Chicken stock

I am proud to report S and I made our first homemade batch of chicken stock tonight. OK, so I have to admit S did most of the work. It was totally unplanned, but the results were wonderful. It all started when I went to our organic food store to pick up some groceries for the week. They had a mega-sale on a whole natural chicken for $1.99/lb (usually $4.99/lb). I couldn't resist that deal, so I bought 2 chickens. I brought them home, and S skinned and chopped them up for me, leaving us with 2 carcasses and the giblets. He decided to throw them in a pot of water and attempt to make the stock. I quickly found a few recipe ideas on the internet, and we added a few ingredients. The results were beautiful!

Here is the recipe we concocted:

• 1 Chicken carcass per 4 quarts water
• Giblets, if desired (they will make the broth much stronger!)
• Desired amounts of vegetables such as carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, etc.
• Desired amounts of herbs such as parsley, bay leaves, etc.
• 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper per 4 quarts

Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer soup for about 4 hours. Pour soup through a strainer, seperating broth from solids. I didn't have a wire strainer, so in order to get the smallest solids and herbs strained, we then re-strained the broth through a linen cloth. We were left with the bowl of broth you see above. We then put all the vegetables into a seperate container, picked the carcass clean, and added the meat to the veggies for a soup tomorrow. Store the excess accordingly, and enjoy!


This picture shows our yield of about 8 quarts of broth (divided into needed portions to either freeze or use tomorrow), and a bowl of chicken and veggies for soup. YUM!! As a side note, S quickly tired of munching on the cooked giblets, so I gave them to Will. Mind you, this is a dog who NEVER gets people food, and rarely gets any hand-fed treats. That dog was in absolute HEAVEN!!!

Tug of War

JR and Will have finally realized that they can be playmates. We watched for over an hour yesterday as they played a few rounds of Will's favorite game, tug. What do you get when you match a 32 pound, 2 legged boy, against a 95 pound 4 legged dog? You get this:

The warm up: both competitors get a good grip on the rope and circle each other to size up the opposition

And they're off! Tugging mightily!

Will has JR off balance. Can JR recover?

JR regains his balance, and braces himself. He is determined to win this match!

Oh!! He's down! Will finally has enough, and with a single solid jerk, knocks JR right off his feet! But wait, JR refuses to let go of the rope!

Will proceeds to drag JR across the floor, as JR tries desperately to hang on. (At this point, mom steps in and tries to delicately explain that Will has won the game.)

Winter Dinner Schedule

My last monthly dinner schedule seemed quite popular, so I have updated with my winter schedule below. A few meals are the same as the summer schedule, but for the most part, the winter meals are good for cooler weather. Like last time, if you decide to try this type of organizing, just replace my dinners with your favorites. I don't always follow precisely day to day, but I generally stick with having the scheduled meals at some point during the scheduled week. This allows me some flexibility if, for example, I have some produce about to go bad, I can use it in a recipe or if we eat out one evening. I can't tell how much it helps, though, having a plan, even if you can't stick to it completely! "FREE" nights are generally for cleaning up leftovers or experimenting with new recipes. If there are any dinners on my sheet that you would like recipes for, just ask, and I will post them when I can!

Click on the image for a larger view. Enjoy!

*Edited to add: I can't get pic to expand, although the file is plenty big enough. I have uploaded it as large as I can. If any of you can offer advice as to how I might fix this, I am all ears!

Recent Happenings...

We have had a little fun this week doing all kinds of activities. A is finally sitting up unassisted, which is a huge relief since the doc was almost convinced he was delayed. We spent Wednesday baking pumpkin cookies and pumpkin bread, which I have to do more of and will post recipes later. Today, I made all the kids suffer through some photos. Here are a few things I actually managed to capture on film:

Friends lent us a doggy door. After I installed it, Will spent the majority of the day on one side or the other, with his head sticking through like this. Notice our crazy cat sitting nearby. She hasn't quite figured it out yet, but is getting close.

My girly-girl has finally learned to twirl. Lately, she only wants to wear dresses, and most of what I have is summer dresses, so she prefers being cold and "pretty" to warm and whatever she thinks the alternative is. And, as all girly-girls know, the best way to judge a dress is by a twirl!
My handsome heartbreaker! We learned this week how true the title is when a tiny little girl (who we have never seen before) walked up to him at a restaurant, grabbed him by the hand, and said, you can come to my house now. Poor JR didn't know what was going on, and explained to us that "that little girl wanted to take me home!"

Daddy's little princess

My little quarterback

Thankful...

There are a few things I am soooooo thankful we taught/are teaching our kids!

• to pray (there are few things sweeter than a young child's prayer!)
• to whisper if they have an urgent question about someone
• to ask questions about others when we are alone in the car or at home
• "potty-talk" (i.e. anything related to bodily waste) should not happen at the dinner table
• gas should only be expelled in the bathroom (it is so funny when my son suddenly jumps down from the dinner table with the explanation "I have to go pass gas!")
• manners (it is sad when manners are so rare, that people compliment when they hear your children use them!)
• to raise a hand or gently touch me in our specific way and wait for acknowledgement, rather than interrupt an adult conversation (in person or on phone)
• to like vegetables (I really felt like I had done something right the other day when JR suddenly said, "Mom, for lunch today, I want broccoli, sweet potatoes, and peas!" Unfortunately, I didn't have all those items, but geepers, that came from my 4 year old!!)
• a routine (life is soooo much easier when children know what to expect, go to bed and stay there without a fight, ask to take their baths, and stay in their rooms until the designated times!)
• to play independently sometimes
• to clean up their toys (no, I do not have a clean house all the time, but it is nice to have a little help at "clean-up time")

I think we have been saved many a potentially embarassing moment thanks to a few of these. What are some things you are thankful for?

