Pay it forward February 27, 2009

I found this little game on Vanessa’s blog.  It works like this…

Be one of the first three people to comment on this post and I will send you a surprise gift:)  Everyone loves surprises right:)  Well not everybody.

Then if you have a blog, post a pay it forward on your blog, link back to me and keep this party going:)  It may take a week or so for you to get your surprise because I may pick up your gift when I am in San Francisco next week.  That sounds like fun doesn’t it?

So post on your blog and leave a comment so I can check it out!  And if you don’t have a blog then commit to doing 3 random acts of kindness and email me what they are.  Hmmm… that might be a whole new great game:)

Carrots?

I am not a fan of carrots. In any form really.  But Pat, Mark’s step-mom, introduced me to the yummiest carrot souffle recently and it is now a staple in our house.  McCall says it tastes like vanilla ice cream.  They will all eat it without complaint and that is a miracle!  And it is super, super easy to make too.  Here is a picture and the recipe below.  Try it and let me know what you think:)

Carrot Souffle

16 oz. can of carrots, drained

1 stick margarine, melted

3 eggs, beaten

1 tsp baking powder

3 Tbsp flour

1 tsp vanilla

about 1/2 cup sugar

Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until well mixed.  pour into pam-sprayed baking dish.  Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

PS  I did pick winners for the Feb. book giveaways.  So those of you that I contacted as winners look for your books, eventually:)  No promises on when.  Sorry but I did not give up procrastination for Lent:)

Lil’ bit February 24, 2009

My Eli is a lil’ bit.  He doesn’t weigh a whole lot and does not have a whole lot of meat on his bones.  I am always trying to entice him to eat things that will hopefully help him grow.  He has the bad habit of only wanting the yummy sweets.

The other night we had bbq chicken legs for dinner.  Wow!  That boy ate three chicken legs plus everything else on his plate.  Does my heart good!  He kept saying, “Mmmm, good meal Mom!”  Isn’t that cute?  I could hardly understand him b/c his mouth was so full!  Here are a few pics of the feast.  Maybe this is the beginning of a new leaf…

He and I were covered in sauce by the end of the meal

happy boy with a full tummy

Sweets for my sweets

We actually did do a Valentine’s Family Night.  This is a very long overdue post, oh well:)  It was fun.  Grandma Pat joined us and we decorated the table and had heart shaped biscuits (thanks Vanessa).  The boys went on a heart treasure hunt and then we looked up the verses found on the backs of the hearts.  Some of them were about love and some were about crazy stuff like donkeys and such:)  The boys thought that was silly!  We gave Grandma a heart shaped box of chocolates with a little note around each chocolate that said one thing each of us love about her.  That was fun putting together:)  Lastly we made some Love notes to send to family members that don’t live close by.  It was a great evening!

Our table decorations

Grandma Pat did the beautiful chair decorations

Super yummy heart biscuits

I also had to include the fun cookies that I made for McCall’s class and the rice crispies with conversation hearts for Haig’s class.  The cookies were VERY addictive but I am personally not a fan of the candy in the rice crispie treats.  I love making sugar cookies:)

Wild west? February 22, 2009

Another blog tour book!  I have to admit I have not finished this one yet.  I do love Christian fiction but apparently I just have not been in the mood for the wild west recently!  Below you will find info on the book, the author and don’t forget you can pick up a copy for yourself at your local bookstore or http://www.amazon.com.  If you live nearby and are interested in borrowing my copy just leave me a comment:)

John “The Stranger” Brockman is back by popular demand!

A good deed grants outlaw Whipley Langford early release from prison and a friendship with Chief U.S. Marshal John Brockman. Another good deed gets Whip framed for murder and looking at life through a hangman’s noose. John arrives just in time to reveal the true murderers and lead Whip to Christ.

A new man and a fast draw, Whip becomes Brockman’s deputy. Life is still fast and dangerous, and there’s a pretty lady Whip would like to get to know better too. Before he admits his love, Whip is shot in a bank robbery. Survival looks slim until he awakens to hear his lady confess her love. Weeks later, they are married.

Readers who are familiar with the Journeys of the Stranger and Angel of Mercy series reunite with well-loved characters John and Breanna Brockman. Western history buffs will enjoy a wholesome, fast-paced story where the Gospel is presented clearly. Christian readers will learn how to lean on the Lord in times of trial and non-Christians will have the opportunity to make Christ their Savior.

