It’s been too long…

I’m sorry.  I know it’s been so long since I’ve blogged.  I really do have things to share, I just don’t seem to have the gumption to do it.  I see a lot of competition in the bloggy world, I tend to pull away from anything competitive.  I’m happy to let somebody else take the lead! 

Here’s a recap of the last 4 weeks:

                     

We celebrated Easter.  The day started with a nice breakfast and lots of pictures.  Church.  The church we’ve been going to changed their service time from 9:30 to 10:30.  It worked out fine for Easter Sunday but it’s a bad time for us a big family.  Trying to sort through that…

                   

After church we came home and prepared to have dinner at my dad and step-mom’s house.  They live in Florida most of the year but have recently bought a townhouse near us and come up about once a month.  That’s sure a blessing!

A surprise Easter Egg hunt.  We don’t typically do this, the last time we did one was when Bubble Gum was a toddler.  But boy was it fun and the kids were so happy!  It was freezing outside and there was still some snow on the ground, but the sun was shining and hearts were warm.

                

Even the first-born son was there!  That was a real treat.  Though Chocolate Taffy had to work and we missed him immensely!

Mr. Taffy turned 40.  All the pictures from that are on my phone.  We didn’t have a big party or anything, but I did load up the dinning room with star shaped helium balloons and I tied a balloon to his truck while he was at work that said, “You’re HOW old?”  That made him smile.

Our baby turned 2.  Can I still call her my baby?  Interesting thing about this child, her name means Jehovah’s perfection, she is our 7th (perfection) child and she was born on the 7th.  See the pattern?  So bizarre!  I wasn’t induced or anything either, God just worked that out and it took me a while to connect the dots!  ha!

                   

One more birthday and we’re done!  Yay!  I love birthday’s but I enjoy the non-birthday season too!  Because the end of birthday season marks the beginning of garage sale season! Whoop!

Spring is taking forever to land in Minnesota.  This is definitely a trial of patience, but just like before I can still see hints of what is to come.  Hope springs eternal.

Now more than ever we need to stay close to the Father.  Times are uncertain, trials are many and the time is short.  Hold fast dear friends!

The battle is the Lord’s,

Mrs. Taffy

Bonker-tines Day

I think I went a little bonkers this Valentine’s Day.  I didn’t plan on it, it just sort of happened.  I am glad it did though because the result was a houseful of people that KNOW they are loved, by me.

I started out the morning by making cinnamon rolls.  It’s been at least 6 months since I’ve made cinnamon rolls, possibly longer. 

The best thing about this was the quiet that was heard during breakfast.  Not a word was uttered, only sighs of contentment, moans of delight, even the baby, which is AHHH-MAZING!

For lunch I made them Toad in a Hole’s but decided to use a heart shaped cookie cutter instead of my biscuit cutter.  Toast tastes better shaped like a heart, or so I’m told.

Then later in the day, for snack time, after our beloved quiet time, I made them a little party.  I just spent about $4.00 at Wal-Mart for the decorations.  But the impact, it was priceless!

On Wednesday I made Raspberry-Nut Valentine Cookies and hid them.  I wrapped some up in saran wrap with a big red bow and stuck them in the big guy’s lunches and then saved the rest for our Valentine’s Day snack time.

Just one each, with a little almond milk with pink milk ice cubes.  Bonkers…I told you!

Just look at these happy faces!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If that wasn’t enough, we watched the Mickey Mouse version of the 3 Musketeers, which is surprisingly appropriate for Valentine’s Day.  So much love!  haha!

After the movie, my teens went up to Papa Murphy’s and bought a couple pizza’s.  A heart-shaped pizza.  Yup.  Bonkers.

There was more actually, but I guess I forgot to take a picture of it.  I made the mock version of Starbuck’s Cranberry Bliss Bars and dyed the frosting pink and used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut them out.  More love and pink and deliciousness for dinner!

