Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Stone Soup Making...

I was part of the Stone Soup Ministry Outreach tonite at our Church. A small, but dedicated group gathered, with their donations of veggies to add to our "stone" soup.

Myself and a friend from Church, (Pat), had simmered beef stew meat and chicken prior to meeting, and I had found the story of Stone Soup online to show, along with a stone soup song too.





We watched the short video of Stone Soup (check out YouTube, there are MANY variations of the story)... and then started slicing and dicing our veggies to add to the pots.




We had some short discussions on sharing, and what scripture passage best fits our stone soup efforts (feeding of the 5,000 with the fish and barley loaves), and enjoyed our slicing and dicing!

We also made soup cards, by ripping construction paper into pots and veggies, and adding a personal message inside. These and a small stone, will go into an envelope to be delivered along with "stone" soup to shut-in's, the sick, those who need cheering up and to the people who come to our food pantry.








We filled and packaged 36 containers of soup to go into the freezer to be given away soon!! Yummy chicken noodle, and vegetable beef barley! Great job everyone!!






Closed with a short prayer time, and offered prayers for those who would receive our "stone" soups.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Sunday School Budding Artists!




Encouraging my Sunday School kids to be creative and respond in art what God is telling them in their hearts and minds during this season of Lent.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Grandson Overnight!






Last night the three grandsons had fun with us at the Drive-In Movie Nite, then stayed the night at our house. It was about 10:30 by the time we got home, but the boys were still wide awake! At least for an hour or so ... and then they finally crashed in their "nests" of blankets and pillows... and so did I! *L*


But early this morning, Josh woke me up to remind me we had to find a new button eye for his monkey hat. We searched through the button box and found some cool buttons to make TWO new eyes! Instead of just a plain black button eye, his hat now sports some cool googly eyes!




And then it was time to make breakfast ... we did the easy bread and scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon in the muffin tins. Josh and Jeff helped, while Jake slept in for awhile.


While breakfast was baking, Josh wanted me to draw with him. He is reading some books with the Boneville characters in them, so that is what he chose for us to try. We found a picture on the internet, and drew our renditions from there.




Here is Josh's art, my attempt at it and even Jeff drew a picture too!






It was a fun, busy morning with the boys, and went by too fast before their Dad came to pick them up. Thank you Lord for grandsons!!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Free Parents Nite Out & Kid's Drive-In Movie Nite




What a fun night!! Christ Church held a fun event for kids while the parents had a night out. Drive-In Movie Nite was a big hit! Adults volunteers and the kids all had fun making vehicles from boxes.




The grandsons came to it too and then later stayed overnight at our house.





Pretty ingenious car and truck ideas the kids came up with too! I even got John and Kasey to help out!




Hey, Jake! No texting and driving! *lol*

The kids drove their vehicles up to the Chapel for a kid's service with stories and songs.




And then it was time to drive to the movie! The concession stand was a popular stop before settling in to watch the movie in their "vehicles".







Thursday, February 23, 2012

FINALLY SNOW!!




This winter has been lacking in snow ... big time! But this morning we woke up to a winter wonderland ... at least for a few hours it looks like winter here!

Love how the trees look with the snow on the branches... so pretty!


Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Ash Wednesday - Season of Lent Begins...


Ash Wednesday - the Church Season of Lent

Rules or No Rules? - A Discipline, or Not?

Today, Ash Wednesday, is the first day of the church season of Lent.
Things did not go well for Jesus as he began to teach. People began to feel threatened. He challenged their way of thinking and doing and they killed him on a cross. This is a reality in our world. We, too, suffer and die, in many areas of life. The marvel of the Faith is that God makes that journey with us as well. Our seasonal observance of this reality is called Lent. It begins with the ashes of Ash Wednesday at the dark end of winter.

The word Lent means, literally, springtime, or lengthening - since the day-time hours of spring bring longer light into the world - wow! pretty cool when you consider that Jesus is often referred to as The Light! It is a time of recognizing our need for God to understand what we face in this life and accompany us along the way. Its highest message is that God is so willing, and that in the depths of our pain, we can be related to our God, who also knows pain and tears and death.

