Your Hands (JJ Heller)...

I came upon this song through a friend's blog and it's just been blessing me over and over and over. We all have different things that we are struggling with and praying about and God holds us all in His hands. The same hands that shaped the world hold us too. How beautiful is that? In this world we can hold onto God, walk with Him through our trials and smile at the promise, "one day you will set all things right".

I have unanswered prayers
I have trouble I wish wasn’t there
And I have asked a thousand ways
That you would take my pain away
You would take my pain away

I am trying to understand
How to walk this weary land
Make straight the paths that crooked lie
Oh Lord, before these feet of mine
Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

When my world is shaking, heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave your hands

When you walked upon the earth
You healed the broken, lost and hurt
I know you hate to see me cry
One day you will set all things right
Yeah, one day you will set all things right

When my world is shaking, heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave your hands

Your hands that shaped the world
Are holding me
They hold me still

Happy Bath Baby...

Sawyer loves his bath.

Really, if he's grumpy around suppertime I just stick him in the tub and he transforms into a happy, cooing, sweetheart of a baby.

Here, I'll prove it to you...

Menu Monday...

With all this rainy weather and the cold going around our house I just want to make comfort food! Maybe I knew that deep down somewhere when I planned this menu at the beginning of October.

Here goes...

Monday- Veggie pizza subs on whole wheat buns, fries, homemade fruit cups

Tuesday-meatloaf, baked potatos, coleslaw

Wednesday-shrimp alfredo, tossed salad

Thursday- sole, brown rice, cauliflower and cheese

Friday-Homemade pizza (1/2 ham & pineapple, 1/2 ham and mushroom) and caesar salad

Saturday-lamb roast, gravy, mashed potatos, carrots, salad

Sunday-leftovers

(Saturday and Sunday may get switched around depending on how full the fridge is of leftovers)

What are you eating this week?

My friend Lee is awesome...

I love having friends who encourage me with their thrifty and creative ways. I love to cook but I'll admit to taking shortcuts when I could easily make things myself (though it would take more time that way!). Somethings though really don't take much time at all and are so worth the effort.

I was visiting with my friend Lee the other day and she told me that she makes her own chocolate syrup.

Yeah, I thought, that would be good on ice cream and stuff but not worth the bother.

Then she said, we use it in our milk.

In your milk??!!

Yeah, like instead of Nesquick.

At that moment my little mind was blown! I knew that you could make hot cocoa from scratch but I never dreamed that I could make my own chocolate syrup!

She sent me the recipe and I made it that minute...

...oh my.

It's. so. good.

We're almost done our recipe already and everyone loves it, yummy, yummy, yummy!

Now if I can just get us to finish off the Nesquick in our house I could make my own but use that container!

And now, because I wanna be a good friend too and encourage you to be thrifty and creative, here my friend is the recipe. Make it now! You won't regret it!

Lee, you are awesome!

Chocolate Syrup
½ c cocoa
1 c water
2 c sugar
1/8 t salt
¼ t vanilla
Heat cocoa and water until dissolved. Add sugar, boil exactly 3 min. add salt & vanilla. Refrigerate.

7 months...

Sawyer was 7 months on Monday.

Honestly, where does the time go?

Day trip...

Every once in a while, especially when Mark has some time off, it's fun to just pack the kids up in the van and take off for a few hours. Today we did just that. We loaded everyone into the van and headed out to Falcon Lake for the afternoon. HSC has a Lottery and one of the prizes is a cabin at Falcon Lake, which just happens to be one of our favorite places to vacation. We drove out there and as we did we could feel ourselves relax. There's just something about the Whiteshell that I really love, it's full of evergreens, it's rocky it's just a teensy bit hilly, and the sunsets through the trees are just gorgeous! Oh, plus, we ALWAYS see wildlife out there. This wonderful creature was less than 10 feet from our van!

We got to the Lottery cabin and took a look around. It's not huge, 1800 square feet, but it's got a big dock on the lake and the view is gorgeous. It's decorated really nicely, has a beautiful kitchen, and a sunroom that I could have moved right into!

Afterward we tried to find a place in Falcon to have supper, but no luck, so

we drove back a little bit and happened upon this little place.

The owners had thick German accents and the special of pot-roast, german noodles, sauerkraut and gravy looked yummy, so we decided to stop there.

We played while they cooked our food (on a regular stove with everyday pots and pans!)

...and then dug in. It was yummy, but I think Sawyer loved it the most!

Dapper Snappers Review...

We got them in the mail! Yay! That didn't even take very long.

I saw the Mailman put a package into our mailbox and was thrilled to discover that our Dapper Snappers were here! I immediately grabbed Sawyer and went to his room to try them out. I grabbed an awesome pair of brown Joe pants that he'd gotten as a baby gift and had so far never worn because they were just too big in the waist and not adjustable. So on they went and on the Dapper Snapper went.

Ta-da!

It works! I'm thrilled that now I can make use of a whole stack of pants already in his drawer, plus now I can buy Joe pants when they're on sale and not worry that they won't fit.

This is gonna be a very good thing I think!