My impromptu KIDS DAY! (I highly recommend it)

I had my first teacher training workshop as a full-time teacher a couple weeks ago. The guest speaker was The Ooey Gooey Lady - which if you haven't heard of and you have toddlers or young children then you NEED to look her up! She is absolutely hilarious. A little sporadic but great! So I spent the whole day being inspired and finding fun fabulous things to do with my little toddlers in class and all the while thinking of my own babies. Granted they aren't babies, but you know us moms ALWAYS call them "our babies". You see a couple days before this my mother-in-law decided she was done fighting. She had battled (and conquered) cancer however the tolls it took and were still taking on her body were horrible. She decided that she knew where she was going and she would rather be there then living this kind of a life. So needless to say my husband took the first flight he could be on back home. My little ones didn't really understand daddy leaving so suddenly and they were also stuck in babysitting at my school all day because we had thought hubby would be home to watch them. I felt bad and really wanted to give them some one-on-one time to let them know we were STILL there for them no matter the chaos around us.

So that's exactly what I did. I made up my mind driving home that I could push everything on my "To-Do List" aside and I would declare tonight "KID NIGHT"! Which meant all fun and crazy activities JUST for my babies and no distractions allowed!

Yep it started out like this! Now granted they DID begin with making yummy Ice-Cream Sundaes, however in my rush that morning I forgot to turn the thermostat back to A/C so our house was in the high 80's when we got home! I thought ICE CREAM would be perfect cool-me-down. But in hindsight with it that hot it wasn't the best of ideas. However the kids loved it! Once it melted it turned into their own soup creations! Haha - they even named them and yes they drained all my syrups.

This picture came soon after. As we were putting the ingredients back from our ice-cream (what was left anyways) it began to rain. Now we live in southern Texas where we've been in some crazy abnormal drought this year so I was Ecstatic! So of course I yelled at the kids "Get your crocks on - let's run in the rain!! After their initial shock and questions of disbelief at what mom had just stated, they quickly obliged. Gracie was a little reluctant so I gave her an umbrella to begin with.

Stop right here for a moment. I also realized reflecting back on my evening that several things had biblical meaning as well. Such as the umbrella. When people are going through things in life and you are trying to help them along or trying to get them to understand a concept that is a little stretching for them - you must remember to be graceful and tactful in dealing with them. Find ways to make them comfortable and allow them to baby step into it. Like giving my daughter an umbrella. Of course she soon ditched it and ran in the rain with the rest of us crazies. But it gave her enough comfort to try it in the first place.

Okay back to our story. So after sword fighting my son with closed umbrellas and twirling with my daughter we came back in the house, wet, but satisfied.

Next upon entering the house and getting in dry play clothes, (Which if you're a mom you know means cruddy dirty clothes you really don't care if they get messed up clothes) my son found an empty box from a package I had received that day. He asked if he could use it to play with. Now this is Kid's Day so I had to respond "yes" instead of a "no, I need that for later". Being a boy he collected all his colored pencils and began stabbing it making accompanying sounds of course.

Which of course triggered another idea - one of those "I never let them do this but they always want to...so today is perfect for it!" I gave my kids hammers and nails!! *GASP* Yes. I said that correctly: I GAVE MY KIDS HAMMER AND NAILS!

Break Time: Another lesson here. Boys innately want to build, to hunt, to create and conquer. Why do we give them cheap little toys when sometimes they just need the real deal so they can learn REAL things?! My son always wants to build with wood. So obviously he has a passion in him somewhere for it. As parents its our job to encourage them to discover themselves and what they are good at and enjoy. So if he wants to build with wood and nails - then we need to give them opportunity to LEARN safely under our supervision while the "WANT" is still in them.

And my boy was SO creative when I let him do just that! He hammered a smiley face in the first box - naming it his robot. He of course then needed another box for the robot's body so once again obliging he nailed a straight line to connect the two boxes. He even got scissors and cut out a square minus one side to make a flap to be able to put his robot's batteries in! He really thought it all through and I was so impressed!

