I was in a strange land filled with funny little people who had hairy feet and curly hair.
Here I am with one of their elders. (You can see my diet hasn’t been going well.)
Here is one of my favorite fellas. He liked to sing songs and smoke pipeweed.
They even invited me to one of their costume parties. Here you can see them dressed up as a pint of ale, pancakes, a super hero and some kind of butterfly. Oh, what a night that was!
You can see their living quarters were quite lovely, and they were very hospitable, which is why I was gone for so long!
Just playing! I’ve been lazy …. but I couldn’t resist posting the photos above. The girls spent a large portion of their summer playing with their “Lord of the Rings” figures and setting up elaborate Shire scenes with their hobbits … they took pictures of some of their favorites! They just got more “Lord of the Rings” figures for their birthdays … can’t wait to see what more scenes will end up on my camera! Their “Lord of the Rings” obsession is pretty cute, although I’m not sure what to think about my four-year-old singing songs about ‘malt beer’!
I’m so glad to be back, and will be posting more soon. Thank you for being patient with me!
My friend Heather at Want What You Have tagged me for this MeMe, which is perfect because her blog is one of my favorite places on the Web! I love her blog about “living a joyful, simple, more meaningful life!”
1. My Favorite Picture of Jesus:
This is what I imagine He will look like when He greets me in heaven.
2. My Favorite People:
My wonderful husband and girls! I’d rather be with them with any people in the world. They’ve made all my dreams come true, they drive me crazy, they’ve taught me who I am, they make me laugh, they are everything to me!
3. My Favorite Song about Heaven:
4. My Favorite Book when I was a Teenager:
Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly. I must have read this book dozens of times … (mine has a different, less 80s cover, though!) … I love reading about Jack and Angie in the early Forties, and their sweet, innocent courtship … back when weinie roasts were popular, and kissing on the 3rd date was considered ‘fast’! Everytime I read it though, I wish it would end differently! (I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t read it yet … and to those people, I say: go to library ‘toot-sweet’ and borrow this book!!)
5. My Favorite Scene from Enchanted:
I know I’ve posted this before, but I could watch over and over, and since you have such great taste, I know you can too!
Last night, my oldest daughter worked out with her dad and me (the P90X Plus workout … I need to blog about that exercise video someday)! She thought it was oh-so-high-larious that she could do jumping jacks better than her mom.
Did you have a special stuffed animal friend while you were growing up? I had a couple that I remember — a Winnie the Pooh that I got at Disneyland, and a little blue bunny that I got at Knott’s Berry Farm. I lost the bunny, but the Pooh Bear is still around. I think he’s in my closet.
My oldest daughter has a very special animal friend. Daniel, the beagle. On Valentine’s Day when she was two and a half, Daniel was given to her Grammy, but she loved him so much that Grammy gave him to her. That turned out to be Grammy’s last Valentine’s Day with us on earth, so that is pretty special!
Not long after she got him, my oldest took Daniel when she went into the hospital to get her silver tooth. And he’s pretty much been a constant companion ever since!
Here he is when he was brand-new:
Since then, he’s been with us on car trips:
He’s been sight-seeing:
He’s celebrated birthdays (don’t ya just love his party shirt?!):
He’s sung at church:
He’s tried on daddy’s wedding suit:
He’s even visited Great-Grandma!
Daniel has picked out Christmas trees:
He’s gone trick-or-treating:
He’s hunted Easter eggs with the cousins:
He’s watched fireworks on the 4th of July:
One year, he even had a birthday party! With an invitation:
And presents!
Daniel has been there on first days of school:
One special summer, the girls made a movie about him, called A Super Tail. Here’s a still from that movie:
Yep, Daniel’s pretty special! I don’t know who’s going to be more sad when he finally gets left behind while my oldest girl goes on her adventures … him or me! (She would say, “Mommy!! That will never happen!!”)
This is me and my cousin in the summer of 1984. Aren’t we hip?!
Don’t you love my stylish hat and my outgrown ‘Lady Di’ hairdo?! And we always had to buy matching outfits, even though it made people think we were in a traveling choir.
During my visit that summer, we spent a week in Dallas with my other cousin. We spent the whole week watching David Letterman and, of course, the 1984 Summer Olympics!
Here are some of the best things about those Olympics!
The US Men’s Basketball Team
A young Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan (with hair!). Here they are in a music video featuring “I’m So Excited!” (Very 80’s!)
The Men’s Gymnastics Team
Here’s Mitch Gaylord doing a “Gaylord II.” Pretty amazing!
Mary Lou Retton
And of course, no ‘84 Olympics retrospective would be complete with Mary Lou Retton’s vault!
Here’s a nice retrospective of the whole Games, featuring Spandau Ballet (one of my favorite 80’s bands)!
I had to save the best for last …
Our Olympic crushes from the Summer of 84!
Rowdy Gaines
Gotta love the swimmers! Especially ones with names like “Rowdy.” According to his Web site, “At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, no swimmer won more races than he did with his three gold medals in the 100 meter freestyle, the 4×100 meter freestyle and medley relays.” Nowadays, he is a motivational speaker and private swim technician.
The Men’s Gymnastics Team
Including Bart Conner (now married to Nadia Comancei!), Peter Vidmar (now a motivational speaker), Timothy Daggett, Mitch Gaylord (now a judge on Celebrity Circus), James Hartung and Scott Johnson.
Steve Lundquist
Another swimmer! He won two Olympic Gold medals: in the 100 meter breaststroke, and the 400 meter medley relay. He also won “Best Male Chest” from People Magazine in 1985! I used to have a Steve Lundquist poster hanging on my closet door. It was totally awesome. I wish I still had it.
