Enjoyable Reads

Thought I would share a few weekend links that have me thinkin' and dreamin' :

• this baby boy onesie tutorial has me just itchin' to learn to sew knits. Is it not the cutest little boy outfit?!
• my two oldest sons (11 and 6) are enjoying making these awesome rubberband pinball machines from materials we already have lying around the house. way fun!
• found a new-to-me homeschooling blog that has really inspired me to find my way back to my personal philosophy of learning and guiding my children's education... thanks to Simple Homeschool which is another blog I also really love.
• aren't these felt gnomes so adorable? and don't you love this super easy idea for teaching children embroidery? these are on my children's crafty to-do list for next week!
• this is a fabulous cooking idea: a 3-2-1 formula for putting a pasta dinner on the table with simplicity and ease.
• aren't Haitian women amazing?
• great educational goals for all children...keeping the main things the main things!
• my daughter and I can't wait to make these easy delicious-looking popovers.
• and pretty much anything done by Meg inspires me...and I just want to squeeze her cute little boy in this adorable pilot's cap!

Enjoy!


photo by Torsten Frank

Simple Breakfast Schedule

Having a baby threw our breakfast routine right out the door. It's been mostly cold cereal around here for 6 months with the occasional baked oatmeal or pancakes. It's just one of those things you have to let go of in order to keep your sanity when change and upheaval happens!

This week I pulled the "breakfast schedule" back out and began implementing it again. I forgot how wonderful it is to see my children eat variety, eat together (instead of each of them getting cereal on their own and at differing times) and eat beautifully (I am actually setting the morning table again!)

Here is the daily schedule. Nothing fancy, but simple, healthy and diverse.

Monday: Yogurt Parfaits (organic vanilla yogurt with granola and frozen fruit)
Tuesday: Whole Grain Bagels with Cream Cheese and Fruit
Wednesday: Baked Oatmeal and Fruit
Thursday: Eggs, Toast, and Fruit
Friday: Muffins or French Toast and Fruit
Saturday: Anything goes...pancakes or cereal or bagels
Sunday: Mike cooks! And that means something with sausage or bacon!

What are your favorite simple breakfasts that don't include cereal??


photo by Pieter Pieterse

Multiply Your Love

The lyrics to this worship song voice my heart's cry:

Multiply Your love through us
To the lost and the least
Let us be Your healing hands
Your instruments of peace
May our single purpose be
To imitate Your life
Through our simple words and deeds
Let love be multiplied

Multiply Your love through me
To someone in need
Help me Lord to freely give
This grace that I've received
Let my single purpose be
To imitate Your life
Through my simple words and deeds
Let love be multiplied

Let us see Your kingdom come
To the poor and broken ones
Let us see a mighty flood
Of justice and mercy,
O Jesus
Let love be multiplied
Let love be multiplied

Multiply Your church through us
To the ends of the Earth
Where there's only barrenness
Let us see new birth
Use us as Your laborers
Working side by side
Let us see your harvest come
Let love be multiplied

Easy Valentine's Gifts

I love decorating for Valentine's Day. And I really love making little things for my friends too. I have recently found some easy-peasy gift ideas and wanted to share them with you!

I got inspired by this idea a few weeks ago. I found some really nice white kitchen towels at our Publix grocery store. Then I went to A.C. Moore to stock up on felt, ribbon, and red pom-pom fringe. Later I found a heart template that I printed on cardstock. I used the two smallest hearts on the template to cut out one pink and one red heart from felt...and then used an ultra-simple running stitch to attach the pink to the red and then the red to the towel. I used my sewing machine to sew on the fringe across the bottom of the towel (I used a zipper foot which made a BIG difference and make sure the red thread is on top and that you put white thread in your bobbin!)




This afternoon I made some Brown Sugar Vanilla Scrub. I put it in recycled jelly jars and cut a round piece of fabric with pinking shears to cover the lid. Then I put a sticky-backed foam heart on top and wrote each woman's name on it with a fine-tipped sharpie marker. Other great scrub recipes here.


And sometimes the best gift of all is really good chocolate :) This past week a friend introduced to me to this dark chocolate with sea salt and it is delicious to say the least. I went and bought one for each of my friends this afternoon! Tie it with a bit of baker's twine and you have a *sweet* gift!

Simple Recipe Organization

For years I have stashed loads of little slips of paper (or backs of envelopes or those shopping list pads with the magnets on back) that have recipes jotted down on them. I also have lots of stray print-outs of recipes from the Web and even have recipes that were quickly scribbled on yellow legal pads. A mess, I tell you!

A few years ago I realized that I needed to get the whole recipe thing under control and do some easy organization. And this is where I started my easy-peasy recipe binder.

Ingredients:

one 1 1/2" white binder with clear front sleeve
page protectors
piles of recipes
word processing program
printer/white paper
subject dividers

Take an afternoon and gather all those random recipes in a pile. Type them in your computer's word processing program....one recipe per page. Use a big easy-to-read font. Print your recipes.

Make a cute cover to slide into the front sleeve of your binder. Fill with page protectors and subject dividers. Label your subject dividers with whatever works for you. Mine are "beef, poultry, pork, seafood, baked goods, desserts, seasonal, sides". Slide your printed recipes into the page protectors, place in the appropriate section and you are DONE! And now when you print recipes from on-line recipe sites, always print "full page" and you can easily slide it into your binder.

Simple to clean, simple to read, simple to organize. My kind of system.

Now, for those recipes that are still written on a notecard/recipe card that I can't bear to part with because of nostalgic handwriting or whatever, I have adhered (with 3M's removable strips) a clothespin to an upper cabinet by my stove so that I can clip the recipe there while I am cooking. It's at eye-level so that I can read it easily, and it keeps it from getting messy, stained, or misplaced!

Happy Cooking!

*Hospitality Tip*

This kitchen "appliance" is a MUST when you are having a group of women over to your home for friendship and coffee.

An Air Pot!

My sister and I got this one at Sam's Club for about $20. We share it with each other when one of us is hosting a get-together. My husband brews two pots of coffee and pours the Joe in the Air Pot... the coffee stays hot for 8 hours! Cordless, light-weight and easy to use.

Every woman interested in using her home as a place of hospitality needs one! It makes serving hot drinks so much easier. Anything that can reduce our perceived stress in having others come to our home is a good investment. Tools that make hospitality do-able...good stuff.

Friendship Fridays

I told you that one of my goals for 2010 is to deepen my connections with other women by having them over to my home two Fridays a month for coffee and conversation. Well, it all began last Friday!

I started by sending out an email invitation entitled "Friendship Fridays" to other mothers in my small group and church. I invited them to come to my home the 2nd and 4th Fridays of each month from 9:30-11:30am and to bring their own mug for coffee, and I would provide muffins... and bring your kids too and whatever they need for a snack/drink/entertainment! (Remember, this is a women's time not a playgroup!)

For two hours we sat around and talked about life, school, kids...whatever topic came up. Nothing deep. Just time to be together and connect. Lovely, really.

And little by little I hope that our times together birth an intimacy and closeness and community that we all really need. For women really do need other women.

What do you do to connect with other women regularly?


picture by mosaicfun