Now I said I was at a teacher's workshop so of course I had picked up some new recipes! I gave my kids a choice and they picked the funniest sounding one: OOBLECK! Yep, like from Dr. Seuss.

And sorry I didn't get good pictures - when I had the chance to take some it was still too watery. It usually is really sticky ucky stuff! Which it did turn into eventually for us!

Okay RULE of a Kid's Day: YOU MUST NOT BE AFRAID OF A MESS! Because let's face it, kids are messy and you can't have a true kids days without mess.

Which brings lesson #3: When wanting someone to try something, or maybe you want to try something yourself, be prepared and UNafraid of the mess that COULD result. It's a learning experience after all.

Okay wrapping up our night couldn't be something small after all we did so we made a fitting fort ,in mom's room of course, for the kids to "camp out". When I say we made a big fort I wasn't kidding:

And it's hard to judge from pictures but we have a fairly large room and this stretched across almost the entire way! Want to recreate it - just get some sheets and tie them onto your curtain rods as so:

I think it goes without saying that my kids had a BLAST! They asked if every day could be kids day, lol. And of course God always has perfect timing for about two hours after they drifted off to sleep after a good story and bedtimes kisses - I got the call that their grandma had passed away.

A Quick Look Back...

This summer has been crazy. It's been hectic and stressful, yet fun and relaxed. It's been hot and miserable yet exciting and full of surprises! It's been a SUMMER! Since I've taken a LONG break from my Project 365 due to way too many personal circumstances going on in our lives right now I am going to reminisce for a bit however on my great summer before it's gone forever. Well until next year! So here's some recap and some pics to cover my butt:

This was technically before summer but HAD to be mentioned! I met one of my all-time favorite christian rap artists, KJ-52! He came and did a concert for our youth group and it was SO neat getting to meet him in person and go eat with him afterwards (yes I'm bragging a bit) He was very down to earth and we even agreed on an herbal tea that does wonders for sore throats!

Next of course is Graduation which seems to officially start our summers as youth pastors because we always know WAY too many graduates! It's a bittersweet time - we are SO proud of them and can't wait to see the lives God has for them yet we hate to see them go! We will miss them!

After the hectic end to every one's school year our friends grabbed us away for a much needed weekend camp out! Did I mention this camp spot had four-wheeling trails through the forests, jumps and all?! Oh yes. F-U-N!

We also got together with my husband's side of the family and all took off on a Caribbean Cruise to Progresso & Cozumel! Snorkeling in the coral reefs of Cozumel was SO breath-taking and such an awing experience that I am hooked for life! I can never describe how it felt. It was incredible!

Only downside - this was our "potty" on this fishing/scuba boat! HAHA

In between this time I took my trip to New Mexico but more posts on all that later - you've already seen the Fredericksburg one of that trip! And we weren't even to our destination yet!

The end of our summer wrapped up in South Dakota with my husband's family and his momma who is still battling cancer. It's been a hard and long fight but she is still fighting with everything she has. South Dakota also means my brother-in-law, Nate. And his new toys. Enough said.

Yes I shoot. Yes I hunt. And I LOVE every minute of it!

(Oh and the first picture of this post was a new fave picture of mine my husband snapped of us while on our cruise ship.)

How has your summer been? If you have a post of "your summer" please share it with me! I'd love to check it out!

A stop on our journey...

Since my blog name is "A Walk in My Shoes", I figured I'd give you a literal walk in my shoes. Well okay not MY technical shoes but I WILL tell you all about a fun stop we took on my latest trip to New Mexico! One of my parents and I favorite spots to stop is Fredericksburg, TX. It's located in Hill Country and has SO many cute little shops on their downtown strip. It's blocks and blocks of fun shopping! It's tourist crazy in the summer so beware of summer weekends but if you hit it in the off-season it's not bad at all! Course if you don't mind crowds then who cares!

A couple days before we left my mom hopped on her iPad and made reservations at the Peach Tree Tea House. This is a quaint and DELICIOUS place to eat! We had a late reservation because of travelling and were starved and tired when we got there but my complaining ceased as soon as I tasted their food! It was WELL worth the wait.

