Easter Cookies

Since Tori didn't have to go to school yesterday, we decided it would be fun to make Easter sugar cookies.  We've done it at Christmas time before, but never at Easter.  So, we thought it would be a fun Good Friday project. 

In the morning, we made the sugar cookies.  I was given a great sugar cookie recipe that is very simple, but taste great!  The kids always love helping me measure out ingredients and pour them in the bowl.  We had gotten everything out and had started mixing the ingredients when I realized that I was out of stick butter.  I was afraid that using tub butter would mess up the cookies, since we were rolling and cutting them into shapes.  If we were going to go to all that trouble, I wanted to make sure something stupid like using the wrong type of butter didn't mess them up.  Anyway, so I called my neighbor down the street who is super sweet and asked her if she had any unsalted stick butter.  I promised her some of the finished product if I could have some butter. Ha!  One of her sons rode his bike down to our house and delivered two sticks of butter!  Now that's a great neighbor! :)

After the cookie dough was made, it had to go in the refrigerator for at least an hour to get firm.

Then the rolling and the cutting began!  We made flowers, lilies, bunnies, butterflies, and crosses.  Once we got them all cut out, it was time for baking.  I didn't take a picture of them cooling, but of course, they had to sit on the cooling racks for awhile until they weren't hot anymore.  Then last night, the decorating finally happened!

They turned out really cute!  Making cookies also taught my children patience.  They didn't realize there was so much waiting involved in making cookies!  :)  Here's our finished products:

Disney on Ice

Last night my friend, Devon, and I took our kids to see Disney on Ice.  It was so much fun!  I loved it as much as the kids and I was ready to come home and watch all the Disney movies!  :)  Another friend told me about a deal where I could get my tickets for 50% off.  It was a great deal!  The three of us were able to go for less than $25.00.  You just can't beat that for the entertainment we received!

Can't wait until it comes to town again!! 

Living Proof Live

This past weekend I got to hear Beth Moore teach live!  I have done several of her Bible studies and I feel like I know her personally, because she is so down to earth and she has walked along beside me as I studied God's word through her Bible studies. There is no doubt in my mind that God has anointed her and I would encourage anyone who is interested in growing in their relationship with God to seek out any of the studies that she has written.

God blessed me this weekend by allowing me to be surrounded by some of my dearest friends while we worshipped God together and grew closer to Him.  Can't tell you how much I love these girls and what they mean to me.  God put each of them in my life for a reason.

Since I don't have any sisters of my own, God gave me Brandi.  This is me, her, and her mom.  We don't live in the same town anymore, so we had the best time going out to eat Friday night and catching up.

These are two of my other dear friends who God has blessed me with to "do life" with.  We go to church together, we volunteer in the children's ministry together, our kids are in the same preschool class, our husbands are good friends, it goes on and on.   Only God could orchestrate the amazing connections that He has made for me with these women.  We enjoyed going out to eat on Saturday when the conference was over and sharing what God had showed us.

The second day we got to sit up fairly close.  The pictures that I took of Beth did not turn out very well.  The pictures are dark and she looks a little scary.....she really is a very pretty lady.

It doesn't help that I caught her in mid-word. :)

The icing on the cake was that I got to meet Kelly at Kelly's Korner's best friend, Laurie.  You would have thought I had met the president I was so excited!!  :)  She was probably surprised I didn't go ahead and ask for her autograph!!  LOL!  It's just so much fun to meet some one in person who you have read about for over two years.

Fun Friday Favorites

I thought it might be fun on Friday to share a few of my favorite things.

Favorite places to shop for clothes:  Maurices, CATO, Rue 21

Favorite places to browse:  Hobby Lobby, Kirkland's, Garden Ridge, and any Hallmark store

Favorite places to eat:  Most any Mexican Restaurant (as long as they have good salsa), Chili's

Favorite Fast Food:  Zaxby's and Arby's

Favorite Movies:  Fools Rush In, Dance with Me, Selena, The Notebook

Favorite Ingredient to Cook With:  Worshiture sauce (I could put this on everything)

Favorite Drink:  I used to LOVE sweet tea, but I'm trying to reduce the sugar in my diet, so now I drink mostly water with lemon or unsweet tea with lemon.  I LOVE putting fresh lemon or lime juice in whatever I am drinking.

Favorite Snack:  ro-tel cheese dip and chips, hands down!

Favorite People:

Ok, ok, I know that it's Sunday night (not Friday), but this post has been sitting on my computer all weekend and I never sent it.  So, I'm posting it anyway.  Hopefully you enjoyed learning a little about me you didn't know.

Manna Muffins

I wanted to share a great breakfast muffin recipe that I have.  They are very easy to make and they taste great!  Plus my kids love them because they get to dip them in the butter and cinnamon/sugar mixture all by themselves.
Dry ingredients--1 3/4 cup flour
                          1/4 cup sugar
                          2 tsp baking powder
                          1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients--1 egg (beaten)
                           3/4 cup milk
                           1/3 cup oil
                           1 tsp vanilla (this is not in the original recipe, but I decided a little vanilla couldn't hurt it)

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  In a smaller bowl, stir together all the wet ingredients and then pour into the larger bowl.  Stir just until moistened.  Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.

