Great to be back

We have been going and going for 2 weeks now and it is great to have a day a home.  It has been a great 2 weeks, very hot, but great.  The first week we worked at a camp.  Our whole family went to a YFC camp and spent the time with 100 elementary age kids.  Mike, Zach and Allie were all counselors, I was the playground supervisor and the little ones just played and played.


Here are Mike and Zach with a few of their kids and the camp director, the greatest lady I know.  Such a heart for Jesus and kids.

Zach with his shirt after crud wars, which is basically an outdoor food fight.  It was a visual for the kids to see mess and then we talked about how God sees our mess and wants to be in it with us helping us through.


Jacob and Bella enjoying the playground and other fun stuff. It was great because the speaker brought his family and their kids were my kids ages and they played together.

Mike, Zach and Allie with their groups, also after the crud wars. 

Then last week we went tent camping with two other families.  And I forgot my camera.  It was so hot that we were in the water most of the time anyway, and don’t we all love those swimsuit pictures.  I hope all of you are having a great summer, growing in the Lord and enjoying his creation.

Jeannie

"The Greatest Book" Club Begins

This week begins the New Testament reading Challenge.  We will of course start with Matthew 1, and this week read up to and include Mark 1.  Matthew seems to be chronicling (is that a word and is it spelled right) all of the events of Jesus’ birth along with the Prophesies in the Old Testament.  It will be cool to read this all in order, especially the 4 Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  We will be able to compare the four and learn more about the life of our Precious Savior.

I did pick a verse for us to Memorize this week if you would like. 

Matthew 1:22-23

Remember also that if you like to read online more than from a book, you can check out Blueletterbible.org and there are many others.

Here is the schedule for the whole reading:
Week 1- Matthew 1- Mark 1

Week 2- Mark 2- Luke 14

Week 3- Luke 15- John 19

Week 4- John 20-Acts 27

Week 5- Acts 28- I Corinthians 12

Week 6- I Corinthians 13-Philippians 1

Week 7- Philippians 2-Hebrews 1

Week 8- Hebrews 2- I John 1

Week 9- I John 2- Revelations 22

I pray that you are all able to get through this reading this Summer.  There is even a promise in Revelation for those who read that entire book.  See if you can find it and be blessed. Although, I know that just from reading daily you will be blessed.  Also, if you just aren’t getting anything out of it for even a full week, press on, you will be rewarded for your perseverance.

Jeannie

Yogurt Covered Strawberries

I have a great use for those Individually Frozen Strawberries that I showed to you the other day.
My family really liked these so much.  Again, they were gone before I could take a picture.  But I have the picture below from the blog that I found them on.

This recipe comes from This Chick Cooks.Net .  I did tweak mine a bit.  The original recipes is simply Fresh Strawberries and Vanilla Yogurt.  I wanted them to have a sweeter harder consistency so I melted White Chocolate Chips and blended it with the yogurt before I dipped the berries.  I also really liked starting with already frozen strawberries.  They seem to set up faster. 
Yogurt Covered Strawberries

Ingredients

• strawberries
• yogurt
• vanilla to taste

Instructions

1. Cut tops off of berries. Dip the berries into yogurt and place on cookie tray in the freezer until firm. Repeat process until the berries have your desired amount of yogurt shell. I dipped mine twice.
2. Store in the freezer.
3. These are best served after sitting out for a few minutes.

Once mine were frozen on the cookie sheet, I again transferred them to a zip lock bag to keep them fresh.  I hope you all enjoy these.

Jeannie

Book Club

I would like to see if some of you would like to join me in reading a book together.  I think if we break it down we can comfortably get it done by the end of summer.  Some of you might say well I can read much quicker than that,  that is great I will have a fast track set up for you.

The name of the book is The Bible.  To be specific the New Testament.  What happened to some of your enthusiasm?  A few of you dropped the thought right as I mentioned the book.  That is why this is a challenge.  I really want to challenge all of you to try to get through the entire New Testament in the months of July and August.  It has no more pages than a great Novel.

