Indoor activities for my stir crazy boys!

Anyone else super excited about springtime? Even though it is March, this freezing winter weather has made us a little stir crazy and ready to play outside, take walk around the neighborhood, plant our veggie garden, play in the mud, and have lots of fun with our boys OUTSIDE! Here are a few of our fun indoor activities that make these cold indoor day a lot more bearable... even FUN!

Pretend cooking with REAL food is one of the boys favorite messy FUN activities! I blogged about this awhile back, but we enjoyed this great sensory activity this weekend inside with our guys:)

Monster play dough is another great activity for the boys! My 5 and 6 year old guys enjoy creating monsters out of our homemade play dough! I give the boys a mound of play dough, toothpicks, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, buttons, and sit back to watch them create!

I made these felt dress up Mr. Potato Heads for a long road trip last spring, but the boys enjoy playing with these at home too! I glued a solid piece of felt to cardboard and glued the face shape and googly eyes. They each have a bag full of clothes, hats, and facial features to dress up their own Mr. Potato head.

 Dinosaur swap involves some prep by Mom, but is loads of fun!!

Dinosaur swamp

Painting or drawing is always a winner with my creative little guys! 

My boys have such a blast dressing up as one of many superheroes, fireman, soldier, race car driver, Mario & Luigi, and wild animals! I hope the boys never tire of playing dress up! 

And then there is always the option to get outside and build an igloo!! 

How does your family have fun indoors on cold winter days?

Family Christmas card 2012

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Big decisions & Adoption changes

2 years... I can't believe we began our adoption journey 2 years ago! Back then we expected to have a sweet baby from Ethiopia in our arms and home by now. Out Lord is so gracious and has blessed us with a new baby in our home, our precious baby Samuel:)

Also can't believe that Samuel is almost 8 months old... they grow up so fast!

When we began our journey of adoption, our desire was to demonstrate God's love and adoption of us as we adopt a child and bring an orphan into our family. When we began the process, Ethiopia was one of the countries processing adoptions in quick and efficient manner. We decided to pursue an adoption there to bring a child into our home as quick as possible (knowing that adoption isn't quick). Since then, the process in Ethiopia has slowed down dramatically. We have had several twists and turns through our adoption journey (changes and longer wait times in Ethiopia, having to complete a new home study, immigration and fingerprints expiring) ... once again there is a new twist. We found out this week that our dossier has been in Ethiopia so long, it is actually expiring next month. This means that we would have to compile a brand new dossier (birth certificates, marriage license, medical letter, police records, too many notarized and state sealed forms to count!) The first time I put together our dossier, I took a break from homeschooling, and the process still took 3 months! Along with the paperwork, we were going to have to more fees to pay again. Needless to say we were a little overwhelmed by this news!

After prayer and many conversations with our wonderful Bethany Christian Services case worker, Josh and I decided to switch gears and pursue a domestic adoption. About a year and a half ago, we were made aware of the GREAT need for families open to adopting babies from different races... right here in Arkansas. We had just completed and sent our dossier to Ethiopia when we had a conversation about how we wished we had known about that need sooner. We talked about domestic adoption a couple times over the past year, and currently sense the Lord leading us down this path. We want to be good stewards of our time and finances; we feel that domestic adoption is the best route for us to adopt. We will begin working on the paperwork and process for domestic adoption in the next month.

Many of you have been supportive of our fund raising efforts over the past two years. Much of those funds are able to transfer over, and we do not have to pay the application fee or home study fee again. Unfortunately some grant money and a lot of the funds we raised have already been sent to Ethiopia or used in our home study/dossier process; we will not get those funds back. Thankfully two major grants from Show Hope and Lifesong will still apply and be able to help in the costly process. We have two-thirds of the funds needed, but still have funds we need to raise. We're excited to see the Lord's provision through this new process.

Thank you for praying for us throughout our journey, we ask you to continue to pray for us...

• Pray for our family as we navigate this new process of domestic adoption (learning more about birth mother and open adoption).
• Pray for God's timing of adding a new sweet baby to our family.
• Pray for God's protection over our child and the birth mother.
• Pray for Evan, Benjamin & Samuel's transition as they get a new baby brother/sister.
• Pray for God's provision of the last $5,000-$6,000 we need to complete this adoption.

Eating well on a budget... cheap meals;)

Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE to cook! I definitely live out my New Orleans heritage in the kitchen. I enjoy trying new recipes, tweaking recipes, and creating my own new concoctions.

As a minister's wife, our family has almost always been on a budget that limits extravagant meals. I have enjoyed cooking cost effective meals, cooking to freeze meals, and even teaching cooking classes to newly married students who are trying to live on the budget of a college student. However, you don't really learn something until your life requires that skill. Recently, with the addition of our third son, a move and job change, as well as saving for our adoption of a baby from Ethiopia, our budget has been quite tight. I have learned and created a few recipes that help feed my boys healthy options while not breaking the bank. 

potato bean soup

*Disclaimer: many of these recipes contain beans... they're hearty, healthy, and cheap!

