Disobedience

Disobedience. We do it. Our kids do it. It's hard when you recognize you have disobeyed.

Today I was sitting in my car sans children with an hour to kill before I picked up Jenna from preschool. I had planned to go to Trader Joe's to buy coveted dark chocolate with almonds and real maple syrup. Sarah was at home napping. I saw a woman walking on the road and she walked right by my car.

I felt God tell me to talk to her, maybe pick her up and take her where she needed to go.

But I sat there and watched her walk by as I listened to my Christian music on the radio.

Luke 6:46 "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?"

I turned the car around and looked for her but she was gone. We need to listen to God and do what he says right away. I want to be that kind of person, Jesus is that kind of person. Obedient even to death on a cross.

Iron Chef: Prego Spaghetti Sauce

Erik went to the store to get a secret ingredient today. I anticipated making several dishes but didn't make any of the ones I thought. The secret ingredient was Prego spaghetti sauce to celebrate my "preggo" state. Funny.

Anyway, Prego is actually a difficult secret ingredient since it's not that versatile. I didn't want to have 4 pasta dishes so I had to think outside the box. I had a somewhat tough time with this but pulled out 5 dishes, two of which were stellar!

1. Prego bruschetta - Normally bruschetta uses an olive paste over toasted bread topped with a fresh tomato mixture. I put prego sauce over toasted bread, with fresh tomates, green onions, fresh basil, and some grated romano cheese. This earned me a 10 on taste as it was "so nummy" as Sarah says.
2. Potatoes galette with Prego - I don't normally make potato dishes for iron chef since they take so long to cook. This one I had in the oven for 45 minutes and yet the potatoes were still too hard! It was sliced potatoes and onions in a prego sauce covered with mozarella and Italian spices. The flavors worked well but the under-doneness of the potatoes earned me a low score.
3. Homemade ravioli - Yum! Yum! Yum! I made two sheets of pasta dough then filled them with three cheeses, prego sauce, and pepperoni. I cooked the ravioli and topped it with a Prego sauce that had extra garlic and prosciutto in it. This was a fabulous dish!
4. Prego stuffed pepper meatballs - I made meatballs with prego sauce and cooked them in a red pepper so the flavor of the pepper would enhance the meatball. This was very good too.
5. Parmesan crusted salmon with Prego and garlic butter - here is where it all fell apart. Now I know why spaghetti sauce is not paired with salmon often. The flavors were competing and they didn't go well together. Well...now we know.

Erik rated me a 14.2 and I rated myself a 14.6. He gave me lots of originality points but a 4/10 on taste for the salmon. Erik really didn't like it :(.

Erik finished painting and assembling the bunk beds. He is so handy! We put the girls in the bunk beds last night but Sarah kept coming out so she had to go back to her own room. Today they both played up in the top bunk. Sarah is adept at climbing up and down (no -we don't even have a ladder, they use the slats on the side of the bed!).

78 points on quiddler today. "woot" is not a word according to Quiddler online. Who are these people anyway? They don't know jokey or woot? Come on!

Cookie party!

Jenna's 5th birthday party was a success! I made cut out cookies of everyone's name and they all decorated their cookies.

Some kids had long names and likewise got more cookies ;). However some kids ate all their cookies without even decorating them. So they ate cookies, cake, and ice cream - only a little sugar.

Sarah kept saying "where my pesents?" Poor Sarah.

In other news:

1. I just received the best news ever from my dean. I was previously scheduled to teach 4 nights next semester and 2 online classes. That would be a lot and I'd be really busy and tired. She just emailed me and took away two nights so now I'll be teaching two onsite and two online. Yea!!
2. I'm about halfway through In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman. It is an excellent book and her writing is so rich.
3. Erik got his new computer for his birthday (it's a very early birthday present). So he has been playing a lot of games and constantly showing me the graphics. Look at this honey, oh... look at this.... you can see the grass move when I walk!
4. We've been playing squash a lot but I think we are going to try spinning as well. That will be comical to see.
5. 72 points on quiddler today. No cool words to speak of.

Iron Chef Erik: Pineapple

On Saturday Erik undertook the task of creating 4 dishes with an exciting secret ingredient. When I went to the store to get a secret ingredient for him, I saw a whole pineapple and thought, this will be fun and I'd like to eat a meal of pineapple. However after I bought a bunch of pineapple I realized that I had never seen Erik cook with pineapple. Oh well - he did great!

