October

I can't believe that we are half way through November already, it is going to be Christmas before I know it! I have friends who are already decorated and have their presents bought and I am still trying to figure out what happened to October. I had planned to do a thanksgiving post, and a Halloween post and who knows what else, but I just never got around to it, so I decided to lump everything together in one big October post. Our October was busy and November seems to be shaping up to be more of the same.

We started the month with corn silage. This is a time of the year that is busy and tiring for Michael, and some years it has been hard on the girls because he is putting in long days and they miss seeing him, this year however, we went to the farm every day and had lunch with Grandpa, Grandma, and Great Grandpa and Daddy. What a difference it made! The girls were able to spend time with him at lunch and they got to see great grandpa every day for a week, which was a real treat for them. We usually only see him a few days at time when we go to the coast. Thanks to Grandma we had great meals and fun conversations.

                                           



When corn was finished we headed to Abbotsford and enjoyed a Haak family Thanksgiving. It is always fun getting together and seeing everyone that we haven't seen in awhile. We are blessed to have a great place to stay at while we are there. My girls love it so much that they ask me on a weekly basis when we get to go again, they have already begun the count down until the Christmas gathering. I was challenged this Thanksgiving season with a verse from Colossians 2:7, "Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness." Nowhere am I promised that I will have everything that I want so I can be thankful, I am not even told that life will be fair, but, if I am focused on deepening my relationship with Christ, I will overflow with thankfulness. What a great promise. Instead of focusing on what I want this year I want to focus on Christ, so I can be thankful for everything in my life, the hardships and the blessings!  I wanted to take sometime this year during the Thanksgiving season to ask the girls what they were thankful for and to make sure that they were aware of how blessed they are. We made up little posters with a list of the things they said.

Cheyanne:

I am Thankful for....

• Healthy mom and dad to love me
• My bed
• Food we eat
• Grandmas and Grandpas
• God created stuff
• God made us to live with this family
• We have kitties

Emmersen:

I am Thankful for....

• Beautiful house
• God made a wonderful world
• Stuff to play with
• Dad's work
• Uncles, Aunties, Cousins, and Friends
• Neighbours, mommys and daddys
• Everything we eat

                                           

Bella

I am Thankful for....

• God
• God made toy
• God made stars
• Car
• Band-aids
• Shut doors
• God gave stickers
• Snakes
• Water
• Grandpas and Grandmas
• Great Grandpa
• Great Grandma
• Daddy, Emme, Cheyanne, Mason, Mommy

We often make a trip into Vernon on the weekends to run errands and pick up the odd groceries or whatever. It is never very fun for the kids, so on this particular Saturday we decided that we would stop at the log barn on the way home. It was so the kids could run around a bit, but really it was a fun photo op for me.

 The girls loved these big swings.

 They have some amazing old antiques that are fun to get pictures around!

 We just had to get a "pumpkin patch" picture.

 yup, he is going to be one loved little boy!!!

 look how proud of himself he is driving the wagon,

all we needed was to get one of the miniature goats hooked up in front of him.

And of course, we ended October with a little trick or treating. We had lots of fun going around the neighbourhood that my sisters and I grew up in, and we also stopped in at a few friends houses in town. We ended the night with hot chocolate and hot dogs at my grandmas house. It was nice warm evening for trick or treating, which was nice because the girls didn't have to worry about putting snowsuits on under their princess dresses. Bella and Mason's costumes were awesome, they had little fans in them that blew them up and made them look fat, and they were hilarious to watch run. Bella totally caught on to how trick or treating worked, and never wanted to stop, she just kept saying, "more trick treat?"

Emmersen already has the princess hands on her hip pose down pat!

Enjoying some healthy oranges after a night of candy, hot chocolate, and hot dogs!

The loot, we only hit 15 houses and we had more candy then we needed!

There is a heavy candy tax in this house, I think Michael and I ate most of the Chocolate bars, lol.

Exciting News!!!!!!

