HaddyGraceDesigns

As if the Challenge of living on a budget isn't enough, us Moms we also have the Challenge of making healthy meal choices for our families. And Unless your grocery budget is 2-3 times the size of mine you are probably discovering how hard it is to buy healthy foods AND stay within budget. Cereal is expensive, but healthy cereal is even more expensive!! It's upsetting when I look at the ingredient list of something I have spend our hard earned money on and find ingredients of things that I don't recognize and can't pronounce. That's why Cereal is one of the items I have decided to eliminate from our grocery list.  However what to have on hand for a quick breakfast?? Granola to the rescue!!!! For my Birthday my sister gave me a small Jar of Chocolate Granola, It didn't look like much, but lets say I was pretty much HOOKED after the first bite! Here you go!! 3 cup rolled oats 1 cup chopped walnuts 1 cup rice crispies Mix together in a bowl. ...

These 5 beautiful faces! these are the faces that are on my mind when I go to bed and On my mind when I wake up! The smallest, Number 5, has recently been added to our family via adoption. These are the little people that have me constantly wondering if I am doing enough, If I am enjoying the journey enough, If I have enough attention to go around, If I read them enough stories, if we watch too much TV. But most of all... the greatest IF... the greatest question of all is this,,, Do I spend enough time with them??????     All you working Moms are probably laughing at me right now. But it's true!!  I too have to tell my kids,  'Not now',  'I don't have time',  'Wait a minute',  'Mommy's working',   Lets look at a few Character qualities we all want our children to develop: It doesn't hurt them at all to be told to "wait". Waiting creates the Character quality of:   patience, Waiting quietly becau...

There comes a time in motherhood where your world becomes pretty small. It revolves around these things: Naps Mealtimes School Sports/lessons/activities Bedtimes   And somewhere in there you need to make sure there is food in the house, clean clothes in the drawers/closets and that the home is fit for humans to live in.   And then at the end of the day you fall asleep on the couch out of exhaustion, you never get to watch your favorite shows to the end, so your always left wondering what's REALLY going on. After weeks and weeks of this I start missing my friendships, I start craving long UNINTERRUPTED conversations with kindred spirits that will lift me up and encourage me, Other moms who will tell me that my teens are normal and that theirs are acting the same way.   Other Moms that 'Get' Foster Care and the things I am struggling with in that area. Other Moms that will smile and let me go on and on about our foster son and how smart he is an...

The Monster Cookie,   The Favored of all cookies, and it's not just because of the miniature m&m's that these cookies are so loved by all. Their flavor is superior. End of story. Now these cookies aren't exactly fool proof. Maybe you have tried these cookies and they just haven't turned out right. The secret is in the Peanut butter.... Jiff Peanut butter, some other brands are too dry and your cookies will be dry lumps.       So here we go: 1.5 cups Jiff peanut butter 1/2 cup butter 1 cup white sugar 1 cup brown sugar 3 eggs Whip until light and creamy, add: 1tsp. vanilla extract 2tsp.baking soda 3.5 cups quick cooking oats (not rolled oats) 1 cup chocolate chips (milk or semi sweet) 1 cup mini m&m's   Dip 2 cookies and bake them, if they are too flat add 1/2 cup more oats and try again. You can never take oats out of a recipe that's why I always error on the side of 'not enough oats' When...

      Am I brave enough to decide to a screen free spring break week?? (this week is half days of school, next week is actual spring break for us)   That would mean no movies, no Netflix, no Ipad, no Ipod.   To be honest, I feel like my kiddos are getting way to much screen time lately.. the winter has been cruel, no friendly play outside snow days, it's been nasty blizzards with more snow than even I can walk in. That's my excuse for why my family has been getting so much screen time..     Last summer we enforced a no screen time rule and we loved it so much that when school started we modified it only a tad to no screen time on school nights... well that lasted until recently... recently even some school nights have been movie nights.   Here are the pros and cons for a screen free spring break: Pros: More 'together' time. More constructive play. More reading. They will sleep better.   Con...

What does it mean to be a work at home mom?? Where is that fine balance between family and customers??   It means being able to carry on with Lego play while working online.   It means accidentally taking a sip of room temperature juice instead of a sip of twice warmed, lukewarm coffee. It means Majoring on the Majors, and minoring on the minors. Sometimes my fridge doesn't get cleaned for weeks (months).   It means knowing when to delegate. No one loves your children as much as you do. so no one is going to make the choices that you do in their lives. Your children will know when you 'aren't there'. your customers won't care if you didn't do it, as long as it gets done like they expect it.       It means knowing when to tell a customer "not now" (or "no"). Knowing that sometimes the timing for your family just isn't right for you to take that giant step forward for your business.   It means that...

