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A Happy Birthday Boy

Flashback Friday

This a flashback of a different sort. The last couple days I have been canning peaches and it got me thinking of my grandmas. Both of them loved to be in the kitchen.

Grandma Lucas did lots of baking. I think just about every time I was at her house when I was younger she would be baking cookies, breads, or bars. I loved to seat by the table eating for the cookies to come out of the oven, the smell only was enough to make anyone happy. Every Sunday she would have a plate of goodies for us to eat while the adults would drink their coffee and talked about happened during the past week. Now Grandma isn't able to stand in front of the stove to bake for us any more, but she still enjoys having us, especially the boys over for a invite. The food of choice for my boys at Great Grandma's house is club crackers. Grandma has them in a special little container just for the boys and she always has milk and chocolate syrup for a cold glass of chocolate milk.

Grama Geerlings did about everything is the kitchen; canned, baked - oh her pies were to die for, she loved to cook a feast no matter how many people were coming over.

I remember my younger brother and I sneaking over to G & G's old farm house almost every day, you see G & G lived next door to us while I was growing up and Grandpa loved his 3:00 coffee. We would sit around a small table with blue vinyl swirl Herman Miller chairs, we would usually snack on fresh fruit, cheese & cracker, and to drink orange juice & squirt mixed, but every so often there would be leftover pie, yum. Nobody made an apple pie like Gram.

She also loved to cook, I remember helping serve a number of dinner parties she had in the basement at her house. She could whip up a meal that was fit for a king; Rotisserie Stuffed Pork Tenderloin, mashed potatoes with homemade gravy, and couple different veggies loaded with butter and pepper, her famous pink applesauce, a nice toss salad. The meal was always topped of with not one, but 3 or4 or even 5 different kinds of pie; apple, blueberry, cherry, or peach just to name a few. I remember having to scrub what seemed like 100 of dishes (everything was made from stratch) but it was all worth it for the delicious meal that was waiting when we were finished.

I could go on and on about my grandmas, but I will leave that for a later date. For now I just want to say both of my Grandma were women of God that I looked up to. I am striving to be like them every day. Thank You Grama G and Grandma L for the examples that you were and still are in my life.

Camping in the Rain with 17 Kids Equals Fun, Right?

Last week the small group, we are a part of, headed to Gun Lake to do some camping. It was something we were all looking forward to all summer long. We would spend our days relaxing at the beach(well, at least doing as much relaxing as you could do with 3 one year olds), the kids playing in the lake and sand, and our evening we would spend around the campfire, drinking a little wine and learning more about each others past.

The picture we had painted didn't actually happen. Instead we had cooler temperatures with pop up sprinkles. Mike and Connor were the only ones that went swimming that was on the first day about 8:00pm. Of course we had wet kids, but that was from falling in the water while casting their fishing poles or it was because I was not watching my boys. We spent alot of time around the firepit, some days in started already at 10 o'clock in the morning. The kids rode their bikes lot, the roads were covered with sidewalk chalk, and the fights were kept to a minimum.

We had lots of fun (I hope), Mike and I are officially the bean bag AKA corn hole champions. We learned more about the other couples in our group. We stayed up late and only got told to be quiet once by the camp ranger. Someone of us slept in. We ate good. We had great fires. The dads and kids visted the "candy store". We got donuts from Sam's. We roasted marshmellows and made smores. The kids did lots of fishing. I took lots of pictures. :) We made memories.

So how many are ready to go again next year, or do we need to find a high rise instead?

To see all the pictures from this camping experience click here.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday Connor

Today is my baby boy's birthday. It was three years ago today that Mike and I woke up knowing that Connor would be in our arms in a few hours. You see we had a planned c-section at 12:00p.m. (Mike had it so rough not having to wake up in the middle of the night and be awake all night long And it wasn't just this birth, but all the boys came in the middle of the day and Mike didn't have to lose any sleep.) So about 9:30am, Mike picked up the babysitter and we headed to the hospital. After hundreds of questions and a few needles in my body, we were ready. I was my doctor's first patient after getting off from Maternity Leave for herself so the c-section went on as scheduled - 12:00. Connor was born at 12:38p.m. He weighed in at 7lb 5oz and was 19.5" long.

