Magnolia Beauty

Sunday evening I realized that I did not take one picture of our family or of the Easter table. I did get this one picture of the roasts... only because Liz reminded me to. That is so sad! I need to relax on holidays and at dinners and remember to take pictures and enjoy the moment! And if I would have had someone else start taking family pictures that would work, too! I just don't like for my family to have to wait too long before the meal is on the table... but a few minutes wouldn't kill them!

The cheesy pork roast was absolutely fabulous! It has a cream sauce that goes with it and makes it fantabulous!

Today's Daybook...

This is the view from my living room window. This year we have more blooms on our Magnolia tree than we have ever had.

It is beautiful.


Today I am thinking about the menu for the next two weeks. Why is it so hard to come up with two weeks worth of menus?

I am thankful for the visual pleasures the Lord gives us.
Fresh, bright, vibrant spring colors to help us stretch out of our winter hibernation.


In our learning rooms we have moved from winter boredom to spring daydreaming.
The transition was smooth. Home Educating one has its trials.

In the crafting room I am gathering ideas for my next round of card making.

Thinking I will use some of these pictures that have been cropped just so!

From the kitchen I am looking forward to Sunday night's SNAC (Snack Night After Church) when I will be taking Yummy No Bake Bars and chicken salad on croissants. We have been wanting the Yummy Bars but I didn't dare make them without someplace to take them! I keep having mixed thoughts... "I hope everyone eats them all!" ... "I hope we have leftovers!"

I am wearing work out pants and a multi-colored topped. Comfort is the cry of the day!

I am going to help a friend with wedding ceremony decorating on Thursday. I am looking forward to that!

Maybe next week I will have pictures... depends on if the Bride puts pics out first... Not gonna steal her joy!

I am reading a lame, lame, lame mystery that I got from the Dollar Store.

Ready to go to the library or the church's library!

I am hoping that I will get to see Rob and his family before too much longer!

We are praying for hail here in central Indiana.

I know that sounds terrible, but that is how we will see Rob this summer.

He travels all over the country and if he could spend work time here that would make us very happy!

Some of my favorite things are dishes. I just dishes... they make me smile!

Today's quote:

"Any child can tell you the sole purpose of a middle name

is so he can tell when he's really in trouble."

Dennis Frakes

What's Going On Today

Outside my dining room window... I noticed today there are bright purple little buds starting on one of our trees out front. It is the tree we used to take Easter pictures in front of, but it hasn't been in bloom the last couple of years. If it's not ready Sunday, maybe it will be when Makenzi is here mid-April.

I am thinking... I have quite a lengthy project list for this spring!

I am thankful for... Pastor Bailey and Esther. When our church has communion Pastor and Esther serve us. I love that. I said that to Rachel on Sunday and she said, "Mom, you say that every time." But it is true, I love how they, as our Pastor and wife, serve us together.

From the learning rooms... catching up on keyboarding.

I am wearing... a short jean skirt, my one and only sweatshirt, it's eggplant in color and I have on Colts Blue socks! Yeah, I'm not going anywhere!

In the crafting room... wall words for my kitchen. I decided on "Together... our favorite place to be." It seems that some of our best family times are around our table... talking, laughing and yeah, sometimes eating.

I am going... to work on our next Kids Konnect Bible lesson. I will be using 'Who Will Be King?' from Matthias Media.

I am reading... Ulterior Motives by Terri Blackstock

I am hoping... Larry feels much better tonight. Cat allergies=no fun.

I am hearing... 24.

Around the house... a few dishes, but all looks pretty good... well, there is that laundry that needs done...

I am creating... an Easter tablescape.

Favorite things... glue dots.

Today's picture... is of some of my Sunday School class and my wonderful assistant teacher, Theresa. This is from our bowling BLAST (Beleving, Learning, Adventures in Studying the Truth). We have one BLAST event each month.

Today's Quote: When we do what we can, God will do what we can't.

