Giving thanks

The year is quickly drawing to a close. I can't believe it. Could it really be 2009 already?? Today I am taking some time to reflect on the many blessings that God has given me over the past year. He, alone, is the one who all good things come from. I have nothing else to do but to thank and praise Him.

1. I am thankful for Jesus. I am often in awe that He can love me so unfailingly when I come so short of what He wants me to be. I am thankful He has guided, directed, and loved me through 2008.

2. I am SO thankful for the Bible. Sometimes I think about what life would be like without it and I just can't imagine. I am thankful God has given us this beautiful book so that we may better know and serve Him. Luke had a bad dream the other night. He dreamed that there was some sort of "danger" outside of his bedroom trying to break down the door and get in. He said that he and John were there with swords trying to fight it off. Kind of a vivid dream for a 3 year old, right?? But, it was a great opportunity to explain to him that there IS a danger out there called Satan and that God HAS given us a sword, the word of God. (Ephesians 6:17). Let's never take this beautiful gift of God for granted. (As I so often do!)

3. I am also thankful for God giving me another year with these wonderful people who are my family. We've had several deaths in our community over the past year and it has just helped me realize that my family are not mine at all, but God's. He may choose to take them any time He pleases. But I am thankful that I've had one more year with them.

4. I am thankful for another life being created in me! I am getting really excited to meet this new baby. Because of circumstances with past pregnancies, this will probably be my last biological child. The doctors just don't think my body can handle any more. So, it is an extra special experience.

5. Earlier in 2008 we paid off all our debt! Granted, our debt was only around $1,600 or so, which to many of you isn't anything, BUT we've also managed to stay debt-free! No car payments, no credit cards, aww...it feels good. Praise the Lord.

6. I am also thankful for the fellowship of like-minded believers. I've come to realize over this past year that while other Christians and I may not see eye to eye on everything, fellowship can still be just as sweet.

7. Last, but certainly not least, I am thankful that God has given me the opportunity to be a "keeper at home". I realize that many out there are not able to so for one reason or another and so I truly feel blessed. I love staying home with my children. It's been a learning experience, that's for sure! But, I've seen myself grow in this area and it encourages me to keep going. Hopefully, I can remember this on the days I think I'm at my wit's end!

So, what things over the past year are you thankful for? How has God blessed you and your family?

Running the race,
~A

P.S. Happy Birthday, Mom!!

I did it!!

I've mentioned in the past of my desire to start waking up earlier in the mornings. My usual wake up call is the children come knocking on the door with one of these beautiful lines:

1. "Mommy! I'm hunnnnnngry!"
2. "Mommy! Bradley's stinky!"
3. "Mommy! I went pee-pee on my bed!"

I roll over, half bleary eyed, and mumble something about being there in a minute. Meanwhile, the children run around the house until I can get up and get dressed. Not exactly how I'd like my mornings to go. They get grumpy, I get grumpy. Yuck. I've heard many, many moms say how wonderful it is to get up nice and early so that you have time to prepare for the day. "Well, that's a nice thought." I'd always think. But getting out of bed early is SOOO hard! (at least for me, anyway) Well, I finally did it. Yay! John had to be at work at 6:00am the other day. I had started praying the day before, "Lord, please give me the strength and will power to get up!" The alarm went off at 5:45am (obviously it doesn't take John long to get ready for work!) and I got up! It was kinf of funny because John looked over at me and said, "Are you getting up for the day???" I just smiled and said "Yup." People, it was SO nice. I had a whole hour and a half to get things done. I started off with having a very refreshing time of reading God's Word and coming to Him in prayer. Usually my times with God are with the children interuppting every couple minutes with something. Which, isn't there fault. They are children. I totally take the blame for that. After that I had time to unload the dishwasher, wash some dishes that I had been too tired to wash the night before, start a load of laundry, make the bed and get the children's breakfast ready. I even had time to check my email, which usually I do while they eat breakfast. When they woke up I was able to greet them with a smile and a hug. And then we all had breakfast together. How lovely! I was anticipating in the afternoon for me to be really tired but, surprisingly, I wasn't! So, now I just need to keep the momentum going. I have to admit that the past couple days I haven't been getting up early, but I blame that on the fact that we've been out pretty late at night. A few verses that motivated me:

"O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;" ~Psalm 63:1

"I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me." ~Proverbs 8:17

"With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." ~Isaiah 26:9

If you've been thinking about getting your day started a little earlier, I totally encourage it. The difference in my whole day was amazing!

