Solomon Homestead

Thursday Survey

Thought I would try to start a new thing. Every Thursday I will post this little survey.  

Outside my window: Crepe Myrtle in full bloom swaying in the breeze

I am thinking : about getting a part time job

From the kitchen: just had supper...corndogs and a BIG salad

In the garden: weeded between my rows of corn, brussel sprouts, peppers, tomatoes and green beans

I am reading: "Do Hard Things" by Alex & Brett Harris

I am hearing: my oldest son practicing his guitar

Around the house: need to clean off table and do evening dishes, round up kiddos from outside and give them baths

I am looking forward to: Mon. evening starting VBS down at the state park campground with our youth department...FUN!!

One of my favorite things (blessing for the day) : smiles on my children's dirty, little popcicle stained faces ;) 

Spiderweb

Here is a spider that was hanging in her web out our window yesterday morning. We awoke to fog, it was covering her web. She is in the middle. 

Blackberries

Oh the work that goes into making a delicious cobbler :) Today the little ones and I headed out to our berry patch, well not ours the Lord planted it for us across the fence. Over the fence and through the woods.....to grandmother's house we go LOL....not really. I had clipped a path through the high weeds and wild roses to get to the big juicy berries before the critters get them all.

Through all the thorns, mosquitos and hot and sunny 90 degree weather we managed to pick a basket of them. We brought them back in, washed them off and made a cobbler. I have included the photos below of my little helpers. Their hard work paid off LOL.

Our basket

Cooking the berries with sugar, cornstarch, water and lemon juice

Dropping on the batter

Out of the oven

Into the bowl with a scoop of whip cream melting on it.

Can ya name it?

Hello. I have posted some pics from my garden and yard. Can you guess what they are? Some are very easy others are not. I think you southern gals shouldn't have a problem :) Have fun!

New Orleans mission trip

My oldest ds leaves out Sunday for New Orleans along with his youth group from our church. This is something Missionlab sponsors. You can check out www.missionlab.com to see some videos of previous trips this yeer from other churches. It is called Rebirth 2008.

I am praying my son will have an awesome God experience. I thank the Lord he provided my teen with this opportunity, he was given a full scholarship. They will be building back homes, leading VBS for the inner city kids ages 15-17, witnessing on the streets, visiting nursing homes, having a prayer walk and a block party plus their own evening worship and Bible time back at the seminary.  

I am a bit nervous as this is the farthest he has ever been for me and he will be gone for a whole week!!! If you are reading this, please take the time to pray for this trip, pray for our teens, leaders and for me :) Thank you.

Here is a picture of the Taco Crescent Bake from the Menu4Moms that I have over on the right. It was a very good dish and will be making it again. Hope everyone had a safe and fun 4th.

More of our flowers

From the garden to the table. I am enjoying this wildflower mixture so much! Thank you God for your beautiful gifts.

June

What I love about June:

• Sound of Cicadas in the trees 
• BBQs
• Swimming
• Mimosas in full bloom...smell so wonderful
• Digging new potatoes
• Black Eyed Susans and Queen Ann's Lace in the fields
• The smell of fresh cut hay
• Vacation Bible School
• Sound of lawn mowers
• Sun tea
• Floatin the river
• Picking Mullberries
• Catching Lightning bugs
• Crawdads in the creek

Flowers and herbs

Clematis

Flower Box

Herbs

Wildflowers starting to open

Mulberries from our tree

Garden pictures

Here are some pics. of our garden. Dd4 loves picking peas and ds 8 enjoys diggin onions. We are eating lettuce, peas, and strawberries from it. The corn is up. Tomatoes and peppers are blooming. Squash is soon to bloom. Green beans and carrots are up too. Everything is growing well. The cauliflower and brusselsprouts are getting bigger. Had a neighbor's duck and chicken get into them earlier and ate 4 plants. Hopefully potatoes will be blooming in June.

We had a nice Mem. day weekend. A cookout at my folk's with my aunts, uncles and cousins with their wives and babies. We had our own little cookout here yesterday. Grilled burgers and steaks. Lettuce from the garden. Mulberries off the tree for dessert. Baked beans and corn on the cob...YUMMY.  It has been warm. Raining off and on. We have got some fishing in but didn't catch any. Been in the garden and lazin around the yard.  

Rainbow of Spring

 Some colors I found around the yard.

Our first tulip. Ds planted these back in the fall.

New rose leaves

Lettuce growing in my garden

Peas growing in my garden 

been awhile

Ok so here I go...haven't been on here in awhile. We have been very busy. Had ds 8th b-day on the 19. Then there was Easter. I made dinner here and we had our oldest son's youth leader over. He is only 18 but is such a God send for our son. So very strong in the word and on fire for Jesus!!

We are still recieving rain. Had it several days ago and put this area over the flood stage. Several of my friends have either damage or lost homes and businesses. This rain isn't helping any. Please keep them in your prayers.

