Since I enjoy cooking so much, I thought I would try to post a few of my favorite recipes. Here is one that makes lots of gravy while cooking, so make sure you make some mashed potatoes or rice to pour it on.
Roast
3-4 lb sirloin tip roast, or beef roast of your choice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1tsp of garlic powder
1 packet of dry mushroom gravy
1/2 cup of A-1
Brown roast on both sides in large skillet using some oil.
Put roast in a crock pot. Put all ingredients in on top of roast and turn crock pot on low for about 10-11 hours. Turn roast a few times while cooking to mix the sauces. No need to put any water in, the roast makes it's own gravy while it cooks. Enjoy!
Karen
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
date and time
For some reason, my posts are all showing up the same date and time. I don't know why, I will have to look into this. By the way, it is Friday about 4:15pm.
New Adoption Update
After that excited blog yesterday, last evening about 20 min. before leaving for work, I checked my email and there was a letter from our agency. I don't really understand, but the jist of it was that starting Jan. 1 2008 there will be no adoptions allowed by the Guatemalan govt. to nonHague countries, which includes the US. So, we have two choices 1. change countries 2. wait and see if they change their mind or it is overruled.
So right now, of course, our agency is not going to refer any more babies.
I know that God knows where our baby is, now it is up to Aaron and I to pray and listen to see where God decides to lead us. Whether to stay and wait, or maybe this was God's plan all along and our daughter was never in Guatemala.
I am so stressed and last night at work, I was almost lightheaded with worry. It didn't help that I read it right before walking out the door. So, I am slowly calming down. If our daughter isn't in Guatemala, I know someday I will be able to look back and be thankful that God led us in this direction.
It is just hard to give up a dream even if you know that God has better dreams for you. For instance, I went through mild mourning of the dream of having a boy that looked just like Aaron. Everyone with an awesome husband I think wants a boy just like him. When it became clear that God was planning something different, then I had to give up that dream and it is hard,but I don't have a problem with it anymore. It won't happen, no sense in grieving.
Then, when I knew I wasn't going to carry another baby, I mourned that dream and prayed that God would help me get over that. And He did and now, I don't really have a desire at all to get pregnant. (And when I waver, Aaron makes vomiting noises and brings me back to reality) For 5 years, I have pictured our adopted baby as Guatemalan. A little, chubby long black haired, dark skinned baby. Now, I have to alter my dreams. Of course, they may change their minds. I just want everyone to say a little prayer that we will go in the direction God wants us to. Thanks for listening.
I will be at a Ladies Retreat tonight from church and Aaron is taking the girls to see his parents - his dad's birthday is tomorrow. Karen
So right now, of course, our agency is not going to refer any more babies.
I know that God knows where our baby is, now it is up to Aaron and I to pray and listen to see where God decides to lead us. Whether to stay and wait, or maybe this was God's plan all along and our daughter was never in Guatemala.
I am so stressed and last night at work, I was almost lightheaded with worry. It didn't help that I read it right before walking out the door. So, I am slowly calming down. If our daughter isn't in Guatemala, I know someday I will be able to look back and be thankful that God led us in this direction.
It is just hard to give up a dream even if you know that God has better dreams for you. For instance, I went through mild mourning of the dream of having a boy that looked just like Aaron. Everyone with an awesome husband I think wants a boy just like him. When it became clear that God was planning something different, then I had to give up that dream and it is hard,but I don't have a problem with it anymore. It won't happen, no sense in grieving.
Then, when I knew I wasn't going to carry another baby, I mourned that dream and prayed that God would help me get over that. And He did and now, I don't really have a desire at all to get pregnant. (And when I waver, Aaron makes vomiting noises and brings me back to reality) For 5 years, I have pictured our adopted baby as Guatemalan. A little, chubby long black haired, dark skinned baby. Now, I have to alter my dreams. Of course, they may change their minds. I just want everyone to say a little prayer that we will go in the direction God wants us to. Thanks for listening.
I will be at a Ladies Retreat tonight from church and Aaron is taking the girls to see his parents - his dad's birthday is tomorrow. Karen
Adoption Update
We are currently number 51 on the girls' waiting list. They are predicting that it will take around 9 months for a referral. That was last month, so now I will say 8 months. The first week of every month, they call all the people on the waiting list to update them on a number, so next week we should be getting our call. I am excited because yesterday I received an email from our agency that they sent to everyone on the girls' list saying that there are currently 53 families on the girls waiting list and only 16 on the boys'. The agency was just letting us "girl" people know that if we wanted to change over to boy the wait would be much shorter, so if any of us didn't care which gender, then maybe we would want to change.
We aren't going to change, since we feel 100% that God made it clear to us that He has a girl in mind for us.
But, as I told Aaron last night, there may be a lot of "girl" people who switch to "boy" to get a shorter wait time, and if they do, then that means we will move up faster when those people switch. Who knows though, there may be no one switch.
We went to Birmingham Saturday morning and got fingerprinted for the 4th time and hopefully the last. We got fingerprinted twice for our homestudy, the first set wasn't readable and had to be redone. Once for our agency, and the last time for CIS. I was so scared and prayed all day Friday and Friday night that we wouldn't get sick and miss our appt. time. It was 9am Saturday and at our Friday coop classes, there were 2 kids in Hannah's class vomiting. Then, Aaron took the girls to a birthday party Friday night while I was at work and the birthday boy vomited 3 times at the party. My prayer was "Lord, just let them wait to get sick until we get back from Birmingham" Missing our appt. would have meant losing almost $800, since we would forfiet all that money and have to reapply. God answered my prayer even better in that none of the girls got the stomach virus this round.
