A Couple Recipes

So today I made three new recipes. 2 out of 3 turned out wonderful! Not bad! Here are some new recipes to try.

Peach and Mint Iced Tea

You need: 6 cups of water, 1 1/4 cups lightly packed fresh mint, 3 ripe peaches, and ice.

1. Boil 6 cups of water in a covered medium saucepan. Remove from heat and add 1 cup of fresh mint. (I used mine out of my garden.)

2. Cover and seep for 30 minutes to allow mint to infuse water.

3. Strain mint tea into a pitcher, discarding leaves, and refrigerate until cold.

4. Meanwhile, chop 2 peaches coarsely and place them in a blender. Puree until smooth and strain through a fine-mesh strainer. Chill puree.

5. Thinly slice remaining peach. In 4 tall glasses, layer crushed ice, thin slices of peach and remaining 1/4 cup mint leaves, filling glasses about halfway.

6. Divide chilled mint tea among 4 glasses. Then stir and serve immediately.

So this wasn't my favorite drink. The first drink Matt and I drank, we just looked at each other. We added some sugar and Matt liked it a lot better. It looks little pretty and I would love to serve it at a dinner party...but I don't know if I would drink it :)

I suggest you try it and see what you think.

Salsa

A couple months ago I took a cooking class with Estella. She is a sweet lady from Anapra, Mexico, who helps dispense rice and beans to families we help support monthly. She is a precious woman. Anyway, she did a cooking class when she was visiting. She taught us to make rice, beans and salsa.

This salsa is SO easy and SO good.

You need: tomatoes, jalapenos, a clove of garlic

(I used 2 tomatoes, 2 jalapenos and 1 clove. This was a perfect amount for our family for dinner.)

1. Grill tomatoes and jalapenos until they are charred. (I did it on a griddle.)

2. Place vegetables in a Tupperware with a lid for a few minutes. (The steam helps the peeling come right off.)

3. Peel skin off vegetables and place in a bowl.

4. Chop a clove of garlic and add to the vegetables.

5. Take a glass and turn it upside down. With the rim of the glass, smash the ingredients together.

6. You decide how chunky you want your salsa.

7. Add salt as needed.

That is it!! So yummy!

The last recipe I made was almond butter. It turned out yummy too! I didn't measure anything, so I don't have measurements for the recipe. You just have to taste a long the way.

You need: roasted almonds, almond oil, honey (or some kind of sweetener), and salt.

1. Put almonds in a food processor and blend almonds until it is sticky.

2. Add almond oil and blend more until it is the consistency of peanut butter.

3. Add honey and salt as needed.

There you go. Easy as that. It is very yummy with bananas and in smoothies.

Give one or all of them a try. Enjoy!

First day to have pigtails!!

Sophia's Words

My sweet Sophia has become quite the talker!

One of the hard things about having a 2nd child is not to compare them to the other one. It is really hard! With the first one, you have nothing to compare to so you think everything is on time. So one of my constant prayers has been not to compare Sophia's timeline with John's timeline.

Sophia start walking around 14 months. She really had no need to walk before this because John gave her everything wanted. I talked with the PAT lady, Mrs. Penny, and she said it was totally normal. When Sophia wasn't talking much, I contacted Mrs. Penny again. She said, "Don't worry." It will come. She can really only work on one thing at a time. As you can see, worrying is a weakness of mine. I can find something to worry about at all times if I am not careful. I pray about this often.

Then BAM!!! Sophia started talking this week. You see, Sophia has always seem to understand what you were saying from a very young age. She just wouldn't verbalize anything. However, now she tells you. She tells you "Yup" or "NO" about things she wants or doesn't. She tells you "drink" and "up" and "down". She has added to "Mama" and "Daddy" by saying "Pops" and "Nana". She continues to say "Bubby" and she tells him "NO" often. She says "hi" and "bye bye". She plays and says "Peek A Boo" and finishes with "Thank you". This is all in one week. It was like she was just holding it in and let it out all at once. Oh one of my favorites is "Yee Haw" and the "YEAH!!" after she sings Itsy Bitsy Spider.

I need not worry. They are on their own schedule.

Simmons Childrens Camp

I had the pleasure of serving at Simmons Childrens Camp as the worship leader for the 2nd year in a row this past week. Simmons Baptist Camp played an important part of my life as I was growing up. It was the local church camp and I went there through Childrens Camp and Girls Camp. I also served as a counselor for 4 years (I think it was that long). I truly love this place.

Sure it is out in the wilderness so there are A LOT of creatures and bugs. There is no air conditioning, well I take that back...there is one room...the dining room. There are like 80 little rock stairs that you have to battle numerous times a day because the ampitheater and bunk houses are at the bottom and the dining hall and pool are at the top. There are only 3 showers for like 30 some girls and the bunk beds have been there for ever. But it is a sweet spirited place. You see...a lot of people start their walk with the Lord here. You can truly feel the Spirit of God in this place. Thousands of friendships have started and remained through this camp. I have so many memories of doing chants before each meal, hoping your groups' chant got picked so you could eat first. Late night swims and snacks with other counselors. Canoe rides and camp fires with marshmallows while campers are singing and laughing, meanwhile, the camp director is just hoping no one tries to jump in the fire. Best of all, the services in the worship area. You do have to sit on hard rock bleachers, but the sound of campers singing their hearts out and loving the Lord will never be forgotten.

