Homemaking on the Homestead

  Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the kitchen and enjoyed every minute of it.   There is something very satisfying to me in making my family good healthy meals from scratch.   Here is what I did…   I started the day by getting some pinto beans cooking for Yummy Pinto Beans .      Then I ground up some hard white wheat in my Retsel grain mill and got busy.   I made a pan of Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls :     Then I ground up some soft white wheat and made some Gingerbread Cookies.   These big soft cookies are soooo good!   It was the recipe I mentioned in a previous blog.   I got the measurements down better and now can share the recipe with you.   First here is a picture of them:   Here is the recipe:   Gingerbread Cookies ¾ cup butter 1 cup cane juice crystals 1 egg 1 T water ¼ cup molasses 2 ¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour 2t ginger 1t baking soda ¾t cinnamon ½ t cloves ¼ t salt 2T cane juice crystals for rolling the cookies in before baking   In a mixer cream together butter and cane j

  I recently posted about my homemaking notebook and got several emails from ladies asking for my detailed Master Cleaning List and detailed Daily Cleaning Lists. I have put them on my website for anyone who would like to look at them:   Cleaning Lists for my Home     Happy organizing ladies!!    

Today was a nice day.   Tobin and I went to town this morning to run some errands.   He had a load of steel scraps that we took in for recycling, then it was a stop at Home Depot, the bank and finally the gas station (where we paid $2.59 a gallon for gas!! ).   We left early and the kids got the chores done and were working on school by the time we returned.      The rest of the week has been productive.   Tobin helped me do some packaging of soaps and catch up on all my book work (tax season will be here before we know it  ).   We spent a few evenings watching LOST with the kids and are almost done with season 2.   It has been another fun TV show to watch in the evenings.      This week I also made 2 more pies.   I had that great pie crust recipe that I made on Saturday for my Sour Cream Apple Pie and still had 3 crusts left.   I tightly wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge.   On Tuesday I pulled 2 out in the morning (so they could come to room temp) and later in t

.  Monday Split pea soup Salad Whole grain crackers   Tuesday BBQ beef sandwiches Salad   Wednesday Ranch house chicken casserole Salad   Thursday Yummy pinto beans Salad Dinner rolls   Friday Chicken rice tacos   Saturday Mexican beef stew Salad Chips and salsa   Sunday Baked chicken Mashed potatoes Green beans

I just had to share some updated pictures my daughter Carolyn sent me this evening.  I can’t believe how my little grandson, Owen, has grown!! He just looks so cuddly and sweet (of course this is my biased grandma opinion! LOL ): .   This big brother Caden (another cutie! :) : .     And a current pic of Jonathan and Carolyn:  . . Thanks for indulging me in this grandma moment!  

I had a question on what type of yarn I used for my afghan so I thought I would just share the link to the pattern.   The pattern was from the Lion Brand website.   I used Lion Brand Homespun yarn.   The yarn is thick and oh so very soft http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/chs-bafg.html  

  My week has been kind of busy. We did take one day that was Tobin’s day off and just did nothing all day. It has been forever since we did that and it was nice. The kids did do a little school work and we did a few chores but there was nothing else on the agenda except spending time together as a family.    The rest of the week seemed full however. We spent lots of time on the school work and housework and projects. The kids are all doing a study on Australia right now so each of them had a report to write this week and work on their presentation which they will be giving to me and dad in a few days.   I actually FINALLY finished my basket weave afghan! I love it and it looks great in my living room… but I just can’t believe how long it took me to finally get it done. I started almost a year ago. I was half way or more done with it by spring but it got put up on a shelf as I dealt with lots of details and lots of other things to do.  I took it off the shelf about a month ago and star

  Monday morning is here and I have a busy week ahead as usual. Last week seemed to just fly on by. The kids are making good progress in their school work, Emily is doing great on her CLEP testing (in fact she is taking another one today) and Leanne is studying her drivers manual so she can be ready to take her test soon. Leanne has also been handling all the math with Isaac and Sierra. That has been a great experience for her and she is doing a fantastic job of it.   This last week my church gave Hannah a baby shower. It was soo nice! The ladies in my church are so sweet and loving and Hannah felt truly loved and blessed by their outpouring of generosity. I was happy to have a chance to see my granddaughter again! Plus I got to see her yesterday morning at church as well and hand her around to all the ladies to oohh and aww over her. She is almost 4 weeks old now! Here are a few pics from her shower:       The table was decorated so cute!      This is Auntie Sierra and baby Elizabeth

Well I have my homemaking notebook together, pretty much anyway. I spent a lot of time looking at websites and looking at different planners and various ways that planners are used and divided up into sections.  In the end I narrowed down what I uniquely desired in a notebook. Every family is different and everyone may need a planner for different reasons.  So after all my research I created my own planner that covers specifically what I need to help me stay organized. I needed my planner to help keep my household chores planned out and detailed, my kitchen menus, grocery lists and pantry lists in one location that makes it easy for me to use, and have my homeschooling assignments for my kids set up month by month. Here is what I have so far (I am sure I will continue to do a lot tweaking). I keep my notebook open on my kitchen counter for easy access and find I am accessing it all day long! ~smile~ : This section is for the household organization. I have a master list of all my househ

  I am home from vacation.. have been for a few days now and just getting life up and running again. Hubby and I had a great time! We flew south to get some of the last rays of sunshine and heat before we burrow in for the winter months.  We spent a lot of time pool side and out and about in the sun  . When our time was up we felt ready to come home and enjoy kids and family and look ahead to school time, holidays and a few projects that need to get done.     I spent a good portion of my afternoon packing orders. I said orders would go out tomorrow but did not realize until I got back home that tomorrow is a holiday. So if you ordered from me while I was on vacation your order will go out on Tuesday.    Is it looking and feeling like fall on your homestead? It is on mine! On the last day of my vacation I left a 90 degree day and a couple hours later landed in the cool, damp, and cloudy Pacific Northwest .. I knew I was home! LOL.. and I knew fall had really started. The last couple of