Another Bloggy Giveaway!

Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer is hosting another giveaway carnival! Click here to go to a list of what will probably end up being hundreds of awesome giveaways. Anywho, as I did during Shannon's springtime carnival I've decided to give away a handmade item. I will custom make one Mother's Bracelet for two lucky winners!

Each bracelet has a colorful design (or I can do all one color, your choice). Each of your children will be represented by a silver colored flower bead. The bracelets are made from colored, polished, stone beads and silver colored flower beads and spacers. All you have to do is leave me a nice comment telling me why you'd like to win making sure I have a way to contact you and I'll choose two lucky winners on Friday, November 2 around 1:00 pm assuming the kids are napping like they should! And since I know you'll be entering dozens of contests, I'll even contact you if you win! Easy as pie. :) I would also be happy to make non-winners a bracelet for just $6 which includes shipping to the USA!!! :) Good luck!

Hippie Mamma

For years I have been lovingly teasing my friend Mel about her "hippie" tendencies. She buys some organic food products for her kids, makes her own baby wipes, uses non-toxic, chemical free cleaners/shampoos/soaps etc etc etc. Well, we are both on a baby food making kick. Yesterday we spent actual mommy time talking about the various benefits of old-fashioned versus quick cooking oats. Maybe we need to get out more. Anywhoo, this morning I actually ground some whole grain oatmeal in my mini-blender, cooked it (yes, on the stove even!) and mixed it in with equal parts homemade applesauce which I made from the apples from the apple tree on our yard and home baked pureed acorn squash purchased from a farmer down the road. So, for breakfast, Avery clamped her mouth shut when offered a mixture of applesauce/squash/oatmeal. She'll be having it for lunch! Fortunately the little boys just thought they were getting applesauce oatmeal which they love! Little did they know I was sneaking a veggie in there, too! Yeah for me! That means I can feed them frozen chicken nuggets for lunch guilt free!!! :) Hey, I said Mel was the hippie, not me!

The Faith of a Child

Here is a touching (and of course humorous) story of young faith. Oh that we would have the faith of a child!

Monday Morning

I'm having a problem with the blog that I remember having when I was in sixth grade. We had journals in homeroom. Sometimes we were given the topic of "freewrite" where we could write anything we wanted to. I hated freewriting. I could never focus on one topic. I think I remember writing something to the affect of "I don't know what to write here" and calling it a day. Mrs. S. commented, "just focus on one thought at a time". Ha! Thanks fo the idea! Wish I had thought of that! ;)
I have grand plans for today. It seems that I try to get the house tidied up during the week so we don't have to spend the entire weekend cleaning. Then Monday morning comes and despite the fact that we're out running errands or doing outside things I still have to spend all of Monday morning cleaning the house anyway! What happens???
We've been a little concerned for our neighbor who owns the cornfields we live in the middle of. This fall has been incredibly rainy and he hasn't been able to get out in the fields to harvest. Yesterday, in a cold drizzly rain, the combine (I think that's what it's called!) started running through the fields. Stupid city people that we are, we got bundled up and ran outside to watch! Dang, that's something to see. The thing runs along, chops down the stalks, shucks the corn, yanks the kernels off and spits the cobs out naked and broken up from it's backside. Evan went out with an ice cream bucket to glean the leftovers for his chickens. He was out there for over a half an hour and barely covered the bottom of the bucket! Amazing isn't it? This huge machine does such an accurate job that a gleaner would starve on the corn leftover.
Well, as exciting as this post is, I'm going to just hit "publish" and go pay attention to my kids!

A new link

Jim has joined the land of bloggers! Click here and read his touching tribute to his mom. And if anyone could tell me how the heck to put links on the sidebar so I can link to some of my other favorite bloggage I'd be most appreciative! :)
Edited to add: Nevermind! I figured it out! Yeah for me!!! :)
Also, adding an update on Evan's Bible study. He weenied out. He claimed stage fright and told me not to invite his friends over for Bible study. So, we didn't push it. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak it seems.