Miracles happen ... when we pray!!!

True story …

 

We had scheduled the other night to take pictures with my whole family!  This means with all my siblings and children and mom and dad!  When we went to plan the date, it was coming down to the nitty gritty to get a date to suit everyone!!!  Finally, we had a date and called up Martha Rose to take our photos!!!

 

Because of all the rains we've been having, we weren't sure if the weather was going to be good enough or not???  I called Martha and said we were willing to try no matter what!!! 

 

On the way down to my parents farm, where we took the pictures, the kids and I prayed!  We prayed that God would hold back the rains and let us be able to take our pictures.  Now, I know that this may be a simple request and maybe some may think that it's weird to ask for such a request but we don't think that way!  I believe God cares for our every single need, including weather conditions!  While we prayed, a small rainbow came out of the sky!!!  It was so cool and Matthew took a picture to show proof!!!  I just knew that no matter the weather, God is faithful!!!

 

We got to my parents and we all gathered for pictures!!!  It DID NOT RAIN until we were finished!!!  God did a miracle for us!!!  We then all gathered in the barn for pizza and veggies and pumpkin cookies and watched it pour down rain!!!

 

Thank you Jesus for caring for us and granting us our simple request!!!

 

 

 I took my camera along too!!!  Of course!!!!  I love to grab some cute photos myself if possible!!!

I asked Austin and Colson to come to the side while Martha took some pictures of my parents!!!

And look how cute they turned out!!!!

 Dad's animals …

 And here's the grandchildren crew with my parents!!!!

Love them all so much!!!!

And Hadassah always wants updated pictures of her life time hero … Her Dad!!!!

And so do I!!!! 

XOXO!!!

These two are just too cute!!!!

 And look at this beautiful girl!!!  Ashlyn is missing her two front teeth but I wouldn't have cared a bit if she smiled her biggest to show you all because she's just adorable always!!!!

But I do love this perfect face and sweet girl!!!

 

The man I love!!!  He makes all my dreams come true!!!  He's a strong rock in our home and a spiritual leader!!!  He loves Jesus, me and his children with all of his heart!!!

"I love you, Michael!!!" ~ Lori

 And while my heart melts into a big puddle of joy and love … look at these two darling children!!!

 

 Love of my life forever and ever!!!!!!!!

I can't wait to see what Martha Rose captured and I know all the efforts and prayers and answered prayers will be now treasured for forever!!!!

Ducklings and rain puddles.

We've just had so much rain the past few months.  Our summer days were mixed with many rains keeping the grass nice and green most of the summer.  It also caused us to mow twice a week!  Now that it is Fall, the rains are still falling.  I am so ready for a sun filled day!!!  However, I am very grateful that we are not hurricane victims!!! 

 

With all the rains, Austin has been wearing his rain boots a lot!!!  And I'm not sure why I haven't bought a pair of those Hunter Rain Boots for myself just yet because I would be making use of them daily!  It's on my wish list!!!  The other day the rains fell at night and more rain was fore casted to come late afternoon.  I decided to take Austin to go look at the ducklings near our home and then do a little photo shoot!!!  The ducks were wild and he couldn't get real close to them but these pictures turned out adorable!!!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

XOXO!!!

Then I captured some muddy puddle pictures!!!

The song "rain, rain go away, come again another day," has been sung often here!  But if it's going to rain and give us puddles to jump in to, then we shall!!!  :)))

This little man is so much fun and too cute for words!!!  I tease him all the time that he's growing too fast and he needs to stay little for a long, long time yet!!!  :)  Watching Austin grow and being mostly sweet in his third year of life is such a gift!!! 

If it's going to keep raining here at our house, we will dance in the rain!!!

PS.  "Dear God, Please send us the sunshine soon!!!  We miss it!!"  ~ Amen

Canning season has begun.

Canning has been something I have learned from Mom and she learned from her mom!!!  It's a way of living and life for the Mennonite/Amish folks.  Normally, you have a large garden filled with fruits and vegetables and then you preserve and harvest the foods for your cellar!  Times do change things over the years and I remember my mom having a smaller than normal garden.  Gardening wasn't her favorite thing to do but the opposite was try for my mother-in-law!  Mike grew up with having a huge garden to help out with including fruit trees.  Mom Lapp grew many, many foods in her day and still loves to garden.  She is the one who inspired me to start a garden after Mike and I got married!

 

I started with a really small garden.  Mike made me one raised bed.  I planted seeds and watched them grow.  I learned that I love to watch growth and to pick foods from my back yard was awesome!!!  We have expanded the one small raised bed to many small ones now!  Ashlyn shares her love of gardening with me!!!  She loves to run out and eat green beans straight from the plant and smell the tomato plants and pick fresh peas and strawberries.  Austin picks fresh chives and spinach and eats them!  Gardening has become a necessity for our family during the spring and summer months!!!

