The Ways of Her Home

Embracing the homeward call

“Make Sure You Add Some Sprinkles in 2022!”

Happy New Year! It's 2022!! I have a festive little New Year's party to share with you today, compliments of my niece! At the young age of 7, my niece is already the party planning extraordinaire!! Her mama (my sister) has taught her so well! She reminds me so much of my girls when they were growing up, throwing parties for baby dolls and family pets. So precious. One day recently, my sister mentioned that my niece would probably enjoy a day at my house "baking and making". Of course I said yes immediately, and we later decided to throw a cousins' New Year's celebration! It was a small affair due to so many of the cousins already committed to other holiday obligations, but, as ... Read more

Teach Them Tuesday: Thumbprint Angels and a Christmas Story

Yesterday I mentioned a Christmas party we had with our homeschool friends. My friend, Kelli, hosted the event and did an amazing job planning and orchestrating a rotation of activities to accommodate our large number of kiddos! She arranged areas around her home for four stations: story, craft, cookie decorating, and games. She took care of the story time and asked three more of us mamas to take the other stations. I was assigned the craft station, so I planned a craft that would go along with the book Kelli would be reading in her station. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, by Gloria Houston, is a heartwarming story about a little girl, Ruthie, and her parents living in the ... Read more

Teach Them Tuesday: Thanksgiving at American Village

If you live in Alabama and have had the privilege of visiting American Village in Montevallo, you know what a fantastic educational experience it is. My kids and I have been four times and it has never failed to exceed our expectations. Our "First Friday" group--a homeschool co-op we do field trips with on the first Friday of each month--recently participated in American Village's Thanksgiving program for our November field trip. We enjoyed a day of inspiring American history and lovely fall weather! I have a few photos to share from this most recent trip, but be sure and check out my post from a previous visit for details about American Village and photos of its beautiful colonial buildings ... Read more

Fluff the Nest Friday: Tips and Tidbits for Thanksgiving Prep

Good Friday morning! Fall has flashed by in a blur and Thanksgiving is less than a week away! I'm not hosting Thanksgiving but I did host our small group's annual "Friendsgiving" this week. Beside the usual weekly cleaning routine, here are a few extra preparations I worked into the week leading up to our little feast! Even though I'd put out a few fall-ish items at my front door early in the season, it was time to freshen things up a bit. My summer ferns were still looking too good for me to move so I left those, swept the concrete, added a fresh door mat and a couple more pumpkins from my son's pumpkin patch (more on his pumpkin patch soon!). I took one of my winter wreaths and added ... Read more

Elegant Autumn Celebration Cake

A couple of weeks ago, my sister-in-law hosted a lovely birthday dinner for my mother-in-law. She and my other SIL prepared a delicious meal of family-favorite party foods and asked me to bring dessert. I asked the birthday girl what kind of cake she would like for her special day, but she said I could choose, which meant my husband and kids hinted at an Italian cream cake for several days after that, heehee. So, Italian cream cake it was! My sister-in-law said she would be decorating in a fall theme, so I wanted the cake to reflect her decor. As I mentioned a few months ago when I first posted the recipe for this cake, it really lends itself to so many different occasions with it's ... Read more

Hall Closet Turned Butler’s Pantry

I love getting creative with spaces and thinking outside of the box to make my house work for me. If I see a need for a new kind of space, a different arrangement, or additional storage, I put on my thinking cap and play around with a few ideas until I come up with a solution. Such was the case with my lack of table setting storage in my dining room. I had half of my table linens crammed in a kitchen cabinet and the rest in a laundry room cabinet. Chargers and vases were tucked in other various areas throughout the house. Having everything in so many different areas not only made it difficult to set a table quickly, but also created a challenge in really knowing my inventory. Now I'm ... Read more

Healthy Fall Fare

Fall season really ignites my cravings for so many delicious foods! If I'm not careful, I can easily lose control. So, lately I've been experimenting with recipes that offer some much-anticipated flavors of fall, but with the health benefits my family needs going into cold and flu season! I love apples with pork chops and have made them in the oven, but wanted a healthy recipe that would work in the crockpot while we were at church, and then be ready to serve when we got home. I found several on the internet so I combined ideas of each of them. Crockpot Apple Pork Chops Ingredients: ~6 bone-in pork chops, rinsed, patted dry, and lightly salted ~4 large apples of any kind ... Read more

Tropical Fruit Salad with Honey Ginger Syrup

I don't know about you but I just can't get enough fruit in the summer! I buy so much fresh fruit every week and we gobble it up. We eat it all year long but love the summer's seasonal fruits the most. Fruit is delicious enough without having to do anything fancy with it--I usually just wash and eat it on the spot--but occasionally I like to make it into a salad, tossed in a lite and healthy syrup. Today I'm sharing one of my favorite ways to do that! Tropical Fruit Salad with Honey Ginger Syrup (This makes a huge fruit salad for a crowd. If you want to cut the recipe in half, you can still use the whole pineapple.) Ingredients: 1 fresh pineapple, peeled and cut up 4 ... Read more