Happy birthday to...

 I realize that today is Monday, and that it has been several weeks since I actually posted about "one of the women I most admire." I have good excuse - no really, I do! - in that for the past 3 weeks I have either had company (a rare event) or been out of town (an even more rare event!) It was delightful to get to see my best friend Rachel and my best friend/sister Daniella! Life has been hectic, but fun, and now it is just starting to settle back to normal, and we are getting ready for school and Awana and choir and all those activities to start!

Today, instead of "one of the women I most admire," I have to post about a future women, my little girl Gabriella, because today is her 2nd birthday! In some ways it's hard to believe she's already 2...but in many ways we think of her as being much older than she is! She is such a little mother to everyone around her, including her parents, her brothers, her baby sister, her dolls, and all and sundry "dog-dogs," "kitty-cats," and "cheep-cheeps" that cross her path!

She made this "sling" for her baby doll herself, out of one of her brother's old t-shirts!

When Gabriella was born, I tried so hard to convince everyone to call her "Ellie," which I thought was just the cutest nickname...but it never stuck. Everyone at church calls her "Gabby," but her main nickname is "Gabs" courtesy of Joseph, and that's pretty much what we all call her. It fits, too, because she is quite gabby! She can pretty much communicate whatever she wants/needs, and she is quite proficient at tattling on her brothers! She is a girly girl through and through - every color is "pink" no matter what color the object actually is, and she loves shoes, purses, and makeup - although she has gotten in trouble for getting into it so many times that she walks around saying "makeup a NO-no" at random intervals, just to be sure we remember. She has recently started praying little prayers, in her own way, at Bible and dinner time, and her favorite Bible story is Jesus feeding the five thousand with loaves and "fishies."  She has a very sweet and affectionate nature...but she is also the most strong willed child I have ever seen...yikes. I am just praying that she will align her will with God's will for her life, and then she can be as strong willed as she likes! 

Happy birthday, my sweet Gabriella! I am so blessed to be your Mama!

100th blogday...and killer brownies

First of all, this is my 100th post. So "Happy 100th Blogday" to you all, and thanks for reading about my crazy and random life!

As everyone knows, the best part of any birthday is not the presents, the balloons, the games, or being another year older...it's the cake. As one person put it: "My favorite song? 'Happy Birthday.' You got to love any song that ends in cake!" So in honor of this "blogday" here is a fabulous recipe for gluten-free brownies, which I found and then adapted yesterday while I was feeling blue.

You have to understand this very important fact about me: I find baking therapeutic. (Apparently I can't spell "therapeutic." I typed it in wrong three times before I finally gave up and used spellcheck!) When I am upset, mad, depressed, or even just bored, I like to bake stuff. Unfortunately, then I eat it! Last evening I was bummed because Robert had to work late for the 2nd night in a row, and I was craving chocolate, so I came up with these evil little babies. And then I ate way too many of them!

German Chocolate Brownies
adapted from this recipe

Whisk together:
1 1/4 cups Pamela's gluten free pancake and baking mix
1 cup of sugar
6 (generous) Tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a small bowel or large cup, mix:
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup oil (I used coconut oil - if you do, make the water hot and dissolve the oil in it so it stays liquid)
1 egg (room temperature; to make it room temp quickly, place in warm water for a few minutes)
1 (generous) teaspoon vanilla

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Add in 3/4 cup butterscotch chips or chocolate chips. Pour batter (it'll be thick) into a greased 8x8 glass baking dish. Sprinkle chopped pecans and shredded coconut on top of the
batter. (I suppose if you wanted it to taste even more like German chocolate cake, you could mix in some melted butter and brown sugar to simulate the actual frosting.) Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. I would advise baking it on one of the lower racks for most of the time and then moving it to the top rack for about the last 10 minutes - that way, the coconut will get all nice and toasted and brown, but not burn. These are fabulous warm, although they stick together better once they're cooled. ;-)

Mouths, enjoy - and waistlines, don't blame me!  

Walk for Life!

This Saturday, August 27, our whole family will be doing the Walk for Life event to help raise money for CareNet Pregnancy Center. Although Robert and I have always been passionately pro-life, this is the first time we've ever signed up, and we kind of did it at the last minute. But I am really excited about doing it and taking all of our kids to walk (or ride, as the case may be with the littlest ones) with us!

If anyone is interested in sponsoring us and donating money to CareNet, please go follow this link to donate or for more information. You can also contact me at katyavoss@gmail.com. And for those of you who do, thank you for donating - you are supporting such an important cause!

And whether you are able to donate or not, please remember to pray. It's time we put an end to this unspeakable evil of abortion.or our whole nation is going to suffer for it. God is not going to withhold His wrath forever. Pray for Him to change hearts and save lives. What an honor to be a tiny part of that!    

