mexican haystack recipe.

When we just had a few children it was cheap enough to eat a bag of chips for snacks, but no more.  We now can chow through a family sized bag of Doritoes in no time.  We have since enjoyed making popcorn and then we sprinkle half a bag in with the popped corn.  This allows the yumminess of Doritoes without all the junk food aspect of it and they fill up more on popcorn.

Another trick that I have learned, especially if I am having a salt craving is to use those popcorn topper flavors and sprinkle it on things.  I like homemade pita chips and I can sprinkle that with ranch powder and it tastes delicious.  We use the popcorn toppers every time we make popcorn.  Inexpensive way to spice it up.

We prepare treats in bulk which is cheaper than buying at the store.  You can make up a huge batch of homemade ice cream or popsicle treats for way less than the cost of a box of popsicles.  Plus the added healthy factor can’t be beat.  You can check out what we enjoy making for frozen treats under our large family food tab.

Having a large family doesn’t always mean that you have to spend more in groceries either.  I think back to when we were first married.  I bought most of our food and would spend $200 on groceries and that was for 4 people!!! We now cook for 11 and I can easily keep our grocery budget under $200.  Most weeks it is around $125-150.

Hopefully I have let you see a little bit into the life of a large family at mealtimes.  It can be crazy, it can be loud.  But, it doesn’t have to be much more work than a smaller family, it doesn’t have to cost as much, and it can bring more smiles cause there is always something going on.  Enjoy…

part 3 laundry

I remember being a new Christian and people telling me that I should pray for  my ears to become open to hear what it was God was speaking to me.  It seems I was taught through many classes and people to just listen to this book or this speaker and I would become stronger in my faith.  So I bought many books and listened to many different speakers.  The books were good and I had a bookshelf full of them.   I learned many truths about the bible and learned how to apply them to my life.  Did you know that they have books about every topic under the sun?  Need to be delivered from a demon? There is a book for that.  Want to be happy?  There is a book for that.  Want to learn self-control?  There is a book for that.  Want a better marriage?  You guessed it, there is a book for that as well.

Now,  I don’t knock the world of books—I wrote my own and think they are beneficial.  But where I think you can go wrong as a Christian is when you place the majority of your time, reading other people’s explanations instead of reading directly from God’s word.

“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”

Romans 10:17

It doesn’t say that you faith comes by life experiences or by other people’s experiences.  It says that your faith comes by hearing the WORD OF GOD.  That can ONLY come from the bible.

You should be spending SOME time each day, reading God’s word.  It isn’t about how much you read, it is just reading SOME of it.  You can read 1/2 of a chapter and get more out of it then by reading 3-4 chapters of a bible.  The key is to READ  it.  How else are we supposed to grow if we don’t go directly to the source that can provide life unto us?  Sure we can learn lots of truths and practical ways from other people’s books. What is beneficial in these books is sometimes the authors own experience going through these struggles and how they broke free from them and that can be encouraging.  I myself, will share my book of how I overcame some major struggles in my own life.  Number one being “taking offense.”  I think that is a HUGE problem in the Christians life.  I think everyone can be much better off by NOT taking offense at things.  But, you aren’t going to grow much in your relationship with God if you don’t read what it is He is saying to you.  My book will help you get over some fleshy areas, but Gods’ word can do multitudes more than a book written by a human.

By increasing our faith, we can increase the “anointing” that is given by God.  That anointing is what will help us over come things in life.  That is when healings happen, when addictions are freed, when miracles are performed, when God speaks to us and we hear, when prayers get answered, and when finances increase.  Anointing is the Holy Spirit living within us so that we can do the impossible by the power of God.  We can’t do things on our own, it is allowing God to do the work through us.  We are just a tool that God uses.  When we are lined up with Him, he is able to anoint us and use us to do the work here on earth.