Again this a highly popular place so I recommend making an online reservation if it's a weekend. But SO worth it! They also have an attached gift shop with home decor and a few other things that you can toodle around in while you wait for your table. It's located just one block off of the Main street.

The second place is a new clothing boutique shop I found called Hip Dingo! Don't care too much for their logo, however the clothes were very fashionable and trendy and SO well priced!

To make my point I bought this adorable summer dress there:

And it only cost me $30!! I know right?! Tell me that isn't a cute dress! (okay not really - I don't want to hear if you don't like it because then you'd burst my bubble!) But still lots of cute clothes including the blinged out pocket jeans similar to Miss Me brand! There are only 5 locations or something like that. I did find a website but I'm thinking it's brand new because hardly any clothes were really on it yet. However you can just click here, or on the logo above, to find it. Maybe they'll be adding things soon.

Last but not least (we were travelling THROUGH so we didn't have much time, sorry) was a kitchen store that we ALWAYS stop at! Literally we ALWAYS stop. Of course we are Italian and so cooking is a passion for us. So if you're Italian, or you just like cooking definitely stop in at Der Kuchen Laden! It has so many fun gadgets and pretty serving and prep dishes! This past trip I got a Le Creuset Grinding Stone for my mom's birthday, two crown shaped cookie cutters (one large, one small), a cow-print chocolate milk maker mug - I may have to post about this, it would make a GREAT gift for a little boy or girl - because it has a button on the handle that you push and it stirs up your chocolate milk! My kids LOVE IT! And then I also threw a Blender Bottle (those cool smoothies cups with a metal ball inside for mixing!!) and a fridge magnet that says"My Cup of Tea" (because I'm a daily tea drinker!)! Okay I'm rambling but it's a fun store - go check it out! Click on their logo below to see their website:


And I really need to be going but if you are spending some time there my mom would also highly recommend tasting some Becker Vineyards wine and definitely stopping to see the lavender fields at Wildseed Farms! Oh and who can forget some fresh peaches! (If it's peach season that is :) ) Happy traveling!

One of my favorite APS

I feel like a well-worn traveler! This summer has been kind of crazy as I'm sure a lot of yours has as well and in the last month I have been home maybe 5 days. My first trip was the best: I spent two weeks in New Mexico (home) with my parents. We slept in, had big breakfasts on the back porch, went camping and played Scrabble among several other things. Oh and we took my new favorite trick photo - which I'll be sharing later! But first a story about our Scrabble games. You see both my parents are teachers, my dad even being an English teacher for some time, so Scrabble was something we always LOST at. And badly. Well thanks to technology and aps there is a new highly popular game called "Words with Friends". It is essentially Scrabble on your phone. You play against a friend who also has the ap, sending your turn to them to open up and play when they want. Since I have been playing this quite a bit this past year as soon as my mom (with her brand new iPad) asked me "know any good aps?" I immediately saw a grudge match in our future!

I showed her the game which she was excited about. It also has conversation or texting abilities inside the game for you to communicate with just in case you wanted to know that. However, I did challenge them to an old-fashioned Scrabble game. And guess what happened? I CREAMED 'em! Ha ha, what did you think I would say I lost? No way Jose! It was fun and of course my mom called for a rematch. Oh of which I won as well may I add, however it was a VERY close game second time around. Anyways, it was good times and if you are like my mom looking for fun aps, Words with Friends is a fun, challenging, and playful ap!

Dangerous Chocolate Cake In a Cup

(to buy this Pride & Prejudice Mug click on picture)

Last weekend I had one of our teens staying with us and this young girl is a romantic. When I first found this out I told her I had a movie she HAD to watch - Pride and Prejudice. So she had come over for a sleepover and we watched Pride & Prejudice and I taught her how to make Chocolate Cake in a Cup - which needless to say she is a die-hard fan of both now and that's what she requests every time she comes over to my house! Since she was just here and we once again made the yummy desserts and watched our chick flick I thought I would share this quick simple recipe with you!