Running the race,
~A

The Mom List

I've had this list stuck to my refrigerator since around the time Lilly was born. I cut it out of one of those parenting magazines that I felt I HAD to subscribe to in order to be inducted into motherhood. When I first read it I didn't fully relate to the list but I still thought it was funny. It's come with me over every move, by my count that's 7 times in the last 5 years. Now that I've matured in parenthood (ha! Yah right!) I can TOTALLY relate to these things and it makes me giggle every time I read it.

5 ways you know you're really a mom

1. Your husband tells you he had a rough day and you say, "Here, honey, have a cookie."
2. You feel lucky if you've got only two spitup stains on your shirt.
3. You can do everything with one hand.
4. You see a screaming baby at the mall, and while most people cringe, you smile.
5. You realize you'd love a big, sloppy kiss from a pair of lips still sticky with juice.

Enjoy those little blessings! I know I do!

Running the race,
~A

Kids are funny!

I had to write this down for two reasons:

1. I know my parents will enjoy the story
2. I will probably forget within the next week

Most of us would know the children's song that goes "I may never march in the infantry. Ride in the Calvary. Shoot the artillery...." and then the chorus goes "I'm in the Lord's Army!" So, my parents bought the children some cd's of children's bible songs. This song is on there. We've been listening to them over the past couple days and Lilly has heard this song several times. I guess she didn't hear it quite right because all day yesterday she was going around the house singing "I'm in the Lord's R.V.!! I'm in the Lord's R.V.!!" Ha ha! Just had to share. :)

Running the race,
~A

Recipes!

Here are some recipes I've been meaning to post for a long time. They are fabulous. Try them!


E-Z fudge

3 cups (large 12 oz. package plus small 6 oz. package) semi sweet or milk chocolate chips
4 T. unsalted butter
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1. Fill the bottom of a double boiler with water and set it on the stove.
2. Put all indredients in the top half and stir with a spoon or rubber spatula. Turn the heat on to medium-low.
3. Slowly melt ingredients together, stirring every few minutes. It should take about 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, line a glass making dish with plastic wrap, enought so that the wrap flops over the edges of the pan on all sides.
5. When the chocolate chips have all melted and the mixture is smooth, remove the top pan from the heat and pour into the prepared dish.
6. To get the right texture, let the fudge cool completely. If you must, you can hurry the process by putting the baking dish in a larger pan filled with cold water. After the fudge cools, put it into the fridge for at least an hour. Don't skip this step! It will be impossible to cut if you don't!
7. To unmold: It works really well if two people grab the ends of the plastic wrap and lift up, pulling the block of fudge out of the dish. Transfer fudge to a cutting board.
8. Use a pizza cutter to cut the fudge into 1-inch squares. Now serve or pack up!

Peanut Butter Fudge

2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 2/3 cup sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 c. mini marshmallows
1 (10 oz.) package peanut butter morsels
1/2 c. chopped peanuts
1 t. vanilla extract

Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil in a large saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, 5 minutes; remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients, stirring until smooth. Pour into a greased 9 in. square pan; cool completely. Cut into squares. Easy!

