10 Things I Love About My Husband...

Sometimes men have it tough. Often faced with high expectations stemming from characters in novels, movies and even our own heads, men feel they are "missing the mark" when it comes to romance. Expectations to look a certain way, to pitch in around the house, to rub our feet, to...to...to....the list goes on and on, and sometimes men can never quite measure up to impossibly high expectations, when in reality they're doing just fine. Even more than just fine.



In my opinion, my husband is great, just the way he is (and perhaps yours is too?). I'm not saying this to brag. In the grand scheme of things I'm sure there are men who could out-perform him in certain categories like making sure the dirty socks find their way to the hamper! But he's wonderful in his own unique, real way. And he loves me for all my faults and failures. (Because let's face it, as much as we'd love to think of ourselves as perfectly wonderful, we are filled with plenty of faults of our own!) So, here are some of the things I love about my husband. A list in honor of Valentine's Day and our approaching anniversary. A list of REAL qualities of a wonderful man. The unsung stuff not the material of sonnets or love songs, but the little-big things that make a relationship thrive:

1. He shovels. He even cleans off the cars and makes a nice neat little walkway to the house, while I get to stay inside all toasty and warm.

2. He brings me flowers for no specific reason, just because.

3. He grills outside all 4 seasons of the year. Even when it's pouring rain. Even when there's a blizzard. He grills so we can have a yummy dinner.

4. He changes diapers, even though he'd rather have his teeth pulled, would rather sit through ten zillion boring chick flicks in a row, would rather undergo surgery while still conscious. Yet he changes them, changes them anyway.

5. He calls me on the way home from work, just to let me know he'll be home soon. Just to say hello, and to ask if there's anything we need.

6. He dances with my daughter Megan. Every night before bed. She sings, they dance.

7. He goes out to the store on those days when nothing has gone right and I'm a sneezing sniffly mess with unwashed hair who hasn't made dinner. He picks up a rotisserie chicken, salad, and even dessert, and makes everything better.


8. After nine years of marriage he's still a little shy. He even blushes sometimes. It's cute, but if I tell him it's cute he hates that, so I just have to keep it to myself (or publish it for all the world to see! lol!).

A tiny little mug I painted for him for our first Valentine's Day-together in 2001.

9. He's ridiculously easy to please, with very low expectations of me, so whenever I do something a modicum above par, (like, oh...catching up on the laundry which I should be doing, all along!) I get high praise. Love that. Now THAT should be in a sonnet, I tell ya!


10. He's a hard-worker, a family man, a lover, a provider, a believer, a bit old-fashioned and an idealist.

So glad he's mine. :)

Dancing on our wedding day, 2/15/03

What are some of the "little-big" things you love about your man?




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Leaning into Love

She presses her cheek against mine, my toddler daughter still groggy, sleep gently visible in lines scattered across her face. And I press right back, leaning into mother-daughter love. Trying to memorize this moment, etch it into my brain. Because life is just this--a collection of moments...the beautiful, the ugly, the extraordinary, the everyday all bleeding together forming days, weeks, months. To savor moments such as these makes life more tender and soft, like a warm child's cheek slightly sticky and fragrant with the faint scent of saliva on cotton. We gaze out the window together, this quiet simple moment, staring into February woods. Leaning on one another, leaning into love. Pressing together toward the unknown, embracing the safe familiar.

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Happy Blogiversary to me! {and a GIVEAWAY!}

I've been blogging for an entire year! It's been a great journey, this wacky, wonderful world of blogging. I've met some truly beautiful people, people I can actually call "friends." Here, in this little space of mine, I've poured out my heart, shared my ideas and was encouraged by you--my wonderful readers. Here, I write my hopes, sorrows, joys and everything in between. It's truly been an adventure. It's amazing how technology has the ability to make the wide world seem just a little bit smaller, its people more connected. For all of the negatives of the online world, there are certainly benefits tucked in between.


I look forward to continuing my bloggy journey for another year, to see where it takes me, and what I will learn. And I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading these lines of mine and for sharing your heart with me as we walk this journey together.