About The Authors:

Al Lacy is an evangelist and author of more than one hundred historical and western novels, including the Journeys of the Stranger, Angel of Mercy, and Mail Order Bride series, with more than three million books in print. JoAnna Lacy, Al’s wife and longtime collaborator, is a retired nurse. The Lacys have been married over forty years and live in the Colorado Rockies.

What’s that all about?

Have you seen these around town?

Wondering what in the world they are all about?  Well, first of all you could actually go to the website:)  But just in case you don’t want to go to the trouble… they are advertising a new series at Newspring Church.  A marriage series, yes.  You are quick!

This is week two for the Florence campus.  And this week we are meeting at 5:30 pm and 7:00 pm instead of in the morning.  Next week we will be back to our 9:30 am and 11:15 am times.  So, if you think your marriage could be stronger (ahem that would be all of us) or if you would possibly like to someday have a strong marriage…then check it out.

You can visit the Florence campus at the McNair Science Building at Fracis Marion University or you can listen to the message at www.newspring.cc.  See you there?

Lavish

Great word huh?  I read a great post by Brandi that I so hope you will check out.  I loved it… all about loving our kids as Christ truly loves us.  Lavish…

Being intentional February 20, 2009

One of the things I have felt the Lord working on in me is “what are you being intentional about?”  This has been a slow two year process that I am pretty sure will be a long-term project:) however I am starting to “get it.”  At least a little bit.

I tend to focus in on certain areas of my life and work really hard on that issue.  But often I end up skipping around a lot instead of staying the course.  So I am trying to put that energy and focus on the areas where the Lord seems to be impressing me with my tremendous responsibility.  One major area is my children’s spiritual growth.

We certainly cannot force or teach our children into a relationship with Christ.  They can have all the head knowledge and never truly submit their hearts to His Lordship.  So one of my pursuits is asking the Lord to show me how to live out an intimate relationship with Christ in front of my kids and include them in my journey.  How to authentically live as a sinner saved by grace.  At the same time teaching them to hide God’s Word in their hearts, learn to truly live a life of service and worship and have a heart that desires to see others discover the Truth.

He is also beginning to teach me that a huge part of my role in their spiritual development means time on my knees.  All of this takes deliberate choices to be intentional in how I spend my time and what I do with the time with my boys.  Mark Batterson had a blog post this past week that summed a lot of this up.  I included it below.  If  you get a chance to look back on his blog and read some of the practices he is putting into place with his children, it is inspirational.

Just thought I would share a peek into one area where the Lord is working on me:)

C.S. Lewis said, “Every life is comprised of a few themes.”

Thought I would share one of my themes. I am such an imperfect parent. But I can also say that nothing is more important to me than being a great dad. Hard to put what I feel into words, but I know that my kids are my legacy.

God keeps taking me back to the last verse of the Old Testament. Malachi 4:6 says: “His preaching will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

As I travel and speak, I’ve noticed that when I talk about the discipleship covenant I made with my oldest son, Parker, people always want to know more. Part of it is the helplessness we feel as parents when our kids get older. We need all the help we can get! I’m also concerned that we live in a culture where parents delegate their responsibilities. We want schools to educate our kids for us. And we want churches to disciple our kids for us. But that’s a good way to insure that our justice system will punish our kids for us. It’s so easy to let someone else do something that is really our responsibility.

Imagine what would happen if Christian parents really took their calling to discipleship seriously? We desperately need a parenting movement that equips parents to fulfill their God-ordained roles as mom and dad.

All I know is this: I am not going to let our culture raise my kids! I am determined to disciple my kids!

Family Night – Coloring Edition February 17, 2009

Week before last (yes I am behind on posting about family nights-who am I kidding I am behind on most of life at the moment) I could not decide on what to do for family night.  I needed simple but fun but easy, etc.  I finally decided on Coloring as a theme.  Not too exciting to an adult but kids really dig coloring, especially at the age my boys are.

So we had an easy, normal supper but after dinner we all opened a big box of crayons that Aunt Sandy actually sent for Christmas but I was saving for a night just like this.  There were like 200 new Crayola crayons.  I love a new box of crayons!  Don’t you?

I love how they smell and how the tips are so pointy and sharp and all the fun, random, creative names that are on them.  Like piglet pink.  How fun is that?

I digress.  So I printed out all kinds of fun coloring sheets off the internet of many of their favorite cartoon characters.  I am not including links b/c if you google kids coloring sheets you can come up with a gazillion.  We colored pictures for a neighbor that was in the hospital and some for Grandma to take home with her (Pat was with us for Family Night).  I also found some fun Word Finds and Word Scrambles using the names of different colors.  We split into teams and had a race to see who could complete theirs first.

