my blessed life

Not much to say tonight, except *here's what we've been doing all weekend*: It's been an awesome weekend! I hope yours has been as well.

We are actually having *real* winter here in the South this year! And this weekend is turning out quite differently than planned. First of all I took my kiddos to a birthday party for a friend. We left the house in a light wintry mix of snow and ice. We drove back home in a quite heavy wintry mix and solid sheets of ice on large bridges. Driving in winter weather in the South is always an adventure. LOL I think our whole regional area might own 3 snowplows. And we don't salt the roads, we sand them. So mostly everyone just makes a huge grocery store run and stays home during winter weather. It's safer that way:) Vince and I were supposed to take the kiddos over to my parents' house for them to spend the night, then we were going to come back and spend a romantic evening in. But that didn't happen. The snow was coming down even harder at my parents' house than at ours. So I bundled up the kiddos and sent them out to enjoy the snow. I brewed my

It's a cold and icy night here in Arkansas. I thought that called for some warm, freshly baked cookies! Snickerdoodles seemed like the right choice. I wish I could share some with you:)

After a rather tiresome and long day with my kiddos yesterday, I was encouraged and re-focused this morning in my daily Bible reading. At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?" He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children , you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." Matthew 18:1-6 NIV What an awesome responsibility we have as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers...

(the front of the hotel~photo from Hotel Lutetia ) I recently learned (from a favorite blog o'mine, Paris Daily Photo ) that the hotel where Vince and I honeymooned is having a birthday. I just have to share this little treasure with you. (the lobby~photo from Hotel Lutetia ) Vince and I got married in April of 1997 and he surprised me with a honeymoon in Paris, France. I know, I know... April in Paris! Yes, he was that romantic!! He planned the whole thing~I didn't even know where we were going until just a few weeks before the wedding. I was SO EXCITED!! And it was a wonderful trip and maybe I will share more about it soon (we do have an anniversary coming up). (The St. Germaine Lounge~photo from Hotel Lutetia ) Today though I just have to show you the Hotel Lutetia on the Left Bank. Vince (& his travel agent) definitely picked a jewel of a hotel for us to stay in for our honeymoon. The Lutetia was the first Art Deco hotel built in Paris and is one of

0031. freshly baked cookies 0032. bills paid on time 0033. a letter from a far-away friend 0034. a godly family heritage 0035. Eskimo kisses from my kiddos 0036. watching my children read their Bibles 0037. heirloom recipes 0038. good health 0039. surprise packages in the mail 0040. the amazing generosity of God

Congrats to Vince ! He won another video contest~this time for a city recycling program. Of course, it stars the kiddos...because they're not dramatic or anything:) We'll be taking them to celebrate at Chuck E. Cheese this week. I hope you enjoy the videos! And yes, that's my voice at the end of the video.

Well, it's the last week of January~and the last week of the *eat from the pantry* challenge. It has been an interesting month of meals. The first couple of weeks went great as far as hardly any spending. This last week I spent quite a bit on fresh produce after my hubby decided he wanted to go on a *fruits & veggies only* fast. I told him to wait until summer the next time he wanted to do that:) There will be a better veggie selection and hopefully we'll have a little garden again! But all-in-all it has been a good month. The total so far for the month is $115. It's possible that we'll need to pick a thing or two up this week, but I'm going to do my darndest not to! That total is amazing to me, since just two years ago I was spending around $125 a week on groceries~now it's usually around $70. I have definitely learned a lot in the past couple of year about being frugal and spending wisely. We definitely had some interesting moments at

Did your front door look as bare as mine did after taking down the Christmas wreath? I just couldn't take it anymore. I had a grapevine wreath up in the attic with some old, worn out Valentine's decor on it. So I ripped all of that off and headed to my local Michael's (Hobby Lobby just didn't have what I needed this time) and found a couple of pussy willow sprigs on sale. So I brought them home, dismantled the sprigs into individual little twigs and glued them on. I think it made a nice, simple winter wreath. And it only cost me about $4! Next, I finally got pictures uploaded to my new digital frame that my sweet hubby got me for Christmas. I love it! My new memory card holds *thousands* of photos and I can't wait to fill it up with more favorites to enjoy while I'm cooking (I put it in my kitchen). In the kiddos'/guest bath the shower curtain was needing a little help. One of my shower curtain rings had broken and one of the holes on the liner had

