God's Creation: Day 4 - Sun, Moon & Stars!

God's Creation: Day 4 - Sun, Moon & Stars!

Memory verse: Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Quick Lesson: God created a greater light to rule the day, called the sun. And he created a lesser light, called the moon, to rule the night. He also created the stars in the night sky. These would control the days, months, years and seasons. This was the morning and evening of the fourth day. Refer to Genesis 1:14-19.

Pieces to put up on the wall: Each one should have a night sky, blue day sky, aqua ocean and dry land. Next comes the sun in the day and the moon and stars in the night.

God's Creation: Day 3: Dry Land!

God's Creation: Day 3 - Dry Land!

Memory verse: Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord's, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.

Quick Lesson: God created land which separated the waters. He then created plants, fruits, vegetation, each on producing after their own kind. Can you imagine all the different trees, plants and flowers that He created? This was the morning and evening of the third day. Refer to Genesis 1:9-13

Pieces to put up on the wall: Each one should have black construction paper with light on one side to show light/day and dark/night and a blue sky and aqua ocean. Next is the dry land, grass, tree and flower.

Taco Salad Bowls

Last week I fixed these Taco Salad Bowls and they turned out to be yummy. Messy to eat, but yummy, none the less. Although my version didn't turn out to "look" quite as pretty as in the Kraft Food & Family magazine. :)

btw - if you don't get the free Kraft Food & Family magazine, you should. It's a free subscription and is filled with lots of yummy recipes.

Taco Salad Bowls

4 four tortillas (6-8 inch)
1 tbsp. chili powder
3/4 lb. ground beef
1 cup match-like carrot sticks
1/2 cup taco sauce
2 tbsp. mayonnaise
4 cups torn lettuce
1 large tomato
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Crumple 4 large sheets of foil to make four 3 inch balls; place on baking sheet. Place 1 tortilla on top of each ball; spray with cooking spray. Sprinkle evenly with chili powder. Bake 6 to 8 minutes or until tortillas are golden brown. They will drape over balls as they bake giving them the bowl shape.

Brown meat with carrots and 2 1/2 tbsp. chili powder. Add 1/2 cup taco sauce and cook until heated through.

Mix mayo and 2 tbsp. taco sauce in large bowl. Add lettuce and tomatoes. Toss to coat. Spoon into tortilla shellls; top with meat mixture and then cheese.

Kraft version

What happened to that empty inbox?

You know, it was only a short time ago that this Inbox was completely empty. Yes, completely empty! Everything answered, everything filed, everything sorted.

And now just look at it - 116 messages that need to be deleted and filed. And that is only since a little over a week ago with no spam included! At least the replied to part is taken care of....I think.....

6 more days and counting...

I talked to Krissa this morning and she is just about to burst with glee in regards to graduation being so close...only 6 more days! She is finished with Collegian and her last editorial is here if anyone wants to read it. And there is this column she wrote the week before on graduation. So all that's left is finals until Wednesday and then finishing last minute details until graduation Saturday morning.

She had her interview with Southern Living yesterday and she is so excited about *possibly* getting that job! There are 13-15 other applicants applying for the same position, so it's not certain she will get it or not. But as least she said she was thankful for the opportunity to visit and for the experience it provided.

She and her friend Caroline picked up their cap and gown regalia today. Here's a photo she sent us:

We plan to drive 12 or so hours on Thursday, stop for the night and then get into Greenville early Friday afternoon. So this week I was looking into hotel rooms where Dad said he wanted to stop. I was shopping hotels.com, looking at features, prices, location and such. Found one and told Dad to make sure it was ok with him.

He asked me what features it had and I responded with, "Wireless Internet and...ummmm.....well, I think some other things that we don't really need."

Hi question, "Do they have a continental breakfast?"

My response, "I don't know! I didn't look at that; the bigger question is do they have Internet access or not."

He replied with, "I think I better come take a look and make sure you get the right hotel room."

Who cares if they have breakfast to eat? I'm more concerned with being sure I can connect online! Big surprise, huh?!?! Just to say Dad and I are both happy cause the room we have booked has both! :)

I can't believe it's been almost three years since we took Krissa down to SC. Time does fly by so fast!! Since our first SC trip was before our blogging days, here's a few photos:

watching The Andy Griffith show in the van

Krissa

me

Jena always likes to sit in the back so she can sleep!

Krissa explaining to Dad where to go...

tired after one day of traveling...

