Mara's handmade Iris bouquet

This is a project I have been meaning to blog about for some time but had forgotten. The Iris above were given to on my Birthday back in December. Mara had made them. She made them using paper coffee filters, florist wire, florist tape, paint and a few beads. She got the idea from our Rose making project quite a while back. She chose to make me Iris as they have been one of my very favorite flowers for as long as I can remember.

 Paper coffee filters are a fun craft material to work with as they are a bit stiff (and become even more so when you paint them) but are still moldable as well. Making flowers is a fun craft and could be used for educational purposes as well. Think how much better you would remember all the parts of a flower if you had made them and put them together!

Have you ever tried to make flowers?

Here is another fun project where I "made" flowers.

Notes on food and eating {menu and company coming}

I haven't posted a menu in a long time and I thought it would be fun to share that today. For the majority of my married life I have done menu planning. It just makes life so much simpler for me. Last year somehow I got rather out of the habit and I only made menus off and on. My whole organization starts to crumble when I fail to menu plan. I think I am back on track again with menu planning and I hope to stay that way!

Here is our menu for the week:

Sunday

Waffles

Little burgers with sauce, Potato Salad, Bananas and Sweet Bread (we took that to a church potluck dinner)

Chicken Curry, Rice and Fruit

Monday

Leftover waffles, pumpkin pudding, quick bread and fruit

Pork and Veggie stir fry on rice

Tuesday

Cooked wheat (gruel) with cream

Steak, Broccoli and New York Potatoes

Wednesday

Puff pancakes with Raspberries and whip cream

Macaroni and Tuna Salad

Chicken and Tomatoes on Wild and Brown Rice and Corn

Thursday

Zucchini or Mince Bread and Eggs

Pita Bread Sandwiches, Carrot Sticks and Popcorn

Pizza Casserole and Salad

Friday

Biscuits and Gravy

Soup and Sandwiches

Spaghetti, Green Beans and Garlic Bread

Saturday

Scrambled Eggs and Muffins

The rest of the meals will be eaten at a church rally.

We have company coming tomorrow (We're excited!) to spend the week and then more coming on Friday (more excitement!) so are week will be busier than normal. When company comes it is very nice to have a menu planned. Sometimes we tend to eat a lot of leftovers or things like that and that doesn't always work so well when company is here. A menu plan helps to eliminate the stress of thinking "What am I going to feed all these people?"

My friend Emily put a post up (with a linky) recently wondering if we had any ideas for what to do when company shows up unexpectedly and you want to serve them a meal. This is a great question and one I was thinking about not long ago. I had a meeting at my house at 10:30 am. which I didn't think would last too long but still I had thought " I should figure out a lunch (besides the leftovers that we had planned to eat) that I could invite them to stay and eat with us". I didn't really get a lunch planned and even though they stayed until nearly one (we had lost track of time!) they didn't stay to eat with us. I resolved that next time I would be better prepared!

 Mostly being prepared is just having ideas of quick meals figured out and the ingredients available. Having meals in the freezer can also help a lot. Here are some of the things that work for me (when I remember them!)

Meals to freeze ahead:

• Pizza - this is nice because it doesn't take a lot of time to thaw either. I just throw it in the oven straight from the freezer a lot of the time.
• Tuna Pasta Hotdish (And I was able to buy tuna on sale for 39 cents a can tonight! Yeah! I bought 73.)
• Chicken Rice Burritos.
• Enchiladas.
• Meatloaf or Meatballs
• Goulash
• Chili

It is also nice to have other treats frozen and ready at a moments notice like:

• Cookies
• Zucchini or pumpkin bread

Besides having food already prepared and ready whenever we want them I also thought it would be handy to have a list of foods that I can make quickly with ingredients that I normally have on hand. Here is some that I thought of:

• Tuna Melts ~Tuna salad on a slice of bread (homemade at our house) with cheese on top, place everything in the oven under the broiler until the cheese melts.
• Popcorn
• Tomato Soup ~I make it using our home canned tomatoes
• Pasta Salad
• Corn Pone Pizza
• Super Nachos with my own corn "chips".
• Apple sauce ~that I canned
• Pigs in a blanket (Though I am keeping hotdogs on hand less and less lately)
• Potato Soup
• Tacos ~ This takes a little bit but I just put everyone to work, people can chop, roll out tortillas, etc.
• Fresh fruit
• Carrot sticks

Those are some of my ideas for quick meals for company. What are yours?