Project Monday

Here is a re-cap of today's big project, great for teaching a science/nature lesson, fine motor skills, and, if you eat the peanut butter yourself, its good for filling tummies!

Handmade Bird feeder

Spread a nice, not too-thick layer of creamy peanut butter on an empty toilet paper or paper towel roll. Be sure to entirely cover the outside of the roll.

Sprinkle the peanut-buttered roll with wild birdseed, or, for older kids, roll the roll in the bird seed (this helps it stick a little better).

Run a string through the roll to make a hanger, note proud faces of your children, and hang outside for birds to eat.

The Invisible Mother

Someone sent me this, and I thought I would pass it along. Unfortunately, they did not include the author. Nonetheless, I thought it was something all we mothers could appreciate....

THE INVISIBLE MOTHER

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response,the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The Invisible Mom.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands, I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it? I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude- but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. Iwas sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees. 'In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, afterwhich I could pattern my work. No one can say who built the great cathedrals, we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man,'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction but it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my child to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand-bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen, if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.
--author unknown

Adoption Update #1

We got all the application paperwork notarized and in the mail today. We had to send one app to the agency doing our homestudy, and the other to the agency we are adopting through. So we are well on our way!

Halloween

We agreed when our oldest was still young that we didn't agree with what Halloween stood for in the secular sense. However, many churches offer an alternative "Trunk-or-Treat" and carnival games that evening, which we decided to support. So once again, last night, we went to church for the festivities.

Pooh Bear and Eeyore

I don't remember a cow grazing the Merry Meadows!

S and I went as Bible characters. Aren't we a cute family?!

Adoption process has begun...

Last night, I took a rare moment. S agreed to take the kids out for a walk/bike ride around the neighborhood, and just let me take a relaxing shower. I have been on my knees in prayer recently regarding the decisions we have to make with our adoption, and during the shower, I just felt like God spelled the whole plan out for us. I told S about it later, and he agreed. So, we made our final decisions last night, and started the process. "Coincidentally" (God arranged?) S was off work all morning--something that only happens on occasion. So I stayed up relatively late going over all the paperwork. I spent several hours filling out what I could and marking things for S to fill out, or things that have to be signed by notaries. This morning, we hit the ground running, and decided to take advantage of S's morning off. We fed the kids, and loaded up. I am ashamed to say, we were in such a rush to get out the door that I totally forgot to brush M's hair or wash JR's face (covered in cereal and milk residue!) Oh well! We started off getting our fingerprints done. You have to have several copies in order to have state and national FBI background checks done. Those can take 2-3 months for results, so you do them ASAP. Then we had to go get criminal records (or lack thereof, I should say! I have never been caught!) from the police station. That was followed by a trip to the bank to get cashier's checks to pay for it all. Few folks accept personal checks anymore! Then we put all that together and dropped it off at an office for our social worker so he can start his process. Sound complicated? It's only the beginning!

Over the next few days/weeks, I have to make copies of all our birth certificates, our marriage certificate, different ID and insurance cards, notarize forms, and gather criminal records from the last 5 years. For us, that involves 3 states (1 down, 2 to go!). We have to continue filling out mountains of paperwork. I personally, have found the written part of the homestudy is really not as bad as people make it sound. The problem is that you have to write the same things several times in some cases. There is the official agency application, then the personal profile and/or autobiography, and, in this case, the social worker has his own forms totally seperate from our agency. So I have to write some of this stuff 3 times! No one accepts copies. Then, our agency requires statements of faith since they are a Christian agency. Thank the Lord, we have recently gotten to know one of our pastors recently so he could help with that. I have to send out reference letters. By the way, if you know us personally, there is a good chance I will e-mail or call about it soon! LOL When we get all that stuff back, I then get to load up the 3 kids I have now and make a trip to the local fedex store for shipping services. Finally, the best part is when we create and order our "profiles." This is a book we have compiled that tells the expectant mother about us. We try to answer the majority of questions she might have. She will be shown several of these profiles based on her criteria for adoptive parents, in order to help her decide who she wants to choose to adopt her baby.

It sounds intimidating, but amazingly, I am so relaxed about it this go around. It is wonderful having been through it before. God gave us the fore-sight to get extra copies of many of our certificates so we don't have to worry about that this time, and we totally know what to expect this go around. I was just telling S that I have truly come to value the sense of peace I get when I/we have made the right decision (we hope! LOL). Only God ever knows for sure, but He hasn't led me wrong yet when I pay attention to that feeling. So now, if you could just keep the whole process in your prayers once again. Pray that our fingerprints and paperwork can be processed in a timely manner so the homestudy can proceed, pray for everyone involved, and pray for the biological mother of the child God is planning for us, as well as the child him/her-self. Thanks!