Krissa on BJU campus

I think I was trying to tell Krissa something
and as usual, she's not listening. :)

making decisions as to what classes to take

the major unpacking job in her dorm

still unpacking..

Ok, I'm finally back to blogging, so here's quick recap of what's been going on...

It's been over a week since I posted anything here and it's not because I haven't had anything to write about, but more an issue of too many things going on this past week. Here's a quick recap...

Last week I spent 3 days in Colorado Springs visiting my friend, Joanna and had such a wonderful time!! I actually took the three days off from work and didn't touch one thing related to my business, except for email. My computer travels with me you know and email is something that just can't be ignored!

We talked, laughed, went fabric shopping, talked and laughed some more!! She is planning to come out here in May and we're planning to camp out downstairs in my sewing room and spend a couple of days sewing!! I know you all may not agree; but it will be so much fun!! :)

I've spent the last few days working on my project that has to do with the exciting news that I mentioned a couple weeks ago. Since I've had some emails and comments regarding that issue, let me just warn you that's it's probably not as exciting to you as it is to me! I'm thrilled about it, but you may not find it too exciting! So don't be too excited and I'll be able to tell you in another couple of days.

Krissa has an interview with Southern Living magazine tomorrow which she is totally thrilled about! She obtained permission to skip classes and travel with one of her friends to Birmingham, Alabama for the day. They offer an internship with the magazine to only 40 applicants in the entire US! So she was absolutely about to burst when she found out they accepted her application and scheduled an interview.

She only has one more day of classes this week and then finals next week before graduation on May 3rd! WOW!!!! I can't believe it's almost here! We're planning to drive to SC on Thursday and Friday and spend a couple of days down there. Krissa is so looking forward to being finished and being able to sleep!

Menu Plan Monday - week of April 14th

I am going to be gone for the majority of this week. I have my quilting class today. Then I will be in Colorado Springs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And Saturday our quilt guild has a sewing day planned, so I'll be gone part of the day then also.

In other words this is the menu plan. It could change especially since the only day I will be home is Friday. But at least Dad has a meal plan to follow each day for what's in the fridge when Jena is not home. Those freezer leftovers I always keep in the freezer come in handy for a week like this one. And guess what? That's why they are there! :)

So here is what we (or rather Dad and Jena) are eating for dinner this week:

Monday - spanish rice casserole, bread

Tuesday - taco salad

Wednesday - mexican casserole, green beans, bread

Thursday - leftover mexican casserole, peas, bread

Friday - chicken fajitas, mixed veggies

Saturday - hamburger casserole, bread, broccoli w/ cheese

Sunday - reuben sandwiches, green beans

Check out OrgJunkie for more great recipe ideas!

The to-do list crossed off!

Was I able to get everything done today I planned? Pretty much! Take a look!

X email/ship orders - I didn't have quite as many to ship out today, so it didn't take too long to get those in the mail and my email answered.

X water plants - didn't take long! :)

X laundry - two loads washed, dried, folded and put away

X bake cinnamon rolls

X cook hamburger - bagged and ready for the freezer!

X plan next week's menu - I am going to be in Colorado for two days next week and Jena is unsure whether she will be here for meals on those days, so I wanted to be sure I had stuff planned for Dad for dinner and supper.

X vacuum - I actually got most of it finished before dinner and only had the family room left to do after we ate.

X dust - finished!

X clean desk in schoolroom - This took a little longer, but I did more than I originally planned early this morning.

X fix lunch - I fixed a mexican casserole and it was yummy!

I was chatting this morning with a couple designers I am working with, so I had my computer on the bar and was able to respond to a couple emails throughout the morning. Then Jena left her computer on the bar (she worked today) and I turned it on to play music. Jena has several songs she downloaded from itunes that I don't have on mine.

Everything crossed off!! And then several things added to do tomorrow morning. But after all, isn't that what a to-do list is for? Write out a list of things to do, cross them off one at a time and then add more?!?! :)

The "before" and "after" desk

The cleaning desk project on my list turned out to be a little more than I planned. I got started organizing and sorting and just kept finding more and more to sort.

