Tis the season

Nope, not for Christmas....that would mean that we skipped my favorite season, Fall. Tis the season for picking and canning and baking and eating all of the wonderful things that are a part of this season.

Bread, apple butter and yummy apple blackberry crisp.

B#8 absolutely loves blackberries. If given the choice between blackberries and chocolate, he would definitely choose blackberries. Whose child is this anyway?!?!

And the season for soapmaking. We only made 2 large batches of soap this year, which yielded about 100bars. Not sure if that is enough for our family for a year or not. We shall see:)

We have also been working a bit at a time on applesauce as we pick our early apple tree. We are looking forward to making apple cider again this year from our other two trees. Don't you just love fall? What is your favorite season and why?

Seven Basic Needs of a Husband

These seven basic needs are taken from an Institute in Basic Life Principles booklet. There is also one for the 7 basic needs of a wife but since my job is to focus on the needs of my husband, that is what I have been reading and *trying* to focus on lately.

1. A husband needs a wife who respects him as a man
2 .A husband needs a wife who accepts him as a leader and believes in his God-given responsibilities.
3. A husband needs a wife who will continue to develop inward and outward beauty.
4. A husband needs a wife who can lovingly appeal to him when he is going beyond his limitations and who can wisely respond to those who questions his ideas, goals, or motives.
5. A husband needs quality time to be alone with the Lord.
6. A husband needs a wife who is grateful for all he has done and is doing for her.
7. A husband needs a wife who will be praised by other people for her character and her good works.

There is so much more to this booklet than what I have written here and I certainly have a long way to go to meet the needs of my husband but this should be the desire of our hearts for our marriages, to meet our husbands needs and to honor the Lord while doing it.

In Praise of Motherhood

I read this quote from one of the blogs that I follow, "Your Sacred Calling". At first I struggled to understand just what it was saying since it appears to have been written some time ago. But knowing that the blog it was on promotes our calling as mothers I knew it was saying positive things about being a mother. I highlighted my favorite parts. Imagine our God-given responsibility of motherhood being compared to a Queen in her castle, as the quote mentions.




Woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. . . . when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. . . .
If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it.
How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute

For Mamaw

I mentioned to my mom that I really needed to sit down and post some photos of the kiddos but just couldn't find the time to do it so I thought I would sit down and do it while the baby is sleeping but alas she is now awake so Mamaw, enjoy the pictures and for the rest of you who probably aren't as interested in seeing my "blessings" photos, I will try to post again later about what we have been up to around here.