Ladybug!

Mom's and My Garden

My Flower Garden

This is my garden before I planted.

I got my tools.

And my flowers.

Then I planted.

So Pretty

Birds

Cupcakes!

Sophie and I made cupcakes for the home school group picnic on Sunday.

Psalm 8

O LORD, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth,

Who have displayed Your splendor

above the heavens!

From the mouth of infants and nursing babe

You have established strength

Because of Your adversaries,

To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?

Yet You have made him a little lower than God,

And You crown him with glory and majesty!

You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen,

And also the beasts of the field,

The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,

Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth!

~NASB

Spring Written All Over It

Spring! I just love spring. It's not too cold and not too hot.

I always like to wake up and hear the birds. When the birds were just coming back, I woke up one morning and heard them and smiled sleepily and thought, "that's nice" and fell back on my pillow to sleep a little more.

To a Butterfly

I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!--not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!


This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.


STAY near me--do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!


Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:--with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, I love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.


~William Wordsworth~ (1770-1850).

Spring Flowers

my mom's "black" tulip








phlox

first Goldfinch of the spring

at our window birdfeeder

Toothless Joe

Does this look comical or what!?!

Scotcheroos

Preheat oven to 375

1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups oats
1 2/3 cups butter scotch morsels

Cream butter and sugars. Add beaten eggs, vanilla.
Mix dry ingred. and add to butter mixture. Mix.
Add oats and morsels-mix.


7 to 8 min for chewy cookies

9 to 10 for crisp cookies



At our home school group this past Friday my friend (K) made these and I really liked them. Believe it or not I have never tried Scotcheroos before; or if I have I do not remember.

Just a nice picture

Tortilla Recipe

Flour Tortillas

6 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup olive oil (the orignal way is with lard--or shortening, we use oo, not extra virgin,
so no olive smell/taste)
2- 2 1/2 cups warm water

In large bowl, mix dry ingred. Cut in oil (shortening) finely into flour mix. Add warm water while mixing. Mix until dough can be gathered into a ball.
Knead dough about 5 minutes.
Shape into 24 balls. (To get them about same size-separate dough in half, halve again, halve those 4 pieces and get 3 balls out of each piece. :) )
To shape balls, hold in hands, turning and using fingers to turn under edges. They will be flattish balls. Place single layered on board/cookie sheet.
Cover with towel for at least 15 min. Can be longer.
We use a cast iron griddle with our electric stove set between med. and med. high
Preheat griddle.
On a lightly (very lightly) floured surface use a very lightly floured rolling pin to roll out each ball. While rolling out, turn dough 1/4 turns to get round. Also, it helps sometimes to turn tortilla over while rolling out--you will be able to tell when it will keep rolling out easier if you turn it over. Place on griddle, cook until bubbles form. Turn over, heat till bottom side just gets light brown on bubbles, turn a cook short time more. Not too long or will get dry.
While cooking, be rolling out next tortilla. Place cooked tort. in towel.
When done with all, spread out on towel, shifting and turning until cool. Store in airtight bag in fridge. Can freeze.
Reheat: on griddle, turning. or wrapped in foil in oven, low heat.
Makes 2 dozen.


Whole Wheat Tortillas

2 cups whole wheat flour (could use spelt flour)
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup oil (do use extra virgin olive oil if using for wraps)
1 cup warm water.

Combine dry ingred. Cut in oil, then add water to make a soft, pliable dough. Knead briefly.
Shape into balls, let sit for 15 min., covered. Roll out, and cook same as above recipe. Keep well when wrapped in tea towel and put in plastic bag, in fridge.
Can add herbs to dry ingred. Have used a garden mix-good!
Sometimes have trouble with drying out so make sure not to overcook.

New Earrings!!!!

Sophie made me earrings!!! Are they not lovely!!!

Tortillas

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Today my mom made homemade tortillas.

They are sooooo good. I love them.

We had them for supper.

Revelation 22:12-13,20

"And behold, I am coming quickly, and My
reward is with Me, to give to every one
according to his work. I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the
First and the Last.....Surely I am coming
quickly."

I was flipping through Kingdom's Reign, a great book I am reading,
and in the back of the book the author had this verse. I loved it and it
made me sooooo happy. I wanted to share it with you.

