A fun craft for kids

Last week my granddaughters (8 and 10) were here and looking for a project to do. We adapted this pattern for a Patriotic Candle Jar quite a bit -- in fact, the cutting/gluing technique was probably the only thing that we really used. The girls each made one, using all manner of red, white and blue fabric.

Here is one:

And here is the other:

And here's how they look on my summer tablecloth:

Fun and festive!

Happy Fourth of July!

Image courtesy Vintage Holiday Crafts.com

I hope that each of you Americans reading this will have a glorious Fourth of July celebrating the birthday of our beloved country! Whether you celebrate with family, friends, or church family, whether you are here on US soil or elsewhere, whether you're enjoying a picnic, a parade, or fireworks, I hope that each of you will take a moment sometime throughout the day to thank God for the land He has blessed us to be able to live in. Our country has many serious problems and flaws, but it is still a wonderful place to live and has many blessings which we often take for granted. Yesterday as we sang "America the Beautiful" in church and came to these words:

"America! America!
God mend thine every flaw.
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!"

I found myself being reminded that truly, God is the only One who can mend our flaws -- but we have to want that to happen and we need to beseech God that it will happen. I was thinking, too, how so many of our citizens are so confused concerning the balance between liberty and self-control. Our land offers us many freedoms, yet we take them for granted and many times do not see the need to exercise self-control or self-restraint in any area of life. We want what we want, when we want it, and then when we meet the inevitable consequences of our lack of self-control, we expect our government to take care of us.

Let's take time today to beseech God to help us "mend our flaws" as a nation, and to thank Him for the privilege of living in this land.

We have no special plans for the day other than getting some outdoor tasks done around home and possibly spending some time with extended family. But we started celebrating early!

On Thursday my granddaughters baked patriotic cookies using a Stars & Stripes Funfetti ® cake mix, and we frosted them with white frosting and red, white and blue sprinkles.

And we enjoyed strawberry shortcake for dessert on Saturday night, complete with star-shaped shortcakes and real whipped cream! (Five of my grandchildren, my daughter and I had gone strawberry picking on Friday.)

Then on Sunday we enjoyed a church picnic after the morning service. I took along Baked Beans,
a Red, White & Blue Pasta Salad,

(Photo by Taste of Home)

a strawberry pie

(Photo by Taste of Home)

and a Red, White and Blue Berry Pie. Mmmm-mm!

(Photo by Taste of Home)

Sunday night, Mr. T and I had a little campfire with our granddaughters and enjoyed sparklers and toasted marshmallows.

So whatever we do today, we have already had lots of celebratory fun.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Light shining in a dark place

(Photo from Free Photos Public Domain.)

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven."
(Matthew 5:16)

Last night I woke up for one of those inevitable nighttime treks that those of us in a certain age bracket end up making. After I was back in bed and had the light turned out, I saw a mysterious glowing light in a corner of the room. A tiny light, a very small greenish light, blinking at regular intervals. Suddenly I knew what it must be. Earlier, while vacuuming, I had noticed an insect in that corner of the room, right next to my granddaughter's sewing box. At the time I thought I would come back and put it outside or vacuum it up, but I forgot about it. And now I knew what kind of bug it was: It was a firefly (or lightning bug, if you prefer that designation)! We always called them fireflies when I was growing up, and to me that's just a prettier name.

This morning I put him outside, his little light still glowing. I'm not sure how he'll do. But I was thinking about how he was letting his light shine in the midst of a dark and somewhat fearful situation. His element, surely, is outdoors in the air. I don't know how he got inside, but he had gotten in somehow and couldn't find his way out. He had positioned himself close to the sewing box -- perhaps he felt hidden there -- but his light continued to glow. This little incident made a sort of picture for me. As Christians, sometimes we too are in dark and fearful situations. We are out of our element and have no idea at all how God is going to make a way of escape for us. But we draw close to Him and trust Him, continuing to let our light shine as we wait to see what He will do. He is in the situation with us and He will bring us safely through it.

Three-Cheese Enchiladas ~ great southwestern flavor!

