Christmas Behind the Badge

"We all have a role to play and joy awaits each one of us. The Lord appoints and anoints as He chooses and we should delight in our individual callings."- Patti Tingen, A God For All Seasons.

It's the Christmas season and we are busy getting ready for the holidays. 

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

My husband took all the older kids out on his birthday on the "great Christmas tree hunt" while I stayed back with the baby.

(Here is my husband with four of the kids when we started cutting our own Christmas tree at a nearby Christmas tree farm in 2008.)

It's a tradition we started because we didn't have the extra money to buy a tree one year, so we cut one down in the woods behind our house on my parent's property. Now we can't imagine buying a tree when cutting our own has turned out to be quite a lot of fun!

(Here is our "second chance clan"all ready for Christmas.)

So our tree is up inside. I made a wreath from its trimmings and hubby hung it on the front door. He hung lights on our growing fur tree outside. Every year the tree grows and we need to buy more lights for it. It looks magical in the evening when the moon shines high above and is then reflected by the crisp, white snow. Magical indeed. I love that tree!

Our kids are growing too. All seven of them, each with different talents and gifts and abilities. There's never a dull day here homeschooling these precious kiddos for sure! (I love it when they try to help each other too!- They don't know they are actually learning MORE by teaching their siblings!)

(My oldest daughter, age 7 helping her younger sister, age, almost 5)

With all the busyness of this most wonderful time of the year though my heart is very heavy.
Two police officers were executed in New York for simply doing the job they signed up to do, to protect and serve. My heart is broken for the families having to get through the holidays without their beloved officer. It's so hard to understand. I watched the wife of one of these officers sobbing on t.v. and my heart was with her. I may not know her personally, but I know her. Every time the phone rings in the middle of the night and my husband puts on his uniform, I pray. We are sisters in these moments.

(May these officers lives not be forgotten. R.I.P. Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos)

I don't write about my husband's job on my blog usually. It is his chosen profession and his calling. I have supported him through 21 years of marriage while he worked as a military policeman and then as a small municipal officer, to where he is currently serving as a Maine State Trooper. We've been through a lot together. I know what it feels like to have officers show up at my door and not know whether my husband was going to survive.

(This is the car accident my husband survived in 2006

with thankfully only a broken arm and leg and cuts and scrapes.)

I've pushed him in a wheelchair and cared for him while he recovered from a terrible car crash while on duty nearly nine years ago. He has also seen me through seven c-sections, several knee surgeries, an appendectomy, and a tubal reversal. He is my rock. He keeps me going when I want to quit. All the while he, himself works tirelessly to provide for our growing family as he puts on his blue uniform and performs the often thankless job of protecting and serving in our State. He usually works Christmas on call too. Thankfully this year he was able to get the day off. We are so excited to be able to have him home with us for Christmas!

 So as we celebrate the birth of our Savior and prepare to ring in the New Year let us remember the fallen as well as the officers out there working around the clock to protect us so we can sleep in Heavenly peace. They are NOT monsters, and hateful people. Many of these officers are like my own husband, just trying to come home safe to their wife and kids at the end of each shift. Just trying to carve out a little peace, a little hope, and spread little more love than hate.

We leave a candle glowing blue in our window each night to remember the fallen and those who currently protect and serve our great country nationwide.

 How will you show your support to your local police and stop the spread of violence and hate?

 Thank you to all our officers who put on the badge each day to protect and serve our great country!

May you have a blessed Christmas and a peaceful New Year!

Surviving Camp on a THM Diet! 10+ THM KETO Camping Meals

It's time to get ready for our annual camping trip!

     We can't wait to get back and make some more memories! Swimming, fishing, boating, 4-wheeling, and lots of relaxing and EATING!

Since starting Trim Healthy Mama back in March both my son and I have lost 20 pounds each! Yep, that's 40 lbs of flab gone! (All with minimal "exercising" mind you. Just THM'ing life)

     It's been an interesting THM journey to say the least! I've learned what GGMS, MIM, CIB, gluccie, and "doonk" mean. Learning how to make all the foods we love so my kids are growing and satisfied while my son and I lose weight has been more than a challenge. There were days I would stand in front of the open fridge and cry, "I can't eat anything in here! Ugh!"

     But I've learned to come up with some of my favorite "go to" meals and snacks.

