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A Christmas Prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson
Loving Father, Help us remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and worship of the wise men.
Close the door of hate and open the door of love all over the world. Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting. Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.
May the Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children, and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
From our family to yours…Have a very merry Christmas. May the Lord bless you today and through out the new year!
Hugs & Blessings!
The Godfrey Family
Marty, Susan, Colt & Riley
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Saturday we ran over to the appliance repair shop in town. They also have a small gardening center that sells starters, seeds, trees and a few things like that along with some fresh veggies. Marty went to get the replacement part to fix my dryer (YIPEE!!). Thankfully they had the part and now I’m happy to say that my dryer is once again working, which will make my life easier now that cold weather has come around. I’ll still be hanging my clothes on sunny days, but now I have the ability to do laundry when the weather is not so nice. Makes my life SOOO much easier! While we were there, the kids and I got out to look around at their starters, mostly onion sets. We also stopped to look at what fresh veggies there were. The man who owns the shop is a really nice man named Kelly. Anyway, as we were leaving, he offered us a tomato box full of tomatoes. They had gotten too cold and had some burns on the from the frost and he couldn’t sell them, so he gave them to us for free. I was excited and decided to make salsa! Because I didn’t want to worry about the pH and acidness of them, I planned on just freezing the salsa….besides that I needed to start trying to get our new Christmas freezer full 
So, we ran to the grocery store to get the rest of the ingredients that I didn’t already have at home…onions, jalapenos and garlic. Then I spent the remainder of Saturday making Salsa. I didn’t follow any specific recipe, I just doctored it until it tasted right to me. The ingredients were: tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, celery seed, chili powder, salt and a bit of sugar.
This is a picture of the full box of tomatoes. As you can see, nearly all of them had some bad spots, which could easily be cut away leaving lots of good tomato to use!
The first thing I did was dice ALL of those tomatoes and dump them into my largest stainless stock pot.
Then I chopped 6 onions and dumped in there with the tomatoes.
I then chopped 12 jalapeno peppers and dumped in there as well.
I finally chopped 2 heads of garlic (roughly 20 or so cloves). I dumped that into the pot as well.
While doing all the chopping, I managed to cut my thumb. I went to get a bandaid and discovered that my youngest had once again gotten into them and used them all. So I fixed myself up with a “redneck” bandaid….toilet paper and duct tape….LOL! What I didn’t get a picture of is that I actually ended up with 3 of these bandaids on middle and pointer fingers, along with my thumb. We ran into town later that evening to get a few things for dinner and I did buy some more real bandaids to replace my beautiful duct tape ones…boy did I get some strange looks at the store!
This is what the concoction looked like after I mixed everything together. Then I added the rest of the ingredients to taste.
This is what it looked like after it had cooked for a while. I ended up with 7 pint bags full of salsa. One we ate right away with dinner, one was put in the refrigerator to eat later and 5 in the freezer to enjoy at a later date. Not too bad from a batch of free freeze burned tomatoes! The whole batch of salsa didn’t cost us but about $8…not to shabby!
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These three crocheted hair things make a quick and perfect gift for the girls on your list. I made up a set of 14 hair scrunchies, 14 floral bobby pins and 7 curly-q hair ties for my nieces on my husband’s side. These are so quick and easy to work up and you can make a ton of them between now and Christmas. I think they would make cute stocking stuffers. Of course, I’m going to share the patterns! All of these patterns are perfectly suitable for the beginner crocheter and would make a great first project for a girl who’s just learning to crochet. It’s a fun way to practice crochet and make something useful that would be fun for them to give away as gifts.
Frilly Hair Scrunchie
Supplies:
Worsted weight yarn (I used 100% cotton. Peaches & Creme brand)
Size H Crochet hook
1 hair elastic
yarn needle
Round 1:
SL ST yarn to hair elastic. CH 1. SC around hair elastic until completely covered, you want to make sure there are plenty of SC around so that when it’s stretched you don’t see much of the hair elastic. SL ST to CH 1 space.
Round 2: CH 3, SC into 1st SC of round 1. *CH 3, SC into next SC of round 1* around. End with a SC in last SC of round 1 and SL ST to 1st CH of the 1st CH 3 .
Fasten off and Finish by weaving in ends.
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Curly-Q Hair Tie
Supplies:
Worsted weight yarn (I used 100% cotton. Peaches & Creme brand)
Size H Crochet hook
yarn needle
CH 103
3 HDC in 3rd CH from hook and 3 HDC in each of the next 16 CH (17 total). SL ST in next CH to last 17. 3 HDC in each of the last 17 CH.
