Creative Salt Play {Thoughtful Momma Monday}

If your kids like to play and be creative as much as mine, I'd like to share a GREAT play idea with you.

Got a dollar? Here's what you do....

Head to  your local Dollar Tree (or your pantry cupboard) a grab a container of SALT!

Go outside with your kids and set them up with a container to play in, the salt, and tools for creative play (paint brush, spoons, popsicle sticks, beads, chopsticks, cookie cutters, small boxes, cars, trucks, and anything else they will have fun in the salt with). The sky is the limit as to what they can use to play with in the sand.

I laid a couple pieces of colorful paper in the bottom of each tray. This adds color to their play!

 

 Let them dump all the salt into the tray and have fun! The fun play will last quite a while, just beware... if you let them play for too long and they tire of all that salt, it may end up in the air and in their hair  :o)

If you come across some, I know that your kids would enjoy a shoebox lid full of colored sand! I found a couple craft bags full and we added glitter and various beads to ours, then broke out the cars, trucks and marbles. The variety is endless!

Whatever you do with your children today, enjoy their creative minds and innocence. They are growing up too fast!

Blessings,
 

"Winter Birds" Tea Party

After so much fun at our last winter tea party (2 years ago), I decided we must have our sweet librarians over again for another party!

         

December 2011                                  Today - February 22, 2014

Our little girl is growing up too quickly!

I love a good tea party - just a couple friends, some food, and a warm cup of tea.

Lately I've enjoyed looking out my kitchen window each morning and seeing a variety of birds snacking on the seed bell that my generous mother hung on a tree branch in our front yard. These birds come in all sorts of colors and are fun to watch. I think my favorite are the red cardinals.

All these birds got me in the mood for a Winter Birds Tea Party! And, yet again, my sweet mother-in-law let me borrow some tea cups, a tea pot and best of all some beautiful birds to decorate with!

We enjoyed a wonderful morning with warm weather! The high today is 75 and the windows are open! That's a Texas winter for ya.

We sent our sweet brother off to visit Mimi and Pops (armed with a sword to defend the princess). His need to run and play outdoors is HUGE! So he went over to "help" them build a deck for their pool and have his own little tea party with his grandparents. Of course we packed some yummy snickerdoodles in his backpack, along with his power tools  :o)

 

Next, we set the table for six! I always enjoy making name cards and other decorations for the current party's theme with card stock, scrapbook paper and any art tidbits that I have on hand. This time each name card had a bird on it. 

(Yes, I'm from Portland!)

 

On the menu today was: chicken salad croissant sandwiches, butterfly pbj's, banana muffins, grapes, veggies and ranch dip, meat and cheese,  mini snickerdoodles, banana pudding, homemade lemonade, iced coffee, and two types of tea - Chai Green Tea and Mint Medley.

See the sweet cardinal in the middle of the table? Lovely winter bird!

 My mother is a great hostess and a tea-giver-extraordinaire! She prepared our tea in pots today and helped in so many ways.

 

Our dear "Story time Lady", Cessy, and her sweet girls joined us. We missed having our children's librarian with us too, but we thought of her throughout our party. Our friends were very pleasant to visit with and we learned more about each of them! 

It's a great party when the food and company are enjoyable.

 

Here is my first attempt at banana pudding... and of course 

I forgot to include the bananas!

After eating our brunch, we all enjoyed a memory game.

I place many objects that began with the letter "B" on a cookie sheet and each team had one minute to look at the tray and then, by memory, write down what they saw. The mommy/grandma team won!

What fun memories we made today. We missed you so much, sweet Becca, 

and hope to try to party with you again soon!

Here is one last "bird" thought to leave you with...

" ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?... ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:25-26, 34

Blessings from this blessed lady,

 

Enticing Eve - Intentionally Focused {Week 4}

Wow! How many times have I read the book of Genesis? Maybe a hundred! (at least the first few chapters anyways). Even so, this morning in my Good Morning Girls study, my heart was taught even more from Genesis chapter 3.

This week in GMG we are focusing on being intentional in our marriage. And what a week to focus on this, as Valentine's Day is this Friday!