Erik made 4 dishes:

1. Pineapple smoothie - This smoothie had blueberries, pineapple, strawberries, yogurt, sugar and cream cheese. It was delicious, light and not too sweet.
2. Fruit salad - This fruit salad was in a pineapple bowl. It was a mixture of pineapple, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Very light and refreshing.
3. Spicy pineapple manicotti - this is why I love my husband. He has never made manicotti or cooked with pineapple, but he made pineapple manicotti. Go figure! He made a ricotta/cream cheese mixture and stuffed spicy peppers along with the pineapple and cheese mixture inside the manicotti. He baked it and topped it with more of the cream mixture. It was delicious and the spicy peppers contrasted well with the sweet pineapple.
4. Pineapple blueberry stack - This was a sweet cream cheese and ricotta mixture with blueberries and pineapples. He layered tortillas with the cream cheese mixture and put grilled pineapple in between each of these layers. The whole stack was topped with whip cream too. It was so yummy!

The final score was 15.25 (Erik's rating) to 15 (my rating). A very successful iron chef that wasn't too heavy or filling.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King day and Jenna and I have no school. We are going to spend the day at Erik's lasik appointment. He is going for the consultation to see if he is a candidate. Then he's going to take us to Golden Corral for dinner! So tomorrow should be a fun day. We had planned on putting Sarah in underwear all day tomorrow (just like today) but there were too many accidents and I don't feel like doing that much laundry!

Even though I've written a lot about food, I've been wanting to fast. My sister has had incredible success with fasting and I'm so happy for her. However with the pregnancy and then with breastfeeding afterwards, I don't feel comfortable fasting for the next year or so (although I would not hesitate if God called me to do it!). So since I can't fast, and am not praying at the abortion clinic anymore, I've felt kind of lost. I asked God what to do - what do I do in this season of my life? God told me to write a list of names, I have over a hundred names on it. Every day I will devote to prayer for that person. It has been a great experience so far to think of this person and pray for him/her during the day.

Wednesday is Jenna's birthday and on Thursday we are going to have a fun cookie decorating birthday party for her. We are so excited to have this party and I'll be sure to post pictures :).

87 points on Quiddler today - however, Quiddler would not give me the word "gamers". Hello? Erik is a gamer, I am a gamer. Since there are two of us we are gamers. I really don't see a problem with this word.

Christmas pics

Now that we are halfway through January, I thought I'd post some pictures from Christmas. I have the obligatory picture of the pediatrician (David) holding my two daughters in crazy ways. The picture of the girls with their new nightgowns sewn by Grandma Cooper, Jenna with her new fairytale ponies (a highly sought after gift), Jenna with the Tigger that Grandma also sewed (although Sarah plays with it all the time), and my I Love Spreadsheets shirt. This shirt is completely awesome. My husband is even more awesome for getting it for me!


We loved having family over and forced David and Becca to play games with us all the time. Sarah loves the name "Becca" and even when I show her pictures of Uncle David she calls him "Becca".

In other news:

1. Erik and I will be going to the Ohio Right to Life banquet March 5. The speaker is Sarah Palin! That should be exciting. To get ready for the banquet I'm reading her new book Going Rogue.
2. We bought unfinished bunk beds for the girls. Erik is in the middle of painting them now and in a week or two we should have them in Jenna's room. We will be moving Sarah into Jenna's room to consolidate the children. They may fight over who gets the top bunk!
3. I'm taking a photoshop class this semester to improve my photoshop skills. Why you ask? I already have mad skills! Well I still need to improve....a lot.
4. During my two week break I sat on the couch basically the entire time. I watched all 6 Star Wars movies and read the Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. That trilogy was well written and exciting with lots of plot twists. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading more of Friedman's books.
5. Erik and I have been playing squash a lot lately since I'm feeling better. My dexterity was not what it once was. My armor class really stinks now (D&D reference).
6. This semester I'm only teaching two nights a week. It is so awesome! Of course next semester I'm teaching 4 nights a week and am not looking forward to it (Erik reminds me the Bible says "do everything without grumbling or complaining" - grumble, grumble, grumble).
7. 73 points on quiddler today - I made the word "linking" a 10 letter word!
   
   
   
   
   

My 15 Favorite Things of 2009

I've compiled a list of my favorite things of 2009. It was a great year and I'd like to commemorate it with this awesome list.

