HeavenWord Handlers and a Great Show!!!!

I am SO proud of the great job they did today performing before their biggest crowd yet at Northwestern College during both the men's and women's halftime break.

The HeavenWord Handlers performance team is made up of Rochelle, Austin H. , Jacob D., and my own Grant, Alan, Cyrus, and Joyce.

Here is the video of their performance during the men's halftime.





Warmly,
A Patchwork Mommy

HeavenWord Handlers Before the Show!

The HeavenWord Handler performance team practicing for their halftime shows at Northwestern College this afternoon.

Rochelle



HeavenWord Handlers Performers in training

Nolan and Josh





Alan looking pretty determined





Warmly,
A Patchwork Mommy

I'm Just Dreaming...

It seems every few weeks I fall in love with a different 'new' house and life. (Maybe that was behind my urge to change my blog...) It is a fun past time for me to dream about a new life in a new spot. Of course, those dreams include all sixteen of us! Life would be lonely without everyone to share it with.

In 2009 I dreamed of far off places like New Zealand, missionary work in Africa, a place in Alaska where only planes can reach, Montana,Idaho,Fish Lake up here in Minnesota, owning a Christmas tree farm in Northern Illinois,helping with a church plant in Decora,Ia (we were not invited on the church plant but I wanted to crash it).Even staying here in Waseca but opening up a quilt/coffee type shop. I even had Jeff and the kids drive me to this little plot of land in the middle of a Waseca cornfield with a condemned house on it where we would have goats and chickens... What a guy! I usually plan Jeff's 'new' job in the far off places as well. Good thing Jeff has both feet in reality and knows the balance between not dashing my dreams but not packing his bags.

Do you want to see my newest adventure??

Have you ever heard of the village of Luck, in Western Wisconsin? Population about 1,000. It stared out as a stagecoach stop. Sounds pretty cool!

Updated and renovated turn of the century school house. Amazingly done with original floors and ceilings. This 5 bedroom, 3 bath home has room for the whole family on 3.2acres. With 5,400 square feet of living space!

Did you get that?! An OLD SCHOOL HOUSE, 5,400 square feet living space,3 FULL bathrooms!! I'm in love!



My dream house/life in Luck,Wi

I'm all ready to go!!!!! Until next week when I find a new dream place,that is!!!

Warmly,
A Patchwork Mommy

A Day in the Life of a Patchwork Mommy

I'm fitting right in to my 'new' blog.

What do you think of my new blog name? It is pretty cute.

A Day in the Life of a Patchwork Mommy.

I'm not sure why I picked that name but it sounds cute!

I will be adding a pretty background at some point. Something fun. There are so many fun blog templates out there but it is fun to make up my own. I made up my Over in the Meadow one. I suppose it looked a little homemade but I like the homemade look. Homemade is a good look in my opinion.

You might be wondering why I changed my whole blog address, I bet. In truth, I just wanted to start fresh in a way. It is kind of like moving the furniture around or spring cleaning.


I learned over the years that when I change my blog (which I have done many, many times) to bring my old blog posts with me. A few years back I stupidly deleted a blog and over a year of posts! Of course,each time I move my blog my blog readers dwindle but at least all you reading this are here! Thanks!!!!

Here is an interesting thing...I found out that there is a blog out there with the blog address patchworkmommy.blogspot.com so maybe it was not the greatest thing to choose the address apatchworkmommy.blogspot.com but at least the other patchwork mommy's blog looks abandoned but does look interesting.

I will not post on Over in the Meadow anymore but will leave it open for a bit longer to make sure I get everything off of it I need.

Warmly,
A Patchwork Mommy

Aunties

This afternoon we had the special privilege of a visit with the kids' Aunties!

My sweet younger (baby) sister Melissa and her partner Angela flew up the weekend from Texas to visit all the Minnesota relatives. Melissa and Angela came to have dinner with us today. There was nothing greater than seeing my baby sister after a couple years!

We all had a great time!

Auntie Missy and Auntie Angela



A few of the kids hanging out



Another group of cuties



A few camera shy kids getting the dessert ready to serve



A group picture (minus me) with the Aunties



Now, as long as we had them here we thought we would have them take our Christmas picture.

What do you think...

This one (although Jeff is a little hidden).

Tell me exactly when those old age creases appeared on my face!!! I'm bothered! I guess I do not look in the mirror much. Maybe I could photo shop them some how... All the kids look good,though.



Or this one?

I kind of vote for this one. It reflects our family life a little better and my creases do not show. It's all about me you know...There is a reason you would be hard pressed to find many photos on my blog of me :~)




Warmly,
A Patchwork Mommy

Hello, I'm Cutie Guy

I finished another little cute stuffty guy this evening.



Maybe I will get time Friday evening to finish these two up.



Hi Mom!

Welcome to my blog.

See, I warned you my blog was a tad odd but then again so am I.

I'm glad you still love me anyway!