Haig and his Power Ranger picture

Eli with Power Ranger

McCall with Scooby Dooby Doo

So again it was a simple night but so much fun just to sit, spend time together and color!  I do love Family Nights.  They take some work but are oh so worth it.  For more fun family night ideas check out Heather’s blog!

Intimate Issues February 16, 2009

***********Warning:This blog post contains material on appropriate but adult topics so if you have a child that can read sitting in your lap, I advice you to tell them to go and play elsewhere:)***********

Over the past couple of months I have read and reviewed quite a few books on my blog, but this is the first book that I have actually already read before.

About 6 years ago some of my girlfriends and I started a book club.  We met once a month and would pick a book to read.  We would go out for dessert and discuss the book and have a girl’s night out.  Sometimes we read novels, sometimes self-help books.  It was so much fun.  Well one of those books was Intimate Issues by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus.

This book had a profound impact on all of us.  It was challenging, humorous, insightful and practical.  You can imagine that we had GREAT discussions on this one!  Most of us were in the midst of having babies, trying to have babies, recovering from having babies and we all needed/wanted a little advice on how to improve/better enjoy/understand intimacy in our marriages.  Particularly as Christian women we really desired to know what in the world GOD had to say on the whole issue.  Many of us grew up in church and had never been taught much on a Christian, godly perspective of sex.

This is the tenth anniversary of this great book being published.  It’s subtitle is 21 Questions Christian Women Ask About Sex. It is split into three main sections with questions in each section.  Some examples are:

Part 1: Simmering Questions

How can I be godly and sensuous?

How can I relate when he’s a microwave and I’m a crockpot?

What do I do when I don’t want to do it?

How do I make love with children wrapped around my knees?

Part 2: Smoldering Questions

How can I remain faithful in a faithless world?

What do I do when HE has a headache?

My husband is into pornography-what should I do?

Part 3: Sizzling Hot Questions

What’s not okay in bed?

How can I recapture the passion?

The grandaddy of all questions.

It delicately but honestly deals with the issue of past sexual abuse, past sexual sin, the pain and guilt over dealing with abortion, physical problems associated with intimacy and on.  At the end of the book they include something called Gourmet Delight.  It is an activity/challenge they give for you to do with your husband after reading the book.  Most of the women in my book club did the challenge and it was so much fun!  Each chapter has thought provoking questions at the end and in the back of the book there is a 12 week Bible study that you can do privately or as a group as you read the book.  There is also a section where they list resources on the internet, books and organizations to help with some of the topics they address in the book.

I really could go on and on because it was such a terrific read.  I highly recommend getting this book to keep on your bookshelf to have over the years.  I also recommend giving it to young women that you know well as they get engaged.  I wish someone had given it to me before I got married.

I think the highest compliment I could give the book is that I refer back to it often for myself and for close friends as they go through different seasons in their marriage.  I would love to sit down and have coffee with Dillow and Pintus someday.  To thank them for what I have learned but also (giggle) to thank them for the baby boom that took place within our book club 9-12 months after we all read that book.  That Gourmet Delight activity resulted in about 4 little babies being added to the numbers in our group:)

So below I will add some links where you can purchase the book online as well as the author bios and book summary.  I hope you will check it out.  I only received one copy of the book, however since I LOVE this book so much I will be giving it away to one of you lucky friends:)  So leave a comment on this post sometime this week sharing with me what part of the book interested you most…. and I will pick a lucky winner!  And I will go and buy myself a new one because it is just that good and I recently realized that I lent my other copy to somebody and I just can’t remember who?  The book is just that good!

Intimate Issues answers the twenty-one questions about sex most frequently asked by Christian wives, as determined by a nationwide poll of over one thousand women. Written from the perspective of two mature Christian wives and Bible teachers–women who you’ll come to know as teachers and friends–Intimate Issues is biblical and informative: sometimes humorous, other times practical, but always honest. Through its solid teaching warm testimonials, scriptural insights, and experts’ advice, you’ll find resolution for your questions and fears, surprising insights about God’s perspective on sex, and a variety of practical and creative ideas for enhancing your physical relationship with the husband you love.

With warmth and wisdom, authors Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus speak woman to woman: examining the teachings of Scripture, exposing the lies of the world, and offering real hope that every woman’s marriage relationship can become all it was intended to be in God’s design.

–  www.Amazon.com <http://www.amazon.com/>

–  www.ChristianBook.com <http://www.christianbook.com/>

–  www.FamilyChristian.com <http://www.familychristian.com/>