Menu Plan Monday

Once again I am participating in Menu Plan Monday.

Last time I did pretty good at sticking to it. So here it goes:

Monday: fajitas

Tuesday: cashew chicken and rice

Wednesday: hamburgers, potato salad, fruit

Thursday: homemade pizza, salad

Friday: Company's Coming, fried chicken, sides, desserts

Saturday: Breakfast for Supper, probably Breakfast Enchiladas

Sunday: Curry Chicken and rice

I also plan on making a pot of chili for Dave's lunches this week.

Adding Insult to Injury

Well, if you read last week's blog entry about my trip to KC you probably noticed my lamenting getting closer to the big 4-0. To add insult to injury, last Friday I finally went to the PO Box and lo and behold I received a wallet card and an invitation to join AARP! I got a good laugh from that. I know I am not that old! Just wanted you to share in the fun!!

The Final Games of the Season

The season ending tournament was this last Saturday. The boys did great. They were hitting the ball consistently, it has been great to see the improvement from the beginning of the season. Matt was able to pitch in the final game for the last inning and a half. He was catcher for the other games. He was also able to score a couple of times. It must be his shoes, oh wait, those are my shoes. He preferred to wear my Nikes rather than his Payless ones. It is a sad day when your nine year old can fit into your shoes and is about two inches taller than your shoulder. I told him he needed to slow down, I am not ready for him to grow up so quickly!

Friday night's big catch

Judging by the look on Matt's face. This bass was a little heavy. Our kids sure do love to fish. They are ready to try catfishing again soon. This weekend if they have their way.

More fun

Even the kids got a short ride. It was a beautiful evening if you didn't mind the wind!

Two crazy couples

The four of us had a great time off the beaten path. It was my first time on a four wheeler. Dave said he could tell . . . I was holding on for dear life at times! Dave and Jean stopped to visit on their way home from Minnesota.

The Drive Thru

Tonight we met up with Dave's family at his parent's property about 30 miles away. The "boys" couldn't wait to go out and explore so Papa made them a quick hot dog to take on the trip!

4 Reluctant Entertainers: What's Your Challenge? GIVEAWAY!

I found this website through another website I like to visit, orgjunkie.com. You all know how I like to entertain and she asks us what our challenge is when it comes to entertaining. It was fun to put some thought into why I don't entertain as much as I should. Please check out her sight and enter her giveaway. She has the most adorable apron and a great cookbook.

4 Reluctant Entertainers: What's Your Challenge? GIVEAWAY!

Family and Home

It was so good to spend the weekend with my sisters and mom. We had a great time. Celebrating my baby sister's 30th birthday made me realize how close to 40 I am getting with each passing year. I don't feel like I am getting older, other than Dave tells me I am falling apart, but I digress.

Our family has been through a lot this past year and us girls needed this weekend just to relax and laugh and enjoy each other. We had plenty of laughs and fun. The weekend started out great when I received a call on my way to KC. Jana finally got a job. She has been searching high and low for a year, but the job market in KC is tough right now. They weren't going to have her start until July, but she started this past Monday. We are praising God for answered prayer. He is so good and what a way to start the weekend.

Right now, it is so good to be home. Dave did not neglect my garden and it is growing by leaps and bounds. The chickens have grown and I think the kids did too! I missed my family and I know they missed me too, we have woken up the last three mornings to two pint-sized people in our bed!

Well, back to work I go. Have a great day!

No more night(mare)

I just wanted to share with you that when the sun broke through the clouds this morning and I looked outside to see two beautiful deer at the feeder, I knew that everything was alright. I know that darkness makes everything so much worse. And you all know how active my imagination can be! But morning brings such newness and wonder. I think Someone has a great sense of humor. I can't wait to meet Him someday in Heaven.

I know that sleep comes easy or easier when we rest in His loving arms and remember who is in control!

Literally, . . . a nightmare

I am up at this crazy hour due to a nightmare. I have been up for more than an hour! Now, I usually don't take much stock in dreams or nightmares, but I went to the Scriptures to find something to soothe my soul and the first Scripture I read was not very soothing.

