Fun games for kids!

This post is about some fun games our family really enjoy and also help me get through my homeschooling day!

Feed the Kitty:  This is a fun fast cute game that runs right around $10 and is well worth the investment. It has 20 wooden mice, a food dish and 2 custom dice.  It is fast and takes about 15 minutes to play.  It says 4+ on the box I have had children as young as 3 play this. In this game your littlest one will most likely get to play first which is great excitement for them.  The directions say the person with the shortest pinky goes first.  You roll your dice and either pass mice to the player on the left , put them in the cat dish , take them out or keep them.  If you have a child just dying for your attention this is great because it does not take long and they are satisfied because you played with them.  The last person with mice left wins the game.  Beware just because you lose all your mice doesn't mean you are done playing.  Your opponent could roll a pass to the left and give you more mice!  Also an older child can take a younger one to a corner of a room and play this with them to help appease them.  Great fun.  Feed the Kitty ranks an A++ in our home.  A must have.

Hisss:  Hisss is a simple card game that is all about building a snake with your cards.  A snake must have a head a tail and a body.  If you are the lucky one to place the final piece (either a head or tail) you get the cards that make up that snake.  The colors move and blend from one to the next so you have matching skills involved. When you are all done the winner is the person with the most cards.  It is fun and simple for little kids but does need a little space for you to lay the cards out as you build the snakes.  This is also a great fast game that you can play or assign an older child to do with a younger one.  Not quite as fast moving as Feed the Kitty but fun!  '

Granny Apples:  Oh my granny has an apple orchard and you want to get the apples!  This is a fast moving game but I have modified it in the past so I could have younger children play it.  The lowest I have been able to go with this is 6-7 yrs.  The game has 8 wooden apple dice that you roll.  In the original game the person who counts up the apple total rolled first is the winner and gets that many cardboard apples to keep. Several rounds later when all the apples are passed out the winner is determined by who has the most.  I have modified this by letting each person roll a turn and then counting up the apple count and getting that many.  You have whole and half apples and worms and birds that take away apples and pics of granny which means she gets apples in her basket.  Fun fun fun but not for a preschooler.

Zeus on the loose:  This is an adorable fast moving card game and your child needs to be able to add and subtract in their head up to 100 with no problems. The box recommends 10+ I have had kids as young as 8 play without problems.  Zeus is a little plastic statue holding a lightening bolt (of course).  You want to have Zeus.  As you play Zeus moves from player to player.  If you play a card and your score come out at and even 10,20,30 etc.... you get Zeus.  Play a minor greek god card that says steal Zeus and you get Zeus....the score on Mt. Olympus ( discard pile) goes up and down until you hit 100 and the person who makes the pile an even 100 gets Zeus.  You win you get a letter to spell Zeus.  The first person to spell Zeus wins. This is a fun fast action card game for sure.

All of these are available on Amazon and a specialty toy stores.  All are well worth the money you pay for them. Check them out today.

Food food food :)

So this is my all about food blog.  I will start by saying this is not your ordinary food blog!

My family loves food.  They love great food even better. They love many restaurant dishes best!

I am a stay at home homeschooling mom who does work within a food budget.  It is not skimpy but not extravagant either. It is probably lower than some for a family of 6 people.  I have found that with internet there is not one single dish you cannot duplicate from your favorite restaurant.

We regularly enjoy some of the following dishes:
Chicken Marsala
Chicken Gnocchi Soup
Olive Gardens Bruchetta recipe
Awesome pork tenderloins with marinades.
Beef Wellington
and much more.

All of my recipes I have found online and the majority through allrecipes.com  I have found very few items that make a total flop.  I will share one and that was chocolate flavored waffles.  We thought that would be tons of fun but it was just horrid tasting.  We decided to just add chocolate syrup to our waffles if that is a taste we desire.

You can eat well, you can eat well on a reasonable budget. You can find all this online.  My family has gotten so picky about the chicken gnocchi soup that when we go to the Olive Garden it does not taste as good to them.  That is what cooking great food for your family is all about.  Food is a gift from God.  It is like many of his other gifts in its ability to bring great pleasure to someone.  It can be good, great or bad.

