MCP Actions

Photography is something that I have always been interested in. I guess that's because my dad took a lot of interesting pictures and turned them into slides that we would sometimes watch as a family. About a year or two ago, I was given a camera that would allow me to expand my knowledge and interest in photography. I really did not know that there was so much to learn. One day, one of my sisters and I were talking about my new hobby and she suggested a good site for me to look at. She even sent me the link on Facebook. The only problem was that I got busy and forgot to look at the link.

About a month or two ago, a college friend told me about some sites giving away cute templates for Valentine's. I had never heard of the sites, and didn't know their web addresses. I Googled their names hoping for some sort of result so I wouldn't have to look stupid and ask my friend exactly what she was talking about. Yea for Google and success!! One of the sites was MCP Actions...the same site my sister had told me about but I had not looked at. This time though I was hooked. I love looking at what their different actions can do for photos. I love reading all the different helpful articles on the blog (especially this one on photographing at midday). The video tutorials have been a big help with my Photoshop non experience, and taking a picture a week according to a theme has definitely helped stretch my photographic thinking.

Photography this Week

The theme for this week was "Out of the Jewelry Box." I rescued a poor, dilapidated frog that I had thrown in the back of my husband's truck to go to the dump, and dressed her up in jewelry. I think the pictures turned out pretty cute. Maybe I think that because I put a lot of time into it. Now the question is, should I put the armless, eyeless, jump ropeless frog back in the truck to go to the dump?

The theme for this week's photo was darks and lights. I thought these coffee cups were appropriate.

Childhood Toys

Who doesn't remember these? The one on the right was given to me by my grandmother and aunt when I was ten.

Banana Bread Gluten Free and Regular

I had a few banana's that were too brown to eat but would be great to make banana bread with. My son had been begging me for a Gluten Free snack, so I gave in and baked him some banana bread. It really turned out to be a snack for the whole family. It went so quickly I didn't even have time to take a picture!

Here is the original recipe:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg (optional)
1/4 cup milk
2 medium bananas mashed
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Combine all ingredients in one bowl.
Put into greased 9x5 pan.
Bake at 350 for 50- 60 minutes.

Here is the DAIRY FREE, NUT FREE, GLUTEN FREE recipe

1/4 cup oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup Hodgson Mill Multi Purpose Baking Mix pictured above (I found it at Wal-Mart)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg ( I did not use)
1/4 cup water
2 medium bananas mashed

Combine all ingredients in one bowl.
Put into greased 9x5 loaf pan.
Bake at 350 for 50- 60 minutes.

Look What my Mom Made Me.

We live in a house where our washer and dryer are out in the utility room under the carport. I don't always have time to immediately get to the clean clothes; and most of the time, they pile up on my couch. I usually can keep up with the folding, but the clothes that need ironing sit on the couch for quite a while before I get to them. My mom found this plan and altered it to my wishes. I LOVE IT. She put rollers on the bottom, and the door is painted with chalkboard paint both inside and out. My clothes are still in the living room along with our homeschooling stuff, but now we can sit on the couch! Thanks, Mom.

3D snowflake

Our kids made 3D snowflakes at their homeschool group meeting yesterday. Here's a link on how you can make them too.

My View from Here.

I joined a flickr group that committed to take one new picture a week. The theme for this week is "My View From Here."
This was my view as I looked out the front door window yesterday.

Carrot Cake

When I was growing up, my mom was truly a health food
person before it was so popular to be a part of the health food world. We did not have junk food. We did not have bleached flour or white rice, nor did we have refined sugar. Our peanut butter was the kind that was made purely of peanuts and needed the oil stirred in before you could use it. On occasion, we even had our peanut butter freshly ground from peanuts at GNC. When there was a potluck dinner at church, she still cooked healthfully. From time to time, she would try something that was to our childish eyes and tastebuds, completely outlandish and disgusting. And, yes, we would get embarrassed when our classmates looked at our lunch and say, "Ewww! What is that?!"
Imagine my chagrin and embarrassment when my mom decided to do a kind deed for an older batchlor in our church and make him a carrot cake. WHO had ever heard of CARROTS in a CAKE? I sure hadn't, and I thought surely she was going overboard trying to push her healthly living lifestyle off on this poor guy. It was not til many years later that I discovered that there really is such a thing as carrot cake, and it really is delicious! In fact my husband's grandmother could make the most wonderful carrot cake in the world for our birthdays. She has passed away, but we are still able to enjoy the recipe.

