Blizzard Outside--Blessed Inside!

Last night Jonathan spent 1 1/2 hours getting home from Black Forest, a trip that usually takes half an hour. Cars were in the ditch and the roads were a terrible mess. There had been blizzard warnings,

and we had cleaned up outside again and battoned down tarps where needed.

Inside some of us were still recuperating from this awful cold and congestion.
I had some leftover homemade chicken soup I'd made Sunday.
It was so good!

We were so thankful when Jonathan got home safely.

With the blizzard outside, there was something so cozy about inside.
I made popcorn.

We added cayenne to it because of our colds and sore throats.
Nice pizzazz.

Timmy cuddled in with some comforters and blankets, reading.

Jonathan's throat was better than mine last night, so he took a turn reading the bedtime story to the little ones.

Carrie decided she could make her own decision about making these chocolate covered peanut butter balls.
She made 55 of them.

  Don't ask me how many are left. 

Here's something I read the other day.

Keep a sense of humor

"Have you ever noticed that when things aren’t going the way we planned, even the smallest things can start to cause stress? When under stress we become overly serious and neglect the many moments of pleasure and gratification that surround us."

The girls and I enjoyed decorating a bit for Thanksgiving. We reused these orange bows we'd used for Int'l Day of Prayer for the Persecuted church by hanging them on our wagon wheels.

I bought this at Hobby Lobby. 

Going to Hobby Lobby is dangerous.

Usually I don't buy much if anything, just look and drool. But this time I wanted to have something meaningful in our home for Thanksgiving.

 Give Thanks With a Grateful Heart," it says.

And I also bought this little pumpkin that says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

I loved it.

So that became a door hanging, and on the refrigerator we hung some samples of the turkeys the younger children decorated for home school art class. 

I loved this one done up with dry beans, sunflower seeds, and bow tie pasta.

We didn't have enough of the turkeys from the books, so some of the children traced the pattern, and made their own turkeys on plain paper. 

This one turned out really unique.

So did this one.

Here are the fifty pumpkins Jonathan got at Walmart one day for just

50 cents!

Thanks to his sister Esther for texting him about the deal!

Our steers and pigs love these.