Catching up

These past couple of weeks have been full of activity.

We have had fun in the leaves...

I thought our tree in Houston dropped a lot of leaves! We are surrounded by maple trees that turned a beautiful yellow and red and dropped a billion leaves. Brenna and Taylor had fun raking, playing, and even helped burn leaves. Celebrated Tim's birthday...

Tim Turned 37 years old this year. God has done, and is doing some amazing things in his life, and in ours. We are learning so much individually and together! I love my husband. He loves me and the girls so much. I am thankful for his love, hard work, and fun loving spirit!And Kara's 9 month mark...

Kara is busy crawling, pulling up, cruising along furniture, saying "da-da" and "ba-ba" quite well. She has stood some on her own, but tends to be more cautious than the other girls ever were. She weighs 16lbs, is 26 1/2 inches long, and loves to eat.

We are now preparing for our trip to Houston to celebrate Mom's birthday and Thanksgiving. We will be there for just a week, and know that it will be full lots of activity, hugs and kisses. We will have some great pictures to post after that I am sure.

So, to all of you, we extend our love and thanks for each of you! God has truly blessed us with family and friends who love Him and love us too! Happy Thanksgiving to each of you!!!

Chicago, Branson, and home again...

This past week was a great, but very tiring week. The girls and I packed up and went with Tim to Chicago. Tim had a show Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We spent the day together Monday in the city and journeyed around the Navy Pier. That was a lot of fun. It was cold and cloudy that day. Tuesday and Wednesday we hung out in the burbs where we were staying. We got in sight seeing and shopping!! Thursday, the girls and I went back into the city to the Adler Planetarium. It was amazing! The girls are spending the year in Astronomy for Science, so this was a perfect place for us to go. It was such a great museum. It had tons of information, but kept everything interactive for kids. I highly reccomend this place if you ever make it to Chicago. The weather on Thursday was perfect. The museum was right on Lake Michigan.

Tim and the girls in front of Wrigley Field

The Navy Pier

B & T in front of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline

NASA's future?

Friday we headed to Branson for Tim's company retreat. The accomodations were more than wonderful! It was a relaxing end to a busy week. Brenna and Taylor got to hang out with some of their buddies that they see only once a year.

Needless to say, we are all still a little tired and working to get back into the swing of things. We are thankful for the opportunity to travel with Tim and spend all that time together! It was a lot of fun.

Taylor's new look

Little Taylor had to get braces this week. Unfortunately, she inherited her mommy's teeth. Her x-ray shows a lot of teeth trying to come in and a little bitty space for them to come in to. We went for a consult on Monday, and ended up getting the braces put on Tuesday. She has been such a trooper. If you have never had braces, it is impossible to comprehend the discomfort you have at first. The sore teeth, the torn up cheeks from the brackets, the chapped lips from trying to manuver your mouth in an entirely new way since there is constantly something in there. AHHHHH... it made me ache for her. Anyway... she has been very brave, and if I do say so myself, is stinking cute with braces!

Pumpkin anyone?

our three pumpkins!
kara picking a pumpkin
sporting th UT gear in MIZZOU territory just befor the horns WON!

This weekend we had our 3rd annual trip to the local pumpkin patch. The girls really enjoy going. I think their favorite thing is the animal maze. The owner takes huge round bales or hay and lines them up to make a maze. Inside the maze are different cages with different critters. (peacoks, ducks, pigs, goats, chickens)Smelly... but they enjoy it. Kara was in awe of the little goat and stood on her own for about 15 seconds without realizing she wasn't holding on to anything! It was exciting. Of course, we picked a pumpkin to bring home.

I love the fall!

This has to be just about my favorite time of year. The weather is turning colder, the leaves are changing, and I just love a pot of hot soup or stew for dinner. Especially if I get couragious enough to make some homeade bread too! So... I had this idea... A soup recipe exchange.. I am going to post one of my most favorite soups every week. I challenge all of you to do the same. Between all of us blog readers, I am sure we could have a great number of yummy reicpes from this.

So... here is my first one... It is Rachel Ray's Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe... SO YUMMY!!!


