Babysitting...

It has been a crazy week, just coming back from vacation. I had agreed to babysit for my friend. She has twin 7 yr olds and a 3 yr old.  The kids were looking forward to swimming and hanging out with their friends.

But first we had some work to do... Food for the crew!

David made yummy fiber balls. Each child has one thing that is sorta their "speciality" and fiber balls is his.

Lots of honey and peanut butter, mixed with oatmeal and chocolate chips. 

Mix it all together and form into balls before placing in freezer.  This is one of our favorite treats. Gluten free and honey as the sweetener! 

Lee helped David finishing making the balls after making his own pumpkin custard.

Pumpkin Custard is Lee's speciality and he makes THE BEST!! Once again, a low sugar and gluten free treat! (this was the only picture I got) 

We had a ton of extra milk so Elizabeth made a double patch of gluten free pancakes for the freezer! Her little friend helped mix them. They had fun and we had 2 meals for the freezer!! 

                                         

After finishing up the 3 food projects, we had lunch and then the real fun began!! 

There was swimming and horse back riding, grooming and more swimming...

This is classic of our summer days work projects in the morning, swimming or reading in the afternoon.  It is amazing the amount of work my 4 oldest can get done in a short amount of time.  

Friday Encouragement..

Father God, I praise your name. I praise you for your strength, for your provision.  God I praise you for carrying me through the storms and through the dark valleys. You are my strength when I am weak. You are my all in all.

Thank you God for being the father of the fatherless and the defender of the widow. Thank you for making that promise a reality in my life. Thank you for giving me wisdom, discernment and patience.

privacy...

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Homemade goodies... chinese food and yogurt... clash of cultures.

Some days are just crazy busy. We didn't have much planned but things just added together to make it busy.
Elizabeth made homemade strawberry lemonade. The kids love this!! We used 3 lemons, a bag of frozen whole strawberries and half a cup of raw sugar, add in a gallon of water. 

My friend owns an acre of strawberries. She gave us permission to come pick all we wanted. The kids were not impressed. We made a game of it, every time someone would complain, someone else would say "strawberry smoothies", strawberries and pancakes", "strawberry pie"... and everyone would go back to picking. 

Love technology. These guys were not motivated to clean strawberries, but some www.hiskids.net motivated them to keep working...
They cleaned strawberries, while I mashed them and dished them into freezer containers.

We get our milk from a neighbor. She called to tell me they had extra milk available. I decided to try homemade yogurt again, since she had 3 gallons for less then $2 a gallon! The first gallon didn't turn out so well, hopefully I can try again today.
I also want to try making homemade butter with some of the rich yellow cream! 

My kids love Chinese food, but it is expensive to purchase for my entire crew!
So I have a new challenge. Find the perfect recipes for homemade chinese. 

The chicken was easy. Chicken nuggets ($3 for 10 lb bag from local bent and dent)
Barbecue Sauce (1 bottle .99) plus a splash of local honey.
I baked the chicken nuggets and cooked the sauce. Then I mixed the chicken nuggets into the sauce. It WAS AMAZING! 

Then I made the BEST chicken fried rice EVER! The kids think it was almost as good as restaurant chinese.
I had leftover rice, (25 lb bag for $5 at bent and dent) which I fried in butter. I added to cubes of chicken buillion and 1 cup of peas from my garden. I fried it all together then when it was almost done, I added 2 scrambled eggs (from our chickens)

 

Day 5, sick kids and a long drive home

Thursday night I finally slept all night. I woke up feeling refreshed and relaxed. We had to do breakfast without our STM's. We headed out early in hopes of beating the crowds so that breakfast would be more manageable. Thankfully it went well.

I was feeling relaxed and refreshed so I decided to stay for the daily worship, then head to the balcony for one last quiet time before packing up. I had packed a bit that morning so that I could have more free time.

I had my coffee in hand,  kids all settled in, ready to enjoy worship...

and here comes David and T. Sad eyes met mine...

The dreaded words, Mom, I just threw up.

And just like that vacation was OVER.

We loaded up the van while the kids finished their programing.  I met the rest of the kids at the closing ceremony and informed them, no more. We were leaving as soon as it was over. No lunch or final good byes.

We loaded puke buckets in with our luggage and headed home.

The final results, the kids had a grand time. I had a nice break from cooking and daily routines!

Day 4, carnivals and talent shows...

Finally a good nights sleep. I spend about an hour walking before bedtime, but the rest of the night was totally uneventful and everyone slept until 7 am.

Day 4 was a fun day for the kids! We had our regular breakfast together followed by worship time. After worship time was the ladies tea, which I was unable to attend. The kids had their regular programming followed by lunch then THE CARNIVAL!

Day 4 was a rough day for me.  I spend some time in my room watching a movie while little ones napped.  Then I hung out in the lobby chatting with random people.  I did eventually join the big kids at the Carnival, which had been moved inside due to the rain. The kids were having a total blast as usual!

They had all kinds of fun things for the kids to do!

There were dress up clothes...

A huge bounce house!

There was face painting

The kids had been begging me to take them kayaking! I promised we would go kayaking and to the snack shop for ice cream during our family time.

They had so much fun in the boats and the kayaks.

Even our friend Joan joined in the fun!

Lee helped her paddle her boat loaded with kids!

We ended the day with chicken barbecue and a talent show!

The talent show is my favorite part of the week! So awesome!

The Captians... 4 of my kiddoes were in this group! Thank you Captain Bridget! 

KAOS, This was Lee's group. It was so perfect for him! 

She sang a beautiful song in spanish! 

Another beautiful song was sung. (my tired brain does not remember what it was) 

Another group singing... 

The Burghart girls! Love watching them perform! 

Expectations

Through my life, as a widow, as a foster parent, as a sister, daughter and mother, I have learned that having expectations of others can lead to disappointment.

When my son is expecting to go kayaking  during free time and I am expecting him to rest, one of us will have unmet expectations.

When I am expecting my child to be healthy and he instead struggles all week...

When I expect my child to obey and she is disrespectful....

When I am expecting the most relaxing week of the year and instead it becomes one of the most stressful.

When I have expectations of my family, of my kids, and of my friends...

A long time ago I learned that life is much better if you have no expectations of other people. No one else is responsible for your happiness. People do let you  down.

I had high expectations for this week. I struggled to let go of those expectations. I struggled with so many aspects of this week. But reality is reality. I need to come to a place of acceptance.

 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. phil 4:11-13

I wrote the above on a day when I was working through the many things of this week.  Looking back over the week, I have come to a conclusion. God needs us to do his work, not on our time table, not just following our own desires but His.  He is more worried about our eternal then our present.  Sometimes this requires us to give up and give in.

I also learned that if we give what little we have to give, willingly or unwillingly. :) God can take that and use it for his purpose.