time to cook the doughnuts

i haven't been blogging much since "the move". i wish i could say exactly what it was- busy with house projects, 3 girls going in 3 directions, a very distracted momma, a husband that has been working lots of hours... all of those? some of those? other things? i don't really know. but what i do know is that it isn't due to a lack of material. we've had A LOT going on these past few months!

one of those events is near and dear to my heart. a few weeks ago we had the pleasure of craig's company. craig is a college friend of my hubs, but over the years i think it is fair to say that he is my friend too. i adore him. i always have- but in recent years i have added a new reason to my list. it has to do with the kiddos. he visited me on my second day home from the hospital with e. shortly after, he moved. since his move to the big apple, he's been intentional in visiting us each year. that is a power move to this momma. you see, not only does he value his relationship with my hubs but he also places a value on my children.

he visits. he engages. he notices. he connects. he loves (that's right zimm, this momma noticed that too). what that means to this momma is beyond verbal expression. it is a heart matter, more specifically- a melt the heart matter. i adore watching it.

this visit was no different. zimm (as many people refer to him) knew from his last visit that we are the proud owners of a deep fryer. knowing this, he came armed with an old camp doughnut recipe. upon arrival he went over the ingredients list and planned out the things we might need (apparently my expired baking soda and powder weren't going to fit the bill). he got the missing items and planned out a time when the doughnut making extravaganza could commence. that's right- zimm made doughnuts with my three girlies.

now i don't know if you've ever made doughnuts before, but i am here to tell you that it is a pretty labor intensive project.

it starts with the mixing of ingredients.

they were all ears- but this is early in the game. i wasn't surprised that he had their undivided attention for that part.

after some serious mixing, sifting, combining etc. they moved on to the rolling out stage. i was uber impressed with his patience. my girlies might be a tad tentative about getting their hands dirty but somehow he had them all ooey and gooey and doughnut rolling. impressive!

e opted out of the doughnut business after her first roll and cut round. for her, that is impressive. with me she doesn't typically make it past the mixing of the wet with the dry ingredients. d lasted for two rounds. i wasn't super shocked by this as she has a bigger love cooking and higher tolerance for messy hands. not bad.

the one that was shocking was miss p. p was down for a nap when the doughnut extravaganza began but woke up somewhere in the middle of the party. she jumped right in (and zimm didn't miss a beat) and seemed to be in it for the long haul. she made it by his side right down to the final roll and cut.

as the rounds of dough were cut out, fry daddy (aka scott) took them to task in the deep fryer (it is his machine, after all). one by one they were cooked to a golden brown.

upon exiting the hot oil, they were set to cool. i was then put into motion tossing them in sugar and preparing them for their final stage...

you know- down the hatch!

it was quite an afternoon! our bellies were happily filled. and as i look back on these snaps- my heart overflows at a friend who is such a treasure.

procrastination leads to a super fun excursion

moving stinks. there. i'm just going to come out and say it. in spite of the wonderful nature of where you end up, you have to go through a lot of yuck to get there. sure, i suppose that there might be some peeps out there that love a good move. but as for me, 4 times in 6 years is more moves than i am down with. don't get me wrong. each one of those moves have been pivotal in our lives. i'm just saying that i am less and less of a fan with each and every move under my belt. i long for the day when i packed all my belongings into my little sunbird and moved to atlanta- no truck, no movers, just a simple manageable move.



so when some friends suggested a weekend trip to tahoe the week before our move, well, i jumped at it. a chance to procrastinate packing? a relaxing trip to the mountains? playing board games and sipping some coffee over a good conversation? me! me! i'm in. the buser bus is on board with that!



and that is just what we did. we drove the few hours to lake tahoe. we drove in on a friday night and it was pitch dark when we arrived. imagine our surprise when we awoke to this:





seriously, the view from the house was shocking. i had no expectation for what it might look like, but this took my breath away. tohoe is amazing.



two little girls spent the bulk of our time there creating some sort of majestic fort in the yard.






one little girl rekindled her memories of ice skating with her daddy.

