Guess What I Did Today?

Note: I wrote this yesterday, but wasn't able to post it until today :)

I made my first complete dinner (and dessert!) completely by myself! EEE!

(I'm not the most accomplished baker in the world. In fact, I am THE clumsiest person EVER in the kitchen...ask my Mom. Hah. I open a cupboard, and everything falls out. And let's not go into the time I added 2 tablespoons of salt into the pancakes instead of 2 teaspoons.)

I'm picking out the recipes, getting comments/rating on them from my elite panel of judges (i.e. my family), and then saving the recipes in paper protectors and putting them in a big binder.

My mad organization skills ;)

Fun cookbook I got from the library (I LOVE THAT PLACE).

Mmm...I know what we're having for breakfast!

This was seriously amazing. Ahh.

Starting on dinner/dessert.

SsSsSsugar!

Yes, I am one of those weird coconut lovers who eat it PLAIN. *Rachel Ray Voice* Yumo!

It's the happy spoon!

Dinner is served!

Beef and Bean Chimichangas got a star rating from the judges. (YES!)

Cilantro and Lime Rice. Note the LIME. Heh. The kids called it "sour rice" and Kate asked me never to make it again ;) So much for that!

Oatmeal Cake with coconut and pecan (and chocolate chips...not in the original recipe, but hey, you can't go wrong with chocolate) frosting...success!

Zeke asked for seconds! How sweet...wait. He does that every time we have dessert.

I am very grateful for my awesome family, who allows me to experiment on them... I mean, cook for them :)

Hopefully, this will happen every Saturday night!

Other news:

We have around 7" of snow on the ground! Yippee!

I'm practicing and practicing and practicing for the Junior Music Festival, which is on February 20. Oh dear me. I'm doing a music theatre solo (Look to the Rainbow and Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again) , art song duet (Poor Wayfaring Stranger and Scarborough Fair) piano solo (Spanish Rhapsody and Variations on an American Folk Song), piano duet (Maine Mambo and Rockin' the Boat, and big singing group thing (The Power of your Love and Great is Thy Faithfulness). Whew! You probably didn't want to know all that!

The Steele Family (missionaries in Ukraine) visited our church last week! Kelsie Steele, who went to our church waaay back before we did, came and talked with the girls on Saturday night over tea, scones and fruit. It was an incredible time of encouragement. I wish I could put everything she said in here - she was such a testimony of a woman who loves the Lord and had followed his guidance faithfully in her life.

First, she talked about delighting in the Lord with your whole heart, and what that really means. She told us how, when she was 14, she made a commitment to pursue her relationship with the Lord and serve him with all her energies for the next four years of her life, rather than be focused on other relationships.
She also told us about her courtship with Joshua (her husband...what an amazing story of the perfect plan of God!). She talked about how God had used three "lemons" (not so great guys) in her life to teach her. She talked about how important our relationship with our parents is, especially with our fathers (for girls), as he is the one God has placed as the authority in our lives.
I had never really known what Courtship was before this year...it almost sounded like just a weird homeschool form of dating to me. But really, it is a God-centered way for a young man to approach a young lady THROUGH her father (and with his complete approval) as a way to get to know her better with marriage in mind. AHHHH! After this week, I have decided this is definitely what I want to do.

Our girl's bible study, led by our Pastor's wife, continues to go wonderfully. This week we sat around, talking and laughing over hot chocolate and other goodies as the snow fell out the window. We have been making our way through Ephesians. Every week, around 10 of us girls give prayer requests and pray for each other, study the Word, discuss questions we've had as well as other topics such as spiritual gifts and God's sovereignty, and have a great time learning more about our magnificent Lord and Savior! Could you get much better than that?

School...is school. Sometimes, it's a little difficult to finish everything - life is so busy!

Basketball is still going on...we're getting all the paperwork filled out for the national christian basketball tournament that we're heading to in March. FUN!

Our services at the Children's Home have been going AWESOME. We've been having a great turnout, and so many heart felt questions. I can really see a change in the behavior of some of the kids! God is so great!

EDIT:
And tonight, Hannah and Amy and Abby will be coming over to watch the second installment of Emma! Woot Woot!



"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand." - John 10:28 Goodnight, dear readers! <3>