Fasten off and Finish by weaving in ends.
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Floral Bobby Pins
Supplies:
Worsted weight yarn (I used 100% cotton. Peaches & Creme brand)
Size H Crochet hook
yarn needle
Ch 5 and SL ST to CH 1 to form a circle.
CH 1, *SC, DC, TR, DC * into circle 5 times to form 5 petals. At the end of the 5th petal (DC), SL ST into 1st SC.
Fasten off and Finish by weaving in ends.
Update 12-19-09: I forgot to mention on these. After finishing, simply weave in a bobby pin to the back of the flower. You can add a dot of glue to hold in place or tie on with the tail of yarn left after fastening off. Also, to make extra special, you can glue a button or “jewel” in the center of the flower. Sorry for not posting this earlier…just forgot!
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My boys love macaroni and cheese. I grew up on those boxed mac & cheese mixes with the powdered cheese and later on the ones with the pouch of Velveeta cheese. My Mom has a special homemade macaroni and cheese recipe, but it was usually only served at holidays (It’s yummy though!). I think most kids love mac & cheese, I know my boys do…even my pickiest eater, Riley. I created this recipe because I wanted something healthier for my kids, yet wasn’t too complicated. It does take more time than the box, but the cheese sauce is so much healthier than the powdered stuff that I’m more than happy to spend an extra few minutes at the stove. Over the years, we’ve played around with this recipe a lot. So, we’ve created several variations which change it up and can also make it more like a full meal. Mac & cheese makes a great start for a meal, just add your choice of meat and veggies and you can make it go from a side dish to a full fledged main dish casserole. Over the years, I’ve added so many different things to this recipe and nearly every one was a big hit with the family.
Healthy and Easy Mac and Cheese
1 lb. pkg. Rice pasta (any type you’d like to use or can use sprouted grain pasta…I just can’t find it locally)
2 tbsp. butter (I use raw or organic)
2 tbsp. sprouted whole wheat flour
2 cups milk (I use raw or organic)
2 cups cheese (I use raw or organic)
sea salt & pepper to taste
In a saucepan, cook the pasta as box directs. In another saucepan, place the butter and start heating it on medium until it melts. Add the flour and stir together until the butter and flour are incorporated. Add the milk and stir over medium heat until it starts thickening up. Add the cheese and stir until melted. Season with salt and pepper. Drain the pasta and pour the cheese sauce over it and toss well to mix them together.
Some additions to make this a full meal or change it up a bit.
Add ¼ cup salsa
Add 1 cup tuna and ½ cup green peas
Add 1 cup shredded chicken and ¼ cup salsa
Add 1 cup chopped broccoli
Add 1 cup diced ham and 1 cup chopped broccoli
Add 1 cup left over taco meat and 1/4 cup salsa
This post is part of the Pennywise Platter Thursday Post over at The Nourishing Gourmet. Don’t forget to stop by and find more frugal and healthy ideas for your family!
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This is a recipe that I came up with last night for dinner. It turned out SO good, the gravy was so yummy! My fellas really liked it as well and it was really easy to make. I often make up the pie crusts ahead of time and keep in the freezer for quick use in recipes like this. Much healthier than the pie crusts you buy at the store in the refrigerator section…but you can use one of them if you’d rather. This is a great recipe for using what you have on hand. The meat can be whatever you like…ground, cubed, beef, pork, chiken, turkey or even tuna/fish. You can also use a variety of stocks and vegetables. Pretty much follow the measurements/poundage for the meats and veggies and substitute what you have on hand. My fellas gave this recipe a 5 our of 5 stars, so I think they liked it a little bit. They ate the entire thing…Colt had 4 servings and even my picky eater, Riley, cleaned his plate and I found him picking our the few stray veggies left in the casserole.
