I am scrapping again!

Yup it is time for a cybercrop and I am up and running.

this one is for a wonderul website called "Cooking up creations" which was started by a friend of mine - and what could be better friends and scrapping. Of course I am there. You can be too here is the link:

http://www.cookinupcreations.com/

I have already started scrapping. This lay out was my first for the cyber crop. I hope you like it.

Awana awards #1

Last night we attended the Awana Awards ceremony and Westlake.

As was usual, they served dinner. Last night was rigatoni with meatballs and sides of salad, garlic bread and applesauce. We had cheesecake for dessert. This Awana serves more food than any I have ever heard of. In the year that we have been going there they have had "Thanksgiving - Awana style" as well as pizza for the grand prix, an indoor picnic, and Western night with bbq . What is really amazing is that they never charge for any of the dinners -they don't even collect dues.

After that the awards were given. Both of the girls got their trophies from the Grand Prix. Emily got her Hiker Review patch, and her workbook pin as well as her second book award ribbon. Eva got the Trek Milestone award.

We are proud of them - look for pictures coming soon!

Welcome May

April is gone - and as far as I am concerned, good riddance!

May is promising to be a busy month - we have scout camp, scout projects, an Awards dinner at Awana, There should be a court of awards in there somewhere too, a baby shower, the starting of Angel food,VBS planning and the list goes on and on. I guess that I will look at the bright side - thing of all those opportunities to take lots of pics. I should have enough to keep my busy for a while. (But do I really need to try and do that?)

So hopefully April showers are gone and I can look to the blooming beauty of May

Where there is smoke....

There wasn't fire - until Tom opened the oven.

I guess I should explain...I wanted to make a meatloaf. I have a really good recipe that makes a meatloaf that is like Swedish meatballs. Very yummy! I don 't make it that often because it takes over an hour to cook and usually I am in and out of the kitchen in about half that time. Yesterday though I just wanted some so I made it.

I don't know what the exact problem was - maybe I used meat with too much fat (but that is what is cheap and I can afford). Maybe the loaf pan was too full. I don't know. I put it in the oven and about 45 min into the cooking time I heard the sizzling of the grease but didn't think much of it.

Tom came home and went into the kitchen and saw some steam or smoke coming out of the vent in the oven. He opened the oven to see what was going on. That was a big mistake. Opening the oven allowed just enough fresh air in for the grease to actually ignite. (As well as letting the smoke out) We closed the oven and turned it off and went out to dinner.

This morning I used the oven's self cleaning option and stunk up the house even worse. However with a fan and some open windows it is back to normal here. I even managed to salvage the meatloaf and we are having it for dinner. Somehow it just doesn't seem as appealing tonight though....

You'r a Tease

You heard me - that's right. You are a real teas and that is not right.

I admit that I am tired of winter. We had snow - plenty of it. There were winters that barely seemed like winter but this wasn't one of them. We had snow -about 3 feet of the beautiful, but oh so cold white stuff. Winter came and now it is time to make way for spring.

I said that it was that time, but you are being a tease. It was beautiful for a few days. It even got close to 70. then every time you have to let winter back in the door. That is just not nice.

So spring, please, come and stay

Spritual Mutt

One of the churches we are currently attending is on Saturday night. It was the first one we visited when we began to look. We liked it, but there was nothing there for the older kids so we sadly crossed it off the list. This fall they began a Saturday night service and we began attending then. We still make sure to get the kids to church on Sunday, but Tom and I really like the intimate evening service.

This week's sermon was on Freedom from Religion. One of the points made was that many people just follow the rites and practices prescribed by whatever church they are going to and think that makes everything "right" with God. They also get the idea that there is one way - whatever they are doing - and that everyone else is wrong.

It was then I realized how much of a spiritual mutt I am. I was raised in the Christian church - Disciples of Christ. I went to a United Church of Christ youth group growing up. I married a Catholic with both his priest and my minister presiding over the ceremony. When that church closed I found an American Baptist church (the one place that has felt like home more than any other). I attended MOPS at a Lutheran church when my kids were young. My kids began attending Awana at a Southern Baptist church. They grew out of that Awana program so we began going to a different Awana at a church that I don't even know what the "official" denomination is. When scouts came along they met at churches, Timothy at a United Methodist and the girls at two different Catholic parishes. Then the search for a new church was upon us. I won't even list all the denominations that we looked at briefly. Now however we are attending and Assembly of God on Saturday night and an Evangelical church on Sundays.

With all that church background I have managed to sort out what is really important to me and my walk with the Lord. It isn't a certain kind of music, or a particular translation of the Bible or even the way a church is set up. Being a spiritual mutt, I have discovered what is the most important and that is HIM - everything else is just earthy trappings of religion.

Two Winners

Emily's Car: She won second place in the race for her age group.




Eva's Car: The artistic award was for all ages. She took fourth place in that. Although it is not clear in the photo the "crayons" tell the salvation story and the 3:16 stands for John 3:16 which says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." rather than the number of crayons

Today was the Awana Grand Prix. I am not usually fond of this because of the way it was run at the Awana that we had gone to in the past. There was no classification by age etc. The youngest kids always won, because other than possibly picking the color they had nothing to do with it and just by looking you could tell that dad did all the work.


Add that to the general insanity of my house that is doubled at race time and I really don't care for the Grand Prix. It is tough enough to get the cars cut (which we didn't really do this year - just check out the pictures) and painted. Then Tom, being in the car industry, has to obsess and make one too - but his is always "special" and I just dread it.

This year things were different. The church where the girls are now attending Awana really seems to know what they were doing. They broke the kids down according to age and the races were much more fair because of it. We went for very simple designs because we missed the week where the kids could use the tools to cut them so we worked with just blocks.