This is the buffet in our dining room.  Look at all those Valentines!  Some came in the mail, some are from the kids, some from my husband, some too him.  He bought me roses and M & M’s, well and meat. (smile)  I gave him season 1 of Duck Dynasty. We were told it would bring more laughter into our marriage.  (smile)  Sounds good to me!

It was such a fun day!  I didn’t mean for it to be so “much.”  But it wasn’t stressful or anything, it just worked out.  It was gorgeous outside and cozy and sweet inside.

I hope you had a day filled with love and smiles too!

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18

The Battle is the Lord’s,

Mrs. Taffy

What does love look like?

Love has a lot of faces and Valentine’s Day always gets me in the mood to share my love and show my love to the people around me.  In our house, the kids have come to accept that Valentine’s Day is a holiday for married people, after all, the history of St. Valentine’s has to do with keeping marriage lawful.  Still, it’s hard not to succumb to all the pink and heart and chocolate and diamond advertising everywhere.  And I do enjoy making them a delicious treat and flooding their ears with terms of endearment.

I’ve given up having expectation about Valentine’s Day.  There just isn’t really any point or the point is to express my love to others, not expect to receive love from others.  That being said, my husband has pretty much astounded me this year.  I’m mean, really astounded.  He read my blog post of about my longings and set to do something about it. What?  I’m still so surprised at his thoughtfulness and generosity.  I didn’t get a diamond or a trip to Hawaii, I didn’t get an elaborate date night with loads of pampering  and culinary indulgences.  I got a freezer full of meat.  Yup, you read that correctly.  Meat.

             

I took these pictures before he was actually done.

And while on the surface that might seem really bizarre, it’s so amazing that I fear I can’t express my gratitude enough. 

Not only did he plan out what to buy, he bought it, then repackaged it (with my input) in portions that would be helpful for our family.  He cooked, cut, washed, labeled, stacked, counted and prepared all this meat for me.  He saved me so much time, so much money from my normal weekly food budget.  He wrote a blog post about it here.  You can read it from his perspective, complete with charts and prices and what we packed up, specifically.  Amazing!

So now our family joke is that I don’t get diamonds for Valentine’s Day, I get a freezer full of meat.  Well, I already have all the diamonds I’ll ever need and a freezer full of meat satisfies my longing for simplicity.

I’ll be forever grateful. 

So for me, this Valentine’s Day, Love is Meat.

I shall eat of it daily.

The Battle is the Lord’s,

Mrs. Taffy

Chocolate Taffy-Another Year

Sigh…they just keep getting older.  I LOVE to celebrate my children, love to see them approach adulthood and independence, but still birthday’s make me a little melancholy.  Chocolate Taffy turned 17 on the 7th.  Seriously?  I just don’t feel old enough to have ANOTHER 17 year old.  I’m so thankful to have younger children, I think they keep me feeling younger!

I was looking through Chocolate Taffy’s baby book recently, looking for a photo to use for Graduation.  I found something interesting.  A little note I wrote to myself.  I was 22 when I found out I was pregnant with Chocolate Taffy, I had a newborn, was still post partum and here I was pregnant again.  I was little, let’s say, unsure about that.  But God in His graciousness spoke very clearly to me and told me that this baby was going to be a blessing.  I wrote it down.  I forgot about it.  God is not a liar.  This son has been a tremendous blessing to his father and I.  Through some of the difficult things we’ve been through recently he has been dependable and consistent, he’s been helpful and obedient. 

I was so happy to find that little note.  So happy to be able to testify to the faithfulness of God.

Happy Birthday Chocolate Taffy!  Thanks for be what God said you would be.  Thanks for being you!  I am honored to be your mom!

The Battle is the Lord’s,

Mrs. Taffy

What Christmas Looks like at our house.

Do you enjoy decorating at Christmastime?  I go through different moods, sometimes it makes me really happy to decorate, other times I just do it because it makes everybody else happy.  This year kind of fell into the second category.  Still, once it’s all done, I do enjoy the results and white lights are so cheerful!