Buttery garlic bread

1/2 c. butter
4 garlic cloves, pressed
1/2 t. salt
1 loaf italian bread
1 1/2 t. italian seasoning
1/4 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Melt butter in a skillet over medium-high heat; add garlic and salt, and saute 2 minutes. Cut bread into 1 1/2 inch slices, and dip into butter mixture, coating both sides. Place on a baking sheet.
Stir together Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese; sprinkle on 1 side of each bread slice. Broil 5 inches from heat 4 minutes or until cheese melts.
(Honestly, the best homemade garlic bread I've ever had!)

~A

Happy Birthday, Marie!

Today is my very best friend, Marie's birthday. In honor of this very special day I put together a little slide show of us over the years. A little background- Marie and I met our freshman year of high school...at band camp. :) She with her rubber ducky earrings and me in my Spock shirt (yes, as in Star Trek. Eek!). As soon as I was introduced to her I knew I wanted to be friends with this girl. So, I offered to give her a tour of the high school. Now, mind you, I was a freshman too, so I didn't know my way around the high school at all, but it didn't matter. That was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted 12 years and is still going. She moved to Maryland right before our junior year of college. After we graduated high school she decided to come back and go to K-state. I've heard her say that she came back more for me than for Devin (who she was dating at the time), sorry Dev. :) We've been through troubled times, college, weddings, babies, and much more together. God has blessed me with a truly wonderful friend and sister in Christ. Anyway, for the full effect of the slide show you have to play the you tube video along with the slide show. That's just how it works, people! Enjoy! Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY SWEET FRIEND! I love you!







And remember, Marie, "Happy Birthday to you. You're so young. Age is just a number. Don't you stop having fun." Those New Kids on the Block are so wise...



~A

Cravings...

Sometimes the side effects of pregnancy just aren't fair. Especially when you have some SERIOUS cravings and those cravings happen to be Kansas City based. Doesn't my body know I'm not there??? You'd think after four years it would know. Well, since I can't actually obtain my much sought after cravings...I thought I'd blog about them instead. And maybe some of you Kansas City-ites will find you are craving them too! :)

Oh, Topsy's, how I love thee. Your cinnamon goodness is almost too much for me to take right now. I blame this one on my grandma. Every year at Christmas time someone would send my grandma a bucket with cinnamon popcorn in it. Of course, being a grandma, she always let us eat it all! I didn't realize until just yesterday that Topsy's was a Kansas based company. I tried to find a store and was very displeased that I'd have to drive about 16 hours to obtain my beloved, fire-truck red popcorn. Bummer...major bummer.

This lovely little baby is called povitica. Have you heard of it? It's a sweet bread that's rolled paper thin and then filled all kinds of yummy fillings then rolled up and baked. My personal favorite is the cream cheese filling but to be fair, I've only tried 2 of the 7 flavors. Yum! It's made in a part of Kansas City called Strawberry Hill. I'd never heard of it. This wasn't a yearly thing at our house but I've had it enough to know it's good and I want some....right now. www.povitica.com


I totally took advantage of these when I lived in Kansas City. Winstead's. You see them all over in KC. Sigh....unfortunetly not here. My craving for this one is totally mental. I don't even know (or care) what I'd order there. I just want to sit in the slippery, squeaky seats, hear the oldies, see the waitresses in their cute little diner apparell, and have a hamburger, er... steakburger.



Finally! One I can actually have! I blame this one on my mom. She loves this stuff and every year at Christmas time it was in our freezer. In fact, Mom, you've got some right now don't you?? I'm happy to announce that I will be making my way to Wal-mart tomorrow to buy some. My favorite side item to go with it? Oreos. Actually, we don't eat Oreos. We eat Newman-O's (google it). So tasty. I can't wait.

Well, thanks for putting up with the random ramblings of a pregnant woman. If you've even been pregnant, you understand. I feel a little better just typing about all that yummy food, even if I can't have it. :) Enjoy the rest of your week !

Running the race,
~A

Kiddos

I love these guys!

new website

I'm ridiculous with the blogging. I really am. But, I've just had lots to blog about the past couple days! Forget that my children still aren't dressed and I should have left to run my errands about 5 minutes ago...I just found a great new website! I wasn't really going to blog about it but then I remember that I have lots of teacher friends who read this and I had to share. It's www.discountschoolsupply.com Great for homeschooling parents, teachers, or parents. They've got curriculum, art supplies, even classroom furniture. Check it out!