I had no clue how to cook when at 17 I found myself on my own due to both my parents having passed away.  I ruined a lot of food.  I burnt a lot of food.  My husband suffered through much of this bless his soul.  If you can follow directions I promise you can follow a recipe and make great food.  Check them out online you may find some great new ones to jazz up your week.  

Helping others/witnessing

So this will surely bring some negative feedback.  However God has told me this is a topic of concern.

We all know that as mom's that the first mission field is at home. We also have an obligation to help and be there for others.  A huge trend among Christian moms seems to be that we are really selective about our willingness to help others or witnessing to them.

Example :  That mom down the road is nice, her daughter is nice and sweet as pie and it is easy to entertain her for awhile and give her mom a break.  However that little monster boy who lives down the road also whose mom is single and every time he drives by he runs over my toes with his bike and sneers at me... I would never offer to take him or invite his mom to coffee.   OUCH!  The problem is that I did not see Christ spending a lot of time with the nice, perfect, easy, pleasant, good looking people in the bible.  What I see time and time again is that he actively sought out those people we would turn our backs on and chose not to associate with.

Maybe the single mom down the road is in desperate need of a break so she can build her resolve to go at it one more day.  Maybe the man at the beach with his little boy just needs someone to pray with him or over him.  Maybe that little girl with the dirty clothes and the head lice YES I said that.  Just needs someone to show her a few minutes of love so she feels worthwhile and not like she is a reject.  Maybe all these people who don't fit into our world view of people we want to witness to need it the most.  The nice people, nice looking people who are not Christians certainly are not less worthy of our time but it seems to be that we spend too much time focusing on them.

When we see these less then desirable people ..... the mean little boy, the dirty little girl, the single mom or the pregnant teen I think we need to command our thoughts.  I think we need to take them captive and try just once to see them the way Christ did.

I was that little girl with a single mom.  A mother who was widowed,  A mother left with and 11 yr old son and a 1 year old daughter.  I was kept clean however growing up in the 70's without a dad lead many to assume my mom was divorced.  They did not take the time to find out that her husband had been a brilliant engineer with Bell Labs making cutting edge strides in his job.  They looked and saw......"Single Mom".  The most wonderful nonjudgmental people I had consistent contact with were the Mennonites.  Caring, kind, compassionate and filling Christ's great commission.  Let us strive to be those people.   Search your heart, control your thoughts and try to view people with the value Christ saw in them not the world.  

Blessings.

Peace of God be with you all!  I love it when Paul says things like this in the New Testament.

Today I wanted to Praise and Thank God for some blessings in our lives.

Children!  Amanda turned 19 yesterday and is on her path in college to try to become a nurse.  I will be an exciting time to watch how God works her path in his plan.

Noah turns 11 today.  Our focus has shifted in our home to really raising up Godly young men since we have 3 of them and they are all still in the home.  Noah has grown by leaps and bounds in the past year and I do believe he will be baptized soon as he has started to talk more about it.  Understand I had all my children baptized as infants when we were within the Lutheran Church.  I now have a more complete understanding of this and the meaning and look forward to a new baptism made by choice and knowledge and growth on his part.  How exciting!

Joshua will be 7 in 2 months.  School has not been easy with him.  Some days it is all I can do to get him to sit for 5 minutes.  He is starting to take more initiative and has shown fabulous progress.  I have prayed over this a lot and even though I don't mind delaying learning for a child who is not quite ready the Lord has had to work on my heart knowing that I want him to do it all now.  He is always smiling and brings such laughter and energy to our home.

Micah will be 5 in 2 months.  We are still struggling with potty issues with him and ask for prayer.  Micah is such a smart young boy and even though we have tough days he is such a cuddle bug.  He loves to sit up with you and snuggle and what could be better than that.

Twila has been gone almost 8 years now.  Having her here for such a short time is a reminder of how fragile life is and that we must accept God's calling when it is time for us to go home.

I have so much more I want to say about provisions and blessings but I will leave that for another day.

Many blessings in our lives.

Have you ever really thought about the many blessings God gives us? It really is amazing!  I am reading the book 1000 gifts by Ann Voskamp.  She reminded me in there that the key to joy has a lot to do with thankfulness.

