My kids just ate brussel spouts and didn't even know it.

I know all about how eating healthy can heal the body and I stay on point for a big part of my life.

But, getting my kids to eat the right things is sooo much easier said than done. Their school provides free breakfast and free lunch for everyone. It is some program with no kid goes hungry and it last for about 3 years, I am pretty sure we are on the last year for the program. I feed the kids breakfast at home but there is still food for them at school that they grab. The free lunches just saves us tons of money so we just let them get that. I am pretty sure I will be starting to make their lunches on tuesday when they go back to school

Their eating sucks.
 Miss Ava just finished her 3rd round of antibiotics for strep throat and I am pretty sure it is not gone yet....I am fed up with the way they eat and starting tonight we are cutting tons of things out of their diet. Since they have a few more days on their fall break it will be easier to monitor what they eat. I have giving my kids fair warning that we were changing the way we eat. For example, last week we finished off the last of the sweet cereal and we are not buying more.

This has been a battle for a long time, Jerry thinks it is fine to have it just on the weekend and I want it gone forever. I am fine with a balance but it seems that there is always something sweet to eat and it blends right into the weekend with crap cereal. I think he is seeing the need for change.




I wanted to start our healthy eating asap. I do not want to take Ava to the dr one more time. I want to heal her with prayer and food. Tonight's dinner was the start of that. It was a soup packed full of nutrients.
I made a soup because it is one of the easiest ways to get veggies into my kids.  I had left over chicken and homemade chicken broth in the fridge. I also found some Brussels spouts and had an idea. They are packed full of vitamin C and we need that right now.
I already took some onions, garlic, and bell peppers and sauteed in a dutch oven. I chopped off the end of the brussel spouts and tore off the top leaves. I, then chopped them in half and threw them into a food processor and added a bit of olive oil.

I pulsed into it was fully chopped and threw it into the dutch oven and sauteed and stirred into all heated through. I also add one sweet potato and salt and pepper. When it was all heated I threw in about 6 cups of broth and brought to to a boil until potatoes were soft.
I transfer it in batches to my vitamix and pureed until completely smooth. -be careful b/c the steam will be very hot-

In another dutch oven (bc I still had un-pureed soup in the other) I added about 2tbs of butter, a bit of diced white onion, and diced one white potato (this was simply for texture in the soup) and stirred to heat up.

All the pureed soup got poured on top (through a strainer) and again brought to a boil to cook the white potato.

When fully done I added the already cooked (left over) shredded chicken. Season with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, herbs, and/or old bay seasons to your tasting

I also took some gluten free bread and toasted it and chopped to make homemade croutons.

Gabi went to the grand parents for the night but all the other kids ate it all!! I told them I don't even care if they eat the chicken and potatoes in the soup but that they had to drink all the broth. 
This may be a tiny step but I am happy we are moving in the right direction. I will be updating here on how it goes. Ava and kori will no doubt be my most challenging kids. They are extremely picky eaters and veggies are far from the "yes" list.
Pray it goes well...mmmmkay

Clingman's Dome and views worth any hike.

Today we got a late start and changed our mind a few times on what we wanted to do with our day. We settled on Clingman's Dome because it was closer than other options.
We drove up the mountain and the temperature dropped 20* Say what??? It felt awesome though.
I took lots of pictures with my phone and real camera and will post the best of both.
The hike to the top was 1/2 a mile and a super steep incline. Caden and I got to the top first. I was pretty happy with myself.

When I pause and think about the fact that I had major back surgery 6.5 mths ago and went a few weeks with some paralysis in my foot and severe nerve pain for mths and now I am hiking up mountains....I am blessed and feeling so much stronger.

Here are pictures from today. Since I am breaking from posting so much on facebook and instagram I am using this blog as a place to write about our day and post the pictures.
I am so happy we did this vacation this week during the kids fall break. Yes, the kids complained but all in all everyone had fun together and made memories.

This morning started out great with late sleep ins, worship music playing while breakfast was being cooked and the littles did their devotionals.

We then packed up and headed out. The drive was so beautiful and we wanted to stop at every single pull over spot..but we didn't.
Here is our day in pics.
Miss ava did not feel so well after the curvy drive.

 My boys....being boys..

 Lots of names signed to mark their place in time.

 

You would never know by this picture of me and Gabi that she didnt want to take a picture with her mama...on top of the mountain...

 

 After our mountain adventure we headed back down and went straight to Pancake pantry. We got there 7 mins before they closed. 

