Raise a hand for TJ

Saturday night, the 24th found us at William Penn PAC for a fundraiser for a boy from our church. We were there, along with thousands more, literally. I don't think there were many people left in Osky or New Sharon. TJ was first diagnosed with brain cancer the first of February. And now, the end of March, he is in the local hospice house. What a difficult journey for his parents, three younger brothers, extended family, schoolmates and church family. You can visit his site here.

The benefit was a huge success. They wanted it to be fun for kids and adults. There was a meal that could be purchased, and the food sold out. The games and inflatables for the kids were all free. No tickets involved. We spent plenty of time in line for the bounce houses!

Eliza in the bounce house.

Getting their faces painted!

Eden going down the slide.

Eliza and Eden going down the slide.

Ephraim and Emmet enjoying it.

Signing a scrapbook page for TJ. They had a photo booth, too. So the boys took their photo and put one on a page for TJ and his family. They signed their names and wrote "We love you."

You can check out pictures of the event at www.oskynews.com and www.oskaloosaherald.com. Or if you're on Facebook, check out Kaged Creek Photography. You won't be disappointed by the pictures.

There were a lot of items on the silent auction. We were able to donate some of our own ground beef for the silent auction. Then there was the live auction that went for 90 minutes! The finale of the evening was when Allen Goemaat agreed to have his hair and beard shaved. He hasn't had his hair cut in a LONG time. He donated his hair to Locks of Love. And he raised $8000 alone just for his hair cut. The evening was a huge outpouring of support for the Goemaats. Our community was able to raise over $100,000 for them. That's a miraculous amount of money!

We've been to fundraisers in the past but this surpassed them all. You could feel the presence of God. You could feel the presence of love that this community has for TJ and his family. You felt like you were a part of something special.

God's ways are not our ways. We're still praying for a miraculous healing of TJ. But if that doesn't happen, we hold on to the promises of heaven.

From the hymn When We All Get to Heaven by Eliza Hewitt "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory."

Pictures of the week March 18 to March 24, 2012

Romans 8:37-39 "No, in all these things we are more than conquerers, through him who loved us. . . . nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. " Such a powerful verse that means a lot to us right now. It is also a favorite song that the kids like to sing at Seekers in Sneakers. Please continue to pray for TJ and his family and the journey is getting difficult. www.caringbridge.org/visit/tjgoemaat

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Cadet Sunday. Read a previous post about this event.
"May Ephraim & Emmet draw near to God, and He will draw near to them." James 4:8

Monday, March 19, 2012

A bouquet of flowers from Eden, picked from Grandma Donna's flowers.

"May Eden have love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." 1 Timothy 1:5

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

What a glorious March! Here are the boys in the sand pile with their creation.
"May Ephraim and Emmet use his spiritual gifts to serve others, as good stewards of God's varied grace." 1 Peter 4:10

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Stirring our detergent. Read the previous post about this experience.
"May Emmet, Ephraim & Eliza live in harmony with others; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble." 1 Peter 3:8

Thursday, March 22, 2012

A lesson on magnets.
"May Eden, Ephraim & Emmet be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple." Psalm 65:4

Friday, March 23, 2012

Out on the swings! They call this "doing the twisties."
"May Eliza and Eden be wise in doing right and stay innocent of any wrong." Romans 16:19

Saturday, March 24, 2012

We enjoyed the evening at a benefit/fundraiser for a special boy from our church. There was plenty of fun for the kids. Lots to bid on for the adults and a miraculous amount of money was raised.

"May Ephraim and Emmet know that both riches and honor come from God, and that He rules over all." 1 Chronicles 29:12

Calves

March is calving season for us. It is a busy but good time to see baby calves ushered into the world. Our calving season got off to a rough start when we lost our first two calves. We haven't lost a calf in a few years, so it was a bit discouraging but all has gone well since then.

Here is a new calf that is almost a week old. It was close to the fence so I snapped its picture.

Seth got a great deal on a livestock trailer from a former neighbor. The boys are washing it out.

Eliza was the supervisor??

Who knew that writing on an ear tag could be so interesting. Seth was preparing an ear tag for a new calf and the kids were clamoring to see what he was writing. He simply wrote "VZ 2012 #9."

For pasture reasons, the cows and calves were over at Seth's parents. But the time came to move them back to our place. Here are a few of the calves waiting to get off the trailer.

Getting an ear tag to identify this new calf. (Yes, this picture was taken in March. We've had some unseasonably warm days--80 degrees--and we've had to get out the shorts and t-shirts.)

