Perfect rainy day dinner!

It was a wonderfully stormy day here on the Oregon Coast and what better way to end the day than with some slow cooker taco chili!  I'll even be nice enough to share the recipe since it was so yummy!
Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground beef
2-15oz. cans tomato sauce
2-15oz. cans diced tomatoes with onion & green peppers
2-15oz. cans whole kernel corn
2-15oz. cans chili beans w/ gravy
2 packets taco seasoning

Directions:
Brown the ground beef on the stove.  Combine beef and everything else (undrained) in the crockpot and cook on High for 3-4 hours.
Top the chili with cheese and enjoy!
To top it all off, my hubby made a DELICIOUS batch of homemade cornbread!  It was a great dinner!

Candy Corn Bracelets

Today we made candy corn bracelets which took awhile to make and a mere 2 seconds for them to inhale!  LOL  I used a push-pin to make holes in the candy (less painful on my fingers than the regular needle I used at first) then thread fishing line through the holes just like you would a regular bead.  Be warned, about half of the candy will break in half as you are pushing the pin through but my hubby was stoked about that!  :)  He got to eat the broken ones! 

Messy-Clean Fun

Messy-Clean fun sounds like an oxymoron to me but that's what it is! Shaving cream is a lot like soap so I didn't mind busting some out to let the kids play with! If it got on the carpet it was easy to wipe off and same with the tables and chairs and their clothes...and their bodies (which is indeed where it all ended up)!


Started out with a small amount of shaving cream on the pan w/ some paintbrushes and that lasted for a little while.

Then Keegan came over...

Then we had to pile more shaving cream on to see how big we could get it which led to sticking hands in it! :)

Next was time to add some food coloring...

We had to end playtime with a bang...or should I say a smash?? Keegan (with a little help from me) smashed his face into the mess and loved every second of it! LOL

Bitty couldn't be left out and helped herself to a little face smashing as well! Thankfully she was a little more restrained and just dipped the bottom portion of her face in it!

This lasted for about an hour and the kids had a blast and I was able to relax because it was an easy clean-up! I wasn't worrying so much about if they were getting too wild with it (before the food coloring got added). Taking a mental note to use this on a rainy day when the kids are going stir-crazy inside!

Fun fall projects!

The other day the kids & I went on a walk around our neighborhood, collecting leaves of all shapes and colors and sizes. It was such a gorgeous morning and the perfect opportunity to talk to the kids about how the Lord put so much love and care into putting every detail into His creation, even down to the changing of the seasons, the colors of the leaves and the way they work! I reinforced to them that God loves us so much and cares about every aspect of our lives and how He created us. We are all different colors, different sizes and we all have our own personalities and that's ok because that's how God created us to be! We're all special to God!


After we got home we laid the leaves out on the counters to dry:

Then we used self-sealing laminating pouches (couldn't find contact paper at Walmart or Joann's) and added the leaves:

We've discoverd...LAPBOOKS!!

It never fails that I go out and get some new homeschool curriculum and think it's going to work out awesomely but after like 1-2 weeks I'm bored! I had a bit of a meltdown and questioned if I should even be homeschooling! The thought of sending my kids to public school terrifies me and christian private school is expensive and still would expose them to things that I don't want them to be exposed to so yes, homeschooling is what I'm supposed to be doing. I was still faced with the dilemma of being bored with the way we were doing it but needing to help my hubby feel comfortable with everything so I reached out to my fellow homeschool moms and asked for ideas. Several of them mentioned lapbooking so I dug in and figured I'd research it and go from there. Let me tell you, I am totally hooked and Keegan is LOVING it! We still do math & english out of our workbooks but we've changed how we're going to do everything else. Hubby & I asked Keegan what he wanted to learn about and he said space. My friend Tiffany pointed me to an awesome website that happened to have a space lapbook section so I printed off tons of pages and away we went! Keegan is a lot like me. He likes hands-on crafts and being able to show off his work! LOL This solves the problem with my hubby because he's able to see with his own eyes the things Keegan is learning and some of what we do during our homeschool time! It's like educational scrapbooking! AWESOME! So this is what we did day one on our lapbook. Gotta love that Keegan is all boy with his plastic toy gun! LOL

Apple Cupcakes...mmmmmmmm....

I made these yummy cupcakes on Monday for our homeschool co-op planning meeting! My son and the neighbor boys were drooling over them so I had to guard them with my life! LOL Lucky for them I had a few leftover so I was nice and shared! :)

Team Courtright

I'm so excited! My stepson, Taylor has decided to play football again this year! Last year we were only able to make it to one of his games because of my hubby's crazy work schedule (only had Sundays off) so we made big signs to show off at the game and hold while we cheered for him. This year we wanted to get sweatshirts made and hubby chose TEAM COURTRIGHT to go across the back! We opted to go with black sweatshirts w/ white writing so we could wear them for all of our kids events and not have to worry so much about team colors. With as many battles and struggles as we've had in dealing with being a blended family, I LOVE looking at us like our family is a team and that we can work together and cheer one another on! They didn't have a sweatshirt in Bitty's size so we just got her a black tshirt and had Team Courtright written on the front so it could be seen. How cute is this?!


So yeah, we're excited to watch Taylor play football again. Can't believe he's in 8th grade and going on 14 years old!!! YIKES! Exciting thing is that means only 4 1/2 more years til he's an adult! WAHOOOOOOOO!! The Lord has been showing me some awesome things and I feel great in knowing that once he's out on his own things will be a million times better! I just have to continue to pray for peace and strength to endure the next few years and then I'll see the reward for my work...for not giving up and for continuing to stand strong in the Lord and what He wants me to do and how He wants me to act. I don't know how people can go through the trials and tribulations of life and not have a relationship with the Lord! He's my saving grace!!!