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee

2 Corinthians 1:21-22.

In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’ “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.…”For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

The bible is clear that many people desire to have God’s truth come to pass. How many of us want God’s promises to happen?  I believe all of us do.  But it is only going to happen, once our faith is strengthened.  We have to have the faith that says when we read’s Gods word it is true.  The problem is we don’t believe any of it can happen.  Our faith is diminished and we start making excuses for why this or that doesn’t work.  We aren’t allowing God to do what He says we will do.  When we read the bible, we start diminishing away the truth by it instead of taking it as fact.

I was reminded of this while I was reading in the book of Romans about sinning.

In Romans 3:23 it was talking of the Law of Moses–which is the past….for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.   It doesn’t say “all sin.”  It says “sinned.”  He is talking of the past.

I stopped there because I have always heard Christians quote this verse frequently.  Especially when someone is sinning in the church.  “Well, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.”  But if you keep on reading there is so much more to the story.  It is like they use it to excuse away sin.

In verses 6:12 it says:  let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.  In verse 14 it says: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.

If you keep reading in chapter 6 it says : “are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound?  No way!! How can we, who are dead to sin-through death of Jesus, still be dead?  We walk in newness of life.

We are united in death.  United in the resurrection.  Our old self was crucified with Him.  We are no longer enslaved to sin.  If we died with Christ than we believe that we LIVE with him.  Christ’s died, rose from the dead, and will never die again.  Death has NO dominion over Him.  Death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but life he lives, he lives to God.

We must consider ourselves dead to sin and ALIVE to God in Christ Jesus.

We were once slaves of sin (verse 6:17) but NOW are obedient from the heart to His teachings.

6:23 states: Wages of sin is death but free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  We have been set free from being a slave to sin—we are now  slaves of God.

We shouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore.  Then why is it there are so many church going Christians who struggle with bondage to things?  Do they not truly “hear” what it is the bible says—–THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER SLAVES TO SIN.     We ARE NOT in the FLESH but in the SPIRIT.  The SPIRIT of GOD DWELLS inside  of you.    We are HEIRS of CHRIST.  The bible says that if we live according to the flesh, that we will die (Romans 8:13).  But by the SPIRIT you put to DEATH all the deeds of the body then you will LIVE.

The bible is clear that we seek to make for ourselves teaching that is in our eyes good.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

2 Timothy 4:3-4

Turn to God’s word and learn from His words . Plain and easy.  They are written so that ANYONE can learn from it.

Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear

Mark 4:9

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Part 6 is next

It is hard to believe that our school year is almost done.  After moving here, I have found that it is much harder to stay on our school because the weather is nicer earlier.    After being used to being indoors for most of the winter in Michigan, it seemed when we lived there it was much easier to get school work done because we could not be outdoors. But since moving here, we have been enjoying warm weather very early on which is something new.  We try and get our school work done at least by early afternoon so that we can enjoy our time outdoors.

Making the transition from Michigan’s no laws for homeschooling to North Carolina’s laws for homeschooling was  a bit different.  We are more lapsed than most people are when it comes to schooling.  I find that I like to “zone” in on what my children’s strengths are and what they excel at the best and then we go with it.  That means that sometimes we might put off learning certain skills until they are ready.  I am at the mindset that by the time my children are finished with high school, they will all know what they are supposed to learn, some just took longer than others.

I would much rather let my children learn some skills that are going to actually help them in life verses a bunch of formulas and facts that are going to get them nowhere.  My oldest is in college and we made sure to have her learn all of her “required” useless skills so that she could do well in school.  The  last year of her schooling, we did a crash course in review to put her up to par and she did fine.

For my others, we are not anywhere near that point yet, so we just do what we enjoy doing.  With the exception that I have to test my children and they should be at a “certain” level.  Since we do zero testing, ever.  I decided to purchase some practice test prep books from Spectrum.

Amazon carries Test Practice and Test Prep.  I recommend getting the Test Practice.  The other book just gives you a few questions with more explaining of how to take a test.  Don’t bother wasting your money.  These were about $8-10. 

Here is a sample of inside the books.  To me these were great, my children and I are almost done going through them.  Each day, we do 2 pages of each section:  Math, Language, and Reading.  In another week we should be done with them.  It gave us the chance to go over a few things that we previously did not learn and my children understand it completely.

