Friday Favorites (3/14)

It has been a short week this week since we drove back from DC all day on Monday. {Here's a re-cap of the trip.} Ben used a vacation day on Tuesday so that we could have some family time with our kids since they stayed back in Tennessee with their grandparents. It was a fun day, and we ended it with a meeting with our realtor. We have our house now listed with an agent again. The prospect of selling seems a bit more promising this time around than it did before, just based on the market. Wednesday I had BSF in the morning, and choir in the evening. I made a new recipe for veggie enchiladas for dinner. They were amazing!

Definitely my favorite meal from the week.

Favorite blog reads:

Parenting/SAHM: 
Gospel Homemaking: Creating Calm in the Chaos
Delights and Delectables: Adoption Finalized!

Fitness:
Miles and Blessings: Run for Jaime

Favorite Workout:
Running outside this morning. My marathon plans have changed: I am now planning to run the New River Marathon on May 3 in North Carolina. More in this later...

Favorite God-Moment:
Doing the spiritual surveys in D.C., and seeing the students be inspired to share their faith.

Favorite Kid-Moment:

Playing with Lottie on Tuesday while Rush was at school. We played doctor, tea, party, dress-up... all fun stuff! 

Rush is such a big kid now! He retold the story of Jesus miraculously feeding the crowd of 5,000 perfectly! 

We are looking forward to a fun weekend! The weather is going to be nice, so hopefully we'll get to play outside. Hope you have a great weekend too!

What are your plans?

What was your favorite meal this week?

In case you missed it:

My post on what I never expected as an engaged girl.

D.C. Re-cap

We were in D.C. all weekend with the college kids from our church. As I'm typing, we are in the van driving back home right now. :) Here's a photo of Ben and me with my sister and her husband who is the college pastor (that's how we got asked to help on the trip).

We had a really great time getting to know everyone. We did an "amazing race" on Saturday morning, and my team won! 

Team 1 rocked!

We never took any pics, but Beth (my sis) and I cooked dinner for the whole group on Saturday and Sunday nights. There were 20 people including us. That was fun (and hard!). Ben and I got to do the shopping for Sunday night at a VERY busy Whole Foods. It was pretty much a nuthouse, and I almost cried once because I couldn't find soft tortillas... But it was fun to see all their awesome food since I never get to shop there at home. 

We took along some "spiritual surveys" and encouraged everyone on the trip to approach at least one person to ask them the questions. We shared about our responses after dinner on the last night, and it was amazing. I was so proud of how bold the students were and also how they conveyed the love of Jesus in how they responded to some of the answers that they were given. It was made very clear to all of us through the surveys that there is so much confusion in the world about who Jesus is. We can put ourselves in such a bubble sometimes that we take Jesus and our knowledge of him for granted. I am fairly certain that a girl that my sister and I talked to had never even heard someone pray! But through Beth praying and calling out the different names for God/Jesus, she was able to get a glimpse of the Gospel, which hopefully was planted in her heart and will sprout when the time is right. Please pray for her heart to be opened to the reality of a real, true, loving God. Her name was Genna.

I am so glad that Ben and I got to be a part of this trip! We were encouraged; we learned through Jared's teachings based on Matthew 18; we made lots of new friends!

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

9 Years Later... {What I did not imagine as an engaged girl}

I'm linking up for Thrive at Home Thursday hosted by Jenni and Amy, two awesome Christian bloggers.


Ben and I got engaged nine years ago* today! We were married three months later!!! Yup- three months!

Life was so different then... Time has FLOWN by! My heart has changed so much since then. I thought I'd share a few things that I never thought about back then:

I never knew it would be so much intentional work. I always heard people say that marriage was hard work, but of course you can't understand something fully until you experience it. Fighting my human nature/flesh of putting myself first takes God's help and intention on my part. I don't have to be "right"every time.   

Source

I never knew we would change so much- together. God has rocked our world, but our world is just that: ours. It's not Ben's world and April's world.  So when life smacks us in the face, we go to God together; we struggle together; we learn together... so we have changed together. You could call it marital sanctification, I suppose. 