Ham and beans... this is recipe takes all of 5 minutes to throw in a crock pot, and is great for using up leftover deli ham. I have used canned beans instead of dry beans, and just half the amount of water. Serve with corn bread for an incredible and easy meal!

Red beans and rice with a twist (thankful for Pinterest). It's actually really good without the lime. You might ask whether or not these recipes are kid friendly... my 4 year old has told me he would like to eat this red beans and rice everyday!! He loves it!

Potato bean soup is my own concoction. I used my Mom's standard potato soup recipe and tweaked it quite a bit.

Potatoes, green beans & ham is a super EASY crock pot recipe I found on Pinterest. It's a bag of frozen green beans, potatoes, ham (I use leftover ham from sandwiches), an onion, and chicken broth. Really that's it! I serve this with cornbread and enjoy!

Chicken tetrazinni is an easy kid friendly pasta recipe that can utilize leftover chicken, serve many, and freeze well.

Many of these recipes go great with a loaf of bread. Blog coming soon about my love for my bread machine... including a few great money saving dough recipes!

Cooking like Mommy!

When I was a little girl, my sister and I enjoyed pulling up chairs next to Mom while she cooked. We wanted to learn all of her incredible New Orleans recipes (crawfish etouffee, stuffed crabs, shrimp alfredo, seafood gumbo) as well as lick the beaters or spoon of anything sweet that was baking in our Louisiana kitchen. Even though we now live in Arkansas, I definitely carry out my New Orleans heritage in the kitchen! My boys love to help me in the kitchen when making bread, cakes and cookies! We also enjoy many picnics with their pretend food.

Recently I found an idea on Pinterest that combined the two activities... pretend cooking with real food! What an incredibly fun idea!!

I raided my pantry and spice cabinet and filled up a muffin pan with their "ingredients".

potatoes, pasta shapes, nuts, beans, rice, sesame seeds, rosemary, salt/sugar, oats, coffee beans

I also gave the boys a ball of flour & water for dough 

My little chefs hard at work!!

 The boys had fun measuring with measuring spoons, mixing and stirring up their own concoctions! 

The final result!!
I actually had to explain to them why we would not eat it... they begged to try it!!! 

Linking up with Let's Hear it For the Boys!!

My boys and their cool tricks!

As a mom of 3 boys, I hear this phrase very often... "Mom, watch this cool trick!!" 

Here are a few of our latest "tricks";)

Evan latest trick... climbing door frames!

My blue eyed babe is learning how to eat!

Samuel loves eating his avocado/banana combo in the mesh feeder

It's dinosaur week! Here's Ben's shirt to celebrate this week:)
Check out my Etsy shop for more cute shirts!

They boys enjoy playing cards with Daddy!
Ben's fav is UNO, Evan's fav is War.

The boys love to build massive Thomas the Train tracks...
our train table is too small to hold their masterpieces;)

Evan with one of his train track creations

My brave little swimmers are no longer scared of the water!!

Evan loves his new mask!

The boys favorite summer pastime is swimming!!!

Link up with other Moms of Boys with The M.O.B. Society!!

Our favorite afternoon snack

I am so thankful the Lord gave me a love and passion for cooking... because living in a house full of guys, we go through a LOT of food! Since my 4 and 6yr old boys can already eat more than me, I can't even imagine how much food they'll be able to consume in the teenage years?! I'm almost always looking for easy, healthy, and budget friendly recipes. I feel like we do pretty well in offering food from those categories at meal times, but snack times often get lost in the business.

Some of our favorite snacks are fruits and veggies... and most recently granola!! Here is my simple and easy recipe for granola.

Ingredients: 2 cups rolled oats

1 tsp cinnamon (I use a little more)

1 tsp salt (I use a little less)

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

3 TBSP plus 1 tsp oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

*You can also add nuts or berries, but I'm just going for simple and allergy free

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper (this is very important if you want to actually eat the granola and not just look at it stuck to the pan;)

In a large bowl, toss the oats with the cinnamon, salt, and flaxseed.

In small bowl, stir together the oil, honey, brown sugar & vanilla

Pour the honey mixture over the oats mixture and use your hands to combine. Gather up some of the mixture in each hand and make a fist... don't be afraid to get messy! 

Pour the mixture on the parchment lined baking sheet. Spread evenly, leaving a few clumps.

Bake 10 minutes, remove from oven to stir/flip granola. Return to oven for another 10 minutes. Allow to cool. Can store in airtight container for 1 week... however it won't last that long!

We will eat almost half of the pan right out of the oven! The boys love to eat it right out of the bowl, and I love it on my blueberry coconut yogurt:)