Vegetable or corn oil, for drizzling, plus 2 tablespoons -- 2 turns of the pot in a slow stream
3 ears corn on the cob or 2 ears fresh-frozen cobs, defrosted
1 red bell pepper, split and seeded
1 pound chicken breast tenders
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning, 1/3 palm full
1 teaspoon cumin, 1/3 palm full
Salt and pepper
1 small to medium zucchini, small dice
1 medium yellow skinned onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 to 2 chipotle in adobo peppers (medium to hot heat level), chopped -- available in small cans in Mexican and Spanish food section of market
1 can stewed tomatoes, 28 ounces
1 can tomato sauce, 8 ounces
3 cups chicken stock, available in re-sealable paper containers on soup aisle
4 cups blue corn tortilla chips, broken up into large pieces
1 cup shredded cheddar or pepper Jack cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
Optional garnishes:
1/4 red raw onion, chopped
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley leaves
1 ripe avocado, diced and dressed with the juice of 1/2 lemon
Directions
Heat a grill pan to high and a soup pot to medium high. Drizzle oil on corn and place on grill. Add red pepper to grill with corn. Char vegetables 10 minutes, total, turning occasionally. Remove to cool, 5 minutes. Remove charred skin from the pepper.
While vegetables cook, dice chicken. Add 2 tablespoons oil to hot soup pot. Add chicken to pot. Season with poultry seasoning, cumin, salt and pepper. Lightly brown chicken on each side. Add zucchini, onions and garlic and chipotle peppers. Cook vegetables with chicken 5 to 7 minutes to soften. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and stock. Bring soup to a bubble, reduce heat to medium low.
Scrape corn off cob and add to soup. Chop grilled red pepper and stir into soup. Add chips to soup in handfuls and fold in. Serve soup immediately with scatter of shredded cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Top with any or all of the suggested garnishes.

ENJOY!!

Wild Turkey (not the whiskey)

It rained pretty much all night last night, and still is drizzling a bit this morning. It is Fall.... Well, I look out my kitchen window this morning, and what do I see???? Wild turkeys taking a stroll through the yard.... You don't see this in the city.

This is literally right outside my back door

This is by our back fence

A breath of fresh air...

My time with God lately has been SO refreshing. God has been reminding me, and revealing to me so many great things. At some point I really need to sit down and write in detail about them, but for now, I will give a glimpse of what I am learning and being reminded of.

A couple of weeks ago I read this great article from a Pastor in the Discipleship Journal. The Pastor spoke about coming to grips with his brokenness. He talked about "having it all together" and then everything crumbling around him, starting with himself. It made me think a lot about brokenness and how I need to embrace my brokenness rather than try to cover or patch up my brokenness. We all are broken, whether we like to admit it or not (that is me). It is in my brokenness that I can clearly see the strength of God. So, hear me say... "I am broken." I have hurts that sometimes are too much for me to bear. Some outside things like, missing my Father, and wanting healing for my mother. I am saddened by my own sin and the sin of the body of Christ. But I have a God who is Sovereign and bears this for me and brings me peace and comfort as He walks me through these things. Praise God for his goodness!

Often times, when I listen to other people's stories or testimonies, I find myself thinking...."man, what a dramatic testimony." This thought is due to the speaker telling of the terrible things God drew them out of (drugs, abuse, sexual immorality, etc) I compare that to my testimony of growing up in Church and not ever remembering a time in my life when I didn't know there was a God. God has reminded me this week that my testimony IS just as "dramatic" as a person who was set free from drugs and alcohol... God set me free from myself. He set me free from the tyranny of my sinful desires of self. I was, and still am, in just as much of a need of a Savior as the drug addict on the corner, or the girl who is abused.

This past Sunday, we had a GREAT sermon Dr. Stan Norman spoke on Philippians 3:8-16. He spoke about our lives and how we have so many "chairs" in them. We try to arrange them in different ways to try and deal with all of them, but it always ends in failure. Her focused on verses 12-13. "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own., because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But ONE THING I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." That is what it is about - our continual, singular, passionate pursuit of knowing and experiencing our God!!!

Ok... so this is longer than I expected. More of a preview than a glimpse of my thought process as of late....

Pray with me and think with me on these things....Tell me what God teaches and reminds you of through these things.

A little laughter...

Yesterday afternoon, Kara started this new laugh.

The tooth fairy lives here...

I never thought in a million years that I would have a 7 month old getting two teeth

,

and at the same time have a 11 year old losing them

,

and a 9 year old about to lose one.

I truly believe that if she, or he, were real, they would have to take up residence in our house for a while now. I just have to sit back and laugh. Only God, in His infinate wisdom would see fit to plan our family in this way. Much like the way my mother and father had theirs. My siblings are between 9 and 18 years older than I am.

I guess this is yet another one of those things that only you can understand mom!

Springfield suprise

This past weekend we surprised Brenna and Taylor with a little getaway to Springfield, Missouri. We had a great time. We went to dinner, took the girls ice skating, and then as an extra bonus, went to the Springfield Cardinal's baseball game that was just down the street from the ice rink. We did all that on Friday... Saturday, we hit the mall and a few other stores to catch the big Labor Day sales. It was really nice to get away, and even more fun to surprise the girls.

Earlier in the day on Friday while we were doing school, and it was raining, Brenna commented that they had not been ice skating in so long and that they would really like to go. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying anything. I had packed their bag and hid it in our room without them even knowing, so they truly had no idea what was coming. Their faces lit up when their daddy came in and said,"Come on, lets go!"

Brenna and Taylor at the ice rink



The girls at the baseball game


Kara's new trick