Pizza Party

Our son Blaise's 10th birthday was last month.  Instead of having a party we agreed upon an outing with a friend.  Skyzone was the venue of choice and a friend from church was his companion for the evening.

Can anybody relate to the "belated birthday celebration"?  It's when your household has so many other things going on that celebrations are put off until weeks after the birthday has come and gone.  Before anyone calls Children and Youth on us, keep in mind that we do acknowledge the birthday as well as celebrate as a family on the actual day.  The party part however is delayed for lack of time.

Well, today is the day.  Blaise's friend will come over after school to have dinner with us and then we'll head to Skyzone for trampoline fun.  In lieu of taking the boys out to a meal or delivering pizza in for a meal, I am making my own pizza.  Homemade pizza is a staple in our household.  Ross would make it in the early years of our marriage when I had ZERO interest in cooking anything that didn't come in a box.  Watching him knead that dough made my head spin as I thought, 'I could never learn to do that!'  Well, now I am the regular maker of the dough (although I did never learn to knead because my KitchenAid stand mixer's dough hook does that grunt work for me.)  Below are the ingredients needed to make a killer pizza dough.

I usually purchase a 3 pack of yeast then knock out three doughs one right after the other while my mixer is out.  It takes me about 30 minutes to do all three.  Next is the rising process.  A nice sunny spot by the window helps this process along quite nicely!

Finally toppings...I did one with basil and cheese and one with sausage and cheese (shown below).  I could've kicked myself because I wanted to use feta cheese with the sausage but I forgot and used mozzarella.  I purchased a 5 lb. bag of feta for $9.99 at my favorite grocery store last week and have since been incorporating it into every meal known to man :-)

And finally the end product...two fabulously delicious pizzas (as confirmed by our little birthday party guest who exclaimed during dinner, "I need to come to your house more often to eat!") made with ingredients we already had in our kitchen. 

Pizza party, anyone?

Mess vs. Message

Easing into my living room chair one morning, I breathed a sigh of relief.

'This is my time', I thought to myself.

It was early morning and I was the only one awake.  By no easy effort, I have made a discipline of getting up before the rest of my family to have time alone with God.

Not too long after my back hit the back of the chair, my eyes looked at what lay before me on the living room floor.  Toys laying askew with books thrown in the mix-evidence of our one-year old son Story's presence the day before.  A typical toddler mess.

 I sat staring at what lay before me, not wanting to move to tidy it up.  After a bit, I looked more closely at the "mess" and began to smile.

I was sadly mistaken.  What the living room floor was really cluttered with was a message, not a mess.  Books about Jonah and Moses, along with a kids devotional book were scattered about declaring God's word and faithfulness to our son.  How happy it makes me to know that our son is learning the message of Jesus as a child now so that he won't be a mess as an adult later!

Grateful

I'm back!  Had to share about God's faithfulness in providing.  Most recently he's done the following:

1. Allowed us to cancel a "free" trial Amazon Prime account that turned into a not legit Amazon Prime account because the trial expired.  Our credit card was billed $104.73 and every last penny is being refunded even though I was late in cancelling the trial.
2. Given favor by having a Ph.D. offer his expertise to our church free
3. Placed on my sister's heart to bless our family with a bag of household goods she purchased with her coupon know-how (see below)

I am grateful and just had to share.

Job Security

Funny, I never thought of myself as manager material.  But when looked up "homemaker" in the dictionary, there it was in print--"one who manages a home, especially as wife and mother".

It is true.  I do manage our home.  But I certainly have, and need, a lot of help.  There are times when I become prideful and think that my family couldn't get along without me.  Truth be told I couldn't get along without them.

If it were up to me, aside from sleeping and eating, our days would be filled with tasks.  In my mind  a constant to-do list for myself and others ticks away.  It is difficult for me to just sit around the house.  When I am in my home, the thought of leisure time eludes me.

God bless my family!  Without even realizing it, they help me to stay focused on what's important by getting me away from what I am focusing on too much of the time--work.  Silly dances, impromptu conversations, YouTube videos, rehashing events from their school day, and talking sports (my hubby)--seemingly distractions in my day all meant to help me see what's really important.

In my mind, this post was intended to share about how I have job security because my family needs me.  But really, they have job security because this manager needs them.

Grapes of Wrath

The fence in our backyard boasts a pretty wicked grapevine.

We planted it at least 6 years ago and it has matured beautifully.  So much so that in recent years I have begun to can grape jam from its fruit.

The development we live in abuts an apartment complex and our backyard has a fence that separates us from the apartments.  The grapes grow over the fence and we actually have to drive over to the apartments to collect the clusters that grow on the other side.

Today I was grilling in the backyard and stepped inside to get some things ready at the sink.  While there, I looked up and through my kitchen window saw a man and a little girl looking at our grapes.  Next, I see the man and the little girl picking off of the grapes.  Finally I see them get what looked like a cluster of grapes and walk off with them--smiling!!!  I was not smiling.

'How dare they take something that doesn't belong to them', I thought.  'Not to mention, what's up with that father (I assumed) teaching his daughter to steal from others!'  Although I was fuming, I was not brazen enough to walk over to the fence and give them a piece of my mind.  After all, that wouldn't be very Christ-like.

Then my mind began to settle.  I remembered a sermon that I heard recently speaking of the struggle we go through to put off our flesh and put on the Holy Spirit.  My flesh was all about "They are taking my grapes!"  But really this was an opportunity to be Jesus to two individuals.

Rethinking my approach to the situation, I knew what I had to do.  I went downstairs and got a jar of grape jam from last year.  The duo was out of sight for now, but if they returned I had my dialogue all planned out. 

"I see that you like our grapes.  Please have a jar of grape jam from last year's harvest."

Free at Last!

Last weekend our daughter came to me asking the loaded question, "Mom, guess what?"

"What?" I responded.

"I'm debt free!" she replied with a big smile across her face.

I smiled back and congratulated her.  Her debt was a whopping $75.  However to a 15-year old teenager with only allowance as an income, this is big money.  She took the rather drastic route of taking every single allowance and putting all of it towards what she owed until she had paid it off.

What she was paying off was summer camp.  During the middle of last school year, Ross and I decided that we would have the kids begin to pay for a portion of their activities.  We see the following benefits in doing this:

1. More appreciation results when they have invested some of their own money
2. More consideration results when they have invested some of their own money (they are more apt to seriously weigh whether or not they truly want do participate in an activity)
3. We are not shouldering the entire financial weight of multiple activities for three children

Our kids are surprisingly compliant with this new dispensation.  There have even been times when they've asked for clarity sake, "Is this something that I will pay for?".  

I praise God for the responsibility that they are learning today and pray that it prepares them for tomorrow.

My Cup Runneth Over

I have a friend who regularly blesses our family with goods.  Primarily she gives us grocery items.  Always the timing is right on.  This is what she dropped off yesterday.

Individual cereals, jams, bbq sauce, marinades, boxed rice meals, and my favorite...Olive Garden salad dressing :-)  Really?!  These are the fill-ups God pours into my tank when I am doubting His provision in my life.

My cup runneth over.