My favorite "go to" snacks are:

cheese sticks

mixed nuts

Greek yogurt

cottage cheese

eggs

skinny chocolate

protein shakes

But this blog entry is going to be about getting ready for CAMPING!

How do I take all the delicious THM recipes on the road and still make the week FUN and YUMMY? Here are some meal ideas I have put together to get me through our week of camp eating! 

Who knows, maybe our other kids will want to join in on our THM meals too?!

For our camping trip, we have access to modern conveniences such as fry pans, stove, and even an oven! We have a small refrigerator and coolers to keep food cold. We have a camp fire for cooking too.

Breakfasts!

1. Campfire Breakfast Burgers

jellytoastblog.com has a great recipe for morning breakfast. I will take this recipe and sub out the regular biscuit for the two on the THM diet and use THM Muffin in a Mug for the biscuit. Almond meal and coconut flour biscuits with whole egg and sausage patty will make this a very satisfying camp breakfast, S style! Yum! 

  2. Walking In Light has a great recipe called Raspberry Cheescake Rollups with Cinnamon and Sweetener. I will use Joseph's Lavash wraps and this will stay in S territory thanks to the yummy fat in the cream cheese. Just warm the wrap and spread some cream cheese and roll and cut then roll in truvia blend sweetener with cinnamon!

3. Sausage Roll Bites

24/7 Low Carb Diner has a fun recipe for mini sausage bites.  I'll buy precooked sausage links and bake these up in our camp oven. Serve these with some scrambled eggs and spinach, a yummy S breakfast!

 4. Cottage Cheese Scrambled Eggs Speaking of scrambled eggs, this is a really yummy recipe with lots of extra protein thanks to the cottage cheese. Easy too! I'll serve these with fried French Style green beans maybe some bacon or sausage. Yum!

Lunches!

Lunches for us at camp often have to be portable because we are usually boating or out on the ATV's. When not having leftovers, these will be great go to lunches!

5.  Low Carb Chicken Wraps These look really yummy. I can make these with Joseph's Lavish Wraps. Serve with some pork rinds and celery while everyone else eats Doritos and I will be a happy camper! Taste and crunch needs satisfied!

6. Taco Salad Three Ways This is s a great recipe for making a taco salad three different ways, S, E, or FP. Î will probably eat this a couple times and try it in the different versions to keep my body guessing while on vacation! I sure would love to come back from vacation and have lost weight, not gained. This recipe will be a great way to shake things up. The kids will eat taco meat in flour tortillas. I may even enjoy this salad filling inside a Joseph's Lavish as a taco wrap one day! Lunch anyone?!

7. I couldn't find the link to this gorgeous wrap, but it looks pretty straight forward. Turkey, bacon, cheese, and lettuce all on a low carb wrap equals one yummy S lunch!

 

Dinner!

 8. BURGERS! We will most likely eat burgers several nights while at camp. While everyone eats theirs on white buns, I'll be eating mine inside a Joseph's Pita. So good! Low-carb deliciousness, keeping a burger, even with bacon and avacado in S territory for a slimming meal!

 9. PIZZA! These are a great go to meal I use at home and can easily make while at camp.

 10. Jalepeno Poppers! These will make a fun appetizer staying in the S zone. I will probably leave out the little sausages.

 11. Fall off the bone RIBS!!! I'll make these when our company comes for dinner! I. CAN. NOT. WAIT!!! Camp Dobsee here we come!

For more KETO Ideas grab your FREE book "Bacon and Butter"
Click Here!

Learn more about sustainable energy sources for your camp below.

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Thanksgiving Table Cloth Project

This was such a fun project I did last year before Thanksgiving. I had seen this idea somewhere on one of my homeschooling websites, I'm sorry but I don't remember where. But I basically went to the Goodwill and bought an old sheet in a neutral color and some fabric paint in assorted fall colors. I poured the paint onto paper plates to make it easier to apply the paint to everyone's hands and I went around the table having each child press their hand prints in the spot where they would normally sit for a meal. The ones who were old enough signed their own names, (including my silly husband.) I then took a permanent marker and wrote out the Bible verse in the center of the table cloth. "O, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." 1 Chronicles 16:34

Such a fun project and a wonderful keepsake table cloth! Looks like we'll adding some new hand prints this year too!