Making Our Home a Haven

 Yesterday was a pretty good day. We stayed at home all day and I was able to get quite a bit of baking done. I made Pumpkin pudding for breakfast, chocolate zucchini bread, pear mince bread, hamburger buns, biscuits and apple bread (Pictured in progress above).

  I also continued to work at cleaning and organizing our home. I am loving all the clean surfaces in our home and the look of way less clutter!

  Yesterday afternoon we had a fun time because during rest time I started reading a book to myself that was quite funny. I love books that make me laugh out loud! Yesterday afternoon after we had gotten up from "naps" I decided to just relax and read some more. Of course I ended up laughing and the kids wanted to know why. So I started telling them about it and reading aloud to them and we had a very fun afternoon filled with laughter.

 Yesterday evening Ken still wasn't feeling that great but was able to join us for a game of Settlers of Catan. That is one of our current favorite games.

Today Jonathan and I went and got most of the food we will need for the month. It was nice to get that done. This afternoon the kids and I went to see our friend Dale Blanshan who was doing a program on Abraham Lincoln. It was fun and educational too! The program was at a nursing home and we got to go and visit with our 97 year old friend, Ula. Fun times!

Some of my highlights of this week have been:

• Making sure to have surfaces like my counter and desk clean and ready for use. I love it.
• Trying to watch what I say. This has been a good week (with a few exceptions!) for speaking with kindness.
• Concentrating on what makes my home a haven. Loving Relationships and a peaceful environment.

Teaching of kindness on her tongue.... my hope.

 "Strength and dignity are her clothing,

and she smiles at the future.

She opens her mouth in wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She looks well to the ways of her household,

and does not eat the bread of idleness."

Proverbs 31:25-27

The woman described in Proverbs 31 is altogether inspiring to me. That is what I want to be like. I have a long way to go but that is my goal. Today those verse above really stood out to me. I want to be one that has strength and dignity that is just a part of me. I don't think I have a problem with smiling at the future. I am an optimist and that comes pretty easily for me- I hope it is always that way.

What a neat tribute to say that when she opens her mouth it is wisdom that comes out. I have so far to go in that area but Lord willing, I can learn how to speak wisdom! One of my big goals right now is learning to watch my tongue. I want to always have the teaching of kindness on my tongue!

 Last week as I (and others) focused on making our homes a haven, I was trying to look well to the ways of my household. I so enjoyed the week of really focusing on that. I don't want to be idle and I want to follow the Proverbs 31 Ladies example in that too!

What is most notable to you in these verses?

Making our Home a Haven - Fixing things up addition

 Yesterday was a very good day! Ken unfortunately wasn't feeling good but he headed off to work anyway. (He did come home early and went straight to bed at about 4:30 however.) It was so nice to get up to a neat house on Thursday morning. That is one thing that I have been really working at accomplishing this week- leaving the house clean and neat before I head to bed. I have been especially concentrating on our counters and sink area in the kitchen. It is so much nicer to get up to make breakfast in a kitchen that is really clean!

  School went well. The picture above is of Aaron reading out of the Dick and Jane book to Megan and I. Aaron has been a bit slower reader than my older kids, I wasn't worried about it but decided the reading book that we had been using just wasn't helping him to learn very well so I just switched to having him read outloud to me (and usually Megan joins us too) out of the Dick and Jane book and that is going quite well. Reading time has been a very fun and relaxing time while we do that and he is gaining confidence. Yea!

 I did have fun working on several projects to try to make my home look nicer and be cleaner. I thought I would share them with you.

In our entry way we have a little table. On it I had a bunch of herbs that I brought in from the garden this fall. Originally it looked pretty nice and it was useful too as I could cut some off to use in cooking. Now however....well, it was rather dead and yucky looking. Not so beautiful to greet everybody that came into our home.

BEFORE

 I decided to remove all the dead or dying plants (what a concept!!) and I decided to get it looking ready for spring.   

AFTER

 I put a few odds and ends together and decided to display this collection of things.

 In the big vase was some dried rose buds, a nest, some feathers the kids had found and a few other odds and ends. It is kind of unique looking but I like having all those natural elements there to look at and enjoy.

 Another project was to finish cleaning my desk. I am excited to report that it is now all clean and neat (at least the outer surfaces (I still need to go through the drawers and some shelves) and ready for use! I hope I can keep it this way for at least a while! I was motivated a while back when reading that people might judge you on how affective you are by looking at your desk. I didn't want people thinking I am some sort of messy, never get anything done sort of person and I am determined that I will keep my desk in better shape in the future!! (Sorry about the weird shadows in the picture, the sun (which I love) was just streaming in and I couldn't take a good picture.)