 

Like I said earlier, time does change things over the years and its true with gardening.  It used to be that EVERYONE in our county (that's why my mom had a garden back in the day) would have their own garden.  But now there are lots and many road side stands that sell fresh garden foods that it's not a demand for each family anymore.  There are some foods that we really like but I choose to not plant (corn being one of them) and just buy locally grown.  There are some other foods that just won't grow for me either and I'm confused with why not???  I planted multiple watermelon plants this year and each one died.  Not sure why???  I also dream of big juicy strawberries!  I do have a berry patch but so far they have always been small. 

 

I planted some tomatoes this year and they did well.  If you want to use tomatoes for juice, I learned from my sister, that you can freeze them until your tomatoes are done for the season and then juice them all together.  This is what I did for my juice I used to make Marinara Sauce!!!

 

We love this sauce for pizza, for dipping and for spaghetti!!!  I only made a half batch this week because I still have some regular pizza sauce in the cellar to use up.

 

Yesterday, I did grape juice in the garage.  I do not like this job and I am SO GLAD its over with.  It's not too hard work but I just don't like to work with hot juices and steamers!!!  They kind of scare me.  But, we need grape juice and so I picked up my preordered four boxes of concord grapes and steamed them yesterday!

I picked off all the grapes from the stems and filled four juicers.  I was so glad to have the garage be my spot for this messy job!!!

The juice needs to steam for at least an hour.  Then the hot juice goes into jars and gets cold packed for 10 minutes to seal!  What a good feeling to have this job completed!!!

I still have a few more things to can.  I also have some of the grape juice we can order that comes already pressed and steamed.  All I will need to do with that juice when it comes it fill up jars and seal them.  You may ask or think, "Why don't you just can this kind of juice if it skips all the mess and hot steamers???"  We do love the taste of both juices but the taste is different.  The off the stem concord grape juice that I steam has a pure grape flavor.  It's rich and tastes so good!!!  I pour one quart into a gallon pitcher and add some sugar and water!  The other kind is not so strong and tastes more like a wine juice.  This we usually drink straight out of the jar.  No sugar or water added.

Soup and meat is another food I want to can yet.  That will wait now until I get some housecleaning done here at home!!!

Canning foods and filling up my cellar shelves is rewarding!  I love to go to the cellar and pull a few jars off the shelf and serve it to my family!  It's the easiest way to make a quick dinner.  It adds fresh juice to the fridge when we are wanting a delicious drink!  Peaches and pears are the perfect side dish with chocolate cake or to make a quick fruit salad!  Salsa and pizza sauces always give me the option to make homemade pizza in a flash! 

I am so blessed to be raised in a culture that knows how to preserve canned foods!!!  Thanks Mom for teaching me!!!

  

Fall smells and tastes!!!

 

With Autumn now officially here, the soup is on!!!  I made another fresh pot of Squash Soup!  It freezes great and makes for a delicious and healthy lunch!!!

 

And I love to see this out of the kitchen window!!!  Matthew doesn't play on a football team (and thank goodness!  The football schedules are crazy!).  But he does like to throw and play it in the back yard.  The brothers can throw together and as the years go by, the competition will grow.

I miss our normal September weather!  We've just had so much rain day after day!!!  I love the September blue skies and having it warm during the day and cool off at night.  But, today is another rainy day. 

I considered making my first stop at Whole Foods because I would love to go have a field trip day in that grocery store and look around!!!  I even had Austin strapped in his car seat and ready to leave when I backed out.  I only need a few grocery items and when I pulled out the garage, I changed my mind.  I just didn't feel like going out in the rain.  My Whole Foods day will wait.  Austin wasn't real impressed because he wanted to go.  Instead, we ate lunch together at home.

I whipped a batch of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies together!!!

 

I found the recipe on Pinterest and they turned out great!!! 

I love the smell of warm pumpkin and chocolate baking together!!!  My house smells so good!

 

 Austin was so into these!!!  He ate two cookies with a side of milk!

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This past weekend we spent Saturday at our Annual School Auction!  Mike started his day with running the 5K!!!  Good job Babe!!!

 

 

 The kids loved to have their faces painted!!!

Ashlyn and Shakia ran the Family Fun Race again together!!!  Ashlyn loves this!!!

 I bought our first pumpkin pie from Hex Barn the other day too!!!  I've made lots of pumpkin pies before and some turned out to be really good but since the day we ate these pies, they are the BEST!!!  I love to cook and bake and pumpkin pies were my first pies I have ever made but I good with buying these for my family now instead!  They are so delicious!!! 

Ashlyn loves them!

 

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It's still wet outside and my string beans need picked.  I'm going to go see what I can harvest!  And thinking about harvest, the farmers are starting to cut down the corn all around us.  Our property is surrounded by farm land and it's feeling even more like Fall with the corn being cut down and harvested.

Have a great week!  Enjoy the pumpkin season!!!