Adventures in La La Land

This was a pretty mild year for us. No babies, no pregnancies, no moves, no job changes. But I did find a few noteworthy events in my review of the past year to share with you.  1. I gave up Dr Pepper for 28 days and did not lose a single pound (despite replacing it solely with water). 2. Lena celebrated her first birthday with roseola, her first ear infection, and a blizzard. 2. Justin and I celebrated his 29 th birthday in Auburn Hills , MI with a shopping spree at Bass Pro Shops. 3. I chopped 10 inches off my hair. 4. Justin’s car dropped dead and we bought a new one thanks to our tax return (and the generosity of friends who sold us their car for less than it was worth!). 5. We had a "tornado" that blew open our living room door and did a bunch of damage, both inside and outside the house. 6. I got my first smart phone! 7. Lucy turned 4 and celebrated with a “Frozen” party! 8. I stepped outside my comfort zone and started a...

I've been a Christian for at least 20 years and still struggle with prayer. One of my most popular posts ever is my thoughts on the matter. I wrote that post almost four years ago and still have a lot of the same questions. So I'm always on the lookout for a good book on prayer. I got an email from Proverbs 31 Ministries about Ma x Lucado's new book called " Before Amen " a few months ago. And then P31 revealed that they were going to do an online Bible Study to go along with it. So I signed up for the study and bought the book. Both were a little bit disappointing.  The online bible study mostly reiterated what the book said and linked to cheesy videos. And the book itself . . . Let me preface this by saying I started the book with preconceived notions. When my dad saw the book he said, "Oh Ma x Lucado. Pastor Chris says his past few books sound like they were written while he was waiting in the airport terminal for his flight to arrive." I was ...

1. I decided to get serious about limiting Lena's binky time last week. She can have it in bed and in the car, but not during the rest of her waking hours. For the most part, it's going well. She usually cries for a while in the morning when I take it away, but once she's sufficiently distracted, she forgets about it. At least until something upsets her, when she starts crying, "Binky! Feel better!" One day this week, she handed me her binky after her nap and told me to put it up, saying, "Big girl." That incident has yet to repeat itself. Haha. 2. We finished our advent activities with making a candle to give Grandma VK, making craft stick stars , and making cookies to deliver to our local librarians. We made my mom's famous peanut butter cookies and the librarians raved that they were the best peanut butter cookies they'd ever had. Maybe they were just being nice, but I tend to agree and thought I'd share the recipe in case you want to t...

1. This was a big week for us. On Monday, we finally closed on our house! Selling our house, that is. We're still living with my parents indefinitely. We left with a box of cheese from our realtor, a bo x of chocolates from the title company, and the promise of funds being wired to our account the next day. They arrived right on time on Tuesday, and I immediately started paying things off. I paid off our credit card debt and over half of our student loan debt. I wish it wasn't a faux pas to tell you how much. It was so exciting. Haha. 2. On Thursday night, Justin and I drove down to Charlotte, MI to look at a car from craigslist. I've never bought a craigslist car before, and was admittedly nervous about the craigslist killer or some kind of scam. The guy gave me his home address, but then changed his mind and asked to meet at Wal-mart, so I felt a little better that we'd at least be in a public place. And then when we got in the car to test drive it and he had the ch...

1. We've been doing terribly with school lately. Last week was crazy with wedding prep. I don't know what my excuse was this week. I just feel like we've been so busy. We did one tiny lesson about the "sh" sound. Lucy did awesome with making "sh" words: Oh, and we did our Cubbies lesson. It was about the fiery furnace and gave Lucy the bonus activity of recreating the story with Play-doh. She has an obsession with watching YouTube videos about play-doh, so she loved this activity: Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and the angel in the furnace. 2. I was so e xcited about doing Truth in the Tinsel with Lucy, but I've failed at that too. And the Advent Activities have been pretty lame too. We made snowman pizzas: We made gifts for Lucy's Cubbies leaders: Melted crayon ornaments. I can't believe I forgot to take an "after" picture. They looked really cool! Although they took forever. Word to the wise: only use a few tiny c...

We hosted our 4th annual Birthday Party for Jesus this week. I've been doing this since Lucy was 18 months old, but this year for the first time, she seems to be getting it. She said, "So Christmas is Jesus' birthday? Why didn't you ever tell me that before!?" Lol. We sent out birthday invitations a couple weeks ago and got together Thursday morning. We have a couple friends who are allergic to milk, so I consulted Pinterest and made a breakfast of dairy free cinnamon rolls (with an icing made from almond milk and powdered sugar), mini-quiches  (some with cheese, some without), grapes, and cinnamon bread. After breakfast, we started on our game. I always try to do some kind of craft/activity that drives home the story of Jesus' birth, but it's difficult with the age ranges. Lucy, Presley, and Abby all turned four this spring, so they're the oldest. But then we've got a couple 3 year olds, a couple nearly-2 year olds, and some 18 month olds. ...