Venison Pot Pie
1 lb. Ground venison (or cubed venison steaks or 1 lb. any meat)
5 tbsp. Butter (I use raw or organic)
5 tbsp. Whole wheat flour
1 cup milk (I use raw or organic)
2 cups beef stock (homemade, if making chicken pot pie, I’d use chicken or turkey stock)
2 cups vegetable stock (homemade)
2 tbsp. Grits (optional)
¼ cup dried onions (I used home dried and crushed)
4 cup assorted vegetables (I used 4 cups frozen organic mixed vegetables)
1 top and bottom pie crust (Use your favorite recipe)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a saucepan make a roux with the melted butter and flour. Add the milk, beef stock, vegetable stock, and dried onions. Heat over medium heat until gravy thickens. If it doesn’t get thick enough, you can add 2 tbsp. Grits to help it thicken up. When thick, set aside. In a skillet, brown the ground venison. Add the 4 cups vegetables and heat until warmed through. Pour into a casserole dish and top with the gravy, mix together well. Cut the pie crust into strips and lay on top of the casserole dish (you can weave them if you like, but I don’t usually take time to do that…lol!). Put in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes (until heated through and crust is browned).
Here’s the finished Pot Pie:
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Because if new laws, I felt I should post one of these. Although I don’t take a lot of advertising or review work, I do take some and felt it prudent to go ahead and post this. All posts in which I am compensated in some way (IE: get something free to review) and all paid advertising (IE: blog ads, Amazon ads, affiliate programs, etc) will be marked as such. Thank you! Susan Godfrey/Homestead Momma.
This policy is valid from 15 December 2009
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact Susan Godfrey (homestead.momma.blog@gmail.com).
This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
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Can you guess how old my baby turned on Saturday?? I asked him where he wanted to go for his birthday and his answer was Golden Corral. So, we arranged to meet my parents there to help him celebrate the beginning of his 6th year. We were going to meet them on Friday, but my Mom ended up in the hospital Thursday afternoon due to a huge spike in her blood pressure and some pains in her chest. She spent the night there and was finally released on Friday evening. All her blood tests came back normal and so did her stress test. Praise God! I’m guessing that stress may have been a factor. Anyway, we had to reschedule with them and Mom was feeling well enough on Saturday to meet us. We all had a great dinner…my fellas as full as ticks! Riley pigged out on primary colored Blue Bell ice cream. Bright blue, red and yellow…turned is teeth and lips a YUCKY shade of black. LOL! He enjoyed it and that’s what is important . Then he got to open up his presents. Mom and Dad bought hime a Vtech V-Motion game system and a SpiderMan game for it. We bought him the Cars game for it and the KungFu Panda game for it. Dad also brought us the meat from the deer Colt shot, plus some from a deer he shot. So we finally had something to put into the freezer that they bought us for Christmas…lol! I love my parents so much! They are so good to us and I’m so glad that they’re mine!
Well, you know me….I have a bunch of pictures to post as well! ENjoy!
Here we all are at the table (Minus Marty…he’s taking the picture)
Riley opening his presents
Posing with his presents
More posing
Me and my little man!
Riley and Colt arm wrestling
Riley and my Dad
Birthday spankings…where did this tradition come from?!?!
My fellas…Colt, Marty & Riley
Where did my baby go??
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I just finished up this crocheted beret this past weekend and I thought I’d share the pattern I created with you. It’s a pretty simple one and works really well for beginners.
Simple Crocheted Beret
(C) 2009 Susan Godfrey/Homestead Momma, all rights reserved.
Size:
One size fits most adults
Experience:
Beginner
Materials:
H crochet hook
1 skein worsted weight yarn (I used Red Hart color #0931 Seagrass)
yarn needle
Beginning:
Chain 4 and work 11 DC into fourth chain from the hook. SL ST into the top of the fourth chain to join.
Round 1:
CH 3, make 1 DC into same space as CH 3, make 2 DC into each DC around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 2:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into next DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 3:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next 2 DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into the next 2 DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 4:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next 3 DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into the next 3 DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 5:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next 4 DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into the next 4 DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 6:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next 5 DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into the next 5 DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 7:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next 6 DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into the next 6 DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 8:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next 7 DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into the next 7 DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 9:
CH 3, make 1 DC into the same space as CH 3, make 1 DC into next 8 DC, *make 2 DC into next DC, make 1 DC into the next 9 DC*. Repeat from * to * around. Join with a SL ST in top of CH 3.
Round 10 & 11:
CH 3, make 1 DC into each DC around. Join with a SL ST in to of CH 3.
Round 12:
CH 1, SC in next 6 DC. Decrease–draw up a LP in the next 2 DC, YO and through all 3 LPS on hook –dec made. *SC in next 7 DC, dec in next 2 DC* reapeat around. SC into last 4 DC and join with a SLST to the 1st SC.
Rounds 13-17:
Ch 1, SC in each SC around. Join with a SLST to the 1st SC.
