Happy New Year!!

Do you know who holds your tomorrow?

Life is characterized by uncertainty.

When our family started 2009, we had no idea what this year would hold for us.

I'm so glad we don't know what is in our future.

If I had known when I was married that my second child would be diagnosed after nearly

9 years of her life with an incurable disease, I don't know how I would've handled that information.

If I had known when I started homeschooling my children 7 years ago that two of my child

would be diagnosed as ADHD, I don't know what decisions we would've made.

If I had known on January 1, 2009 that I was going to receive all of these diagnoses in the coming year, I'm sure I would've had a nervous breakdown.

But what I do know, is that I have a living Savior, and He's in the world today.

"I know that He is living whatever men may say.

I see His hand of mercy,

I hear His voice of cheer,

and just the time I need Him,

He's always near.

He lives!!

He lives!

Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me, and talks with me,

along life's narrow way.

He lives!

He lives!

Salvation to impart.

You ask me how I know He lives?

He lives within my heart!!"

I don't know what my future may hold,

but I know Who holds my future.

I'm so thankful that whatever 2010 may bring, my dear and precious Savior

won't let pass through His fingers to me what He doesn't have planned.

Whatever that may be, I know He'll go with me through it,

and guide me through it,

and bring me through it.

I serve a good and loving and all-wise God.

Our country has changed so much even in the last decade.

And more change is coming.

It is my personal opinion that our omnipotent God is setting the world stage for the most

dramatic and wide sweeping change the world has ever seen.

I am so glad that I have the freedom still to read my Bible, and I've read it cover to cover,

and I know how it all ends. God has already told us the things to watch for, and He's already

told us what to expect, and He's already told us where we're headed.

Are you ready?

I am.

I don't even have to worry about all these scary things that are changing in our healthcare,

and the middle east, and social security, and in the freedoms that our country was set-up for.

God knows all about that stuff.

That's just secondary to His plan.

I enjoy reminiscing through the following piece of music. It has some amazing clips. It's amazing to realize that I remember so many of them. When some of those events happened, they took us by surprise, and even frightened us.

I remember.

This year I turn 40.

What????

40?

I distinctly remember my 11th birthday.

My oldest daughter had her 11th birthday a year-and-a half ago.

Life is a vapor.

Those frightening things that happened are nothing compared to the frightening

things that will happen to fulfill God's plan for this old world He created.

But because I know Him, and because I know His plan,

I'm not afraid.

I can sleep peacefully at night.

I hope that on this night you can too.

God loves you.

He loves me.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only

begotten Son (Jesus), that whosoever (insert your name here)

believes in Him,

should not perish,

but have everlasting life." John 3:16

I would love to tell you more about how you can have peace about your future.

I'll email you or call you or come see you (if I can).

Just ask me about it.

I personally know Who has the answer.

Happy New Year.

Images of Christmas 2009

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Have a lovely, peaceful, merry Christmas....

More fun homemade Christmas gift ideas

If you've never clicked on "The Executive Homemaker" icon over there in my right-hand sidebar, you really need to. This lady has put together some of the cutest and BEST ideas for managing your home and all the details of having little children in the house. I just loved her article with 24 different easy Christmas gift ideas for teachers, friends, etc. Here are just a couple samples:

2 liter of Sprite: “May your holiday be merry and “sprite!”

Whoppers: Hope you have a “WHOPPER” of a Christmas!

I really think you'll enjoy perusing through all the fun ideas and maybe glean something you can use for yourself sometime. You should also take a minute just to look through all the amazing things she has on her website anyway. Definitely for the "organizationally challenged"!!!

Click HERE!!

Christmas gifts.....DONE!!!

It had taken us a little bit of time every day last week,

with a ruptured hot water heater emergency thrown in to boot, to finally reach the day before we needed to have everything

ready for the big giveaways!!

Here's how we packaged everything up:

We put our chocolate covered pretzels in these cute little cellophane bags.

Wilton does actually have bags specifically made for packing pretzels like this, but I thought these were much more festive.....and cost effective!!!

We formed this sort of assembly line, and I gave each of the children their gift bags to label and load up.

Each of their friends received a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, a jar of Christmas M & M's, and 2 Ritz Cracker Candies.

Oh, yes. We tossed in a Christmas pencil in each bag too!!