1. Favorite Book of 2009: The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. This was one of those books that you cheer out loud when reading (yes - I do that).
2. Favorite Meal of 2009: buffet at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas. Buffets are awesome to me since I love variety. This buffet was high quality, and delicious, and I stuffed myself silly. Next time I go to Vegas I'd like to try more buffets!
3. Favorite Blood type of 2009: A+. Who wouldn't want A+ as their blood type? It is an awesome blood type and definitely the best one of 2009.
4. Favorite goal met of 2009: finishing my PhD. I worked on my PhD since 2001 and to finally finish was so amazing. I had many people say to me they didn't think I would (including my husband and advisor) since I had two kids but I proved them wrong!
5. Favorite new technology I started using in 2009: Twitter. I like to tweet and read others tweets. Mostly I read what other people say and it is inspiring and fun. Erik made me include this really long title since he said Twitter was not introduced in 2009.
6. Favorite song of 2009: Mighty to Save by Michael W. Smith. I sing this song all the time. It's so catchy!
7. Favorite binary digit of 2009: 1. While 0 comes in as a close second, 1 is considered on (generally) and I'd rather be on than off.
8. Favorite movie of 2009: Avatar. I saw three movies in the theater in 2009 and of those Avatar was definitely the best. I'm hoping to take Jenna to her first movie this weekend for her birthday: The Princess and the Frog. I don't think it will be better than Avatar.
9. Favorite gift of 2009: Baby 3! This baby is a gift from God and I'm so happy to have 3 kids. When I told one of my friends I was pregnant, her first response was "you won!". I love it :).
10. Favorite TV show of 2009: The Next Iron Chef. This show featured excellent chefs who created new exciting meals every week for judges to test. Then a chef was eliminated every week until someone became the Next Iron Chef. Now he'll be competing this Sunday - I can't wait!
11. Favorite answered prayer of 2009: Jenna's preschool teacher became pregnant after 2 years of infertility treatments. I prayed with her at Jenna's school. It was an exciting, tearful time to hear that she was pregnant. Her baby girl is due any day now!
12. Favorite milk of 2009: 2% milk. We moved from whole milk to 2% even though Sarah is still in the 3rd percentile for weight (her 2 yr appt was the 5th - she's such a peanut). I was happy with the change. I felt drinking whole milk was like sludge.
13. Favorite camping trip of 2009: Cross Creek Camping trip June 26 - June 28. This camp ground is close, the pool is huge and wonderful, and there are a lot of activities. Whenever we start camping again, we are going to go back here. It might replace Buckeye Lake as our favorite (especially since it is cheaper!).
14. Favorite vacation of 2009: Our family trip to Florida in August. We stayed at a little paradise in Florida with a hot tub and heated pool. It was an amazing time and we can't wait to go back, although we will have to wait as we probably shouldn't go next year close to my due date.
15. Favorite Bible verse of 2009: Psalm 19:14 "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer." This verse has become a daily prayer for me. Note: this is not my favorite Bible verse.

54 points on Quiddler today - terrible showing.

The House

I was going to post a nice message about Christmas with cute pictures of the girls and talk about how wonderful a time we had and the great relaxing break we had but no. No, I thought I'd disclose something a lot more personal.

For quite some time I've had dreams about a particular house. It is always the same house even though I may dream about different rooms or the driveway or different parts of the house. I had one such dream the other night.

I was in the kitchen and with me was an older man in a wheelchair. I talked to him as though we were familiar but not in a respectful familiar way, rather in a familiar contemptful way. I looked over in the corner and saw a large spider in its web with a huge worm/snake still wiggling and moving that would soon be a meal for the spider. Close by was another spider as well. Ugh! I thought. I'll have to get Erik to call terminix to get all these bugs out of here.

I turned to the man in the wheelchair and said (rather disdainfully) "why do you stay here with all these bugs?" He just turned away from me and didn't answer.

When I woke up I had the usual thought that someday we would own this house. Why else would I keep dreaming about it? Then it hit me.

It's my heart.

Why is my heart filled with bugs? Is the man in the wheelchair God? Why was I so disdainful to him and limiting him by putting him in a wheelchair? What a yucky heart I have!

I didn't understand this. I thought I was doing well. I wasn't struggling with some sin like sometimes in my life, I was journaling every day and while I had stopped fasting and praying at the abortion clinic, I actually felt that God released me from that for this season in my life. Why would my heart be so yucky?

Ohhh. Pride.

Pride is a sin that you don't think about. It is the sin that says you don't need God - you're doing fine on your own. It's the sin that creeps up on you.

Ben Franklin wrote "There is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."

So wise and so true.

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" ~Gal 6:14