Rounds 18-21:
CH 1, SC in next 6 SC. Decrease–draw up a LP in the next 2 SC, YO and through all 3 LPS on hook –dec made. *SC in next 7 SC, dec in next 2 SC* reapeat around. Join with a SLST to the 1st SC.
Weave in ends and you’re done! Enjoy!!
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Well, we FINALLY got to the last of the turkey. Yesterday for lunch I made Turkey Enchiladas (there’s not a lot of exact measurements, but approximate)…my Mother-In-Law’s recipe. My MIL would make this each year at Thanksgiving and it’s one of my husband’s favorite recipes. I don’t make it often because the white sauce takes so long…I’m just not a very patient person….lol! So, with this turkey, I was able to get 5 complete meals. I could have probably gotten 1-2 more recipes out of it if I hadn’t served it sliced on 2 days. Next time, I’m going to just cook one and save the meat to put into casseroles…which REALLY help spread a turkey. If I’m able to get another cheap turkey again this year, I may try this experiment again with just casseroles and soup and really see how far I can spread it!
Jan Godfrey’s Turkey Enchiladas
1 onion chopped
about 3 cups chopped turkey
1 stick butter, melted
1 can turkey broth (or chicken broth)
corn tortillas
grated cheese
5 tbsp. butter
5 tbsp. flour (I used whole wheat)
5 cups milk (I use either raw or organic, depending on what’s available at the time)
chili powder
Salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Warm up the tortillas. In a bowl, mix together the melted butter and broth. Mix together the onion and tukey. Dip each tortilla into the broth/butter and then add about 3-4 tbsp. of the tukey/onion mixure. Roll and then lay in the bottom of the casserole dish, seam side down. Continue rolling tortillas until casserole dish is full (be sure and put them in the casserole dish tightly and fit as many in as possible (I ususally can get 15-20 into a rectangle casserole dish). Now you need to make the sauce. In a saucepan, add the 5 tbsp. butter and 5 tbsp flour, over medium heat. Whisk this together to make a roux. Don’t let burn! Then flour and melted butter are throughly combined, pour in the milk and continue to whisk, constantly until milk thickens to desired consistency. Add a bit of salt and pepper to taste. When sauce is thick, pour over the enchiladas. Sprinkle top with chili powder. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Top with grated cheese and bake for another 5-10 minutes, until cheese is melted.
So here’s the break down so far:
1. Sliced turkey served with brown rice with onions and garlic green beans (Tuesday’s dinner)
2. left over rice & green beans mixed together with bits of turkey (Wednesday’s lunch)
3. Turkey Rice Casserole (Wednesday’s dinner)
4. Turkey and Rice Soup (Thursday lunch)
5. Turkey Enchiladas (Sunday lunch)
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This is something that has been on my mind for quite a while. There are just too many “Christian”, “Titus 2″, “Proverbs 31″, etc. women bloggers who lead other Christian women into believing that their way of doing things is the only right way to do things and it’s a sin to do otherwise. They teach things that are simply just not true. They twist the Bible to make it fit their beliefs and make struggling Christian homemakers feel like they can never quite reach the pinnacle of their so called perfection. They write their posts through rose colored glasses, hiding or misrepresenting much of the truth of their lives. This false perfection can make other women feel as if they are failures when they are unable to duplicate it. I think we’ve all done it at one time or another…show our good side on our blog and gloss over the bad. But I’ve realized that it’s irresponsible to do this. If you really want to try to be a good Titus 2 Mentor, you should try to instruct the younger generation how to deal with both the good and the bad. Life is a roller coaster ride and has ups and downs. Life can change in a moment. You will go through seasons in your life where your house will be perfection and seasons when it’s chaos. That’s LIFE! It’s how you react to each of these changes that matter, that an WHERE your heart is. There is ONLY ONE WAY to Heaven and that is through God’s grace in His sacrifice of his only Son for our sins. Belief in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us. It doesn’t matter what church or denomination you go to. It doesn’t matter what Bible version you read. It doesn’t matter if you wear dresses only or pants. It doesn’t matter if you work or stay home. It doesn’t matter if your hair is long or short. It doesn’t matter if your home is perfect or in chaos. It’s not your hairstyle or clothing choice or the place you live, be it a mansion or a trailer house. It’s not about being a “good” person or the perfect homemaker. None of these things will buy your way into Heaven. It’s about the relationship you have with the Lord. It matters where your heart is and on whom you believe.
(16)For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(17)For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
(18)He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
(19)And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
(20)For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
(21)But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
–John 3:16-21
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