Here’s a little tour of what our home looks like at Christmastime.

Sweet little girls dressed in sweet little Christmas dresses!

The stockings.

The Nativity on top of the kitchen cabinets. There’s white lights interlaced in that garland.

Christmas Quilts from Great Grandma.  Such a treasure!

Our pretty Costco Christmas Tree.  So glad our local Costco had them this year, such a great value!  Look!  I’ve even wrapped a few presents already! 

Some special ornaments.

Our Advent Chain.  I’ll share more about this soon!

There you have it…a little tour of how we make things Christmassy around here. 

Merry Christmas Friends!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Losing Site {Guest Post}

I think all my impatience for Christmas has finally caught up with me. (That or this calm Christmas music I'm listening to is getting to me.)

Nope. It's the impatience.

Sometimes I think I lose sight of what's really important. (Sometimes means a LOT.) I love the music, the decorations, the baking, the presents, the music, the food, the events, the music, the trees, the movies, the advent calendars, the snow, the music...

Do you know that it is really hard to keep in mind why we are celebrating? So many stores, ads, basically everything around us is pushing and shoving for things like Santa Clause, gifts and "the Spirit of Christmas" to reach the top of our priority lists.* I heard M&M talking with my mom about Santa Clause the other day. {To Read the Rest Click Here.}

Delightful Christmas Giveaway

God is doing amazing things on my daughter’s blog.  One of those things is favor, He’s been giving her favor with MANY esty shop owners and they have graciously donated beautifully crafted items for a Christmas Giveaway. 

If you love to win prizes like I do, I highly recommend you click on the button up above and enter!!  She’s doing a series of 3 giveaways, 3 prizes for each blog post!  Lots of opportunity’s here!

Joyfully, Mrs. Taffy

The happiest of days!

Did you have a wonderful Thanksgiving?  We sure did!  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t perfect nor stressless but I went to bed exhausted and FULL of thanks! We are so blessed!  Here’s a few pictures from our day of Thankfulness.

Our day started out with Laffy Taffy getting up at 4:45.  Yes, that would be in the morning.  He was so excited to EAT apparently.  I held off our morning appetizers to a “late” time of 7:30.  They basically inhaled all this food.  After appetizers and cleaning up we set up our family photo shoot.  You will see pictures of that fun time in my header up top. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was on while our photo shoot was happening too.

At 1:00 our first round of company arrived!

I offered to take a  few photos for them too.  This is Mr. Taffy’s sister and her daughters, our nieces.  Such lovely ladies!

Then I got a picture of all the cousins.  We thought this would be a nice gift for the kid’s great-grandma.  The children don’t have grandparents on my husband’s side, besides Great-Grandma, so she is pretty cherished by this whole group.

After photos, we ate!  (2pm)

See my empty spot there by Mr. Taffy.  (smile)   Everything was delicious and I have lots of leftovers!

After lunch I sent the older kids on a Scavenger Hunt around the neighborhood.

It was a very exciting time.  Mr. Taffy gave them a 45 minute limit.  They each had a cell phone with them to take pictures of the things they found.  Team 3 won!  I gave the winners each a $5 gift card to Target.  The excitement came in when the temperature started dropping and then it started sleeting.  By the time they got home, it had started snowing!  That wasn’t even in the forecast!  I made them hot chocolate and they warmed up playing games until our second round of company came. (6pm)

I didn’t even get a picture of that…but our dear friends came over with their 4 children, we all had dessert together, the kids played spoons and other LOUD games, the grown-ups just talked and talked and talked.  Everybody left around 10.  The roads were nasty, but everybody got home safe and sound.

It was a wonderful day!  I’ve just got so much to be thankful for!  One of them that comes to mind is today (the day after Thanksgiving) I don’t have anything that I HAVE to do!  I’m going to take to day to rest after all that work.  I’m sitting by the warm fire listening to the girls do crafts and the boys watching Cars 2, the snow is blowing around outside and the Peppermint Jo-Jo’s are divine!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy