The Saturday 7 - it's a long one!

Sorry about the spacing and font issues. I copied and pasted a lot. :-)


1. I made a cute flower craft with the girls this week. 
Picture from tonyastaab.typepad.com 
It was super easy. We got some foam flower shapes from Dollar N' More for $1. Lyla traced the flowers onto scrapbook paper and I cut them out. Then she traced a cup to get the circle and I cut that out. Lucy glued the circle on the flower. I jabbed a hole in the middle and Lyla put the straw through it. Good times. :-)

2. Here's another recipe from plainchicken I made this week:


Picture from plainchicken.com 
Beer Crust Pizza!! In case you haven't noticed, I've been on a major beer bread kick lately. Haha. Last week, I had half a can of beer left as well as a bunch of pizza fixings. I wondered to myself it it was possible to make pizza crust with beer instead of yeast, but Justin drank the beer before I could figure it out. Later that week I came across this recipe on my new favorite blog! It was soooo easy and delicious! I was seriously so proud of myself for making homemade pizza dough. Haha.


Beer Crust Pizza
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp cubed cold butter
1 cup beer

Place pizza stone in oven and preheat to 475°.  [I don't have a pizza stone. Just used a pizza pan. Didn't preheat it.]

Pulse the flour and salt together in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse in the cold butter until it's well distributed. Add the beer and pulse until smooth.

Roll out dough onto a piece of parchment paper. [I don't have parchment paper. Just floured my counter and rolled it out like that.]   Prick dough with fork and add sauce, cheese and toppings.  Transfer pizza to hot pizza stone. Bake at 475° for 12-15 minutes, until cheese is bubbly.

3. I got a 30% off coupon to Kohl's this week, so I headed down there [alone!] one day and scored a bunch of birthday presents for Lucy! She's going to be so excited about all the Dora and Elmo stuff she's getting. Haha. However, I still have my eye on a few big ticket items that I'm looking for at garage sales and craigslist. I thought I'd put the word out here in case anyone sees them or has something similar they're looking to get rid of!


A play house:


I don't care if it's this one specifically. This is just the first picture I could find.


A Dora bike:


I saw one of these for sale on Craigslist in my town for $5 and I was too late! I want it so badly!


A slide:
Again, I don't care which one. She just loves slides so much. I never realized how expensive one of these little plastic slides is!

4. Lucy has been picking up new words like crazy this week. (Libby, Niki, what?, help, raining, running, neck, etc.) There are a couple more notable ones, though. She has figured out saying "Play" with a sad face will inevitably pull me away from whatever I'm doing to go play kitchen with her. Haha. I feel like such a worthless mother if I'm doing something and she's tugging on me begging me to play. She has me so figured out. It's worth it, though, because she has finally started saying, "love you!" It is the most precious thing ever. 


5. So my friend Missy has been writing on facebook about how she's started "eating clean." That concept is super foreign to me, but one of her friends linked to a blog that I checked out. There's no way I'm willing to go as radically "clean" as the writer of that blog, but she did have some good looking recipes. And I'm all for substituting healthier ingredients if it's something I already have in my cupboards - or will be able to find at the grocery store for a decent price. All that's to say, I pinned one of her recipes this week and got the most repins ever! (54!) Apparently everyone else thought it looked good too. I still haven't tried it, but since I seem to be on a recipe kick lately, I thought I'd share it here. You can try it and let me know what you think. And feel a little better about yourself for eating "clean." ;-)


Picture from www.thegraciouspantry.com
Clean Eating Peanut Butter Fruit DipIngredients
1/2 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky depending on your preference)
1/2 cup non-fat Greek yogurt
2 tbsp. honey
1/4 cup non-fat milk
2 tbsp. flax or chia seeds (I used flax)
DirectionsWhisk everything together until you have a smooth, creamy dip. Serve with fruit such as apples or strawberries.NOTE: if your peanut butter is runny, cut back on the milk. You want this to be dip, not peanut butter milk.
6. We finished Radical in Bible Study this week. The last chapter is a challenge to live radically. David Platt gives 5 practical ways to achieve this :
  1. Read through the Bible in a year - I've actually never read through the whole Bible, but I'm not sure I have the discipline to do it in a year.
  2. Pray for the whole world in a year - Platt has a guide on his website (which I don't have time to link to). I was thinking I could pick a country a night and pray for it with Lucy at bedtime. Doable. But are there more than 365 countries in the world? We might have to do more than one country a night.
  3. Give money sacrificially - I kind of feel like we already do this. We tithe despite the fact that we can't pay our bills and sponsor a Compassion International kid. 
  4. Serve outside of your context for 2% of the year - this one is the scariest for me. I like my comfortable little rural existence. I don't want to go overseas. I don't even want to go downtown. But I know that is wrong wrong wrong. And besides 2% works out to 1 week. I can do it.
  5. Get involved in a community of believers - done. Church. Bible study. Small group. 
I'm not usually much of a daredevil, but I've been feeling so convicted lately about how I'm wasting my life and not accomplishing anything for God. I spend the majority of my days sitting at the computer playing Words with Friends or searching Pinterest for recipes. Would it really kill me to take this challenge? I'm thinking about starting another blog (obsessed much?) to chronicle the journey . . . if I decide to embark on it. I haven't totally committed yet.

7. This is so long already, I'm going to end it here. Have a great week everyone!!

Comments