Here it is:
2 c sugar
1.5 c oil
4 eggs
2 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon
.5 tsp salt
1 c chopped pecans (opt)
3 c shredded carrots
(I've heard that you should not use the pre-shredded carrots)

Mix dry ingredients. Add vanilla and eggs. Add carrots. Add oil, and mix well. Pour into 3 greased and floured 8 inch round pans. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese (softened)
16 oz box powdered sugar
1 stick butter (softened)
1 tsp vanilla
1 c chopped pecans

Blend cream cheese, butter, and vanilla. Add powdered sugar and blend well. Mix in pecans. Frost the cakes after they are cooled.
Sometimes I double the frosting recipe so I'll have plenty of frosting.


My husband just had his birthday, and I of all people made a cake with CARROTS in it! Here is a picture looking at him through the cloud of smoke from his candles that he blew out.

It all started with a "quick" run to the grocery store. I was doing really good getting all the kids in the vehicle while I was loading groceries. I had to be home very quickly and have supper on the table right away in order for my husband and son to get to their Cub scout meeting on time. As I was throwing groceries in the back, I was planning what I would throw on the table.

In the mean time, one of my daughters decided to climb in the driver's seat and start messing with all the controls. At the advice of my oldest daughter, the one in the driver's seat decided to turn on the GPS that my husband had received for Christmas.
I finally got the groceries loaded, and put the cart away, and jumped into the driver's seat. After I thought I had fixed all the driver's controls, I dialed my husband to tell him I would be home shortly. At the same time I was talking to my husband, I was pulling out of the grocery store parking lot. All of the sudden a larger than life voice spoke up. "TURN RIGHT!" said the man on the GPS. Whoa! That scared me, and I could not hear my husband. I started grabbing for wires to unplug the GPS only to realize it was not plugged in. Meanwhile the thing was still barking out directions to my house. I did NOT need to know how to get home. I started yelling at the kids, "How do you turn this thing off?!"
"It's the button on top, Mom" they all said.
Holding the phone with my shoulder, and the steering wheel with one hand, I started pounding the top of the GPS with my other hand to turn the stupid thing off. No success there. At the same time I was pounding, I looked up to see a telephone pole right at the corner of the passenger side windsheild. I swerved. Too late. I was scraping a mailbox that was right next to the telephone pole. Off came the mirror. Sccrraaape it went across the door. Thud it hit the ground.
Let's just say that when it was all over, there was a crying mom and four crying children in the back seats.
Today, our vehicle is in the body shop for a week. If we keep this kind of thing up, we'll have a whole new body for our vehicle. We have already had a new windshield and a new bumper. Never in my life have I had a vehicle in the body shop until this one. Oh, and lesson number two. Don't cancel your car rental insurance to save $3.00 a month. You just might need it one day. :D

She's Unique

We wanted four children so we would not have a middle child. What we didn't count on was having three of the four children being girls. The picture above is of our middle daughter. She is so different from our other children that one of our friends often says about her, "Which one of these is not like the others?" She loves to pose, she loves to dress up, and she is much smarter than she appears. :)

She also comes up with some of the funniest ways to say things. The other day when I became concerned about a spot where a tick bite had been, she asked me, "Mom, are you going to Google 'How ticks get on you and cause an infection and make you die.com?'"

In the above photo, I was taking 10 year pictures of her brother. His props were a camo outfit and his new gun for one set of pictures, and a cowboy outfit and gun for another set of pictures. She decided she needed in on the action, grabbed a broken gun, sat on a stump, and put on this pose with no prompting from me. In fact, she demanded that I take the picture. I'm glad I did because it turned out pretty well.

Pottery

We have a friend who makes the beautiful pottery pictured above. If you are interested in any of his products, his price list is shown below. Here is a link to his personal website. He does have a contact link so you can get in touch with him personally.

I would post a picture of my chicken cooker, but it's locked in my china cabinet, and the key has been lost by my daughter.

