Prairie Girl Wanna Be

I am so excited!!  I have gotten a ton of shopping done for Christmas this past week! 

My younger boys are very hard for me to buy for and I always end up buying for them last cause I don’t know what to get.  I was able to get several things for them that I think they will like and it just lifted a huge load because I didn’t expect to get them anything this early. 

Our four youngest always take me the longest cause we do more for them.  Mother is so easy cause she loves clothes and candy.  I love buying for her.  David also takes me a little longer.  But if I can narrow this down to just a few things for each of them then I will enjoy it so much more.

I tried to buy three nice things for each of them last year and it was a mess!  I ended up spending more than usual cause I didn’t want them to open a box with a piddly little gift in it.  I would have done better to have had ten things for them to open that were less expensive!  Live and learn:) 

Soo this year I will go back to my traditional plan and they will have little things and a couple of big things and we will have a special time for togetherness.  That’s what I love anyway.  I want all my children together under one roof for a full day.  I love it when they spend the night too.  There is something about night time coming and everybody tucked in to bed and then getting up in the morning and being together.  I just love it.

ANYway, this is your monthly prompting.  You have five months left. 

Five months from Sunday will be Christmas day.  Have you done ANYTHING?? 

Well then, get to work!  You gotta make it priority or you’ll just put it off and put if off and next thing you know it will be December 1st and you’ll be stressed cause you won’t have the money, the ideas of what to buy folks, or the time. 

I’m tryin’ to help you here so get busy girls!  Make that list; buy for at least two people by this time next month.  You can do that and if you do you’ll truly have a…..

Merry Christmas:)

This is not only an awesome tasting cookie that my family loves, it’s a healthy one!  Just don’t tell anybody:)

I posted it last year but it’s worth doing again and I don’t think I showed you any pictures. 

When I first made them I left out the coconut cause my boys don’t like coconut.  I left out pecans cause my boys don’t like pecans.  THEN I decided to just try it the way the recipe calls for it and would you believe it …they like them better.  I just never told them what I’d put in there and they gobble them up like crazy! 

We take them on camping trips because they travel very well.  They don’t fall apart easy or crumble.

So here goes.  They are very big.  In fact, you are supposed to use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to measure them out on the cookie sheet but I make both large and small ones.

COWBOY COOKIES

 3 cups whole wheat flour

1 T. baking powder

1 T. baking soda   (yes, Tablespoons)

 1 T. cinnamon

1 t. salt

3 sticks butter

3 cups sugar or sucanat (I use organic sugar)

3 eggs

1 T. vanilla

1 heaping cup chocolate chips

3 cups rolled oats

1 heaping cup coconut

1 heaping cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350.  In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time and add vanilla.  In another bowl, mix dry ingredients together and add this to butter mixture.  Add oatmeal.  May have to stop mixer and stir this in by hand because your batter will be very stiff.  Add choc. chips, coconut and pecans.

These are large cookies.  For each one drop 1/4 cup of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart.  Bake until edges are lightly browned - about 17 - 20 minutes.

As you can see, these were not the biggest ones.

Look at all that good stuff in there!  I’m telling you, do NOT make these if you are counting calories cause you will have a lot to count!

But remember, they are healthy!

YUMMY!!

 Well, I think I have gone red crazy! 

I have never enjoyed anything as much as my red refrigerator!  Everybody comments on it when they come in.   It’s very bright and cheery. 

My friend, Emily came to see me one day and saw my old brown microwave and told me I oughta paint it too.  Soooo out came the paint can and after two coats I have the brightest, happiest microwave in the county!

Here’s the top so you can see the change:)

 Here’a another view.  See my red mugs hanging in the background?  They were a yardsale find an I just love them.  I got four large mugs, four medium mugs, 11 salad plates, 9 regular plates and 12 bowls for $20! 

I was thrilled!  They are all red and everybody in the house loves them.  They make the table so bright. 

Mother loves the bigness of the mugs for coffee and Trent loves the depth of the bowls for cereal. 

I LOVE yardsaling!!

My newest “red” is my back entry and laundry room.  I will be posting it soon so “stay tuned”:)

Here’s something fun that Luke and I did this summer.  I got the idea from the Homestead Blessings dvd’s.  They are dvd’s that tell you about baking and sewing and gardening and these ladies make you  think you can do anything! 

Anyway, here’s what we did…

You need seed potatoes which you can get in the spring at the farm stores or you can use any old ones in your pantry if they have sprouts on them or “eyes”.  You need to cut them into pieces with an eye on each piece.

Next you need a big pile of newspapers.  We haven’t gotten the paper lately so we went to our local newpaper office and they gave us a stack of old papers.

The first step was to spread the newspaper on the ground.  We put it on the dirt in our garden but you can put it right on grass if you want.  Spread it several sheets thick in rows.

Next Luke laid the pieces of potato about a foot apart on the newspaper.

Now cover the potatoes with a thick layer of straw.  As it rains, keep adding straw.  Potatoes like the dark:)  When the plants come thru the straw and turn yellow it’s time to harvest.  You just reach in thru the straw and get your potatoes.  No dirt! 

We haven’t harvested any yet and have seen no signs of them but we’re not giving up hope! 

Talk to ya later:)

I never got to spend much time with my grandmothers.  We went there for visits because we lived out of town. So it was more of a visit for my parents to visit their parents than a grandparent time for me. 

