A special friend

I told my hubby yesterday, that I've "just lost a friend who absolutely adored me and worshipped the ground I walk on." lol

-And those are hard to come by. ; )

~Becky,

who is missing her special friend immensely!

Our last day with Honey

We headed to the dog beach today to let Honey do her favorite thing (if you don't include eating peanut butter) which is SWIMMING!!!!

We went back and forth for a long time trying to decide whether or not to go because we weren't sure that she would have the energy/ lung capacity to be up for it and have a good time.
But she did!

And she had a wonderful time and so did we! She just stood there staring at us until we realized that she wanted to play fetch! We should have brought the Frisbee! We ended up scrambling to find a stick! She had so much fun!

It seemed to take 10 years off of her life!

We love you, Honey!

~Becky

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

There have been only two Thanksgivings in the past 18 years of marriage that I haven't cooked the entire meal myself.
Our first Thanksgiving as newlyweds was one of those and it is a very good thing, because I could only cook about 3 things and one of those things was Kraft macaroni and cheese!
I was asked to bring the sweet potatoes. I didn't know a thing about sweet potatoes and unfortunately, I didn't just bring some out of a can. Oh, would I have been a lot better off if I had. There were about 4 of us married couples and a couple bachelors staying in this large house that one of them was house sitting. We all cooked together and then had our meal. I thought those potatoes of mine wouldn't take long at all to BOIL ....but they did. (boil-ick!)
And lets just say, that those were some hard sweet potatoes I served that day...Those guys were feeling mighty sorry for my newly married hubby. LOL

The next Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law sent me all the family Thanksgiving recipes, with complete instructions on how to roast a turkey. : ) (no one had to feel sorry for my hubby any more!) ha ha

Years later, we spent one Thanksgiving with my in-laws in Colorado. We enjoyed the snow and celebrated Joy's birthday together with every present being something Madeline! : )

Now, this Thanksgiving makes the third one in which I'm not doing all the cooking. Some dear friends from church invited us over. I'm bringing the turkey, thankfully, or I surely wouldn't know WHAT to do with MYSELF with all this FREE TIME on my hands!!!
It's really odd!
Joy and I were planning on being the "co-queens of Thanksgiving" this year and I was going to teach her how to make everything. That way she won't have people looking at her husband with pity on her first Thanksgiving! LOL But, that will have to wait a year. Being that she's only 13, I think we have plenty of time. ; )

*What is on our mind this year, is how thankful we are to have owned such a wonderful dog! Honey has lung cancer and is suffering. Tomorrow is the day we have planned to have her put down and we are SAD! So, while I'm not spending my whole day cooking, I am blessed to be loving on the sweetest dog to ever live! (secretly or not so secretly we are all wishing it was our bi-polar parrot that was ill! I think we'd all be more than slightly thankful for that.) ; )

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!
~Becky

All things pumpkin and yummy!!!

There are two recipes which include pumpkin that I make every year around this time and my family absolutely raves about them.

I have a friend who doesn't do a thing with canned pumpkin ever. She pretends not to know that it exists and she bakes her own. Not me. Libby's is my friend! : )

Now, I have a third pumpkin recipe that I will have to add to these other two family favorites because everyone said that these are the BEST pancakes ever and my hubby wants me to make them on the morning of his birthday. Andrew said they are 'addicting.'

I think Martha S*ewart gets the credit for this recipe.*Warning: Just go ahead and double it. I sure had to! : )

Pumpkin Pancakes

1 1/4 c. of flour

2 T. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

pinch of cloves

Whisk all of these ingredients together. Then in a separate bowl,

mix:

1 cup milk

6 T. canned pumpkin or fresh baked pumpkin if you are amazing like that

2 T. melted butter

1 egg

Add the dry ingredients and mix. Yummy pancake batter!

The other recipe that my family can't get enough of are Pumpkin Butterscotch muffins! You can find the post with the recipe to those right here. They are better than the title sounds, I promise.

They have butterscotch chips in them and are SO good!!!

The last one recipe is for a cake called Pumpkin Crunch!

One of my guys said it tastes like something we might eat in Heaven. LOL

And another one of my guys said that this cake 'tastes like fall.'

So, go here and give it a try!