Let me explain. My dream had something to do with the end of the world maybe, "War of the Worlds" with a little "Meet the Robinsons." I looked in the distance and saw a city under attack, the horizon was glowing red with smoke pillars everywhere. Everyone was coming to the school to find their children and I couldn't find mine. I didn't know where any of my family was. I asked someone, "Is this how it ends? With no family near you?" and then I thought, "Do my children know how much I love them? What about Dave? What about my parents? What about my sisters?" Then, I woke up. Every time I tried to close my eyes afterwards, I went right back to that dream. So, I woke Dave up and he tried to comfort me, as well as a man half asleep can. I decided to get up and get a start on my day and the first thing I did was look to the Bible for comfort.

(Now I must say, this dream probably came about because of the nasty weather we had last night. We spent several hours at Dave's parents' home, in the basement, waiting out the worst of it)

Anyway, back to the Scripture I read. These verses are from the Message. The first passage my eyes fell upon were in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 25:32 to be exact. Here is what it says:

A Message from GOD-of the Angel-Armies:
"Prepare for the worst! Doomsday!
Disaster is spreading from nation to nation.
A huge storm is about to rage
all across planet Earth."

Then I read on into chapter 26, looking for some hope to come from this. And verses 2-3 state:

. . . "Say everything I tell you to say to them. Don't hold anything back. Just maybe they'll listen and turn back from their bad lives. Then I'll reconsider the disaster that I'm planning to bring on them because of their evil behavior."

Then I opened to Matthew 6 and read from verse 22 to the end of the chapter and this is what the last verse of Matthew 6 says:

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes."

WOW! I am still processing all of this. But feel free to leave me your thoughts. I am off to clean the house so I can spend some precious moments with my kiddos!

My Menu for the Week

**** I am so sorry, I accidentally linked you to this past post on my site. If you would please click on this link I think you will get to the right one. Sorry! - Kris
http://sandhillserendipity.blogspot.com/2008/10/girls-get-way-cruise-contest.html ****



In another attempt to organize my life, an ongoing endeavor! I have decided to post my menu for the week, hopefully this will keep me accountable. It also happens to be a light week for suppers, so hopefully, I won't be overwhelmed. Since I am leaving later this week, I will make most of the suppers today, so the rest of the family will have good meals while I am gone. I also chose meals that I wouldn't be able to eat if I where here. Friday and Saturday's meals have been requested often but I haven't felt like making two suppers a night lately!

Please check out orgjunkie.com to view more menus and ideas.

Here it goes:

Monday: Hamburgers with and without the bun
Potato salad
Grilled veggies

Tuesday: Vacation Bible School sack suppers
M has a BB game

Wednesday: Gluten-free pancakes w/strawberries
bacon

Thursday: Vacation Bible School sack suppers
M has a double header

Friday: Lasagna
Corn and Salad
Garlic Toast

Saturday: Fettucine w/ chicken
Green Beans

Sunday: Dad's Choice

I am also making a big pot of spaghetti today, so Dad will have plenty of food for lunches.

A change of plans

Last night, Dave's game was canceled because the other team didn't have enough players. He will play Sunday night instead. Sunday will be a busy day.

Since Dave's game was canceled and the kids and I were ready to go somewhere, we went catfishing. Now, in my opinion, of all the things to fish for, catfish are ranking pretty low on the excitement scale. The Niobrara was still fairly high due to all of the rain we have received this spring and the water was rushing at a good rate. I wasn't sure if the fish would bite. Gracie caught the first catfish of the night. They were able to see it as she was reeling it in, but, unfortunately, the fish got away. This would be the theme of the night. It actually was rather humorous to watch them grab a rod that was bending in two, try and set the hook, and watch everything go slack. Matt caught the next fish, Aaron caught the biggest, and Daddy caught the smallest. I did a lot of oohing and awing.

When it started getting too cold Gracie and Aaron and I went to sit in the car and we entertained each other with stories. My kids have some great imaginations. There were stories of wolves and birds, a family of tree frogs who lived in a water tree, and more frogs.

It was a great evening and beautiful. For once the wind is laying low so we can enjoy the outdoors.

Well, this weekend is shaping up to be a busy one. Tonight we have a picnic and pool party for Common Ground. Tomorrow is church and then another picnic at the Long Pine State Park, maybe some tubing, and then Dave's game tomorrow night.

