Just two ingredients and a bit of time....

Who doesn't love a good fajita or a tasty quesadilla?  This household loves them.  We love just about anything that involves meat, beans and salsa. . . oh, and add in some guacamole and we are set.  But, a year ago, my husband realized that he was showing the definite signs of gluten intolerance. So, our adventure in gluten free eating began.  The following recipe is one that has "saved the day"!
Not long after going gluten free, my sweet guy realized that store bought corn tortillas were "getting old" quick.  Thankfully, soon after, I came across a "recipe" for homemade corn tortillas and thought hmmm, I wonder if they are really any better?  After trying them and seeing my family's response, specifically my husbands, I am here to say, yes, yes they really are. . .that .  .. much . . . better.  Besides, with only 2 ingredients and no preservatives what isn't to love?  If that isn't enough, consider the cost.  For the same price as one package of store bought tortillas, we can make over one hundred of these, so with that in mind, let's begin.

Ingredients are as follows:

2 cups. of corn masa mix
1 1/4 c. WARM water

that's it!!!

Tools needed:

large mixing bowl
dry measuring cup
liquid measuring cup
mixing spoon
rolling pin (or anything to flatten the tortilla, I've used the back of an iron skillet before and that worked fine.)
skillet or griddle*** I prefer the griddle for it's ability to cook several at a time








As you will see, this is a GREAT recipe to get your kids in on.  In this case, my oldest daughter is doing the cooking.  She loves to help in the kitchen.  What I love about this picture is the glam she has going on . . . apparently, no need to remove rings for this one.

 Measure out 2 cups of corn masa mix in to a large mixing bowl. 

Measure 1 1/4 cups of WARM water and pour in to mixing bowl . . . everyone following?  I'm telling you this ones easy!

Mix the 2 ingredients together until fully combined; as you can see from this picture, my daughter decided that the tools God gave her are much better than the spoon. . . my kind of chef!

  This would be the point that little brother woke up and wanted so badly to "help"; thankfully a banana distracted him for a few minutes.

Now, back to work.  After you have mixed your dough, place the ball on to a piece of plastic wrap and roll in to a tube.

You will be cutting this tube of dough in to 16 small rounds, so consider that as you roll it out.  I think ours was about 15- 18 long, I am guessing.

   For an easy and living model of fractions, we used the cutting in halves , repeatedly , method to get our 16 pieces, mostly equal in size.  One piece of dough became two, two then became four, four became eight and finally eight became sixteen.    

Here, you can see her using this technique to cut each equal piece in half again. 

Next, take one piece, at a time, and place between a piece of plastic wrap folded in half, leaving space on either side of round for it to spread out.  Use your hand to flatten into a disk.

As you can see, at this point, her brother was finished with his banana and back to inspect.
Whether you have spectators or not, use a rolling pin, the back of an iron skillet, really anything you can come up with to flatten in to a round shape.

Or, as in our case, whatever shape that is as close to round as you can get.  Thankfully, they taste wonderfully, no matter if they are round , oblong , rectangular. . . whatever works.

 To remove the tortilla from the plastic wrap, gently place your hand on top of the tortilla, flip it over and slowly peel off the plastic wrap.  And there you have it . . . a wonderfully, ready to be cooked , homemade corn tortilla.




  So, now, to the cooking!

Place corn tortilla's on a HOT, oiled griddle or skillet and cook on each side for about one minute.

Once these are cooked, they are, not only, super tasty but they much more pliable than store bought corn tortillas and get a lot more "yums" than they ever did , making them the perfect vehicle for filling with lots of different goodies .

Try them out!  You'll see why making homemade is oh so worth it.  And, despite the fact that my large amount of pics made this post so long, you will see that, once you get the process down, it really is quick and easy and will definitely be worth the fuss.

To complete our meal, my other daughter stepped in and scrambled up some eggs while her big sister fried bacon.  That's all we needed to complete our meal. . . well, that, and a smoothie.  That would be where I contributed.

 Although ending this post with a sideways picture of our complete meal was not in my plan, apparently this will be the case . . . I warned you all, I'm new at this and newbies make strange errors, like posting sideways pictures.  Bare with me.

