Shoes

 

From the time I was really small I have loved shoes.  My mom told me that when I got a new pair of shoes I loved them so much that I would want to hold them in my arms and sleep with them at night.  My folks were going through a very hard financial time when I was little.  My family lived in a 8' by 20' trailer and there were 4 kids.  They had bought a piece of land in Oregon but a recession occurred and my dad couldn't find steady work for several years.  Sometimes he had no money for gas and would walk to work.  He had to wire his shoes together to keep them from falling apart.  My mom just had a pair of flip flops (they called them thongs back then) that she wore until the soles were paper thin.  They sacrificed so greatly for their kids.  So when I got a pair of shoes it was a big deal.  My folks said that they were poor in material possessions but rich in love and faith.  Mom said that when she would get us all dressed up for church on Sunday morning and would look at us all ready to go in the panel wagon we had, she said she felt like she had 4 million dollars.  In a few years my dad got a job in a plywood mill that opened up and he was able to build a house on that land, in the evenings and weekends.  I never did have a lot of shoes through out my life and even less now that I am older.  I just want the comfortable ones.  lol  But I still love shoes.  My little girl doesn't have a lot of shoes either but I still love to go shopping for a pair when she needs them.  Yesterday I went down to her little dance studio and bought her a new pair of ballet slippers and a used pair of tap shoes.  She is so excited to start up her dance class.  She has had dancing feet since she was very small.  I will include a video of her dancing in her first pair of tap shoes back when she was 2 1/2.

 

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/r7cGN8zRSeQ   

Sour Dough Pizza Dough

Rich has been having our family unclutter.  We are going through all our things and just giving away a lot of stuff and it is very freeing.  We have gone through every room now and down sized.  Mary even went through her books and toys and gave a lot away.  She is such a little sweetheart with a generous heart.  She is so much like her dad in that way.   When I was clearing out our kitchen, I was going through all our cookbooks and I found a sourdough recipe I thought I had lost.  I had printed it up, laminated it and stuck in there with all our cookbooks and in all the clutter I couldn't find it.  So I was so happy to find it again and be able to share it.  When we first moved to Oregon in '05 I made some great pizza's with this recipe.  Rich has been making cheese and ham.  So the pizza in this pic is a pizza we made with sour dough crust, his ham and mozzarella cheese and a homemade tomato sauce he made from our garden tomatoes. 

Pizza Dough Recipe

2t or 1/2 package of yeast 

3c all-purpose flour  

1 t sugar  

1 t salt 

2T olive oil 

1 c water 

1 c sourdough starter 

Select dough mode on your bread machine 

Add ingredients in the order listed and push start. 

This makes two 9"pizzas.  Freeze them or top and bake at 475 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly and the crust is lightly browned 

Note: This dough only needs one rise.

I also want to include pictures of Mary's ballet class.  We just got the disc of pictures that her dance studio took.  Mary's class is just so cute!  She is going to be taking a tap dancing class this fall and is very excited to be doing that.  I think she will really enjoy it as that little girl has great rhythm and loves to move.

 

Zucchini Banana Bread

 As you can see our zucchini squash vine is giving us lots of beautiful fruit.  I went out last night and there were these huge ones hanging on the vine.  So I found this recipe on line and added a few things to make it mine.  I baked it this morning while Rich and Mary were still snoozing.  It was raining really hard outside this morning so it was dark and that wonderful cinnamon spice and bread baking in the oven made it so warm and cozy.  We had the muffins for breakfast with big glasses of cold milk. The bread freezes well so if you make a big batch you can save it in the freezer for later.  I think we will get this eaten before I get a chance to freeze it but I plan on grating up those puppies in the background and freeze some for use in bread this winter. 

Banana Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

4 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)

1/4 sourdough starter

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup ground flax seed

1- 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 -1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1-1/2 ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 cups shredded unpeeled zucchini

1 cup mixed dried fruit or pecans

Directions

In a bowl, beat eggs.  Blend in sugar and oil.  Add bananas and mix well.  Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; stir into egg mixture.  Stir in zucchini and pecans just until combined.

