Thrifty Threads

Hi all. Angela was kind enough to post an outfit of mine on Thrifty Threads again. She is sooooooo nice. I love her blog and am honored to be included again. Please check her blog out. It is called My Year Without Spending (and yes, she did not spend on anything except pretty much food for a whole year!)

I Heart Reading

Two more book reviews. Both of these are all about parenting daughters. As I said, my reading tends to have a theme. I am like a serial monogamist reader.



James Dobson- Bringing Up Girls

I really liked this book. Actually, I think this book would be excellent for fathers to read. The role of a father (or positive male mentor) in a girls life is heavily accentuated. My husband doesn't really enjoy reading and most of his reading involves manuals for work but I was able to tell him a lot about what I read. Sometimes I think dads don't realize how important they are to little girls because they figure that their little sweetie is always going to run to mommy with all of her girl problems. The key is the modeling a man does in his daughter's life. Because how a daddy acts, often dictates what a girl expects in a future mate.



Vicki Courtney- 5 Conversations You Must Have With Your Daughter

I like this book as well. Ms. Courtney has a wonderful way with telling you like it is without sounding preachy. Using examples from her own life (less than perfect which helped me connect) she tells you some of the most important issues you will have to face with your girls. I know it is early for me to be worrying about some of this stuff, but I just don't think you can be too prepared!

Ok. So my book reviews aren't terribly long or descriptive. I just kind of say why I liked it or didn't. I will never be hired to review books for the paper I guess. Sigh....

Move over Elmer's...we've got something better

Miss Z and I made homemade glue this weekend. It was really fun. By the way, you will notice that Miss Z is wearing glasses. These are not necessary to help her see, but she wears them most of the time when she is at home because you need glasses when you are doing important or smart things (according to her).

This is what the glue looks like when it is done.

I can't figure out where I got this recipe. So fellow blogger out there in blog world, I apologize. But here is how it works:

Homemade Glue Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup boiling water
3 tablespoons white flour
4 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon sugar

Instructions
1. Put boiling water in a pot.

2. Mix flour and cold water well. Use a whisk to get rid of any clumps.

3. Slowly pour the flour mixture into the hot water, mixing the whole time.

4. Turn on fire under the pot and heat until mixture thickens. Mix constantly. This should take only a minute or two. (When I did this part, I never had to turn on the burner again. It thickened up without additional heat)

5. Once thick, turn off fire and mix in sugar.

6. Transfer to a container for storage, and then put in the refrigerator.

7. Once cool, use as you would any other glue.

Here is how the kiddies used some of the glue:

It is Noah's ark. With a pirate flag. Perhaps not doctrinally correct, but hey, at least they are pretending Bible stuff. :)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Cleaned out email! I know this seems like no big deal, but I am down to 40 emails in my box. I feel like I purged my closet or something.

Roses as big as yo head

Above you see a picture of some roses from my backyard. I have this one bush that produces noggin sized blooms.



See child....compare rose...noggin and rose are approximate in size.


Here is also a link to my old blog that cracks me up. You should look it over if you have a quirky sense of humor.

Random Roundup

have fun!

FARMERY BLISS

Here is the haul I got at the farmer's market this weekend. While I did not technically buy EVERYTHING produce at the farmer's market (the fam eats a lot of bananas and they don't sell those up to the farmer's market) I bought most. So far everything has been delicious. I have never tasted such flavorful cucumbers as the ones pictured here. MMMMMMMM good. And the pan chocolate was about the best I have ever had (and my husband is French, so that is saying something).

This is cheeseburger soup. I saw something like this on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on food network. My version includes an entire block of Velveeta, chicken stock made from leftover ramen noodle seasoning packets, chopped farmer's market tomatoes, ground turkey, onion and iceberg lettuce shreds stirred in at the table...oh, and milk. This made a crap ton of soup. We ate it for dinner, lunch and dinner the next day and dinner again last night. But it was super yummy!

Let's check something off the list...

My man deserves his props. He is a wonderful husband and father. Here are the top 20 things (in absolutely no particular order) I love about him. To be fair, it is actually the 20 things I just thought of and then stopped.

20 favorite things

1. He handles the dishes
2. He accepts me just as I am and knows the real me more than anyone
3. He thinks I am pretty and tells me so
4. He is affectionate
5. He loves his kids
6. He is fair
7. He is handsome
8. He makes my stomach jump when I watch him play guitar
9. He is a super hard worker
10. He loves to laugh
11. He lets me drive on long trips because I hate riding
12. He loves God
13. He doesn’t judge me (too much) when I go whole hog on something to the point of obsession and then a couple of weeks later get bored of it
14. He likes to spend time with me
15. He is loyal
16. Family comes first in his life
17. He eats almost anything without complaint
18. He is a dork, so I can be a dork too
19. He gives me time to myself to recharge
20. He is happy to be a monster or a patient or whatever else little guys need him to be for the purposes of pretend play

I LOVE THAT GUY!