Bruiser turns 2!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Brad!

Always room for one more!

The face of Christ

I had a few minutes while Kate was sleeping and I was waiting for John to get home. So, the children and I were looking at some pictures of Jesus. I was trying to explain to them that the typical image of Jesus wasn't really what he looked like. After all, he was Jewish and from the middle east. Paul also tells men in 1 Corinthians that they aren't supposed to have long hair, so I doubt Jesus did. I came across this little article, thought it was neat, and wanted to share. On a side note, if you've never studied where the typically thought of image of Jesus came from, you should. You'll never look at it the same way again.

Some artists, especially during the Renaissance, depicted Jesus with red hair. Why? Well, 1 Samuel 16:12 says that Jesus' great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-grandfather David was "ruddy." However, the text seems to be describing a reddish tone to David's skin, and to claim that this text meant that David's distant relative had red hair is pretty far-fetched. Others have argued that Jesus had woolly hair by citing Revelation 1:14. Besides the fact that this is Apocalyptic literature, which is notoriously difficult to use in arguments about a person's physical appearance, the entire passage reads as follows:

"His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow."

The point is not that Jesus' hair had the texture of wool, but that in this Apocalyptic appearance, Jesus' hair was radiant, in order to emphasize his glory and power.

So then, in reality what did Jesus look like? Well, some scientists for a BBC special measured several skulls of middle aged Jewish men from Roman period Palestine, and they put together a composite of what the average man might have looked like at that time. And this is what they came up with.

Image from BBC

Not at all the traditional image of Jesus with a long face, as this idea developed hundreds of years after Jesus.

I can't wait to meet him!

~A

Gone but not forgotten

Hello friends and family. I just wanted to send a little message to say that I haven't forgotten my trusty little blog. Over the past couple weeks I've thought of things I'd like to blog about at least every other day. But, to be quite honest, I don't have the time. I'd love to be posting new pics of Kate, sharing recipes (oh, so many to share!) and menu plans, and keeping everyone up to date with our happenings but the family's got to come first. I'll be back though. Oh yes, I'll be back. Hopefully no one will be losing sleep over where I finally wound up buying my wheat or how using cloth diapers is going. :) In due time, my loves, in due time...

To brighten your day, here's a picture I found today:



I googled "mother with children" and this came up. Doesn't it make all of us mothers feel....um....lovely? No. That's not the word. Beautiful?? Nope. That's not it either. Well, I'll just let ya'll chew on that one a while!

Thanks for checking in!

Running the race,
~A

A couple of yummy recipes

My meal plans the past couple weeks have been non existent. Two times a week someone from my sunday school class is bringing meals. The nights they aren't bringing food my mom has been making meals for us. It's been SO nice not to have to worry about that area of life. Since I haven't been able to share my meal plans for the past couple weeks I thought I'd share some of my new favorite recipes.

Giant Breakfast Cookies
1 cup butter, melted
¾ cup honey
2 eggs
1 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
1 t. vanilla
½ cup buttermilk
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups whole rolled oats
1 cup raisins or chocolate chips

Mix butter, honey, eggs, salt, cinnamon, soda, vanilla and buttermilk. Stir in flour and oats. Fold in raisins or chocolate chips. Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Allow cookies to cool 3-4 minutes on cookie sheet before removing cookies to cool on a wire rack.

These are basically like healthy oatmeal cookies. My children love these. For a small family you could probably cut this recipe in half, as it feeds my crew for two days. Normally the second day we crumble the cookies and pour milk over it. Yum.

Caramel Corn
3 ¾ qts (15 cups) popped corn (no need to be exact with the measurements here!)
1/2 cup rapadura or sucanat (or brown sugar can be used, if desired)
1/4 cup honey
½ cup butter
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp vanilla

In small saucepan heat your sweetener choice, butter, salt & vanilla, stirring occasionally, until bubbly around edges, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in soda. Continue to stir as you pour over popped corn till coated.

This has been my sweet snack of choice recently. It's so easy to make and so delicious, it's pretty hard to pass up. I had been looking for a caramel corn recipe for a long time but every one I came across had corn syrup and way too much sugar. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I found this one!