Chicken Cooker (11in x 5in)

30.00

Pie plates (9 in rd)

20.00

Cornbread baker (9in rd)

20.00

Single Stem Apple Baker (5in rd)

12.00

Two Stem Apple Baker

16.00

Brie baker (8in round)

18.00

Chip & Dip Platter (12in)

33.00

Spoon rest (3in round)

4.00

Colander (10in x 5in)

28.00

Berry colanders (5 in x 5in

14.00

Utensil holder (5in x 8in)

18.00

Lg. Pedestal bowl

48.00

Sm. Pedestal bowl

24.00

Lg. Pedestal cake platter

48.00

Sm. Pedestal cake platter

24.00

Platters (18in)

100.00

(24in)

185.00

Large display bowl

30.00

Small display bowl

20.00

Dinner plate (10in round)

26.00

Dessert plate (5 inch round)

14.00

Pasta plate (10in round)

26.00

Salad bowl (5in with ½ rim)

14.00

Cereal bowl (5in round)

12.00

Drinking cup (8oz)

8.00

(12oz)

12.00

Sm. Flower pot with tray

18.00

Lg. Flower pot with tray

36.00

Flower bucket (5in x 6in)

24.00

Small Flower vase

16.00

Lg. Flower vases

32.00

Taxes: 7.75%

Walgreens Photo Special

Until November 20th, you can get 30 4x6 prints from Walgreens ONLINE for $3.00 if you use the coupon code PASSALONG.

Internet Nanny

I may be the only parent out there whose children get on the internet without my knowing it, but somehow I think I'm not. Well, just this past Sunday I was thinking about how we really need to get an internet filter to keep the kids from getting on to sites that wouldn't be good for them. I'm cheap and was thinking that I really didn't want to spend the extra money for a filtering system, but that it really probably would be a good idea to when, lo and behold, I came across a blog called Spoiled but not Rotten that happened to mention that Internet Nanny was giving away free filtering software. Yep, I took them up on that offer. It was a little tricky (it looked like at first it was just a 14 day free trial) for me to figure out, but I did get the stuff downloaded on my computer for a year for free. I'm excited.

The link above for Spoiled but not Rotten will take you to her post about the free filtering software.

Picture Deals

This week (August 15-August 21) Walgreens is running a photo special called 7 Days of Deals. Each day they are offering a different special. For instance, yesterday you could get a free 8X10. Today, you get 75% off of a photo easel. A photo easel is a picture that they have already put a backing and stand to. The orginal cost is $14.99.

They also have 50 prints for $5.00 available through August 21 if you use the coupon code STOCKUP. This may also be available as a walk-in customer.

I also came across a deal on Snapfish that is offered until August 17. Get free shipping on any order plus a free 8x10 collage print by putting GRANDSHIP in the coupon section when you check out. I was able to order just the 8x10 collage print, so I paid absolutely nothing for my new collage of my kids. I'm excited to be hanging that one up soon.

I just saw that CVS is also offering 50 prints for 6 dollars until August 16. You must use the coupon code 50FOR6 when you check out. Also if you're a new online customer with them, your prints are FREE!!

Birthday Party!

One of my sisters had a combined birthday party for three of her children. She held it at a place that was full of fun inflatables such as a slide, and obstacle course, and a couple of jumpy houses. I think everyone had a super time. I know my kids did. They want to have their parties there. The only problem is that the place is an hour and a half away from us. Sorry kids, don't think that'll be happening.

Our son enjoying the slide

The whole party

This is just family at the party

My sister's father-in-law as "King David" ha ha

One of my nephews after he enjoyed the ice cream.

One of my nieces after some drink.

This is birthday boy

These are the birthday girls

One of my neices enjoying the slide

Spokeo.com

There's a site called
Spokeo.com. It's a new online phone book w/personal information: pics
you've posted on FB or web, your approx credit score, home value,
income, age, etc. You can remove yourself by first searching for
yourself on their site, copy the URL of your page, then scroll to the
very bottom of their home page, and click on privacy
to remove yourself.