~A

I've been tagged!

Two posts in one day! Normally I try to stay away from that. I like people to think I have somewhat of a life outside of blogging but I've been tagged! I've never been tagged before. Thanks, Janae. Here are the rules:

1. Choose the 4th picture folder on my computer

2. Choose the 4th picture

3. Explain the photo

4. Tag 4 others

We store our pictures online at 23hq so I just picked the fourth tag and then the fourth picture. It's an oldie but a goodie!
























It's Lilly on her first birthday. We lived in Arkansas and I had made this "healthy" birthday cake. It was nasty...just being honest. She wouldn't eat it. We later had a celebration at my parents with strawberry shortcake and that went MUCH better.

Okay. Now I tag Leigh Ayn, Jeni, Leah G., and Edi

Your turn!

~A

My first vegetarian menu

Alright. I need some advice from my fellow vegetarians or anyone really. This is the first week John and I are shooting for going veg. With last week being Thanksgiving we just didn't feel like that was the best week to start. So, yesterday I sat at the computer for well over an hour trying to come up with a menu. It was a little overwhelming but I think I'll get used to it. I'd love to have some advice to see if you think it is a pretty well balanced menu. Keep in mind that this is just dinner.

Fri.- Baked beans (vegetarian) with either soy hot dog slices or tofu chunks, baked potatoes, broccoli, and cantaloupe.

Sat.- Creamy pasta salad w/ artichokes, french bread (whole wheat), celery and carrots with hummus

Sun.- Lentil Sloppy Joes, salad, corn on the cob

Mon.- Zucchini "Crab" cakes, baked sweet potatoes, peas and carrots

Tues.- veggie pizza, salad, strawberries

That's it! I realize this isn't a full weeks worth of dinners. But we have to go to the "big city" on Wed. morning for my doctor's appointment and we wanted to go grocery shopping again up there since they have a much better selection of fruits and veggies. So? Does that seem okay? Any suggestions? I've heard you should base your meal around a grain since that is what you need the most servings of. I didn't do that but maybe I should. Hmm...maybe I'm way over thinking this. I don't think this hard about my menu's now! But, truth be told, I kind of enjoy it. Hee hee. I enjoy trying new recipes and this gives me a great excuse.

And because it's been a while since I told a Bradley story....
Yesterday, Lilly and Luke got out their markers and coloring books and went to sit at the dining room table to color while I was putting away laundry. Of course, as all children do, they soon got distracted by something and left to go play with something else. The next thing I know Lilly comes and gets me with Bradley in tow. Bradley is covered with a technicolor rainbow of colors. I walk into the dining room and he has bitten all the ends of the markers off, chewed them up and spit them back out. Thank you, Crayola, for making your markers non-toxic and washable. I'm also very thankful I have hardwood floors and not carpet. Eek. You just gotta love that kid.

Thanks for reading,
~A

A walk in the country

Hello again, everyone. I hear some of you over in the midwest area are enjoying some snow. Jealous!! We southern Georgians don't get to see snow. Last year we had an itty, bitty flurry for like 10.5 seconds. John called me from work to let me know it was coming our way and to get the kids all ready so they could run around in it. Well, of course, I wasn't going to miss this opportunity! I got the kids all bundled up and when it hit our house I sent them out. Only one problem. They've never seen snow before. Lilly ran out the door and ran right back in and Luke was so freaked out by it all he wouldn't even go outside. Sad...but true. Anyway, the children and I try to go on walks fairly regulary, whenever my weary, pregnant body allows. I thought I'd snap some pictures of the route we normally take. I love our country setting and the children get to see lots of nature. Today we saw lots of squirrels nests and birds. They thought it was pretty neat. :)

First thing we see when we head out our door is the pecan orchard that is across the street from us. They just harvested them all last week. The children were glued to the front window the whole time watching all the tractors going back and forth.