On a totally unrelated (but exciting!) note, I ordered a grain mill yesterday. We have been wanting to get one for almost a year now and we finally did it! We've heard the best things about the nutrimill. If you don't know the benifits to grinding your own flour, read about it here . It should be arriving sometime next week. Now, to find a good source of wheat. Any sugggestions?? I'll let you know how it goes!

Life is pretty crazy right now on the homefront. Kate is, by far, the easist baby I've ever had. It's the other ones I'm having a problem with. Between having a new baby, moving to a new house, having the grandparents visit, and being down with colds and flu's, they are a little...worked up. It's been a challenge.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope your day is blessed!

Running the race,

~A

Blessed Mayhem

It feels good to sit down and write again. Maybe life is starting to get back to normal around here. SO much has happened in the past week and a half I'm not quite sure where to start. I suppose I'll begin with the best, most wonderful, part of it all!

Our daughter, Katherine Elise, was born on Feb. 25th at 9:45. John and I got up very, VERY early that day to make our way to the hospital. The surgery went great. In case you didn't know, I was REALLY hoping for a girl. To the point where I was afraid I'd be disappointed if it was a boy. Needless to say, I was ecstatic when they announced it was a little girl. You would think after 3 other children somehow it wouldn't be as special or exciting. Not true. She still melts my heart every time I see her. She is an incredible baby! She hardly ever fusses, took to nursing like a pro, and is such a joy. The children are loving her. Lilly is so excited to have a sister. :)We came home from the hospital on Friday afternoon, picked up the children from a friends house and had a really nice evening of watching the new baby and sharing what had gone on the past couple days. Saturday we got up and had to take Kate back to the hospital to have a few tests. John's co-worker and our friend, Kristin, graciously said she would stay with the children on short notice. As we were driving to Warner Robins we hit some rain, which we new was in the forecast. As we were at the hospital we get a call from Kristin saying she had taken the children to the neighbors house (strange...). Turns out the rain we had driven through spawned a tornado and a tree had just fallen on our house.The fire department was already there. Our back porch (which housed our washer/dryer/freezer/and 2nd fridge) was totally demolished and there was major roof damage. We were told there was already an inch of water on the kitchen floor and more coming. We were also informed that our house was uninhabitable. But, praise the Lord no one was hurt! Now comes the blessings...

We finished up our appointment at the hospital and headed back to Montezuma. John dropped Kate and I off at our neighbors house where I sat like a bump on a log the whole afternoon because that is all I could do after my surgery! Tina fixed my children lunch, let my children drag out every toy she had forgot she had, and even fed them chocolate covered strawberries as a snack. Can we say "saint"?? One of the nice things about living in a small town is that almost all of the men on the fire department are members of our church. John headed over to our house after dropping us off. Our situation was put on a chain call to our church and within a few hours our front yard was FULL of vehicles. Someone from our church offered us a trailer he owned that was empty to stay in until our house could be repaired. So, while the men were over at our house packing up things and loading trailers, the women were over at the new trailer cleaning it from top to bottom. Within six hours we were moved into our new place. And I'm not talking boxes on the floors. I mean dishes washed and put away, pictures on the wall, sheets on the bed. When John picked me up and took us to our new home I didn't have to do a thing before we crashed for the night. At the end of the day, even though so much had happened, all I could do was thank the Lord for a loving church family and for protecting my sweet children. Thank you God.

Here's some pictures:


Does anyone else see my refrigerator teetering dangerously close to the edge in that last picture??

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful comments. I am, indeed, a very blessed lady. My parents are here visiting right now and helping me out while I recover from surgery and it has been such a blessing to just be able to sit and hold Kate and enjoy these moments with her. Take some time and realized all the rich blessings God is showering on us!

Be blessed!
~A

I'm back!

Hello friends and family! It's been a little while since I've been able to update and, quite honestly, I'm too exhausted right now to go into all the details. But, I thought I'd give you a quick overview of my past week.

Had a baby. Recovering from surgery. The day after we got home from the hospital we had a tornado and a tree fell on our house. Had to move into a new house. Mom and Dad are visiting. Children and John caught a flu bug. Still on cloud nine from having a new baby.

Don't worry. Pictures and more details to come soon.

Much love,
~A