Friday Recipe: Breakfast casserole

We tried this recipe for the first time this week, modified from a great recipe on this site, and the WHOLE family loved it!!!

Ingredients

• 4-5 medium potatoes, washed, peeled, and shredded
• 1 cup cheddar cheese
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon corn starch or arrowroot
• 1 cup milk
• About 1/2 pound sausage
• salt

In a frying pan on the stove-top, cook up the sausage until cooked through. Place in the bottom of a non-greased 8x8 baking dish.

In the same frying pan, fry the onion with the butter. (Cooking it in the same pan will help is soak up the sausage leftovers and give it even more flavor) When the onion turns transparent, turn the burner down to low and add in the milk and starch. Make sure you are continually stirring at this post so the milk doesn't scald. Cook until the sauce starts to get thick.

In a large bowl, mix your shredded potato with the onion/milk sauce. Stir so it's all mixed together. Pour the mixture over the top of the sausage layer in the baking dish.

Finally, sprinkle your dish with shredded cheddar cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes until the Breakfast Hashbrown Casserole is bubbly and slightly brown on the top.

It could be used as a supper dish too, and is sooooo tasty! 

Enjoy!!

Patience is a Virtue

I have been struggling lately.

Struggling to slow down and release my expectations and standards.

Our Little Bud is the one I'm struggling with.

Of our 4 children, he is the one I am most challenged by. He doesn't see the world as we do. He is showing a lot of signs of being on the Autistic spectrum, erring more toward the Asperger's side.

As he was our foster child first, we have notice a lot of changes since he first came to live with us, and were always told that Looked After Children display signs of Autism as part of their attachment issues.

As any mam knows though, a mama knows her child, and with the last psychological assessment telling us he had a secure attachment, this just doesn't ring true. Little Bud has been with us almost 4 years now, and home educated for 4 months, and it is this close-up, 24 hr living that has brought it to the forefront.

It's hard to remember all this when trying to patiently think of an alternative way to explain a feeling that is obvious to everyone else, but he misses completely. Or trying to coax an ending out of a boy who does not know how to create, only copy. 

Part of me wants a diagnosis, but I fear it would just be for my own justification. There is nothing they can do for him, and I have support at church, and he doesn't need another label on him. 

He's perfect just the way he is, even if he does try my last nerve.....

Slowly slowly fill the pantry..

Do you ever get an urge to clear out and start again?

This is how I get every few months. I get slack with things and then need a jump start.

At the moment it's my kitchen appliances.

I REALLY need would like a stand mixer at the moment. I have a small hand mixer, but a lot of the recipes I would like to make more often are made a lot easier by having one. 

So I do my usual, I begin researching, and trawling Amazon and Ebay to find just the one I want. 

I have no means to buy one yet, that's the problem.

I have a list on my refrigerator of all the things that I would slowly like to add or replace in my kitchen, and it's just not happening quickly enough for me!

My list includes (but is not limited to...)

• The aforementioned Stand Mixer
• A Grain Mill
• A Dehydrator
• A Slow cooker
• 2 more Cast Iron Frying Pans
• A Pizza Stone
• and a new collander!

I know it's a small thing, and I know that Jesus is teaching me patience at the moment, but today, I am not being a very good student. 

I am very blessed to have a working kitchen, I know this, and I know I need to wait and add slowly, I'm just feeling impatient today.

Is there anything that you are waiting somewhat patiently for? 

Wait with me, and we can wait in joy together. 

From tomorrow morning.......

School's in.

School is back in at the Gee house.

We have already been at the negotiating table, as Haribo catches up in his maths book.

After we had a month off the books doing Christmas stuff in December, it is actually very nice to be back in some kind of schedule, and we have been spending the last week settling down back into writing and maths!!

We have had a trip to the library and re instituted our quiet reading time, and planned the term ahead. 

Here in lay the negotiations.  

Haribo has always struggled with his maths. At mainstream school, he was receiving extra help, but in all honesty, after so long struggling with something, I really feel he lost his confidence in his ability. 

As a consequence, when we began homeschooling, he started at a lower level in his Maths than in his other subjects.

He has really moved forward in his confidence, but he is still behind. 

So, we found a great incentive to motivate a 12 year old boy: Lego!! 

We made the deal that if he could catch up to where he is on all the other subjects in 7 months, he can have a full Lego set. 

For a boy who was born playing Lego, this was just what he needed to give him a new perspective on Maths!!!

What sort of things do you use to motivate your children?

What's a girl to do?

So the new year is almost upon us, and it's that time again, where we take stock of the past, and make plans for the year ahead.

So I ask you, how have you grown in the last year, and what are your goals for next year?

In the interest of fairness, I'm going to share my thoughts. (if that's ok)

Taking stock of the last year, I can see that I have grown in Grace towards others, and am much more likely to give people the benefit of the doubt than I ever would have. I KNOW this is because my Abba Father has had many occasion to give me the benefit of the doubt over the last year!!!!

