Hearts in Service

My baby turns ten years old today! It's hard to believe that she is getting so grownup. She has such a bubbly and joyful personality and we love her to bits! Happy Birthday, sweet pea!

The children are always asking me to make waffles for breakfast and this is our favorite recipe. Sift together: 2-1/4 cups of flour, 4 tsp. baking powder, 3/4 tsp. salt, and 1-1/2 Tbsp. sugar. In a separate bowl, beat together 2 eggs and then add 2-1/4 cups of milk and 3/4 cup of vegetable oil. Add to the dry mixture and just stir until moistened. There will be lumps. Preheat waffle maker and add 1/3 cup of batter to each side. Cook for 4-6 minutes and viola! Waffles. Enjoy!

Kelli hosts this each week and I always enjoy the opportunity to sit down and make some cards. I made these tonight. Dan's birthday is coming up. These next two are my favorite out of the bunch. For more beautiful cards, go check out Kelli's blog.

Emily's birthday is on Saturday and a friend, with permission from me, gave her an early birthday gift. It's a little dwarf hamster. Oh my, she is so cute! I'm not usually a rodent type of girl, but Lilly is the cutest little thing. Emily is allergic to pet dander, but she has been really diligent about washing her hands after handling it and of course, it's so tiny that it doesn't seem to bother her. Emily has wanted a pet forever so this has put her over the top with happiness. She keeps coming up and hugging me and thanking me. However, given how hard she cried when her snail in the fish tank died, I'm not looking forward to the drama when this one dies! In the meantime though, Emily is on cloud nine!

I was rummaging through the freezer yesterday and realized that I had numerous bags of raspberries from two summers ago. I decided to make raspberry jam which is my childrens' very favorite of all. The smell was wonderful. Jars processed and ready to go. Finished product. The only problem I had was it didn't set properly, so now I'm going to have to start from square one! This happens every summer at least once so I'm hoping this is the one and only batch I'll have to mess with. It's a great feeling of satisfaction though to see all those jars of jam.

I've been reading through Proverbs, taking one chapter a week with some friends. We are on Proverbs 10 this week and I was reflecting on the following two verses this morning. Proverbs 10:4-5: 4 Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. 5 He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son. How we doing on working hard in our homes? Are we being diligent about taking care of our house? At the end of the day can we look back and know that we've done our best for the Lord. Are we gathering "crops" and producing fruit in our homes? To be honest, there are many times when I seem to hardly work. Oh, I will do the basics (cooking, laundry, school) but I do allow quite a few time wasters to gobble up my productivity. One of the biggest is the computer. The other day, I realized that I had sat in this chair for almost two hours!! It is so easy to get caught up in email, different websites and "re...

Kelli hosts this each week and I always enjoy the opportunity to sit down and make some cards. For those of you who have noticed an abundance of crafty posts on cards, I do have some sewing projects in the works and I'll share some of them soon! I wasn't thrilled with any of these cards this week. I really need to get some more supplies but I'm trying to use what I have first. I really feel like this one needs a ribbon or something. Anyway, I was not feeling particularly inspired last night but thought I'd share them anyway.

Well, with the help of the boys I finished putting in the garden this year. It was harder than normal because we had to turn over the grass in the front yard as there was nothing there but lawn. The boys did the majority of it by hand and did a great job. Of course, now I'm hoping we get no more frosty nights. Tomorrow night is supposed to be about 38, but I hate waiting until after Memorial Day. Between the front and back garden, I have: Lettuce Spinach Red & Green cabbage Watermelon Cantaloupe Summer squash Sunflowers Eggplant 2 kinds of tomatoes (Plum & Beefsteak) 2 kinds of peppers (Bell & Jalapeno) Beans Cucumbers Onions Carrots Radishes I still need to put in the herbs in the little patch by the front door. I do have 4 basil plants and a pot of mint there. Here are the herbs I'm planting: Sage Dill Oregano Chives Parsley Basil Cilantro Hopefully, we will have a good harvest this year. It is so rewarding to be able to harvest vegetables from the garden and e...

Emily has been camped out on a little fold-out bed in our room for most of the week. She has been sick since Wednesday so that always makes her want to sleep in our room. Then she has had bad dreams which is another reason. A third reason is that she is afraid of spiders and bugs and they always seem to find their way into her room. Maybe Dan & I should just switch rooms with her! ;-)

It's been beautiful the past few days and we have been out and enjoying the weather! The children rode their bikes. The air smells great between the apple blossoms and my lilacs. The boys weeded my back garden and I was able to get it planted yesterday. I've done load upon load of laundry. Emily went out this morning and helped me by trimming off the tops of all the daffodils and tulips that have gone to seed. I didn't realize this but someone told me it keeps the plant from trying to put all it's energy to the leaves and instead will produce more bulbs. Emily and I are leaving in a minute to go to the local nursery to get the vegetables I'm going to put in the front garden. I love spring!

I received a nice surprise yesterday. My mother sent me these beautiful roses! I thought it was especially nice since I didn't expect it at all. Thank you Mom! I love you! I hope you all have a blessed Mother's Day. :-)

Kelli hosts Show & Tell Friday so I thought I'd participate this week by showing you all the blooming things around my yard. I took a stroll around the backyard last night and found all sorts of surprises. It's been raining a lot the past few days and all sorts of things are blooming and popping up! My lilacs. The rhubarb patch just went crazy all of the sudden. Mmmmmm, those stalks look ready for a pie. My tulips look great. Ignore the dandelion in the picture! ;-) Emily thinks these look like peppermint candies. This is where my compost pile was. They are either squash, pumpkin or cucumbers. I'm not sure but I'm going to let them go and see what happens! Spinach. Early lettuce. Obviously, this whole bed needs to be weeded. However, it is directly below our bluebird house and those little rascals try to attack me every time I'm around them. My little pot of mint outside the kitchen door. I'm not sure what these little guys are called but I think th...

I worked on some cards last night. It was actually very relaxing after running around like a crazy person the past few weeks. I didn't photograph all of them because I'm not thrilled with quite a few of them. I ran out of the regular glue I use and had to resort to something else which didn't work as well. The first two are my favorites: These turned out pretty good also. Hopefully, I can be a bit more consistent in the craft department!

Well, Nathan turned 18 years old today. It's hard to believe that he is that old. We are having his party tomorrow and the entire day was taken up in food preparation for that. Emily helped by washing the dishes and chopping vegetables. Stephen took the trash out. We mostly let Nathan relax and enjoy his day. The real festivities start tomorrow! Happy Birthday, Nathan!