Apple Pancakes

Apple Pancakes

1/4 c butter (1/2 stick), divided

4 eggs

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 c milk

1/2 tsp. salt

2 med. baking apples, peeled and thinly sliced

3 TB. cinnamon sugar, divided

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Divide butter between 2 9in. pie plates and put in oven to melt butter.

Rotate pie plates to cover bottom and sides of plates with melted butter.

Beat eggs, vanilla, flour, milk, and salt on med. speed for 1 min. (I just beat the mixture with a wisk, not a hand mixer)

Toss apples with 2 TB. cinn/sugar and arrange 1/2 apples in each pan, single layer, covering bottom.

Pour 1/2 the egg mixture (1 cup each) over apple slices in ea. pan.

Sprinkle with remaining cinn/sug. over the batter.

Bake until puffed and golden brown-20-25 min.

Serve right away with warm maple syrup.

I made these for lunch today. Very delicious!

Excerpt from The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

"It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy.


"But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of health and hope.


"Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God.


"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."


"I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors...It was not a wish. It was a fact.


"We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute--poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not "we shall be." We are!"


-The Hiding Place

1 Peter 2:24

And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness;
for by His wounds you were healed.

Wow!! It has been a long time since I have posted! Sorry.



This is a little part of a song from a book I like.



" Oak granite,

Lilies by the road,

Remember me?

I remember you.

Clouds brushing

Clover hills,

Remember me?

Sister, child,

Grown tall,

Remember me?

I remember you."



From Ella Enchanted

Friends

This is a little something I wrote.

Sometimes when people make friends they pick the people that are nice or look like they will be nice. Some people pick friends very slowly and it takes time for them to become friends. Then there are people who make friends with whoever comes her or his way. And then again, there are people who will be nice to you and slowly make you, willing or not, to like them. I am one of those people. Let me explain what I mean. I had a friend that I had made, in a sense, like me. I was in soccer and she was on my team. She was having trouble making friends at school, and when she did they would turn their back on her. She decided that she would not make friends at soccer just to have them go away. (In other words, when you make friends at sports you might call each other for a week or so, but you probably don't stay in touch that long. ) I was sitting on my ball looking at all the girls when I saw her. When I see someone I like I make friends with them, or try to. Well, she was the chosen prey. And as I said before, she did not want to make friends. But I, not knowing this, started with a friendly "hi" as anyone does when meeting someone new. Then I asked questions. The first one of course was, "What is your name?" then came, "How old are you?" and so forth. Soon I had her talking. As she told me later, she was only being nice, but as I said, I got her talking and we became friends. Week after week we called each other, even after soccer was over for the season. It has been five years now and we are as close as ever.

My Grandma & Me

A Shawl

My mom made this shawl for me for Christmas.
It is soooo pretty!

Sewing

This is a doll dress my mom and I worked on for two days.
I received the pattern for Christmas.
She did the pinning and I did the sewing.

Happy New Year

Christmas

Take another look at the manger this Christmas.
Look beyond the tender scene and see what Jesus
Himself knew even before He came-that He was born to die.

He died for you. He bore your sin. He purchased your salvation.
He guaranteed your sanctification. He destroyed your enemy.
And He became a sympathetic high priest. Even as you read this,
He is seated next to the Father in heaven,
ready to make intercession for you (Hebrews 7:25).

This is God's gift to you.

God's Gift of Christmas~ John MacArthur

Christmas

"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus,
for He will save His people from their sins."
~Matthew 1:21

The name, Jesus, means "Jehovah will save."

"Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son,
and they shall call His name Immanuel," which
translated means, "God with us."
~Matthew 1:23

"For today in the city of David there has been
born for you a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord."
~Luke 2:11

The title Christ means "the annointed one."

Christmas

This is the immeasurable gift of Christmas. Christ,
God's own Son, gave up His wealth and privilege to
live as God with us, Immanuel, that He might save
His people from our sins and that through His
poverty we might become rich.

The miraculous gift of Christmas is God being born
in a manger, so we can be born again in His glory.

God's Gift of Christmas~ John MacArthur