And so, in the spirit of my Blogiversary, I would like to have a giveaway! This is not a big giveaway type of blog, but I want to give a little something back to you, for all you have given me. And, besides, what's a celebration without gifts?! :)



I was thinking about what this blog has meant for me, and how I might extend that same blessing. This is my creative space, a place where I express the things that matter most. And I wish to give you a special space--a place to work toward goals, whatever they may be. Whether you wish to create more, get more organized, pray, cook, decorate, lose weight, get fit, read more books...whatever it is you want to achieve, I wish to encourage you in those endeavors. And so, I want to give away a .... (drumroll)...

my Smashbook :)

A Smashbook! Have you heard of these? They're really great! They're notebooks full of funky patterned pages, a built-in pen/gluestick...and a world of possibilities! There are all kinds of neat accessories, too, like pockets, tabs and notepads. I'm including a blank smashpad in the giveaway to get you started:



You can use a Smashbook for ANYTHING. Seriously. It can be a scrapbook, an idea book, a personal journal, school/homeschool diary and planner, dream book, cookbook, calendar, inspiration book...anything! And, if you use the neat-o little tabs, your Smashbook can be a combination of many things! I use mine to jot down quotes I like, write ideas, arts & crafts inspiration and lists of all sorts. It's greatly reduced the amount of clutter that had taken over ...errrr, inhabited my desk. Basically it's a dumping ground, in book form, for my brain. And it's pretty. And I would love for you to have one, too. :)

Love the pen with with built-in glue stick!

This is not a sponsored giveaway-I'm receiving absolutely no compensation for this, other than the fun of giving something away! It's just a gift from me to you, my way of saying thank you for being a part of my blog, a part of my life.

If you would like to enter to win, here's what you do:

1) Leave a comment below telling me how you would like to use a Smashbook. (One entry per person, please)

2)Please provide your name and email address (you can email me this info. if you'd rather not leave it in the comments section, but make sure to also leave a comment, or else you won't be entered!).


I will leave this give-away open for one week, until next Friday February 10th at 10:00p.m. EST. I will select one winner at random and announce it the following week.

That's all I got! Thanks again for walking this path with me!

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Works for Me Wednesday
Women Living Well Wednesday
Hip Homeschool Moms

Cinnamon Nut Dessert Wontons

As part of our Chinese New Year celebrating, I decided to try this recipe for dessert wontons. They are sooooooooo good! And the best part is they're soooooooo easy!! I think they took me about 10 minutes to make. Yep, that's it. So, I thought I'd share the recipe with you, courtesy of an old issue of Everyday Food. The recipe below makes 12 wontons, but I just used a random amount (whatever I had leftover after making dumplings!) and tweaked the ingredients accordingly. It's not a fussy recipe where everything needs to be just so. Anyway, here's what you do:

Ingredients:

-12 wonton wrappers
-1 T melted butter
-3T sugar (I used brown sugar for extra yum!)
-1/4 C finely chopped almonds (we used pecans, which were also delicious!)
-1 1/4 C fresh strawberries, sliced
*optional: dash of cinnamon (my own add-in!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place wonton wrappers on rimmed baking sheet and brush with melted butter.

mmmm...butter :)

Sprinkle with sugar, nuts (and dash of cinnamon, if using).

Bake in oven until golden brown and crisp, about 5-7 minutes. Be careful to get this just right. If you pull them out too soon, they're chewy, but if you wait too long they'll burn rather quickly. That's the only slightly tricky part of the recipe, but it's not too bad. Just don't, you know...go vacuum or dust or something while they're baking (not that *I* would ever be in danger of doing either of those things anyway! Ha!).

This is what they'll look like when they come out....Ooo-la-la! Crispy deliciousness!

Transfer to wire rack (or be lazy like me and pop 'em onto a plate instead) to let cool. They cool very quickly--about 5 minutes.

Top with sliced strawberries and enjoy! Feel free to plop a big ol' dollop of whipped cream on there, too...or yogurt, or honey, or cottage cheese...whatever floats your boat, really! But they're great even with just the strawberries, trust me. :)

See, wasn't that easy?!

If you decide to give them a try I'd love to know about it! :)




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Works for Me Wednesday

One Thousand Gifts {part 20}

As January comes to a close, I pause to reflect on the many blessings this Wintery month has brought. From the beauty of nature to the wonderful people in my life, grace is all around. So I continue to count the ways the Lord fills my life with good things, blessings from above:

564. "I Love You Because..." board. So many smiles and laughs we've had!

565. "MOPS Swap" de-cluttering the house while blessing others!