There were 3 papers in our dossier that need to be corrected. I have 2 back to the agency corrected and I am still working on the 3rd. Aaron's medical form. He misspelled a word on the original and put a line through it and the Guatemalan govt. doesn't allow mark throughs. So, I sent it back to the doctor and asked the doctor and notary who works in the MD office to please just redo it exactly as before and send it back. If they were nice enough to put the same dates as before , I wouldn't have to county and state certify again. Unfortunately, they put September date, but upon further inspection, they signed 2 separate dates. The whole point of having a notary is that the notary is saying that they actually saw that person sign, so having 2 dates makes it a little unbelievable, so I will have to get it redone again. I hate to keep bothering them, but usually when people find out they are helping with an adoption, they are happy to help.
We aren't going to change, since we feel 100% that God made it clear to us that He has a girl in mind for us.
But, as I told Aaron last night, there may be a lot of "girl" people who switch to "boy" to get a shorter wait time, and if they do, then that means we will move up faster when those people switch. Who knows though, there may be no one switch.
We went to Birmingham Saturday morning and got fingerprinted for the 4th time and hopefully the last. We got fingerprinted twice for our homestudy, the first set wasn't readable and had to be redone. Once for our agency, and the last time for CIS. I was so scared and prayed all day Friday and Friday night that we wouldn't get sick and miss our appt. time. It was 9am Saturday and at our Friday coop classes, there were 2 kids in Hannah's class vomiting. Then, Aaron took the girls to a birthday party Friday night while I was at work and the birthday boy vomited 3 times at the party. My prayer was "Lord, just let them wait to get sick until we get back from Birmingham" Missing our appt. would have meant losing almost $800, since we would forfiet all that money and have to reapply. God answered my prayer even better in that none of the girls got the stomach virus this round.
There were 3 papers in our dossier that need to be corrected. I have 2 back to the agency corrected and I am still working on the 3rd. Aaron's medical form. He misspelled a word on the original and put a line through it and the Guatemalan govt. doesn't allow mark throughs. So, I sent it back to the doctor and asked the doctor and notary who works in the MD office to please just redo it exactly as before and send it back. If they were nice enough to put the same dates as before , I wouldn't have to county and state certify again. Unfortunately, they put September date, but upon further inspection, they signed 2 separate dates. The whole point of having a notary is that the notary is saying that they actually saw that person sign, so having 2 dates makes it a little unbelievable, so I will have to get it redone again. I hate to keep bothering them, but usually when people find out they are helping with an adoption, they are happy to help.
Working hard!
Here are the girls working hard at school. I have trouble finding enough space for all of them to have enough room to work, so these tv trays have been real nice for that. Unfortunately, we don't have enough chairs to furnish both the kitchen table and our homeschool table, so every day it means carrying chairs back and forth. Don't feel sorry for me though, it is my fault. I am too cheap to buy new chairs and despise shopping so much that I am too lazy to make myself go t0 yardsales.
As you can see behind Hannah, there is a mess on the dresser. Or you could see it as a blessing - most of them are clothes given to us that I haven't gotten around to sorting through.
Madelyn is in 1st grade this year, Natalie is in Kindergarten, and Hannah just likes to be in the same room with all of us. Sometimes she wanders out to the living room to watch cartoons or plays, and sometimes she colors, and other days I read books with her while the other two work alone. (And some days, I say "stop interrupting/talking/humming/singing/making noise/etc. so that I can help your sister!!!")
We are enjoying the curriculum this year. It is called Children Around the World. I thought it was fitting since we will be adopting a child from another country this year. It comes with maps, books, cookbooks, cultural activities, stories, books for me to read to the girls, books for Madelyn to read to me, all about children from other places. Last night we had our meal from Spain - Spanish rice, flan, and fried bananas (I couldn't find plantains, and the bananas ended up looking like a pile of grubs. I couldn't even bring myself to taste them because of how they looked) The Spanish rice was really good, although Aaron and I are the only ones who really liked it. Flan was good since it was really just vanilla pudding with cinnamon.
A few weeks ago, Aaron's parents were here and we had our Irish supper - Irish stew (made with beef since I couldn't find lamb - not much choices in the grocery stores here), Irish Soda bread, Irish potato cakes, and apple cinnamon bread. Again, mostly the adults who liked the food, the kids just picked at it. France is next week, maybe it will go over better.
Enough blogging for now. Karen
Just Starting to Blog
Hello! I finally decided to start bloggin after reading numberous blogs daily. It seems to be a good way to help our friends and family keep up with what is going on in our lives. I am also hoping to use this blog to keep people posted on our adoption and our homeschooling.
It will probably be a while before this blogsite is nice and pretty and I start utilizing all it has to offer. I am not too good with the computer and if anything messes up, I am usually yelling for Aaron to come help me. Plus, all of you that have been in my home realize that I am not a very decorative person, so plain and simple is what you will get. By the way, it will most likely be me, Karen, who writes these blogs, if Aaron ever decides to write, I will tell him to be sure and identify himself.
It will probably be a while before this blogsite is nice and pretty and I start utilizing all it has to offer. I am not too good with the computer and if anything messes up, I am usually yelling for Aaron to come help me. Plus, all of you that have been in my home realize that I am not a very decorative person, so plain and simple is what you will get. By the way, it will most likely be me, Karen, who writes these blogs, if Aaron ever decides to write, I will tell him to be sure and identify himself.
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