Lessons from Preschool

I had the privilege of subbing in third grade at our church school yesterday and this teacher's heart was in Heaven.  It had been a rough previous day in the "career" aspect of things as I wallowed in self pity, struggling with contentment over my current job position.  My husband was wonderful [as always] and listened to me while offering calming thoughts, and doing what needed to be done first...prayed.  Amazing how bringing things to the Lord can relieve so much.

Side Note: May I just throw in there how thankful I am that God created the most close relationship to be between a man and a woman?  My emotions and thoughts, as a female, run wild sometimes. The mister offers such sound and calming thoughts.  On the flip side, there are times it helps the mister to get a feminine (aka: more emotional/sentimental) perspective on things.

So back to the post.

I was nervous about yesterday's subbing, but the Lord proved true to His character, and made his response clear to our crying hearts from the previous night.  I had a wonderful day and it was a refreshment to my heart to see I do have a passion to teach.  Right now I am not teaching, but I do still believe He has me in preschool for a reason.

Do. Not. Get. Me. Wrong.  I love my preschoolers, enjoy working with them, and am beyond thankful for God's provision with a job.  I do believe the Lord has me here this reason, and therefore the Lord is working in my heart to make it content.

Despite what it may seem, this post is about preschool (not third grade).  In my pathetic questioning of "why God am I working in preschool when you know my heart is to teach, not just babysit?", God has slowly been revealing to me an important lesson I needed refreshed...

OBEDIENCE

It hit me a few weeks ago how often I say to my preschoolers something along the lines of "You are sitting here in time out because you disobeyed when I told you to [insert situation here].  When you disobey, I cannot reward you and allow you to continue to play".  Obviously there is more to this conversation, but we are constantly stressing to our students how crucial it is that they obey.  This is very hard for them at this age, as they have a very self focused perspective developmentally.

I may be several years older then them, but this was a lesson I needed a reminder of.  Just as I take obedience very seriously with my students and am trying to train them to (1) do what they are told, (2) when they are told (3) with the right heart attitude (thanks Mom and Dad for committing this to my memory), God takes it even more seriously with me obeying Him.

This may seem juvenile, but this was eye opening to me.  I don't think I would have learned this lesson as bold had I been in an older elementary grade.

I needed the preschoolers and my time with them to teach me this.

'Tis the Season...for wonderful traditions

I love the holiday season....Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, etc.  I love the baking, aromas, family time, and most of all traditions.

Thanksgiving:  This was my first Thanksgiving away from my parents and siblings.  While I missed them immensely, I enjoyed celebrating with my husband and his side of the family.  We are only a couple of hours from his parents, so we made a day trip out of it.  We drove north with his sister and enjoyed the time of visiting.  There were twenty-three of us gathered for food and fellowship.  I continue to enjoy getting to know his side of the family.

Friday:  My sweet mister was wonderful and allowed us to start Christmas once Thanksgiving was over.  This is our first Christmas together and so we are enjoying our time creating traditions.

I had been planning Friday to be a relaxing Christmas day.  It wasn't quite as relaxing as we had hoped, but we began some traditions.  After sleeping in, we woke up to make cinnamon roll pancakes [stay tuned for some tweaks on this recipe].  We went back out to finish some black Friday shopping.  We came back to hang some Christmas lights and make my mom's caramel popcorn....of course while listening to Christmas music.  We went out to pick our Christmas tree, and brought it back to decorate.  For our first Christmas together, we have several Christmas ornaments and decorations [thanks to our aunt who gave a Christmas themed bridal shower gift].  

After got things cleaned up from the excitement of Christmas, we made homemade pizza and enjoyed it with some sparkling cider.

We were thankful for two of the same days off this week, which hasn't happened for months!

And so on...  Daniel was back to work on Saturday, and life goes back to normal, with the addition of some extra baking, Christmas aromas filling our home, and a few extra social events.

I do love the added scenery to our living room while having my date with Jesus in the morning.

We are open to ideas of other Christmas traditions.  What does your family look forward to doing each Christmas together?

Soups, Successes, and Cranberry Sauce

Don't you love being able to stay inside on a cold, rainy day?  The temperatures have been dropping lately, and today the rain came.  Thankfully though....I am still inside, under a warm blanket and hot corn pack [thanks, Beth!].  I have already had a cup of tea, and a cup of hot chocolate.  I cannot get warm [doesn't help that our heater seems to be messed up, and therefore is turned off].

This cooler weather has increased our cravings for soup and baking [standing in front of a hot oven is the only think that compares to standing in front of a wood stove].  Maybe one of these days I will do a post solely on soup recipes....hmmm.

#1) Broccoli Cheddar- It claims to be just like Panera's, but [besides knowing we love it] we don't have it enough to be able to give an accurate comparison.  Regardless of whether it is like Panera's or not, it is delish!  I had never used gouda cheese before, but made this my first time.  We liked it a lot, but it is expensive, so I think next time we will try replacing it with a sharp cheddar maybe.
#2) Pumpkin Coffee Cake- We try to set aside at least one day a week that becomes our Saturday.  Because we don't share any days off, we make sure to take a morning where we enjoy sleeping in, having an out-of-the-ordinary tasty breakfast, and relax.  This was the results of one of our Saturdays.  I would make it every day if we wouldn't gain ten pounds each.
#3) Pumpkin Chicken Soup- This was surprisingly yummy.  Neither the mister nor I were too sure about it.  We love pumpkin but had never had it in a savory recipe before.  We were both pleasently surprised.  We added too much red pepper so it was quite spicey, but when we dipped some homemade bread in it, there was no problem.

