Christmas time:)

Its great having little models around:) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There comes a time when.....

I'm no fight starter (usually) in the past I have tended to keep my opinions to myself, but lately, I have been getting a bit more vocal with subjects I feel need a touch of....me. MU-AHA

Its almost October 31st . Halloween, a day that seems to bring much conflict/uproar among the Christian community. I ask you this...why? why do we have to *try* to sugar coat it into something fun and innocent?

Everything we as people/society celebrate has origins, history, and usually a reason. Well, have you looked deeply into the origins of Halloween?  I could go into great detail about it obviously, but no one wants to read that, the story in a nut shell is, October 31st marked the end of the summer, to celebrate this there was a huge festival in which people would pray to gods (plural, not the one, true God), they would even leave offerings of animals and fruit, it was also said that "spirits" of dead family members and friends, those spirits would then  either bless or curse their living friends. (Hence trick or treat, not so cute eh)

I'm not sitting here telling anyone to do  or anything, its just my opinion that there comes a time when as a Christian you have to take a stand, and ignore some of the worlds idea's, did you know that is allowed? You just say naaa ima skip this "holiday"(end sarcasm)
The biggest argument Christians use in regards to Halloween is "we can shine Gods light amongst the darkness" lets get real here. while of course you can , I don't think we do a great job of it....no one reads those tracts, kids want candy and that's it, you just come off as preachy. Preachy is becoming SO overrated, people don't listen to things they don't want to hear, so its all up to our actions.

Not everything can be sugar coated, no matter how much candy is involved.

First wedding cake

My dear friend Cora got married last week and she asked me to do the cake and cupcakes. I was pretty nervous because, well weddings are a big deal and cake is important! I always tried my hand at some "carpentry" or something close to it! Here was the outcome

Gluten free Nutella peanut butter cookies

I have been on a gluten free kick again, actually a no carb, no sugar, no flour kick..30lbs down! Woohoo! Anyways I really wanted some cookies the other day and came up with these little gems. Totally gluten free, totally delicious.

Recipe:
11/2 cups peanutbutter
1/2 cup Nutella
2 eggs
1 cup of sugar

Whip Nutella an peanut butter together
For 1 minute, then add the other ingredients and stir until smooth,
Roll into balls and roll in sugar, place on greased cookie sheet and press down with fork. Bake at 325 for 12 minutes!

If you have an extra 5 hours why not try...

Ok so it's no secret that I love my little sisters to bits, but I think I took it to a new level when I made these little beauty's. adorable right? Yes BUT they are SOOO time consuming! Easy assembly tho and super SUPER cute! I think these would always make great gifts if you had spare time and had a bunch pre made.you could even add a little rolling pin, I usually work in some whilst watching the ole TV.

In each "cookie" is made up of 3 Pieces of felt. The front obviously had the "sprinkles" which are sewn onto either pink,blue, or white "frosting" (you can use any color) that piece is then sewing onto a beige piece, two hide all that string you take your third piece of felt(beige) and use it as a back, sewing around the edges!

The most time consuming part is cutting out the the shapes in the "dough", you must be spot on so that you get the cookie cutting allusion:)

Put some blinders on

 Last night, as I was impatiently waiting for Greys Anatomy to be on there was a commercial for some eye contacts or glasses or something, one of the lines they used went along the lines of  "protect those two little miracles in your head" and it got me to thinking, #1 that I had never heard anyone refer to eyes as miracles, and #2 at how true that is. The gift of sight is pretty awesome, like could you imagine just living, with out seeing colors,or patterns, but then I thought a bit deeper, I turned down the t.v, closed my eyes and just listened, no one was home so I didn't hear anything, but I did get to thinking about other things we wouldn't be able to see, like insecurity.
   Imagine, none of us could see, you meet someone new, you can tell from her voice and they way he/she talks she has a beautiful spirit, is caring, makes you laugh, and is someone you would like to be friends with, that and probably more are the things we can see with out seeing. Unfortunately sometimes the gift of sight is influenced by petty, judgmental attitudes, that nice person you just met is a little over weight, maybe even a lot over weight, maybe they don't dress like they're hip with the times, they're "nerdy" "uncool" etc.
they now turn  into someone you maybe wouldn't even talk to all based on looks.
   These types of scenes have become far to common,one example is kids these days (yea I sound old)  skinny kids won't talk to fat kids, fat kids feel bad about themselves, Cool" kids don't talk to "nerd" kids etc, why are kids even being encouraged to think this way, who cares! People are people, that "cool" kid is being judged just as that and nothing more,they could be hurting or sad, or just fine, same with the Nerd, You get the picture.  Imagine all these kids, or anyone really  put their blinders on against this social self made mess and met people for who they were, I bet we would all be surprised about the things we would learn about each other.    A trending topic lately has been this Abercrombie and Fitch president guy, I can now fit in to those clothes, and I even have a shirt from there, and guess what, its makes me no better, then anyone, its just clothes, and for him to say that they make their clothes a certain way just to attracted "attractive, cool ( who even says cool anymore in reference to a person, get with the times Mr.CEO)
types of people is just, ridicules. In my mind most business  people  would  who cares WHO or what TYPE of people by my crap just as long as it sells right, so the fact that he feels he needs to single people out based on something as irrelevant as looks, and size means he of all people needs US to view him with some blinders, those types of people really need some listening. A person is still a person sometimes we all need to look at people with our ears.

