Bluebonnets and a big boy

St Joseph, pray for us

One of my most favorite times of the year at Our Lady of Victory is when we celebrate St Joseph's feast day.  Take a gander at that alert!  St Joseph, you are truly loved and appreciated for your devotion to Jesus and Our Lady.

St Joseph, pray for us!

Homemade vanilla

I am trying out a recipe for homemade vanilla.  I will let you know in 6 months how it turns out.  (I am super excited!)

Recipe:
8 to 12 vanilla beans
750 ml bottle of vodka (the cheap stuff)

Put vanilla beans in the bottle and let sit for six months.

Quick and Easy Biscuits

OMG this could be dangerous... I had to restrain myself from eating all of these biscuits at one time.  I never knew making biscuits from scratch could be soooo quick and easy.

Brittney’s Biscuits

Crockpot Yogurt recipe

Yes Virgina, you can make yogurt in a crockpot.  This is one of my favorite tried and true recipes.  Don't be afraid... try it!  This recipe is super easy and super cheap.

A Year of Slow Cooking: You Can Make Yogurt in Your CrockPot!

Thank you God for the little things...

Thank you God for the little things like:

• rainy days when nothing is planned
• footed onesies
• big bathtubs
• little boys who like to splash in the tub
• cloth diapers

So here is the story. Monday Jude had a major poop blowout. (Since we use cloth diapers this is a rare occurrence.) John-Paul and I heard the tell tale noise of a poopy diaper so I made my way over to check it out. As I took off the onesie I saw poop all of the way down to his TOES! I had never been soo thankful for footed onesies as I was at that moment. The mess was too big for wipes so John-Paul and Jude got to take a bath together in the big tub. As I was bathing the boys and watching them play I realized how thankful I was for the little things. Thank you God for the little things like footed onesies that make the days run smoothly, or at least a little more cleanly :0)

Not so naptime

Today I went to get John-Paul out of his bed after naptime and found an exhibitionist with a somewhat wrapped gift for Momma.  I couldn't help but grab camera.  I just have to have evidence of what goes on during the day with little boys :)  Now to clean a smelly boy and a smelly room.

Baptism

Chris and I have started a tradition (we did it twice so it is a tradition) of having our children baptized on a bonfire holiday. On New Year's Eve we had Jude baptized in Sour Lake at Our Lady of Victory. Thank you everyone for all of your prayers and support!

From Neumann Note

New Year Resolutions

So this year I have several things I would like to work on.

1. Find a house cleaning schedule that works with my family.
2. Learn how to balance mom duties (house cleaning, cooking, house management) with having fun with Chris and boys and being hospitable to family and friends.
3. Create a fruit and vegetable garden that will actually produce food for us to eat.

I have some good resources for one and two, but I am struggling to find some good local information for number three (gardening). If anyone knows of a good local blog that talks about fruit, vegetable, herb gardening please pass the link along!

Sts. Mary and Martha please pray for us! And may God's will be done in relation to all of our resolutions!

John-Paul funny-isms

This week Chris and I realized that John-Paul calls ANY book that talks about Jesus a "Bible". It is soo funny when he grabs a board book about Christmas, or Noah's Arc, or even night prayers and he calls it a Bible :0) We have tried and tried to correct him, but I guess I should be happy he has made the connection between Jesus -> Book -> Bible.

Jude

Jude was born November 9th. We have had soo much fun welcoming him to the family!

From Neumann Note