In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup sugar with 3 tsp cinnamon (those are the measurements that the origianl recipe gives, but you can't really mess this up.  I never measure exactly).   Also melt 1/2 stick of butter in another small bowl.

Bake muffins for 10-15 minutes.  Once done, let them cool enough to be handled without burning your hand.  Then dip each muffin into the bowl with the butter mixture and then into the bowl with the cinnamon mixture.

The original recipe described them like this:
These muffins are hearty and taste almost like biscuits.  They are not super-sweet desert-style muffins, but once you taste them you'll probably call them a little slice of heaven on earth.

That comment got me to thinking about the manna that God provided the Israelites when they were in the desert (Exodus 16).  It made me wonder what the manna tasted like and I was reminded of the story of God keeping His promise to provide for His poeple. 

Robert and I have been going through a training at our church that is teaching us how to incorporate more faith interactions in our day to day life at home with our children.  This gave me the best idea.........why not name different foods after stories in the Bible so that whenever we cook that food we can tell the story that goes along with it and be reminded of what God was wanting us to learn from each story.

So, I decided that our Cinnamon Muffins would from now on be called Manna Muffins.  The name will be a great conversation starter in the future to talk about the story of the Isrealites with our kids.  Hadn't come up with any more yet.  If anyone has any great ideas, please do share.......I can think of great stories that have to do with lambs, but unfortunately we never cook lamb at our house.  :)

Here's Carson dipping

Here's Carson, well, just being Carson

Here's the finished product....at least what was left.  One batch makes twelve and we were able to make
six of them disappear very quickly.

Carson's First T-Ball Game was Saturday

 I have a confession to make.......I am in love with this little man!!!!!  He just melts his momma's heart.  I know it's just because I'm his mom, but I think he's the cutest t-ball player there ever was!  Plus, he had a good time and played great....except when he started running towards the pitcher's mound instead of first base the first time he hit the ball!!  Oops!  Ha,ha,ha!

This is the whole team with two of their coaches.  We are very blessed to have been put on a team with very patient and loving coaches who love the game of baseball, but keep in perspective that these boys are only four and five years old.  They don't have unrealistic expectations and as a result, I think these boys are going to end up LOVING the game of baseball.

He's ready for the ball!! 

Yeah, Carson!  Way to stop that ball!

Robert wanted him to be #7, because that is Robert's lucky number, but he got #3.
Maybe Carson will start his own tradition and #3 will be his lucky number!

 Did I mention how much I love this little man??!!!!!  Just checking.......   :)

Spring Break Camping Trip

Last weekend we went camping with my family and had the best time!!  Several weeks before Spring Break Tori asked if we could go camping, because she had never been camping before.  I thought that would be a fun Spring Break activity, so I called my brother who is a wildlife biologist and outdoorsmen to see if we could plan a trip.  We tossed around the idea of renting a campsite at a nearby lake, but then settled on just camping on some of our land that Robert and my brothers deer hunt on.  So, the men had all these fun activities that they planned for the kids and the kids had a blast (us adults had a pretty fun time, too)!!!!!

We spent the night at my mom's house the night before we were to go camping.  Before bed that night Tori wrote this on a a little dry-erase board that my mom has.  Tori was so excited she could hardly sleep!!

Here's a picture of our campsite (it was really just an open field in my family's woods) 

Washing and cutting potatoes to cook

My oldest brother chopping wood.  He went to a lot of trouble to make the trip fun for all the kids.

The guys cooking the potatoes over the fire.

I love this picture!!  Carson is showing his little cousin, Natalie, a cricket that he caught.

Nothing like a hamburger cooked over an open fire!

Cousins looking for critters

Roasting some hot dogs

This is a pic of my whole family.  It's rare to get a picture with all four of my sweet family members in it.

After dinner we went on a nature walk down some of the trails in the woods.

This is Carson's older cousin, Wyatt, carrying him on his back.  These two boys are hilarious together!

Here's the crew, looking for cool things in nature.  My oldest brother made a neat experiment where he prepared several patches of dirt for viewing.  Then the next morning the kids went back down the trail and got to see if any wild animals had left any tracks.  They found rabbit, deer, etc.  My kids thought it was so cool!!

Here's a pic of the whole gang.  It's my mom and her three children (I have two older brothers) and then our families.  My oldest niece, Grace, brought a friend along, so she snapped this picture of all of us.

Once it got dark, the coats and blankets came out.  Everyone got on comfy clothes and we talked and laughed around the fire.

Sorry, this picture is out of order.  This was while we were waiting for supper to cook.

Of course, no camping trip is complete without making smores!!

Here's some of the guys enjoying their hot drinks and smores, talking about "manly" things.  ha,ha,ha!

The next morning the guys made pancakes, biscuits in a dutch oven, bacon, and sausage.  It was soooo good and the guys really enjoyed using all their outdoor skills on us!!

Plans have already been made for the next trip!  For this summer, we've booked a campsite at a nearby lake and have decided to make the "Deer Wood's Camp Trip" an annual Spring Break event!  Once we got back to my mom's house and were packing up to come back home, Tori told my oldest brother that it had been the best weekend of her life!!  :)  I would say it was a success!!