But at least I got the desk cleaned off, Sunday school verses and crafts filed away and kid's club papers stacked in one neat pile.

before

after

After I got the desk taken care of, I then worked on the corner where I piled some stuff and just kept piling. Some of it was stuff from our Sunday school Christmas program that I just hadn't put up. It was stacked nice and neat there in the corner, but I really needed to put it away since Krissa will be home in less than a month and she will be using that space for her stuff.

before

after

Mexican Casserole

Mexican Casserole

2 lbs. hamburger
1 medium onion
1 can chili beans
1 can mild enchilada sauce
1 can cream of chicken soup
grated cheese
crushed tortilla chips

Brown hamburger and onion; drain. Add beans, enchilada sauce and soup. Simmer for 5 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. About 10 minutes before done, cover with grated cheese and crushed chips.

This is quick and easy to make and it tastes so yummy!!! :)

What I have planned for today...

My to-do list for this morning. I usually plan to get everything finished on this list by noon or shortly after, but it may take a little longer today, especially since I'm planning to clean my desk in the schoolroom which is covered with kid's club and Sunday school material. :)

email/ship orders
water plants
laundry
bake cinnamon rolls
cook hamburger
plan next week's menu
vacuum
dust
clean desk in schoolroom
fix lunch

I'm off to get started and see how much I can accomplish by noon.....

You would think out of all the cords we have...

....I would be able to find the one I needed! Nope!

Let me give you a little background info regarding this cord searching process.

You see, sometime my mind operates in two different worlds (1) business and quilting and (2) family and everything else. And while most of the time my mind is flipping back and forth between the two almost constantly, there are occasions that I'm only existing in one world. Big surprise, huh? :) Btw, that was a rhetorical question and doesn't need to be answered!

Like last Thursday night.

I'm vice-president of our local quilt guild and that means a certain amount of responsibility, keeping track of certain things and being responsible for some programs if needed. I was in charge of last month's meeting where we did this neat little thread catcher and volunteered myself to do May's program as well.

Actually I kinda have to do it because we are watching a quilting instructional dvd and I am about the only one in the group who has a computer, projector and speakers. So when our president confirmed with me at the end of our April meeting about our May movie-watching meeting, I said I had everything and we were all set to go.

And then as I was lying in bed that night thinking about next month's meeting, it suddenly dawned on me!!!!

Thursday evening, May 1st, quilt guild meeting.

Krissa's graduation in South Carolina, Saturday, May 3rd.

Trip from Kansas to South Carolina: 2 days.

And....um....leaving Thursday morning....which, ahem, means I will no longer be in Kansas Thursday evening.

Now, just what was I thinking?!?! Krissa's graduation has been planned for years (seems like it, anyway!) and I had told multiple people who asked me about her that week she was graduating on the 3rd and we were driving Thursday and Friday.

See how my mind was in two directions? The problem is that the directions didn't intersect until that night. Yep, that was most certainly the problem.

So now, in light of all the above information which I am sure you were just dying to find out, I tried hooking up everything using my dvd player instead of my computer for playing the dvd. You see I can let go of my projector and speakers for the guild to use at the May meeting, but not my computer. And I have all the connecting cords to make the computer talk to the projector and the speakers, so that wasn't an issue, but I wasn't sure about the cords with the dvd player.

And since I'm going to let them use my dvd player instead of my computer to hook up to the projector and speakers, I have to have a different cord for the audio speakers to hook into the dvd player. Which I was sure to have since we have so many computer/dvd/vcr/tv cables hanging around our house.

But nope, I just need one more cord. But once I get that, then I think I'm set! I'll do a practice run with everything to be sure all is in working order and then hand it all over to our guild president for the movie-watching adventure!

And as for me that Thursday evening...I'll probably be in the van driving east, with a laptop computer in my lap.

God's Creation: Day 2 - Sky & Waters!

God's Creation: Day 2 - Sky & Waters!

Memory verse: Psalm 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.

Quick Lesson: God created waters covering the entire earth. He then created the firmament and called it Heaven which divided the waters of the earth. This was the morning and evening of the second day. Refer to Genesis 1:6-8

Pieces to put up on the wall: Each one should have black construction paper with light on one side to show light/day and dark/night. Next comes the blue sky and aqua ocean for memorizing their verse. The little bit of white below the blue sky will be covered up later.

God's Creation: Day 1 - Light!

Since we finished working on the armor of God for kid's club before spring break, we are now studying Creation until the end of the school year. Each week we take a day of creation and the memory verses are based on that.

Jena is in charge of the memory verse games and review and I'm in charge of making something to put up on the wall (the creative part - I just love that! :)) as a reward for each verse the kids memorize.

I referred back to my creation poster I made for my Sunday School class and started making the pieces.

God's Creation: Day 1 - Light!