566. Luke remarking on the beauty of snow twinkling in sunlight, "like a bunch of diamonds shining!"


567. Letter from one of our sponsor children

568. Still a little light out past 5:00pm!


569. waking up to a Winter Wonderland

570. mugs of hot cider after playing in the snow


571. family game day


572. coyote passing through the woods in our backyard. Breath-taking.


573. "snow faces"

574. my 2-year old saying grace


575. Cinnamon rolls in the oven


576. meeting a wonderful new friend!


577. Chinese New Year celebrations

578. cold egg rolls


579. playdate: legos, crazy costumes and catching up with wonderful friends

580. answers to prayers far better than I ever imagined


581. handsome little heads of boys with fresh haircuts


582. Megan using the potty for the first time!

...more to come

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Our Week in Homeschool {The Chinese New Year Edition!}

One of the things I'd like to try to do is blog more about our homeschool days. It's such a huge part of my life and yet, somehow I don't seem to write about it all that often! So I thought I'd give the "Homeschool Mother's Journal" a try:



In Our Homeschool This Week:

We've been enjoying lots of Chinese New Year celebrating with books, crafts and yes, of course-- Chinese food! We borrowed some great library books to supplement our collection at home:



We also explored other topics related to China: Great Wall of China, silkworms, Chinese inventions, traditional Chinese Calligraphy and Panda Bears. (*I* learned that Panda bears have slit-pupils, like a cat! How cool!)

Calligraphy in the works...

We made "Fai Chun" thanks to a craft page from the latest issue of Spider (love that publication!). Luke thought it was highly amused by the fact that you hang them upside-down since "Spring" rhymes with "upside-down" in Chinese!




The kids loved playing with this Chinese Zodiac spinner (Thank you, Enchanted Learning!):

They were fascinated to find out which animal they each were and their characteristics!

Chinese Lanterns:

By-the-way these are really easy and fun to make! My boys first made them last year, and now they ask to make them for many occasions throughout the year! We've made them for Valentine's Day, Halloween and more!

We also made "Lai See" :

(The kids were all over any opportunity to get a little treat!) They each got $1.00 and some ancient Chinese coin replicas I picked up from Oriental Trading. Fun!

Some scratch-paper fun to celebrate the "Year of the Dragon" :

Luke scratching away...

Adam's dragon

Chinese food lunch-love any occasion to have lunch delivered right to your door! The kids got to use (fake kid-friendly!) chopsticks with their zodiac symbol on them, which, after lunch became some sort of ninja weapons. :) (Gotta love boys!)

yummy!

You can totally see him plotting alternate ways to use the chopsticks!

I also made steamed dumplings (sorry, no pics! ) for dinner. They were messy and time-consuming (hence the lack of pics!) but I eventually got the hang of them. The kids liked them, but *I* inhaled the most! YUM! I think they'll be easier to make next time (I hope!). If they come out better next time I'll take pics and post the recipe!


With the leftover wonton wrappers I made this deliciousness:

Baked wontons with cinnamon sugared nuts & strawberries on top.
Sooooo good! I'll post the recipe next week!

Other Subjects:

We're memorizing the beginning poem from White Snow Bright Snow (at Adam's request!):

We've also been working our way through these sweet alphabetical virtue coloring pages from Pondered in My Heart. Love these! (This week is "G" for "Gratitude.")

Working our Way through the Faith and Life Series for religious study:

We discussed Corporal Works of Mercy, and how we can look for opportunities to put these into practice.

We're also reading through Emily Post's Manners book:

The boys love acting out various "good manners" scenarios from this book (we make them up as we go). They're always in stitches over feigning bad manners when we do these scenes! :p


And we continued plugging through our regular lessons from: Handwriting without Tears, Spelling Workout, First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease and Saxon Math. Adam is loving Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. He also loves practicing his letter and number writing. He feels like such a big boy sitting at the table alongside Luke this year! :)


Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share:

Luke has been enjoying the Nate the Great series we borrowed from the library. He highly recommends them. :) And I highly recommend anything that Luke is excited to pick up and read on his own!


My favorite thing this week was:

Hmmm...probably laughing at all of the good manners silliness that ensued. And eating dumplings & dessert wontons. They were really, really good. :)


So, that was our week in a nut shell. Phew, that was a lot to type! This makes me feel like less of a slacker, seeing our week all typed out! Whenever I'm suffering from the latest case of "Am-I-doing-enough??" I'll have to keep this in mind. ;)

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