War of the Weeds

The Little House on the Prairie books are some of my very favorites, and growing up I ALWAYS envied Laura Ingalls her exciting pioneer life. It sounded so romantic to get to play in the creek, bake "green pumpkin" pies, get a Christmas barrel in May, and help with the haying. Somehow I think my imagination must have glossed over the most important point of being a farmer's daughter: it is HARD WORK!!

Yesterday, thanks to some research I did on pesticides on our produce and, well, LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW AT MY YARD, I decided I need to plant a garden. The trouble is, the weeds have pretty much taken over. A few years ago, my parents helped us dig up our yard and plant beautiful grass everywhere. However, thanks to a winter of not living in our house and then a summer of no rain, hot sun, and no maintenance (Daddy too busy at work and Mama with a new baby), our poor grass is mortally unhappy. At least, I hope its not mortally, but it doesn't look too good...And then it rained tons in late July, which perked up the grass a bit but also gave carte blanche to all those weeds which had been germinating unchecked! Ack!

So yesterday afternoon, armed with my shovel, I went out to tackle the weed problem. Ha. Ha. Any envy I ever felt for Laura is deader than my grass! I spent more than an hour in the hot hot sun (because apparently Baby will only nap and let me work during the hottest times of the day), hacking and digging and chopping and pulling, and by the time she woke up I was filthy, exhausted, sore, aching, hot, sweaty...and had cleared about a square foot of space. Okay, maybe a little more than that. But not much more! Whew! In the War of the Weeds, so far they are winning.

I got up this morning determined to go out in the early morning while it was still cool...well, it was cool! So cool it started raining 5 minutes before we went out. So it was back inside for a few hours. Poor Joseph was SO excited about going out - his Daddy had bought him a new pair of gloves and a trowel to help weed, and he was DYING to use them - and he was heartbroken that he couldn't. He stubbornly insisted that is was NOT raining. I told him to go look out the front door. He came back and said "Well, it may be raining in the front yard but it is NOT raining in the backyard!" Oh boy. We finally made it out about 11:30, and I was hoping the clouds would stick around to keep things cool, but no such luck. On the upside, the wet ground made it a lot easier to pull the weeds out! But eventually it got so hot we couldn't take it, and Baby woke up right about then, so we came in for lunch. We made another small dent. But maybe with time and persistence, we will eventually win the war.

someday I hope my garden looks like this!

I have never tried a garden before, but with food prices soaring and finding out all our favorite fruits/vegetables are on the "Dirty Dozen" list of most pesticide-contaminated, I am willing to give it a shot. The kids love any excuse to play in the dirt!

Still, I am glad my livelihood does not depend on farming. We would starve! And I have one thing Laura Ingalls did not, something I am infinitely thankful for: a shower! 

To dress or not to dress?

On Monday, I was changing Elora and getting her dressed for the day, and I asked Joseph to bring me some clothes for her. I was thinking of a onesie or sunsuit or something like that, but he and James returned shortly with their arms full of all her most fancy, frilly dresses! After much coaxing by the boys, I finally agreed she could wear one of the dresses, even though we weren't going anywhere at all that day. I usually dress everybody in their "scrubby" play clothes - i.e. the t-shirts that the stains won't come out of - on days when we don't see anybody, but I figured Elora was outgrowing her clothes so fast she might as well wear her dress. I put it on her and James exclaimed "oh look! A princess!"

Cute as it was, this got me thinking, and I realized that any time I ask one of the boys to bring me clothes for Elora or Gabriella, they bring me a dress. And the more I thought about, the more I realized that boys treat girls differently when they dress like....well, girls. There is something inherently feminine about dresses and skirts that I think men (at least, most men) prefer to pants. Our society has gotten so far away from girls wearing skirts on a daily basis, and the distinction between masculine and feminine has become more and more blurry. The other day we were at the park, and there were two teenagers there, and for the longest time I couldn't figure out whether one of them was a boy or a girl. (I'm still not completely sure...I'm leaning toward boy with longish hair though...) The clothes and haircut were so ambiguous, it was hard to tell. And I think its sad that feminism, which women have claimed is their path to freedom, has done everything it can to strip us of our femininity.

I am not trying to make an argument that "the skirt makes the woman" to paraphrase an old Latin saying. A woman can wear a dress and still be opposed to all that is truly feminine, while another woman can be a true lady while wearing jeans. Heart attitude is the most important thing. I understand Paul's point about our beauty not being wrapped up in what we wear, but in a "gentle and quiet spirit." However, I do think we should view our femininity as a good thing, something that makes us different from but not weaker or less than men. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created mankind in His own image; in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them." We are both created in the image of God, and our femininity is one aspect of God's character that He gave only to women.