Quest for Healthier Menus

A couple of weeks ago I decided that to get past this almost 3 month plateau I am on I needed to plan healthier menus. So I searched the wonderful resources of the web and the local library, and my dear cousin gets me a subscription to Healthy Cooking for my birthday (it changed this last year from Light and Tasty to Healthy Cooking). I was determined to find meals that my family would like and that our waist lines would like also. You know... that's not so easy. We like what we like. There is a reason I am on this particular weight loss plan. So, on my quest to healthier menus, I got sidetracked. The healthy cookbooks from the library and the magazines are all earmarked and ready to be copied, but to get to the lighter fare on websites (at least most of the ones I looked at) you have to pass by the good stuff... or is that, the not-so-good for you stuff. So, I am thinking that tossing in a lighter fare menu or recipe here and there is definitely a good thing, but moderation is probably where we should live. Afterall, God gave us those different tastebuds for our enjoyment, not to torture us.

In the last 4 days I have tried 4 new recipes! I get tired of the same ol' things to eat. I remember a childhood friend's family had spaghetti every Friday night. At the time, it sounded wonderful to me and I remember thinking that is what I am going to do when I grow up... Monday night is chicken night, Tuesday is hamburger night, Wednesday is.... well, you get the picture. There's no way I could do that! The only thing we may have 2 weeks in a row is pizza!

When I started the "Quest" I also opened another Delicious account just for recipes. I love this!! I have one account for business and personal. It has all the blogs I follow and they are listed under various tags such as decorating, crafts, Sunday School, weddings, etc. Then the one for recipes has tags for resources (recipe blogs or sites like Taste of Home), appetizers, breakfast, fruit, pork, etc. So when I go to plan my menus I go to that Delicious account and can pull up those recipes or I can search for more ideas. It is so handy. It probably won't be long before I open another account for A Mari Celebration. If you haven't checked Delicious out, you ought to. A free organization tool! Fun!

Here's the 2 week menu for this round. I am going to go back to Friday so I can include the recipes I tried this weekend, since there are keepers and I want to share them with you!

Friday- Homemade pizza with copy-cat "Papa John's" sauce (mmm, so good! I made a double batch and the rest froze it in 1/2
cup containers)
Saturday- Cowboy Sandwiches (the recipe has a different name... these were ok, don't know that we will have them again..)
Sunday- dinner- homemade lasagna, cauliflower, green beans, salad, rolls and lemon crumb cake (this cake was in the Healthy
Cooking magazine and I couldn't get a link to it. It is a dense cake. I liked it, but my family isn't real hip on
lemon.)
Sunday- after church- slow cooker pulled pork with homemade coleslaw and perogies. (oh, my! the recipe said the pork tastes
better the second day and boy was he right! Last night, I was thinking it was an awful lot of steps to go
through to get that result.Not hard steps, just time consuming, but today I am thinking it was definitely
worth it. I will double the sauce recipe next time, though. It's a keeper for sure!
Monday- Butter Roast Chicken, crash hot potatoes, and peas (The chicken recipe is one I have hadfor years and my
family loves it.)
Tuesday- beef tips and homemade noodles, mashed potatoes and carrots
Wednesday- leftovers
Thursday- enchiladas and corn casserole
Friday- Lexington Style chicken, baked potatoes and broccoli (another favorite chicken recipe)
Saturday- taco roll (taco meat and cheese rolled up in a pizza crust)
Easter Sunday- Cheese stuffed Pork Roast, cheesy mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, carrots, cauliflower salad, homemade
yeast rolls, deviled eggs and I am sure dessert will be served but I don't know what it will be yet!
Sunday night- chili dogs
Monday- chicken paremsan, linguine and green beans
Tuesday- cube steaks and gravy, mashed potatoes, and peas
Wednesday- pizza roll
Thursday- bbq ribs, mac and cheese and baked beans

So there's a peek into our culinary world... as you can see we will be relying on moderation! If it is between food that we don't enjoy and adding more exercise to my schedule it will have to be exercise!

Happy 70th Birthday, Ann!

