Happy Thanksgiving

 

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! This year, my heart is especially full with gratitude for many special people in my life, one for each day of the month of November:

1. My Savior, Jesus Christ--for suffering in my place on the cross. 
2. My husband, David--for being a loving and faithful husband, who has stuck by me in all kinds of weather, truly he is the best thing that has happened to me apart from trusting in Jesus to be my Lord and Savior! 
3. Mary--for her love for reading and amazing memory. 
4. Maggie--for her cheerfulness at the break of day and eagerness to be my helper. 
5. Matthew--for his love of anything that has a motor. 
6. Jonathan--for being strong and boisterous and soft and cuddly all at the same time. 
7. Josiah--for being the social butterfly of the family. 
8. My mother-in-law Ann--for taking the girls dress shopping regularly. 
9. My father-in-law Bob--for always supplying us with plenty of wine. 
10. My brother-in-law Luke--for taking amazing photos of our kids. 
11. My mom--for showing me by her example how to serve others. 
12. My dad--for teaching me all about football. 
13. My stepmom--for teaching me to send thank you cards. 
14. Pastor Peter--for faithfully preaching God's word every week and being such an approachable authority in my life. 
15. Mama Esther--for always encouraging me to love God, my husband, and my children. 
16. My sister Alicia--for her love for hair, make-up and fashion. 
17. Kelly--for encouraging me to be a more fit Mama. 
18. Lin--for encouraging me to clean my BOB and iron my husband's clothes. 
19. Esther--for being such an amazing hostess even when she has a newborn! 
20. Laura--for being such a support and encouragement to me in my homeschooling endeavors. 
21. Loro--for encouraging me to be more unflappable. 
22. Sharon--for encouraging me to be a more loving and encouraging wife. 
23. SOW Teachers--for faithfully serving week after week and teaching my children about God. 
24. Pastor Chad--for teaching me about forgiveness and loving those who hurt you. 
25. Pastor Matthew--for being the first to proclaim the whole counsel of God to me. 
26. Pastor Mark--for his godly wisdom that surpasses his years. 
27. Elder Joe--for faithfully leading worship every week with substantive praise songs. 
28. Paul--for hysterical threads on Facebook. 
29. Coach Jeff--for being the most patient and encouraging soccer coach ever!
30. Our neighbors, the Mills--for being great friends and playmates.

Miscellaneous Happenings

The end of October was pretty exciting with the Reformation Celebration and our cake pop adventure. That's all small potatoes compared to the new construction going on right across the street!  Diggers. Dumpers. Earth Movers. Bulldozers. We've got it all right outside our front window. I would venture to say that most of our neighbors are less than thrilled to hear construction noise at 7am. Oddballs!  Matthew and Jonathan are ready for them by 6am!

Josiah lost his toothless grin and has already sprouted three teeth! Insert tear here. He is growing up way to fast! More tears.

David submitted his application for tenure and started working as a consultant for a drug software company in addition to his employment at UCI.  With a small part of his first check (most of which will go to paying off our mortgage), we bought a Blendtec!  I never thought I would spend so much money for a blender, but we've gone through four cheap blenders in our twelve years of marriage. Hopefully, this will be the last!  So far, we have used it to make pancake batter, lots of juice, and iced coffee yet we've only scratched the surface of its amazing culinary possibilities!  Matthew especially loves his homemade orange juice! For those of you who are interested, we decided on the Blendtec over the Vitamix because (1) it is cheaper (at least at Costco), (2) fits on the counter under our cabinets, and (3) can blend an iphone!

Lastly, I am grieved to admit that I will not meet my December goal of running a 5K with the family this year. Frankly, I'm just not a spring chicken anymore and cannot bounce back quite as quickly as I would like. I suffered a freak calf sprain earlier in the summer when I tried wearing my vibrams on the elliptical. This is my one and only claim to fame. I don't think I know of anyone else who has been able to injure themselves on an elliptical! I finally recovered from that injury and started training for the 5K, running 3 miles 3 times a week. After the second week, though, my IT band was really sore, so sore it hurt to walk. After maxing out the ibuprofen dosage for a week, a neighbor recommended I roll it out with a foam roller. I was really skeptical that the foam roller would do any good, but it has helped so much! Since I tend to be a teensy bit overambitious, I decided to limit myself to the couch to 5K training plan. If everything goes according to plan, then I should be ready for a 5K in January. I won't be able to run with the rest of the family, but I trust that God is sovereign over every detail of my life and that even what appears to me as a setback He is using for His own glory in ways that at present are mysterious to me!

Happy Reformation Day!

 

Our awesome church, Berean Community Church, held its first ever Reformation Celebration this year. Families were encouraged to come in non-scary costumes and prizes were awarded for best adult, best child, and best family costumes. I really didn't want to spend any money on costumes, so I tried to come up with some costumes for the kids from what we already had.  This year, we are reading through Reformation Heroes and learning about one reformer a week.  About a month ago, we read about Anne of Bohemia, so I thought at least one of the girls could dress up like a princess and be Anne of Bohemia.  Then, I quickly scanned the index to find another female reformer and came across the mother-daughter pair, Queen Marguerite of Narvarre and Queen Jeanne d'Albret of Navarre.  Perfect!  I thought Matthew and Jonathan could just wear our knight costumes.  Then, after reading about the queens of Navarre, the girls dubbed Jonathan the Prince of Conde and Matthew Prince Henry of Navarre.  Ummm...so that was settled I guess the day before the celebration.  But, poor Josiah, I didn't think about him until the day of.  Fortunately, Matthew and Jonathan had these really cute monkey hats when they were his size, so I dug out the monkey hat and dressed him up like a monk (ey)!  I even painted the girls' fingernails and toenails for the occasion.  Of course, they peeled it off in lightning speed.  

We had a wonderful time learning more about the history of the reformation through a skit and a presentation by our pastor.  We also really enjoyed the food and carnival games!  Maggie was the big winner of the evening.  With the closest guess of the money in the coin jar, she came home with a jar's worth of nickels and pennies--$21.97!  That's a lot of money for a five-year old.  She has such a generous heart, though, and agreed to share the prize money with Mary. 

October's Goal: Learn to Make a New Dessert

My goal for the month of October was really vague--learn to make a new dessert. Cake pops are everywhere these days, so I figured it was time I learn how to make them. Plus, I thought Mary and Maggie would have a lot of fun making cake pops. I opted for the easy route and used boxed cake mix and canned frosting. I know, can I really say that I "made" them???  Anyways, I had trouble following the recipe for "easy cake pops" because Albertson's didn't have lollipop sticks or candy melts.  I subbed popsicle craft sticks for the lollipop sticks and dolci frutta for the candy melts. I also didn't buy enough dolci frutta, so I ended up using the remaining frosting for some of the cake pops. They came out looking more mushroom-shaped than round and there were a few casualties, but they received rave reviews!  Next time, I will skip the cake mix and frosting and use lollipop sticks and candy melts.  October's goal is complete!