I never knew marriage would make me closer to God. As most people in their early twenties believe, I had it all figured out nine years ago. I thought that life could not be any sweeter. I thought that our love as a couple was what it would be like forever. I seriously believed that we would have fun all the time, smile all the time, be romantic all the time, make good decisions all the time. But that hasn't been so. Life has not been all rainbows and roses. Our love has changed. We don't have fun and smile all the time. Romance is not all day every day, though there has been plenty. And we have had disagreements and made some not so good decisions. But one thing has stayed the same: God's love for us. For every moment that I have felt disappointed or ashamed or sad, God has been there to remind me where my true sense of identity and satisfaction should be. Thankfully, Ben reminds me of this too. (And it takes the pressure off of him.)  My life is not defined by or even valued based on my level of happiness, success of relationships, quality of decisions, behavior of my children, etc. The root of my life and existence should be my heart connected to the heart of God. So when not-so-happy marriage moments happen, I don't have to worry (read Romans 8:28).

Our love has grown exponentially as a result of the "hard" stuff; not because we've done anything right, but because our eyes are on Jesus. Our marriage will continue to grow and change. But I would not want it any other way! God has done so much in these nine years, and I cannot wait to see where we are in another nine. 

Thank you, Ben, for directing our marriage and family to a life in pursuit not of this world, but of righteousness. 

Part of our engagement page from our wedding scrapbook

Note: This post was written originally on March 12, 2014. 

Toddler Snack Ideas {Munchkin Meals Link-Up}

Nothing too exciting going on with Rush (4) and Lottie's (2) meals lately... they have been snacking like crazy though! Here are some of their favorites. [Some are packaged, others are semi-homemade, and some are totally homemade.]

Visit Brittany over at A Healthy Slice of Life to see some other great toddler food ideas!

Clif fruit rope

Fruit & cereal bars 

Peanut butter & berry granola bars from Olives and Wine 

Graham cracker with peanut butter and sliced bananas

"Snack packs:" baggies with raisins, almonds (or any nuts), Kashi chia-flax "cheerios," and maybe some mini marshmallows for a little treat.

Horizon organic vanilla and strawberry milks (We tried the Kroger Simple Truth, but once refrigerated, the flavor would not mix with the milk no matter how much we shook them; chunks of "syrup" were not toddler-approved.)

This one was non-refrigerated, so it was perfect for the little lady. :)

Mini-Muffins of any kind (just like their mommy)

I think these were cranberry-orange-oat. 

Applesauce pouches (We also have reusable pouches that we fill with homemade pudding and jarred unsweetened applesauce.) 

Hummus and veggies

Lottie just takes the whole container!

So, those are just a handful of the common snacks in our house. I don't know about your toddlers, but snacks are a big part of their diet, and I don't want to sabotage their health for convenience. I am always on the look-out for easy, healthful snacks. Hopefully, you got some good ideas here.

What are your munchkin's favorite snacks?

Friday Favorites (2/28)

Hey, y'all! I hope your week has been great.

I've been thinking a lot on my spiritual gift of mercy, and how I can use it better. I'm praying that God will give me opportunities to use it. 

Our week has been a little different than usual. Ben has been out of town for work. He travels on and off, but has not had to for some time now. I could tell that the kids really missed Daddy-time in the evenings. When Ben is gone I don't cook as much. I made quiche Monday night before he left; so the kids and I had the leftovers for dinner on Tuesday. I made a super-simple dinner for the kids on Wednesday, which was whole wheat cheese tortellini with "red sauce," as they call marinara, and then whole wheat waffles with chocolate peanut butter and sliced bananas for dessert. We popped popcorn later in the evening and watched the first 20 minutes or so of one of our favorite movies, Horton Hears a Who. It was a sweet time because the kids were pretty relaxed (for them). I planned to cook dinner on Thursday night because that's when Ben was supposed to come home-but he didn't. I cooked anyway. I made a Rachael Ray shrimp scampi with whole wheat pasta. It was good. Enough about our meals, though. This is supposed to be a favorites post. :)

Favorite Moment: (3-way tie)

Laying on a blanket in the front yard in 70 degree weather on Sunday

  

Eating popcorn and watching Horton with the kids

Ben coming home late Thursday night. (He was in New Haven, CT all week.)

