Our Missionary

This week was bittersweet for  my family.... on Wednesday, we dropped our 'son', Jon, off at The Mission Training Center in Provo, UT to begin training for his mission to the Belgium Netherlands Mission.  He will be teaching the gospel in the Dutch language.  We are LDS (mormon) and all worthy young men, 19 years of age are asked to go serve the Lord for 2 years.  He was willing and excited for this experience!  We're so proud of him and his choice to serve.  It was a difficult road for Jon, he isn't a member of our family and he admits that if he hadn't come to live with us he certainly would not have chosen to serve the Lord.

Let me tell you a little about how Jonathan came to live with our family.  A little history first... my father baptized Jon's dad (Carl) back in the early 1970's.  My dad was the bishop of our ward and met him through the missionaries and took him under his wing.  He became close with our family and we spent lots of time with him.  Carl served a mission in Austria and met a great family while there.  After his mission, he returned to visit that family and ended up marrying one of their daughters, Eva.
They lived in America for a while, but ended up moving back to Austria, where Jonathan was born.  Jon's father died when he was 5 years old.  His mother came out to visit our family when Jonathan was 10 and he asked if he could stay the rest of the summer with our family.  His mother agreed, but Jon ended up staying a full year.  His mother had always had a difficult time with Jonathan and asked if we would help raise him.  We agreed.

When Jonathan came to live with us he didn't speak must English, but learned very quickly.  After that year, he went back to live with his mother for a couple years.  He began to be very rebellious making life very difficult for her and she asked if we would take him again.  We were excited to have him come back!  When he returned though we soon saw that we had taken on a different kid than had been with us a couple years earlier.  He was causing lots of problems and we really didn't want to have him if he was going to make life in our home crazy.  So, we told him that he had to reimburse us for the plane ticket we spend to get him out here and make the money to go back to Austria.  He was 14 at the time and we had been homeschooling him.  We found him a landscaping job and had him working full-time to earn the money to go back to Austria.  We knew that having him work hard to earn the money would most liking make a change in him and we were right!

By the time he earned most the money he had become very humbled and asked if he could stay.  We were thrilled to see his change of heart and we were glad to have him.  He only returned to Austria twice during those years to visit and his mom and sister came out a couple times to visit him.  So Jon lived with our family for more than 5 years.  He has been a joy to have as part of our family.  He has always fit in and always felt like one of our own.  He's been a great blessing to our family and such a great example to our other kids!

Some of our extended family coming out to say goodbye to Jon.

The girls just love Jon and are so happy for him.  Although, Cassie (the one on the right) is still crying that he's gone.  Jon and Cassie are very best friends.  She's away at college and I call her several times a day to see how she's doing.  It's getting better now for her, thankfully!

My boys!  All my kids bring me so much joy!

We all love Jonny so much and are going miss him like crazy!  But, we know these are going to be the best two years of his life!!!

My Pantry

I've had so many of my family and friends suggest that I post photos of my pantry on my blog and I've finally decided to go for it.  First, I just want to say for those who may not know, our house burned down about three years ago and of course when something like that happens you get to 'redo' all those things you didn't like in the previous house.  I had a large pantry in my last home, but it never really worked for me.  I always wanted those can rotation racks, for starters.  I loved that idea and I was definitely going to make those part of my new pantry.  Second, I wanted to be able to fit 5 gallon buckets on my shelves for food storage.  I don't have any of those on there right now, but I wanted that to be an option for me.

The original plan was to put in a large pantry and a counter top for my crock pot, and other larger/small appliances to sit on.  We used the original foundation of the house and needed to rebuild with nearly the same dimensions as the old house.  So, we made the kitchen and family room smaller and even took out one bedroom to add a VERY large pantry/extra kitchen.  We entertain a lot, not to mention having lots of kids who have lots of get togethers themselves, so it's been nice to have a space for that.  