If I don't make it back to the blog this week, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I'm going to head over to The Pioneer Woman Cooks, so she can remind me how I brined last year's turkey. It was so good! (everything she makes is pretty amazing)

God's blessings, as you celebrate His goodness!

~Becky

Our Joy....

turns 13 years old today!

I can hardly believe it! ~Wasn't she just 3 yrs. old?! : )

Happy Birthday, Joy!

What a sweet girl you are and a blessing to us all!

~Becky

who now has 3 teenagers! Whoo-hoo!

Loved this sign!

I had to pick up some trophies today for our home school group's spelling bee and I saw a sign in the store that made me laugh out loud.

"Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy." LOL!


~Becky

Enjoy!

I came across this quote somewhere the other day (not sure where) and I googled it and found out that it is from the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

It said "What is the chief end of man?"

Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

I LOVE that!
"Enjoy Him forever."

Are you enjoying God? : )

~Becky

Christmas gift idea

Aren't these too cute?!





Joy and are planning to make these as gifts for our friends, neighbors and teachers at church for Christmas. We did a trial batch and they were oh, so yummy!

We may have to do a few more trial batches because ours didn't harden. Not sure what we did wrong but we liked eating our mistakes! ; ) Yumm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The recipes I've seen online, have you rolling them in m&ms or chocolate chips or sprinkles or peanuts! You can also use white chocolate! : )



One of our favorite family recipes is Spiced Walnuts!

My mother-in-law used to make them and send them to us in a tin with our Christmas presents.

I make them every year because they are so good and remind us of 'Grandmum.'

They make a great gift to pass out to friends and neighbors in decorative bags or tubes etc...

And they make your house smell like everything you love about Christmas!

~I'm always tempted to eat the entire batch myself. Not good.

You can find the recipe in this post! (this was from a bloggers Christmas tour of homes a couple years ago) I hope you give them a try! : )

There is also a recipe for some really CUTE holiday reindeer cookies that are a big hit at parties. I made those several times last year. Lots of fun for little hands to help with!



Happy holiday planning!

"It's the most wonderful time of the year." Right?

-(I end up hearing that song sung very early every year because my hubby sings it when football season starts! He's so funny!)



~Becky

A couple of our favorite Florida vacations turned field trips

One of our all time favorite field trips was to the summer homes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison in Fort Myers, FL.

We were studying inventors at the time and so it was such a thrill to go and see their homes and inventions. My oldest took about 300 pictures! My hubby's boss at the time, gave us a few days at a time share in Ft. Myers and it turned into a great vacation/field trip.

Vacations turned field trips are some of favorite things! : )

A trip to the Kennedy Space Center is now going to be ranked up there among the favorites!

The other half of our family were blessed to spend 3 days there over the summer while Nathan and I were at Teen Bible Quiz Nationals in St. Louis. My kiddos were sharing something new about what they learned there just about every day for a month! : ) They loved it and they learned SO much and had a great time.

My hubby's best friend Carlos went with them and he makes everything even more fun. ; )

The only thing that they didn't enjoy was waiting for the launch for hours in the heat.

That particular one was scrubbed about 3 or 4 times. Here's what Andrew thought of that after waiting for hours. Bless his heart!

They finally gave up seeing it from the Space Center and went to see it from the beach with the locals. The space shuttle actually did go up that time and the waiting while playing in the water was much more fun. Maybe the view wasn't quite as great but it was still close and they enjoyed it.

~Becky

Praying from Luke 2

The Lord showed me some exciting things to be praying for our children from Luke 2.


May our children:


"make widely known" what they've learned about Jesus like the shepherds

(v. 17)


May their lives:


"be a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles." (v. 32)


May they be Spirit-led like Simeon:


"who was just and devout" and "the Holy Spirit was upon him." (v.25)


May they have hearts devoted to God like Anna who:


"served God with fastings and prayers night and day." (v.37)


May they be like Jesus as a child who:


"grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon Him." (v.40)


May they be passionately focused on God like Jesus who said:


"I must be about my Father's business." (v.49)


May they be obedient to us like Jesus who:


"went down with them" and "was subject to them." (v.51)


And like Jesus, may they:


"increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." (v.52)


Amen! : )


~Becky