My Etsy Shop

I've opened a shop on Etsy to help raise money for our adoption. Right now I have a few glass pendant necklaces for sale and hope to add more items soon. My seller name is WrittenOnMyHeart. I hope you'll check it out!

I'm linking to Kelly's Show Us Your Life.

Yummy Recipe

I'm always on the lookout for new recipes that will appeal to my family. I've gotten several from Mary, who is mom to 10--6 adopted, 4 from Ethiopia. One of the latest ones I've tried from her site is Ethiopian Sloppy Joes. It's easy, inexpensive and 4 out of the 6 (and E will eat it, it's just not one of his faves) of us love it...that's a win for me ;-) As we go down this adoption road we're trying to learn more about Ethiopia and that includes the food. Here's Mary's recipe:
Ethiopian Sloppy Joes

Preparation Time: 50 minutes

Serves 6

• 2 large onions
• 6 potatoes
• 1 pound ground beef, already browned
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 to 3 tsp cayenne pepper (add gradually, to taste) (I use 1/4-1/2 tsp for our taste)
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 cups water (I usually start w/ 3 then add more if needed)

Cook ground beef in a large heavy skillet and set it aside.  Wipe excess grease from skillet .  Peel onions and puree them in a food processor (or mince them very fine). Peel and mash garlic. Peel and chop potatoes into 1 inch cubes.
Heat oil in a large skillet and add pureed onions. Cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion begins to brown a little.  Add garlic, tomato sauce, water, and potatoes.  Add the ginger, turmeric, cayenne, pepper and salt.  Mix well. Add cooked ground beef.
Stir and cook over medium-low heat for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 3-5 minutes.  The mixture will look a little watery at first, but water will gradually evaporate as potatoes cook. Add the butter during the last few minutes of cooking.  If potatoes stick to the bottom of the skillet even after adding butter, add another 1/2 cup of water and turn down the heat a little.  Dish is done when potatoes are cooked through.

A couple of notes: I just finely chop onions and garlic and do not add the butter at the end.

It's yummy on buns w/ fruit on the side. Enjoy!

Blessed!

Our family was blessed (again!) today by the birth of my great nephew...my sister's first grandbaby. While I'm sad I'm not able to be there with them to hug on my sweet niece (She was a trooper! It was a long, hard labor.) and kiss on that yummy newborn, I'm rejoicing that God has chosen to once again bless our family with a new life.  My Mama told me recently that her "wealth was in her family". I love that! She understands what blessings children are and what a privilege it is to get to raise them. She started off as mom to 3 (2 for a while...I was a late surprise) became mom to 8, grandmother to 25 and great-grandmother to 11 as of today (#12 is due in December). We're looking forward to the day when we get to add more blessings to the total...

It's starting to become real...

Last week I was sitting on the couch w/ C2 playing. He's into his "AB's" as he likes to call them. Loves to sing the alphabet song and loves this placemat we have that has 2 of his faves on it...letters and animals. He was sitting in my lap and we were singing the song (many, many times), he would point out different animals and letters, sometimes grabbing my hand for me to point to things. I was snuggling his neck and stealing kisses on his toes (because is there anything cuter?) and it hit me...in the near future there will be little brown fingers intwined w/ mine and little brown toes to kiss... All the months of talking about it and starting the paperwork that's what made it feel real to me. My other child(ren) live in another country...I don't know if they're born yet, what their situation is, how long it will be until we meet and bring them home, but I do know this...they are my children and I will snuggle with them on the couch, sing endless songs and steal kisses just as I've always done w/ my babies...it's what a mama does.

An introduction

I know most of the readers here will be friends and family who know us well, but I thought I'd do a quick post to introduce my family. John and I will celebrate our 18th anniversary this summer. We were college sweethearts and he's my best friend. We are both up for the crazy adventures God wants us to go on. We've grown up together and look forward to growing old together.

Now for the boys....a quick aside...my friends IRL know I have major internet privacy issues. I'm not a big fan of putting my kids names and faces out there for the world to see. It was a major deal when I finally got a FB account and I'm still picky about what I post about them on there. That said, I will be using initials when I mention them and I would appreciate my IRL friends and family do the same when commenting....thanks!

P is my 14yo. He's about to be a freshman in high school. (How is that possible?) Loves football and basketball, is a leader in his youth group at church. Is a great big brother.

C1 is my 12 yo. He'll be starting 7th grade in the fall. He's also into football (our Thursday nights will be interesting!) and basketball. He's a deep thinker and has a million ideas going at once. He loves to work w/ the little kids at church.

E is my 8 yo. Oh that boy! ;-) He's a funny one. You never know what he's going to say. He's a math whiz and is obsessed w/ dates. Tell him your birthday and he'll remember it forever. He did great in AWANA this yr. finishing the 3rd Sparky book.

C2 is our baby. He's 2 yo (and yes he's still a baby!) He's been such a joy. He's into animals, cars, counting and "AB's". He loves his big brothers and can be found running around the house with a various assortment of light sabers or swords. We marvel at him everyday. Sometime I'll post about the story that led us to him.

God has blessed me with my family.

Food for thought....

A simple way to help widows and orphans....how awesome is our God that he allows us to help like this?
Kelly has a great post on the subject.

It's Official! We're adopting from Ethiopia!

Our application #1 was accepted and we decided it was time to share our news with everyone. Last Sunday John announced our plans to our church. It's been an interesting journey so far and we've just gotten started....I'm excited to see what God has in store for us in the months ahead. Now on to application #2....the paper chase has begun!