This last weekend we went to Missouri to celebrate my Mother-in-law's 70th birthday! We thought it was a surprise, but she "had an idea" that something would happen! She wasn't allowed to do anything this weekend except enjoy her family! Liz took a breakfast casserole and taco soup, Rachel made three large pies (in deep dish 9x13's): peach, apple and dark cherry (all from scratch!), and I took cheesy potato soup, pecan tassies, and gobs (cream filled chocolate cookies, like Suzy Q's). Donna added chili to our soup menu and Milton and Larry grilled steaks and ribs for the birthday dinner menu that Donna planned.

And of course we had birthday cake!

Grandma and her grand-daughters, and GREAT grand-daughter! Kara, Anna, Makenzi, Rachel and Chloe... missing is Crystal, who couldn't make it! When Larry's grandma was living she would alway stress the GREAT when telling her great-grandchildren who she is... maybe it started with Crystal calling her that... can't remember,

but anyway now Ann is the GREAT-Grandma!

(This picture is supposed to go after the birthday cake, but I accidentally deleted it!!

and can't figure out how to move pictures within the post..)

Chloe, Jerry and the birthday girl!

Liz, Donna and Milton. Donna and Milton have a wonderful home! It was Milton's parent's home and it is filled with history and love. D&M have added on and it has made the home very company friendly! We always feel welcome and comfortable in their home!

The birthday cake was delicious! Crystal Schaper made it. It had a strawberry filling in the center... it was all delicious, but if you know me, you know the frosting was my favorite!

Donna, Ann and Rachel

Ann with her kids that were there... Donna, Jerry and Larry.

Rachel and I were hoping that we'd get there and Debbie would be there!

But she couldn't make it and we certainly missed her and her family!

Grandma and the grand-sons! Curtis, Ryan, Trenton and Rob. Missing is Steven, Debbie's son.

Makenzi and Trenton had fun playing together!

Larry and his Mom... I like this picture of them.... they knew I was taking the picture, but they don't look like they are in pain!!

Ann with some of her goodies!

Chloe loves to sit on her Daddy's shoulders!

My Sweetie and Me!

It was raining, but Papaw took Makenzi out to see the "bears." Donna had their cousin, Davey Lane carve (don't know what the correct term is..) bears in a tree trunk for her front yard. Anyway, they got out to the front and then Kenzi said, "I'm scared." It was hard for her to get her mind around wood bears in the front yard. But she stuck with Papaw! Doesn't she look so cute in her little coat? Like I said, it was raining or I would have got a picture of them out there!

One of the games we managed to fit in the short weekend! We also played Bananas!

A new game that Donna has and it was soo much fun! I could play it for hours!

Mamaw sure does love her Kenzi! Ryan came up and hugged me and Kenzi was not impressed!

"That's MY MAMAW!!!" She had to run and claim me her own!

Needless to say, I loved it!

My favorite girls!

It was hard to say good-bye to this fun-filled little girl!

We don't have a set date when we will see them again, and that seems to make it harder.

By the looks on Kenzi face, she isn't so crazy about saying good-bye to us, either!! We can think what we want!!

I had hoped to have someone take a picture of our family, but it didn't get done!

I didn't get a picture of Kristi, but she was there!

We hope Ann had a great birthday weekend. We enjoyed celebrating with her!

Valentine's Sunday School Party & Bulletin Boards

In the photo: Brittany, Ashley, Tabby, Me, Sarah, Theresa, and Layla

I teach the Kids for the Journey Class for grades 4, 5 &6. They are a great group of kids and I love doing special things for them. Last summer as I was looking ahead to the fall and wondering what we should do for memory and attendance challenges I decided to go a different route. I decided to keep having the memory verse (of course!!) but not do any challenge with it. Instead, we are having a monthly BLAST! (original anagram came from the 91st Street Christian Church's website). It stands for Belonging, Learning, & Adventures in Studying the Truth. I wanted to do something to bring us together so we could get to know each other better and I had hoped that it would boost regular attendance. So far we have been miniture golfing, had a scavenger hunt and picnic, make your own pizza and game night, bowling and then this Valentine's party. Since Valentine's Day was on Sunday I decided to have the party during Sunday School. Of course, we had a Bible lesson using conversation hearts, but we had fun, too.

