Cheesy Potato Sausage

1 smoked sausage ring
1 can cheddar cheese soup
3 pounds potatoes cubed
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons oil

Heat oil in a frying pan, add potatoes. Meanwhile, slice sausage lengthwise, and then into 1/4 in wedges. Combine soup and milk. Add sausage and soup mixture during last 5 min of the cooking time of potatoes. Enjoy! This is loved by the pickiest eaters in our family!!!

What I did.

1. cooked the potatoes after cubing them

2. put a little oil in the big fry pan that I cooked the tater's in, and fried those up a bit with the chopped up sausage.

3. dumped in the soup and milk and mixed it thoroughly. brought it to a boil so it was all nicely liquid. THEN I let it simmer with the lid on while my corn on the cob cooked.

4. when the corn was almost done I removed the lid and let it cook at a medium heat simmer/rolling boil for a bit. That removed excess moisture so it was a bit dryer.

It makes a LARGE amount. I'll be eating this for the next 3 days I think.

For those wondering where this recipe came from, it came from the Old Schoolhouse (this is a homeschool magazine that I subscribe too), teachers toolbox section where there is is a menu for the month. Some things I won't do... like catfish sandwiches which have a lot of jalepeno in them...but this seemed to meet my requirements of simple and not too spicy, though I could easily see people throwing in some chili peppers and what not. i almost threw in some tomatoes and might do that with one or two meals as I heat up the remainders.

Pinery Pics

Out at the Pinery Provincial Park on Sunday afternoon. Lunch and a walk.

Here is a boy hard at work looking for toads. And for more toad pictures you have to

this link. :) They are a fascination at the moment.

We walked the Carolinian Trail.
Did you know that the Carolinian forest was named after the forest of North and South Carolina?Horrid pic I know, "let's rest of a minute mommy" and then
he was OFF again, scarcely before I could get the camera out.

Hubby here was a bit more patient.


Mommy, how did they get the post into the water?
Why did they want to put this post here?


Can you see them? There are three, took the lad a while too.


one butterfly

Pretty Yellow flower. I liked how it peeked out over the steps.
a moth. Just sat there until i tried to get too close, then off it went.


there are brief moments in life when I wish I had more than a
simple point and shoot. Pics of water lilies are one of those moments.

Love is

i liked this post by Justin Taylor

What Love Is and Isn’t

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

“4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.”

Woot Woot! he was independent!

My six year was DYING to do an experiment.http://www2.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

I had no protracted time to help him.

I found the site the experiment was on and said here it is. Supercharged Science by the by. :) Even if you don't homeschool...doing the summer program is worth your while.

He did it!

He was VERY happy to have learned how to turn a motor on. And then he went on to learn how to make a dimmer switch. :)

Pretty cool huh? :)

The Rescue

The Rescue

On the morning of May 18, 2011, my wife noticed a deer in our yard that
appeared to be frantically looking for something in the rocks that form a
wall on our property line in Brush Prairie, WA.

When we first went out with our neighbors, we didn't see anything, but the
deer wouldn't leave
our yard. We went back to our house and watched; after a few minutes the
deer came back.

We went out to the area the deer was concentrating on and could hear a baby
fawn crying in the rocks. We moved some of the rocks and smaller boulders
and saw a baby fawn's face in the rocks. He had apparently fallen in one of
the gaps and was now trapped. The larger boulders were too heavy to move,
and we didn't want the rocks cave in on the baby deer.

We called our Clark County Fire District 3.
The B Shift team came out; they were able to move the larger rocks out of
the way with the Jaws of Life enough to be able to reach in a pull the baby
fawn out and reunite it with its mama. The fawn, maybe stuck in their most
of the night, quickly went to nurse its momma.

One of our neighbors took some video clips of the fire department's rescue.
I edited the clips into this short clip. After sharing it with some friends
they thought that it was just too cute not to share with more people;
my neighbor agreed to let me upload it.

http://www.wimp.com/fawnrescued/

Jacob was .....

Jacob was a cheater,
Peter had a temper,
David had an affair,
Noah got drunk,
Jonah ran from God,
Paul was a murderer,
Gideon was insecure,
Miriam was a gossiper,
Martha was a worrier,
Thomas was a doubter,
Sara was impatient,
Elijah was moody,
Moses stuttered,
Zaccheus was short,
Abraham was old,
and Lazarus was dead....

Now, what's YOUR excuse? Can God use you or not? God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the CALLED!!!