  Our Valentines Day Preparations...   You know that feeling of groping around in the dark trying to find the stairway after you fell asleep on the couch and its 1 am.??   You're desperately trying to find your bed!!  That happened to me the other night except in the middle of all that stumbling around in the dark I found a glowing skeleton hanging on the door!!!! I gasped in shock sure that I was hallucinating a scene from some crime show my husband had been watching...   Turns out that the Skeleton shirt that I found at a consignment store was glow in the dark!!! (I bought the shirt and added the felt heart for my son's Valentines day party at school.)  My advice.. stay away from crime scenes, Skeleton shirts, and falling asleep on the couch.   You will need all the sleep you can get to try and figure out  your middle scholar. read on.....     I love pinterest for Valentine's Day card ideas!!! There'...

    Being a mom is an insecure Job.. Partly because Moms can be such TOUGH judges!! You walk into a room full of moms and all the 'My baby does this, and he eats this, she sleeps 10 hrs at night, And I would NEVER use pampers again, and teething is a breeze when you use....."  It's enough to send a new mom into a spiral of insecurities.. NONE of that matters!!! You do measure up!!!  You are the best Mom for your baby!   Just because you don't use cloth diapers doesn't mean you don't love your baby. Just because you don't make your own babyfood doesn't mean you love your baby any less than the mom who makes everything from scratch. Where your baby sleeps at night doesn't define how much you love that baby. Being a stay at home mom doesn't mean you love your baby more than the mom that works. Just because you homeschool doesn't mean that you love your children more than those parents who sent their children to s...

  Do you choose your dreams??? Do you hear about or see some one's dream that inspires a dream of your own??    Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.   Do you feel like everyone else has a dream but you??   But there is One thing you do have.. It's Passion!!   It may be passion for parenting, a passion for kids, a passion for ministry, a passion for people in a 3rd world country. It may be something much smaller but no less important..   That passion is yours, and that passion is where your dreams come from! And from dreams come vision and then planning.. from planning comes action, and from action comes results!!   So take Heart!! You are a world Changer!!! If God has given you a passion for something be assured that within that passion lies his vision for your life!!   Dreams are hard to Share... It's hard to be vulne...

Mornings... Some of us love mornings, and we hit the ground running.. Some of us don't like morning as well.. We want to wake up leisurely, we don't want to have a conversation for at least the first hour... And no matter if you love or don't love mornings, as a mom, chances are you will have to learn to live with 'the other kind'. I love mornings... My husband doesn't.. 2 of my children love mornings and 2 wake up very slowly!!!! So mornings can sound pretty hairy in our home.. Add lunches and healthy breakfast and by the time everyone is safely delivered to school I feel like I've accomplished a full marathon!! Healthy breakfast... It doesn't have to be time consuming.. Here is our family's favorite: Baked Oatmeal: 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs 3/4 cup brown sugar   Whip butter, sugar and eggs with wire wisk in glass or microwavable bowl. Add:   1 tsp Vanilla 1.5 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 3 cups quick oa...

  Joining up with t he Nester   for 31 days of Blogging!!       Let me introduce you to the Family..  Elvin and RuthAnn Zimmerman, Kristina 12, Staci 10, Mitchell 5, Hadassah 3.   Ever have one of those morning where the minute your brain hits 40% function you come to the startling realization that if you don't hit the floor running you wont ever get everything done that's on your to do list for that day??  Well that was me this morning....  Mounds of laundry, 2 dresses and a pair of shoes to sew.. Lunch with my sisters and kids (my kids had no school today) Photo shoot for my Etsy shop . I missed my coffee all day!!!   Hadassah is feeling a little under the weather today, but true to her nature she only slowed down a TAD BIT. swinging at my sisters house.     Shingling our porch roof turns into a family affair before dinner..  And no it sure wasn't my idea that the kids all go u...

          Happy Sunday to all of you! The sounds of Fall are all around me, The leaves are rustling and cicadas are singing as a cool breeze gently floats through the house, As I sit here with my feet propped listening to my husband snore away his Sunday afternoon nap, I try hard not to feel guilty that I am not outside enjoying this beautiful Fall day..   Fall does that to me!! Every beautiful day we have that I don't spend outdoors makes me feel so guilty.. Guilty that I might be wasting the very last nice Sunday afternoon before winter sets in..          This is how the guilt will haunt me:  In a few weeks from now I'll be sitting here in exactly this spot with nasty weather howling outside and I'll say, "oh how I wish we could go outside."  And then a nagging little voice in my head will say. "you had your chance and you stayed on the couch."  And that's how fall ...