Friday Encouragement..

Father God, I praise your name. I praise you for your strength, for your provision.  God I praise you for carrying me through the storms and through the dark valleys. You are my strength when I am weak. You are my all in all.

Thank you God for being the father of the fatherless and the defender of the widow. Thank you for making that promise a reality in my life. Thank you for giving me wisdom, discernment and patience.

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Homemade goodies... chinese food and yogurt... clash of cultures.

Some days are just crazy busy. We didn't have much planned but things just added together to make it busy.
Elizabeth made homemade strawberry lemonade. The kids love this!! We used 3 lemons, a bag of frozen whole strawberries and half a cup of raw sugar, add in a gallon of water. 

My friend owns an acre of strawberries. She gave us permission to come pick all we wanted. The kids were not impressed. We made a game of it, every time someone would complain, someone else would say "strawberry smoothies", strawberries and pancakes", "strawberry pie"... and everyone would go back to picking. 

Love technology. These guys were not motivated to clean strawberries, but some www.hiskids.net motivated them to keep working...
They cleaned strawberries, while I mashed them and dished them into freezer containers.

We get our milk from a neighbor. She called to tell me they had extra milk available. I decided to try homemade yogurt again, since she had 3 gallons for less then $2 a gallon! The first gallon didn't turn out so well, hopefully I can try again today.
I also want to try making homemade butter with some of the rich yellow cream! 

My kids love Chinese food, but it is expensive to purchase for my entire crew!
So I have a new challenge. Find the perfect recipes for homemade chinese. 

The chicken was easy. Chicken nuggets ($3 for 10 lb bag from local bent and dent)
Barbecue Sauce (1 bottle .99) plus a splash of local honey.
I baked the chicken nuggets and cooked the sauce. Then I mixed the chicken nuggets into the sauce. It WAS AMAZING! 

Then I made the BEST chicken fried rice EVER! The kids think it was almost as good as restaurant chinese.
I had leftover rice, (25 lb bag for $5 at bent and dent) which I fried in butter. I added to cubes of chicken buillion and 1 cup of peas from my garden. I fried it all together then when it was almost done, I added 2 scrambled eggs (from our chickens)