Yearly Archives: 2008

Holidays, Project 366, Tim

Happy Father’s Day

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The children have returned to us! They ate their way through the grandparents’ house and so decided to come home. After several days alone, we were very glad to welcome them back into the fold. What a blessing to have grandparents who will take ALL FIVE CHILDREN for several days!! Not only do they feed and care for them, they also help with their homeschooling, read to them from classical literature, and pay them for the yard work they do.

Is that an incredible deal or what?!
And they’ve already asked when the children can return.
Blessings and more blessings!

slurpees anyone?

Of course, what would Father’s Day be without a run to 7-11 for slurpees?

I am thankful for my heavenly Father and all the ways He fills my life with joy and peace.

I am thankful for my earthly father who brought me up to love the Lord and walk in His ways.

I am thankful for my father-in-law who raised a godly son and taught him how to be a good father.

I am thankful for my husband who pours hours of time, attention, love, teaching, and laughter into the lives of my precious children. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be their father.

Kathy
Project 366 – Day 167

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Recipes/Food

Biscuit Casserole

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The children are off with grandparents, the house is quiet, and I have a zillion projects to finish before my life as a mom resumes. There’s no way I can possibly finish everything. I did manage to accomplish some great homeschool organizing but I haven’t painted a single wall or tackled a bit of the clutter in the garage.

The sun came out this afternoon, unveiling a gorgeous Washington day. Tim and I rode our bikes to the library and then later walked to the teriyaki place for some take-out. Look at us – saving gas money AND getting exercise.

Since I don’t have any pictures of cute children on hand (the neighbors get so fussy when I start photographing their little ones), I’ll have to distract everyone with another yummy recipe. I found this pasted inside my recipe book, it’s from Allrecipes.com. Biscuits are VERY popular with my dear husband, so I knew this casserole would be well received. The mild flavor of the meat sauce made it an instant fan with the children as well.

who's cooking?

Beef and Biscuit

1 1/4 pounds ground beef (I used ground turkey & low fat sausage)
1/2 c chopped onion (I used a sweet onion-delicious)
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 package buttermilk biscuits
1 1/2 c. shredded Monterey Jack cheese (divided)
1/2 c. sour cream
1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375
2) Brown ground beef and onion. Stir in tomato sauce and spices. Simmer
3) Separate biscuit dough. Pull each biscuit into two layers. Press biscuits halves on bottom of 9 inch pie dish to form bottom crust. Reserve remaining biscuits for top layer. (Note: I doubled dish and prepared it in a 9 x 13 pan).
4) Remove meat mixture from heat and stir in half the cheese, sour cream and egg. Mix well. Spread over bottom crust. Arrange remaining biscuit halves to form top crust. Top with remaining cheese.
5) Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until biscuits are a deep golden brown color.

dinner is served

Enjoy. The seems a very flexible recipe – you could easily go with a more Italian flavor and use spaghetti sauce or a Mexican flair and add salsa. I’m sure my family would be more than willing to try out any biscuit creations I came up with. The original recipe called for 1/4 c. chopped green chilies which I left out.

Kathy

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Parenting, Sarah

A Break from Parenting

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Before the older kids went to Norway, my parents were already talking about having all five of the kids come to their house for a weekend visit.

“Won’t you be tired of being around kids, after two weeks of traveling with Joshua and Rachel?” I cautioned.

“It’ll be fun,” they assured me. “We like to have time with all our grandchildren.”

So the night they flew back in from Norway, I had the other three kids packed. “You can take ‘em all straight home with you,” I chortled.

naughty girl

Who wouldn’t want this little princess in their home?

Okay, we did decide to let Grandma and Grandpa have a couple of weeks to recuperate. Last night we bundled the children all into my parents’ van and sent them off, dire warnings about obeying their grandparents ringing in their ears.

Kathy came home from a meeting at church before I went to bed, and we sat in the family room, savoring the silence. “Shhhhh!” I snapped, when she accidentally dropped her computer mouse, ruining a perfectly good five-second span of silence.

somebody help this girl

Sarah knows what to do with a free moment of silence.

I am a connoisseur of silences. I remember the deep black, textured silence of ’04, during the power outage, and the bright, blue-green silence of ’01, when everyone went to Fort Clark without me. Then there was the grey, melancholy silence of ’88, before I met Kathy, before my family was even a gleam in the eye, as they say. Silences are pretty rare, when there are five kids around the house, and you learn to attend to them when you get the chance.

This has not been a week with many silences, as my children would attest. “For crying out loud,” they’re probably thinking, “don’t get Dad started on another lecture!” I’m not sure if it is due to our tomato-staking project with Daniel, or because of the grey and rainy weather, but we’ve had many opportunities for parental intervention, correction and rebuke over the past week. I’ve been home for most of the week (I was sick on Monday, and decided to telecommute a few extra days) and so I’ve been present for much more of the bickering and general discontent than I usually witness.