A look that the cows and calves. Pretty content. We're still waiting on two more calves to be born.

Emmet taking a head count of the new calves.

A new calf by its mother.

Seth was just checking the new calf to see if it was a heifer (girl) or a steer (boy).

"Don't go near my calf!" Some mama cows can be pretty protective but we've got some really tame ones who don't mind too much.
Our cow/calf herd is slowly growing and it is a joy to have it be a family operation. The kids like to feel useful by checking the cows a couple times a day. And the chores are good for them, too. It has been great weather this March to have calves!

Pictures of the week, March 11 to March 18, 2012

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Enjoying lunch and an afternoon at Grandpa & Grandma's house.

Monday, March 12, 2012

We were super excited to get home and see a new baby calf. Seth came home shortly thereafter to check on it. It was newly born and looked good!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

My Tuesday night project was to make my supper swapper meals that would be due by Friday. I chose a new recipe: Mexican Chicken Alfredo. You can find it at Tasteofhome.com. It is basically noodles, chicken, Alfredo sauce, cheese and taco seasoning. Very good. Anyway, I made 10 meals. Six for my swapper friends, three for me and one for family.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

A look at a new calf. Most of the time they aren't right by the fence, so I snapped this picture while I could.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The swearing in ceremony for my new boss, Teresa. She was actually sworn in in late December, pursuant to the Code of Iowa. But, like always, we're always looking for a reason to bring food to the office and party. We wanted to have a ceremonial swearing in with co-workers, family, friends and attorneys.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Noodle Mania. I've since learned that March is National Noodle Month. Who knew? And did you know that noodles have eggs in them and pasta doesn't?


Saturday, March 17, 2012

My mom came over today to help accomplish some projects around the house. Seth also had projects outside to complete. His dad helped him with those. They were moving the cattle back from his dad's pasture to ours. This also included moving back the bay ring, which you see being suspended by the tractor prongs in this picture.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

The idea of homemade laundry detergent has been out there for a while. And I've even tried a powdered version a couple years ago. But then reverted back to store-bought, name brand detergent bought with coupons, sales and rebate deals.

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I can keep in contact with college friends who live hours from me and keep in touch with their families. One such friend is Jaci and she mentioned making detergent and she got the recipe from a website that I already follow I Can Teach My Child. I checked it out and thought I can do this.

This was our Wednesday/Thursday project. Check out the website for the recipe and exact directions. We grated the Fels-Naptha bar and dissolved it in a pot of four cups water. The blog writer used a 5 gallon bucket, but rather than buying one (not that we don't have 5 gallon buckets on the farm, but a clean one is hard to come by), I opted for ice cream buckets. Five of them. We filled each one half full of water and then added a portion of the Fels-Naphta mix.

Here are the kids stirring. We then added the right amount of Washing Soda and Borax. It was a total of 1 cup soda and 1/2 cup Borax, so yes, there was some math involved since I was dividing this among 5 buckets. Then we filled the buckets full with water and let them sit overnight. In the morning, they had gelled up. Then you divided each bucket in half and fill the bucket with water. Essentially you end up with 10 gallons.

Here are the kids stirring it after we've divided the gel in half again. They enjoyed the goopy feeling of the detergent.

Thoroughly enjoying the experience. Now it is ready to use.

Here are my figures for this experiment:

Fels-Naptha $1.19

Borax $3.99 for a box, but I used 1/2 cup: $.45

Super Washing Soda $2.99 for a box, but I used one cup : $.43

$1.19 + $.43 + .$45 = $2.07

That's $2.07 for 10 gallons of detergent

Now it gets tricky. If I used this in my front load washer, I'd use 1/4 cup. Ten gallons are 160 cups, times 4, that's 640 loads. $2.07 /640 = $.003/load.

But Seth has his own washer that uses 1 cup per load. I'm giving him 5 gallons to start with. That's 80 cups. If we do two loads a week, this'll last us 40 weeks. Not quite a year. Not bad for $1.033.

If I have 5 gallons, that's 80 cups. That's 320 loads. If we do four loads a week, that's 80 weeks. Not bad for $1.033 to get 1 year and a half of detergent.

Of course all of this is (B.S.) Cue the suspenseful piano music. And in this case (B.S.) stands for Before Spillage.

All the gallons were on the kitchen floor and the kids get their second wind after supper. This is just common knowledge. After devotions, an un-named 6 year old boy took off from his chair at breakneck speed and . . . . in slow motion . . . I saw one gallon tip over and the lid gave way. It took three bath towels to soak up the spill. But some had gone . . . . under the refrigerator. Ugh.

