Watermelon Berry Slush

If you are like my kids and me, you LOVE cold things to eat and drink in the summer. I, however, am always looking for healthy cold alternatives to ice cream, Sonic drinks and sugary popscicles. I'd love to sit around and eat homemade ice cream ALL SUMMER, but I know for my kids and me both, I should make healthier choices some of the time!

My mom forwarded me this recipe last week, and it has quickly become a new favorite summertime drink. I don't know its source, but it's so yummy and somewhat healthy, and I wanted to share it with all of you:

Watermelon Berry Slushes

1 cup cubed seeded watermelon
1 cup ginger ale or lemon-lime carbonated beverage
2 Tbsp frozen limeade concentrate (thawed)
1 cup frozen unsweetened strawberries

In blener or food processor, process watermelon, carbonated beverage and limeade concentrate until liquefied. Gradually add frozen strawberries, blending until just slushy. Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 servings

ENJOY!!

Changes

Wow, a lot has changed since my last post! I'm a year older, have moved 300 miles, and have packed and unpacked more cardboard boxes than I care to see again in the next ten years (or more)!!!

Some observations from the past few months:

• When you are packing to move, you realize just how much "stuff" you really have. In our case, it's TOO MUCH! We plan to be very aware of what we use and what we don't use over the next year or so, and then discard accordingly.
• When you are packing to move, the trips down memory lane make all the work worth it. There were times during the packing process when I'd come across photo albums or just stacks of snapshots, and I'd sit down right where I was, without any worry of time, and soak in the memories of times gone by. When we made our last move, Benjamin was ten months old and not even walking. Now he's almost six years old, and we've added a little princess to our family who is now four!! There are tears in my eyes just thinking about how quickly time goes by and how fast those sweet babies grow up!
• Whether you are packing to move or just living life as it comes, God shows up in some amazing ways. I was and still am deeply humbled at the ways God has provided for us during this transition time in so many ways: physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. I could write for hours on all the ways He has worked in the past few months. It has also been a good reminder to me of how much I need to be aware of His presence with me always, not just in times of high stress.

We still have plenty of boxes to unpack, but we are gradually making a home here in our new house. Even though the stress of the transition time is not over, we are still so happy here and very much at peace in the knowledge that this is exactly where God wants us to be at this time. He has some great things in store for our family as we begin what I feel is a new chapter in our lives. I look forward to sharing with you our new adventures!

A Blessed Way to Start the Day

This is how my morning began about 5:40 am...

What a beautiful way to begin the day!

Mark and I celebrate nine years of "happily ever after" today. These nine years have been the best nine of my life, and I look forward to at least 99 more!

Happy Anniversary, Mark. Thanks for asking! I love you.

Report, Part 1

I promised to report to you about my Lent experience. Most of my planned report was going to be over the book I read during Lent called "Freedom of Simplicity" by Richard J. Foster, but as life happened during that time, I have even more to share! My thoughts on the book will come later. But first...

**On Friday, March 6th, Mark and I learned that we would be moving our family in June! As most of you know, Mark is a United Methodist pastor, and with that vocation, moving is just a part of life. We have been in this appointment for 5 years and knew a change would probably be coming in the next year or so. We will be moving 5 hours to the north of where we are now, yet will still be in Texas--how crazy is that?! (In fact, we figured that living where we are now, we could move 5 hours in any direction from here and still be in the same state! Only in Texas!) The move will put us 2 hours away from my family (we are now 3 1/2 hours away), so you can obviously guess they are very excited about our move! The downside will be moving further away from Mark's parents. Now we are 2 hours away; once we move, we'll be 4 hours. It's still manageable, and it could be a lot worse.

We have visited our new church and new home (they have a parsonage, so no house hunting will be necessary--yeah!). Our visit was very positive, the people were so kind and welcoming, and we are looking forward to the new adventure God is calling us to!

You can imagine what my "To Do" list looks like right now...

**Somewhat related to the move, but then again not really...Mark and I have very prayerfully made the decision to homeschool Benjamin and Hannah next year. It was not a decision made lightly; it took lots of praying and thinking and talking and praying and praying. I will say I feel so strongly about this decision and know that God is in the middle of it. My heart has just burned over the thought of homeschooling the kids (the good kind of burn in your heart, not the Maalox kind!), and to say I am excited about it is an understatement! My calling as a wife, mom and homemaker has really been reinforced over these past couple of months, and for right now, homeschooling the kids is a part of that. We don't know if this is a long-term decision or short-term, but I think God will let us know as we go along!

Oh, yes...the town we are going to "just happens" to be very homeschool-friendly and has a large homeschool population. Coincidence? I don't think so...

You can imagine, once again, what my "To Do" list looks like right now...

Stay tuned for Part 2...