Pour into two greased 9-in.x5-in. loaf pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes.  Remove from pans to wire racks to cool completely.  Yield: 2 loaves

School Days are Coming!

We are having fun getting Mary's school room ready for this coming year.  She will start 2nd grade in September.  We took the double bed out of the room and put the futon that she had been sleeping on in the school room and the big bed in her room.  She was very excited to do this and so was I.  We can still use the school room as a guest room but we have a much better use of the space now.  We have been sitting on the futon and reading books.  Mac has his perch on the back of the futon with all the other wild animals.  Last night Mary drew a picture of Mac.  She put him in a red t-shirt and blue pants.  We are changing her bulletin board from a spring theme to a beach scene and she wants to put Mackie on the beach. 

 

 

Oh Happy Day

Family devotions time was a blessing this morning.  Every Sunday morning now we have devotions and we all share together.  Mary picked the Bible story she wanted Rich to read.  She said she picked it because it has actual scriptures in it and not just a story.  The story was about the time of the prophet Isaiah and his words to the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the Lord's protection for them.  Reading the passages in Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah made us think of the Hallelujah Chorus in the Handle's Messiah.  So we played that and chills always come as we think of the Lord's return and what it means.  Mary loves this song and has me play it over and over at Christmas time.  She says at the end of it, "Now, that's music!  Huh, mom?"  After we soaked in that song it made us think of the song, "Oh Happy Day"  that our brother, Todd suggested last week for us to listen to when he heard the "Swing Lo Sweet Chariot" song by the Plantation singers.  We found the 17th century hymn it was taken from, played with a pipe organ and we sang that and then we got our toes to tapping and listened to the 1967 gospel version by the Edwin Hawkins singers.  Even though Todd is not here with us right now, we thought of him with this song and of his wonderful testimony of the day Christ washed his sins away and he became a follower of Christ.  We all rejoiced together in our freedom.  We love these family times and always end with so much hope and encouragement.  Mary loves participating through out the devotion and praying together at the end.  Here are the links to the 3 songs we listened to today.

  

Here is the link for the Hallelujah Chorus: http://youtu.be/FoqxYqTNKmU



Here is the link for the Happy Day hymn: http://youtu.be/d5CMvW1FJUs



Here is the link for the Happy Day, Edwin Hawkins singers: http://youtu.be/muVLPlgMGPY

Swing Low Sweet Chariot

A few months back I found this children's Bible at a local thrift store.  I was thrilled because it was just like the children's Bible my brother and I got for Christmas one year.  Do you remember this Ben?  Anyway I have been reading to Mary out of it and she has been really enjoying it.  It has some great illustrations that she likes looking at while I read the story.  For the month of July our internet Bible study fellowship out of Texas took a break and we decided to have our own family time of reading the Bible, singing and prayer.  This Sunday was the first time and it was so great!  We plan on doing this now rather than the internet Bible Study.  Our friend, Todd in Bakersfield inspired us.  We read Mary the story of Elijah being caught up.  We pulled up some Swing Low Sweet Chariot songs on You Tube.  We landed on the Plantation singers and we sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot several times and Mary was having a blast clapping her hands and dancing.  She got caught up!  lol  That little girl loves music and loves to dance.  I also played the Plantation singers singing, "This Little Light of Mine."  I have included the videos and the links to them.  The lady on the far right just made me smile so much.  Her joy blessed me.  I read up on the author of Swing Low Sweet Chariot.  It was written by a freedman who had been a slave of the Choctaw Nation people in Oklahoma.  Singing the song brought tears to my eyes as I thought of how the slaves had nothing and had many hardships but the ones that knew the Lord had their hope laid in heaven where they would be free.
  

Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/ljup8cIRzIk

Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/OuUky4cE3cc

Silly Rabbit Carrots are for Kids!

We dug a big carrot this morning! It was great in a salad shredded with chopped cherry tomatoes, bell pepper, cucumber, green onions and zucchini all from our garden. A little Cesar dressing and it was delicious!