Lent is 40 days long (not counting Sundays, which are feast days) reflecting the 40 days of rain for Noah, the 40 years of schooling of the people, Israel, in the Exodus, and the 40 days of testing of Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism in the Jordan River. Liturgies during Lent are subdued, introspective, and penitential in nature, often beginning in silence and with the general confession of the people. The color used is deep purple, signifying penitence and the mood of Lent.

At the end of Lent is the one week called Passion tide, or Holy Week. It begins on Passion Sunday, also called Palm Sunday, and ends at the first Alleluia of Easter in the midst of the Great Vigil (Easter celebration) on Saturday night.

Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday, the week before Easter) begins with the triumphal procession commemorating Jesus entering the Holy City on a donkey. Participants experience in the liturgy service, a stark change in the middle of things that we remember had happened in the life of Jesus. What had been falsely understood as Jesus joining the crowd becomes the confrontation of Jesus with the failures of society and the crowd as well. The day turns decidedly dark and we read dramatically of Jesus being sought for arrest by the threatened authorities. The color for this Sunday is the red of martyrs, the color of blood.

The symbolism of the Christian year, and remembrances in our worship and events are actually very interesting, and help us understand why we, as Christians, do what we do.

As in all things, we are given a choice, not forced into our decisions ... God does call us to draw near to Him ... and God promises that God will also draw near to US too! One reason, of many, to continue in this journey with Christ and each other.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Shrovetide - Pancake Races & Pancake Supper



Final flings before Lent begins! Pancake races in Sunday School and Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper too!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

I have created an "Easy Peasy Egg Dish" monster!!

So, my husband must have liked the eggs in a muffin cup for breakfast from yesterday's post, more than I realized... and I too have been dreaming in my sleep of ideas for those eggs....

.... I am wondering if Pinterest has some kind of mind-control over us here... *LOL* We are under their control... think up new ideas, then post them!!..arrgghh...




But, since John had those ideas, and me too... I tried them out this AM...

See my post from yesterday ... and then know we elaborated on it by making the eggs in a muffin cup with corned beef hash crusts and scrambled the eggs, adding minced onions into the mix as well!



I did bake these a bit longer ... about 35 minutes or so at 360 degrees...
They turned out delicious too!





The advantage with scrambled eggs are, you use less eggs per cup, you can add onions (chopped black olives, small pieces of ham, etc.)

Hopefully we won't be dreaming of MORE recipes tonite...hah

Friday, February 17, 2012

Easy Peasy Eggs for Breakfast

Oh, oh... my blog has turned in a recipe sharing blog lately.. *L* Let's call it an assemblage of good food ideas...

Sometime soon, I hope to get back to making art things ... until then....

At our house, we are each on our own usually to make breakfast for ourselves. Once in awhile we have fixed something for each other when we have time to spend eating breakfast together ... this morning, breakfast is thanks to pinterest, since I saw the recipe for this there awhile ago and my craving for it got to me this AM.. *lol*




This was yummy and easy! I used a muffin pan (larger size muffin pan is the best), sprayed it with Pam, cut half a piece of bread for the "crust", pushed it into the muffin hole. Took bacon, cut pieces in half, cooked in microwave for about 2 - 3 minutes to partially cook it. Took those pieces and laid them on top of the bread crust, broke an egg into each muffin (beware: if you have large eggs, like I did, they may run over)... added salt and pepper to each egg, and placed in a 360 degree oven for about 25 minutes ... cook longer if you like your egg more set ... I prefer mine a bit runny, and they turned out delicious!! And looked cute too!


Monday, February 13, 2012

Valentine's Day Gifts ...

A friend of mine, former classmate from high school, had seen my post from a couple of weeks ago when I made some Apple Pies in an Apple for the Homeless Shelter Fundraiser.



She lives out east, far from home, but her parents still live here, and she inquired about the possibility of having some of those made for a Valentine Day gift for them, in exchange for a gift for the Homeless Shelter. I said yes, I could do that, so tonite I made the delicious treats and will deliver them in the morning.

They turned out great, hope they are as good as they look!





Thanks Robin also for the generous donation to the Walworth County Emergency Homeless Shelter!





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And... Shhhhhhhhh ... it's a secret yet, still to be delivered, but I also made some for the grandsons and John and Janel too! ... sending it home with John-John tomorrow along with chili and cornbread from the weekend.




Happy Valentine's Day to All tomorrow!