Thanksgiving Alphabet

I've seen friends doing this on facebook, a list of things they're thankful for, for each letter of the alphabet. This would be a fun thing to do with older kids around Thanksgiving I think! So here's MY Thanksgiving Alphabet:

A - Our Apartment
B - Bosom Buddies near and far :)
C - Colorado beauty
D - This Day!
E - Encompass (http://encompassdenver.org/)
F - Beautiful Fall colors
G - Grace.
H - A funny, godly, hard working, handsome, wonderful Husband
I - The Ice cream sandwich waiting for me in the freezer
J - Jeans
K - Unexpected acts of Kindness
L - The Library
M - Mike's Hard Lemonades :)
N - That my God supplies all our Needs
O - Old photos
P -  A Peace that passes my understanding
Q - Quality time with Brent & Parker
R - That my Redeemer lives
S - My incredibly adorable and sweet Son
T - Celebrating Thanksgiving with family and friends
U - Living in the USA
V - Vanilla candles
W - Nonfat, no whip, White chocolate mocha, with 2 pumps of peppermint
X - Xylophones?
Y - You! Thanks for reading!
Z - Living near the Denver Zoo :)

Cooking Day and a Birthday Shirt...

Today is cooking day! Well, pre-cooking day I guess.... We will be gone in the morning on Thanksgiving so I'm trying to get a bunch done so it won't be so daunting that day! Today I'm making: Garlic Dip, Oyster Snack Mix, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie, Caramel Apple Pie, Gravy, and whatever else my brain comes up with.

Also, I made Parker a little shirt to wear for his birthday. It wasn't at all what I was planning to do, but Hobby Lobby didn't have the right paint. It's nothing amazing, but he'll look pretty cute in it I think! I'm also going to put his name on the back at some point.

Cleaning out my junk...

Here is an incredibly heart challenging excerpt from the blog Passionate Homemaking:

Sometimes it’s ok to be angry.

Our issues, our junk, our baggage all drive a wedge between us and our children. Between us and God.

When we see our children in danger or afraid, we transform. We have no fear, no limits. We feel invincible and ready to crush anything that gets in our way. The love within us empowers us to fight what is in front of us. Without hesitation.

Part of our job as mothers is to train our children; to build their character. But the other part of our job is to train ourselves; to build our character. We must intentionally name, face, and take down those things in us that would pull us away from a life lived radically for God. We must tear down the idols.

Because there’s also good chance that our junk will be our kids junk. Our issues unresolved will trickle down into our children’s lives and hold them back from fully pursuing Him.

That makes me furious. Passionate.

So if I have to get up at 5:30am to fall at the feet of Jesus and let Him scrape off my rough edges, if I need to take the Light of His Word into my deepest darkest places, if I need to surrender my dreams for His, if I need to ask Him to use the hammer and chisel on my heart… bring it.

I will let nothing – not my past, not my failures, not my insecurity, not my pride, not my fears, not my ambition, not my condemnation, not my guilt – I will let nothing come between me and Him; between me and them. Between Him and them.

They are worth it. He is worth it.

What in your life that needs to go? Name it and take it down.

Toddlers are Hilarious!

Oh my. Parker will be 2 in a week. ONE WEEK! Wow. Where did the last 2 years go?

This age is so fun (and draining) but mostly fun. We really see his little brain and personality coming up with hilarious things so much now. The other day he had all his animals lined up on his window ledge, was telling them to go to sleep, then yelling "WAKE UP!" at them.

His most recent little discovery is making things up. Like he has these pretend "owies" now. And if he's fussing for no reason and you ask him to tell you what he needs he thinks for a minute then goes through his little wishlist to see if we'll give him anything from it. It usually goes something like this:

Parker: "Boo-hoo. Whine. Fuss. Whine...."
Me: "Parker, what's wrong? Do you need something?"

Parker: Thinking..."Um Nack?"
Me: "No, you just had a snack. No snack."

Parker: Looks away scowling. "Hmmm...Wig-goes?"
Me: "No, we aren't going to watch Wiggles right now. No Wiggles. How about we go play?"

Parker: Looks away scowling. "Hmm...Eh-mo?"
Me: "No, we aren't watching Elmo either."

Parker: Looks away scowling. "Hmmm...Cuh-kie?"
Me: "No sweetie, no cookies."
Parker: "Cuuuuh-kie!"
Me: "Ok, time for a nap."

Haha! I sure do love that little stinker!!!!

What are the chances I could become a Rockette?

Haha...don't answer that! Just let me dream :)

I snuck in a couple pictures even though we weren't supposed to heehee!