My mother lives in our home.  She has a small room with a bathroom which was her choice.  This is very easy for her to get around in and she likes it this way.  We have her things from her house in it and have tried to make it homey.  It must have worked because my grandchildren, her great grandchildren love to go in there:)  Here posted are some precious, precious memories I hope they will always have.

Here, Mother is crocheting and Benjamin is showing her his new birthday gift which was a hammer and peg board.  Bethany is working with yarn.

Now I included this one because although it is blurry you can see what was going on.  Don’t you just love seeing little girls twirl:)  Bethany was showing Grandmama how her skirt would twirl around.

That’s something we grandmother’s are very interested in.  We truly love things like this!

Now she has stopped and become interested in what Grandmama is doing.  She turned when I took this shot.

Now the teaching begins. 

I absolutely love this.  A granddaughter sitting at the feet of her great-grandmother…learning. 

She may not be learning crocheting yet, but she is learning. 

She is learning that she is worth her grandmother’s time.  She is learning the patience of the elderly.  She is learning how to interact with another generation.  She is learning lots more than we realize.

“Is this how you do it?”

Once again, not clear, but how priceless is this.

If your grandmother is still with you or a favorite aunt or just someone you know who is older and won’t always be there…call them today…send them a sweet card…tell them how you feel about them….that you appreciate them…that you admire them…that you love them.

Talk to ya later:)

How’s this for a pan of banana pudding!!  We had a big reunion on July 3rd and I made this for our crew.  This is real easy, real cool and real good!

Here’s the recipe: 

1 large box instant vanilla pudding

1 8 oz. cool whip

vanilla wafers

bananas cut into slices

Prepare the pudding as directed on the box.  Fold in cool whip.  Layer vanilla wafers, pudding mixture, bananas, pudding mixture, then start all over with the vanilla wafers.  You can make this in an 8 x 8 casserole or you can just keep adding to it and put it in something bigger.  I always buy Nilla Vanilla Wafers because they are just better but you can use the off brand too.  Also I made mine in the morning and we had it that night.  I would make it at least four hours ahead if possible.

Thought you’d enjoy something cool on these hot summer days!  Have a great day!

Talk to ya later:)

We have a new addition to our home and here she is!  Her name is Razzmatazz ~ Razz for short and she was given to us.  We are so excited! 

We had neighbors (who no longer live here) that didn’t ride her anymore and they were wanting to give her to Trent.  I tried every which way I knew to get that horse for him but we just did not have enough land to hold her.  I finally prayed about it and left it with the Lord.  I told Him that we wanted her very bad and asked Him to make the way if we were to have her. 

One day a few months ago, David mentioned checking with some neigbors down the road who have pasture.  He said we might want to see if they would let us put her out there and rent from them.  They did  it!  They have a great fence and access to water and we are absolutley thrilled.  

We made a trip to Tennessee to get her because she’d moved away by this time and the owners were very happy as well as one 14 year old boy! 

She is awesome.  Trent can put his hands on her hips and jump up on her from the back.  She is extremely gentle and does everything he wants her to do. 

We are so thankful for answered prayer.  Now I’m learning that if we had not gotten her that would have been an answer too and it would have been the right one although I might not have known why.  I’m seeing that sometimes God answers better than what I pray cause I just can not see the whole picture and He can.  I am sooo thankful that He is THE God who see’s all and knows what is best for us.

I pray this scripture out of Isaiah a lot -”Let my thoughts be your thoughts and my ways your ways because Your thoughts are higher than my thoughts and Your ways higher than my ways.”  That’s not the exact quote but it’s close and it is truly the way I feel.  The older I get the more I have seen God answer my prayers in ways I never dreamed they would be answered and so much better than the way I thought it should be answered.  And sometimes, a lot of times, I am so thankful He did NOT answer it my way!

So here’s an aswer you can see!  Isn’t she a beauty!

We have had a busy, busy summer so far!

We took two camping trips because we had our two youngest sons with us the entire month of June. We also went to VBS.   Luke absolutely loved it and Trent went as a helper and enjoyed working with the preschoolers.  We camped at the same time and they really enjoyed that.

Here is Luke on our first camping trip with his fish:)

We attended the Helen Keller Festival in Tuscumbia, Alabama and camped in Florence while we were there.  We ate at a soda fountain called the Palace that was fun.  I got a cherry coke that was awesome!

We got to have a day with Breanna which we always love.  She is so busy with school and work that it is not always easy to have a whole day.  David really enjoys talking with her. 

Here’s a swimming hole in Mississippi where we camped.  The boys love swimming in the river.  I like the chlorine pool myself:)

When we weren’t camping we did things like going to the movies, going to a water park with friends and worked in the garden. Luke has made friends with our back door neighbors so he enjoys staying home and playing with them.  It has been a very hot month.  Some days we have reached 100!  Staying cool is a challenge!  Trent enjoys time with his horse which I will post about when I get some good pictures of her.  She was definitely an answer to prayer:)  

That’s a little rundown of June.  We enjoyed our boys and now have a very quiet month for July because both are gone.  I have begun a painting project so the month will go faster along with working on a community project that will take lots of time.   I will post about these later along with some new recipes.

Hope you are having a great summer so far.  Please feel free to leave comments about this blog.  I am still open to suggestions but so far everybody wants it to stay as is so that’s what I’ll do.

Thanks to everybody for the encouragement you give me in posting about our life.

Talk to ya later:)