“Kathy, will you just cool it, with all the bickering and discontentment,” I found myself snarling several times.

how she does carry on

And some people say Sarah is the spittin’ image of Kathy. Hmmm.

No, actually, the problem doesn’t seem to be Kathy. It turns out that my children are sinful. Who knew? After all Kathy’s careful reading of pregnancy books, healthy eating and excellent prenatal care, our children were still born with a sin nature! How exasperating! I’m guessing Kathy and I must’ve inherited it from somewhere or other … and passed it on to our dear little kids.

For now, though, the kids are away, and we can relax a little. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving us a needed break!
innocent as a dove

All she wanted was some Grandma and Grandpa time.

Hope everyone survives the weekend.
Tim

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Musings

Blogher Envy

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I’m trying hard not to whine. Really, I am. It’s cause I’m so mature. Just ask my family. Of course, you can’t ask them now because they’re off playing with grandparents. But, if you could find them and ask them, they would definitely confirm my status as a wise and mature, non-whining mother.

In July the massive, huge, geek-filled blogger conference is being held in San Francisco.

San Francisco, where the sun shines.

Unlike Washington where we have temps colder than Siberia. Yep, according to the Seattle Times, Siberia, Alaska and Norway all have warmer temperatures than good old western Washington. We haven’t seen the sunshine for over a week. Can you sense my despair?

The weather drives some to temper tantrums. I have a great series of pictures of Sarah (age 5 1/2) throwing a fake tantrum on the floor, kicking and screaming, only I can’t upload it. I’m having photo bloggy trouble. In fact, I wrote this last night and had more than just bloggy trouble, but whole website trouble. Nothing gives a blogger and email addict a serious eye twitch like internet problems.

Which brings me back to my Blogher Envy. All the cool, hip and popular bloggy gals are going to the big Blogher conference. And now it turns out there are only 150 spots left. How am I going to run with the Big Bloggers if I have to stay home and be on a budget? It’s enough to make a person whine, fuss and pout.

Not that I’m doing any of those things. Nope. I’m the epitome of a cheerful blogger. And when I read that Mary from Owlhaven is going to the conference, leaving her 10 children at home, I don’t feel jealous at all. Nope. I’m happy for her. I’m thrilled that she’ll meet some of my favorite bloggers, hear fantastic speakers, and receive fun giveaways.

Not to mention enjoy the California sunshine.

Since the conference costs $300, plus hotel fees, plus travel costs, plus clothing expenses (I would obviously need a wardrobe update – bloggers are a very trendy, classy group), I just don’t see the budget allowing such an event.

Now if Rachel would just share some of her babysitting jobs and Joshua let me mow some lawns for him, I could start saving for next year.

Is there any money in muffins?

Kathy

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Recipes/Food, Works for Me Wednesday

WFMW – Chicken Enchiladas

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wfmwThe third member of our family has succumbed to a bit of the stomach flu bug. One of the joys of a big family is watching illness pass from one person to the next.

Oh, wait, that’s not it. One of the joys of a big family is getting lots of presents. Sharing germs is one of the un-pleasantries. After a long day, I get those two confused.

I tried a new recipe this evening – Cottage Cheese Chicken Enchiladas from Allrecipes.com. It was good and the children ate helping after helping. Tim is still recovering from yesterday’s bug so he stuck to a mild dinner of plain waffles. I would definitely make these again as they were well gobbled appreciated by the family.

Chicken Enchiladas

1/2 tbs oil
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (cooked and shredded)
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 (7 oz) can chopped green chilies
1 pkg taco seasoning
1/2 c. sour cream
2 c. cottage cheese
1 tsp salt
1 pinch pepper
12 (6 inch) corn tortillas
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 (10 oz) can enchilada sauce

Directions:
1. Saute onion in oil. Add green chilies, taco seasoning and shredded chicken.
2. Mix sour cream with cottage cheese and season with salt and pepper. Stir well. (I mixed it in the food processor because I didn’t want any cottage cheese lumps to distract my pickier eaters.)
3. Preheat oven 350.
4. Assemble Enchiladas: Heat tortillas until soft (I covered them with a wet paper towel and warmed them in the microwave). In each tortilla spoon some of the meat mixture, cheese mixture and top with shredded cheese. Roll tortillas and place in greased baking dish. Top with enchilada sauce and remaining cheese.
5. Bake 350 for 30 minutes.

I used green enchilada sauce even though the original recipe called for red. I didn’t have Monterey Jack cheese and used a Colby/Jack/Cheddar mixture. Tasty and easy recipe. Click here now to see it. I tried to take a picture but the children ate it so fast, by the time I came by with my camera it wasn’t pretty enough to photograph. Ha! Greedy punks. Stop by Rocks in My Dryer for other Works for Me Wednesday blog postings.

Kathy

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