Made blueberry muffins for breakfast. The recipe is from a dear friend of mine. If you would like it I will share it with you, just ask.

Adding in the berries

Pouring batter into muffin tin 

Here they are all finished...YUM!

More snow

We received snow on Tuesday. We took the kids sledding for the first time. They loved it. All the snow was gone on Wednesday. Oldest ds went to his first guitar tryout for the church youth band. They loved him! He will be playing lead guitar on Wednesday nights for the worship team.

It snowed all night last night. We woke to about 7 inches. It is a very wet snow. The roads are a little slushy but the snow is beautiful. Kids can't wait to get out in it again. I think this may be the last snow for the season. 3 snows is enough for us down here :)

Have a blessed weekend ya'll!  

Monday's Menu

It is pouring down rain here all day today. It was a good day to get school done and take a nap :)

Breakfast: Oatmeal bars, apple and banana slices drizzled with maple syrup.

Snack: carrots, broccoli and ranch dip, cheese slices and grapes.

Lunch: Pinto beans and cornbread

Snack: Hot cocoa

Dinner: Chicken pot pie and salad

Life this past week

I attended church Sunday with oldest ds. Dh stayed home with the younger two, just to make sure they stay healthy one more week. I had a meeting after service to attend. He came and picked up our oldest son.  I sat in on our 4th grade ss class. Dh and I will start teaching again this Sunday.   

Seems more and more meetings and activities, parties, classes and such are starting to pop into our schedule. I don't know about ya'll but this tends to make me tense and stressed. I know I am serving the Lord so trying to keep that my main focus.

I have now come to realize that I can't teach my dc everything I "planned" on in the beginning of the school year. I am TRYING...which is soooo hard for me, to be more relaxed. Letting my ds8 choose his topics for the day. He comes up with the most amazing questions around the dinner table, so I quick jot them down then we search for the answers online. Some this week were: How are drinking glasses made, what year did Disneyland first open (both of these came from the Disney glass he was drinking from), how does an earthquake happen, how does the earth rotate. I have to be careful with him cause I could easily take one of these topics and turn it into an entire unit study!! LOL.  He just wants a quick, simple answer with maybe a few pictures :)      

Oldest ds's finger is completely healed. Praise the Lord! He is excited to be back in church with all of his friends. His Sunday evening small group has started back up again and he loves it.  Luckily the house isn't far from ours where he attends so dh cna drop him of and pick him up.

I will post our weekly menu when I get time to get it all together LOL.

Have a blessed evening all.

Ice...again

Today we woke up to ice, again. Dh has to drive in it, as he is a mail carrier. I spent the morning in prayer as there were times when it was pouring down ice. We then had some snow, sleet and freezing rain. Thank the Lord, dh was safe and made it home ok. We are suppossed to get alot more tonight, so tomorrow maybe more dangerous than today...sigh....

Ds 12 finger is healing. There is still a black line in it, not sure what that is. I am thinking it is a bruise. 

Got my garden started on Monday. Planted sweet peas, spinach, lettuce, potatoes, garlic and oninons. So excited. I have a ton more to plant as it gets warmer. I hope I am able to put up a bunch this fall. I have never canned before and am looking forward to it. 

Haven't ordered chickens yet. Need to get a coop built first. We will wait till it is warmer and when Dh gets the time to put together a coop. Need to find some blueprints for one as my guys are not builders. 

Ds 12 sold all of his video game consoles and games to pay for the cell phone bill. We were glad he was able to sell them. I pray he has learned his lesson.

With spring around the corner, our busy schedules start up again. Music lessons, sports, sunday school teaching and other church events, homeschool co-op field trips and events. ***sigh*** I love staying busy but would much rather just stay busy here on the homestead. I know though that when the Lord calls us we must go. So I will go and be the thankful, joyful, blessed servant He has called me to be. 

Terrible parenting, disobedience and God's grace

Today was one of those days. Started out great. Dh brought home roses for me and candies and stuffed animals for the dc. Then when he opened the mail...... all I can say is NEVER give a 12 yr. a cell phone! Last month's bill just the 12 yr olds was $95!  After telling him he can no longer download games or music on it, to only use it for phone calls we get this months bill, his alone was $140!!!!!!!!

Thank the Lord we have our income tax and are able to cover it.....not what we wanted or needed to spend the mony on though!! Can't even explain the furiousity (not sure that's a word) from dh and I, so very angry. My children just seem to think they can do as they please and no harm will be done. We have told them time and time again when you disobey mom and dad you are stepping out of the Lord's protection and bad things are bound to happen.  Now we are trying to figure out how much work and where even to get work so our 12 yr. old can pay us for this bill. Needless to say he has lost the cell phone for good!