and another little girl got all dressed up to play and then...

decided that she didn't like it one bit. i'm being serious. popsie doodle is a true california girl. she threw a temper tantrum each and every time that she was set down in the snow. she was determined not to like it. and so she didn't. (if only she knew what her little life in the great state of illinois could have looked like!)

a certain momma enjoyed the flying saucer sled with a certain daughter who is always up for excitement and thrills.

another little muffin might have tried to eat her weight in snow.

and this little tot was delighted to be toted around on her sled.

we were taught about geo caching... which will be discussed more in a future post.

it was a good time, indeed. and don't worry, those boxes were still there waiting to be packed upon our return. they didn't mind the wait at all. and eventually, they did get packed but that is far less fun to talk about than the adventure of tahoe.

it's a BIG day

today is a BIG day! i've been waiting for it and praying for it for years. but not as much as this girl...


readers, meet leslie. i've talked about her before. once when i put a bottle of bubbly into my fridge and once when i took it out to toast with her.

i could go on and on about this woman, but instead of gushing about her, today i am going to gush with her. as i write, she is up in the air headed for ethiopian soil. that's right, my dear sweet friend left today and will fly through the night (making a few stops) to end up in ethiopia tomorrow evening. she is on the journey of a lifetime.

she and her equally fantastic hubby (for real, he was an urban education legend in chicago and now is the principal of a school in iowa) are about to meet their new daughter. baby girl is about to meet her momma and daddy for the first time. i tingle and tear up as i write that. momma and daddy are about to meet their daughter. sniffle, sniffle. can i get a tissue, please?

if you are a praying type, please join me in praying for them. you see, they get to meet her, they get to hold her and then they have to leave her. i almost can't stand it. after they meet sweet baby girl, they go before the judge, possibly meet members from baby girl's family and then they come back home to wait some more. a few weeks after this initial appointment, they will do it all over again to pick her up.

at home in iowa, are their two sweet boys, oliver and eli. they are waiting just as patiently in the care of their grandparents.

i can't do justice to how i feel about all of this, but let me just say that i am ecstatic, anxious, sweaty palmed, teary...

cue a story that i suggested i would share with you a long time ago but never got around to until right now- i am part of an email based prayer group. excuse me, what?

well, you see a few years ago, back when e was a babe i was part of a bible study at my church in chicago. it was an unusual group as our church was filled with lots of young people. in fact, the majority of the 200 or so people that attended the church were singles. eventually, those singles married, and eventually those marrieds had babies. i was the momma to baby 5 or 6 in the whole church. i'm not kidding. anyways, it wasn't your typical church and certainly not the typical bible study. we were all new moms and we were all trying to figure the whole thing out together, with God. at the end of year one, our little group grew from 6 moms to 14 moms. and from there it continued to grow. about the time i moved to the burbs, several of the other moms that i was close with moved to other places as well. a few of them remained in the city. but the common factor was that we missed each other. for about 2 1/2 years we had studied the word together, played together, prayed together, celebrated birthdays, shared the births of subsequent children... basically, we did life together. it was beautiful. and then it all changed. we found ourselves missing each other a great deal.

after a while a few of us came up with a plan. we decided that we needed to find a way to keep up with each other regularly and that we missed knowing that we were being covered in prayer each week. that was the birth of the on-line prayer group. and so now, 3 1/2 years later, we pray together via email. each week we send out a little update and our current praises and prayers. we compile the list, send it out with a typed prayer and then commit to praying for each other throughout the week. it is a gift beyond measure.

leslie is part of that group. and so for me, this isn't just my friend getting to meet her daughter, this is my friend who has intimately invited me into her God story. i've been blessed with the opportunity to see the entire story unfold, week by week, year by year. as leslie rejoices at how far God has brought them from taking those first steps and anxiously awaits the day she gets to lay baby girl's little body into her already linened crib, i get to participate.

and it's funny, because anytime that i wonder about the mystery of prayer, i think of sweet leslie. i think of baby girl. i see how God let me in on that story and how mathew 18:19 plays out...