Very Yummy!!!

Very Fun!!!

But I'm so glad that it is DONE!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas gifts......Day 5

I was in a bit of a quandry of what to do to thank all of the lovely people who minister to my children each week at our church. In the past, I would make containers of cookies and other goodies, and it was really no big deal. But now, I have 6 children, and now, we are attending an amazing church where the people love children and so many are involved in teaching and training our children. Now, each of my children have at least 2 adults working in their class, and one of them has FOUR. Multiply that by 6 and that's a LOT.

A LOT of work.

In a tiny house, with 12 eager hands and lots of sweet tooths (is that a word?)

So this year, I decided to make a couple huge 'ol batches of this:

Chex Muddy Buddies

(This also goes by names such as "Puppy Chow" or "Monkey Munch" as heard on the TLC reality show, "Jon & Kate Plus 8)

If you have never tried this, my friend, you have truely missed out on one of life's GREATEST

pleasures!!

9	cups Corn Chex®, Rice Chex®, Wheat Chex® or Chocolate Chex® cereal (or combination)
1	cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2	cup peanut butter
1/4	cup butter or margarine
1	teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2	cups powdered sugar

Substitution

Peanut butter and chocolate are a favorite flavor combo, but peanut butter lovers can substitute peanut butter chips for the chocolate chips to intensify that flavor.

Special Touch

Need clever gift wrapping ideas for this 15-minute recipe? Check out Mix & Mingle with Chex® Party Mix.

1.	Into large bowl, measure cereal; set aside.
2.	In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.
3.	Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): No change.

1 Serving: Calories 220 (Calories from Fat 80); Total Fat 9g (Saturated Fat 4g, Trans Fat 0g);Cholesterol 5mg; Sodium 200mg; Total Carbohydrate 30g (Dietary Fiber 1g, Sugars 17g); Protein 3g % Daily Value*: Vitamin A 6%; Vitamin C 2%; Calcium 6%; Iron 25% Exchanges: 1 Starch; 1 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Vegetable; 1 1/2 Fat Carbohydrate Choices: 2 MyPyramid Servings: 1 tsp Fats & Oils
*% Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

I put lots of this mix into a container along with a few buckeyes, and VOILA!!! Done. We made up 19 of the 2lb. holiday containers to give to teachers, and family friends!!!

Christmas gifts.....Day 4

On our fourth day of making Christmas gifts, we were railroaded in the middle of the project by

a bit of a domestic emergency. Our hot water heater decided it had had enough

and gave up the ghost. From lovely Christmas activities, I was immediately thrust into the hectic job of quickly removing items from a flooding floor, finding a place to put it all,

soaking up all the water, deciding how we were going to replace this important household appliance, shopping for it, cleaning up, watching the plumber install the new one, etc.

So this "quick" little gift ended up dragging on longer than I had wanted, but we did enjoy

putting them together once it was all done.

Christmas Treat Jars

This easy little gift came to me many months ago when I was still in the middle of feeding

an infant. I just couldn't find it within me to throw away all of these perfectly good

baby food jars. So I would wash them up, and store them away. Pretty soon I had like 50 of these jars taking up much needed space and no idea what to do with all of them.

I came up with this idea and this is the second Christmas we have given these

as little gifts.

I make sure to get all the food residue out of the jar and off the lid......gross!

It took awhile to figure out how to clean the sticky, gluey junk that is used as the adhesive for the jar label. I had under my sink a bottle of this stinky stuff called "Goof Off", and let me tell you, it works wonders. Took that sticky mess right off. I was about as high as a kite after using it, but I was happy that I had nice clean, clear jars afterward.

I had purchased a yard and a half of the fabric at Wal-Mart (which was way too much), and decided that the lid to our

oatmeal container would be about the right size.

Ashlyn did a lot of the tracing, and all the girls took turns at using pinking shears to cut out the circles. Abby helped me cut and count the ribbon.

To assemble these little treats, I filled the jars first and tightened the lid down, put a dab of hot glue on the jar lid, placed the fabric circle on top, and had one of the girls hold the fabric down while I tied the ribbon on. It took two people to tie the ribbons on, but we were pleased with the results!!!

This year we put together 28 jars!!!

We still have some left over for next year too!!