Little Terrorizer Speaks

I don’t remember if I blogged about this yet, but when my Little Terrorizer turned 3 in May he ended his home behavior therapy that he was receiving and started school where he’s been getting his lessons instead.

When he started school he had a few words maybe ten give or take.  But since then most of those words have been lost and not said again since - that is except one – he is still saying mama.  Yay for me! 

Now that he’s been at school again since September he is finally starting to use words again, not a lot and not consistently but that’s ok.  Just him starting is huge progress and so excited. 

Some of his words so far are:

Papa

Mama

Daddy

Car

Ash

Cup

(f)ish

Ball

Orange

Ty

open

off

bye bye

orange

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Books vs. Movies

Here is the #1 question that I wonder every time I watch a movie that came from a book: Why do they make so many changes, they forgot that part and they could have made that scene better. 

Now your all going to tell me that if they included all part of the book or made it all just like the book the movie would be too long.

That’s true but sometimes they take out the WRONG part or CHANGE the wrong parts. 

Don’t get me wrong though I love some of the same movies that came from books.  I like to see the movies to see if somebody else envisioned and then saw the same thing that I did.  Here’s a few of my favorites:

I love reading books and that will not change.  In fact I love looking for a new adventure every time I pick up a book. 

Have you picked up a book today and read something?  It’s your turn, read up!

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When it rains it POURS!

We started our little adventure with an even bar, but that sure didn’t last long. 

To give you the whole picture we need to go back in time, so cue up the fuzzy back in time film that takes us to when this all started. 

Back around Thanksgiving I started cutting out what seemed like a million little pictures for Lil’ Monster’s and Little Terrorizers PECS books. 

They use these books to help them communicate and tell us what they want.  They have been such life saver at times when they can’t verbalize what they want. 

Then of course we roll into Christmas and all of the wrapping of presents.  This is when my thumb started to hurt originally.  But like usual I powered through it and tortured myself.

We’ll come back to my thumb issues in a little while, just be patient. 

Now if you are at all like me you love doing laundry.   NOT!  But at the same time our family of 5 goes through a TON of laundry in a week.  I have a Lil’ Monster that changes her clothes anywhere between one and ten times a day too.  Just in case I don’t have enough clothes to wash she like to make sure I have more too. 

Right before Christmas, I’m talking a week or so before Christmas my washer went bad in the middle of the night.  We tend to put the washer on a time delay cycle at night so we can mostly sleep through the noise. 

Some noises and harder to sleep through though.  Like the LOUDEST clunk, clunk I’ve ever heard.

The clothes in the washer had to be rewashed but the worst part was that I didn’t realize the washer went bad so I tried to wash another load.  That didn’t go so good. 

Instead Papa Bear had to take our clothes down to our Awesome Neighbor’s house.  He washed  two loads that day and tow more later in the week. 

Finally we came to the realization that we needed to start shopping for a new washer and dryer. 

These beauties were my Christmas toys.

Christmas came and went - we had a great holiday by the way – without any more huge displays of activity so we thought we were out of the woods.  We came to find out we were so wrong though!

On New Years day Papa Bear’s family lost a great woman, as it was her turn to leave this world and head back to Heavenly Father. 

 

 

 

Grandma, Papa Bear, and Silly Girl (5 months)

Two days after that Papa Bear’s cousin took his life and went back to Heavenly Father too.

You would think that this was the end of our “bad luck” but you are mistaken.  This is just half way up the hill.

We decided that we would head to San Diego to see family but first we had to get a new windshield in our car.  After trying three different times we finally got a new windshield put in the car just a day before we were to head south.  On the way south just 30 minutes from the hotel at around 9 o’clock we were in the middle of the freeway when we saw a pile of mattress padding.  We had no choice but to run over the padding. Then five minutes down the freeway we saw this rolled up mattress coil springs right is our way. 

Yes we ran it over! 

We had absolutely no where else to go.  It took Papa Bear and I 30 minutes to get those mattress springs free from the car.  After that the car’s tire was messed up but we didn’t know how bad until morning when it was time to go and Papa Bear had to put the spare tire on the car. 

So if you were keeping track now that’s a new windshield, a new tire and a tire rotation for a quick two day trip to San Diego. 

I need to back track here a bit and tell what else hit us the day we were getting ready to head south for San Diego.  Papa Bear and I have had a sweet boy in our lives for years now, he was 15 years old. 

For the week before we left Baron our beloved dog started having problems walking.  Papa Bear was having to help him just walk outside to go potty.  His whole back end would collapse and he we stay in one place for hours at a time.  We didn’t want to but as a family we decided it was time to send him up to Heavenly Father at this time. 

Then around comes February and the only thing this month brought us was an extremely painful hand (my thumb) and the stomach flu. 

I told you I’d come back to this.  By this time my thumb was hurting me more.  In this post I tell more about my thumb.

In all it took me seven weeks of being in a cast to finally being cast free.

I still have some pain issues in my hand but now it’s from my hand being immobile for so long and every once in a while it is my thumb that is giving me pains but that’s mostly from not using it too. 

I just don’t recommend to hurting yourself!

After all of this all I have to say is that it is very important to pay your tithing!  It truly is amazing the blessing you miss out on when you don’t pay.  We of course – really I mean I – don’t think about the blessing you miss out on when you don’t pay and you don’t realize how much of a difference it really makes. 