Nope, I am not pregnant, lol, just wanted to squash that assumption right away! Emme decided that she wanted to pray and ask Jesus to forgive her sins and live in her heart!!! Yea, clap, clap, exciting, lol. As a parent I am so excited to see her make this commitment. I spend so much time praying that my kids will learn to love God and that we will be able to show them the beauty of his grace, and I truly believe that with the holy spirit living in her she will begin to experience the beauty of God's grace every day. Yesterday right before I started to make supper (not the most convenient time) Emme came up to me and asked how we could "know God." She wanted to understand how we could know our creator, and saviour when we really couldn't see him, or hear him talk, or even go visit his house. For me it would have been easy to say, oh you just do, we pray and that's how we get to know him, but I had this light bulb moment, ya know the kind in the comics where you see the little light switch go on in the thinking box, that said, this is an opportunity to talk about salvation. I decided that instead of brushing her off and starting supper I was going to sit down and have her sit on my lap, while I told her about a love that would forgive all wrongs and was unconditional. I told her that the  best way to get to know God was to pray and ask him to live in your heart and to say sorry for the wrong things that you have done, and to thank Jesus for dying on the cross to forgive those wrong things. I also told her that when we pray and ask God to live in our hearts we have something called the Holy Spirit that helps us to make good choices and makes it possible to get to know God better. She seemed like she was excited to pray but also a little nervous so I asked her if she wanted to pray and ask God to forgive her, she said, "but I want to stay here, I don't want to go up to heaven." I explained how she wouldn't go to Heaven right now but that one day she would and it would be amazing. She asked if it would be dark up there, and I told her that it would be filled with the light of the Lord and that seemed to make her a little less afraid of what Heaven would be like. I find it interesting how even little kids worry about the unknown and struggle with a fear of Heaven. I have often found myself thinking about how much I want to see what this world has to offer and how uneasy I feel about going to Heaven. It is like the head knowledge telling me to look forward to this place, to long to be with Christ, to know that to "die is gain" has a hard time transferring to my heart. Well after answering her little worries about Heaven Emme decided that she wanted to pray, I asked if she wanted me to pray a little and she could repeat it or if she wanted to pray herself. She asked me to pray with her and she repeated what I said, as well as added all kinds of prayers for the family, and said Amen, with a huge smile on her face. I gave her a smile and told her how excited I was to know that I would see her one day in Heaven with me. I know that this is one milestone that only brings me happy tears, tears that have no sadness because she is growing up, these are the conversations that make me excited to watch her little mind mature so that I can hopefully continue to show her the love and the grace of the One who choose to be born in a manger, to live the life of a carpenter, and to die on a cross for her sins!

I thought that seeings how I didn't really write down how Cheyanne came to the decision that she wanted to ask Jesus into her life I would tag it onto the end of this post. I have all these random little notes to myself about different sayings and different experiences on bits of paper here and there so one day  I will do a post that is just for me to record our little tid bits from my pre-blog days, but for know here is Cheyanne's story. We had a family friend that had a baby right around the time when Bella was born. Her baby was very sick and ended up having to go to the hospital in Philadelphia. Baby Jocelyn spent approximately three months in the intensive care unit. Over these three months or so our family was praying for her on a regular basis. Sadly baby Jocelyn passed away in Philadelphia. When I heard the news my heart was broken for her mom, dad, and sister. Cheyanne asked me about baby Jocelyn one day and I decided it would be best for me to tell her the truth. I told her that she had not gotten better and that she had died and gone to Heaven. She then asked me how we could go to Heaven, so I told her that we needed to believe that Jesus was God's son and had died for the bad things that we did, and that we had to ask him to forgive us for those bad things. She right away prayed and asked God to forgive her and to live in heart. It was a pretty neat and emotional moment. I was amazed that a three year old could have such a tender heart towards God. In the time since she asked for God's forgiveness I have seen her love for God grow, and her excitement to learn memory verses and sing songs of worship is contagious. I am enjoying watching her faith be encouraged and strengthened by her school teacher and classmates.

My prayer for Cheyanne and Emmersen now is simple: "I pray that their love will abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that they will be able to discern what is best and live pure and blameless until the day of Christ Jesus, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God" (Philippians 1:9-11). I pray that we will be able to instill a thirst for Christ in their lives and that his love and grace will become more real to them as they get older. I pray that they will continue to make choices that draw them into a close relationship with Christ. I desire these things for them because I know that a Christ centred life is the key to happiness and contentment.

Emme's Interpretations



I love how this picture captures how
Emme tries to do what she's told, but is
still distracted by what she wants to do!



I love Emmersen's way of looking at the world. She always comes up with her own explanations for things that she doesn't know the proper words for. So often I forget to even take note of them so I am going to try harder to remember to plug in the little sayings that show how kids interpret life.

 Emmersen's explanation for the reflection of her food in the pot on the table "Dad the pot took a picture of my food,"

Mason does the commando crawl, and he is very good at it, the other day Emme and Grandpa had a conversation about it: Grandpa: "Does Mason crawl?" Emmersen "no, he slip crawls"

This is for you Kate!