We must pull it out, the wife says. And the husband wrinkles his nose. And the kids are suddenly no where to be found.

We do pull out the refrigerator, sop up the mess, vacuum the dust bunnies, collect the lost coins, recover the missing puzzle pieces, wash the MIA ABC magnets (no wonder Eliza struggles with some letters of the alphabet, we didn't have a complete set on the fridge).

All is well. So far we are enjoying the new detergent. And no, I'm not going to redo the math for 9 gallons.

Cadet Sunday

Sunday was Cadet Sunday for the boys and Seth. Haven't heard of Cadets? It is actually Calvinists Cadet Corps and it is a ministry for boys run by men who are exhibiting Christlike behavior. They teach boys hands-on skills in addition to Bible reading.

Back to Cadet Sunday. They helped usher and greet for the 2nd service at church, then it was time for a potluck and then the climax of the day was the pinewood derby races. Here are some pictures . . .

The boys in their Cadet shirts. The badges on the side indicate what level they are on and which group they belong to.

And you can't take a picture without including the girls. It was unseasonably warm on this day (and we're enjoying it) but we had to find some short sleeved shirts/dresses for the girls. Thankfully we had some hand-me-downs from cousin Alyssa.

Ashton (behind the pole), PJ & Emmet greeting the congregation as they come in the door.

During 2nd service, the kids were interviewed by Pastor Don. They were asked their name, age and what was their favorite part of Cadets. Most of the kids, including my boys, said that building their race cars was a favorite activity. I think one said that the boot scraper was their favorite craft.

Ephraim with a model airplane (mostly behind him), a model semi and a styrofoam airplane--just a few of the crafts he worked on.

Emmet with his boot scraper made from wood and pop bottle caps. Remember a while back on Facebook when I was looking for lots of pop bottle caps? Well, this is why. Emmet also had a fossil he made and a balsa wood airplane.

And now it is race time. Ephraim's getting ready to race his car. His car didn't win the race, but he was okay with that.

Here's how they were watching the races. As close as they could to the race track. Seth and Eliza are on the other side of the track.

Emmet has just put his car on the track. He did win this set of races but not the next set. And he was okay with that. Thankfully, I have kids who are good sports and realize that winning isn't everything.

Emmet's car is on the left.

Group photo with the Cadet counselors in the back. Seth is second from the left. Emmet is third from the right. Ephraim is right behind him.

Ephraim with his car. He did most of the work by himself--which is the way it is supposed to be. Seth helped cut it in the shape Ephraim wanted. Ephraim did sanding, painting and wheel assembly.

Emmet with his car that he painted blue and orange. Again, Emmet did all the sanding, painting and wheel assembly himself.

The boys have Cadets two Wednesdays a month and just have one more meeting left before taking a break until fall. They do a lesson and a craft almost each meeting. They really enjoy that time and it is something that they look forward to.

Praying for our Sons

I know I've already posted a few websites about praying for our daughters. Here is a great one for praying for our sons. And they're sponsoring a challenge for May 1st through 21st. I'll be participating and wanted you to know about it, too.

Check out their website: The MOB Society (Mothers of Boys)

Obviously we always need to be in prayer for our sons, but this gives us some direct, specific needs to pray for. It is taken straight from Scriptures. Several of the prayers center around the Fruits of the Spirit. Also included are Salvation, Obedience, Pride, Honor, Honesty, Humility and many others.

This is important and whether you participate or not, I hope you are praying daily for your sons and daughters.

Noodle Mania

Homemade noodles are just delicious. And I was completely out of my stash of noodles. My sister-in-law Michelle came over during her boys' spring break and we made noodles all afternoon. We use the trusty Betty Crocker recipe in the pink-checkered cookbook. It is a simple recipe with eggs, flour, salt and oil. We mixed it up in double batches, making 4 double batches. A total of 24 eggs.

Once mixed, the dough has to rest for 10 minutes. After resting, it is ran through the noodle maker to flatten it into sheets. Once in sheets, it needs to rest for 20 minutes. That's what this picture shows--noodle sheets resting. Pretty exciting!

Once rested, or sufficiently dried, the sheets are ran through the noodle maker.

That's what Eliza's getting ready to do. The kids helped out a little, but mostly they were having fun inside and outside with Mark & John.

And then the noodles are hung on the drying rack to dry for an hour or more. We have to separate them a bit on the rack so they don't dry stuck to each other.


When they've been sufficiently dried, they are packaged in zippered baggies and frozen. Then, when I want noodles, I can go to the freezer and grab as many or as few as I need. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we also made some whole wheat noodles. Yummy!