bsmiles and sunny days

SOMETHING I HAVE LEARNED: Sometimes you have to make food that no one likes. I cook something almost everyday. The more people we have in the house the greater the likelihood is that someone will not like what I've made. It makes me not want to cook. Ever. For instance, tonight we are having taco soup. I have leftover meat from taco night earlier this week. For whatever reason I had tons of meat left. Pork and ground beef. Like three pounds' worth! The thought of tossing it about made me sick. Do you know how much THREE POUNDS OF MEAT cost? costs? ...costed? (hahhaahaha) TOO MUCH TO THROW AWAY! So I put it in the crock pot with some corn and leftover black beans and a can of Rotel and a can of chili beans. A little seasoning and cook on high 2 hours. Dale probably won't like it. The little ones won't eat it. I, for one, am excited about it. Here's why... A.  We have cheese dip I am going to add to mine. B.  We have sour cream. ...

Today my oldest daughter is 16. In the hospital, 16 years ago I was waiting for the delivery of a precious miracle in my life. We lived in Emporia in that little house in the country. Dale worked at Blockbuster and the Farm. I worked at Heritage Bookstore. Our hearts were broken from a tragic ministry situation. Our marriage was explosive. We were weak and poor in every possible way until Kennedy was gifted to us. Even the thought of her little life snapped us out of our self-destructive pity party. She gave us hope that the God of the Universe held our hearts regardless of the messes we had made, and placed in our hands a precious gem to tend and care for in this life. He gave us light and hope and peace. Now 16 years later, we are living the dream. Our sweet girl is becoming a lovely godly woman before our eyes. It's the stamp of a loving Father tending his sheep with tender loving care. Does it get any better than this? Thank you, Lord. Th...

When I told Dale that I was moving Moses out of our closet, he said we needed to resituate the bedroom situation so that four kids wouldn't be sharing one room. So I had this great idea! Girls in the basement. Boys on the second level. TV to the main floor. All was well and fine, kids loved it, it was gads of work. Tons of work. Hard hard work. But they were excited and we knocked it all out before Dale got home. One thing I didn't manage to situate was a place for him to study. Hrmph. And I hated the living room piled up with furniture to make room for the TV. And some of the movers were unhappy with their new lack of space. And so I decided we would try again, using Dale's original plan to move us to the basement. Which we did. On Tuesday. After work. After co-op. We called Kennedy's friend Daniel, a viral teenage boy with brute strength to add to our own pool of resource strength. We managed to get it all resituated by the t...