Make a head mom

Daniel and I have been slowly stepping into the world of Freezer once a month cooking. I (Beth) struggle with low blood sugar and low iron right now. I found out that being deficient in Iron can take away your appetite along with throwing you deep into depression, well starving yourself along with low blood sugar is a bad mix. Afternoons come along, I'm too dizzy to think or stand, I feel like vomiting or passing out and have no desire to cook anything or sometimes even eat anything. If I do have an appetite that day it quickly dies as I melt over the stove. Daniel has always been so sweet about cooking for us on days I just couldn't pull it all together. He told me early in our marriage that if I didn't want to cook then I shouldn't because he loves doing it. We do have quite a few daddy meals a month, but I still like to cook when I'm feeling good. That's where Onceamonthmom.com comes in handy! I'm not even sure how I found it except that maybe I was searching how to freeze some kind of food? But oh man was it a beautiful site to me! They have everything you need to be as creative or not at all creative as you want, eat as cheep or as extravagant as you want! (Freezer cooking doesn't mean you have to eat junk everyday) If you choose to follow their menus to the "T" you can just print out all their recipe cards, grocery lists, prep and cooking day instructions and just follow the directions in order. It's so simple and beautiful! The meals are well rounded and seem to highlight foods that are in season. I've also noticed a lot of the recipes will include similar or the same ingredients saving you some money. Note they also offer besides the traditional menu a "Whole foods" menu, "Gluten Free" menu, "Vegetarian" menu and even a "Baby food" Menu! Each with their own grocery list, prep list, etc. If you have tons of kids or no one but you, you just enter into the serving box on the Google document how many people you are making for and it adjusts the numbers for you. So simple! I haven't yet followed a menu to the "T" although it seems fun to try. I tend to pick and choose meals from all the menus that look good to us and we end up adding recipes from my Taste of Home magazines or websites that look delicious as well. I like to take lots of the same kind of meat recipes that way I can just buy one big thing of it and split it between all the meals. So many things can be pre-made and frozen ahead with out tasting old. So far I've only made maybe 10 meals at a time before, but this month I'm hoping to go all out! I've made a tentative list of meals we can eat and how many batches of each meal and we'll see how it goes! I like the idea of choosing the night before what to cook for the next day instead of plotting out each day way in advance. So here is my list to choose from this month that may still be tweaked depending on food budget, sales, and preferences. The stared meals are the ones I plan to make ahead and freeze. The numbers with the Xs are how many times I multiply the recipe so we can eat it several times that month. Hopefully this will turn out well!

Breakfast

Cereal-7x

*Waffles-4 Batches; 4 meals

*Banana Bread- 1 Batch (4 loaves); 4 Meals with leftovers for snacks

Oatmeal-8x

Eggs/Toast-4x

Bagles-4x

Lunch

Tuna/egg Sandwiches-4x

Creative Sandwiches-8x (http://www.wholeliving.com/136433/super-sandwich-combinations#/78780)

Leftovers-4x

*Mac & Cheese-4x (one bag noodles = 2 casseroles. Try Cauliflower in the sauce)

*Lunch Burritos-8x (24 for the ladies; 8 for Daniel)

Dinner

Lentil Soup (left over from July)-x1

*Beef Bourguignonne w/ egg noodles-1x

*Chicken Enchiladas (less spice this time!)-x4

*White Pizza with Kale-x2 (will have left overs)

*French Onion Soup w/ Sourdough bowls-x2

*Crunchy Coconut Chicken with apricot sauce-x4

*Lasagna-x2 (will have left overs)

Salmon &Green Beens-x2

*Pasta E Fagioli with Sourdough bowls-x2

*Salads-x4 (make ahead grilled chicken strips)

*Feta Burgers-x2

Corned Beef and Hash-x2

Fruits/Vegetables

Oranges

Apples

Bananas

Green Beans

Salad

Carrots

Zucchini

Soy Beans

Sprouts

Snacks/drinks

v8

*Homemade Hummus

Homemade Crackers

Aw! Fresh sheets. One perk of your 4 month old wetting the bed around twice a week. I think thats what makes hotels so fun. They wash your sheets every day . . . Well we hope anyways!

one of the best feelings to a mommy is getting her sad baby comforted and sleeping.

Swimming at uncle Scott and aunt Chelsys pool! Claira's first experience 'swimming'. She loved it!