Another view of the orchard. They really are HUGE trees.

Eventually we pass by these greenhouses. Sometimes we'll stop in and walk around, look in the greenhouses that aren't being used.

This is where we turn off the main road. The orchard meets a diary field and we like to walk along the fence.

This was the most frustrating part of the walk. Lilly wanted me to take a picture of all three of them by this
tree stump. Trying to get all three of them to stand still long enough to acheive this was...frustrating. I caught Luke right as he was sneezing but it's good enough!

Lilly's my trooper. She pushes the stroller for me. She even gets really frustrated if I try to do it.

This is Luke's big nature "find" of the day...bark. I never realized it, but in all his three years of life he's never really noticed the bark on trees before. He kept peeling it off. Finally I said, "You'd better stop doing that, bud." As I was walking away I heard Lilly say, "Luke! How would you like it if I came and peeled all the skin off of you??" That's a big sister for you, people.

Lilly was very excited that she pulled a tree (ahem...weed) out of the ground, roots and all. She insisted on taking in home and putting it in a pot to keep. I had to stop her from getting the shovel and digging up soil to plant it in.

Finally, the walk ended by playing with our new kittens in the back yard. I realize I haven't even mentioned these adorable little creatures yet but I was a wee bit busy hosting Thanksgiving. We got them a little over a week ago. Love them. This one is Scarfy (Lilly named it) and we have one other one that is black with a little white patch on the chest. They named that one Blacky-blue (???) but call her Blacky for short.

And on a final random note, we have these bushes flowering all over our property. Does anyone know what they are?? It's kind of nice seeing flowers in December. Just thought I'd share. :)

Anyway, thanks for enjoying my walk with me this morning. Maybe next time I'll take pictures of our other route. Just a hint, it involves more pecan orchard! Exciting, I know. Thanks, again!

Running the race,
~A

Better late then never!

I realize this recipe is coming probably after everyone has done away with their Thanksgiving leftovers BUT if you are like me, I always wind up freezing a bunch of my leftover turkey. So, for those of you who have some leftover, I want to share my favorite recipe using leftover turkey. It takes a little more time then some other recipes but it is so yummy (and since I really only have leftover turkey once a year) I make the extra effort.

Turkey Potpie

4 T. butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
1/4 c. flour
1 1/4 c. chicken or turkey stock
1 1/4 c. milk
1 t. crumbled or powdered dried sage
3/4 t. dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
2 c. diced cooked turkey
2 c. mixed veggies
pie dough, store bought or homemade

Glaze
1 egg yolk
1 T. milk

1. Melt butter in a large pan over medium-low heat. Stir in the onion and celery. Cover the pan and cook 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then stir in the flour. Increase the heat slightly and continue to cook and stir for another minute.

2. Add stock to the pan, whisking to evenly blend it all. As the stock starts to thicken, whisk in the milk, sage, thyme, salt and pepper. You may need about 1/2 t. of salt.

3. Stir in the turkey and veggies and simmer, stirring often, for 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat.

4. Grease (don't be stingy) a 2-qt. round, shallow casserole (aka. pie pan) Transfer filling to the casserole and smooth the top. Let the filling cool for about 15 minutes. Heat oven to 400*.

5. Prepare your dough for the top crust. Place dough so that it is centered on top of the filling. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and milk for the glaze. Lightly brush the glaze onto the crust, then use a fork to poke 4 or 5 steam vents in the pastry.

6. Bake on the center oven rack until well browned, about 40 minutes. Tip- slide an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet onto the shelf below the pie to catch any spills. Transfer the pot pie to a colling rack and cool for 10 minutes before serving.

This recipe doesn't quite go along with my transition to vegetarianism but I'm also not one to just throw away bunches of extra turkey. Hope you enjoy!

Running the race,
~A