Spring is here!

Oh how I love to see things starting to blossom and grow. 

This little thing is starting to bloom. Isn't she pretty. 

Soon my mulberry trees will start to bloom and we will have mulberries coming out out ears!

I froze a bunch of them last year. I think I will be doing that again this year but I believe I will pick more this year and try my hand at making jam with them. 

We have 4 mulberry trees so I think I shall have plenty. 

Last year with dark being a newborn I didn't get outside much to pick them. So they mostly fell on the ground and stained, well EVERYTHING! 

I was so nervous about them being on the kids shoes and them tracking them in onto our light colored carpet. 

I am working on prettying up the front of the house. Vince did out some new wood chips down and added some new trim. We found some large stones that were around back taking up space. Then added some of those solor lights. 

I then added some flowers to a pot. 

I am not very good at this kind of stuff. 

I am not sure what else to add. I'm thinking about one of those cute garden flags. What do you think. 

Hopefully soon I will get some more pretties added and show you again. 

Now I need to go start my garden. 

God Bless, 

Jen

Our 5 beautiful blessings

I wanted to share some resent pictures of my babies. 

They are all so amazing!

From left top down then right top down they are. Drake 1, Croix 7, William 9, Brooke 16 and, Vincent jr. 12. 

God Bless,

Jen

Bountiful Baskets

One thing we would really love to do is grow most of our food. This is kind of had right now because of where we are right now. There is plenty of room for a garden and we will be planting some. We have a fence around our yard but we still seem to get our neighbors dogs in and lots of rabbits.

Since we do not plant a large garden we can affordably get produce from bountifulbaskets.org 

I am currently training to open a site closer to my town, but until then I travel and bring back other peoples baskets for them. 

Here us a picture of all I received today! Isn't it just so pretty?

It is very important to me that my family eats well daily. And this has helped us tremendously. 

I get so excited in our bountiful basket pick up day. Wouldn't you?!?

Well I am very excited to find ways to use all of this goodness. 

Here is my little man Drake who just decided to grab a tomato out of the basket and enjoy it all to himself. 

God Bless,

Jen

Some Easter weekend fun.

We spent Saturday afternoon and Grandpas house. The cousins always love getting together. 

Drake begging auntie Becky for jelly beans. 

Will and Drake just walking around. 

Drake playing with some eggs. 

Some daddy and Vinny silliness. 

Vinny, Croix and I. 

Now I can't wait to go to Easter service in the morning. Plus this marks the 3 year anniversary of Vinny being baptized. 

What a bunch of fun today has been. 

God Bless,

Jen 

Homemade butter

Oh, I can just smell the warm fresh baked bread come out of the oven. 

Making that first slice and watching the steam roll up from the knife cutting through. 

Then taking fresh made salted butter, and spreading it on. 

Taking that first bite. 

Oh how I love fresh bread and butter. 

Sad part is I'm not eating bread right now but I still remember the taste. And one day I will once again enjoy it. 

Well today I want to let you all know how easy it is to make butter. 

No really it is!

And it's even better with fresh raw milk. 

We are lucky enough to be able to buy fresh milk from an organic farm close to town. We go pick up once a week on our day. Oh how I love this day! 

When we pick up our milk it is whole milk. So if I let it sit in the frig for a bit it will separate. 

 

If you look closely at the larger jar, which is what we pick up our milk in, you can see the separation. 

What I do is take a ladle and scoop some of this up. I leave some so we can get some of that good fat. 

You don't have get fresh whole milk to make butter you can buy cream from the grocer. 

So here's what you need. 

Homemade butter 

You will need

Cream and a blender

Yep that is it!

First you will need to pour you cream in your blender and turn it on. 

This will take a few minutes. 

It will first turn to whipped cream, then it will get kind of chunky. But you need to wait until it separates. 

It will have a milky looking substance which is called buttermilk. 

The you just need to scoop it out and let it drain all the butter milk off of it. I used a fork to press it then I also use a flour sack towel to peas it also. 

And what you have left over is the buttermilk. It is great to cook with or drink. I use mine when making pancakes. 

Now you can add a little sea salt if you like. I also added garlic powder because we used this batch on garlic toast. 

And it is so yummy! See it's not that hard. It's fun to do it with the kids because they just love seeing something change into something completely different. 

Let me know how your butter turns out. 

God Bless,

Jen

My family and I

I would like to introduce you to us. We are currently a family of 7.

My husband (Vince) and I have been together since I was in High school. This August will married 17 years. WOW! just writing that makes it sound so long. But really it has went by so fast.

We became parents February of 1998 to a beautiful baby girl and we named her Brooke. She is 16 years old now. We had a big bash for her and got her a car. She is such a beautiful young lady.

Then came along Vincent Jr in July of 2001. This young man will be 13 this summer. Oh man we will have 2 teens in the family then. He is our kind hearted young man. He is going to make a young lady a wonderful husband.

Next we had William in July of 2004. This kid is so fun he keeps us on our toes. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He gave us quite a scare a few years back when he fell into a fire pit. We spent a few days in the burn ward and had quite a few months of recovery. He has healed great. What a blessing, Praise The Lord!

Number 4 came along and we all of a sudden became a “large” family. Croix was born in November of 2006. This guy is our funny, silly, crazy and wild kid. He is so much fun. He always has a smile on his face. He reminds me a lot of me I am always trying to make everyone happy and well now I have someone that helps me do this.

Our latest son is Drake. He was born in April 2013. He is our little miracle baby. We really thought we were done having babies. We had just come to terms with the fact that our last baby was going to be Croix. We have given this part of our lives to God and well He had plans for another blessing but wanted us to wait for a while. We had a few scares while pregnant and then a big scare when he was being born. God showed us that He is in charge of all things.

Well there is a few things about our little family.

God Bless,

Jen

Fresh Ground Wheat

One of my favorite things is grinding up wheat for that fresh flour in our morning pancakes.

There is a huge difference in fresh ground and the bags you get from the grocery. 

When I turn my grinder on in the morning I hear the footsteps hurry to see what I'm up too. 

I just love the feel of wheat grains. I can't help but but let them run thru my fingers. 

And here is the fresh ground flour. I did make some yummy pancakes this morning. 

Okay, I didn't eat any. I have stopped eating wheat for a while. 

God Bless,

Jen