Another act of disobedience caused more harm this evening. Dh had gone off to his college class. I was online looking for chickens to purchase and also looking for garden plans for my area, before I had to start supper. My boys were out playing with the neighbor boy. I told them to make sure you stay in the yard. Next thing I know my oldest comes in saying he cut his finger while playing tag. He said it was on a rusty edge of a burn barrel. We have one of these on our lot so I just figured it was that one. Ok on to taking care of the cut. Well it was deep, jagged edge and had tons of black and rust in it. We ran it under water, soaked it in salt water but still wasn't coming clean. Checked his immunization record of course he isn't up to date on tetanus. Luckily my dh was able to leave class and take him to the er. They needed to clean it and give him his shot. I am horrible when it comes to the sight of blood and such. I got weak when he showed me the cut.

Again all of this due to disobedience. Come to find out the barrel that he cut it on wasn't on our property it was on another lot, one the dc know they are not suppossed to be on. Ds 7 showed me where it was.

Am I failing as a parent? Why do my children not listen to me, why do they continue to disobey? The disobedience has been a very high price to pay this past month and it is taklng a toll on me. What am I to do??

I thank the Lord for his grace through all of this. The money is there to pay the bill, the cut could have been much worse and I thank him for blessing me with such a wonderful, calm husband!!

Some of our menus

Breakfasts:

• Malt o meal
• Blueberry bread
• Farm fresh eggs and bacon
• Oatmeal with dates, raisins and walnuts
• Banana strawberry smoothies
• Yogurt topped with homemade granola
• Baked oatmeal 

All of the above are served with either milk or juice, de-caf coffee for myself and some type of fresh fruit.

Lunches:

• red beans and rice
• beef gorditas
• egg salad sandwiches
• beef and bean tacos
• sloppy joes
• chicken nachos
• baked potato soup

These are served with a vegetable or salad. Usually lunch on Fridays are leftovers.

Suppers:

• Crock pot chicken and gravy
• croc pot mac and cheese
• salsa lentils
• stromboli
• croc pot sweet and sour chicken
• broiled salmon
• tuna noodle casserole
• croc pot enchiladas

These are served with a vegetable and salad and a type of bread usually homemade wheat bread or dinner rolls or cornbread. Some dishes are served over rice like the salmon, chicken and gravy,  sweet and sour chicken and the lentils.

Ice

We woke up to ice hanging on everything this morning. Thank the Lord the roads weren't covered. Dh made it to work and back safely.

Over the weekend we went garden shopping. We all took turns turning our garden patch over, great exercise :) It was so warm this past weekend. Here is what I purchased.

Seeds: Peas (bush), grean beans (bush), carrots, broccoli, yellow squash, several kinds of lettuce, spinach, sweet corn, chives, jalapeno peppers, and sweet peppers.

Roots or Bulbs:  I also bought Mary Washington asparagus, red seed potatoes, red onions and garlic.

Baking yesterday consisted of half whole wheat half white bread, blueberry bread, homemade BBQ sauce (Crystal's) and made a big batch of spaghetti for supper and froze half for another time.  

Tornado 2/5/08

There was an f3 tornado hit the next town over from us. 8 miles away Tuesday evening. We heard the tornado siren and off we went in to town for shelter as we live in a mobile home. We actually watched the tornado on the horizon, not knowing it was the tornado just thought it was a big wall cloud. The sky was green and there were black clouds hanging down. So eery looking.  We were listening to it all unfold on the police radio. So sickening listening to it. Then came all the sirens.... police, rescue, firetrucks, ambulances from every direction all headed toward the same place. 

Not knowing what we were going home to we were a little nervous as we had tried to reach neighbors but all cell phone lines were blocked and towers were down. Thank the Lord we only had heavy rain, our yard was flooded but no damage.

Several tornados blasted through Arkansas that evening into Tennessee. Only had one fatality in the one near us. So many people lost everything. Not many of these people are above the poverty level either. We drove through today....it was beyond words. I have seen alot of tornados in my life but no damage like this...I couldn't believe it. It ws heart breaking. The power company is still out there trying to get trees off the power lines and putting poles back up to restore power. They say it may take another 4 days. Clean up can't start until then as there are trucks blocking the roads...workers everywhere.

Red cross is stationed in a couple places in the disaster area as well as many insurnace companies. People have been put up in area hotels and resorts. Most have no homes to go back too.

God bless these people!!!

First snow!!

We had our first snow Thursday through Friday. We got 8 inches total. The dc had fun pulling each other in the sled, as we have no hills around here :) and the youngest 2 built a snowman. There are a few patches that are still snow covered but most has melted. The highs are to be in the upper 50's this week with rain so it will be a muddy mess.

Our garden planning is on way. Getting ready to purchase some heirloom seeds. Maybe a few fruit bushes and asparagus. Will be moving our garden to a different spot. Dc will be losing alot of the front yard but we feel it necessary. Our old spot will be turned into an herb garden. I did plant some bulbs in some of it last fall.

I know this warm weather will be giving me garden fever! Will post what we end up purchasing. I am very excited and hopeful, expecting a bountifull garden this year! :)