I looked on the internet for weeks for fun things to make for my kids.

I saw these candy coated marshmallows and knew I had to do them.

I started doing them only covering half of the marshmallow, but I was afraid the marshmallow would dry out,

so I then went to covering all of it.

Aren't they adorable!!

Here's the party table. My bulletin board was simple but used the party theme.

That's a mirror that I got from Dollar Tree in the center.

We have donuts every Sunday for the van kids to eat before Sunday School, so I didn't think that cupcakes would be that different. White cake, homemade ~BUTTERCREAM~ icing.... love, love that! My favorite combination! and we had Strawberry milk to drink!

Another internet idea... I think it originated from FamilyFun. These are supposed to be roses. I'll just call the flowers! They are made out of Fruit by the Foot. They don't look like the example, but hey were cute non-the- less!!

On the wesite they used mini muffin tins and the flower covered the whole top of the cupcake.

Another internet inspired idea. It doesn't even look like what inspired me, I just saw one thing that reminded me of another and this is what I came up with. The 4x6 frame is from Dollar Tree, I used a scrapbooking paper for the background, printed the theme on the computer and glittered a Cricut cut heart. These were my Valentine's to them.

I had snack bags that they could put these goodies in and take wiht them, altho' most of them ate them there!

The little boxes with the ribbons at the top of the picture are match boxes that I covered with craft paper and a ribbon and then I put 2 Jolly Ranchers inside.

For the craft we made jean Bible covers.We ended up hot gluing the beads on after they got them on the thread. With the time constraints we couldn't sew on one end, thread the beads and then sew in the other end.

Jesus Loves these kids... and so do I!

This is the Valentine themed bulletin board for Family Center at church. It is very large (4'x8') and so I decided to divide it this time. The border is made up of velvet roses. The roses and the floral piece are from the wedding I did in December. The right side of the board is a reminder of the missions trip that several from our church are participating in. They will share the Jesus Film with the people of Guatemala. The background is the same tablecloth that I had up for the Christmas bulletin board. I get the tablescloths from Big Lots for $6. They are better than paper because they can be used over and over and not going to tear and wear like paper. I will probalby be switching to all cloth backgrounds. Goodwill will be a good source for the smaller boards in my classroom.

Thanks for letting me share some of the fun I get to do at church!

Super Bowl & More Kenzi Fun!

These first pictures are kinda mixed up... brain wasn't working to get them in the order I wanted!

For Super Bowl Sunday we had Jerry, Liz, Trenton and Chloe over. None of us are die hard fans, although we would have loved for the Colts to win!

Makenzi and Trenton loved playing with the kitchen set... they loved putting the babies down through the hole where the sink goes. They'd do that then they'd squeal with laughter! (I really need to get the kitchen set fixed!)

Kenzi enjoyed the food and the game with her Daddy!

The crew holding down the couch!

Chloe seemed interested in the game, too!

Jerry and Trenton staying close to the food!

I didn't do a lot of decorating for this. This is the first time we ever had a special menu for the Super Bowl. Like I said, we are not really game night party people! But on this night we had buffalo wings, cheese sticks, sausage rounds, dogs in a blanket, veggies and dip...

sausage and cheese dip, tortilla chips, salsa, popcorn, pickles, cookies and candy bites, buckeye bars, and Liz brought peanut butter cookies and savory cream cheese filled cresent rolls. It was a good food night!!

Makenzi loves her Papaw and I think he's kinda taken with her, too!

Makenzi and Mommy went out to play in the snow! She's making a snow angel here.

Check out that cute little red nose!

Eyes full of wonder.

She had a fun day in the snow!

Makenzi wanted to have her toes painted like Mamaw's! So Aunt Rachel painted them and then her own. She wanted her fingernails done like Aunt Rachel's but we decided it was best to just do toenails like Mamaw!

Nothin' like painting toenails for fun girl-time!

She loved the results, but I couldn't get her to hold still long enough to get a picture of them!