And our Number One Olympic Crush:
Greg Louganis
Yes, long before we knew he would rather shop with us than date us, we thought Greg Louganis was the bee’s knees. Not only was he cute and graceful, he had next to no body fat (he broke a needle when they tried to give him a shot in his rear, we read in Sports Illustrated!), and cradled his teddy bear before each dive. He sang songs from The Wiz while he was climbing up the ladder. …. Yeah, maybe we should have guessed. But we were young and innocent, and to us, he was perfect boyfriend material! We watched dives like this over and over:
The 2008 Olympics are coming up! This time I’ll be watching with my little girls … and still finding my favorite crushes, I’m sure! (But I probably won’t hang their pictures in my locker!)
The worship band at church sang this song on Sunday. It’s one of my favorites! I hope you listen to it and are reminded of the Father’s deep, abiding and real love for you!
You Who made the mountains and the sea
Measured out the universe and you make me
Echoes of the voice that called the worlds to be
Reach throughout the ages and now speak to me
You’re my Creator King
You Who made the valleys and the skies
Displayed Your love on far horizons and before my eyes
You, Who lit the stars and set the dawn in time
Called them all by name and now You whisper mine
You’re my Creator King
You Who made the darkness and the light
Sun and Moon to watch the day and guard the night
The hand that stretched the heavens like a canopy
Reaches down to cover and watch over me
You’re my Creator King
Who am I that You are mindful of me
Who am I that You sent Your love on me
You’re my Creator King
What mom couldn’t use some help in the kitchen? Well, if you have children, you may have a sous chef (or two or three!) in the making. These tips for teaching kids to cook may help you to help yourself by allowing them to take over some of the kitchen duties. Kids who help in the kitchen also tend to eat what they’ve helped prepare with less fuss or pickiness.
Before teaching your children anything about working in a kitchen, teach them about cleanliness above all else. Basic safety rules like washing your hands before you begin, not licking your fingers while preparing food, and keeping raw and cooked foods separate will go a long way toward keeping family members healthy.
Read the entire recipe before you start so you’ll be sure that you understand the directions and know which utensils and ingredients you’ll need. Gather everything together. If you can, measure out the ingredients ahead of time. This will make the actual preparation go smoother. Follow the directions exactly to get the best results from your efforts.
Teach them safety tips like: always use hot pads to remove items from the stove or oven; don’t lick hot spoons or handle food while it is still hot.
Sharp knives work better than dull ones, so keep your kitchen knives sharp. Teach your child the proper way to hold a knife, how to slice food without cutting themselves, and how to care for and store knives. Don’t put knives into a sink full of soapy water someone could get cut.
Instead of leaving clean up to the end, teach your child how to clean while they cook. Put ingredients away when you’re done with them. Run a sink of hot, soapy water and place dishes in the sink so washing them later is faster. Wipe up any spills you may have made so they don’t have a chance to dry and congeal on the countertops. Turn off and unplug any appliances.
Allow your children to watch you cook from an early age, and then begin allowing them to help. Even a 3 or 4 year old can help wash produce, stir a bowl of batter, assemble ingredients for salads, and more. It may take a little more time and patience on mom’s part, but there are many benefits. Your child may become more self sufficient in the kitchen at an earlier age. Their help can relieve some of the burden on mom too. When you feel confident that they understand the rules for your kitchen and can handle things on their own, let them do just that. You may be surprised to find that you have a little chef in the making.
One great way to get kids in the kitchen is to let them be in charge of salads. Get 365 family friendly salad recipes here:
I’ve been lucky to know two angels in my life … women who are just so sweet and kind and Christ-like. One is my aunt, my mom’s twin sister, and one is my mother-in-law. She went home to be with the Lord almost seven years ago, but her memory is still very much with us!
My aunt gave me a subscription to Reminisce Magazine for my birthday, and I’ve been enjoying it so much! I love, love, love reading about how people used to live. My favorites are stories from the Forties, but I also love looking at the old pictures readers send in, like these ones.
The picture above is one of my favorites of Phyllis, my mother-in-law. She’s the little one in front with the sweet face. I don’t know what year it is (I’m guessing early 40s?), but the back of the picture says it was taken on Easter. So I imagine those were their very best outfits!
Her dad had very bad health and couldn’t work, so her mom worked as a school teacher to support the family. I know they didn’t have much money, but they must have had everything that mattered, because Phyllis was one of the most amazing women I’ve ever known. She knew so much about the Bible, and could tell you stories from the Good Book that you’d never heard before. She must have gotten her love of Scriptures from her mother, because even in her 90s, ‘Grandma Sanford’ could recite chapters of the Bible from memory.
My father-in-law remembers going to the Sanford’s house one Christmas Eve while they were courting, and rolling an orange back and forth to each other, because that’s the only Christmas present Phyllis received. “But it was very romantic!,” he tells us! And I’m sure it was.
So I like to think of her when I’m worried about not giving the girls ‘enough’ during the hard times. That little girl dressed in her Sunday best in the picture above surely didn’t go on fancy vacations, wear the prettiest clothes or take a multitude of lessons, but anyone who met her will tell you that she was one of the best people they’ve ever known. She was a master at what really mattered: being a Friend of God, and I know she’s received an awesome reward from Him.
As I write this, I’m listening to the girls playing out in the backyard … in the dirt … in the dark! They’ve been laughing and screaming and running around for hours now … making memories! And not spending any money!
President Bush’s former press secretary Tony Snow passed away this weekend at 53. I was just reading an article he wrote for Christianity Today, and it was so touching and meaningful, I want to share some of it with you.
——————————————————————————————-
Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.
I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
… What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don’t know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God’s hand.
2 Timothy 1:9 (NLV)
For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was His plan from before the beginning of time — to show us His grace through Christ Jesus.