We hired several carpenters while building the house for about a week and then hired full-time the one that would work for the least amount of money, but was still really good at his trade.  He ended up doing lots of carpentry work for us that we would have never been able to do in a good economy.  

One last thing, when our house burned down most of our old major appliances still worked (they were banged up but hey, they worked) and our cabinets were in pretty good shape, just banged up from roof tiles hitting them.  So we reused all those in the pantry.  We repainted all the cabinets and the only appliance we purchased for that space was a dishwasher.   I know, I know... most people don't have a dishwasher in their pantry, but it's actually an extra kitchen too. 

Welcome to my pantry/extra kitchen... I could have cleaned the door before taking the pic!  Oh well!

Here are those can rotation racks I mentioned.  I LOVE them!!! I got them at a Walmart in Utah for about $150.00 each.... I think.  So worth it!

I had these corner shelves that I didn't know what to do with and I saw these super cute canisters on a little of this. a little of that  and I loved them!  So I went to Walmart and bought eight of them (about $7 each) and put some of my bulk stuff in them.  I currently have canisters for flour, bread flour, sugar, brown sugar, pancake mix, rice, pecans, and walnuts.  I love them so much and have room for more so I'm thinking I'll do some beans, powered sugar, chocolate chips.... I don't know, I just really like them A LOT!  You can purchase the vinyl for the canisters at Say it on the Wall.

Here's a closer look at my canisters.  Aren't they super cute?!

Here are my shelves that can old 5 gallon buckets.  Well, at least the 5 bottom shelves can all the way across.  I think we set it up so I can get 6 buckets on each shelf.  

You can't really see them, but I put labels below each shelf so the kids know where to put everything.  I think it's pretty obvious, but they always seem to put things away in the wrong place.  The labels keep them accountable.  

Here's the shot of the pantry side of the room. (sorry it's blurry)  As you can see I have a double oven there on the left which came from the old house.  The door leads to my garage which makes unloading groceries very convenient!  

Here's the 'kitchen' side of my pantry.... I know it's completely over the top, but I seriously couldn't talk my husband out of it when we rebuilt the house.  He wanted to use the old cabinets and said he'd rather have a smaller kitchen and family room and have this space then not.  You probably can't tell, but there are 4 crock pots on the left side counter from a party we had the other night.  We had over 100 people at our house last weekend.  So when I say we entertain, I'm not kidding!  My husband and I are both one of nine kids and our Thanksgivings are always at our house and we usually have over 75 people attend.  It's been a nice way to keep everything out of the way when we have large get-togethers.  

In the cabinets are all my small appliances, serving dishes that I use when I entertain and our nicer dishes that I only pull out on special occasions.  But, this is also the 'kids kitchen' and when they have friends over they use this one so I don't have to see the mess.  So there are also a couple cabinets with plastic dishes and pots and pans for them to use.

I have to admit that sometimes it stinks having both kitchens.  First of all, the kids eat in the dinning room then put the 'pantry' dishes in the main kitchen and we are always having to take those dishes into the other room after washing them.  Second, I HAVE 2 KITCHENS TO CLEAN!!! Who needs that! But we don't use it so much that it's that big of a deal most the time.

All in all, I'm glad my sweetheart talked me into this space.  It's been a lifesaver when we entertain.

Flashmaster - Electronic Math Flashcards!

We've been through our share of math flashcards, as I sure many of you have!  I was reading through the blogs I follow and found the Flashmaster on one of the blogs I read... (I truly wish I remember which blog it was so I could give credit!!!)  The the fact of the matter is that the Flashmaster is easy to use, fun for my son, and more convenient than fumbling with a bunch of flashcards.  I wish I had had it with my older kids, but I'm glad to have it for my youngest.  One great convenience is that we can take it with us when we run errands and he can work on his facts in the car.

I was honestly a little hesitant because of the price ($49.95!!!) but I'm happy with it and I'll just pass it off to one of my kids when they're ready to start homeschooling.  So, it will be used for the next generation... very far down the road... but still!  

Great product!