In another week or so, I will order the CAT5 tests for each of my children.  They cost about $30 each and then I will administer the test to each of my children and keep the records.  Easy enough.  After reading different reviews, that seems to be the best one suited for homeschoolers who don’t normally do tests.

Then it will be time to explore and find out what I want to do for my children for next year.  I don’t think you need to have the same curriculum for all of your children for every year.  I think that our life changes, circumstances change, children’s learning is different, and sometimes financial reasons change.  We can’t always do the same thing for each children and that is okay.  Each child is different and we can’t expect them to all learn the same way. It is okay if you decided halfway through the year that something isn’t working, its hard but it is much better than a whole year of frustration with your child because they don’t get it.  I am glad that we can switch things up each year.  It makes the year less monotonous and boring.  Plus I am glad when we can do more in a year than previous years.  I look forward to sharing what we will be doing this next year.  But for now, I have to prepare for another Monday.  Be blessed.

What do you think is the best way to get to know someone? Hopefully you answered…by spending time with them. Do you know that the best way to have a good relationship with God is by spending time with Him each day? Sounds simple enough right? How would you feel if you knew that your friends deliberately ignored your texts or messages? Would you be able to turn to them in times of need and encouragement? Would you feel betrayed or used if the only times they talked was when they needed something? If the Lord is supposed to be number 1 in our life, we should be placing a big priority on the amount of time that we spend with Him. We shouldn’t ignore his “texts and messages”. How true is that so many of us get to wrapped up in our own busyness of life and forget to take the time each day to spend with the One who will help guide our steps each day.
You should work on making it a priority NOW in your  life to establish a quiet time with the Lord each day. The better you are to begin working oninstilling habits, you will be more likely to carry them out for the rest of your life.  You will be far better off than the person who never tried at all. Make it a point to spend some time reading scripture, praying, and then journaling about what God speaks to you.
I know that there are times in your life, when it gets busy or this looks more like a “chore” than an opportunity to get to know Him. Every time you open your bible you should expect and anticipate getting to know more about God.
Opportunities will come to those that desire them.
Those that don’t look for them, usually miss them. Expect that God will speak to you during your quiet time. Look for a time and establish that time NOW. Don’t think that “one day” you will take the time for God, why wait? God wants to use you now, today.   He has so many great things planned for your life, if you just think that He can’t use you until you are in a better season in life, you will be missing out on some great things.
Make Jesus a priority in your life. Don’t just turn to Him when you think about it, or when things go bad. Make prayer and reading His word a daily habit. These should become things that are naturally a part of your life and that you enjoy doing. Remember that you don’t have to pray with big words and fancy language. God wants to hear you in plain everyday language. Just as you would talk with your father or friend, God is the same way. Talk to Him and turn to Him with all of your concerns and problems. Be reminded to thank Him for the things He has blessed you with as well.

Our old pastor encouraged us to speak out 5 things we were thankful for each day. It is a good reminder that everyday things are really a blessing from the Lord and we should not take them for granted.
Practical application:
I encourage you to start a prayer journal. After reading a certain scripture, start writing out what it means to you. Write out a letter of praise, thanksgiving, and any doubts, fears, or problems that you want to hand over to the Lord. You can even write down the 5 things you are thankful for each day. Keep this going each and every day. As you grow and mature in the Lord, these will serve as beautiful reminder of your quiet times with the Lord.
Another great way to be reminded to read the scriptures is to find an accountability friend. Choose a friend or a few friends and start a simple bible study group. It doesn’t have to be big and fancy. Commit yourselves to just selecting a chapter and begin reading. Get together or talk on the phone and share what you read and how God spoke to you during those scriptures. Make it a time that is committed to keeping each other accountable.
A simple suggestion is to find a bible plan that reads the bible in one year’s time. Simple, and easy. Keep yourself accountable.

This is taken from Home Economics series Homemaking Skills, my second book due to come out in a couple of months.  You can buy my first one on Amazon by clicking here.  Or you can buying it as a direct PDF download here.  Thanks for the support, and be blessed this weekend.