Memory verse: Genesis 1:3-4
Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

Quick Lesson: The earth was in total darkness until God created light with only His spoken word. The light divided the darkness on the earth. He called the light, day and the darkness, night. This was the morning and evening of the first day. Refer to Genesis 1:1-5.

Pieces to put up on the wall: Each one has a black piece of construction paper on the wall and then for saying their verse, they get to put up the light on one side. The dark represents the night and the white represents day.

Blogroll updated.....finally, I know!

It's been one of those things that's been on my to-do list for quite a while. Since the beginning of 2008 and it's already April! I've added blogs to Bloglines where I do all my blog reading, but haven't updated my list of favorites here. So there should be some additions to my left sidebar, although I made most of the changes a month ago, so if you've been here recently, you probably have already seen the additions.

Here's a few that might interest you:

Plugged In Online - this is a great site for movie reviews written by Focus on the Family. You can read reviews regarding all kinds of videos and dvds before you actually decide to watch something. Check it out here first!

The Raspberry Ribbon - Kim, one of my friends, started her website selling little girl's hair bows and accessories last year. She makes such cute little ribbons and bows, so be sure to take a look at what she has to offer.

My online photo album - this is where I post the majority of our family photos and videos. For some of my family we saw this past weekend, this is where you want to go and order the prints you want.

A Lily Among Thorns - Jena's new blog since her other one is "url not found".

I now have that finished and can cross that off my list!

Our trip to Oklahoma

Yesterday we traveled down to Enid, Oklahoma to visit Dad's family. Dad's brothers and sister were there as well as our cousin, Mark, who we hadn't seen in years. We has a nice visit with everyone catching up on what's going on in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Then Aunt Beth brought out some photos of our family and hers that we had taken years ago one year when we were there. We figured out it must have been around 18-19 years ago - can't believe it has been that long! Although, I do remember taking those pictures.

I just love Krissa's expression in this one.

Menu Plan Monday - Week of April 7th

This week is not too exciting as far as food...my mind is not functioning too well in planning meals this week, but I don't think we will starve.

So here is what we are eating for dinner this week:

Monday - last week leftovers, green beans, bread

Tuesday - BBQ macaroni casserole, peas, bread

Wednesday - chilie, pickles, carrots

Thursday - taco salad, garlic bread

Friday - ??, that means I haven't decided yet! :)

Saturday - tuna casserole, bread roll, broccoli w/ cheese

Sunday -Jena & I are going to Wichita for a bridal shower, so we'll be gone for dinner and Dad will probably pick up something after church.

Check out OrgJunkie for more great recipe ideas!

Back together again...soon!

The days are being counted until us three girls are back together again! I'm excited!!! :) Krissa has had a really tough semester trying to keep up with her classes and daily actitvities while being editor of the college paper - the Collegian.

And the bad part of being editor of the paper, other than the fact that she's responsible for all the staff and everything in the paper - mistakes included, is that the staff works on the paper at night! Her day only begins at 8 or 9 am with classes and then the newspaper staff begin their work at 11:30 pm and work til 2-4 the next morning.

She is counting the days til graduation. Call her today and she'll tell you it's exactly 27 days! And when she gets home the first 48 hours all she will do is sleep! :)

Exciting news!!

Ive got some exciting news to share with all of you, but I can't tell you what it is just yet! It is something I have waited for the past two years!! And while it may not be too exciting to everyone reading this, it's exciting to me! ;)

Spring is here!

I put up Spring decorations in my Sunday School classroom several weeks ago. The kiddos helped me put on the trees, flowers, butterflies, birds and animals; they thought that was so fun!

For attendance, each one has a brown pot and they get to put a flower in their pot every Sunday they attend. It looks like one flower fell out of the pot on the end...I'm not quite sure who's that is. I'll have to check on that.

Wait...can that actually be correct? o messages?!?!

I actually went through the email in my Inbox, filed what needed to be filed, deleted some, answered what I needed to and I actually only have 6 emails in my business Inbox!

And my personal email addy Inbox is actually....wait a minute, did I read that correctly?....0 messages?? Whoohoo!!! Yes, that's right. I should have taken a photo before because the list was mighty long with emails dating back to.....oh my, yes, it's true.....October 2007.

I had a ton of emails sitting in my Inbox waiting to be filed, mainly because I've been doing some business with a company and there's been many, many emails back and forth within the last two weeks, probably around 60-70 emails being traded back and forth.

