Thoughts for Tuesday

So this past weekend we had a four day weekend.  Friday, my husband spent putting up about 38 quarts of potatoes. Then Saturday morning, our oldest son, our youngest son, my husband and I had choir practice for our Easter cantata.  Then Sunday we attended church which included our Easter cantata.  Then we came home and had a friend over for Easter dinner. Here are some pictures of our dinner.

We ate collard greens with ham, Black-eyed peas with ham, macaroni salad, deviled eggs and a fruit salad.

For the fruit salad, I combined blueberries, apple pears from Costco, pears from our Bountiful Baskets order, apples, and oranges, kiwi fruit. I mixed the fruit with some sugar and pure vanilla extract. It was delicious.

So what have you been cooking? I would love to hear from you. If you would like to check out what other members of the Home School Review Crew are up to, click here or on the graphic below.

Review of Parenting Made Practical’s Taming the Lecture Bug and Getting Your Kids to Think Book and Video.

 

My husband and I currently have a 15-year-old daughter, a 17-year-old son, a 19-year-old son and a twenty-one-year-old son who all live at home.  While I hate to admit it, I am guilty of lecturing our children.  As a parent, it is easy to get caught up in emotion and lecture our children.  The act of lecturing causes everyone to often lose their temper and results in no real change in attitude or action.  We, as parents, fail to reach our children and our children do not actually listen.  That is why I was so glad we received the opportunity to review products from Parenting Made Practical.  We reviewed the book and DVD of Taming the Lecture Bug and Getting Your Kids to Think and now I want to check out the DVD Navigating the Rapids of Parenting.  Parenting Made Practical offers a lot of great information and resources for raising children who love the Lord and behave responsibly.

According to their website, Joey and Carla Link have been serving families for over twenty years.  Joey Link served on pastoral staffs for over sixteen years in youth and family ministries before becoming Director of FamilyLife Resources, a non-profit ministry where he has served since 1994.  His wife, Carla Link, has a degree in social work.  They are the parents of three adult children and also have four grandchildren.  So they have a wealth of first-hand knowledge of parenting.

Each chapter in the book Taming the Lecture Bug and Getting Your Kids to Think contains real-life experiences of either the Links or other families, tips for dealing with children of various ages, as well as Scriptural references.  I like how the chapters are broken down into pieces that are easy to read and to follow.  At the end of each chapter, there is a letter from people who have successfully navigated parenting issues.

The main premise of this book is rather than lecturing/losing tempers when you are angry, you wait until you are cooled off to reasonably deal with the issue.  Using a series of questions, parents can get to the root of the actual sin that is causing the problem(s).  The Links stress the importance of being proactive rather than reactive.  As I was reading this book, I found many situations I could relate to and loved the ideas and verses used.

 

The DVD is available as either a physical DVD or a digital download.  We received the digital download.  It runs for approximately fifty-four minutes.  The printable outline may be downloaded from the Parenting Made Practical website.  It allows the viewer to follow along with the presentation and have a tangible resource to refer back to later.  I love how the DVD gives a visual representation of a situation which may happen in real- life showing how it could go either badly or much better.

 

Both the book and the DVD may be used alone, however, I truly believe they work best in tandem.  I am planning on looking at and buying more of their products such as –
    Navigating the Rapids of Parenting (Video) (for parents of kids from age 2 through college);   Dating, Courting & Choosing a Mate… What Works? (Video) (for parents of kids ages 9-college) ; as well as   What Every Child Should Know Along the Way (book) (preschool to college).

You can find Parenting Made Practical on social media at:

• Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ParentingMadePractical/
• Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ParentingMP    Tag:   @ParentingMP
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/parentingmadepractical/

 

I definitely recommend you check Parenting Made Practical‘s resources out for yourself.  If you would like to read more reviews of Taming the Lecture Bug and Getting Your Kids to Think or some of the other resources offered by the Links, click here or on the graphic below.

 

 

Tasty Tuesday – Fat Tuesday

Today is Fat Tuesday – the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Even though our family is not Catholic, we typically partake of a Fat Tuesday meal of pancakes.

The overwhelming favorite part of this meal was the bacon, which we cooked a new way today.  I placed tin foil on a cookie sheet with the sides turned up slightly around the edges.  Then I placed the bacon on the sheet and preheated the oven the 425 degrees (our oven tends to run slightly cooler than most – so we typically bump it 25 degrees.  We let it cook around 15 minutes.  However, it just did not seem to be cooking right.  So we switched the settings to the broiler and moved the cookie sheet closer to the broiler and let it cook around 10 more minutes or so.  The bacon was ready the same time the meal was.  It was so good to everyone in the family.  Many were wanting more.

So what have you been eating that has been really good at your house?  I would love to hear from you!