You see, that is why I love being the music leader at this camp. For the past two years I have used songs from the Seeds Family Worship cds. The kids LOVE these songs. They sing at the top of their lungs and jump for joy as they sing bible verses. This year, these kids walked away learning 7 Bible verses and LOVING it. As my kids heard me say numerous times this year....IT IS AWESOME! The kids faces and voices touch my heart. 24 decisions were made this year of kids that want to follow the Lord. They made life changing decisions this week and I am so blessed that I got to be a part of it.

Another special part of camp this year is that John sang worship with me. I mean the whole worship service. He was on stage with a microphone in front of 60 some kids singing praises with them. He danced with the kids and it was GREAT. He told my dad, the camp director, " I think I will be a camper here some day." Both of our hearts swelled.

I never remembered to have someone tape John singing on stage. So after the last service, he put on a show for my mom and I. I got him singing one of the songs. So I hope you enjoy my sweet boy singing about Jesus.

Seeds

I have blogged about the wonderful company, SEEDS, before but I must say again that it is such a neat thing they do. Tonight we were listening to one of the CDs, which we haven't listened to in a long time, and John instantly picked it up. He had his guitar out, singing at the top of his lungs. It was GREAT!

For those of you that haven't heard of it, these are CDs that put Bible verses to music. They are super catchy and awesome. When you buy one, you get 2 of the CDs so you can give one to someone else (hints the name of the company SEEDS, because you are planting seeds by giving the Word to other people).

It just amazed me that a 2, almost 3 year old (which he reminds me of this), can pick up on the verses so quickly. He was jumping around singing "The Word of the Lord stands forever." How great that he is already saying that???? Well, I was excited and I hope you get as excited when you hear the songs too.

Have a great night!

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Today we made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream. The mint came out of our garden. I must say the process was very involved but SO WORTH it. The taste of this yummy stuff was really good and so different than any other mint ice cream I have had. Matt doesn't even like homemade ice cream but loved this recipe. It tastes just how mint smells in the garden. SO GOOD! I got the recipe here

Like I said before it is an involved recipe, but don't let that scare you. It is worth it.

As you can see below...the kids loved it too!

I am FINISHED and Civil Wars Concert

I am FINISHED! I can't believe it. For 2 years I have went to class with the same group of people (wonderful people by the way), completed mountains of homework, and complained about how I can't wait to get finished. And now I am FINISHED. Wait, I should say "we are finished" because this has been a "we" thing since the beginning. My sweet husband has been on the journey all the way. He has devoted his Wednesday nights for 2 years to feed, bath, watch, and put the kids to bed by himself. He also heard my countless complaints, hugged me through tears, and told me "You can do this." He made me relax and play with my kids when I just couldn't do homework anymore. He would tell me, especially during Research and Finance, you don't have to get an A...just pass it. I would give him a dirty look and tell him "I don't get anything but A's!" (Just to brag...and this is totally bragging...I did get a 4.0!)

When we started this program, we had one kid and Matt said "Go for it." Little did we know that in the middle of the program, baby #2 would be on its way. I am sure there were times Matt just wanted to say "Please quit. I am tired of this." But he never did and he supported me through the whole program. I love you Matty.

Working on my Masters and completing it was one of the hardest things I have done. I am super proud of myself! The program I did was amazing and I learned so much. The professors I had and the people that I got to have class with each week was great. I made such great friends and I feel lucky to have the network that I have now for my future.

There are many people I need to say thank you to and I am afraid I will forget people, so I will be vague in order to try to get everyone.

My family - Thank you for watching my kids when I needed to do homework or when Matt needed help. We couldn't have done it without you guys.

My girls - Thank you for the Starbucks dates and dinner dates hearing me complain about my homework load. You made me laugh and rant and kept me going.

My friends - there are a lot of you that sent me Facebook messages, commented on my blog and gave me words of encouragement.

The Cohort - I will miss you guys. For 2 years we spent each week together. We shared a lot of life together and I will miss seeing you guys.

SPE staff - so many of you gave me opportunities for my internship and I appreciate it so much! I was asked daily about how things were going and so much support was given to me on a daily basis. I will miss you all next year.

Administrators - Thank you to so many administrators that gave me different opportunities to help me grow and become an administrator. I was given a lot of advice and I appreciate it so much.

So I am DONE and so excited! I have a new job next year and I am excited for the new experience.

After I finished my last class, I went to the Civil Wars concert with friends. It was great! The Civil Wars are amazing and I would go see them again in the heartbeat. It was a great way to celebrate.

These guys look drunk...but they aren't. And it was Brandon's birthday too!

My sweet friend, Katie.

The amazing Civil Wars.