And then there's been quite a few emails between a certain someone and myself this week filling up my Inbox. So since I'm sure that certain someone will be reading this...you can see my Inbox now sits at 0 and I've been keeping up with my email!! :) LOL!!

As exciting as it is to have all my email organized and filed away, it still is always great to hear that little chime when a new email appears! After all, who doesn't like receiving email?!?!?!

A depressing day to start, but an exciting end!

Wednesday night after we got home from church and had our family devotions, I had an overwhelming urge to bake cookies. But considering that (1) Dad had already gone to bed, (2) it was after 10pm and (3) I really needed to get to bed, I ignored that baking urge. Tough, but I did.

This morning when I got up, I still had that baking urge. So I hunted up my good old stand-by basic cookie recipe and decided to doctor it up a bit with the Honey Bunches of Oats cereal Jena bought for only $0.64 a box.

Plus it was the perfect morning for baking since it was so foggy, cold and dreary. This is what it looked like out the dining room window:

Then in addition to the foggy, dreary day, Jena called while I was baking cookies and said that she found Rascal dead on the porch this morning. We're not quite sure what happened. He was sitting on the picnic table bench on the porch as he always does when Jena found him. We hadn't noticed anything wrong or him being sick, so it must have happened suddenly.

But he was Jena's cat and Dad's favorite cat. We will miss him and Skittles will too. They were best buddies playing together. When Skittles was just a little baby, Rascal felt sorry for that little ball of fur that Jena brought home and "mothered" her. He was always getting "into" something like a skunk or coming inside with his thick fur full of stickers. But he was a wonderful cat!

Ok, after I heard that news, I wasn't in the best of moods, but finished up my cookies and then took off downstairs to get started working on my computer and get things finished up for my quilt guild meeting that was tonight.

btw, when you add this cereal to a basic cookie recipe:

This is the result:

Looks yummy, doesn't it?! And of course the best part of baking cookies is the cookie dough. Don't you know that the cookie dough tastes much better than the actual baked cookies? :) Especially fresh oatmeal cookie dough...sooooo gooooood!

This afternoon I got all my quilting stuff together for our quilt guild meeting that I was in charge of. I had decided on doing a make and take it project that we could do in a matter of a few minutes from start to finish. But I was a little worried about keeping 30-40 ladies cutting their pieces, stitching them together and finishing up the details!

But it went wonderfully well!!! Plus I had lots of help from my fellow officers which was so helpful!!! They started cutting at one table, moved to sew at another table, pressed their pieces at the third station and finally inserted the sandbag and plastic tie at the fourth and final station! When I explained what we were doing, I told everyone that they only had to know 2 things to stitch this little gadget - (1) ability to count to 4 and (2) stitch a 1/4" seam. There was plenty of laughter at that statement!! :)

It went much better than I expected and everyone enjoyed it, including me!! Although I was rushing from one to the next, keeping everyone stitching what they should! But we had a ball - something we will have to do more often!

So my day started out on the depressing side, but ended on an exciting note!

Just what is he doing?

Yesterday afternoon I walked through the family room, glanced out the front window and then kept walking....but wait, there was something unusual in that front picture window...what exactly is Dad doing?

The first thing I thought of when I saw this long round, narrow thing was a python snake. Just gives me the shivers thinking about it! We actually had some people who wanted to rent our house next door years ago that had a python as a pet. Yes, as a pet! And worse of all they let it out of the cage sometime to play with it!

Well...I don't think any one of us three girls got any sleep that night after we heard that. Especially the let out of the cage bit. And we told Dad in no uncertain terms that we did not want them to rent the house or we would not ever step outside this house again! But hey, would you if you knew there could be a huge six foot snake that sees you as dinner?

Needless to say they didn't move in next door and we were able to live our normal lives! My sisters and I were more than relieved. :)

Anyway, back to the digging that Dad was doing. He actually put in a pipe and buried the water hose under the driveway. Which is a really genius idea because it never fails that when he has the hose strung across the driveway that Jena or I drive in and the green hose just disappears in the brown sand and grass (in other words, are minds are in some far off land and weren't not paying attention to the hose being there). Don't know how that happens, but it just does! And we don't realize that the hose was there until....ummm....we've already driven over it. Which, yep, has cost Dad a hose or two.

Dad's been doing lots of watering across the driveway and will continue to do so during the summer since he planted some shrubs and bushes there. He put up the new white fence and is filling in the end of the shelter belt with some rose bushes and other plants.