Life and yuminess

Well it's been an Interesting time lately. Trying to get into school, lets hope I can do it! I've been working hard to lose weight but Sundays are my cheat day so I made these delicious sweet and salty bars. Like really delicious and so easy!

Ingredients:
1box ritz crackers(I used a store brand, they were on sale:)
1 bag skor bits
1 can condensed milk
Directions:
Crush crackers in bag until fine
Pour into a bowl and add skor bits, then add condensed milk and stir until moistened.
Press mixture into a buttered 9x13 pan bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes!
Prepare for goodness

Reese peanut butter cheesecake

For The Crust
4 1/2 cups crushed Oreo cookies(cream included)
1 cup chopped roasted peanuts
1/2 cup butter, melted
For The Filling
2 lbs cream cheese, softened (4 blocks)
5 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup smooth peanut butter (not natural-style)
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
12 Reese's Peanut Butter cups, broken into small pieces

Directions:

preheat oven to 275

Cookies,peanuts,butter, crush em all up together, I had to use a blender, but I think a food processor would be better!

press into a greased spring form pan.

Mix together( with electric mixer): cream cheese,5 eggs,brown sugar, peanut butter, 1/2 cup whipping cream, vanilla, mix until smooth(mine always has a few lumps of cream cheese, don't worry) after mixed  use wooden spoon to fold in peanut butter cup pieces, poor batter onto the crust prepared pan. Bake for 11/2 hours.

chill for at least 5 hours, I spruced my cheesecake up with extra reese pieces and carmel.

Easter Snickerdoodles

Well its pretty close to easter time, the little sisters and I decided to bake some cookies and give them to our neighbors:) This recipe is an oldy but awesome, to make them more easterish we colored them pink:)


Snicker Doodles
1.Preheat oven to 400.f
2. Cream together 11/2 cups sugar
  1 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 TBLS milk
1 TSP Vanila
Then add: 23/4 cups flour
2 TSP cream of tar tar
1 TSP baking soda
3/4 TSP salt
 Roll into balls and roll in 1/2 cups sugar and 2 tsp of cinnamon,
place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes, do not over bake!
cool and enjoy!

 

Bowling

My dad and I took the kids bowling and they had a blast!

Year 2.

Year 2, all I can say is I miss you, that will never change. Rest in peace, smart kid.

Pizza rolls

A few weekends ago....(ok more like late last year) I was watching my siblings for the weekend while the parents were away. We all love pizza so we decided to try this method out, results.... Deliciousness, and convenient. These can even be frozen.

Happy valentines day, love Ryan

I made this Ryan gosling valentine for my sister! Yay Ryan! Maddie and Ryan's celebrity name could be Myan or Raddie!

Dressing up for church, old fashioned or respectful?

To all you "lifers"( people who have gone to church since they were popped out of the womb) do you remember when you were young how dressing up for church was..was..just that, you actually dressed up for church without a second thought? If you were an early 90's girl, like me  this probably meant a really puffy floral print dress with frilly, perfect, white socks and dress shoes. Adorable, really- I mean it. This was just the norm, then you grow a bit older, you still dress up to an extent just a tad more low key, but you still made an effort, right?

These days is becoming more and more common to see no one dressed up for church, and on the off chance someone does they get a stare, or even comments like "Wow, look who is all dressed up" ( I have personally been told this) I just shake my head, Why WOULDN'T someone dress up a little for church? Church is what? 1-3 hours, and you can't make an effort to make yourself look nice for God, the person who gave you life, who blesses you abundantly everyday?  We( yes everyone, including me) can probably admit to spending a lot of time and  effort into getting ready for a social event, a concert, or some other event, yet when it comes to Sunday morning some people go so far as to just wear P.J's, sweat pants, or hoodies  to church, yes that is right, crazy eh?

I am NOT in any way judging peoples clothes or saying who have to dress like you're going to the opera, but, people can tell when you put effort into your appearance. I hear this new concept from many churches these days.. "were just casual" God and church shouldn't be considered "casual" some people in the world are killed for even considering going to church, it is sacred to them, they only wish they could fellowship with other believers and they treat it as such. When I went to Nicaragua a few years ago, all the girls wore nice  skirts and all the men wore their nicest clothes and thats just how it was,why? They recognized how blessed they were. They were showing God how thankful they were to him by making an effort to look nice.  Its all a mindset, I think our mindset towards God and church should be that we want  to make that effort. Actions speak louder than words, even this case.

I completely understand what the point of these new ways of thinking are, some churches say they are just going more casual as to not seem like they are judging new believers, or people who have never gone to church, totally understandable, I mean if a new believer came to church who cares what they are wearing, its just super awesome that they are there right? Totally! How ever to those of us who are already believers  we should be so welcoming to that person and trying to get to know them that they wouldn't even notice what we are wearing, just like we wouldn't notice how they were dressed because were happy they made the choice to come to church.  Our attitudes towards others should be so reflective of God that , that is what keeps people coming back. 

I tend to think a little on the old fashioned side with somethings, and this is one of them. I stress again, I am not judging peoples looks, your definition of dressing up ect, It is just an observation I have been making the past few years.Remember He came so that we may have life, and have it more abundantly(John 10:10)  What are your thoughts? Old fashioned or respectful? 

(p.s if you don't agree thats just fine, this is just my opinion)