Subbing for Sunday School

RRRRING! RRRRRRRRRRING! It was that dreaded 8:30 Sunday morning phone call that tells us we have something to adjust at church. "No, no, not this morning. Please, not me this morning I groaned to myself." Then Spencer was handing the phone to me. I knew my wishes were not going to be granted this morning.
"Shoshannah, can you teach my Sunday school class? I wanted to say that I didn't feel very well that day either and just send the kids to someone else's class, but I didn't. I wanted to say, I teach my kids all week, and teach Wednesday night. I NEED a BREAK from kids!" But I didn't. What kept going through my mind was what a preacher said in revival at our church last week. "When other people won't do things, don't complain. Praise the Lord that you get the blessing of serving Him."
As I got the materials for the class, I thought "How boring for 5-6 year olds." "The First Church?" ....and the lesson was boring until about half way through. There was only one drab picture provided, the lesson didn't really have any relevance to the kid's lives until I mentioned that 3,000 people got saved and were baptized. "Why were the people baptized?" I asked. Why does God want us to be baptized?
"To get saved?" was the questioning response. "No, the people were already saved, and baptism does not save you, but it is something that God wants us to do."
"So we can eat that little cracker and drink that little juice!" came another excited answer. I had to laugh at that answer. My little girl has been dying to take communion.
"I'm saved," said one in the normal random way of little children. "I'm saved,"said another. "I'm saved too," said a third. "Really?" I questioned the third. "No, I'm just joking,"said the third.
Of course this led back to the discussion of salvation that we had last week when I subbed in this class.
"Why do we need to be saved?"
"Because we sin."
"What is sin?"
"All the bad things we do."
"Do you do bad things?"
"No." Then a big grin came across the little boy's face. "I'm just joking."
I thought, "Well, at least I got one point across last week. Last week, he didn't think that he ever sinned."
As the conversation continued, he said that he wanted be with his mom when he asked Jesus to save him. I'm so glad that he has a sensitive heart.
Our conversation headed back to baptism. I explained that the first thing God tells us to do after we get saved is to get baptized. "Why would he want us to get baptized?"I asked. The kids had no clue, so I explained that baptism show the world that we have been saved and want to follow Jesus. I then showed them how that going down under the water shows Jesus dying and being buried, and coming up out of the water represents Jesus rising from the dead.
"Some people call sprinkling with water "baptism", but it doesn't mean anything. But we go under the water and come up again because of what it means," I told the class. I then showed them what the preacher does when he baptizes you. Each one of them thought that had to be demonstrated on. So the class ended up being fun instead of irrelevant and boring as it had started out.

That night one of the saved children went forward for baptism, and I think the other one would have too except they fell asleep in church. :D I'm also thinking that the other little child will get saved soon.
...and to think I would have missed all that if I would not have subbed. That was my blessing for the day.

So the verse that says we are to give the gospel to every creature seemed to hit me in a new way recently. The "every creature" portion just really stood out to me. We are surrounded by people every day, and don't attempt to tell them a thing about the Lord or their eternal soul. I've tried to become more aware of people as I'm out shopping ect. As this verse of scripture has begun to become more real to me, the Lord has sent more people to my door also. Seeing that I really don't get out all that much during the week, I think this is a pretty good arrangement. If I can't get out and tell people about the Lord, He can just send them to my house. My latest encounters have been with Jehovah's Witnesses.

The first pair came to my door a few months ago. Of course, you can tell what they are up to as soon as you open the door, so instead of letting them talk to me, I talk to them first. I quickly let them know that I know they don't believe Jesus is God. I also let them know why I believe that Jesus is God. After I quoted Scripture to them, they tried to tell me that not all versions read the same way. I quickly let them know that was why I only used the King James Version. I knew it had not been tampered with and I could depend on it. They then wanted to know how could Jesus be God and still have a Father. So, I showed them how there are three parts of an eye, yet there is just one eye...the cornea, pupil, and iris. There are also three parts to a finger. When you bend it, you can see clearly the three parts. Let's just say that the lady's eyes were pretty big when I was showing them that illustration.
We didn't get much farther than that with the first pair that came to the door. But I began thinking of how much bigger the picture is for these people. If they do not believe that Jesus is God, they can never believe that He can save them from their sins.
A couple of months later the next and much more educated pair of Witnesses came by. It was with them that I found out that they don't believe in a hell. They gave an obscure verse in Ecclesiastes that says that the dead know nothing as their proof text that there is not a literal hell. Of course that Scripture reference is referring to the dead body of bones in the grave and not the spirit of a person. They also asked why would Jesus go to hell after He died on the cross if it were a place of torment. My answer was so that when they stood before Him at the judgment they would have no excuse for Him sending THEM there. He would be able to tell them that He has been through absolutely everything that they have ever been or would be through, and they do not have an excuse for rejecting Him. They weren't quite sure how to answer that one. They did tell me that they believe in heaven though. Now why would there be a heaven to believe in if the dead know nothing?
I don't really feel like I got very far with these people, but I pray that maybe the little bit that I was able to give them would somehow later on bring them to truly know the Lord.

Today is our 10th Anniversary

It does not seem like that much time has passed, but Spencer and I have reached the double digits as far as anniversaries go. I don't imagine we'll ever get out of the double digits either. We will be heading to the Biltmore Estate and the Blue Ridge Parkway for our big day. Both are places I've wanted to explore for some time. Hopefully, I'll have some interesting pictures to post when we get back.