Ava some how managed to eat her chocolate chip pancake without going through the edges. 

We then walked around and looked for a cost efficient place to play with our large family. 

We settled on Treasure island putt putt golf. 

Girls against boys....boys won.

                                                      Winner Winner chicken dinner!!

A look at the Turney's on the Biltmore Estates.

Miss Gabi, my sweet first born is almost on her own and it breaks my heart. Soon she will be in college and fall break vacations will not work with her school schedule. This could be her last one with us. I pray it is not.

Caleb, my first son. He is the person who taught me about unconditional love from a male. He is one of the funniest people I know. His ability to mimic accents and sounds is like no other in our family. He should definitely seek out a job using this skill

Kori, is the most detailed person I know. Her ability to notice things around her and her creativeness is beyond what I could ever do. She sets goals for her self and hits them. I see a bright future for her.

 Caden, my little miracle surviving twin boy. He is the sweetest talker, he tells me daily how amazing and beautiful I am. If a flower is called wonderful, he responds.."like my mommy" What a gift he is to my sou.

Ava, the cream of the crop, is the perfect add on to our family. She is loved by every single one of us and has a sense of humor to match all of ours. She has big dreams of dancing, singing, and being a gymnast one day. She will do awesome at all those things.
So blessed God gave her to us after 2 losses and major health problems, she has changed us for the best.

 
Jerry, my sweetie of 20 years. We are so different and the enemy likes to get it my thoughts and wants me to focus on all those ways. But, when I remind myself that his differences are the very things that I totally suck at and would never thrive at, I am reminded at how blessed I am. God always knows what he is doing when he places you with someone. You will be very different and that is so together you can fill in each others weaknesses and together, with God, can be a strong force. 

We all had a really good time at Biltmore today....except for the end when I thought kids might be lost and spent forever looking for them...and didn't have cell service to call and check. They were not lost...I was apparently.


 These two pictures here are from the gardens. There were tons of mums here.

 And one final shot of the full Turney crew.

Put on the brakes, it is fall time!

Fall break is here and we have a full 11 days off, this counts the weekends, the full week, and the extra monday off from school. We are excited about spending time with the kids by doing some fun adventures. Last year for our anniversary Jerry bought two tickets to go to The Baltimore Estates in Ashville and we then used that price and applied it to a year season pass.

This allowed us to take the kids for FREE! With 5 of those little sweeties I love a good deal and free is about as good as it gets.
The trouble with this season pass is the 5 hour distance it is from our home. This is the reason we are almost back around to our anniversary (nov 1) and have yet to use it......until now. This week is our week to dream of a 1,000 acre farm, a pool and bowling alley in our home, and fireplaces so big we could stand up in them. The kids will learn some history and see things that our pictures from last year did little to show the amazement of this place.

In my perfect world I would own lots of land that had a creek running through it and lots of trees to climb. I would have a large kitchen with a full window seat and sitting area for friends to chat with while cooking them an amazing meal. I would have a huge stone fireplace and brick walls and an old farm table that was the perfect height for little ones to help make bread. I would learn to make bread and never need a recipe book.
In my perfect home I would still have the kids share rooms but the rooms would be a little bit bigger with Jack and Jill bathrooms. I would have big closets and little hidden nooks to play in. I would have my own art room that never got used for storage and I would paint and sew and create new things often. In my art room there would also be space for a photography studio.

My perfect world looks very different from my real world. There are times that I get super frustrated that I am a grown woman and have the ability to change my surroundings and yet my two worlds still look so different.
It is during those times that I have to be very purposeful about my words and my thoughts.
I can wake up and see a pile of papers that have been sitting there for a week and it just makes me mad......even though yesterday I was totally fine with it.
I can walk out into my small yard and just be so bummed that it doesnt have trees for climbing and building tree houses.
I walk into the kids rooms and get physically angry at how messy they got it again and that it is too small or that the closets are so tiny b/c its an old house.
I could look at my real life and my real world and hate everything about it because it doesn't match up to the beautiful art I have painted in my head. 

Or, I could thank God for the amazing location of my home and the amazing price we got it for years ago though a miracle of God. I could thank God for the small rooms being big enough for bunk beds and dressers and precious children playing. I could thank God that my yard is big enough for a perfect size garden that my kids and I have truly enjoyed taking care of this year.

There will always be things in our lives that we would like to change. Some things will be able to look different as we work on them and somethings may never happen. If we live our lives in angry about all the things we can't have or can't change we will be miserable people to hang out with. If all you do is complain than you might not be someone that people want to be friends with.  Constant complaining smells like poop and no one wants to sit and listen to poop talk. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Changing your mind set may be hard and feel super foolish at first but when we choose to be thankful it opens our hearts up to peace.