The haircut

I thought this email was cute so thought I'd share it with you all. :)

Subject: The Haircut

A teenage boy had just passed his driving test and inquired of his father as to when they could discuss his use of the car.

His father said he'd make a deal with his son, "You bring your grades up
from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut.
Then we'll talk about the car."

The boy thought about that for a moment, decided he'd settle for the offer,
and they agreed on it.

After about six weeks his father said, "Son, you've brought your grades up
and I've observed that you have been studying your Bible, but I'm
disappointed you haven't had your hair cut."

The boy said, "You know, Dad, I've been thinking about that, and I've
noticed in my studies of the Bible that Samson had long hair, John the
Baptist had long hair, Moses had long hair, and there's even strong evidence that Jesus had long hair."


(You're going to love the Dad's reply!)








"Did you also notice that they walked everywhere they went?"

Thinking out loud

A cousin of mine wrote this blog post. 6 reasons I never wanted to be a mother to a boy.
I find that Patti is well written in what she writes and I do wish I could write as clearly as she does. She's very open in what she thinks and feels which is helpful overall.

Anyways, her six points are as follows. Please do go read her blog as it lays out her thinking quite nicely.
1. I mostly don't like any of the little boys I know.
2. I can't stand all the stereotypes about boys.
3. I hate the way that everyone wanted me to have a boy
4. I don't trust men so I don't know how to raise a boy into a man.
5. Mothers are always blamed for whatever their sons do that deviates from what is considered 'normal'.
6. I think it's harder to be a man in modern culture than it is to be a woman.

I cannot and will not deal with each of her points. But I thought I'd list them out for you. :)

I have to admit.. little boys can be a handful. They can be. They different, but then again, so are little girls and there is SUCH a huge range out there in behaviours for all children, and every parent has a different style of parenting. All the things she said about little boys and behaviours the doesn't like can be said for little girls. I for one was scared out of my mind when I was confident that my lad would end up being born and not be a miscarriage. What was I scared about? that he would end up being a girlie girl. Petrified I was. What in the world would I do with a girlie girl? that is SO far from what I am that I couldn't conceive of what I would do with one. Just couldn't. When I learned I had a boy I was SO very relieved. I thought I'll have this little high wire of a lad, I know what to do with high wires. A boy I can raise. Good.

What I have NOT a little high wire. What I have is a cautious, intelligent lad. He is stubborn (but putting a good spin on .. he's persistent, VERY persistent). he doesn't like to get hurt, he's careful about what he wants to do, likes to be VERY clean ALL the time, and is not like me in many ways. he is like me in some ways, but he's much like his father and I find that intriguing to raise. I've learned in the past six years that you raise what you have and that as a parent you adjust to what God has given you to raise.

A statement that Patti made caused me to feel VERY sad. "There is no man in my life who I would consider to be an ideal role model for my son." No man in her life that would be a good role model for her son? NO ONE? That feels so empty and hopeless to me. and yes I know that it isn't. But doesn't she at least want her boy to be like his dad? Isn't his dad a good man in his own way? That will be her son's first role model so shouldn't he be a good one? I can't understand that mind set. So it just makes me feel sad.

I read a blog post or an article a while back on raising boys to be men. It made an impact on me. I find that see myself supporting maleness in my lad. Males tend to be the supporters and workers in families with high protective instincts and the ability to be focused on the task at hand. So I find myself encouraging the lad when he wants to help mommy or he wants to fix something and when he gets so focused on something. And yes... is some of that a stereotype? well yeah... but stereotypes exist for a reason... males are typically stronger, more task oriented, and so forth. is that a bad thing? uh...no. But are people equally capable of crossing those male/female boundaries??? Yah! And that's just fine. I have zero issues with women being strong and protective and men wanting to raise their families. No problems. But where a lad is being a leader and protective I will encourage that. I will strive to help him do so in a godly manner.

Just as if I had a girl child who was a strong leader... I would encourage her to use those leadership skills in a godly manner... which would be a challenge to do. be a leader, yet be submissive to the male leadership in a church... Harder to do in this day and age.

I will Very very much agree with Patti when she says it's harder for guys to be guys in today's world. It is. Men are expected to be so much more and yet so much less now a days. Encouraging/training the lad to be a good strong male leader in his own way, despite what the world around us wants... that may be a challenge. But God is with us all the way so we'll hopefully get 'er done. :)