Oh and why is it called dangerous? Because you can make a chocolate cake in FIVE minutes!! That IS dangerous!



CHOCOLATE CAKE IN A CUP

1 large coffee mug (the bigger the better)
4 TBSP Cake Flour (plain, not self-rising)
4 TBSP Sugar
2 TBSP Cocoa
1 egg
3 TBSP Milk
3 TBSP Oil
Small Splash of Vanilla
3 TBSP Chocolate Chips (optional)


Add dry ingredients to mug, mix well with a fork. Add egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in milk, oil, & vanilla, mix well. Add chips, if using. Put mug in microwave and cook for three minutes on 1000 watts. Cake will rise over mug - do not be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, tip onto a plate if desired.


GLAZE (optional)


1/3 powdered sugar
1 1/2 TSP dry flavoring (such as cocoa powder, vanilla powder or lemonade mix - to match cake used)
1 1/2 TSP milk


Mix all ingredients and then pour over cake - EAT AND ENJOY!

Uprooting

As a follower of my blog I'm sure you have wondered if I dropped off the end of the globe?! However the reason for my absence from "A Walk in My Shoes" has been that God has been doing some major uprooting in my family's life.

We have been youth pastors at Lone Star Cowboy Church in Montgomery, TX for 6 years now. We moved here when my son was only a month old and have enjoyed the roller coaster ride God has had us on! It was such a blessing to see and be a part of a youth group of 15 becoming an average attendance of 200-300!! To see these teens turn their hearts toward God and yearn for Him! So many belly laughs, tears and memories of this place and OH SO MANY faces that I will NEVER ever forget! And even if my old age does try to take the memories, I have most of them journaled! We have learned so much from our dear pastors, Randy and Darla Weaver. I've told them before in cards and in person but Randy taught me to love people - even if we don't like them - that they ARE God's greatest treasure and we must choose to see them through God's eyes. Darla taught me about forgiveness, grace and mercy. A saying that is forever embedded in my heart and mind was something she told me when I was having a good ole' struggle with God over something. She told me, "You are no less a sinner than they are." You guessed it - the struggle was about a "somebody" not a something. But it was my light bulb moment. It doesn't matter how justified you think you are - you are a sinner just as everyone else is. No person is higher or lower - we are ALL equal in God's eyes. And when you realize that it's much easier to have mercy on them knowing that we all make mistakes and when I mess up I want whoever I hurt or offend to forgive me - for you reap what you sow.

As much as we love the people of LSCC and have loved our time there, God has told us plainly that He wants us to go somewhere else now. Our season there is over. And I know that as HEARTBREAKING as it was to sobbingly say good-bye to our teens there, I have no doubt that God has great plans for their future there, and ours as well. God has called us to Dayton Christian Center in Dayton, TX. Thankfully it is not too far and so I will be able to commute to where I have worked this year - which by the way, in case there isn't enough change having to happen - I interviewed for a teaching position at the Day School I work at and GOT IT! So I am now a full-time teacher at a Day School of...you ready for this??? A ONE -YEAR OLD CLASS!! I know - I'm crazy! Trust me I know. However this was totally God too, because when my boss first asked me about the position I told her no. I had no intention of working 4 days yet because I am trying to finish up college. But God has assured me it will all work out and I trust Him fully.

The other day I was thinking about a book I had read and that started my mind down some random trail and God ended up giving me a beautiful scene in my head that fit our transition. It was a plant being uprooted. The longer a plant stays somewhere the deeper the roots go and the more established that plant becomes with the ground there. A plant endures seasons - summer and sunshine, rainy springs, and cold harsh winters. And if you live here in TX a plant will also undergo the burning sweltering heat of late summer! However, sometimes the gardener decides that He would like to move this particular plant to another part of the garden this year - perhaps to give it more shade or more sun, or perhaps just because he woke up that morning and thought "ooh that would look divine over by the whatcha-ma-call-its! And then ooh I could put a doo-hickey where it used to be!! Oh man that is gonna look SO good!!"