This post is for my friend Kate who challenged her blog readers to blog some simple easy recipes that are easy to make last minute. If you would like to check out the recipes she received head over to Beautiful Mess and read her always interesting and usually fun blog, if you would like to add your recipe here is the link to the post. These are some easy last minute ideas that I have come up with or adapted from other recipes I have seen. A little tip that has helped me is: I have started to keep a little notebook where I write down my last minute experiment meals so that I don't have to spend so much time trying to come up with what to cook, and Michael has started to ask me if I could write the ones he likes down because I tend to make something and then forget what I did so then I don't think to make it again. Sorry this post took so long Kate, I have been meaning to do it all week!

This first recipe I had actually thought I might blog because it turned out so well so I even happen to have a photo of the finished product. Recipe is kind of a loose term though as it was inspired by a soup recipe that I ate at the family place, but I don't actually have a recipe for it so I am going to be giving you the instructions for what I did, as well as alternative ingredient ideas, I used what I had in the house.

Farmer's Sausage Chowder:

I always tend to make way more soup than I meant to, but it makes great leftovers or can be frozen.

1) Slice farmer's sausage into small bite size pieces and place in the bottom of the soup pot with a chopped onion or two depending on how much soup you plan to make. (you may need to add some oil)

2) Add diced peppers (I used green, red, and yellow)

3) allow to sweat for awhile until the peppers are softened and the onions have turned slightly translucent

4) remove from heat and add diced potato and sweet potato (It is really great with carrots too, I just didn't have any)

5) put enough water in the pot to cover the potatoes and eyeball what you think would be a reasonable amount of broth (I like a fairly hearty soup so I don't put too much more than just covering the potatoes)

**if you want even more flavour you could use a chicken or veggie broth, I just don't ever have any in the house and this is a meal that I usually decide to make last minute, I find that it has enough flavour without it.

6) I added two 3-4 cup bags of frozen corn (This was a very large pot of soup, you could add canned or creamed corn probably too)

7) Bring to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes and other veggies are soft

8) add milk and heat through, this is super approximate but I would guess that I used about a 1 cup of milk for every 4 cups of water. If you were to use cream you could probably add a little less

***I don't add salt while I cook it because I find the farmer's sausage can be quite salty so it depends on your meat, and I leave out pepper because my kids prefer it without, but both can be added to taste.

Rice, Beef, Salsa, and Veggies?

I don't know if this is considered a recipe but I had intended to make meatloaf the other night and the beef was still frozen so I had to pan fry it instead, while it was cooking I was trying to come up with a way to make it more interesting, so this is what I did:

***have a pot of rice cooking at the same time

1) Brown ground beef (drain fat)

2) Add a finely chopped onion and season beef to taste (either salt and pepper or a beef spice epicure has a low sodium one)

3) once cooked add frozen peas and allow to cook, stir regularly

4) Add grated zucchini (you could probably add grated carrots too, or spinach)

5) Pour the cooked rice into the pan and stir until mixed

6) Add salsa until it tastes as spicy as you'd like

****For leftovers we didn't have enough for our whole family, so for lunch the next day I cut up some farmer's sausage and fried it, added a bag of frozen corn and then dumped the left overs into the frying pan with the corn and farmers sausage, covered it with a lid, and cooked it until it was hot all the way through, make sure you stir it regularly and if you want to keep the rice from getting crispy you can add a bit of water to the pan. This was so easy I did it while feeding Mason, so it's a great leftover meal when your kids are grumpy! My kids loved both meals so much that they asked if I could make it everyday, lol.

Spinach, Egg, Farmer's Sausage (or ham or bacon) Pasta

This meal takes no time to cook and is really good, I promise I don't always cook with farmer's sausage but it is the easiest to thaw last minute if I have forgotten to take out meat, hahaha

1)Cook meat in frying pan with onion and garlic (fresh is best, use a grater or garlic press)

2)At the same time have a pot of pasta cooking, about half way through the cooking time add a couple handfuls of spinach and allow it to cook in the pasta water

3) Make sure that you reserve approximately a half to a cup of the pasta cooking water depending on how much you are making

4) when your meat is cooked deglaze the bottom of the frying pan so you keep the flavours of the onion and garlic that have fried on to it, when your pasta is done, drain it and add it to the frying pan, if your frying pan is too small than you can add it to the drained pasta, (if you are doing it this way then the deglazing is more important)

5) Turn off heat or keep on extremely low and add approximately 4-6 beaten eggs, about a half to a cup of Parmesan cheese, and the reserved pasta cooking water (for a family of 4 use 4 eggs) it is important to stir until mixed, The hot pasta will cook the eggs.

***This is a family favourite and reheats really nicely!

The Cat Came Back!

"The cat came back the very next day, we thought she was a goner but the cat came back....."

Our kitten Rosie, a cute little blue-eyed Siamese, went on quite an adventure this week! This adventure of hers taught all of us in our family some valuable lessons, and hopefully her as well! Before I get into the lessons we learned I am going to start with the story of Rosie's little adventure!

