What are you cooking lately?

We've been cooking a lot of pumpkin things - a couple of kinds of pumpkin bars, pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup. And a lot of gingerbread cookies. Flower loves to make gingerbread cookies (Betty Crocker recipe) as soon as autumn starts. I picked up the Wilson leaf/acorn cookie cutters last year on clearance.

Another one of our fall and winter favorites is Chicken Noodle Soup. I never use a recipe for it. I just throw in a bunch of chicken broth (or water and chicken bouillon), egg noodles (up to the level of the liquid), some minced onions, garlic powder, poultry seasoning, canned chicken, and a cup of whatever kind of frozen vegetables we have around. Boil until the noodles are soft and the vegetables aren't frozen. It is super simple, and I always have the ingredients on hand, and my family eats it up. Can't beat that.

We are also getting back into hot breakfasts - oatmeal with maple syrup and brown sugar (only from scratch for us. We love real maple syrup.) pancakes and waffles. Mr. Simple made chocolate chip (with mini chocolate chips) pancakes last night for dinner, and Flower is going to make us pumpkin pancakes this weekend. Oh and my sister brought us yummy chili a couple nights ago too.

So what are you eating lately?

How to get happiness - according to Laura

(Taken from "Favors the Small Farm Home" in Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection. This was Laura's first published article, originally written as an address to a local farmer's club meeting. On this occasion, though, she was too busy to give the speech herself, and so she sent the text along for someone else to read. The editor of the Missouri Ruralist was in the audience, and liked what he heard. He decided to publish the article, and got in touch with Laura. And so her life as a writer began.)

"There is a movement in the United States today, wide-spread, and very far reaching its consequences. People are seeking after a freer, healthier, happier life. They are tired of the noise and dirt, bad air and crowds of the cities and are turning longing eyes toward the green slopes, wooded hills, pure running water and health-giving breezes of the country.

A great many of those people are discouraged by the amount of capital required to buy a farm and hesitate at the thought of undertaking a new business. But there is no need to buy a large farm. A small farm will bring in a good living with less work and worry and the business is not hard to learn . . . I am an advocate of the small farm and I want to tell you how an ideal home can be made on, and a good living made from, five acres of land.

Whenever a woman's homemaking is spoken of, the man in the case is presupposed and the woman's home-making is expected to consist in keeping the house clean and serving good meals on time, etc. In short, that all her home-making should be inside the house. It takes more than the inside of the house to make a pleasant home and women are capable of making the whole home, outside and in, if necessary. She can do so to perfection on a five-acre farm by hiring some of the outside work done. However, our ideal home should be made by a man and woman together. First I want to say that a five-acre farm is large enough for the support of a family. [A] great part of the living can be made on that size farm from poultry or fruit or a combination of poultry, fruit and dairy.

It used to be that the woman on a farm was isolated and behind the times. Now rural delivery brings us our daily papers . . . The telephone gives us connection with the outside world at all times . . . Circulating libraries are scattered through the rural districts . . . The interurban trolley lines being built throughout the country will make it increasingly easy for us to run into town for an afternoon's shopping or any other pleasure.

Yes, indeed, things have changed in the country and we have the advantages of city life if we care to take them. Besides we have what it is impossible for the woman in the city to have. We have a whole five acres for our backyard and all outdoors for our conservatory, filled not only with beautiful flowers, but with grand old trees as well, with running water and beautiful birds, with sunshine and fresh air and all wild, free beautiful things.

The children, instead of playing with other children in some street or alley can go make friends with the birds, on their nests in the bushes, as my little girl used to do. This little farm home is a delightful place for friends to come for afternoon tea under the trees."

I would so love a little five-acre farm home. It is my goal. I'm hoping to have one in the next five years. I hope that all of my friends will come out and have some of the eggs, fruit, and milk from the Simple Farm and spend some afternoons under the trees. Until then, I'll try and find ways to be as self-reliant as we can, and get out in nature as often as we can, and be as happy as I can here in the city.