Yesterday I made hummus for the first time. It's not my first time to eat it, but I don't remember the stuff I've tried in the past being this flavorful! My friend over at goodfountain hooked me up with her recipe and it's really awesome~my whole family likes it. And I decided to bake up some pita chips to eat with it, just because I love pita chips:) goodfountain's hummus 2 cups garbanzo beans (chickpeas), reserve the juice 1/4 cup lemon juice 3 Tbls. tahini* 1 tsp. sea salt 2-3 cloves garlic, halved dash of paprika 1 tsp. parsley 1/4 cup olive oil ***** Blend all ingredients together, mixing very well. (goodfountain recommends a food processor, but I don't have one so I used my blender. I'm pretty sure a food processor would be easier, but the blender finally got the job done) . If the mixture seems too dry, add the reserved bean juice 1 Tbls. at a time. The flavor will improve after chilling in the fridge for a while. *In case you're like m

Stopping each week to purposefully count my blessings is an amazing thing. It serves to bring me back into focus each time to what's really important in life. 0021. listening to my kiddos giggle~and joining in 0022. a beautiful, clear starry night sky 0023. a wonderful, faithful husband 0024. *old* friends 0025. playing games and working puzzles with my kiddos 0026. finding a new meal that the whole family likes 0027. enjoying the thrill of teaching my children to read 0028. two new pairs of blue jeans 0029. God's incredible faithfulness 0030. God's mercies that are new every morning

Well, another week down on the *eat from your pantry* challenge! Whoo hoo! I've been doing pretty well. Last week I only spent about $20 on some essentials like milk and eggs. My pantry is starting to look a little bare and so is my fridge. This week I spent a tad bit more because... ...my hubby threw another challenge at me. He wants to try at least a version of the Daniel fast , focusing on mainly eating vegetables and fruits for about 10 days or so. Sooo, I am now looking for delicious recipes that are strictly veggies with simple seasonings. What I would like to happen is that I find some great healthy dishes that we all like and that I can incorporate into our menus permanently. I usually try to do one meatless meal a week, but I would like to do more. So if you have any that you'd like to share, please pass them on! Today I went to the store and stocked up on tons of fresh veggies. I'm not feeling too bad about what I spent, since it was pretty much all

our hotel in Port-au-Prince I know that many of us have Haiti on our hearts this week. The earthquake has been such a tragedy for the already-poverty-stricken country. a man selling his wood carvings outside our hotel My only visit there was 20 years ago this very month. It was a very memorable trip! I was traveling with my family along with some other missionary couples for a couple of pastors' training seminars and also some other church services and ministry. Our time was divided equally between Port-au-Prince and a small town in the countryside, Petit Goave. the streets of Port-au-Prince One of the most terrifying experiences that I ever had was there. I won't go into detail now, but it was truly a miracle of God's protection that saved us from great danger in the slums of Port-au-Prince that dark night. It's a different world there. Each evening as you are drifting off to sleep, the voodoo drums are always beating in the not-so-distant air. the mountains o

Today I thought I'd show you this little box of vintage treasures that holds a very unplanned collection. First, look at this sweet box. It belonged to my great~grandmother's. My grandmother gave it to me when I was a little girl, after her mother had passed away. I think I once saw a similar one in an antique shop, but never again. I really don't know very much about handkerchief boxes, but I think this one is adorable. These first three handkerchiefs came along with the box. They were all my great~grandmother's. The one with the blue embroidery was my *something blue* that I carried in my wedding. These are some monogrammed with *L* that have been given to me by family and friends. This is one given to me by a friend. I believe she got it in Africa. It has a beautiful hand-dyed design on it. These two are very special to me. They are from a family friend named *Mallie*. She gave me these two handkerchiefs on two separate occasions. One was the Sunday that my dad annou