"Don't Forget To Pack the Kids"- by Jill Richardson REVIEW

I grew up in a small town in Maine. It wasn't until I got married and moved to California that I ever really encountered people who didn't look like me on a daily basis. I went to work in a child care facility on a military base in Southern California. I took care of children 12-18 months five days a week. I once got to care for a little African- American baby named Corey. He had no teeth even at 15 months but he could "eat" a peanut butter sandwich with his gums! He was the sweetest little kid and I remember him snuggling up to me one day and I looked down at his wonderful brown skin. Such a stark contrast to my own milky white skin. A seed was planted in my heart that day to care for a child other than one who looked like me. For a child with dark skin to call me, "Mom".

Since then, my heart has longed to go on a missions trip and possibly adopt a child from a foreign country one day. I have not had the privilege to do either of these-yet, although my heart still longs to. So I was thrilled when I saw I had the chance to review Jill Richardson's book, Don't Forget to Pack the Kids. Maybe taking my family on a missions trip isn't such a far off idea.
What if there were more "why not" answers to my "why should we" questions?

Watch this video and see how the author's children and family were able to serve God on a short-term missions trip!




Here is some more information about the book.

"Short-term missions have traditionally been the province of singles, youth groups, and married-with-no-kids.

Five years ago, few would have picked up a book about taking the family on a short-term mission. Now, more and more of us 30 and 40-somethings with kids are asking―

Why can’t we do something meaningful for others with our kids? 
Why do we have to wait until they’re teens and then and pack them off on a youth group trip?
Why can’t we let them experience using their gifts in ministry now? 
And why can’t we discover those gifts alongside one another in an experience they’ll never forget?  Well, you can. With some planning specifically geared toward making a family mission trip successful, you can. And you should.

Don’t Forget to Pack the Kids interweaves personal experience stories with extensive how-to information.



Statistics tell us over three-fourths of our kids will leave the church when they leave home. Why? Part of the reason is their feeling that church is irrelevant to their lives and they can get entertainment and fulfillment elsewhere. If we taught our kids early that the church is relevant because they are the church, and it is fulfilling because they fill it with their gifts and ministry, we could reverse those statistics.

Serving together can be a huge part of that."

My Thoughts:

I loved this book. The author takes the reader on a fabulous journey of all the ins and outs of how and why you can and SHOULD take your family on a short-term  missions trip. I found this book to not only be inspiring but very practical. From fundraising ideas in chapter 6 to dealing with all the realities of missions trips I thought this book was a wonderful read and very inspiring to step out of my comfort zone and actually do this one day! The author reminds us through her own personal stories woven into her tips such as things like you can't think of this mission trip as a "vacation" as she describes having to "sleep" on a train with her family. This book has so many tips like making sure your health records are up to date to being certain you "pack Jesus" and spend a huge amount of time in prayer and planning and learning about the country you will eventually visit. If you have ever considered a short-term missions trip but thought you should wait to go once the kids were older, you might want to read this book and reconsider what God might have you do while your children are still young and what God  might teach your children out of their effort to serve and love people around the world!

Author BIO:
Jill has a BA in English and Education and an MDiv in theology. She is ordained in the Free Methodist Church and has served as a worship, preaching, and discipleship pastor. She is also a professional speaker available for speaking engagements. Jill is represented by Diana Flegel at Hartline Literary Agency.

With three daughters, three cats, and (thankfully!) only one husband, she keeps busy otherwise with community theater, gardening, reading, scrapbooking, and bugging her last child to do 4H projects. Jill loves oceans, cats, chocolate, teenagers, her family, the Cubs, and God, not necessarily in that order.

Follow Jill on her Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or on Youtube.

Amazon Link

ISBN-10: 0615581188 | ISBN- 13: 978-0615581187 | List Price: $8.00 Softcover, $3.99 Kindle |Format: Softcover and Kindle | Page Count: 134


I received a free copy of this book to review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations. I am part of The CWA Review Crew.

The Coop is Ready-The chickens Are Here!

From a dream and a vision and a desire to have healthy eggs,

 to Reality!

My Crazy Homeschool Project!

The lumber arrived.

We have a local lumber yard that burns their left over scrap wood. They keep this wood in a pile and we were free to grab odds and ends of wood. My husband was able to rip this wood down to fit our chicken coop needs. This worked fine for framing the coop! Cost = $0.

The children were anxious to help!

There's a lot of learning here, math and science, galore!

SHOP CLASS!