Can't you just imagine God getting all excited, just like a gardener, uprooting and planting new and old plants alike all over His beautiful garden?! I could. However, uprooting a well-established, deep rooted plant takes hard work and no matter how deep He digs or how careful He is when he finally pulls it out of the ground some of those roots will rip and tear. This is the heartbreak we experience when leaving a place. The roots, or the people and memories, go right along with us in our hearts to the new place but it is a hard experience and those smaller roots that rip and are left in the old ground cause tears but also make for good fertile ground for another plant to build off of and around.

Now I am not a gardener by any means and if my analogies were off a bit than please forgive me, however it was fitting to me and made for a wonderful thought path that afternoon in the car. *smile**sigh*

Thanks for letting me share and I will hopefully get slowly back into my regular blogging.

Cute Easter Ideas: Goodies & a Craft

You know what is alright - a cupcake paper. And a cute one too! If you are looking for a cute Easter treat idea OR a beautiful homemade card you can make for family and friends then look no further!

First select a cute Easter cupcake paper or a bright green color would work good too for this cupcake creation. Here is the ingredients you'll need:

Cake Mix

Eggs

Vegetable Oil

Buttermilk

Robin Eggs Candy

Chocolate Frosting

Vanilla Frosting

Green & Yellow Food coloring

4 Black Jelly Beans (small ones, like Jelly Belly's)

White Circus Peanuts (or just cover the orange ones with white melting chocolate)

24 Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds

Oreo Cookies

Small Flower Sprinkles

Mini Marshmallows (4)

Light Corn Syrup

White NonPareils (sprinkles)

Ziploc Bags - a good sturdy kind like freezer bags

Mix up the cake mix using the same amount of vegetable oil, 1 Cup of buttermilk and 4 eggs. Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and bake for about 25 minutes if using a dark pan like stoneware. If not just follow box directions for cooking. While they are baking spoon 2 TBLS of chocolate frosting into the corner of a Ziploc bag, squeeze out the air and seal and set it aside.

And then if you are like me and can't find white circus peanuts go ahead and cover them with some white chocolate melting wafers!

Next take a handful of Oreo cookies and crush them completely down to crumbs. Call your little boy or girl into the room to pour the bag of crumbs and take the opportunity to use both hands to take a photo! hehe.

When the cupcakes are cooled completely - take four of them and cover with chocolate frosting. Next roll the tops in the crushed cookie crumbs until covered. These are your "holes" for your cute bunnies!

Next split the vanilla frosting in half and color one a dark green color while mixing green and yellow food coloring in the other half to make a brighter green (or cheat and buy the neon pastel food colors like I did).

I have to pause to apologize because at this point I got so into it and was just a truckin' through these that I forgot to keep taking pictures. However I will do you the honors of still walking you through it all! Aren't I nice?

Once you have both colors carefully place one color on one half and the other green on the other side so when you pipe it from the corner of the bag both colors come out at the same time. Once it's ready cut a small tip from the piping corner side of your Ziploc bag and then use a squeeze and pull technique to form grass on the remaining cupcakes. Squeeze and pull technique: simply placing the tip of the bag against the cupcake, giving a slight squeeze and then pulling the bag straight up and away to form a stiff peak with the frosting.

Then add small patches of flower sprinkles and robin's eggs candies around the grass cupcakes.

To make the bunnies feet take your circus peanut and cut them in half lengthwise - you just need the smooth side. For the pads of the feet cut your jelly beans in half also and pipe a small dot of chocolate frosting (from the frosting you earlier set aside) and place one half of your jelly bean on each foot. Then add three more dots at the top end of your feet and place the sunflower seeds with the pointy side pointing inward.

Last step is to roll your 4 mini marshmallows in the light corn syrup and then cover them with the white nonpareils. It worked easily for me to put both into small bowls.

Then you just place your feet together in their pairs on your dirt holes and give them each a fluffy tail! And I know no pictures to go by - but I DID at least take pictures of the finished product so in case you got lost on the last few steps just take a gander at the photos and hopefully you can figure it out!

WARNING: Undertaking this project may result in undesirable kitchen conditions.

