My "Budget" Post

For those of you that don't know what I mean by "the Budget" go here  I heard someone compare social media today as "the Budget on steroids" and it made my mind go to what I would write if I wrote about our life. So here goes:        keep in mind I've only read the Budget a few times-- just looked and it has pictures now? 

Hello from the sunny hills of eastern Lancaster county where we are finally having a taste of fall. This summer I decided to try and fill all my canning jars and I actually did it!  Peaches, tomatoes, some free pears, salsa, pizza sauce, strawberry jelly.  I decided not to can Baby Gold peaches even though my mother thinks they are the best kind. I just think they are a lot of work when you can just do Canadian Harmony and not have your hands hurting when you are done. I ended up buying two dozen new jars (wide mouth for $9.99) I called Uncle Leroy first to see if he found any at the auction in town and he said people are paying more-than-new price for used jars and he didn't buy any lately.

I froze my apple sauce this year because I'm not sure I really like the taste of canned apple sauce. Then I had about 3 baskets of apples left over so I decided to snitz them. I filled the oven and the dehydrator three times then decided we can just eat the rest of them. That is a lot of peeling!
I sealed the snitz in canning jars using the method with the Ziploc vacuum pump. See the method here   I did dried onions that way last year and they are still good.

The neighbor lady gave me a whole box of pears, but they are plenty green yet.

Our daughter Shekinah had some kind of swollen glands in her neck last week. The doctor called it "mumps" but said she wouldn't give them to anyone. Guess he knows what he's talking about. Her face was only swollen for about 4 days, but he put her on antibiotics anyway.

Heard tell the other week, someone has a new foster baby, the baby is white,but the parents are said to be black. You hope that someone didn't mix up paper work somewhere, but I guess that could happen.

Found these three frogs posed prettily on the edge of an old dog water dish.

Two weekends ago the big building at Green Dragon burned down. Thankfully it was early in the morning and no people were there. Well actually I guess the night watchman was there,but he was sleeping in another building. Must've been sleeping pretty good if he slept through all those fire sirens! They say 19 businesses were destroyed,but they plan to have the market open this Friday.

Guess I have to move stuff around in my freezer tomorrow, as we plan to butcher six of our eight turkeys  on Saturday. Not sure how I'm going to fit that many in the freezer as my husband thinks they will weigh about 14 lbs each. Thinking about putting some in a brine to make it taste like ham.
Wonder how many of the children will have homework and not be able to help? One of the children thought they wanted to take up deer hunting this year, I told him/her that they need to help clean the turkeys first, it was "really gross".

Managed to finally finish a quilt order, of course there is another one sitting here already, but I'm taking a break and sewing sweaters from t-shirts for the girls.

Well it's time to get to bed because everyone else is already there, just a few last thoughts:

One of the children was trying to figure out how many calories we use, I thought the estimates were sort of low, then I was informed that it takes twenty kisses to use up five calories.....a boy at school was the source of that information.

Ezekiel wondered about those bucket lists people have...." is the last item--kick it?"

Conferences

First I'll just post a really good picture of Shekinah.

This past weekend my hubby and I went AWAY.... ALONE! It was the first time we were away overnight without any kids....ummmm since we went to Ch*na for Hope. That is almost 13 years ago.

Yes we went to an Empowered to Connect Conference, but we did not have to talk if we didn't want to, or even listen if we didn't feel like it. But the conference was one of those that made you sit up and listen, take notes, and laugh till your all your kleenex were saturated. (didn't know a lawyer could be so funny) Look for them at Empowered to Connect

The funny thing is that one of the speakers mentioned peanut butter spoons and a whole row of Mennonite mamas gave a thumbs up. The basics to remember:

feed 'em and water 'em every two hours.  That comes around pretty often!

 Connect- "look in my eyes, buddy"

 give them voice -while we shut up  (within limits) "tell me what you need"

 give them choices (two and be sure you are OK with either choice) sometimes they need help with their "voice"
 I can hear you saying, "hmph, they won't pick either choice!" If they are regulated, they can ASK (with respect) for a compromise (you need to teach that in a relaxed time), if  the decision is important and really has no compromise you may need to tell them "sorry this time it is #1 or #2 choice...good job accepting 'no' "

 get them moving- they hear best when they are playing  and movement helps with a whole other raft of issues

most "feelings" pass in 90 seconds if you let them

Rewind and Remember...don't fast-forward and forget- take time to look in your past and figure out why you have "hot buttons" and how you can dis-arm them.

Flexibility is your friend, Expectations are you enemy somewhere I read, "teach the child you have, not the one you wish you had"

Oh and you will make mistakes, but our kids will allow you to have re-do's

"Bring them up in the nurture and admonition (structure) of the Lord" Eph 6:4

Balance the nurture and the structure.

We walked away with our minds full...I've read a lot of Karyn Purvis' materials and watched her videos online, but the refresher was so necessary.

Then we collected our children from my brother's house. We had my brother and his wife keep them, they already have 8 children at home...we figured we could slip 4 more in the door and they'd never notice.  Shekinah had a wonderful weekend, she'd had a night terror the night before we left and I was worried that staying at someone's house would trigger another. Thankfully she did great, she had two cousins close her age to keep her occupied the whole time.

The interesting twist to this came on Monday night as we were doing the dishes, "Mom, why do you need to go to these "parent-teacher" conferences anyway. Isn't that for people who have trouble with their kids?"
Hmm maybe that was what was behind the protests against mom and dad going away for their anniversary.



Quote of the YEAR:  "You never helped me with my homework last year, I almost didn't make it in math!  (wait for it)



  I got an A-!"

Peanut Butter

After about 23 years of trying to rear (correct grammar here) children, I 'm still learning some new things.  I've known for quite awhile that food is important to little people-and some big people too- but does it affect their behavior?
Our youngest, can be the sweetest little girl. She is the one that tells me, "I don't want to wear that mom, because people will tell me I'm cute."  But what turns that little princess into a screaming, hitting, double barreled, kicking machine?

Yes this cute one.

Does she need a good-old-fashioned-warm rear end?
Ever since I've been reading up on children who come with unknown histories, I've heard the thing about "food every two hours" even if mom isn't hungry yet.

So I started checking the clock when my child changes into and "irascible child" and whatyano?
It's been at least two hours or she only ate Ramen noodles for the last meal.

changing before your eyes....well not really but there is a warning there

They tell me protein is the ticket, but burgers at 10 AM?  My budget isn't going to handle that.

But peanut butter?  We buy it by the six pound containers.

I've started giving her a teaspoon full of peanut butter. Most of the time I either call her from the scene of the screaming accusations of "you're rude" and say "Shekinah, I have something for you."  Plop her on a chair and in it goes.

Now sometimes it is my ears that are being assaulted by "you're rude" so then I might need to calm my face first and haul the 30-some-pounder out to the kitchen and plop her on a chair.  " I think you need to calm down, here's some peanut butter."
Occasionally she will turn her head and refuse, so I lay the spoon beside her and turn my back and do what ever needs doing at the sink.
So Far...she has never refused it completely. I try not to view it as a punishment, more like....see if this will help you calm down.

The change is almost instant! Often she will say "mommy, I love you"  or "I'm sorry."
Or you will just see the nice little girl has come back and she is relaxed.

So please let me know-- if you try it, what are the results. I know of one other mom that does it, but her girls were old enough to go for the peanut butter jar themselves and I never thought to administer it TO my child.

Note:  Now of course you will be an attentive mama and not leave your child to choke on a mouthful of peanut butter! My children seem to handle it just fine, but you know your child.