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FWD:

I can't wait to see what she does with LEGO's

FWD:

This is what Dany, my 3.5 year old, did. see a pattern?

A longing to listen

Intouch Ministry's website has been updated! Now it's easier to share the link to the Audio Files! This should take you directly to the message. Listen with me! http://www.intouch.org/broadcast/today-on-radio/content?topic=life_s_most_important_activity_radio

Dr. Charles Stanley
Life's Most Important Activity 07/02/2012
Exodus 3:1-6
"The limitations on your potential just get shattered when you begin to spend time talking listening meditating and asking, Lord what are you saying to my heart? If I am going to hear what God is saying I've got to be willing to turn aside from What? Preaching , Teaching, Studying, and all the work of the ministry, turn aside and get quiet and listen to God."

What have I missed because I was too busy to listen? How many fantastic blessings have we missed because we were too busy to listen.

In Exodus 3:4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”


Most things in our life are going to hinge on our Meditation to the Lord.
Meditation is thinking, Concentrating, focus, absorbing, understanding, gleaning, serious thought, make it apart of me. Lifting my heart heavenward and focusing on Him and shutting everything else out.
It's listening

3 things that meditation is absolutely essential to:

1. Holiness of Heart
Spending time every day. The habit of your life not because you are afraid God will do something to you if you don't, but because you hunger to hear from Him.
Absorbing Him into my life.

2. to a Life of Contentment

3. to be a help to someone else.
if you think you can go on talent, charisma, fame you can't
lean upon Him.
If we aren't drawing our strength from Him it will run out.
If we aren't getting our wisdom from Him it's not wisdom it's our opinion.

Meditation requires you to make it a priority in your life.


Meditations requires a place. You can pray anywhere, but you really need a quiet place where just you and He can do business. Where you lay down all your burdens, where you cry out to Him, where you learn from Him,


Meditation requires purpose. The purpose is I want to get to know this God in whom I've trusted my whole eternal future in who's name I bear, who's life I poses, and whom I follow and whom I want to be like and who's power I'm trusting. I want to know him  I'm not satisfied knowing about Him I want to know him!
I want an intimate warm personal relationship with this God. I want my hunger to be as such that I can not neglect to pray I want my thirst to be that nothing else will satisfy my heart.

The Plan
You choose some portion of scripture to read and be quiet
Keep a note pad close by to keep a diary of what you learn.
If your going to meditate, you may get through one chapter, two chapters, or just half a verse before something speaks to your heart.
Talk, Listen, and Read

Things that will happen when you meditate
1. Will quiet your spirit
2. Enlightenment of the Mind, we begin to see things the way He sees them
3. Divine, spiritual, physical emotional, energy that comes through meditation. Sometimes will cause you go to sleep in order that we may get quiet and listen and focus.
4. Purifies your heart. The word of God mirrors who we are.
5. Deepens our hunger for God
6. Enlarges our view of God
7. increases our love for God
8. Greater sense of Authority of God
9. Strengthens our Faith
10. Sensitizes us to the presence of God in our life.


"The most important thing in your life and my life is not anything we do for God, it is the time we spend with him allowing him to be in us, what he desires to be. He is shaping us and forming us like His Son."




Kinda Off Topic but kinda on. I chose the picture above because it reminded me of a conversation Daniel and I were having on our honeymoon when we took this picture of these Lilly pads. I had said something very quietly not expecting Daniel to have heard me that to me it was interesting, but didn't think he would care to hear or take the time to hear. To my surprise he had heard me and he cared so much about me that he wanted to hear what I was thinking about out loud to myself. We talked about how wonderful it was to be best friends and care about each other so much we wanted to hear each other's hearts and thoughts. We were so used to just saying things not expecting anyone to really listen or to just "uh-hum" us and it was so exciting and comforting to have someone who did care to really listen. Our love grew a little bigger that day just having that small little conversation. We've had many conversations since that have continued to grow our love for each other deeper and richer everyday. This brings two questions to my mind.
1. Am I still taking time to listen to Daniel's thoughts big and small everyday even when I'm surrounded by the noise of being a mommy now (and I'm not talking about just noise of kids, they can be happily napping and they are constantly on my mind.) What about my Kids? Do I listen to each of them individually everyday? I'm sure we can all always do better. Let's challenge ourselves to drown out unnecessary noise that is deafening us to what matters.
2.  If God loves us more than any human can love us, think how much he longs to listen to us and have us listen to Him!