Bless this nest

I found the cutest and easiest craft for spring: birds' nests. All you need are 2 ingredients and you have an adorable and edible craft. Buy a bag of chow mein noodles (mine was $1.65) and a bag of morsels. I used milk chocolate.

1. Melt the morsels in a double boiler or a metal bowl on top of a saucepan filled with boiling water.

2. Mix the chocolate with the chow mein noodles.

3. Let cool a bit and then get messy! Put a blob on a sheet of wax paper or a plate. Let the little one push down the center to make a place for the eggs.

4. Let cool and harden. Add some jellybean "eggs" or other treat. Add a marshmallow peep (if you have one).

Super cute, fast, cheap, and easy! The best part is licking their fingers when they are done!

Have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry

Today is one of those days. I had a plan today. I had errands to run. I had a tight but workable time frame. I was reminded again that God gave me a toddler to teach me patience in it all. Between the jammed and complicated copy machine, the malfunctioning panic button on my truck, and Grae's strange encounter with his nose and forehead and the church office chair we have had an adventurous early afternoon. And that was just one hour. I was feeling the frustration boil up like an angry teakettle. This afternoon was no mistake. I am learning hard lessons slowly. Thankfully God promises that I will bear fruit in the end.

Ecclesiastes 7:8

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,
and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

Let your light so shine . . .

There are no coincidences.  We have been working through My ABC Bible Verses with Grae and it never fails to amaze me that the verse we have each week seems to directly correspond to something we are working on or wrestling with.  This week's verse is:

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:16

Last night at the end of our annual missions conference, we had 3 awesome speakers come from New Song Community Church in Sandtown.  I must confess that just the words Sandtown gave me pause.  I remembered a youth group missions project when we worked for Habitat in the 90's and where I, a naive and very suburban girl, worked in a neighborhood where I felt very white and very uncomfortable.  This is an area that I would not purposely drive through and where I would feel compelled to wind up my windows and lock the doors.  Sandtown is a hopeless place, right?

As usual, God uncovered my hidden sin and confronted me with my own misconceptions.  Sandtown is a growing thriving community.  Why did I assume that God couldn't do a work there?  God surely loves people, and there are lots of them in that community.  Pastor Thurman Williams confronted us by saying, "Sandtown ain't no Ninevah"  Shame on me for my arrogant ideas.  The speakers didn't deny that there was crime in Sandtown, but they reminded us that there are people there that are made in the image of God and that He loves very much.  Why am I more open to foreign missions than that of a vibrant outreach, not 20 miles from my home?

This experience reminded me that I need to pray.  These awesome men and women are living and reaching out with the love of Christ to their neighbors.  I need to pray for that work in Baltimore.  I also need to pray about how I can reach out in my neighborhood with the love of Christ.  God can save even the drug dealer on my court and the young urban professionals with their fancy cars.  I am reminded of the great grace that He extended to me, a great sinner.

Check out this awesome work:  http://www.nsc-church.org/

Creamy Tomato Soup

I was browsing one of my favorite new sites, A Virtuous Woman, when I came across this delicious recipe.  I had a can of crushed tomatoes that I needed to use.  I made a few adaptations, but I didn't alter much.  Here it is:




5 TBS butter

1/2 cup chopped onion

4 TBS flour

4 cups milk

1/2 bay leaf

1 1/2 tsp sugar (I omitted)

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda (adding baking soda keeps the milk from curdling)


3 cups tomatoes, chopped (I used a large can of crushed tomatoes, but next time I will also add diced tomatoes)

1 tsp of Garlic salt

1/4 cup parmesan cheese




Melt butter in a soup pot.  Add the onion and cook over med. heat until onion is soft, not brown.  Sprinkle flour over butter mixture and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Slowly add the milk, bay leaf, sugar, and salt and continue to cook until slightly thickened.  Stir the baking soda into the tomatoes.  Add the tomatoes to the milk and bring to a simmer.  Taste and correct seasonings.

Slurp down on a nice rainy cold spring day! This soup is delicious with open faced grilled cheese!

The Laundry War

How is it possible?  It shouts again from the foot of my bed, threatening my sanity and slowly consuming my room, one fabric softened t-shirt, one hangerless pair of pants at a time.  The . . .  (insert terrifying B horror movie theme here) Laundry Monster.

It seems that time for a few things eludes me:  bathroom floors, exercise, and folding laundry.  I'm really spoiled.  I have a wonderful husband who lends two strong and tattooed arms to drag the piles of laundry to the basement.  Not only does he carry it down, but he has become an expert in the science of laundry.  Even in my best Donna Reed moments, laundry just doesn't appeal.  Don't get me wrong, the sorting of mismatched socks does reach down to some primal place for me, but that task is always the last in the process of sorting and folding laundry. BTW - we call our mismatched sock basket Sock Heaven -probably better named sock purgatory.  Every month I try to reconcile sock heaven and the endorphins released by finding a pair in the pile of lonely socks is sublime. But I digress . . .

Why do I avoid this task? 

Am I lazy?      Probably

Am I too busy?  Probably not

Upon dissecting my aversion, I realized that I don't value the job enough.  The world has told me for years that laundry is for the poor trapped housewife.  That is garbage.   A dear friend encouraged me today to see those small jobs as high callings.   I know that some of you are rolling your eyes.  Well, roll away.  God has blessed me with the opportunity to bless and enjoy my family by being a homemaker.  I have such valuable time to love on my men and invest in the littlest one.  Can't folding laundry be a holy occupation?  One that gives God as much glory as when I was teaching 6th graders to write essays?  I think so. 

I plan on winning the battle of the bulging baskets today . . .

I Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

 

 

Doctor, doctor give me the news . . .

Okay, so many of you know that I'm a little Type A, but I love school.  I have recently found this adorable home preschool curriculum for 2 year olds.  Lest you think I'm pushing Grae, it's a program with lots of art projects, a focus on a theme, and some Scripture memory.  For the next two weeks, our theme is doctor/body.  Some of the ideas include teaching the parts of the body, setting up a doctors office and playing with a medical kit, picking up cottonballs and Qtips with tweezers (fine motor), writing a thank you to our doctor/nurses.  We are having a blast.  We traced Grae's body and labeled all of his parts.  Super cute ideas!    A special thanks to Uncle Gish for the great hospital supplies and to Michelle Hubbard for her great curriculum.  You can find it here http://hubbardscupboard.org/christian_resources.html

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Consider the roses . . .

Anxiety.

This is a word that has plagued me for my whole life.  I have always been a "what if" thinker.  My brain takes possible outcomes to their most ridiculous and irrational conclusions.  God has been working on this in me for a long time.  What I have come to realize about myself is that the recipe for  worry is equal parts  mistrust and pride.

By worrying, what I am essentially saying is, "God, I don't trust the plans that you have for me.  I don't trust that You have my best interest at heart."  My heart is so much like the Israel of the Old Testament.  Despite obvious and amazing provision and protection, they still grumbled.  Parting the Red Sea wasn't enough.  Sending manna from heaven wasn't amazing, it was commonplace.  I have the same story.  The Lankfords have been provided for in amazing ways, as many of you reading can testify.  If you hear me grumbling, just remind me about a certain fall off of a roof, a $16,000 provision for adoption, boxes of formula, boxes of food, $500 from friends to help us during a tight time, $12,000 gift after Shane's fall . . . The list is much longer than this.

The pride enters in when I think I can somehow solve my problems better than God can.  How ridiculous!  As I looked at the lovely roses on my kitchen table, I am reminded of Matthew 6: 25-34:

²⁵ "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ²⁸And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ³²For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  ³⁴ "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.