I have grown to trust Abba more, through a series of events, and fulfilled promises, after a long wait and many toddler tantrums on my behalf!! (See what I mean about Him being gracious!?)

I have learnt new things about my husband and children, and I have made new friends and had to say goodbye to a few too. Letting go is something I have found hard, but God has smoothed the way when I have given my expectations to Him.

I can honestly say that, although I still have a LONG way to go, through God's grace and patience, I feel that I am a better person now than last year.

So looking forward, my goals are to continue to learn how to feed my family healthy, nutritious meals, to continue to learn about my husband, and the wife he needs and deserves, to try to model to my children a real life with Christ, not a religion, but a relationship and the ups and downs and mistakes and forgiveness that entails.

I want to get more active, (but I say that every year), and I want to read more books, (I say that every year too, but I usually do this one!!) and I want to believe that this year will be another year that the Lord adds more children to our family.

But most of all, my goal is to draw closer to my Abba, because apart from Him, I can do nothing. Without Him, I will be the same next year as this. Without Him, I will be alone. Without Him, I AM nothing.

Praise You Yeshua, my Saviour King. 

Consumerism gone mad??

Is it just me, or has Christmas just got more and more about "STUFF"???

As we approach this special day, every year seems to become a competition of who can spend the most amount of money on the most amount of stuff for the most amount of people and win!!

When did this happen???

I didn't grow up in a Christian house, so it was never really about Christ, unfortunately, when I was a kid, but we always spent time together, watching various films as a family, and just enjoying each other's company, with good food and a gratefulness for the things we did get!!

Now that I have grown up ( a little....), I want to instill some of the same things in my children; spending time with those you love and a gratefulness for what they have, but also an appreciation for the greatest gift mankind was every given.

A way back to God.

This holiday is not about Stuff. Jesus was given meaningful presents by the Magi, and a small, thoughtful present is the most we have done this year. Instead, our focus will be along the lines of the American Thanksgiving. We give thanks for our family around us, who have thoughtfully given us presents. We are thankful for the special treats and food we can put on our table, and the means to do so. We are thankful for a roof over our heads and heating and lighting. 

But most of all, on Christmas day, Santa falls by the wayside in the presence of the KING of kings and the Lord of lords, our most precious gift, Jesus Christ. 

So there is no mad rush on Christmas Eve in our house, there are no £££££ signs in our children's eyes as they stare at a mountain of useless "STUFF" that will be forgotten by suppertime. There will be fun and laughter, thanksgiving and prayer, and Jesus.

Amen.

Time flies

I finally sit down to share my month with you!!!

Well, it's been eventful! 

A family wedding, a family engagement, home schooling, a new prayer triplet,and to top it all off, DH has been diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes and High cholesterol!!!

We are not too worried about this, as we have made some big changes to our diet over the last year, but DH drinks nothing but Cola, and snacks very badly, so changes still need to be made.

I also had the pleasure of sharing a Word with our church this past weekend, and although i haven't done it in a while, and although the enemy tried his hardest to distract with a car crash outside the church (!!!) I felt my Abba with me and was able to share how God's grace is His strength to do what he asks us to do. 

I have also been reading more Francine Rivers and have been very touched by it. I was lent Leota's Garden and found, for the first time, the joy others find in creating and nurturing a flower garden. It always seemed like a lot of work for not much reward to me, but as I saw it through Leota and Annie's eyes, I began to see God in every action, in every job. 

I have yet to tell my DH, but I would like to learn how to tend a garden and enjoy it's beauty. My mum is a great gardener, and works on her garden every year. 

I may just have to pick her brains.....

I believe, help Thou my unbelief

Have you ever been through a tough time with God?

Just been through one myself and it is horrid. 

Situations can be gotten through, circumstances can be work through with God, but what if you feel let down by GOD?

I'm so glad we serve a gracious, patient God, because I need time to go through my feelings. 

I find that something that I am SURE the Lord told me would take place, hasn't happened. 

I don't understand. I am unsure of my ability to hear from God, I am disappointed, as I wanted the thing to come to pass. I feel let down, I feel angry, I feel foolish, I feel, I feel, I feel.

But what I feel doesn't count. What do I KNOW?

I KNOW that God is good.
I KNOW that God is faithful.
I KNOW that with God, ALL things are possible.
I KNOW that God loves me.
I KNOW that what He promised, will come to pass.

I cling to the scriptures with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust him" Job 13:15

What I know must always trump what I feel, because feelings change. Truth, God's Truth never does.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

We will NEVER forget...

As I sit here with Haribo, catching up on our programs while daddy is at work, as we settle in to watch the 9/11 documentaries that we taped, I am humbled.

I am humbled by the stories from so many who risked their own lives, who lost their loved ones and continued to search for other survivors, who saved lives.

I thank God for those willing to help. 

I thank God for the Brave.

The survivors will never forget.

Neither will we.