Favorite God-Moment:

BSF lecture on Matthew 19 & 20

Sunday's sermon on sharing our faith with our community.

Did you notice the "note " I wrote to Ben on the top left?

Favorite Meal:

Brittany's black bean burgers and Melissa's sweet potato fries with a side of salsa and avocado. 

Yes, this meal is in a Gladware container. Don't judge- this was the leftovers version and Ben was gone-I had no one to impress. ;)

Favorite Buy:

Racking-up on Bob's Red Mill products at Big Lots again! 

Favorite Treat:

If you like Girl Scout Thin Mints, you'll LOVE these: Snyder York Peppermint Pretzel  Sandwiches. And I found them at Big Lots for $2.50! I haven't seen them in the grocery store for a while, but last time I did I'm pretty sure they were $5.99. 

I'll catch up on blog reading this weekend, hopefully. Maybe I'll do a favorite blog reads on Monday.

We have a busy weekend ahead! It's gonna be a great one, and I hope yours is too! 

Can you believe it's almost March already?!

What has been your favorite thing in February? Mine is all the warm sunny days we've had lately, and catching up on Downton Abbey.

Feeding My Husband

I love serving my husband. It brings me joy to "take care" of him. One of the things that I especially enjoy doing is preparing his meals. Since we were first married, I have always made an effort to get his breakfast ready for him. I am anti-cereal-for-breakfast-unless-you-put-it-over-Greek-yogurt, and he is pro-cereal because it's quick. I prefer to have something with more nutritional substance to it, and he is very appreciative of my efforts.

Today I'm linking up with Amy at Gospel Homemaking for Thrive at Home Thursday. 

Lordy Mercy!

If you're not from the south you may not know the expression, but around here we use it when surprised, caught off-guard, or at a loss for words. It's slang for "Lord, have mercy!" Or maybe if you're close to my age and grew up watching Full House you've heard Uncle Jesse exclaim "Have mercy!" plenty of times.  I was thinking about this phrase the other day because I was pondering the word mercy. What is mercy, really?

First, let me tell you why I was even thinking about mercy. Last Sunday, Ben handed out a spiritual gifts survey (the Lifeway version) to everyone in our class in preparation for a lesson on community. He challenged us to take the survey and think of ways that we could use our gifts to serve each other. As you probably guessed, my highest category was mercy. 

If I had read the possible outcomes before taking the survey, I probably would have picked mercy because I took a different survey in college and my result was encouragement, which I think falls in line with mercy. So, I was not surprised, but what struck me the most was the description of mercy and what characterizes the person who has this gift. Here's the Lifeway survey definition of mercy:

Cheerful acts of compassion characterize those with the gift of mercy. Persons with
this gift aid the body by empathizing with hurting members. They keep the body healthy and
unified by keeping others aware of the needs within the church (Rom. 12:8). 

The description of the thoughts and feelings fits me to a T. I am very sensitive to others feelings and empathize naturally. BUT, I do not often take action any further than a smile, a hug, or a simple "I'm so sorry and I'm praying for you." Of course, none of these actions are bad, but if I am going to use my God-given super-sensitivity to minister to others, then I need to step it up. 

Oh, God, motivate my heart to not only feel along with the hurting people around me, but to take action in their cause- for your glory. May I "seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." {Isaiah 1:17} May gentleness of heart be evident in my life. 

Source

From now on when I hear someone say "Lord, have mercy," I will be reminded that God has gifted me with the ability to show mercy. 

Have you ever taken a spiritual gifts survey? What was your result?

What gift would you like to improve your score on? Mine are wisdom and evangelism.