when two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my father in heaven goes into action. and when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that i'll be there. (the message translation)

because of my participation in this journey, i not only get to rejoice with leslie, but i also get to rejoice with my Father. in addition, i get this confidence in the power of prayer. from what i've seen, i know that prayer isn't always met with the answer we want or the path that we might have chosen, but God is always there. it has also been clear to me that His answer and His path is always better than anything we might imagine.

and so tonight, i ask you if you would join me in the mystery and beauty of prayer. my sweet leslie hates to fly. seriously. i'm also pretty sure that the caretakers at the orphanage might have to break leslie's hands in order to get baby girl back. i can feel her heart break for the family that is giving her this gift of life. i can feel her nerves as she stands before a judge and pledges to care for this child. i can feel her ache as she misses her boys back home. that's a lot of praying, but i'm confident that the God who planted the seed to adopt in leslie and jake's head, the God who walked them down this path, the God that chose this baby girl for these parents and siblings, that God... He's listening and He'll be there.

scriptless

a while back, my friend leslie blogged about what you can learn about a person from looking into their ice box (and some other exciting news). i was intrigued. so much so, that i took my own photo of my ice box and shared it with you. i was looking at my nightstand this week, and had similar thoughts. what does this little space, the last space i am in each day before retiring to sleep, say about me?

i'll let you come to that conclusion on your own. i'm curious if it is accurate or if it is more of a little snapshot of the "me" that i think i am.

but thinking about all of this made me want to see a whole lot of people's bed side tables. i think it would be interesting. i can just imagine that my friend jen would have a burp cloth laying next to hers and that my friend amy might have some cool graphic designs she's working on. i'm thinking that jodi's would contain some detailed documents about the layout she's working on for her new business and that Camia might have a stack of poetry journals. i'm pretty sure holly has kid's books on hers (she's a family bed sort of momma) and that a few of my friends might have some saltines by their bedside (not naming names here as they might not want their big reveal to be via t's blog post). anyway, as i said, i think it would be interesting.

if you care to share, i'd love to see.

the thing that is fresh on my mind from my own bedside table is the book that i just finished. it's titled scriptless. it takes me back to the summer before i made the big switch from Southerner to midwesterner. scott was doing a summer internship in chicago and every couple of weeks i would make a visit.

during the days he would work and i would wander around this amazing city (it was summer, so that word fits... not sure i would use the same adjective if i had been visiting in the winter). i took in the art museum and the lakefront, michigan avenue and the stores on armitage. but in the evenings, scott would always plan these fabulous date nights.

my favorite date was to second city. second city is where improv comedy was born (i don't really know that, but i'm declaring it as fact). it is where many of the saturday night live greats began. chris farley, tim meadows, tina fay, and adam sandler all did time here and that's just a few of many. it was hysterical! seriously, it is fall off your chair, don't take a drink or you might snort, go to the bathroom before the show begins or you might pee a little... funny!

after our first date there, i was hooked. we went back many times over our 8 years in chicago and each time was just as good (if not better) than the last. we also took in lots of other improv offspring from around the city. we went to the improv olympics, comedy sportz, and a show or two at the annoyance theatre. my husband is a good man- he's less of an improv fan than i am but he likes to indulge me. all of that to say- i love improv!

fast forward to this spring. i met a girl named andrea. there were about 8 people sitting around a table and we were giving the super condensed version of our lives. the girl was funny. she was talking really fast (which she doesn't normally do, but on this night, she did). in between two sentences, i thought she said she was a former cast member from second city las vegas. but then she went on to talk about other elements of her life. i wasn't sure i had heard her correctly, but did i mention she was really funny? it could have been true, but i wasn't i sure.

a few months into our friendship, andrea revealed to me that she was working on a book. i thought that was pretty cool. when we began to discuss the topic- she told me that it was about her time with second city and what that time speaks to her about a relationship with God. it was a "you had me at hello" moment. i had no idea how that book would unfold, but i was certain that i wanted to read it.