This next week we have Tshirts, VBS (Messy Olympics), and I leave for Olathe to spend some time with my sisters and mom and celebrate Jana's 30th.

I hope you all have a good week and a Happy Father's Day and always please leave us a note, we would love to hear from you.

What a great place to live

Just a few views from the second story windows. We love life in our Sandhills!

Gracie Had A Little Goat

Gracie had a little goat
Her hair was as brown as mud
And every where that Gracie went
Nellie was sure to tread
She bucks and prances and follows close
When Gracie is about

Nellie provides much laughter, she bucks around, chases the kids, and somehow sneaks into the garden. She also likes to stick her head in bags!

Tshirts Baseball

This was Tuesday night's game. We played the other Ainsworth team, we did a good job. The boys are improving with every game. This was the first game I was able to go to. They are a lot of fun. The boys have a great attitude. Matthew had a rough night of pitching due to the fact that he was just plain worn out. We learned we need to keep him quiet on game days. Afternoons of game days are now resting times so he is ready come game time. He told me he wasn't sure Dad would let him pitch the next game. But, just to let you know, he did get to pitch last night. He pitched the last inning and he did great. What fun. Tonight we get to go watch Dad pitch for his town team.

The Bake Sale

OK, so many of you know that I am obsessed with cupcakes. I may not eat them much any more but they are still fun to make. They can look so good without much work! The top picture is full of my "Wedded Bliss" cupcakes, since they are everyone's favorite. The center one, with the strawberry on it, was my experiment. (You know me, I love to experiment) It has fresh strawberries cut up and added to the batter. They were a big hit. The second picture is of the "Wedded Bliss" cupcakes with a cherry on top. The third picture is of my homemade german chocolate cupcakes, I made them for Dave's cousin and he bought quite a few. The third picture is of the Common Ground Band. They played during the bake sale and then went back to work. The BRAN ride came through Ainsworth on Monday, so there was a lot going on. And we had just one of the many events that took place. BRAN stands for Bike Ride Across Nebraska, there were roughly 600 bikers! They camped out in the city park and then headed out on there next leg of the journey about 80 miles!!
We had quite a lot of goodies to choose from. Thank you to those of you that helped. The band played great, as usual!

Just a teaser . . .

Well, life has been crazy here the last few days. I have many photos to share but you will have to wait just a little longer. I need to have more than two minutes to do them justice. Matthew had a game tonight and we discovered swimming on game day is not such a good idea! Oops! He was not himself. I came home from the bake sale on Monday with a lot of extras, so we are hoping to have a picnic for Common Ground on Saturday.

Will share more later. Thanks for stopping by and by all means, leave us a note in the comment section. We would love to hear from you too. - K

Forget the Sunday Nap, Let's Go Fishing

A very successful fishing day. At one point everyone but Papa had one on the line. What a day! Aaron told his dad what lure he wanted to use and caught this fish on his first cast. All night he has been telling us, "I may be small, but I fish BIG!" Another day for memories!! Well, back to my late night baking. I have a bake sale tomorrow! Will post more later.

Wedded Bliss

Dave and I celebrate 13 years of marriage today . . . WOW! He told me this afternoon that it was 13 years of wedded bliss and then said, "well at least 5" Ha!Ha!

As in every marriage it takes a lot of give and take from both sides. When we were first married, I did what so many women (I think) do and made Dave my life, I didn't keep up with my girlfriends, I wanted him to be home all of the time, I was mad when he didn't stay home -- most of you can relate. And then of course he still wanted to fish when he wanted, go out with friends, so on and so forth and of course having a mad wife didn't necessarily beckon him home.

We were both young and selfish and had so much to learn. Both Dave and I are grateful that we didn't give up and kept working on ourselves and our marriage. We have a stronger marriage now than we could have ever imagined having 12-13 years ago. And I just wanted to take this moment to say . . . YEAH, US! We are more in love, more determined, and best of all, we are best friends! God has truly blessed our marriage!

The Chicken Coop

Hard at work building the chicken coop. Last night Dave and the kids were finally able to start on the coop. They hope to finish it tomorrow night, Matthew has his first baseball game tonight. Hopefully, it won't rain tomorrow night. Those chicks are ready for a permanent home.