Courageous Joy

A Blessed Day

This was one of those rare days where we had NOTHING on the calendar. Josiah didn’t even have to work. What a joy!!!

We did school (though we didn’t get to the Orphan Train book until bedtime).

The littles set up “Cool World Park” in the younger boys’ room. They came running in with tickets. It’s always fun to see their imaginations at work. I’ll share more with the pictures…if the pictures will upload.

I’ve taken THREE different pictures of Arielle’s squares and blogger won’t accept any of them. I wonder WHY?

I made myself sit down and play the “Narnia” board game with Arielle, Nolan and Zander. They love that game. We also put together a big dinosaur puzzle.

Last night one of our ladies had brought “butterscotch brownies” (Blondies) to Bible Study. I brought four of them home – obviously not much more than a taste each and the boys really liked them. Joyce had told me that it was from Betty Crocker. I got that out and attempted it. I substituted butter for shortening and rapadura for brown sugar….fresh ground flour…they were good and are gone…but they didn’t rise and get cakey…they were more like the ooey gooey butter cake I used to make. Ah well – I’ll try again. I HAVE been trying to figure out how to make ooey gooey now that I have sworn off packaged cake mixes (not good for Zander). I just wish I could get them to taste like Joyce’s “brownies”. LOL

The boys wanted stroganoff this week. I usually use the master beef mix from 30 day Gourmet. With the mix in the freezer I can make stew or stroganoff or several other dishes. I didn’t have any in the freezer. I also didn’t have the round steak to make it….nor the time. I found a recipe for “Easy Stroganoff”. I could tell right off that it needed much more spice!!!! {G} but it turned out good and the kids liked it. Nolan and Arielle even had a few bites of it. The older boys said they liked it as well. I used ground turkey because that is what I had…it comes in 3 lb chubs so the good news is that I got another dinner in the freezer.

After dinner I read to the younger ones – We finished a Great Brain book and read two more chapters in the OT book.

Arielle, Nolan, Stacia, Zander and I went for a bike ride. I learned several things: 1. it’s hard to ride a bike in tight jeans and sandals and 2. it’s a tougher workout with two in the bike trailer.

I finally got Stacia down (10:00 p.m. here regardless of the blog clock). She has changed her nap time the last few days from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. This is NOT good because then she doesn’t want to go to bed at 8:30 p.m. It’s o.k. for now but won’t be good when Mike is home. I need to start figuring out how to get her down at 1:00 p.m. That is the perfect time for her to nap as she isn’t very cranky then before bed time.