Thankful when your kids are sick or healthy. 
Thankful when  finances are bad or good. 
Thankful when your have reached your limit or not. 


I have really been learning this lesson the hard way.  I honestly have a really stinking attitude at times and sometimes make the choice to stay there.  Instead of replacing the lies that satan wants to put in my head with solid biblical truth I choose to stay in that lie.  Not all the time everyday but when I choose not to leave it then I am choosing to stay in that place.

Have you every talked to someone and had them say , I am not in the mood to talk , I am crabby today.  Well we really are choosing to remain in that spot.  We are letting satan win by not replacing the lie he told us to make us "crabby" with the truth that God has for us.

I have been working through many things while we try to navigate a clear path to where God wants our family to be in a biblical place, a financial place, and a physical place.  I have had to calm down, give thanks and wait on the word of God.  It is funny now that I have resolved myself to some of that how he is opening doors.  Life is hard.  I do know that as well as anyone and more than some and less than others.  Finding God's peace is only coming through a practice of thankgiving and understanding that I fall under his protection. Not protection to never have discomfort in my life or unpleasantness but protection of his grace.

Praying for our sons.

I am joining  the 21 days of prayers for sons challenge.  As you know I have been blessed with 3 young men ages 10, 6, and 4.  I have a huge God given responsibility along with my husband to raise them into Godly men.  If you have boys.  Please consider taking this prayer challenge with  me for the first 21 days of May. 


Change the world. Pray for your sons! Join me in the 21 Days of Prayer for Sons challenge. Get a free book today! Details here http://bit.ly/GFP6Sv

Walking with God.

Today I was reading in Genesis. Yep right from the beginning through chapter 10. Something struck me that never did before.  I knew it.  I was aware of it but never really understood the significance of it.  God literally walked with man and talked to him.  Even after the fall he came and said to Cain "Where is your brother?"

This is the way it was intended to be. God made a garden and would come walk through it and communicate with us.  Or commune. He did this I am sure because he enjoyed spending time with us.  How sad to think that we lost all of that due to sin.  I have worked really hard lately to hear God's voice.  It isn't easy. For me it is hard. There is so much noise and distraction in the world. Places to go, people to see, things that must be done.  If only he would come walk and talk with us.  He does but it takes much more intentional effort on our part to actually be in the presence of God. We really have to work at it and want it. At least for me it doesn't come easy.

We need to actively seek and look for that quiet and still space where we can talk and walk with God.  Maybe in our home on the sofa, maybe a walk through the field, maybe watching the joy in our children's faces as they run and play in the yard together.  All of these and many more.  Looking, seeking and watching. Finding that joy and presence of God.  It is there we just must look.

So begins a new year :)

A new year has begun for us all. I try not to make resolutions. They always seems to end with disappointment. I do try to make some life changes it just sounds better and more successful.

My website will be launching in a few weeks with great anticipation. I am hoping to be able to drive consistent traffic to it for a more consistent income then just selling doll clothes in the fall. I have hopes to also show the boys how to pack and ship product, print the postage online and help with some book keeping. Even though doll clothes are a girly thing running the business is not and I do believe these skill will help them in life.

Today the boys are out sledding before we start school work. I am thankful they are home and have the opportunity to burn off this energy before having to sit.

This is a year of growth and change for our family we can feel it coming.  We are not participating in the local fairs this year.  It takes all my husbands vacation time and then we do not get to do family things.  Rabbit breeding has come to a stop.  All things around animals are coming to a halt at Jubilee Mini farm and the focus will be on non animal food production.  This will allow our family time to enjoy the summer with out being tied to the house because of animals.  It is a big move for us but a necessary one.  We will still have all the fruits and veggies just not meat production.

We are still on the fence with many other activities.  Cub Scouts and Archery will stay but the rest is up for a potential chopping block.  With Amanda in college we have to shift our focus to what will produce positive results for the young men in our house.  Helping them to develop into what God has set for their future.  We have noticed that many young men today are allowed way to much time interacting on computers, televisions and gaming systems.  We believe that is not a positive God given course for their life.

Here is hoping to a great new year. With all God's blessings and guidance and our willingness to follow his commands.  :)