Swimming

For the last 3 weeks we have been giving Mary swimming lessons at the Jackson Pool.  The Park and Recreation Department here have a pretty good summer program that is reasonable, so we gave it a whirl.  Mary really liked the idea of swimming but struggles with getting her face wet.  She got to the point of dunking her whole head under water by herself by the beginning of the 3rd week.  She also doesn't like jumping off the side to the instructor, I think it is connected to getting her head under water.  She has jumped off her slide at home on her swing set many times, so I don't think it was the distance.  She did really well with her stokes.  They had them use a floatable dumbbell deal that they used to have them kick and then make the arm strokes but still go back to holding the float all the way across the pool.  Mary's stoke was the best of all the kids in her class.  She has pretty good speed as her legs are long and so are her arms.  We are going to be working with her by going to the free swims on the weekends for the rest of the summer.  She seems to be better with us and we both went to her lessons so we have a pretty good idea what to work on.  She has learned a lot in the last 3 weeks!

Monday's Child

 

My mom was born Monday, July 15, 1929.  This Tuesday would have been her 85 birthday.  In honor of her birthday I would like to share her birth story.  She was born at home in a farm house in Nebraska.  She was the youngest of 9 children and a 5 year tag along at that.  So her dad was 45 and her mom was 41.  Grandma and Grandpa had a doctor come to the home to help with the birth.  Grandma had very big babies as she had gestational diabetes but they didn't diagnose her as diabetic until my mom was about 6 years old.  Any way mom was 10 lbs and had broad shoulders so when Grandma began to give birth to her, mom shoulders got stuck and she couldn't be born.  So the doctor had to pull very hard on mom's head to get her free.  In the process the doctor thought that he had broken mom's neck and he just laid her aside and began to tend to Grandma as she was bleeding pretty bad.  Then he looked over and saw that mom was blue and he was so happy because that was a sign that she was alive.  So he quickly picked her up, gave her a spank and she began to cry!  Grandma was a believer and knew that God had protected mom that day and she did not die.  When Grandma was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes she was very sick and the doctors told her that she needed to take insulin or she would not live very long.  As Grandma's practice was, she prayed to the Lord and asked Him what to do.  She asked God to save her life not just for herself but for her children, especially mom as she was so very young.  Grandpa had a bad habit with medication that if a little bit was good a whole bunch was better, so she had a concern that he would give her too much insulin.  So as she waited the Lord told her if she would take precautions with her diet and stay away from sugar and eat healthy that he would keep her from dying until mom was raised.  Grandma was also concerned for mom's spiritual life.  She didn't fear that Grandpa wouldn't take her to church for he was quite religious, but she knew that Grandpa did not have a close personal relationship with the Lord.  She wanted to impart a life of faith to mom and following the Lord's words and loving the truth of the scriptures.  As mom got older Grandma spent time telling mom of the stories of her life of faith and what it meant to serve God with all your heart and trust in Him no matter what.  Grandma had several brushes with death but God always brought her through until mom reached her 19th year and had lived a year on her own at Bible School.  Grandma died but mom had been discipled by her and knew what it meant to do what was right and trust the Lord.  She felt a great loss in the death of her mother but her faith was strong and it helped her in many difficult times in her life.  One of the those times was when her first grandbaby was being born.  Her daughter, my sister, was having a home birth and the baby was coming breech and got stuck early on and could not be born.  So she ended up going to the hospital and having the baby cesarian.  The nurses told my sister that when the doctor reached in to get the baby, she had the umbilical chord wrapped around her neck and a natural birth could of killed her.  During the whole birthing process my mom and my dad were praying with  earnestness and faith that God would save their daughter and grandbaby's life and He did.  One interesting thing was that the baby was born on a Monday too and she had a dimple on her chin just like her grandma.  Now this grandbaby grew up and she has two boys both born on Mondays and dimples in their chins.  Pretty cool!    

Blue Gill Fishing

There is a lovely little fishing pond about 5 minutes from our house.  We went there this morning and it was just glorious.  Mary caught her first fish and she was so excited.  She caught about 6 Blue Gill.  They were all small so we released most of them and then kept a few for bait for catfish when we go to a bigger lake.  This little lake is perfect for kids.  There were geese and ducks swimming on the water and pretty wild flowers on the path.  We are very thankful for a fun morning of fishing!