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Tasty Tuesdays – Oriental Food

Today I am starting something new on the blog – Tasty Tuesdays, where I will share some of our favorite foods along with some recipes occasionally.  For this first installment, I am going to share some of our favorite oriental food.

Over the weekend, our daughter stated she wanted to have teriyaki chicken on a stick.  So being the dutiful mother I am, I immediately went online to find a recipe for Chicken Teriyaki.  I found a recipe and we bought a family pack of chicken tenders to use.  Of course, when we got home I discovered we did not have any teriyaki sauce.  So again, I went online to see if I could find a recipe for homemade teriyaki sauce.  I had all the ingredients so I whisked up a batch and started marinating the chicken. Then yesterday, we started the rest of the preparations. Here is the chicken on the skewers we were going to cook them on in the broiler.

One of the other things my husband and I were really wanting to eat was egg rolls.  So a month or so ago, when we were in the commissary, we bought egg roll wrappers.  We used bacon, shredded some cabbage and thinly sliced carrots to put in them.  We took some flour and water to make a paste to seal them.  I wrapped them and my husband did an amazing job of flying them.  They turned out delicious.

We also took cabbage that was finely chopped and diced some onion and stir-fried it as well with some soy sauce.  We also took onions that were thinly sliced and sliced some zucchini and stir-fried it to make what our favorite Japanese Steak House in Jacksonville, North Carolina calls Japanese french fries.  Both of these dishes also turned out amazing.

Finally, we made stir-fried rice with rice, onions, carrots, garden peas, and scrambled eggs along with soy sauce.  We used three cups of rice, one bag of garden peas and approximately 3 carrots.  This also turned out amazing.

We used teriyaki sauce that we bought at Aldi after we made the homemade sauce.  The only thing I wish we could have had was chinese mustard and duck sauce for the egg rolls. Otherwise, the meal was fantastic.

So what are some of your favorite things to eat?  I would love to hear from you.  If you would like to read other posts from members of the Home School Review Crew, click here or on the graphic below.

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A Look Back at 2017

A lot has happened in 2017.  First, our family became part of the Homeschool Review.  We have really enjoyed participating in the various reviews.

Our family also found a church home.  We have participated in a variety of activities.

We experienced our first evacuation from Hurricane Harvey (although our family went through numerous hurricanes while living in eastern North Carolina. And my husband and middle two children became part of the local homeschool band. With this participation, our oldest son, our youngest son, my husband and I served as adult leaders for the Christmas parade for the combined private school (2 of them combined) plus a few of our homeschool band members at our city’s Christmas parade.

I have to say, I pray that in some ways 2018 is a better year.

How was your 2017 and what are you looking forward to in 2018.

If you would like to read other posts by other members of the Homeschool Review Crew, click here or on the graphic below.

 

 

What a Couple of Days

This verse is very appropriate for this past week.  Our family was supposed to take part in our Christmas skit at our church.  Initially, the four children were supposed to participate.  Then, my husband and I were asked to portray Mary and Joseph.  But then, every single member of our household – from my daughter, our three sons, myself, my mother (who lives with us) and my husband became sick.  Our oldest wound up not participating in the skit.  So my husband took his role.  Our director found new people to play Mary and Joseph and I became an observer. Then to top it all off, we had adventures with our plumbing.  It was not the way I thought our Christmas weekend would go.  Here is a picture of my husband and two of our children playing Carolers, while our youngest son played a cookie.  All in all the skit went amazing.

With everyone sick, we decided to have a quiet day at home for Christmas.  We had a good dinner.  And then spent the rest of the day relaxing.

Today, I am glad to say the plumbing is fixed.  Some members of the family are on the mend.  So we will pray the new year begins better than the way 2017 is going out.

So how was your Christmas?  I would love to hear from you.

Our Holiday Traditions

So our family is still getting ready for Christmas.  We have several traditions that we try to keep every year.  The first tradition is starting to decorate the day after Thanksgiving.  Usually, our tree goes up first.  Every year we try to buy the children a new ornament with significance to that particular year.  For example, this year I will be on the hunt for a saxophone for our youngest son and a baritone for our second son.  They have both started playing in our local homeschool band along with their father and me.

Another family tradition is going to a Candlelight Church service on Christmas Eve.  Being military, we have moved several times in the last eight years, so that does not necessarily work all the time.  Fortunately, this time last year, we found a new church that does have a Christmas Eve service.

Finally, another tradition our family enjoys is driving around to look at Christmas lights in the area where we live.  So of course, we have to put up Christmas lights outside ourselves.

What are some traditions your family enjoys at Christmas time?

This post is part of the Homeschool Review Crew’s look at our family traditions.  If you would like to check out some other posts, click here or on the graphic below.