I look back at the last few years and see things done in my home now that were just dreams back then. I have dreams and goals and they seem so far fetch but I have learned that baby steps to any goal is so much better then the complainers on the side lines taking no steps at all.

Are you a thankful person or a complainer. Do your words smell sweet as your talk or more like poop? What are some things in your life that you can choose to be thankful today that maybe you were a bit ungrateful for yesterday? Try putting on some praise music and start thanking God for the very thing that drives you nuts. Ask God for wisdom on how to change it but to have peace while you are in that waiting stage. God is always faithful to help us when we ask.


I shall leave you today with this pic of my twin and I with our daddy. It was prob our first time in the mountains.

17 times.

17 is at least the number of times that I thought about going to facebook, instagram, or snapchat today. I actually thought it would be closer to 400 times.....so 17 is great. Any time I step back from something it always surprises me how much it comes to the forefront of my mind, how much I thought about it, and how much of a habit it is. This time does not prove to be any different. It was through prayer and the desire to find a balance in my life that I decided to change things up a bit. Some people say I have giving myself too many loop holes by still allowing some media time. But the goal is not about cheating and sneaking social media in, the goal is to find peace, put God first, and minimize things in my life. I have peace about this decision and that is part of the goal.

I talk big talk about wanting my family to get rid of games and tv, yet when I ask myself, am I ready to do that, I dont have a clear answer. I figured I need to start with me and let it bleed into their lives later.

I am not posting on Instagram so I figured I would post pictures of our day here on the blog.

Fall weather is starting to show it's face and the little ones are enjoying playing outside. They made a map and searched for all kinds of treasures and monsters. In our garden we have some old kitchen things for them to play with and they enjoyed making some pretend nature salads.

 Ava and Kori are my chefs in the making and even outside Ava is mixing and stirring up ideas.

Caden found some berriers (yes, they would told not to eat any of the "food") and those got used for all kinds of meals.

Today around lunch time we headed out to Centennial Park for the Celebrate Nashville festival. There were tons of people, venders, and great food places to try. 

Our kids have got it so easy, yet they complained about the tiniest things. They were hungry, they dont want that food, they are hot, they are cold, they have to pee (oh wait, maybe that was me) they want to buy this, their feet hurt, and the list repeats.
How many times do we do that with God. He brings us to a place in our day, our life, our walk and wants to bless us and we just complain.

He gives us a job, we complain about the pay, the co-workers, the hours, or the distance.

He gives us an apartment, we complain that it is not a house, the neighbors are loud, the rent it so high, or it's not big enough.

He gives us a house, we complain about the yard work, the house payment, the maintenance, the broken toilet, or the H.O.A fees.

He gives us a spouse, we complain about their clothes on the floor, their bad habits, their snoring, their inability to read your mind, or all the things you used to love that you now cant stand..for one more minute.

What if we just took a moment and paused? What would we notice? How would our attitude change?

What if my kids paused for a moment and took in their surroundings today? What if they accepted the idea that this is a chance to learn about other cultures, that this is a huge part of daddy's job When he talks to someone for 20 mins it is purposefully about making friendships and future connections, which could lead to that person learning about the loving Jesus.

I am a very -in the moment- kind of gal so I dont have much trouble being thankful for the moments I am in. But what if I looked at each day as little pockets of God planning out fun filled days for me to see new things and meet new friends? I think if I did that, it would change my attitude on a few things.

How do you see each day? How can you get better at being in the moment and being thankful for the days God plans out for you?

I will leave you with this pic from the fair last week. Caden, my sweet Asian boy, who is wearing the same shirt today as he was in this picture. This mama might need to do the laundry more or go buy some more clothes. :)

Gideon, laziness, and social media

3 topics all different, all connected. At the end is the month goal for me


Gideon is a man in the bible who's story is recording in Judges. He was a guy who was hiding in fear when an angel spoke to him.

At our church we are doing a women's fall bible study and this one is by Priscilla Shirer and the topic is Gideon.

I am not sure I have really read Gideon's story before this study. It is only 3 chapters, it should be easy to read, but some how I have not studied it until now.

I love how it tells us Gideon was afraid and God still spoke to him. I think so many times people think they have to have their junk in order to be called by God but this story proves that theory wrong.

