Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Colorado Style!

This snow all started last night.  With a little sunshine, it will be gone, but only in Colorado can you have snow from Halloween to Easter (sometimes to Mother's Day).  I will be thankful for the moisture!

I hope you all have a blessed and precious Easter!!!  

Fantastic Food Friday

Giant Family Cookie Covered in Strawberries

So I usually do frugal food Friday, but this recipe is slightly more expensive unless you can get the berries for a really good price or grow them yourself.  Then it would be a great deal, plus it looks like a million bucks.  I learned to make this through Pampered Chef years ago and have made many adaptations to it since then.  The first thing you need to do is mix up a batch of your favorite chocolate chip cookies.  We all have our own recipe so I'm foregoing that step here.  Instead of making individual cookies, make one massive cookie.  If your cookie tray is rectangular, make it that shape.  Sometimes I use my stones and make a circle cookie.  Just remember that the cookie dough expands in the oven and you don't want any going off the sides of your tray into the hot oven so adjust the amount of dough.

Once baked and cooled, you can start with all your other ingredients and prep everything for assembly.  You will need:
1.  one package of cream cheese, softened
2.  one large bottle of marshmallow fluff
3.  one pound of strawberries, sliced
4.  half a package of chocolate chips, melted

Mix the cream cheese and marshmallow fluff.  This is your first layer.  Cover your cookie with it and spread generously.  Now arrange your strawberries over the whole thing.  Once finished with that, drizzle your melted chocolate over the whole thing making a pleasant pattern.  You can get creative and add all kinds of other things:  nuts of any variety, any type of chopped up chocolate bar, m&ms, etc.  The combinations are endless!

Hope you have fun with this!  It will feed a big crowd and would be a wonderful treat for Easter!  With that said, I hope you have a blessed Easter!

The Suburban Backyard Garden

Hello, friends.  We just got our computer back last night and I'm sooooo thrilled.  Now I can get back to my blogging.  Our backyard is undergoing a huge transformation.  We have raised beds, but after seeing a picture in a magazine I have gone mad and want to do something similar.  So my dear husband had to take some boxes apart and rearrange them and dig through some hard compounded ground, but progress is being made!

What you see going down the middle is going to be mirrored on the left side of it.  There will be an "alleyway" going down the center.  Out of the boxes we will have two long wooden poles of some sort (at least 8 feet long) that will all meet down the middle forming a very simple archway.  I'll be growing beans or anything else that vines.  Sun will still get through because it won't be solid.  They'll just grow up the poles.  We still have lots to do.  I will get all my greens seeded today.  As progress continues to be made I'll post more pics. 

To the right of the arbor is where we will be putting the chicken coop and run.  We are so excited to have chickens!  My daughter was getting them from her classroom.  We were hoping to have them by now but we've learned that the substitute teacher had the incubator off for two hours...sad, sad, sad.  We're not sure if we'll be getting chicks from them now.  We had our brooder all set up for them, too.  Thankfully, we literally live down the street from a feed store and I'm going to get some surprise chicks for Easter! 

Just to the right of the picture (not shown) we will be putting in a fire pit.  My husband has always wanted one so we're going to do it!  That's going to make for some fun evenings!

To the left of this picture is our swingset and the place I hang my laundry.

Because of my limited space, I hang everything on hangers.  I can put up twice the amount of laundry on these lines by doing so (at least two loads).  There are two things we have on this little suburban homestead that we can always count on:  sun and wind!  It makes for very speedy line drying!  Speaking of which, I have some loads of laundry to do. 

Many blessings to you and I look forward to seeing how your plots are shaping up!!!  Happy spring planting!

When the children start to grow up...

I am here at the library as we are still under hostage to our hijacked computer.  I am blessed that we have such a wonderful library system where we can use the computers.  I just can't really upload any pictures which is a bummer because I love posting them for you.  It will probably be another week before I can post pics.

Until then, another reason I am at the library is that my daughter started working here at the little coffee shop in the library.  She got the job literally by the hand of God.  She didn't apply here although she applied at several other places.  We saw a friend that we hadn't seen in years and just started chatting it up in front of this coffee shop.  The lady in the coffee shop kept staring at us.  Well, turns out, the coffee shop owner is the neighbor of this friend I hadn't seen in years and wanted to hire my daughter.  How amazing is that?!!!  She got the job and has started working. 

Her first full day of training went quite miserably.  This little coffee shop has no drain so there is a portable tank that must be dumped out periodically in a separate location.  Well, the tank overflowed and her shoes and bottom of her pants were soaked, she had to dry mop it by hand and it just was so much information for her to take in during an intense eight hour training session.  As I took her home she was crying.

Have you ever noticed the moment your children actually started growing up?  It was during these moments that I realized that my daughter is truly embarking into adulthood.  She is 16 and I know that there are things that I won't be able to do for her or help her with.  She has her own battles to win and I have had to tell her on more than one occasion that she has a voice.  Yes, my daughter, you were blessed with a voice to ask questions with and advocate for yourself...mom will not always be around.  It's so hard yet necessary and scary all at the same time.  I know that I am going through some growing pains because I am being prepared for my children to grow up.  One day, my daughter may end up going to study in London...Lord, help me.  But I know that I am my children's biggest cheerleader and I am here to help guide their way until they can fly on their own.  That's the whold purpose of raising your children.  To prepare them...and along the way, we mothers are getting prepared for when the babies leave the nest and can take on the world as we have taught them.  It's bittersweet.  It's also exciting because the future holds so many rewarding moments that will reflect everything from the past.  She's learning.  I'm learning.  We are learning things together.  I pray that in all this, that I am preparing her well and that she will be ready.  It's all we can do:  pray and lead. 