I know that we can do this.  Over at Women's Fellowship House my Mom’s blog she actually challenged her readers to read it all in July.  I know my schedule and I know that yours is similar, so I decided that we would need the remainder of the Summer.  In addition for those of you seeking more, I am going to have a verse to memorize each week.  Nothing hard.

God’s Holy word is our connection to Him.  He is our creator and His only thought is Us.  Why is it so hard for us?  We need to pray before we begin that God will open the eyes of our heart so that we are able to understand His truth.

Lord,
Collectively we come to you and pray that you will open the eyes of our hearts that we may see all that you have for us in your precious and Holy word.  We pray that we will be blessed because of our willing hearts, even if we don’t understand a word we are reading at first.  Please bring us clarity and understanding over the remainder of this Summer while we are in your word daily.  We pray that you will also make memorizing your word easy for us and pray that it would become hidden in our hearts.
In Jesus Name
Amen

Starting July 1st I will post the verses to be read for the week and the memory verse as well.  I will be doing this right on alongside you.  If anything comes to you during your reading that you would like to share we can use either the comments section or click on my Community Button(Blog Frog) at the top of the page and click “see all” and then on the next page click “New Conversation”.  That will get you started once you are a member. 

Jeannie

Freezing Strawberries

We were blessed with beautiful strawberries.  My friend Melissa let us come and pick with her at her Mother-in-law’s giant strawberry patch.  Thank you Melissa and Wendy.

She gave me a great tip on Freezing them, that is so simple, but I had never thought of it, so I thought I would pass it on to you.  She told me to put them on a cookie sheet and freeze them individually, once frozen you can throw them into a ziplock bag.  I love this it is so great for smoothies and all sorts of things.  You can just pull out a handful instead of thawing the whole big clump.


Here they are in the ziplock in the freezer.  We froze 3 gallons sized bags that way and we are already down to two. 
Enjoy!!
Jeannie

Linky Thank You!!!

I want to send out a BIG Thank you to the sites that have sent me readers.  I always appreciate when I get an email that says “I came over here from so and so’s blog” or anything that lets me know that someone was referred by another site.


From this month on I am going to recognize the top three Linkys. 
The top three from the past month are:

Comfy in the Kitchen Featured our Peanut Butter Cake from a few weeks ago.  Thank you Comfy in the Kitchen.


I have always liked this blog.  I love the idea of it and all that I find there.


I join in weekly in their Homestead Barn Hop.  I don't have a big piece of land to completely homestead on, but I do all that I can with the yard that we do have.

Here are a few of the others:

http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/

http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/

http://moneysavingmom.com/

womenlivingwell.org

http://womensfellowshiphouse.blogspot.com/

http://myturn-evelyn.blogspot.com/

newlifeonahomestead.com

 

Thank You

 

Jeannie

Making Those Moments

This year being our first year with one income, we don’t have extra cash for vacations, yet our big kids are growing and growing and we don’t have many years left with them under our roof. 

So, we decided to frequently have camp fires in our backyard to just sit around with each other and talk and goof off.

Here are a few of the highlights from one of our fires.  Picture all of this with a stereo playing (at a respectful volume) Christian pop and alternative.  My big kids find some of the coolest Christian music.



Bella and Jacob roasting their marshmellows


My beautiful Allie making faces.  She was preparing the fixins for the S’mores.


Were wanting for the fire Dad.



Big Man make Little fire!


My little man, such a goof.  In the back ground you can see our old fire pit.  I like the new one that Mike made.



The Fire.


Our good boy Max.



We really did have fun.  They were just concentrating on finally getting that fire going.  Mike just cut down two trees a few weeks ago and the wood is still a little wet.  So, once the fire got going so did our fun. 
Time with our kids is so important.  It makes them feel like they are important to us and allows them to feel free to open up and talk.  But we have to make the effort to make those moments and the memories.

Jeannie