I’m hoping our LUCK, will start to look up soon, I don’t know how much more of this we can manage or afford.

Hard to believe but I really think this sums up our last couple months worth woes. 

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A baking OOPS!

When a recipe says to add eggs and flour it is best to do what the recipe asks, otherwise you will end up with a big oops!

I made a batch of friendship bread since we love it so much I had planned on making chocolate chip muffins, banana bread, blueberry banana muffins and blueberry muffins.  My blueberry were a complete fail. 

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My “Game’s Keeper” Thumb Still Here

I went into the doctor yesterday hoping to receive word that my thumb was healed and I was ready to start attending physical therapy.  But instead I came home with:

I was told that it doesn’t look like it all healed up and I get to wait 3 more weeks.  At that time they’re hoping that I will be ready for physical therapy otherwise it is surgery to put me back together and then maybe another cast. 

Right now I’m not feeling very optimistic about my hand but on the other hand (no pun intended) I just want what’s  the best for it and to get all function back.

Crossing my fingers and praying.

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So God Made a Farmer

Sunday we were like millions of other families in the country and were glued to the TVs watching the Super Bowl.  The game wasn’t as good as we hoped but some of the commercials were just awesome.  One of the commercials that I loved the most had the wonderful voice of Paul Harvey.

Here are the words:

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the township board.” So God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to cradle his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait for lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure to come back real soon and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year,’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse, who can fix a harness with hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, up in another 72 hours.” So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to help a newborn calf begin to suckle and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower in an instant to avoid the nest of meadowlarks.”

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, brake, disk, plow, plant, strain the milk, replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with an eight mile drive to church. Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his family says that they are proud of what Dad does. “So God made a farmer.”

Here’s the commercial:

 

So God Made a Farmer by Paul Harvey

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My “Game Keeper’s” thumb

“The name comes from the European gamekeepers who would kill their game by grasping the head of the animal between their thumb and index finger to break its neck. Over time, the ulnar collateral ligament is stretched and would eventually cause problems,” I found this on the internet.

Now my hand looks like this:

It was last Wednesday morning and I was working on getting the girls ready for school when I heard something in my thumb POP..  From then on my thumb was rendered unusable.  It hurt like crazy and I gave up the strong fight and went into the doctor.  That’s where I also learned that I cracked something on the inside base of my thumb too.

To me it looks like a repetitive motion injury.  The only thing that I have been doing a lot of has been cutting stuff out for my kids, for me and for Christmas presents. 

This injury and the cast makes it very hard to type, use my right hand, text and to do anything normally.  Now it’s just time to deal with it all, what else is there to do.

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The first process in our journey

Right after I watched the video for yesterdays post I decided it was time to get to work. 

I started working on our 3 month supply a couple of years ago when I was teaching my food storage class.  It’s really funny how our preferences have changed in that time.  I entered all of our data for our dinners; I just have our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, desserts and any mixes we need to finish. 

If you like my spreadsheet or want to make your own 3 month supply with this spreadsheet checkout Food Storage Made Easy they have some really incredible information..

I figured out that our family eats a lot of tortillas, almost a 1000 a year in fact.  So I guess it’s time to start making them. 

I need to finish off my spreadsheet and then I’ll have more for you to see.  Stay tuned……

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Our Journey Begins

Papa Bear is an awesome man and I am extremly blessed to have him with me for eternity.  One of the things that I love about him is our common interests.  One of those common interests is building our food storage. 

He likes to watch You Tube videos of a guy that calls himself the Nut n Fancy project.  His videos are a lot about gun and knife reviews among other stuff.  One set of his videos that he made recently was about food storage and the Honeyville Farms store in particular.

The Nutnfancy Project: Honeyville Farms Pt 1.

The Nutnfancy Project: Honeyville Farms Pt 2.

After watching part 1 Papa Bear called me over to show me, then I started watching the videos my self.  They are filled with some great information. 

These two videos also helped to get us back working on building our food storage and gave us the idea of storing more than just one kind of foods like canned, boxed,  freeze dried and dehydrated.  When it all comes down to  it we will like having the variety. 

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Our favorite way to eat pork chops

PC Pork Chops
5 pork chops
8 carrots, pealed and cut into 1-inch lengths
8 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 onion chopped
5 Celery, sliced
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1. Take out your pressure cooker and start filling with water, just up to the bottom plate.
2. Brown each side of the pork chops with your favorite seasoning.  Then place in the bottom of your pressure cooker.
3. On top of the pork chops dump in the potatoes, carrots, onions and celery.  Next spread the cream of mushroom soup over the top of the veggies.  I usually just drip Worcestershire sauce all over the top until there's a nice color all of the soup (I had to guess on the actual measurement amounts).
4. Now put the lid on the pressure cooker.  Put on the stove and cook between medium-high and medium.  Wait until the pressure cooker starts to rock, let it rock for 25 minutes.
5. When times up take the rocker off and let it cool and quiet down.  Then take the lid off and enjoy.

This is what the pressure looks like on the inside after you put the water in.  Remember just to the bottom of the plate, a little over is ok. 

This is how it looks just before you put the lid on and start to cook it.  Here you can see all of the veggies, the soup and the Worcestershire sauce.  Doesn’t it look awesome!

Time to put it on the stove and let the rocking begin.  Remember to let it rock for 25 minutes on the stove. 
We love this dish.  And the gravy that it makes is just delicious. 

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