Today we read through chapter three and focused in on verse six. I want to share this scripture with you and what I took away from it today. I hope that it encourages your heart - whether you are already married, single, and hoping to be married one day in the future.

We all remember that God made Adam and Eve and set them in a beautiful garden. He told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or they would die. Even so, when temptation came along, Eve buckled. Why? What was it that caught her eye and so moved her heart to disobey God and to persuade her husband to disobey God too?

"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate."

Genesis 3:6

In this verse, Eve's heart was pulled away from pleasing God by her desire for three things:

1. Provision - she saw that the tree was good for food, even though the entire garden was FULL of food that she and Adam could enjoy together.
2. Pretties - The tree and its fruit was pleasant to the eyes.
3. Power - the tree could make her wise, thus giving her an edge, an upper-hand.

Oh my heart! How we as women are drawn to these three things daily! The pleasures of life, those things that could lead our hearts from God, always look or sound appealing or we wouldn't even want them!

Because Eve caved to her flesh and listened to a lie, she chose to disobey her Creator and lead her husband down the same path. She LEAD her husband! Right there is part of the problem!

We, as wives, are to be helpers to our husbands (Gen. 2:18). We are to help lighten the load that they carry and encourage their hearts. We are to cheer them on when the world comes against them and we are to be their safe place, where they can be themselves and be accepted.

Eve was enticed by provision, pretties and power, all things that we as women want and are drawn to. Yet instead of receiving these things God's intended way (because none of those things are evil or wrong), she went about getting them HER WAY and in the end that lead to separation from God. Death was the outcome of Eve's disobedience to God. Death not only came to her, but to her husband as well, as she encouraged her husband in disobedience.

I have much more to learn from Adam and Eve, as from so many other people's life stories in the Bible. But today I choose to be more aware of what I'm enticed by in this life, how I respond to it, and how I try to sway my husband's decisions about these things as well. Temptation WILL come, but it's how I respond to that temptation that's important.

Today I choose to support my husband, pray for him and be his cheerleader. I choose to follow his lead as he follows God. May we as wives, and women in waiting, draw nearer to God and be aware of the devil's schemes.

God bless you abundantly,

Amazing Homemade Alfredo Sauce

I remember in my single years eating many meals at my dear friend's home. She and her husband welcomed me over often for movies, meals and just time to hang out together, and didn't mind that I enjoyed babysitting their 3 children (of course not!).

She would whip up an amazing alfredo sauce to top some fettuccini and her hubby's yummy grilled chicken. Paired with crusty garlic bread and a large green salad, nothing compares! There were usually leftovers for lunch the next day and it was the perfect meal to make for parties and guests.

When I became a wife, I wanted to make homemade fettuccine alfredo that tasted as good as K's. I called her and asked for the recipe and here it is!

It's a keeper! It sure isn't a low-calorie food at all, but once in a while it's nice to have a hearty, delicious meal.

This recipe makes quite a big batch of sauce (great for taking to your neighbors who have 7 children). We usually use half of the sauce at one meal and I freeze the other half for a quick meal in the future, or I just halve the recipe to begin with. It's great to enjoy it again, without having to make it again. Cooking sauce from scratch takes a little time and effort. But what good food doesn't?


Amazing Alfredo Sauce

Ingredients:
1 stick butter
2 tbl chopped garlic
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup parmesan/romano cheese (fresh or powdered)
2 cups chicken broth
32 oz 1/2 and 1/2
2 tsp Italian seasoning
salt to taste

Directions:
Melt butter in large pan on med/high heat.
Add minced garlic and sauté until it begins to brown slightly.

Turn heat down to medium.
Whisk in flour. Add parmesan, stir until blended.

Quickly add all broth at once, whisking as you pour.
Let simmer for a minute or two and add the cream and seasoning.

Whisk away any lumps and let thicken.
Add more flour to thicken, or more broth to thin out sauce to desired consistency.

Salt to taste and enjoy!

We really enjoy this sauce with grilled chicken, fettuccine noodles and broccoli, just like my dear friends used to serve it to me.

I hope that you enjoy this with family and friends. Once you make your own alfredo sauce, you will never want to buy jarred cream sauce form the store again!


Blessings,

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