Tuesday afternoon I loaded Dexter, Bella, Mason, and Emme into the van to head into town so that we could pick up Anna and Cheyanne from school. We stopped at Auntie Renee's to drop off Dexter and Emme and then headed to Anchor Academy so that I could drop off a few things for work. We then continued our drive to Salmon Arm where we stopped at the Tim Horton's to get a treat before picking up Cheyanne and Anna. Once we were at the school I collected the girls and buckled everyone into their car seats and was about to pull out of the parking lot, when Mrs. Sigston, Cheyanne's teacher, frantically waved at me to stop. I quickly stopped and jumped out of the van asking her what was wrong. She then told me that there was a cute little Siamese kitten sitting under our vehicle. It turns out that Rosie had crawled into the under carriage of our van, and stayed there until we made it to Cheyanne's school, lucky cat! The problem was that Rosie had taken off from under our vehicle and gone somewhere into the bush or another vehicle. Soon Mrs. Sigston had a bunch of kids helping us look for Rosie, which I am sure frightened her even more, and she was very well hidden. There was a dad who had come to pick up his kids and he had all of the kids in the search party pray for Rosie, and promised that he would come back in the evening with his boys to look again for our little kitten. Cheyanne was blinking back tears as we told her that we had to go home without Rosie. Mrs. Sigston encouraged her to pray asking God to help us find her, and Anna also promised to pray for Rosie. This seemed to comfort Cheyanne and we left the school. The next day Mrs. Sigston phoned and the kitten still hadn't been found. I decided not to mention it to Cheyanne because she didn't seem to be too concerned, and I was afraid that bringing it up might make her sad all over again. Well, later that evening, I got a phone call from another teacher at Cheyanne's school, she had decided to try calling the kitten again when she was leaving the school just in case Rosie turned up. She said that when she called her, Rosie came out from the undercarriage of the Principal's van! This in itself is a little miracle because our kittens never come when they are called, they are outdoor fairly wild little kitties! I couldn't believe Rosie had been found, like the song says, "we thought she was a goner..."

The lessons that were learned from this experience, as trivial as it was, were very profound. I know that I have learned something that I have known my whole life, and yet I need to relearn it all the time because I loose touch, I forget, or I lack the faith of a child. Cheyanne learned that God answers prayer! In my mind I had been mentally preparing a conversation where I would be trying to explain to Cheyanne why our prayers don't always come true, and why God didn't bring her kitten back when she asked him to. Obviously I was lacking the faith that God was going to answer our prayers! Well, thankfully, I was wrong and that  is a conversation we will have another time! Cheyanne also learned that God cares about the things that we care about, and that when people pray he answers. She experienced the blessing of having her prayers answered and it was so neat for her to go to school the next day and have her teacher celebrate with her, and not just celebrating Rosie's return, but instead celebrating God's answer to prayer.

So what did I learn? I learned that God loves us, that we can trust him. I know this, and I see it in many places, but often I find myself waiting for God to bring some bad experience into my life, or I worry that we have things too good so something bad has to happen so that I can grow spiritually, or if I want this so badly then the opposite might happen. In reality, God loves us, he wants to bless us, we can trust him with what we care about. Sure difficult times come into our lives, and often we grow immensely through these experiences, but God also teaches us through everyday experiences. He shows us his love in the little things.  Thinking about Cheyanne's missing cat made me reflect on the verse "So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?" (Matt 7:11) I love my kids, I want to keep them from hurting, but God, he loves them perfectly, so why do I doubt that he would take the time to help Cheyanne find her cat? If I would look for it for her, wouldn't the God who loves us perfectly do the same? He loves us enough to care about what we care about. I have been reminded of the question "Do I really believe that what I believe, is really real?" This question comes from the Truth Project, and I have been really challenged by it. If I really believe that what I believe is really real, why don't I have the faith of a child? I asked Cheyanne after we found her kitten, why she didn't seem worried about Rosie when she was still missing, her answer to me was this "because I know that God every time sees my cat and can protect it and bring it back to me," her answer literally stopped my thoughts, I was stunned, and embarrassed that here my five year old had to show me what faith looked like, and taught me that I can trust God with even the littlest details in my life for he has told us "I know the plans I have for you,... they are plans for good not for disaster..."(Jer 29:11). Do I really believe that what I believe is really real? Sadly, many times my actions say no. Faith, oh to have the faith of a child. My focus study for life right now has been grace, but this experience has encouraged me to add faith to that list as well.

As for Rosie, let's up she has learned to stay out of the van! We have given her and the other kittens a heat lamp in their house in hopes that it will encourage them to sleep in their home instead of the warm vehicle!