Laziness is kind of my game here. I am sitting in bed on a friday night and it is not even 9:30. I have no plans to get up and no plans to get my bible to write out the exact scripture for this story. I apologize ahead of time and encourage you to read it for yourself...I mean it is only 3 chapters...

This week's study has been about God narrowing down the many to get to the few. Gideon is called to lead a battle and he sounds a horn (trumpet..something....go read it and let me know) to call the men. 32,000 men show up ready for battle. God says that is too many men and the group gets narrowed down simply by telling those that were scared to go home. 22,000 men scattered. That left Gideon with just 10,000 men. The first number was too low to win the battle but now this number...this was just ridiculous. Then God goes and does the crazy, he tells Gideon that it is still too many men and the group again gets narrowed down to a measley number of 300. This number...now it was just unheard of..it was just stupid...no one could win a battle with just 300 men...This was exactly God's point and it leads me to my last word.

Social media is a huge thing in so many lives, mine included. With Gideon God was showing him that something that seemed 100% impossible to do was actually possible with God's help. Even though the first number of 32,000 men it would be hard to win a war but they could take credit if they won. With 10,000 men the battle would be next to impossible to win but they could get victory and take credit. With just 300 men it would be impossible, standing in a pile of poo impossible, surrounding by thousands of bullies who are about to crush you impossible and so when they win there would be NO WAY they could take credit and God would get all the glory.

So many times in our lives we take credit b/c of our plenty..b/c of our 32,000 and we dont give the glory to God. Many times God is wanting us to decrease the things we have so that he can get the victory, so he can increase in our lives. Sadly we silently scream NO to God's increasing simply because we hold onto the plenty in our lives. Surely God doesn't want me to have less money by taking this other job. How else will I be able to bless others? Surely God doesn't want me to say no to people asking for help, I mean hasn't he called me to serve?

When we hold onto the abundance we can easily fall into the trap of not giving God glory for victory he deserves. Even if we give God glory, others can take it from him in their own heart. When we win battles in our lives that could happen no other way then a God miracle then no one can take that away even if it is the crazy impossible.

So with the study this week and through prayer I asked my self what is my 32,000 that God is trying to trim down?
Social Media came to mind and I was like ahhhh no, not that. I know God has called me to teach and speak the Word of God. Social media is a strategic way to make friends and keep in contact. See the problem with that is I can totally take credit and God gets nothing. So starting tomorrow, for 30 days, I am cutting WAY back on things and when I still get to teach God gets the credit..not me.
I will be posting on my blog as my outlet and linking it to my facebook page. I will log in twice a week to check my actual facebook page since I have my photography page and life group pages to check.

Are there some things in your life that you, in your abundance, are taking credit for when really the victory goes to God? Maybe he is asking you to narrow it down from 32,000 to 300.

Until next time.....I will leave you with this awesomeness. 

What's in your pantry?

I have a very well stocked pantry, 2 freezers, and my full fridge, yet, I still go shopping and spend hundreds of dollars on grocerys. So today I decided to trim that down some and save a penny. I went shopping in my pantry. 

I knew in my fridge was left over hamburger patties from dinner 2 nights ago. Most leftover meals are made into new creations so my family doesn't usually realize it is even leftovers, tonight was no exception. 

I took the left over patties and chopped them into bite size pieces. The patties were full of flavor bc they were made with  grass fed beef, turkey meat, and sausage. 

I then chopped some onions, bellpeppers and jalapeños I had frozen, and sautéed them for about 10 mins. I added salt, rosemary, and fresh basil. 

I grabbed a can of diced tomatoes, chicken broth, and Italian herb spaghetti sauce (I am not sure how long it had been in there) and added them to the sautéed veggie mixture. 

I let this summer and reduce down for prob 30-45 mins. 

During my free time I watched House hunters, called my sister so someone could feel sorry for me since I am not feeling well, and got water boiling for the pasta. I grabbed what ever pasta I had on hand and today chose some gluten free kind that basically rocks in the lack of gluten dept. 

Once the sauce was super reduced I added the chopped up hamburger patties. 

The meat did not need to be cooked of course, so I just heated it up and then yelled at the top of my lungs for everyone to wash their hands and get their booties to the table. 😉

Dinner was served, everyone enjoyed it and I was super pleased with my made up- thrown together- tomato sauce. 

This was a great meal and the best thing about it was I didn't spend any extra money, I shopped right out of my pantry 

What do your have in your pantry that you can make a meal with? Hashtag it 

#pantrymademeals on Instagram I would love to see what you came up with!