Sweet Treats

Happy Friday, sweet things! I wanted to pop in and share with you a quick and easy Valentine treat that Halle and I whipped up yesterday. We had to run into the grocery store and she saw the prepackaged Fruity Pebble Treat squares. I couldn't believe how much 8 in a box cost, so of course I just grabbed a bag of the generic cereal and knew that we could make them at home. Once we got home I decided they need a little dressing up, so here is what we did:



We made the cereal treats just like you typically would (10 oz. marshmallows, 3 Tbsp butter and about 6 cups of cereal. We go a little less on the cereal because we are fans of gooey...). We left them in the pan to cool for a bit. Once cool, I turned them out onto the counter and rolled them just a bit thinner with my rolling pin and used heart shaped cutters. The nice thing about the treats is that you can take the scraps and reroll them. The cereal gets a little beat up, but it doesn't effect the taste at all.

Once they were all cut up, I dipped half in some melted white chocolate bark left over from my holiday peppermint bark binge. We laid them out on parchment and sprinkled the chocolate with sugar, nonpareils, and cereal.

To package for our friends, we stacked three hearts to a pop stick and dropped them into a sweet little Valentine goody bag. We had a great time delivering them out and about to our friends today! Easy and so cute!

Hope y'all have a great weekend full of people and things you love!!

the one in which I freak out about cookies...

Well, lovelies, I have never claimed to be anything less than crazy about cookies. And I love the idea of making decorated cookies that are gorgeous. But until today I have never found the right frosting/icing. Until today. This is a big day for me. Believe me, I've tried them all, and hard as I tried, I never found the right combination of consistency, sheen, drying, plus the all important taste. Sweet things, I am seriously flipping out.

Look at these beauties!! Somehow from Pinterest (of course) I stumbled upon The Decorated Cookie. I pinned some of her work, but then I began digging around on her site and saw that she had recipes for Chocolate Sugar Cookies, which appeared interesting. And then I saw her recipe for what she calls 'Royal Icing (sort of)' and I was intrigued. Let me just say that this recipe is INCREDIBLE. The combination of ingredients is perfection. You can find the recipes here!

Lined up and waiting to be given to my Bible Study Girls!

Like this is so much perfection that I selfishly had the thought for a moment of not sharing it with you and making beautiful cookies that I could sell for a million dollars a piece. (Yeah, had to ask forgiveness for that right away, sorry!) Okay, so I'm totally gushing. But that's it... try it, I think you'll love it! And I'm also betting that you'll be seeing tons of cookies coming out of this kitchen... Happy Thursday!

To begin the week...

"Ordinary work, which is what most of us do most of the time, is ordained by God every bit as much as is the extraordinary. All work done for God is spiritual work and therefore not merely a duty but a holy privilege."~ Elisabeth Elliot

Happy Monday, sweet things! I'm reading "The Shaping of a Christian Family" and came across the above quote in a chapter. It struck me deeply this morning, as I have a pukey baby girl... this interupts my normal Monday catching up, but I found myself feeling deeply grateful for this life I have. Yes, I have more beds to strip and wash (she seems to want to travel and snuggle all over the house today!), and yes, there isn't the same pattern of doing that I normally have, but I get the high and holy calling of being her mom. Of keeping this home. Of being a part of loving and shaping this family. Even the grand task of laundry becomes service. And I am called to be Jesus.

Colossians 3:17 says "And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!



some thoughts on food

Practicing love... I've been on a crazy diet. For the whole month of January. And I'm not going to go into the details here, but let's just call it Intense. (And yes, the capital 'I' is merited.) And I won't even say that at the beginning I had any spiritual motives. I did not. I simply wanted to lose weight and was willing to do anything. Anything hard.

The amount of discipline required of me for more than 4 weeks was unlike anything I've ever done, or even thought I could do. But even only days in, the spiritual 'side effects' became blaringly real. There was a clarity of mind that came when suddenly I was confronted with my addiction and craving for food. And it was because in clearing out an idol I was making room. Room to love Him. And He took *His* rightful place. I didn't start my journey to find Him even more, but I quickly realized that my perspective had been misshapen.

So as the days passed, the cravings became Him. His Word. His work in my life. And suddenly I'm training with the hard discipline of an athlete. I was hungry. Practicing love becomes true love when I put my flesh in the grave.

"For those who live according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit. For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace." Romans 8:5-6

My flesh was gnawing away at my heart... and winning. So now I realize what I was missing. And this heart on fire keeps digging away at open wounds that need to be healed by some Spirit-filled-ness. And it hurts. Putting a name on sin, allowing it to be opened and scraped away by a loving God is a painful process. But He's talking, speaking volumes, and I'm listening because suddenly I can hear. Practicing love is pushing through the pain to bring Him glory.



Monday!!

Hey, y'all! I hope you had a great weekend!

Yesterday was an awesome day for our community and for God's Community~ Our church celebrated new life by baptizing 4 girls from our local body. I cannot tell you what an honor and exciting thing it is to witness how He takes lives and changes them forever... I'm (nearly) speechless!! I was even privileged to get to be in the water with my sweet Emily (in blue below), who is one of our students. God is so good and it's awesome to be allowed to partner with Him in this great work He's doing!

The rest of our weekend pretty much pales in comparison to yesterday's events. We spent time hanging out with friends, making Wipeout courses in the living room (tell me we're not the only ones who do this?!), and I made an insane batch of these brownie/cookies things. I'm dead serious when I say that they will Rock. Your. World. I whipped up some easy hot fudge sauce to go with them, and it was beautiful!

photo coutesy of Kevin & Amanda



Because It Starts with Me

"He said to him, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command.'" Matthew 22:37-38

The practice of Love, of internalizing and then manifesting the greatest commandment, begins with my willingness to leave everything behind. And to simply love Him. How do I love in the difficult places? By remembering how He loved me... even to His death.

I am learning to love by choosing. And the number one choice I have made is to live with deep commitment to His word. To learn it. To meditate on and study it. And to let it soak in so that it fills me up so completely that it has to come pouring out. This work (and it is work!) is by no means complete... and sadly it is not some long-running thing I've taken on. While I've for a while been what one might call a casual student of the Word, I am now a woman on fire. Because all other things hinge on this. And He is good.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be asymbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:5-9

I've been studying these verses, and I've come to understand that I can be nothing apart from Him. My main objective as a parent is to help, with His Spirit, guide and shape these little lives on a path to becoming more like Jesus, and I cannot do it without His Spirit and His Word. And what I'm realizing is it is not enough, possible even, to "Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength" and then to skip ahead to verses 7-9 and try to work them into my home. Verse 6 says that"'these words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart." This work begins with my own heart because 'to the degree that a person allows the word of God to fill his heart, the spirit fills his life'. (Lou Priolo) Yes!!

Miscellany~ My weekend in Numbers

48. The number of these amazing cookies I cranked out on Friday.

0. The number of amazing cookies I consumed... (but it took all the resolve I had not to cave!)

19. The number of awesome girlfriends who came to Girl's Night Out/ Craft Night at our curch despite a crazy snow blowing in.

9. The number of apples I ate this weekend.

4. Pairs of wet shoes/boots camped out by my front door this morning (none of them mine!)

3. The number of washcloths I crocheted. By the way, do you love homemade washcloths?! I'm completely addicted and keep cranking them out!

2. The number of outfits Halle had on before church yesterday.

3. The number of outfits I had on before church yesterday.