I'm not trying to say women should never wear pants, either. I realize that there are many circumstances where wearing a skirt is not a good idea. Like while playing soccer. Or riding a bicycle. Or when its -20 outside. But I do think we as women could make more of an effort to bring back lovely and feminine clothing styles. And yes, I have realized (from experience) that the long flowing sleeves of Renaissance dresses are not conducive to doing dishes, and the Victorian blouse with a hundred tiny buttons down the back is no good to nurse in. I usually don't vacuum the house wearing high heels and pearls either. (In fact, wearing heels while carrying babies is generally not a good idea...especially when you're clumsy like me!) But I do think there is a way to incorporate more skirts, dresses, and femininity into my attire, even if it means changing 10 minutes before my husband gets home! Which is what I did today....

(yeah right, you know I didn't look like this...)

P.S. Here's an idea for getting started if you don't have a lot of skirts/dresses in your wardrobe: go to the thrift store! Skirts can be had very cheaply, and if you buy either a solid basic color like black, white, or brown, it goes with any color top. Or if you buy a skirt with lots of bright colors/pattern, you can pair it with a solid t shirt in any of the colors in that skirt. Skirts are the easier thing in the world to alter, too - if it's too small in the waist, chop off the top (assuming its long enough), turn the fabric down, and stitch all around the top, making a thin hollow band. Make sure you leave a small gap in the band so you can thread the drawstring through.  Hook a safety pin onto one end of a ribbon or cord, then feed it all the way through the band, pull ends to tighten/loosen, and your skirt will always fit!

One of the women I most admire: Week 2

I've decided that my sister Daniella is like the Greeks and I am like the Romans: she comes up with good ideas and I steal them! Which is why, inspired by her, I am going to try to do a weekly post about a certain theme. (Here's a link to her blog, which is awesome by the way) Last week I wrote about my mother in law, and how she has inspired me, and that got me thinking about other women who have inspired me as well. It's a pretty long list, so I will try to write about one each week. We'll call it my Monday post (although no promises...it may be posted Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Friday. Or not at all...but I plan to try). So here is the second week of "One of the women I most admire." (Note - these are not in a particular order, from "first" to "last" or anything like that. Just as they come to me...")


 I don't have to look far for one of the women - perhaps THE woman - I most admire, because she has been right in front of me my entire life. Yes, of course I am talking about my own mother! I think as a kid you love your mom and admire her without really thinking about it, but once you grow up - and especially once you have kids of your own - you finally realize just how amazing your mom is! Right after giving birth to my first child, I turned and looked at my mom, who had helped me through it, and said "Mom, I am SO sorry for everything wrong I ever did to you!" And if just having the baby is that hard and painful, well... I think parenting gets even harder from there!

Mom holding Joseph, her first grandchild, right after he was born. I never would have made it through his birth without her!

Its hard to know what to write about my mom, simply because there is SO much I could write about! It would take a book - maybe a trilogy - to talk about everything she has done and been for me. Everything I know about being a mother, I learned from her. She had the courage to do things differently, both from the way she had been raised and the way society said they should be done, and instead based her parenting decisions on the Bible and her convictions about it. She is a black-and-white person in a gray world; she is always searching for God's best instead of compromising on what's "ok" or "not so bad." I confess that sometimes was frustrating or embarrassing to me as a teenager, but the older I get, the more I realize how important it is to be unwilling to compromise on the truth.

Mom and I being silly as she helps me get ready for my wedding

My mom is the most unselfish person I know. She is always doing something to serve someone else, whether its watching a young mother's kids so she can get some rest, or making a meal for someone who is sick, or inviting someone who is lonely over for dinner. Her first two reactions upon hearing any bad news are "I will pray for them" and "what can I bring them?" I know that she has her faults, that she is not perfect, but I have seen her daily live out her faith for 27 years, and there is no one I admire more. She is a constant example and source of encouragement to me, and I call her at least once a week to say, "Mom! Help! How do I..." and she always has a good answer for me.

Right now she's out of town, and I miss her a lot! Getting together with Mom is always the highlight of my week, and I can't wait until she gets back so I can see her again. My kids wake up saying "Can we go to Grammie's house?" every morning, and I echo that sentiment wholeheartedly!

I can't think of a higher compliment than to have people say "she is like her mother." I hope someday I will earn that honor.  


" Her children arise and call her blessed; 
   her husband also, and he praises her: 
 “Many women do noble things, 
   but you surpass them all.” 
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; 

   but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. 
Honor her for all that her hands have done, 

  and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."

Proverbs 31:28-31