Our Trip to St. Louis

We live about 3 hours from St. Louis, MO. When we were first married, we would go down every year for our anniversary, and we have done a couple of trips as a couple since we had children, but for some reason, we had never gotten down there with the kids. We finally went this weekend with the whole family. We had a wonderful day, and we have plans to go down in a couple of months to see the Science Center and the Arch. It is so hard for me to pick just a few pictures from our day, but I'll try. We went to the St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

At the front of the Zoo. You can't see us very well, but the leaves are finally starting to turn around here.

We sat on the front row at the Sea Lion show.

A bunch of monkeys escaped from the Primate House.

You could get so close to the penguins and the puffins. It was amazing.

Doing our own March of the Penguins

Super looking at some big fish


The Botanical Gardens is made up of several different gardens.

Here are the three little Simples on the throne at the Ottoman Garden.

A butterfly on a flower.

Jelly Bean in the Woodland Garden

Feeding the fish in the Japanese Garden

A view across the lake in the Japanese Garden

Mr. Simple's Karate Kid impression

I can hardly wait until we go again. If you are within 3 or 4 hours of St. Louis, I would highly recommend going for a visit. There is so much to do, and many of the activities are free! My kind of price!

Doing Less?

I started blogging here because I wanted to talk about how I want to live a simple life with my family. But I'm starting to think that I'm all talk and no action.

For example, I heard a talk (Julie Beck, "Mothers Who Know" Ensign, November 2007) about a year ago about mothers. One of the things that the speaker said was that mothers who know do less -"They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all." I thought to myself - Yes, that sounds right to me. It fits in with my plan of living simply. Not to mention, we just don't have the money to do many outside activities.

But yet, we seem to have enough to have cable TV with many channels and a DVR recorder. Now we honestly don't watch it much, and the children don't watch anything but educational television, but we do watch it some. And the cable company is not stupid either. They offered us a "great deal" if we packaged our phone service, our cable modem, and the cable TV all together. But if we decide to drop any service (like the TV) then the prices for the other two services go up to more than the three together. So we keep it because it costs us less than if we didn't have it. And so we watch it. I can rationalize all I want, with any number of excuses, but we should still probably be watching less/almost none/more selectively and using that time doing something together.

However, although we could be watching TV, the thing that is really making me think lately is that we are doing too much. It started out innocently enough. The girls were both in girl scouts and meet a couple of times a month. Then Flower started going to church activity for girls that meets twice a month. And then Flower and Super wanted to do swimming lessons. I couldn't afford private lessons, but we could do parks and rec lessons, and it is only $25 a session. Oh, yea. Make that $50 for both of them. Oh, and a session is a month, so it will be $50 for November. And $50 for January. And $50 for February. And since Flower is homeschooled, it is extra important to me to have her get some exercise. Swimming is twice a week. O.K., busy, but we are managing. Oh, yea. it wouldn't be fair if Jelly Bean didn't do anything. So Jelly Bean is doing basketball. For $60 a session. At least a basketball session is two months instead of one month. Basketball is twice a week. Thankfully on different days than swimming. Flower wants to do 4-H. It's only once a month. It's o.k., I say. And Flower really should be learning the piano. She's 9 and hasn't taken lessons yet. But we can't afford it.

And that was when I thought "Can we afford what we are already doing?" Not necessarily financially, but in terms of the time that we are spending outside of the house? Do we need to do all these activities at once? And we need to do all of them right now?

Julie Beck told mothers the answer up there. I don't need to and probably shouldn't choose it all. So why do I always feel like I need to? Why do I feel am a bad mother when I choose less? And why can't I enjoy myself more when we do less? Because it always sounds good in theory to spend time "reading, laughing, singing, talking" but the reality is that my children fight. A LOT. And I can only stand so much togetherness before it erupts into me yelling and separating them and then there is no togetherness and I'm left feeling like a failure.