Next project was Megan's corner of her room. She is still in the training process for keeping her stuff neat and I wanted to figure out some ways that cleaning and picking up could be easier for her.

Here is her area before:

 It was quite messy, we had lots of loose art supplies and books tended to end up all over.

 While I was trying to think of ways to keep things organized I remember the little spice racks that the kids made a few months ago at Home Depot's building day. They hadn't worked for my kitchen and we didn't know what to do with them. I decided that we could use them for Megan. The older kids were gone to a Library program so Megan and I decided to have a bit of painting time together. She choose the colors (Green for grass, pink and purple for flowers and yellow for the sun.)

 We had these little butterflies on hand (that had been part of a mobile sort of thing, somebody had given them to us.) and we decided to glue them on our racks.  We then hung them up. The Sun of course had to be on top! I really like the way they look all bright and colorful on the wall!

 We also added some shelves on top of Megan's dresser to keep the books that she likes in. The little corner table had been in the living room last year but when we redid the living room we moved it in here to be Megan's "desk".
Megan and I are pretty happy with the new look! Now if I can just get her trained in keeping it pretty and clean. :-) Aaron was inspired by our organizing and is working on tin can organizers for his desk now.

Yesterday evening Ken didn't feel up to game playing but the rest of us had fun playing "Hit the Deck with the Hand". That is not the most exciting game in the world but it was neat because Megan was able to play it. Usually she just "helps" as we play a little more advanced games.

All in all it was a good day and we are having another good one today. We are staying home all day which I always love! :-)

Making Your Home A Haven at The Homespun Heart

Frugal Friday at Life as Mom

Making Our Home a Haven

Today was a good day but I didn't take any pictures! I just checked my camera to be sure and it says "no images".

This was just a normal day- but normal days are nice! Here is what we did:

• Prayer and Bible reading (I am reading through Romans). I choose a different room for my quiet time today and  I kind of liked that.
• Breakfast- Leftover pancakes, cooked pears, milk and herbal tea was the menu.
• School time. This went really smoothly today (thanks to God!) and everybody was done a while before lunch with their workbooks. Yeah!
• Since the kids were done early we went through some e-mails that I had that had things in them that I wanted to show them (pictures, video clips, links, etc.) That was a fun thing to do together and I was happy to be able to clean out my inbox a little more!
• Lunch was leftovers and homemade bread.
• For reading time today I decided to add to our normal line-up of books and we read an article out of the Voice of the Martyrs Magazine. That created some neat discussion. We often don't realize just how blessed we are and how much we should be praying for Christians in other countries. We also started a new book (we had finished our other story book yesterday) on Noah Webster. It is going to be a fun read.
• Next was rest time. This is a really important part of our day and really helps to make our home a haven. I feel so much more energetic after having some quiet time to read and taking a quick (10-20 min.) power nap. The kids rarely ever sleep but the quiet time they have to read and look at books is helpful for them in having a cheerful day too.
• In the afternoon I was able to do some laundry and work in my office cleaning and organizing. I was able to get rid of quiet a few papers and other trash, file a bunch of papers (I was realizing again how nice my file cabinet is and I need to make sure I put it to work better in the future!) and just generally clean my desk. It was nice to get those things done!
• For supper we had mashed potatoes, hamburger patties and broccoli with cheese and milk to drink.
• After that we were off to church. What fun to get together with other Christians to sing, study, pray and fellowship. The kids were studying in the book of acts and the adults were studying in 1 Timothy.
• Home to bed! For the bedtime story Ken read the kids a Dr. Seuss book since it was his (Dr. Seuss's) birthday.

Well I guess I didn't get this published last night, so I think I will include my goals for today.

On the schedule already we have:

• School work
• Normal chores and cleaning
• 3 piano lessons for me to teach
• A bride coming for a consultation
• The kids going to the library for a program (a friend is going to give them a ride there- I may need to pick them up.)
• Family night. This is our special night a week that we make sure to do something fun as a family. We usually play games, at least in the winter.

I would also love to work on:

• Megan's corner of the girls' room. It tends to be quite messy and I want to rethink how we could make it easier for her to keep clean.
• More organizing and cleaning in my office.

We will see just how much we can do. :-)

I am also trying to pray much throughout the day (besides in my quiet time this morning) that our attitudes and words will be pleasing to God and that our home would be a haven for us and any others that visit us here.

What are your plans for the day?