HOMEMADE EASTER CARDS

These are super easy and quick! Just start out with some blank cards that you can find at Hobby Lobby. Draw three rounded rectangles on the top half of the paper, off set a bit. Have your kids finger paint dots (using their pointer finger) to fill the rectangles completely, even covering your light pencil lines too!

Next have them paint a straight stem down from each flower using a thin brush. Finally using a thicker brush have them make small leaves at the bottom of the stem by doing a quick short stroke starting at the very bottom and brushing diagonally up in both directions.

And voila! Just like that you have yourself some Texas bluebonnets! My kids are 4 and 5 and they did these ALL by themselves! The above picture is a card we did together (I painted most of this one to show them an example) and I added our initials at the bottom of the one we finger painted. However here is one they did all on their own:

There you go - a fun cupcake creation to do for a class party or perhaps a family Easter Egg Hunt and some pretty Bluebonnet cards to send to family this spring holiday and the day of Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

31 Days to Clean - Day 1 Challenge

I highly doubt I'll share every day on here but I will share when I feel the...feeling to. The first day was an interesting Mary Challenge and I figured I would share it here on my blog. Sarah Mae asks you why YOU clean. You are to figure out why you clean and then come up with a mission statement and of course just because we're crafty moms and such to display your mission statement somehow where you can see it daily. Here are my five reasons why I clean (in no particular order): 1. To make my home a haven. HAVEN: any place of shelter and safety; refuge 2. To set an example for my kids. 3. To keep my mind clear and focused. If your surroundings are cluttered, so are your thoughts and if your surroundings are clean and organized then your mind can be too :) 4. To keep my home healthy and sanitary! 5. Because God called me to tend to my home. My Cleaning Mission Statement: To keep my home healthy and happy so I may create an environment of rest and refuge, as an example to my children and husband, as God has called me to do.

A Blast from the Past

I was born in 1986. Yes I'm young. And I'm proud to still be able to say that because I know my time is coming. However awhile back some friends of ours got in a conversation about trolls. I believe we saw some hair or something that reminded us of a troll and our minds just went spiraling down the mountain of our past toys and shows etc. It was a fun journey. So I thought in honor of the past (and I can call it that because the teens I work with don't know most of these things I mention) I would do a blast from the past post! 1. Obviously I have to start with the famous Troll Dolls! Their crazy straight up hair, their often naked little backsides and the petite little gut they all had. Once the craze began it spilled over to character trolls such as doctor, baby, girly and even animal trolls! I'm pretty certain I had a unicorn troll at some point.

2. POGS - okay who remembers these? Because they were a short lived wonder. You stacked them up nice and straight and used your thicker pog, called a Slammer; which were often made out of metal or plastic versus cardboard like the pogs were, to throw it at the top of the pile and however many you could knock off the pile you got to keep! And it had to be a straight down shot, sideways shots were obviously considered cheating. It was a fun game and I remember being excited to go through my new pogs I won after a game. Best part was they were DIRT CHEAP!

3. Sand Art - These are actually still around today but were huge when I was young. Every event or fair or place you went you could either create your own or buy their "souvenir sand art" It was simply colored sand layered odd ways into a creative container. Plain and simple. And I'm sure I did one or two as a kid.

4. POPPLES - This was one of my FAVORITE shows when I was really little! They were cute furry animals that looked like an ordinary ball until their owner (a kid) was by himself and then they would POP out into them self! Very cute and taught good morals. They had some funny popple characters. I still own a Popples shirt and plan on cutting out the front graphic to sew onto a new shirt - since my current shirt is a little short for my "mommy look" now.

Do you remember some crazes from your childhood? Or perhaps just something you loved back then? I'd love to hear what it/they were!

31 Days to Clean!

If you're like me and spring is passing you by and you keep telling yourself you REALLY need to do some spring cleaning before summer arrives then you'll be just as excited as I was when I saw this on a fellow blog I read: 31 Days to Clean, Having a Martha House the Mary Way!