He was such a good baby, very much a 'go with the flow' type. Nothing seemed to phase him. He was and still is the only one of my boys that will cuddle with me. He loves his blankies, they go everywhere with us. He never took a paci, but loves his thumb. There's not too much that he won't eat, except mac -n- cheese. His favorites are anything sweet. He loves keeping up with his brothers and even most so loves to push their buttons (hence the nickname "Buttons").

Connor, mommy and daddy LOVE you very much. Our family won't be complete without you. You make us laugh, cry and even upset sometimes, but all the same you are our baby boy and we wouldn't change that for the world. We pray that God will bless you in the coming year and for many more.

Happy Birthday!!!

Check it out

Brendan's been bugging me for weeks to have his own blog and a facebook account(he wants to play the games and farmville). There was no way I was going to let him have a facebook account yet - he's only 7!!!! So I set up a blog for him and so far he been excited about adding new posts to it. We'll see how long it last.

You can find his blog here

Family Pic

Last week Monday, we headed to Leslie E. Tassell Park in Cascade to have our family pictures taken. Of course I had to pick the second hottest day of the summer...or at least it seemed that way. I really didn't want super summery (if that's a word) pictures, so I put half of the fam in jeans and a couple of us in long sleeves (which pretty much were changed last minute)

The boys did great for the most part. Connor needs to be bribe with smarties and Austin needs a couple "talking to" by Dad. Of course we had a great photographer who was willing to be just about anything to get the boys attention - balancing leaves and smarties on her camera & rocks on her head (thanks Carolyn!!!) I was anxious to see how the pictures turned out, so when I got the email on Saturday that a sneak preview was on her blog I was so excited!!!!! They turned out amazing and I can't wait to see what else she has for us.

The County Fair

Today's Agenda

How to freeze fresh green beans

Freezing is accomplished in a few very simple steps.

1) Choose the freshest green beans you can find.

2) Rinse your green beans in cool water. Drain.

3) Cut the ends of the beans off. Cut the beans to whatever length you prefer.

4) Put the green beans into rapidly boiling water, cover the pot and time them for 3 minutes. (You can re-use this water three to five times)

5) Use a large slotted spoon to remove the green beans from the boiling water and immediately plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Keep them in the ice water for 3 minutes. Drain them.

6) If you have a FoodSaver a great time to use it is right now. If you don't, put the green beans into ziplock freezer bags. Make sure you get as much air out of the ziplock bag as possible to help prevent freezer burn.

7) Get ready to enjoy farm fesh green beans whenever you want!

Oh and I have a little problem, it looks like my tomatoes are going to ripen while we are camping next week - any one want to make me salsa while I'm gone.

The everlasting promise

At dusk last night, we saw this amazing double rainbow.

(The picture doesn't do it justice)

I'm so blessed to have a God that has given us great promises

Flashback Friday

Seeing my boys tubing this past Wednesday, had me thinking about the past. Grow up, my parents had a boat that we would enjoy using in the summer. We would take it out to Lake Mac and we would be a little bit of skiing, knee boarding and lots of tubing. And of course Dad would usually finish the trip out to the lake with one last big spray while he was skiing. I was always impressed with how my dad skied.

When I was in high school, we did a couple overnight trips with two other families, the Haverdinks and the Brinks. We would head up north and spend three or four days on the water. One of the years we went through the Chain of Lakes. I remember hanging out in the tubes while be pulling through the no wake zones. What a blast!!!! I was the only girls of the three families - 10 boys and 1 girl, I was so glad when my parents would let me take a friend along, not that wasn't able to handle all those boys on my own. :)

Here are a couple pictures of that trip.

My high school friend Kristi, my cousin Nate, and me.

(me, Kristi, Jeff, Shawn, Brian, Benji, Kyle and Phil.)

Most of the kids, if I can remember back that far, I believe two of my brothers and one other guy stayed home that summer.

Oh, the memories!!!!

Tubing on Payne Lake

The past week we were invited out to the Hopkin's cottage with our small group. The boys were so excited, the twins kept asking when it was time to leave for Joy's "college". I figure the boys would have fun playing in the lake but I never even thought they would willingly go tubing by themselves. Once again they amazed me and Brendan, Austin, and Lucas all went tubing and had a blast. They actually didn't want to get out and they are hopefully that Grandpa Geerlings will do the same today when we visit them at the cottage today.

Besides the tubing we did lots of relaxing, fellowshiping and eating. I feel so blessed to be part of such an awesome small group. I can't waiting the out camping trip in a few weeks!!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Camping