i finished the book today. i promise you, i'll be thinking about its contents for weeks and weeks. it's funny. it reveals a great deal about the behind the scenes in the life of improv. it challenged me in the way that i approach my relationship inwardly with God and how that relationship is manifested through my life. you should read it. it does not disappoint.

a secret delivery

a few weeks ago we got together with a friend of mine from college who lives in the area. this is her little guy- nicholas. isn't he dreamy? he and d's birthday are just a few days apart. e, d, n and his big sister sophia got along quite well. it is always nice when your kiddos get along well with your friends kiddos.



n's momma has been amazing as we have gone through this transition. about a year ago she sent me this super fab list of burbs for us to consider and helpful tips to guide us as we narrowed in on an area. but more importantly, i found her always checking in with me to see how i was doing. it was very sweet and always encouraging, especially at the times when the move looked like it wasn't going to happen.



sunday was my thirty... something birthday. my husband rocked it out, but there was a certain element of sad that came as i celebrated my birthday without my usual dinners with friends. so... you can imagine my surprise and sheer delight when i opened my front door to this:

my sweet friend left a basket of champagne, chocolate carmels and jelly belly beans on my front stoop. first, i am not really sure how she knew it was my birthday and second, i'm not sure how she knew how to nail my favorite things. regardless, she did... and it got me thinking...

there has been much hype about "pay it forward" and "random acts of kindness" and oprah's angel project from a few years back and those things are good. in fact, they are excellent. i think it is great when we step out of our own world and bless our greater community.

but what would it look like if we spent our time and energy blessing and caring for our immediate community? what if instead of "random" acts of kindness, we went through life showering people with INTENTIONAL acts of kindness (like my friend did)... what if we cared for the people in our lives in a way that was gentle, loving and incredibly helpful? i'd like to imagine living in that world.

my friends actions reminded me of how special it is to be remembered and how wonderful it feels to know that someone is thinking of you and going out of their way to do deliberate things to make you smile. i don't do enough of that in my life, and this special blessing reminded me that i should do more.

water for christmas

once upon a time a prince and his wife were walking to church in chicago.  as they got close to the church they came up behind a cute little couple.  the couple was a gal and guy pushing a snap-n-go stroller that contained a sweet newborn baby boy.  the wife smiled and thought that they were cute.  the wife was pregnant at the time and envisioned walking to church with her prince in just a few short months, pushing a stroller themselves.

some time passed and the wife gave birth to sweet baby e.  the wife joined a newly formed bible study for mommas and finally met that gal she had seen months earlier.  she also met their sweet baby boy, oliver. 

the gal turned out to be a wonderful gal and over time they became friends.

one day, the gal and the guy decided it was time to move.  they left their beloved city of chicago and headed to iowa.  the gal decided that she would enter into the world of blogging.  she was a writer and so this was a good fit for her.  the wife, missing her sweet friend, read each and every post that was made to the blog.  she read about food and she read about poety.  she read about their new life and their adventures in their new suburb and she read about mothering boys.  she read about new traditions and fabulous transformations. the words were good and the blog was entertaining.

but one day, the wife visited the blog and was...  well, she was shocked.  her mild mannered friend had really gotten excited! (seriously, if you haven't clicked on any of the words in pink, click on the word EXCITED!)  and this excitement created a movement... th movement was water for christmas.

this year, the gal (aka farm raised) and her sister-in-law expanded the movement.  the huffington post even noticed!  they can't be stopped.  they are raising money to support clean water...

farm-raised says it best in her own words:

"Every day, 4500 mothers bury their children due to contaminated water. They are forced to sustain their families with a diabolical liquid that contains both life and death. This lack of clean water is the leading cause of death in underdeveloped nations. And it just doesn't have to be!"

and

"$10 will provide one person in Africa clean water for 10 years. It will literally change and possibly save someone's life. A mother. A child. A brother. A grandfather.



We are rallying together for a cause. Clean water. One day. $10. Asking everyone to let this be their first gift. Let water, let life be their first gift of the season."

do you feel like you want to join that crazy gal?  go ahead, don't wait, click HERE!