Sarah Mae, writer of "Like a Warm Cup of Coffee" has written this e-book (which means you can buy the download or it's also available on Kindle - woo woo since I have one now) and it helps you keep your house clean while also doing some spiritual picking up and dusting as well! This is right up my alley and I will most definitely be downloading it ASAP and thought I should share it with my readers as well, in case heaven forbid you have a dusty windowsill as well, *gasp*. Obviously it does this by giving you daily challenges and just a wild guess but I'm guessing there are 31 of these daily challenges but that's just a wild guess.

I also thought you'd be interested to know that she is having a giveaway in honor of finishing the e-book! Among the prizes (yes as in plural) is a $50 gift certificate to DownEast Basics! (See below)

And to get an entry is a cinch! Check out all the details at her blog (just click the above link)! And here's a super easy way to get an extra entry: just put this button on your sidebar and let her know in a comment - do you notice my sidebar :)

Excuse me now while I go download something on my Kindle...

Project 365

March 9th

My daughter Gracious & I at her class Valentine Ice-Cream Social!

March 11th

Girls Retreat - I took a group of 15 girls to my friend's Girls Retreat she hosts at her church. It was an AMAZING EVENT and those girls and their stories bring tears to my eyes even now. I love watching a girl hear God for the first time & realizing it's REAL. The above photo is me and my two group leaders that tagged along and got kept up that night :)

March 12th

We got to bed by 2:15 AM but still arose ready to hear more from God. Here is a picture of our group at the end of this fantastic journey.

March 14th

If you read my previous post you know that we unexpectedly took a trip to see my in-laws. So I was a bit distracted during this week...well this month so don't expect a picture from everyday or perhaps that week :/. However even though I'm not in it here is a picture of the sunrise over my husband's home ranch.

March 15th

It is my birthday. However due to plans we postponed my "party" plans for another time and instead I played in the snow piles with my kids, cooked for my in-laws, visited with some aunts I rarely see and ate chocolate cake they brought - not to mention enjoyed gazing at the flowers they also brought. My favorite flower is a Lilly. And they just happened to have brought me some :)

Cancer

I seem to always have excuses for not posting yet this one you may actually give to me. And I realize by choosing what I did for the title of this post that my best friend back home is already freaking out asking herself a million questions of who has cancer and why am I posting about it. No I do not have cancer. Feel better Jaci? However my mother-in-law did. About a month ago (thus the no posting last month) we got that dreaded phone call saying that my husband's mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Adernocarcinoma to be exact. (Did I spell that right? I'm truly not sure) Anyhow it is a lung cancer and a very aggressive one. So we waited another week for her to get her PETscan and then hear what the plan of action would be. So one week later we get the call on how the PETscan results came out: It has consumed her body. Words that no one ever wants to hear. Especially as fearful as everyone has become of this dreaded disease. However our family serves THE Mighty God, THE Healer of all and we had no fear. She CHOSE to rely on God as her source and Provider and Healer especially after her son (not my husband - the other one) found a verse in 1 Kings 18:21 which says, "...How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." God is God. And God is Healer and we should have no fear. We took the family up to South Dakota - which God provided all the details and ways for us to do this trip so perfectly that all of that is a testimony in itself - but we went to see them and help them. I cooked and cleaned so Cathy could rest and Nick helped his dad with his church services. My father-in-law is a pastor in South Dakota and does circuit preaching (drives to several locations each week to hold services because of the distance between people out there). It was a great week, Cathy got the rest and fresh food she needed, got to be encouraged and cheered up by her grand kids and we got to come together as a family to fight the spiritual fight of this whole ordeal. Her faith is incredible! She would NOT allow herself to think any negative thoughts, not ONE. She had a CD player (yep old school CD player) playing in one earphone all day - she took her "treatments", which was reading and speaking the Word of God over her life and claiming the healing promises. Not to mention she had praise music on 24/7, it never got turned off. It was awesome! And I'm proud to say that she let us all know this past Monday that she FELT the cancer leave her body! She is healed and is on her way to building her strength back up! Don't you dare tell me God doesn't STILL do miracles and don't you DARE tell me something is impossible for Him - He is God of ALL and He can heal ALL. Period.