Here my husband is teaching our oldest son how to use a power hand saw. I just have to look away when I see my son using this, but I looked long enough to take this picture! My son WAS wearing safety glasses, I don't see them here in this picture. I think they kept falling off his face while he was bent over!

Keeping the younger kids busy in our sand/water table while the building is happening!

Doesn't everyone need a little entertainer?! Our 6 month old LOVES it outside with his family!

He makes the work light and joyful!

Here is the front of the chicken coop nearly finished with siding.

For walls and roof we did actually buy materials.

Here is what the front of the coop looked like from our back deck before it was painted.

It looked so good, I posted it to Facebook and my mom thought the coop was finished even though she lives next door, (behind the coop!)

 It was a great place to stop and take a family vacation

 because it looked finished, but it was not!

Here are the kiddos on vacation while the chicken coop project sat idle.

There was painting to be done! 

The kids all helped and I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of it! They came in covered in paint!

Here is the finished coop!

Here is a view with the front door open so you can see inside.
Straight ahead are the nesting boxes.

Here is a better view of inside the chicken coop. There are six nesting boxes for our ladies!

Here is a photo of the back of the coop and the custom built door for collecting the ggs!

Here is the egg hatch door open!

Isn't it cool! You can really reach your hands right in and find the eggs!

And here is Caramel sitting in her own nesting box! She hopped right up as soon as we let her in and made herself at home!

I think she likes it here!

"This isn't just another crazy homeschooling project," my husband argued in the past,

 "chickens are a lot of work!"

  The top 5 reasons that kept my husband from wanting to get chickens:

1. a coop-where would it go, what would it look like, would be build it or buy one (probably build one which leads to reason number two)

2. costs-chickens cost money, for the coop, fencing, feed, for the chickens themselves, etc. etc.

3. Time-they take time to care for and you can't just up and leave them and go on vacation, they need care

4. Noise-they can be loud, if we ever got chickens, we would not get a rooster he said.

5. Smell-chickens smell, and they need care, back to reason number 3 and 2.

But in the end the Top 10 reasons to have chickens out weighed the other 5!

1. Fresh eggs

2. Weeds and pest control

3. Table scraps eaters

4. Fertilizers for the garden

5. Educational-great homeschooling lessons here!

6. Fun for the kids-children LOVE chickens!

7. Promotes love of family and farm friends

8. Potential small business opportunity for the kids

9. They're kinda' cute, we get to name them!

10. FRESH FREE RANGE ORGANIC EGGS!

COST OF THE COOP:

Lumber, nails for framing $200

Chicken supplies $ 30

Fencing $150

Chickens $0

Total cost = $380

When the Pastor Leaves the Building

A few months ago our Pastor preached a sermon series on freedom. It was centered around the book, "Freedom Tools: For Overcoming Life's Tough Problems".

It was one of the most literally "freeing" series I had ever heard preached on. God set so many people free those weeks. The church had this great visual of a garbage dumpster and lots of luggage tossed in with words taped to them like, "fear, hopelessness, anxiety, shame, addiction", etc.

 I blogged about this in an earlier post. God set me free from stuff too. What an awesome thing to lay down heavy bags I didn't even know I was carrying around! Have you ever been on a walk carrying a backpack?

You can pick up that backpack and carry it quite easily for awhile. It does become burdensome after a bit,  although you can readjust the fit and it's like the bag becomes part of you. You learn to carry the load, albeit uncomfortably. But when you reach your destination!

 Wow! You set down your pack that seems so much heavier than when you first picked it up and your arms and shoulders raise up high...aaahhhh....FREEDOM!!!

Shortly after this series, our Pastor announced that he was leaving the church as head pastor, leaving MAINE altogether and moving to TEXAS!!!

Wow! EVERYONE was shocked! What?! Why? Why now?! It seems that any answer given just still leaves people dumbfounded. Pastor Brian said, "It's all about family."
"Family?" Really? Yes, you have a wonderful family and you DO have family in Texas. We get that. But what  does this REALLY mean when you say that you are "all about family" Pastor Brian?
Did something happen?! Was there an offence unforgivable? Why would the head pastor of a wonderful church step down and move all the way to hot, dry, dusty Texas?! It seems there were so many things left "undone"! His wife is the children's Pastor. Our children were the losers here too, not just the adults.

Losers?

 Because we have lost something?

 Or are we really only just all travelers on a God journey?