(Photo by Taste of Home)

This old favorite recipe is from a 1990 magazine -- Country Woman, I believe: Three Cheese Enchiladas. This is a great meatless recipe with super southwestern flavor. It uses pretty basic ingredients and is very adaptable. One could use any color of sweet peppers (or any combination), for example, or even the frozen diced green peppers. I often use shredded cheddar only (because I always have that on hand), but a Mexican-blend cheese is also very good.

I like to serve this with Spanish rice on the side. The easiest and (for me) most reliable way to do this is by using the Vigo yellow rice mix. Great flavor and so simple to make. It complements any Mexican-style dish.

A salad of some sort is a must, too. I like cooling fruit salads with southwestern flavors. The easiest is just to arrange a mix of canned and/or fresh or frozen fruit on a platter -- sliced pineapple or peaches, or pineapple chunks, sliced or mandarin oranges, any kind of berries -- and drizzle with either a poppy seed or a raspberry vinaigrette dressing.

Another possibility is a coleslaw with complementary flavors. I tried this last night: a bag of coleslaw mix with a dressing made of 1/2 cup ranch dressing, 1/2 tsp. cumin, 2 tsp. lime juice, salt to taste and enough milk to make the consistency better for combining. Also sprinkled in about 1/4 cup shredded cheddar. This was very good!

Hope your family enjoys these recipes if you try them!

A fun meal for the grandkids!

(Photo by Taste of Home)

Recently three of our young grandchildren -- ages 3, 5, and 7 -- were here for supper and the evening while their parents enjoyed a date night. Usually I don't get too fancy with meals for them -- pizza, maybe -- but this time I decided to try something else I thought they would enjoy. In a Simple & Delicious magazine I found the recipe for Bacon Provolone Chicken Sandwiches. I had some bacon I needed to use up, so this was perfect. I left out the onion, feeling that the kids would not care for that -- and I don't enjoy raw onions myself.

The same page in the magazine featured these Banana Split Fruit Salads as a side dish and I thought they would be fun for the kids also.

(Photo by Taste of Home)

(I used unsweetened frozen raspberries, thawed, for the garnish, since I won't pay the price for fresh ones. It worked out fine.) And I left off the nuts, too. I decided to cook some frozen French fries to fill out the meal. The kids loved those too; in fact, my grandson told me I needed to rename them "Grammy's Homemade French Fries" ( a title I'm somewhat uncomfortable with!).

This fueled them up for a fun evening with Grampa. Here's some of what they did:

Julia has fun with a borrowed scooter.

Sam learns to drive the lawn mower. His passengers look as if they are enjoying the ride!
I apologize for the blurriness of this photo. They were in motion, of course, but they sure weren't moving very fast!

Building Our Homes Together

I thought I would take just a minute to share about something wonderful that is happening over at Prairie Flower Farm . Linda has instituted a feature/blog hop called Building Our Homes Together. It happens every Wednesday. Ladies are invited to share relevant posts from their own blogs -- anything that has to do with building our homes: devotions, Bible study, prayer, frugality, recipes, gardening, blessing our husbands and children in various ways, homemaking, cleaning, decluttering, decorating, etc. etc. I know that many of you are posting things like this every day.

Here is the direct link to this Wednesday's posts: Building Our Homes Together. (Be sure not to miss Linda's fun idea of keeping treats on hand just for her hubby!) If you would like to get in on this helpful and encouraging feature, head on over and link up. You have through next Tuesday to do so, and then of course on Wednesday there will be a new one. If you have some older posts on your blog that others would find helpful, you can just link to those as I've been doing. Here is my most recent one, which many of my readers have already seen, but newer readers may not have: Building a Prayer Journal. Enjoy!

Another rhubarb treat!

(Photo by Taste of Home)

I clipped this recipe years ago -- Rhubarb Almond Pastry -- and had not tried it. It's from a 1993 Country Woman magazine!

We liked these pastry squares a lot. They would be good for breakfast or a coffee break as well as for dessert. I especially liked the way the filling turned out and that it didn't have to be precooked. The tapioca thickened it just right. I ran out of rhubarb so filled in with a chopped apple and a few frozen blueberries.

I do need to note that the recipe you will find on the Taste of Home site has a couple of errors in it. The last ingredient listed for the pastry should be milk, not butter. And the recipe I have calls for 1 Tablespoon baking powder, while the one on the site calls for 4 Tblsp. I can't believe that's correct.

Hope you enjoy this recipe if you try it!