But again, I need to give up the excuses and just do it. Live with less. Do less. Because the benefits, one day, will be worth it.

The Nature Center In Autumn

On Saturday, we went to the local nature center for their autumnal fetival. There was scarecrow-making, s'more making & cider, bubble wands, a number of booths recreating life from the 1700s (woodworking, tradesman, blacksmith, quilting, etc.), an observatory, the nature center building, the imagination grove (an area for children with a stream, a watch tower, a log cabin, trees, etc.) , and the pumpkin salon (you could decorate a pumpkin with things from nature)

This nature center has a celebration every season and we try and get out there for each celebration, as well as get out there just to go to the center and walk the trails. The nature center is about 20 minutes from our house, and it is always good for the kids to be able to get out and really roam in nature. Our home is part of a new (6 years old) subdivision where the houses are close together, and there aren't many trees, and small back yards, and lots of white plastic fences. So I try to get my children out in nature as often as I can. Our community has a trail that goes through town, and most of it is wooded, and we are less than a mile from it, and so we try and get there when we can, although we should use it even more.
Anyway, here are some pictures from the day:

Super in the straw

Jelly Bean trying on the scarecrow head


Jelly Bean and Super standing by the scarecrows

Flower doing bubbles

Super chasing bubbles

The kids in an old canoe

Watching the basketweaver

Eating s'mores

Flower watching doll-making

Jelly Bean looking at antlers at the nature center

Flower looking at feathers with a magnifying glass

Flower in the cabin at Imagination Grove

Provident Living - A Way Of Life

The wisdom of living providently has been recognized since ancient times. Joseph encouraged the Egyptians to store grain during the seven “fat” years against the lean years to come. From the ancient Greek storyteller, Aesop, comes a fable about the ant and the grasshopper, which illustrates in a very simple way the principle of provident living. In time of plenty, the grasshopper took no thought for what he might need when the winter came. But the ant worked busily, preparing and providing for a time when food would not be so plentiful. The ant could look to the future with confidence, while the grasshopper—if he thought about the future at all—could only hope for the best.

But living providently is more than just putting aside food for future need. It encompasses all areas of life. If we want to face the future with confidence and peace of mind, we must prepare ourselves in six areas: literacy and education, career development, financial and resource management, home production and storage, physical health, and social-emotional and spiritual strength. When we strive to prepare in each of these areas, we can enjoy peace of mind as we face the uncertainties of the future.

This quote is from an article that was published over 20 years ago. It was published when many people thought that it was "radical" to store food or at the very least silly, and a waste of time, space and money. Now it seems like storing food is the new "hip" thing to do.

But this quote says two important things - First, we need to store during times of plenty so that we aren't caught unprepared when things change. So hopefully, people have been storing food for the past few years, and aren't trying to start now during this time of high food prices and an uncertain economy. Second, provident living isn't just about storing food. It is a way of life. We need to focus our lives on building skills in many areas, not just food storage, so that we can live a more self-reliant life.

I meet with a small group of women every month. The name of the group is "Women Living Wisely" and we discuss/learn about different things from each of the six areas. We have talked about food storage, but we have also learned about yoga, stress management, ways to increase our creativity, quilt-tying, organization, adult education, and crocheting, just to name a few. I'm still a long way from being self-sufficient, but it has been helpful for me be able to meet with other women and learn from them and take small steps toward that big goal.

A Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

We went to a pumpkin patch on Columbus Day. They had pumpkins, of course, but they also had a playground made out of hay bales, animals to pet, a trike race track, and a corn bin. It always makes me laugh how we live in a city of 150,000, but yet we can be out in the fields in less than 10 minutes.

Flower and her cousin - I love the harvester in the background

Super and his cousin (my sister has kids that are the same age as my kids, plus she has an adorable little baby daughter)


Flower on the haybale playground

Jelly Bean in the corn

Group shot - My kids, their cousins, and a couple of friends

The requisite silly shot - I always tell them if they do a nice one, I'll let them do a silly one.