 When someone hears the call of God to a new direction, do you sit around and ask yourself, "did I really hear from God?" and NOT move? I think not. While our pastor in his quiet demeanor has not fully revealed his heart about the move so that everyone can understand, wait a minute...just a second...he DID reveal his heart and reason for leaving, "family". Isn't that enough of a reason? To me it is...to most it is NOT. It's a nice gesture but so many don't understand the true understanding and calling for a man to his 'family".

Years ago, there was a young missionary to Europe who had planted a church. It was doing okay but the missionary revealed that he only had ONE family in the church. He preached about the new "relationship with Jesus" sermons that are popping up all over, "it's all about your relationship".
When asked if he preached about the Biblical principles of what GOD designed a family for well, he didn't have the answers. He felt he couldn't preach on those topics for fear that people would leave the church. The author of the article then answered him,

"I can think of only one solution to a problem in the church: the pastor should preach the Biblical solution to it. “May be you should start preaching and teaching on the family. Thus you will encourage the men to marry, and have families and children, and become responsible adults.”

“I do,” he said. “I preach and teach on the family all the time. I teach on the relationships between husbands and wives, between parents and children, I preach on what a wonderful gift the family is, I preach on how God blesses families.”

“Hmmm,” I said, “the relationships stuff will attract and encourage mostly women. But what about what attracts the men? Do you preach and teach purpose, what the family is created for? Do you teach the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, have many children and through them take over the culture? Do you teach and preach on the educational function and purpose of the family; teaching the children in the Lord? Do you teach them the purpose of the family as God’s institution for economic decisions and action? Do you teach them on the fathers as protectors and conquerors? Do you teach them on the function of the family as a welfare agency, the only institution ordained by God to take care of the poor and the needy?

In our conversation, it turned out he didn’t teach those things. He was a little uncomfortable to talk about the issue of having children given the fact that Europe was overpopulated anyway and given the lower incomes of most people, having many children would place a heavy burden on the young parents. Talking about having children, he said, was not a popular topic in Europe. The economic function of the family: he wasn’t sure about that one because he was never taught that in the seminary; and besides, it is part of the “general equity” stuff, not of the Gospel, and he wasn’t supposed to preach anything but the Gospel. Concerning the education, they had great public schools in Europe so that that burden could be taken off the backs of the parents so that they could focus on the spiritual things of the Gospel; besides, the only viable alternative was homeschooling, and he was concerned whether homeschooled children could later find jobs in the European economy. He couldn’t take on the responsibility of giving advice to parents which later may prove impractical. “Protectors and conquerors” wasn’t clear to him, after all we are not trying to impose a Christian dictatorship, we are only concerned about the salvation of these souls, and Europe had very low crime rate anyway. And welfare? Same thing: Europe has a wonderful social system, no need to worry about the poor, the government is doing a perfectly good job there." You can read the rest of the article here, "Relationship vs. Purpose,"

While we don't have a clear picture of what God is doing within the walls of our local body of believers, my husband and I do stand with our pastor as he takes his family to Texas. May he and his family be blessed as they make time for their "family" and may God bring new hands, eyes, ears, and fresh wisdom and BOLD TRUTHS to our little corner of Sebago Lake, Maine to revive the people and win over FAMILIES for Jesus.
We've got precious little time left here on earth, here, people. Who will stand up for families? Who will abandon the constraints of society and all its strongholds and breakthrough to what God desires for our country? We have an important vote coming up in November. A vote that is packaged as desirable and "good" for our society. It seems that inherent within all humans is a simple desire and devotion to be loved and be called into "family". But the enemy is clever, we do know this, but are swift to forget, we are, after all, only humans.  Temptation is defined as "the fact or state of being tempted,  especially to evil."
We are so beyond temptation now. This is 2012. Temptation has a new face, stemmed from our wonderful American "deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity, and tolerance". Temptation is now an art and science of taking and packaging all that is evil and making it look "good".

So what shall we do with a building the head pastor has left to pursue his own family? Revolt? Leave? Spread gossip from our own fears and worries? Of course not! We ask God to show us what's next! How, Father, can we play a part in pursuing Jesus and stronger relationships, build His Kingdom here on earth, finding PURPOSE and meaning and CONQUERING in what our pastor has decided to passionately pursue....FAMILY?!!!

We will miss you, Pastor Brian and the whole Galbraith Family!!!

God bless you all!

photo credit