Weeds?

"Flowers are not made by singing, "O how beautiful" and sitting in the shade.  -Rudyard Kipling

Hard work, hours spent pulling weeds, tending to the soil and pruning away that which is dead... although I do not profess to be any sort of "green thumb", I, well know, that a LOT of work goes in to enjoying a beautiful display in your flower beds.  Thankfully, I have a gifted mother in law who, for mother's day, last year spent time and money helping me to make my flower beds presentable.  I love her, for that, along with many other reasons.

However, in this situation, Rudyard Kipling's quote would be somewhat inaccurate.  This morning as the kids and I ventured outside, the first thing we saw growing along our fence line were these beauties.  Perfect!!! What an opportunity for a nature study. Thank you, Lord.  No textbook needed, no classroom to be used, other than our own backyard. Add a camera, a little bit of online searching (our Nature study book has yet to arrive) a pencil and paper and we were set.  

Whether you are doing your own nature study, or not, I hope you will enjoy what we found today.

This beauty of a wildflower is quite common, in the U.S, specifically the southern regions.  

Coreopsis Tinctoria, more commonly known as Tickweed because of the way their small seeds somewhat resemble seed ticks.  

Although, at first look, the kids thought it resembled a wild daisy of sorts, we then noticed it had curly edged petals.  This will be the perfect detail for the kids to add to their sketches.  

When observing God's creations, in order to sketch and journal what we are seeing, we try to notice dominant features that we can make apparent in our drawings.  That way, we will easily remember what we observed, as we look back in our notebooks later.

We, Americans, specifically, spend so much money and effort to be rid of weeds, which I understand. But, when taking the time to sit and notice the beauty of these wildflowers, I am reconsidering......maybe I'll just embrace the weeds. 

Now, for the fun part... sketching and recording what we saw.  

What my children seem to love most about our nature study, is the casual approach we are taking.  There really are few rules here.  I only ask that they take their time to draw what they find interesting.  Somewhat outside of my normal practice, I try to only point out interesting observations, in this case, the ruffled petals.  That way, as they record what they see, they can include those distinguishable features.  

As you can see, my son began sketching the "action" in this drawing.
 I recently heard a lecture by Andrew Pudewa, explaining the differences in how boys and girls will draw or create images.  It was quite interesting and will be brought up in a later post.  

I love the over-emphasis on the size of the Fly's eyes.  I also love that my son,when asked what kind of eyes the fly has, responds.  . "a bunch of eyes. . . . . 'conpound' eyes";  yes, I know it is spelled compound but ya know, in this case, conpound was more accurate.

As you can see, from this picture, he began his drawing with smooth, rounded petals.  At this point,  I commented, "You know what I find so pretty? ...the way the petals look curled "; he immediately drew this.  

Anyone else smiling now?  Maybe, it's just me.

As we were making our observations, we were able to see something really neat.  Off to the side of the flower and fly, on the chain link fence, was a small string of spider web with a small egg sac attached.

You can see that he drew this immediately.
He's been very interested in spiders, of late.  His favorite book to sit and look at is this one.  Recently,  he was asking his aunt if she had ever heard of the ant spider, the wheel spider or the marbled orb weaver spider.

Here it is, if you look closely, right in front of the chain link fence.  See it?








As I left him to finish his sketch, looking back, I saw this.  I love it.  I love that he is finding enjoyment observing the things our God has made.  "This is the day that the Lord hath made, I will rejoice and be glad in it."

Are you ready?  Here is the finished "work of art"!  I think he did a wonderful job of capturing what his little eyes saw.  Now, to place it in his nature notebook.

Highlighters, spoons and ice cube trays

 Oh, how I dislike clutter.  It always amazes me how quickly stuff can multiply in our home.  I guess with six people living in a house, that happens; at least, here in America.  But still, I keep trying to find ways to keep it at bay.  We have the rule with our kids that says when a new toy or stuffed animal comes in, two must go out.  We have a container that holds a few extra things that they can choose from to "change it up" every now and then, which is our attempt at keeping the amount of toys that are kept in their rooms to a minimum.  And yet, even then, I still see too much "stuff".