Love,

Tina

Repost

I thought I would repost this video because it might not have been working.


A MUST SEE Frye Brother Films

I just figured out this video is not working. What a bummer. I hope you were able to see it. I do not know exactly when it stopped working.

Was anyone able to see it ? ? If not,now you can by:

Clicking on the word comment on the video player and it will take you directly to the video on the Pixorial site so you can view the video.

Or click this link Spinning To The Kingdom

My Little Helper

My sweet little Lily is helping me make a late dinner for our Wednesday night AWANA crew.

P.S. Joel dressed her just in case you were wondering. I would be...

A Little Tuesday This and That

These precious little toddler feet



Belong to my little sleeping beauty



Anya and Elena made chocolate cupcakes this evening. The recipe they used was from the HyVee Seasons magazine we received in the mail today. They changed the recipe around some because we did not have all the correct ingredients but the cupcakes were very good!







Meal #5 with our turkey leftovers from last week. I think this is called Italian Turkey or something like that.Sorry for the messy looking bowl. This meal was very good! So that is it! A 20 pound turkey can feed a family of 16 for five meals! Not one person complained that they were tired of turkey even when we had soup two days in a row. This week we go back to our weekly 6 pound whole chicken. That will give us a modest roasted chicken meal and a soup meal. Not as fancy but still fills us up.

Happy 2nd Birthday Lily!!!

We are a little behind with celebrating Lily's birthday.

Ok,maybe eighteen days behind.It happens sometimes,doesn't it? Good thing she is only two. Never the less,her day of celebration is finally here!

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY LILY !!!!!!!!!!






Grandpa and Grandma, Lily loves the puppy dog!!

A Bowl and a Bag

Here is dinner # 4 with the turkey I cooked last week. I believe it is southwest turkey over rice. It was very good. Our Liberian kids were very exited because they said this is similar to how their food looks like in Liberia. I am not sure if it tasted like Liberian food but the way I served it over rice in a bowl like I did was familiar.




I had a few minutes this evening and a few scraps laying around so I made this cute little bag. It was Little Girl Pearl's little girl purse tutorial .This bag was SO easy to make and Melissa's directions were very easy to follow. I think I got mixed up with the width/length measurements. Melissa's bag is more wide than long but mine looks more long than wide. That gives mine a more bag look and her's a purse look.Both ways are cute. I think I will make a purse looking one next.

Mullet,Soup,and a Great Deal

Should we continue on with Joel's mullet look ????

All business in the front...(kind of,anyway)



And totally awesome party going on in the back




On second thought,I think we will not go the mullet route...


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


See, look at today's great turkey soup. Boiling the carcase a second time made for some great tasting soup.It actually tasted better than yesterday's soup in my opinion. In a frugal pinch that rubber chicken (in this case turkey)
sure can bounce!!



Here was a great find.Walmart had these great looking summer fabrics at $1.50 a yard. Usually their $1.50 fabric bin has fabric only good for Halloween costumes but not today! I picked up a few yards of each to make summer dresses.The fabric actually feels quite beautiful.It is semi sheer,light and airy. It must be a poly/cotton blend. I usually prefer all cotton,but this stuff is nice and the price was just right!



Party on dude!!

Saturday Soup

Have you ever heard the term rubber chicken?

I decided to see how many meals our 20 lb turkey we cooked this past Thursday will go to feed all sixteen of us. So far we had two meals: Our Thursday turkey dinner and tonight's soup.

As you will see, our soup tonight was lacking color but it was very tasty! I mentioned this before but the real flavor with soup like this is to not skim off the fat. I suppose that is very unhealthy but very, very good.



I scavenged two zippy bags of leftover turkey meat for two hot dishes this next week. Do you want to know what crazy thing I am going to do? I think I can boil the turkey bones one more time to get another soup meal. So that will be five meals. That is pretty good considering the number of mouths it will feed.


Here is a little food/cooking trivia about our family:

We need two full 6 quart crock pots when we crock pot cook.

We moved from using two 9 x 13 pans to cook hot dish for one meal to our turkey roasting pan.

Our 8 quart stock pot is getting too small to cook oatmeal,rice, and noodles in. We will need to move up soon.It already is too small for cooking soup.

We need four pounds of dry beans for a beanish kind of meal to fill us up.

If we are making spaghetti, soup, or some hot dish with noodles in it we use three pounds of noodles.

Ten pounds of slow cook rice lasts us all of three meals.

We go through 15 or 16 loaves of bread a week.

We use 2 1/2 pounds of frozen veggies per meal.

We use eight boxes of mac and cheese for lunch which the kids complain is not enough.

We use two pounds of old fashion oatmeal for one breakfast.

We use about 2 1/2 to 3 dozen eggs for one meal of scrambled or fried eggs.


P.S.

Does anyone go to bed around here? It is one in the morning now and there are kids
(our bigger teens) still up wandering around getting this or that.