Lots to Share

I have lots to share with you all--more than I even expected! I'm working on getting it in writing, but for now, I'll share these:

I'll be back soon...

Lent

Tomorrow begins the season of Lent--the 40 days (except for Sundays) preceding Easter Sunday. As we speak, Mark is at the church, finishing up on his preparations for the Lent service he has planned for tomorrow morning at 7am and then to be repeated at 12 noon. I'm looking forward to attending the service at noon. I'd love to be there at 7am--what better way to start the day--but to get me AND the kids ready to be gone by about 6:45 am would more than likely result in two, if not three, tired, grumpy folks. Not a good way to start the day.

I've spent some time giving some thought and prayer to my Lent season. Wikidpedia describes Lent as the "forty-day-long liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where according to the Bible he endured temptation by Satan. The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer...for...Easter."

My plan for fasting and prayer includes this:

• to support Mark's efforts of no sweets or cokes by abiding by the same fast;

• to fast from any extraneous email and internet time, which means if it doesn't involve work or paying bills, it's off limits (except for 5 minutes of personal email time I'm going to allow myself each day--I don't want to completely cut off communication with those friends or family with whom email is the only way we communicate)

• to spend that extra time that I'm not wasting (checking my email for the 57th time a day or surfing the 'net) prayerfully reading the book "Freedom of Simplicity" by Richard J. Foster. It's subtitle is "Finding Harmony in a Complex World." Sounds appealing, does it not? This book has been on my table for several months, and it's just never made it to the top of my reading stack. If I finish this one before the 40 days is over, I'll carry on with his book entitled "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home."

The summary on the back of "Freedom of Simplicity says this:

"Simplicity is not merely a matter of having less stress and more leisure. It is rather an essential spiritual discipline that we must practice for the health of the soul."

I'm looking forward to this time of Lent. I know God is in the midst of these commitments and fastings, and I anxiously await all He has to show me during this time. I'll be back at Easter to share with you how things went.

This 'N That

I have several thoughts floating around in my head right now, so I'm just going to do a random post about all of them!

Last week, I was able to surprise my sweet husband with an overnight get-away for a combined birthday/Valentine's Day gift. We rarely get an overnight trip by ourselves, so this was such a treat!

We attended a Valentine's/Marriage Retreat in Grapevine at the Embassy Suites, and it was such a blessing. The hosts for the retreat are some of my very favorite people in the whole wide world, so just seeing them would have been worth the trip. But there were some great presenters that reminded us of all the important things we need to be reminded of periodically in order to keep our marriages fine tuned (more on that later).

Part of the retreat was a Valentine Banquet Friday night, and it was so great. We got to dress up, which was really fun. That sounds crazy, but to dress up made it feel more special than "just" a date. And special it was. Everything was decorated so romantically, the meal was fabulous, and they sent us up to our rooms once everything was finished with cheesecake for dessert that was absolutely to die for!

Our room was so nice with fun, romantic touches here and there--rose petals sprinkled all over our bed along with a couple's devotional; a bottle of sparkling apple juice and two glasses; fun Valentine's confetti sprinkled on the table. It was just sweet.

Everything about it was fun, romantic, and simply a blessing. And being there with my best friend in the whole wide world...it was just the best.

The speaker we heard after our dinner Friday night reminded us that the most important witness we have after our personal relationship with Christ is our marriage relationship. People do not listen to the words we say; they watch what we do--how we treat our spouses, how we treat our children. That was such a good reminder and oh so true. I've always felt that, being the pastor and his wife, that was especially true, but I think it's applicable for everyone. If we call ourselves Christians, but are always bad-mouthing our spouses to others or snipping at and undermining each other everytime we turn around, we are contradicting ourselves and our witness is greatly devalued.

If you haven't invested any time in your marriage lately, I would encourage you to do so. Mark and I have a great marriage, but there's always room for improvement, and we want to be very intentional about planning more times together for just the two of us. And is there a better gift to give to your children than for you and your husband to have a happy, healthy, secure marriage? I don't think so.

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I've had some really sweet moments with my kids lately. I've been reminded that they are growing up so fast, which makes me sad on one hand. But on the other, it's such a blessing to watch them grow up into "real" little people!

A couple of different times lately, Benjamin has done something or said something that was very protective of me. It was just so sweet to me and made my heart almost burst to think of my little boy wanting to protect his Mommy!

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This morning, the weather was just beautiful outside, so I decided we needed to put up the kids' Pooh tent and have school outside. While the kids were playing in the front yard, I set everything all up in the backyard--the tent, a "special" snack for the kids, and then all our books. Then I went to the front yard and told them it was time for school. When I led them to the backyard (instead of to the table, as usual) and showed them where we were doing school, Hannah said, "Mommy! You're incredible!" I'll be able to go a couple of weeks on that sweet compliment!