So.VERY.Excited!!!

Today Brent and I are going to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the Pepsi Center!!!

I am SO beyond excited!!! We saw a billboard a while back and I told Brent I wanted to go :) Well, this kind of stuff is not exactly his most favorite thing in the world so I knew he wouldn't REALLY want to. Plus tickets are expensive to shows and you end up sitting really really squished for 2 hours, so you have to really want to be there. Needless to say it was more like a hypothetical, "hey that would be fun..." type thing.

Well in the building where his Starbucks is there's alot of different businesses, and this one particular company has a suite for all the Pepsi Center events. After work yesterday, a co-worker called and said they were giving away tickets and parking passes to their suite if we wanted to go. Um, YES PLEASE!

I can't wait! I'll try to take a couple of pictures without being obnoxious haha! :)

Change is really really good!

I've hesitated to put all this info out there because to me, I feel like it sounds negative when it's actually really positive. But as anyone who was at PBC on Sunday know, we're dealing with our idols around here folks, and caring what people think about me happens to be one! So, if God is in control and pleased with the circumstances that is the only thing I need to be worried about. Right? Right.

When we came down to Denver in May the "plan" (haha PLAN why do we even bother right?!) was to learn Providence and the community for a while, and maybe jump into a youth program in the fall sometime. Well, that changed and we were asked to start with the teens right away. It went ok. We had 2 or 3 great people who were committed to being there each week and getting to know the kids, all that good stuff. But it just wasn't clicking. It wasn't working. We couldn't quite put our finger on why though, because we were doing things the way we had before. The way we grew up with; the way every church we've ever seen does things. But it was not working.

After a few months of sticking with it, Brent and the elders met and came to the same conclusion that we needed to step back. A "program oriented youth group" wasn't going to be the thing that worked in an inner city community. We all agreed that we wanted a more "missional outreach" approach. Everyone kind of came to the same place that it was better to slow down and do it right rather than rush into it and keep pushing at something that clearly was not working.

Right now we have no idea what a "youth program" at Providence will look like. We have alot of thoughts bouncing around of what we think might work or could work, but right now they are just ideas that God will have to develop and show us more about as we keep learning. Each place has it's own unique culture, and we are really excited to be able to just jump in and see how God leads. Our short term goals right now are: for Brent, he is going to try to get into at least one of the schools around here and just be around in some volunteer capacity. Interject himself in the lives of these kids and let God do the rest. Of course he loves sports, so if he can use that as an avenue to build relationships that would be right up his alley, so we'll see what he's able to do. My short term goal is to be matched up with a child or teen through a mentor program here downtown.

We are so SO excited about how God is working in our lives and how we know He will lead us to the families we are supposed to know. There is this freedom now that comes from letting go of forcing our understanding and methods into this neighborhood, and instead living intentionally with the people God has led us to be near and living out the gospel in those relationships. Something that was really encouraging was, on Sunday I was talking to a woman whose family just returned from serving in the Dominincan Republic for four years. We began talking about what we've learned this summer and the questions we still have and how much we still want and need to learn. And she told me that everything I was saying was exactly what they went through in the DR! It really is an interesting thing to learn the culture of where you are, and practically each city has it's own!

I will be sure to keep this updated on how things are going and what doors are opening. I should be doing a mentor interview here in the next couple weeks and get matched up with someone after that. I am EXTREMELY excited about that! It's amazing to think that God already knows who it is!

Thank you for all the continued prayer and support! We truly appreciate it :)

"Sniff this, it smells like Christmas!"

I say this to Brent alot around the holidays. (Well, when he used to go into those smelly stores with me...he usually finds a sports store now haha!) I get very excited when I find something that "smells like Christmas." And it's not always everything that SAYS it smells like evergreen, or holiday warmth, and all those other supposedly festive scents.

Sometimes it's random things...I think the Yankee candle "Home Sweet Home" smells like Christmas because I had a car freshener that scent one year. Certain perfumes I've recieved as Christmas presents smell like Christmas to me. Snickerdoodles....totally! This little recipe for sure smells like Christmas...and it's wonderful!

I know it's early, but it's so nice to enjoy I wanted to share it now!

Christmas Scent:

3 cinnamon sticks

3 bay leaves

1 T whole cloves

1/2 lemon

1/2 orange

1 quart water

- Place all ingredients in tea kettle and bring to a boil. (Also works in saucepan)

- Reduce heat & simmer as long as desire. Check often to replace water as needed.

- Mixture may be stored in the refrigerator for several days and reused.