For Thanksgiving, our plan is to make a day trip north with the mister's sister to our grandparents.  Almost the entire family will be there.  I plan to make homemade cranberry sauce.  This recipe first entered into our family from my aunt.  Since then, my mom makes it every Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We love it so much that she makes extra that stays in the refrigerator to ensure we have leftovers [she told me yesterday that she is making a triple batch this year, haha].  I made it the other night for a Thanksgiving party with some friends of ours and it was agreed upon that this recipe is wonderful [which is saying a lot, considering the mister and I usually do not like cranberry sauce at all].

Okay. Enough talking about it....here is the recipe:

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

1 c whole cranberries

1 fresh orange, pealed

1 3 oz lemon jello

1/2 c sugar

3/4 c boiling water

8 oz crushed pineapple, don't drain

grind orange first then grind cranberries in with it. Set aside. In small bowl combine jello, sugar and water. Stir to dissolve jello and sugar and cool slightly. Add cranberries and oranges and pineapple. Fold together and pour into bowl. Chill

What are your responsible for this Thanksgiving?

the most wonderful day

I sit here in the airport awaiting my flight to Charleston to visit some dear friends finishing up their time student teaching (same as I did this past spring, simply at a different school).  I look forward to a fun ladies' afternoon with these two, though still am dealing with the happy remnants of yesterday, one of the most wonderful days.

To give a little background...I had a root canal.  The week before our wedding, my tooth began hurting.  As soon as moving, we found a dentist and learned I needed a root canal. Long story short, we transferred dentists after the root canal procedure to finish up with the crown.  The mister and I decided to use his 'childhood' dentist office.  All that to say, the dentist we attend is about two and a half hours away where his parents currently live.  Yesterday was my last appointment dealing with this root canal...hip hip hooray!

This may lead you to believe "how could it be such a wonderful day?" (especially considering I absolute despise the dentist).

Thankful

I am thankful for my little family of two. I am thankful for changing foliage.  I am thankful for days off from work.  I am thankful that Christmas is getting closer for me to visit my parents and siblings.

November is that wonderful time of year when people tend to be more pleasant. I see there being at least two things that bring this about.  1: This month begins the festivities of the winter holiday season and 2: This is when the majority of people focus on the good things in their life, providing opportunities to be thankful.  If we allowed ourselves to allow #2 to be a year round occurrence, we could help contribute to a better place.

My mister amazes me.

Menu Madness: Fall Favorites

The mister and I had a busy week.  I ended up doing a bit of subbing and he was keeping busy working on our vehicles (have I mentioned how thankful I am for his being willing and able to do that sort of stuff?  I am!).  Our house was a wreck, and I was not anticipating being home on Saturday, my regular "catch up" day.  I had planned to do this housework on Thursday but was then called in to sub in the preschool.  This left Friday morning to do our cleaning and baking...before noon.  We got a lot accomplished working together, and our home smelled wonderful.  While the different things were baking, we would work on the next recipe, or clean for a bit.

In those short four hours, we...

Change to Menu Madness

Instead of posting my week's menu before I try the recipes, I am going to try and start posting a few tried-and-true recipes that I tried from the previous week.  I think this will allow for more flexibility on my end, and allow you to know ahead of time that we have tried this, and whether or not we liked it.  I will say that there is seldom a time when we don't like something we eat.  What can I say?  my mister and I really enjoy eating.

Update on life

We are so thankful the season of cool breezes, comfy pj pants and hoodies, pumpkins, falling leaves, hot drinks, candy corn, browns and oranges is here.  We love fall.  I sit here sipping my hot chocolate after already having a cup of hot tea while doing my Bible study reading.  This season welcomes warm thoughts, and I love celebrating it with my husband.  Before marriage, we celebrated these things apart, and so this year, celebrating together has been a welcome change.  We are in love, and love the time we have together.

Menu Madness

Last week had many successes (I took a few more pictures this week).  I am thankful for a patient husband who is willing to be the guinea pig to my new recipes.  This week has me trying a new ingredient...sweet potatoes.  Growing up, we really didn't ever eat sweet potatoes.  I can count on one hand the times I remember having sweet potatoes and they were always in a delicious, yet extra sugary casserole.  I think this scared me, leading me to believe that they were a very bitter root that need all the help it could get.  I posted on facebook asking for people's favorite recipes using sweet potatoes and got an overwhelmingly positive response.  They were cheaper then potatoes this week at Aldis and it is my understanding that they are by far more nutritious.  I am very eager to experiment.

So hear you have it...this week's menu.

Meal Madness

Don't you just love rainy days?  I know I do.  I had an abundance of dishes to wash and other housework to do, and there is something wonderful about staying indoors when there is a cool drizzle going on outside.

Last week had some adjustments made, so you may see some repeats from last week.