 Now, to be perfectly clear, not all blame can be placed at my kids toys and animals.  I have always considered myself a "minimalist";  I'm not one to enjoy little, cutesy things, sitting on a shelf for no reason, other than to be cute.  But as I sit here typing, around me are plenty of things that I could easily live without.  For instance, the amount of highlighters in my pencil box.  Really, how many highlighters does one person need?  And to make matters worse, they are all yellow; I could justify it if there were a variety of colors waiting to highlight things that I see as worthy of remembering.  But no, they are all yellow!  I digress...back to the point of this post...

This past week, my husband has been coming home sharing with me, his heart.  Which I love, by the way.  Recently he has been reading a book that opens up the heart to a closer look at materialism, asking a Christian to search a bit deeper at what our heart is seeking after.  I've been thinking about just that today as I clean out kitchen cabinets.  Why is it that I have felt a need to hold on to things that I might need, just in case?  For instance, why would I possibly need to own so many stirring spoons.  Don't get me wrong, I love to cook but I highly doubt that there will be a need, in the near future for that many spoons.  And ice trays....I have multiple ice trays just waiting to be used (which won't happen because they are the cheap, impossible to remove the ice from, kind of ice trays and yet, there they set waiting to be filled.  Now, I am sure if I took the time to search Pinterest, I would probably find a very useful idea for using those cheap ice trays but I think, instead, I will be finding them a new home....a nice new, away from here, kind of home.

As I write here, my heart is focused really on something different than ice trays and spoons.  As a mother, what am I teaching my children when I store up these things for a "just in case"?  As a keeper of my home, am I making it an impossible task to keep my home orderly and pleasant to be in?  I want so much for my home to be one that says "Come on in and relax.  Let's sit and talk for a while; share your heart...what is the Lord teaching you lately?"  Is this possible when I am so busy trying to organize all the "stuff" that I could have that kind of open invitation?  Is it probable that I will sit often with my children, distracted my nothing and giving my 100% attention to what they say? I don't think so, not for me, at least.

SO, where do I begin?  After just having a yard sale ( a big one at that), you'd  think there would be nothing left to get rid of.  And maybe there isn't.  Maybe, it was just time for me to see that although I was inwardly labeling myself a minimalist; outwardly, I was holding on to things that we do not need.  Speaking of which, anyone in need of spoons, yellow highlighters or cheap ice cube trays???

It's a Joy!

It's a Joy!
I'll never forget the day my husband and I first found out that we would be the proud parents of a little baby girl. As the ultrasound tech. was gliding that little magic wand over my, what seemed to be at the time, "as big as it gets" belly, I remember the anticipation I felt.  Is it a boy?  Is it a girl?  Then, came the words, I secretly had hoped to hear..."IT"S A GIRL!"  Whew, hew...pink bows and sweet little dresses here I come!
Fast forward several months later and you would see me sitting alone in my living room, holding my firstborn child, with a copy of Babywise, close by.  It was our first week together, all alone, just she and I.  "What do I do now?"
  Before that week had come, I had it all figured out, or so I thought.  Much planning had taken place, many hours were spent prettying up her pink little room and much weight had been put on as I carried this precious gift I had been given.   From the way she came in to the world to the way I felt that first few weeks of her life, I should have known that no amount of planning could prepare me for what mothering would be.  No amount of book reading could educate me enough to leave me knowing how to handle every situation.
Fast forward to today and you will find me still in awe of what the Lord is doing.  Still in awe of each child HE blesses us with.  Still baffled with how wrong I can be sometimes. Still humbled by the fact that my Lord has called me to mother this child and now others.  Praise His name!!!
It's a joy!!!
As I begin writing here, I pray that the Lord will use this place as a way of encouragement to other moms out there.   I believe, with all that I am, that "My God shall supply all my needs".  He always has!  I believe, with a passion, that each and every life is created "by Him and for Him".  In this, I see that the lives He created inside of me were for Him and that through Him, HE will supply all I need, as a mama, to love them, train them and proclaim His name in our home each day. Psalm 16:11 says "Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy; at the right hand there are pleasures forevermore." What a blessing to know we can trust His words as we walk this path of mothering.