Brother Love

Not my sons but sweet picture regardless.

I do claim both of these even if one isn’t mine.

Yes they are really sleeping.

Posted at Wordless Wednesday

Mama to 4 Blessings

Beautiful Mess

   

Kids Cooking! 3 Bean Soup

What was the first thing that you learned to cook?  What do you teach your kids to cook first? Learning to cook is such an important life skill! This 3 Bean Soup is so simple to make that it is perfect for kids or stressed out moms.

Teaching your kids to cook

I think we moms are often in too much of a hurry and want to have things e just so and we don’t include kids or choose to teach them when they are excited to learn.

First things first

Around here we like to start off EASY and SIMPLE. Cooking can be complicated but it sure doesn’t have to begin that way. 

Short list of easy meals for kids to make

PBJ’s, Mac & Cheese, Chili, Scrambled Eggs, Oatmeal, Spaghetti

As the kids get older we make sure they experience "Real Life Lessons" that teach more about how to cook for themselves

We’ve been eating a lot of soup with all the cold weather lately.   Some are from freezer meals that we prepared ahead of time and others we’ve made from scratch. 

3 Bean Soup is a great meal for children to learn

This is a no-fail yummy recipe.  Pretty healthy & EVERYone here likes it. 

As I have said before if it has beans, cheese & rice in it my kids will eat it.  Last week’s bean recipe was Enchiladas and next week will be Tostadas!

3 Bean Soup

1 can black beans—drained & rinsed*

1 can white beans—drained & rinsed*

2 cans chili beans w/ chili sauce

1 qt of pureed tomatoes

1 qt of water

tortilla chips, sour cream, shredded cheese or any other toppings you like

Rinse & drain beans & then dump them all in a medium pot. 

Add the tomatoes & water—Heat & serve! 

Let each person add the toppings that they prefer & enjoy!

*I try to cook dry beans up ahead of time & save some $ but this week we used canned due to how life is going right now.  We did have black beans in the freezer(yeah!)

Your turn!

Please share what you first learned to cook in the comments. 

Me?  Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies! 

Yum.

For more great recipes try these!

Free Music

Our family LOVES music of all kinds.  On any evening you might find us listening to a wide variety of artists.  Toby Mac, Selah, Revive, Francesca Battistelli, Sanctus Real, Third Day, Need to Breath, and The Apologetics

But on the other hand

You might see Steve dancing with kids to Christmas songs in July.

or. . .

Thank God I am a Country Boy by John Denver

or. . .

Rocky Top by Conway Twitty

or. . .

Johnny Horton singing Johnny Reb

So we have lot of CDs and sometimes it drives me crazy to have them out everywhere.  They get damaged(we do have kids) and then we cannot use them. 

We do rip them & put them on the ipod/mp3 players but I don’t like to put on headphones much. 

It also costs a lot to buy CDs.  We do occasionally get things from I-tunes but not recently.

We’ve been using

It is a free site where you can build play lists of your favorite songs.  I have several different ones that I use depending upon my mood.  Try it out!  I am getting no kick back here—we just enjoy the wide variety of music we can find on this site!  You can click on the image above to go there.

I didn’t forget the blog hop I was going to host regarding Making Plans!  It just hasn’t been possible with recovery.  Still one of my goals. . . maybe next Monday.   Taking it one day at a time.

Hibernating & Projects

Life has been moving really slow here this week. 

We are pretty much snowed in because of me being on crutches.  I can’t see navigating in 8 inches of snow that way.  We canceled things that weren’t snowed out and just hibernated here at home.
I had all these great crafts to work on while I was down and out.  Unfortunately using crutches makes your arms so sore that it is hard to do repetitive motions.  Like making a rug, like crocheting or anything else!

I have worked some just not as much as I would like.

Here is an update on my rag rug.  It is coming right along.  It measures 28 x 16 right now.  If you are interested in all the instructions go to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Instead of just working on my crafts I have been sitting at the table(yea!) planning/grading some school things and teaching Joshua his cursive letters. 

He doesn’t like to write but Handwriting without Tears makes it fun to learn.  We just did the first 3 pages today but he didn’t complain a bit!  We’ve also been working some Mind Benders.  He LOVES those!  The are challenging to a young man whose mind love to work out problems.

While we sit & work the birds are going crazy over our feeders because of the 8 inches of snow on the ground.  I love how they act and get possessive over where they sit.  Beautiful colors in the middle of all the white.

Hmm we might have to make some bird cakes soon.  Birds love them!  I will post the recipe as soon as I can!

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Things I love: Music that touches hearts

All 4 of our kids have or are learning to play the piano. 

It is part of their daily school work.  

 

It’s a gift we want to give them.  So that they can bless others with their ability.

 

Now in the beginning it is hard to listen to the notes that aren’t so melodic.  However in a relatively short amount of time there is beautiful music coming to my ears.

At one time I was learning to play the guitar and I passed a song on to Michael.  It is now one of our favorites.  When he plays it—no matter where I am in the house I just have to stop and listen(and sometime cry).  Not because he butchers it but because the notes, words & every part just touch me.

Music can be that way.

Here is that song.  Unfortunately I don’t have a video of Michael playing it.