Fresh Strawberry Pie Recipe

The kids and I went and picked strawberries yesterday at Good & Miner strawberry fields in Lebanon, came away with 21 pounds for 21 dollars, you can't beat that.:)

Rewarded myself with a LARGE slice of Strawberry pie last night and again for lunch. Here is the recipe if your interested.

Ingredients:

• 1 9" Crust or Graham cracker crust
• 6 cups strawberries, hulled makes 2 graham cracker crust pies or 1 deep dish pie
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Chilling time: 4 hours

Preparation:

 Bake at 400 degrees until light brown and crisp, about 8-10 minutes.  Cool completely. Mash enough strawberries to measure 1 cup. Mix granulated sugar and cornstarch in a heavy saucepan and stir in strawberries. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Cook and stir for 1 minute and then remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and cool. Beat cream cheese with powdered sugar, lemon juice,  until smooth and spread in cooled pie crust. Slice remaining strawberries and arrange over pie. Pour cooked and cooled strawberry mixture over the whole strawberries and chill for 3-4 hours or until set. Refrigerate any remaining pie.

DEVOUR all by yourself or you could save a little for the hubby:) 

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Family Time

Hope your enjoying the warm days with your little people. 

Gardening

 Since the weather is finally warming up, I thought I would share a few of my favorite perennials with you. I love to be outside but I don't always have as much time to work in the yard as I would like. Over the years I have killed several flowers,shrubs, roses and even trees, I have slowly learned what is easy and what I will never plant again!

 Catmint, Hardy Geraniums and

Valerian are all in the photo above. All of them reseed and are incredibly easy to care for.

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 The blue flower here is another form of Geranium,  beautiful and easy!

These guys are foxglove, they are biennials and drop seeds like crazy. Enjoy the warm weather and hope you get to enjoy a little gardening.:)

Mommy is tired and grumpy- watch out!

Although I may not admit as often as I should, I lose my patience with my children. Lately it seems to be very often, between allergy issues, terrible weather, Marshall's very messy age and long homeschooling days my patience is wearing thin. I find myself apologizing daily(hourly) for losing my temper, as well hearing my words and tone repeated in the way my kids talk to each other, a little humbling and frustrating. We are all getting on each others nerves, just within the half hour of dinner Marshall had spilled blue finger nail polish everywhere, including in his mouth and smeared mashed potatoes through his hair. Mommy is tired and grumpy.

So if you think of it send a little prayer up for my sweet little people as we wait on sunshine, less pollen and summer break. If you are feeling a little tired and grumpy I will leave you with a few paragraphs from a book I have found encouraging.

The task of stewarding children's lives is not a short-term process. There is no quick list of rules that can be followed in one short year that will ensure success. The mission of motherhood requires grit. It requires perseverance. And that often means years of repetitious and mundane tasks, years of repeating yourself, years of wondering whether anything you do or say makes a difference. " Clean up your room!" " Please talk to your sister kindly!" 

Where do we get this kind of endurance? It's part of understanding the job of motherhood and plain old stubbornness always help too. We must chose to believe that God himself will reward our choices and efforts to raise a godly heritage for his glory. It is for him and his purposes that we must endure, trusting that he who promised is faithful. 

I have to trust that though I am constantly confronted by my children's immaturity as well as my own, the seeds of my training and my years of watering the love, faith, and prayers will indeed someday mature the fruit of a godly character. My hope is in the unchanging character of God-that indeed he will reward my faith efforts to obey him. He himself will build both them and me into all we need to know and be.

The Mission Motherhood by Sally Clarkson

"Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised." Hebrews 10:35-36