I hope you had a beautiful weekend.  I am looking forward to getting my revamped machine so I can do more food and garden posts.  Until then, blessings to you!

Garden clean-up and technical difficulties...

It finally feels like spring...we cleaned out the garden last week and it's just itching to be planted!!!  I'm no fool, though, because the weather can change 50 degrees in one day.  I still have seedlings and can't wait for them to be planted.  We've decided to do some major rearranging of our boxes we've set up.  I'm very excited and can't wait to show you the before and afters!

Another exciting development-- we will be getting our chicks next week!  It's been my desire for a very long time to have backyard suburban chickens and we are getting them for FREE from my daughter's enrichment program...we can have up to ten birds (no roosters).  I can't wait for all that wonderful fertilizer for my garden.  I have much to do until we get them...

Which leads me to my next dilemma...my computer is having much technical difficulties and so I am here at our favorite place, the library.  As soon as I can get back online again, I will post pics and update you on the chicks.  Hopefully, we should have a handful by Tuesday.  I look forward to blogging all about the fluffy little guys and our adventures of keeping them away from our two cats, plus we will have to eventually devise some kind of impenetrable fortress in the backyard due to the cunning antics of the neighborhood foxes, not to mention all the prairie falcons and massive owl who lives near us.  It will be an experience! 

I hope you are having a great week!  Blessings to you and may you have a wonderful weekend at your homestead! 

Living Gently--What does it mean to you?

To be gentle and live a gentle life...it's easier said than done.  I do aspire to it everyday.  I am in the whirlwind of raising my children and taking them to different places at different times.  It can be exhausting.  However, my children range in age from 9-16 and they are such good children.  I am so blessed. You hear people discussing how they are going to dread their children turning into teenagers.  I will tell anyone that I simply love this stage of life.  It's a joy to have conversations and talks about the future without having to deal with bad behavior all the time. 

What does living gently mean to me?  Hmmmm.  I would have to say it connects me to the past.  I love to quilt and can and cook and garden.  It's a simple way of life.  Not many women do these things any more.  I also am teaching my daughters these things-it keeps these ways alive.  I am striving to be more gentle in spirit--I can tend to be a bit feisty, especially when you put me behind the wheel of a car, hahahaha!  There's no perfection around here, believe me!  I still have lots of areas to work on, but the point is, I am striving to better myself and my surroundings.  I am a lifelong learner and I want to continue to learn new (or old) skills.  Does that mean we live like pilgrims???  Absolutely not.  My children are educated and learn all the new technology through computer classes...they HAVE to be able to thrive and soar in the times they live in.  We use technology to our benefit and are not slaves to it. 

So what do I pass on to my son?  I'm sure you've read about the embroidering that goes on around here.  Well, my son is extremely artistic and he is ALL boy.  Boys are so much different than girls.  I read a line in Dr. Dobson's book Raising Up Boys that I will never forget..."Mothers raise boys.  Fathers raise men."  Doesn't that line give you chills?  It is so vital for a boy to have a close relationship with his father.  Fortunately, we have that in our family.  In fact, tomorrow my son and husband go to hunter safety class.  My son will get his certificate and will be able to hunt for the first time this year (he's been hunting before; he wasn't allowed to shoot anything).  We will get him his very own rifle for his birthday and then he can be a part of providing food for our family.  He is very respectful to me...any time he sees an opportunity, he asks if I need help.  He does his chores and he is constantly drawing or making amazing creations out of paper or cardboard.  Since all my children were little, I have always encouraged creativity and supplied them with every sort of crafting notion they could use.  It's their imaginations that spark it all and I simply love to see their creations.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention our love for books. ( I could do a whole post on that one! )

Gentle living--a connection to the past, simplicity, creativity, a deep and abiding respect and love for one another as we live our lives.  Does it mean perfection?  No.  We are works in progress.  But we do it all together.

What does gentle living mean to you?  I hope you make headway into your gentle life...I'm about to go *tackle* mine for the day, haha!  Blessings to you!

Our House of Embroidery..on a budget

As we are on spring break, I have lovely projects set up for my daughters.  I recently found some flour sack towels on clearance at our local Sam's club.  They were on clearance because the plastic wrap was damaged...they marked them down half-price which means bargain for me!  I paid a little over $6 for 12 of them which is a very good deal!  We were at the craft store yesterday and you would end up paying nearly $7 for two.

Freshly laundered flour sack towels

While at the craft store, I also picked up on sale the Aunt Martha's transfer patterns for $0.99 each.  I bought five--each of my girls picked one for themselves and I picked two.  As you know, my oldest does embroidery.  I've also taught my younger two to backstitch so they are learning redwork.  It's really a lot of fun and there are so many fun patterns to choose from.  Here's a sneak peek at what they are working on:

A lovely rose pattern

This is my youngest daughter who is nine years old.  As you can see, her stitches can use some improvement, the sweet little darling, but already since I've started typing, she has done a great job staying to the lines.  All it takes is practice, practice, practice.



Running horses pattern

This is my middle daughter who is fourteen.  She adores anything with a horse on it!  She would love to have horses in her future.  She does excellent backstitch and I can't wait to see how this turns out for her!


A pattern of a colonial lady with her umbrella



My oldest is working on a bit of a harder pattern because it involves different stitches...she has much more experience so she will use some lazy daisy stitches and french knots.  
It's turning out to be quite the productive day and quite inexpensive.  These transfer patterns are good for additional transfers, plus there were many more patterns they haven't used yet.  The cost for this little project per child came out to $1.45 each.  It will give them hours of enjoyment and they will have a nice finished piece when they are all done. 

What fun projects are you doing on a budget?  Hope you are having a lovely Wednesday...blessings!