The Saturday 7 - on Friday

I'm leaving for Ladies' Retreat tonight. Woohoo! So excited!! Never fear, though. I wouldn't want you all to miss out on another riveting blog entry from me! So here you have it. The Saturday 7 on Friday.

1. Guess what? I have another new recipe for you! And guess where I got it? That's right - Plain Chicken! Haha. I love that blog. The girl has similar tastes as me (simple, cheesy, bad for you.) :-) This week's recipe was Cream Cheese White Chili. I have a few different recipes for White Chili, but this one was super easy and delicious. Justin surprised me once again by saying, "This is really good!" How can't it be? There's an entire brick of cream cheese in it. Haha. I did use the 1/3 less fat version so I feel a little better about myself.

Cream Cheese White Chili

1 can black beans
1 can corn, undrained
1 can Rotel, undrained
1 package ranch dressing mix
1 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 8 oz package light cream cheese
2 chicken breasts

Drain and rinse black beans. Place chicken at bottom of crockpot, then pour out whole can of corn (undrained), rotel, and black beans. Top with seasonings and ranch mix. Stir together. Place cream cheese on top. Cover with lid and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Stir cream cheese into chili. Use 2 forks to shred chicken. Stir together and serve.

2. I decided to start doing a letter a week with Lucy. She's getting so good at identifying letters. Yesterday, we went through our flashcards and she only got 6 wrong. She gets so close on most of them! Like when I hold up V she says "Vine!" and when I hold up Y she says "Yarn!" Haha. She just needs to learn what the letters are called. Anyway, this week we did a project I found on pinterest. (I can not get the picture to work. Here's the link.)

It was actually kind of a pain because there wasn't a template, so I had to make my own. But she loved putting the stickers on. She called it her "job." We did it for the first time on Monday, then on Tuesday she said, "Me do my letter job again?" Haha. 

3. Justin has 10 days of vacation to use before the year's up, so he just picked a bunch of random days. One  set of them happens to be right after my birthday, so we're thinking of going on a little mini-vacation. I have enough rewards on my credit card to get a $100 Marriott hotel gift card and a $25 restaurant gift card. So now we just have to decide where to go. Here are my options so far. If you're familiar with these areas, let me know what you think: 

• Traverse City: we've been there a bunch of times, so it's nothing new, but they have a nice downtown shopping area that we could peruse. And it's boutiquey type stuff that's fun to look at, but way too expensive to really tempt me to buy.
• Canton: one word: Ikea. Two more words: no money. Haha. The problem with Canton is there's not really anything to do except Ikea, and there's no way I'd be able to make it through that store without spending money we don't have. 
• Holland: we could go to Dutch village. We are Dutch after all. :-) 
• Frankenmuth: I'd love Bronner's [the Christmas store]. And Birch Run [outlet mall] is right down the road. But there's that no money problem again. 

4. Lucy and I were reading her children's Bible today. (She obsessed - I had to read the entire thing 3 times in a row.) We got to the story of Jesus being born and I was struck for the first time how weird it is that these grown men (the shepherds and wise men) physically bowed before and worshiped a baby. I understand the bowing and outward showing of worship were a cultural thing they were probably used to, but to do it to a squalling little infant? It's amazing how important their notion of the Messiah was. How long they had waited for him. It's also amazing how adaptive and humble they were to bow before that baby even though he wasn't what they expected. Do we show Jesus even a morsel of such worship? Even after all we know about him? They worshiped him out of expectation. We should worship him for what he's already done! There's my Christmas lesson of the week. :-)

5. Exciting news: I think we've settled on a baby name! Drumroll please . . . . Ethel! It was both my grandma and great grandma's names, plus it's Lucy's best friend on I Love Lucy! So perfect!  . . . . . . Lol. Totally kidding!!! We are not giving this poor child such a horrendous name. It really was my grandma and great grandma's names, but I'm not that big a fan of tradition. Haha. Yuck yuck yuck. Really, though, I think we have picked a name. But I'm going to do my best to keep it a secret until she's born. :-) I feel like we found out the sex and shared it with everyone. I'd like there to be some kind of surprise to share once she's actually born! That said, I might give a clue every week. Or at least tell you a name we considered that it's not. Hehe. We'll see. :-) This week, I promise you - it's not Ethel.

6.  I'm totally paranoid about having an umbilical hernia after the comment on my last post. From my research, it happens most often to women who have a genetic predisposition (my sister had both umbilical and inguinal hernias that required surgery) or who have multiple pregnancies or big babies. My babies aren't that big. Lucy was 8 lbs, 8 oz. But my belly gets insanely large. Of course, some of the websites I read said umbilical hernias are no big deal and some said they can be life threatening. Ha! I guess I'll just mention it to my doctor at my next appointment and try not to die before then. ;-)

7. I decorated my entryway for fall this week. Isn't it cute? :-)

The candy corn jar was from Burley Park. Go me. Haha. Justin's upset I'm using candy as decoration. 

Whew! I was long winded this week! (You don't even want to know how long it took me to write this, upload the pics, and place the links. Ha!) Have a good one!