I have decided to give myself a challenge. I have been noticing that my younger girls are somewhat spiled because I think of them as "little girls". Not so long ago when my boys where that age they were "big boys" and they were amazing helpers. The youngest of my 5 boys will turn 18 this year. So I will have 5 adult children, all male, and all amazing. They can all cook a little, clean a little, and take care of children. along with all the varied skills they learned from their father who taught them a little about home repair, electricity, car repair, yard work and gardening. One of my daughter in laws was saying that she knew her husband had saved her family hundreds of dollars, maybe even thousands, in car repair alone. How awesome is that? The point is...My girls are not getting the education that they deserve. It is so easy when I need help in the kitchen to just point at the boys or aimee (15) and wala it is done. So-- we are in for some changes around here.

Here is the basic plan. I want to teach the girls t cook. At the same time, I don't want to spend all day everyday chopping vegetables and stirring cake. So I am thinking that we shuld have two easy and one more elaborate meal. For breakfast I am planning an oatmeal bar. (more on that in a minute.) For lunches I am planning either salads, bento type lunch containers, or sandwiches (possibly pre-made and frozen.) This is going to evolve as we go. Then for dinner we will be working on crockpot, casserole and easy peasy recipes that my 8-12 year olds can learn to make on their own. What about miss 15 yr old? I am going to begin teaching her to make more breads and dessert. Actually she is pretty good at dessert, and if the ittle sisters are dealing with the meals she will have more time.

the breakfast bar is going to be fun. I have a rice cooker that will cook oatmeal and it can be pre-set up to 12 hours ahead of time. So just set it and in the morning-- Yummy oatmeal. It should only take a few minutes after supper clean-up to get it ready for the next day. Then in little jars r shakers I will have oatmeal add ins. right now I am planning to have salt and pepper shakers with powdered sugar, cinnamin/sugar combined, different colored sugars, (I think I will start with purple, green, and gold for mardis gras), And in other plastic containers, peanut butter/honey, cinnamon honey butter, fruits-- dried or fresh, coconut, and nuts. I plan t add more as I think of them and change it up for variety. personally I like a little milk and a little sugar-- the end. But we are going to experiment. I thought I would put all of this n a little table with the rice cooker and a toaster. Then walla everyone can customize their healthy meal. Never mind that it also saves money and helps me to use the 150 pds of oatmeal we have on hand. We are moving in june and the movers give you such looks when they are asked to carry 25 lb buckets of beans, rice, oatmeal and flour. What's up with that? I imagine it will be even more f an interesting look when half the buckets are upcycled from cat litter. The will think we are crazy.

The lunches are going to be make ahead or make quick from pre-cut ingredients. So one day we may make several days worth of sandwiches and stash them in the freezer. And another day we may clean and chop fresh veggies for bento boxes and salads. This should all get done on crockpot day so that some of the veggies can go in the pot or stored in the freezer for another crockpot day. My main goal is to have lunch made ahead fr the next day. Then when we wrap up book work, we can go et lunch without major preperation, and lots of whinning. Then we can clean up and prepare for the next days lunch, and dinner that night.

I have pinned a ton of recipes on pinterest for dinner. I am still winging it here honestly, but i think it will fall into place. I am planning to put the electric skillet n the table so that even the 8 year old can have a turn brown hamburger, or whatever and be the right hieght without standing on something. She fried her own eggs on saturday and was so pleased with herself. (I digress) But nly a little-- becasue really, that is what I want them to catch, this feeling of accomplishment, of being grown up, strong, capable...

And the weekends are going to be a little different. My son Casey is planning to do weekends. Easy peasy, but yummy. A breakfast/brunch casserole prepared the day before by the girls and I. Then dinner-- something grilled or cooked over the fire. On sunday we will have a salad or veggie tray and cheese and crackers for one meal and a roast and potatoes for the other. Everyone will be on their own fr oatmeal and toast in the morning. Yummy.

So for the first 30 days the main focus is meals in the kitchen. I have been wanting for a long time to include more vegies and fruits in our diets. I also think that more homemade meals will be better for our bodies and our budget.  the challenge is keeping it up, not being lazy and having fun. I will be reporting frequently to give myself some responsibility. 

Christmas eve with family. Ahhhh...this is what it is supposed to be. "It" being everything--Christmas--Life--Everything! This month has been so busy, which is good. Our life since we have moved to Louisiana has been nothing if not busy. And this month was no exception. The kids, (Devon and the girls) were all in the play "A Christmas Carol" with the Octavians. It was fantastic! There were 31 kids in the show, but somehow, over 100 costumes-- you do the math. I understand that back stage was pretty chaotic. But it looked beautiful from the front of stage. I was in charge of said costumes and so between running children to where they need to be, said costumes, and daily seminary-- our life has been, (shrugs) busy.

Sunday after our family spoke in church we finished our final performance and then striked the set and scenery from the stage before we left. Whew! On Monday I began shopping for Christmas for the six kids I still have at home. Tuesday I ordered and shipped for the 3 living outside the home. Etc. etc. etc. Not too many hours ago i finally finished wrapping the gifts and putting them under the tree. Busy again.

But as I was running back and forth I noticed the tree out front. I am not sure how I missed the process, but there she is in bloom. Big massive red flowers. Now to those of you who grew up in Louisiana, I am sure that is no surprise. But for me flowers blooming at Christmas time is nothing short of a miracle. The site stopped me in my tracks. And I wondered, when did I get so busy that I forgot to look for the miracles. At Thanksgiving I was just promising myself that i would be grateful for the little things in life. But strangely, absurdly, I let myself become to busy to see them.

