Home with Tracy

While on Facebook yesterday, I read a post about a 6 1/2 year old girl in need of a forever family. She is in the United States. She was previously adopted from China. She was born with a cleft palate and has had surgery in China, as well as in the United States. Her family was not aware of the language/speech difficulties she would have. They feel they cannot give her what she needs in order for her speech to improve. Please do not think badly of this family. That is not my reason for posting. Because of her needs they are looking for a homeschooling family. They are also looking for a bigger family because the little girl is extremely social. These two qualities that they are seeking in a forever family, I have found to be very rare. They are also looking for someone who can work with her on her speech. We are a homeschooling family. We are a bigger than average family. We can work with her and help her with her speech. Our youngest son was born tongue tied. He was ...

I am always looking for fun, creative ways to teach our children about why we, as a family, celebrate CHRISTmas. I want them to truly know who Jesus is. I want them to know how His birth was celebrated by some and feared by others. I want them to know the importance of His birth. A couple years ago Heart FELT Truth contacted me about their Easter Banners . I thought they were so creative and very well made. Recently, I decided to look into Heart FELT Truth again, and I was so excited to see they now have a Heart FELT Truth's Pocket Advent Calendar. Here is it -  If you go to the Heart FELT Truth blog , you will read how she personally uses the advent calendar with her own family. She wants to make sure it works before she shares it with all of us. If you go to THIS page, you will see patterns and instructions on how you can make your own advent calendar. If you'd rather not cut out all those pieces, visit the Heart FELT Truth's Etsy page to either purchase a ...

My daughters are seven and eight years old. When they were younger, they would always want to be in the kitchen with me. I would like to say that I encouraged it, but I did not. I was always trying to just get to get things done quickly so everyone could eat. I deeply regret the way I acted. My eight year old helping me make peach cobbler. I regret that I did not encourage them to be in the kitchen with me while they were so eager to be. I regret always being in a hurry and just trying to get things done.  My seven year old making oven baked tacos. I know that there is still time to teach them. I know they are still young, but I miss the eagerness that my eight year old once had. She is slowly getting it back, the more I ask her to help out.  I regret that they saw me just trying to get things done and they didn't see the joy that being a homemaker brings me. I adore my family and preparing meals for them, maintaining the house (well...attempting) and hom...

We are in soccer season, which means two to three nights a week we are at the soccer fields until 6:30. I try to prepare meals early in the day, so they are ready when my hungry little soccer players (and my hard working husband) get home. Yesterday, I had thawed boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the refrigerator and had no idea what to do with them. I wanted to do something different. I also wanted something warm because I am coming down with a cold and something soothing sounded good. I did a search for a crock pot soup recipe that included chicken. I found this recipe. I adapted that recipe to make it more to our taste. I decided to try the stew recipe and pair it with Buttery Bread Machine Rolls from Money Saving Mom. Both were new recipes, so I was a bit nervous. Now that I have tried it, and it was a big success, I thought I'd share it with all of you. Creamy Chicken Potato Stew 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts 2 large potatoes (I used purple) cut in bit...

A couple weeks ago I received a package of Zipzicles to try out and review. I must say, I was super excited. You can read about how Zipzicles was started here. This summer my children and I attended VBS at our church. Since our church is a 30 minute drive and VBS ran from 8:30-12:30, I knew that I would need to pack their lunches. I attempted to make my own Zipzicle type packaging but it did not turn out well at all. I didn't take pictures because no-one needs to witness how bad they were. So, a couple months ago I found Zipzicles and wanted to give them a try. It is such a simple idea and I cannot believe no-one thought of them sooner. One of the things I like most (besides being super convenient) is that the packages are BPA free and recyclable! I also like that I know exactly what my kids are eating because I make it myself. Okay, so here is what I did. I made smoothies and put them in the Zipzicle packages. I am a big fan of tropical smoothies. Here I have coconut milk...