Lily turned 6!

It seems in ways unbelievable, but my oldest turned 6 on Sunday. And yet, it makes perfect sense that she is six. I almost cannot remember life without her here. It is amazing how fast time has gone. Although I have shared almost every day with her by my side,I still feel as though time just flew by and I may have missed something. Of course, I realize this isn't possible since I can almost recall every milestone and challenge that we have conquered. I can easily remember almost every minute of her 24hour labor and delivery. All definitely worth it to see my baby girl face to face for the first time.*sigh* As a mother I understand deeply the scripture verse that says that Mary "cherished all of these things in her heart". As a mom, I also cherish all of these things in my heart. Even when there may come a day that I can't correctly remember how old Lily was when she got her first tooth, when she was potty trained or when she rode her bike for the first time without training wheels, I know that these moments, these memories will be in my heart filling it to overflowing. These are the cherished moments of a mother's heart.
Just as the first six years of Lily's life have filled a special compartment in my heart, I eagerly await what the next six years will bring and the cherished moments that will find rest in my heart as well.

"Are we rich or poor?"

Yesterday, while in the garden digging potatoes, with urgency my daughter mentioned that she had an important question. I turned to her as she asked,"Mom are we rich or poor?" I stopped, wondering where this had come from. The answer that quickly came to mind was something along the lines of "We aren't either.We're kind of in the middle." However, something in me urged to explore this a bit further. I instead asked my daughter what she thought poor meant and what she thought rich meant. I then pressed further and asked her if we had food to eat at every meal? if she had enough clothes to wear? if we had a cozy house to live in? if we believed in God and had faith? She answered "yes" to each question. I then asked,"so, which do you think we are, poor or rich?" A smile broadened across her face and her eyes lit up as she loudly replied, "We're rich! Mom, I'm glad we are rich!" Of course, this led into a short lesson on the views society has as to what classifies one as rich or poor, but that we don't have to follow those views because we know what makes our family rich.I was glad to have this innocent moment with my daughter. It still amazes me what goes on in their minds while their doing something as simple as digging potatoes!
Later in the evening as I excitedly retold the story to my husband he was quick to point out that she hopefully won't be declaring loudly to neighbors that "We're Rich!!" We'll see. You never know when one of these lessons we teach at home may be vocalized publicly!!

Krispie Brownies.....LOVE these!

If you know me, you know I enjoy things that have peanut butter and chocolate as main ingredients. If either, or even better, BOTH are in a recipe, I am bound to love it. Here's a new recipe I tried and took to a friend's house for dessert. These will definitely be repeated!

Krispie Brownies:
1 box brownie mix
1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow creme
1 c. peanut butter
2 c. semisweet chocolate chips
3 c. Rice Krispies

Bake brownie mix in a 9x13 pan as directed.Cool.Spread marshmallow creme on top.Melt together the peanut butter, chocolate chips and Rice Krispies. Spread on top of the marshmallow creme. Refrigerate. (I used "off brand" ingred. and a brownie recipe from scratch and it turned out great)

Oh, did I mention that these are super easy to make?! YUM!

Happy Birthday Mary!

Heard in my house:
My youngest: "Is Mary (as in The Blessed Virgin Mary)going to come to our house to see her cake?"
Reply: "No, I don't think she'll be coming"
Again: "Is she going to come and eat a piece of her cake?"
Reply: "I don't think so, but we can sing Happy Birthday to her if you'd like."

Yesterday was Mary's birthday.We usually make some mention of it to our kids. Mostly we do it since my husband and I also celebrate our wedding anniversary on the same day. So, in our house it's kind of a special day. I decided to make a cake and although it was mostly for our anniversary, I told the kids that we'd use it to celebrate Mary's birthday. I don't always do this, but I had wanted to try my hand at covering a cake with fondant instead of frosting and seeing how that turns out. As you can see, it didn't turn out too bad. I used pre-made fondant that I bought at Walmart and it actually went rather smoothly. Unfortunately, I think my kids missed the taste of frosting and my daughter opted not to have fondant on her birthday cake later this month. Oh well, at least I know I can use fondant and know where to get it if the occasion ever arises again! You may also notice that we had to bring a statue of Mary to the cake and sing Happy Birthday!

First Day of School

Today is my daughter's first day of school. I am officially the mom of a Kindergartner (and teacher of one too!!). Yikes. Where have these last almost 6 years gone? I know where they've gone and although I've been with her virtually every day of her life watching her change and grow, it still amazes me how the days, months and years quicky become memories. Precious, beautiful memories. Ah, motherhood,on monumental days like today it catches you and it fills you with emotion. It is all of the other "regular" days that are used to form my childen for these more "important" days when they blossom before my very eyes. I wouldn't trade these days for the world.

Homeschool Prep

The last few weeks I have been making my list and checking it twice (or three or four times!) as we prepare to home school our daughter. It's one of those things that we've been talking about for so long that all of the sudden reality hit and I realized that we really are about to start this journey very soon! It kind of snuck up on me, despite how prepared I am! I have had most of my curriculum chosen and here at home for a few months now, but finally sat down to "take it all in" the other week in order to refresh myself with everything. It's an exciting (and intimidating) adventure we're embarking on. I find so many great resources and guides out there that I have to remind myself that I have 12 years to teach my daughter all these things and I certainly don't have to pack it all into a Kindergartner's schedule! Any way, we should be ready to start things in a couple weeks despite our "school room" not being finished. There's lots of work that needs to be done in there and it may take awhile, but that's ok. I will have to share pictures of that once we are officially working in our school room and not just the kitchen table.

Outings and Adventures

This summer has been busy. Nothing big, just all the little things that somehow fill the days and weeks. Summer goes by entirely too fast. The kids are growing and enjoy when we have what we call Fun Family Outings or Family Adventures. We've tried to "sprinkle" these events throughout our summer this year since the kids are at that really good age that they will enjoy and remember them. So, since we currently are without a little one in our house and we never know what next summer will bring, we decided on doing a couple 2 day outings as a family. We just returned from another Adventure where we found a great hotel with a water park for little kids (and big ones too!)and plenty of other attractions to enjoy while we were there as well as along the way. Everyone had a great time and it ended up being a relaxing time too. It's fun to begin making family memories and hopefully the kids will appreciate them as they grow and get older. While away, we also had the chance to have an Old Time photo taken. We couldn't resist picking out our outfits and dressing up. The kids were patient while we waited and we had a pretty cute picture in the end. Lots of fun and a neat photo to remember our Family Adventure.