So here I am now thinking about how grateful i am for my family. And how fantastic it is to sit here and eat chocolate from a big box that my son gave me. Yum! Last week I saw a similar box of chocolates and said out loud, "No one loves me enough to give me that!" And I was wrong. Beyond the obvious fact that it is sitting in my lap is the strong posibility that other people in this room love me as well. (What?) Amazing.

But even more amazing, is the fact that Jesus Christ loves us enough for much more. He loves us enough not only to pay the price for the box of chocolates that I ate, but to pay the price for all the chocolates that I have ever eaten. Oh my, that's a lot of chocolate. And before I get to lost in this anecdote, let me just say it straight, Thank you Jesus Christ for paying the price for my sins. I love you. This is not a little miracle, it is a huge miracle.

Last week my daughter was playing at the manger scene with the figures of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. It was so sweet. I loved that she was talking in a sweet girly voice for Mary and a deep, strong voice for Joseph. I liked that they were talking about the miracles in their lives. The visitations from Angels and the baby Jesus. I liked that she was developing an image in her mind of this little family and that she seemed to understand that they were REAL! They were REAL live people who lived, and breathed, and had hopes and dreams and fears. What? Mary? Mary. really? I think so. Much more faith, but still, fear. What mother having been told that her son would be the literal son of God would not be afraid. I know I had countless nights that I lay awake wondering if I would be able to be a good mother. I still do from time to time. And sometimes when I do, I think of Mary. She showed us how to have faith. how to put one foot in front of the other and continue. She showed us that when God has a plan for us, he will help us to fullfill that plan. She showed us how to look for miracles.

In this the beautiful Christmas season I pray that we will all be able to look for the miracles in our lives. From the flowers blooming in December to the influence of Christ in our lives. As we allow his spirit to bloom in our hearts and the joy and peace he brought begin to take root I pray that we will acknowledge God and have faith in him.

it is clear as the writing on the wall. Maybe that phrase has lost some of it's meaning over the years. I know when my oldest children were little finding writing on the wall was not a good thing. It was, a very bad thing. You could never really scrub it off. And if you scrubbed to hard the paint came off the walls. So the only option was to plaster and repaint the walls. Oh and if you forgot the rid-x (or other specially formulated primer) the darkest marks would often just bleed through the paint and ruin your new paint job. Blah.

i remember how my boys seemed to be drawn to write on the walls. On one occasion my oldest had written his name backwards, as high on the wall as he could reach while standing on the couch.  When I questioned him he said, "Tyler did it." Did he? I guess he must have been a very talented 3 year to write your name backwards on the wall. How do you suppose he got it up so high? And in mind, I see my son take a half step backwards, lean on his back foot, twist up the corner of his mouth and with a twinkle of his eye say, "Well, you see..." I saw that pose again recently in a video that someone posted of him on facebook. His brother noticed it first and said, "Looks like Brian has his 'story face' on, so this should be good." 

But I digress... as usual-- My point was, that back in the day, there were no Magic erasers in with which you could erase the crayon, ink, or permanent marker. When there was writing on the wall- it stayed. Crying and screaming did no good. Well, now the writing is on the wall. We are moving again. We have only been here three years, but we have been asked to move again. The good news is that it will be June before we go. Early June. And crying and screaming will do no good.

I have been dragging my feet as I have come to really love the place that I didn't want to move to the  last time. And I suppose that will be the case again. I will be just like thousands of facebook fans who when faced with changes begin immediately crying that they want their old facebook back. I don't even know if many of them stop to think about how ironic it is that the old facebook they want back was not long ago the new facebook that they hated. So here I am at the end of one  adventure trying to bring it to a triumphant closure and move to the next.

Suddenly the remodeling and home repair have become top of the list. We will see how much time and money we can pour into this house with some hope that we can sell it and get money back out of it. We have been taking advantage of the four day weekend to  put new cupboards in the kitchen. They look great. But as we pull out the old cabinets and wall board I am reminded of how the kitchen looked when I bought this house three years ago. I keep wondering how I did that. How did I end up in this house that needs sooooo very much work?

For forty years of my life I lived at the foot of the Rocky mountains. They are beautiful. They were my guide. I could always look to the mountains and know which way I should turn. They have guided me when I was lost. Comforted me when I was sad. Humbled me when I felt too important. They are my foundation. For four years we lived so close to the base of the mountains that the kids could ride their bicycles up two or three blocks to their favorite biking trail. It was probably close to a 40% grade. I remember the first time my Aimee, probably about 11 or 12 rode her new pink mountain bike up to the trail. She was about to give up, but her eldest brother kept calling to her "keep pedaling, Aimee you can do it." Then when it looked like she was going to give up, when she began to wobble, he swooped up from behind her and steadied the bike. He gave her a boost, propelling her forward while he held onto her handles. She screamed a little a first, then began peddaling again. Her Dad came up the other side then. He grabbed the handle on the other side and father and son smiled at each other.  Then they looked at Aimee and asked, "Are you ready Aimee? You can do this." And up she went. Right straight up.

I guess that is what I am looking for. That same kind of help. And I do have an elder brother who is willing to give it. And a Heavenly Father as well. It's time to grow again and God has positioned me at the base of the hill. He is smiling at Christ and saying, "Ready Ruthie?" I want to scream, I want to pull a way. I want to turn the bike around and coast down the hill. But I wont. I will let them hold onto the handle's and propel me where they want me to go. And I guess, this time, it is Nebraska. Nebraska? Really? Yes, get on the bike.