Menu Monday

Another week, another Monday....ready or not, here we go!

Lemon-rosemary chicken/potatoes/carrots
spaghetti/garlic bread
English muffins/eggs/bacon/fruit
free community BBQ @ church (come on out!)
grilled chicken salad with all the fixin's

eight

This weekend we celebrated 8 years of life with Evan!
Festivities started with a trip to the Mall of America where we went through the Amazing Mirror Maze! We all made it out...except Tony...he's still there :)
Next stop, Lego Land where Evan purchased the AT-TE Walker with his birthday & chore money.
Then off to Punch Pizza for supper, cupcakes, and presents!

Gotta have Lego Star Wars themed cupcakes!


A closer look at Han Solo, Boba Fet, and Princess Leia. We all had fun making these from marzipan that we colored with food coloring, then cut out and formed into characters.

Happy Birthday Evan!
So glad God gave you to us!
I love your eagerness to learn, your helpfulness as a big brother, and can't wait to see what God has for you in your 8th year!
We love you!

Menu Monday

Hey All! Here's what I'm cookin'

hot dogs/chips/yogurt/strawberries
green bean curry/rice
pizza @ church
hambergers/fruit/broccoli
chicken/potatoes/veggie

What are you cookin' ?

Told to Behold

This is the latest verse that I am memorizing. It's the perfect length for my triple kid induced memory loss.
Seriously mom, how is it that you appear to function at full-capacity after having SEVEN of us?
Is there hope?
Does it come back?
Or did you start out as a super-genius and, after seven kids sucked out your brain cells, we brought you down to a suma cum laude status?
Or shoot! Did you tell me your secret during one of those "games" which were actually chores, but I was too busy listening to the complaining in my head to hear your soft spoken words of wisdom?
Oh, that I would have had my eyes opened to understand the wondrous things my mom was trying to teach me for my own good!
Curse you, teenage Heidi! Curse yoooooooouuuu!!!!

But now, I apply this lesson learned to even greater wisdom-God's law. This verse has become my prayer every time I read or listen to a sermon.

Lord, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law! Quiet my loud, preconceived, selfish, prideful thoughts so that I may hear Your soft-spoken words of truth. Help me to see Your secrets during those "trials" which are actually lessons by reading Your Word and seeking it for guidance. And bless my mom and dad for raising seven God-fearing kids. May they be praised in the gates!

Menu Monday

Here's this week's menu:

chicken/salad
quesadilla/chips/guac
pizza @ church
blueberry pancakes/eggs/fruit
green bean chicken curry/rice

What's on your menu?

falling in love

<sup>If I was really smart and studied and knew about many things, but don't have love.....I'm just annoying.
If I understand things of the Bible and mysteries of God and have great faith, but I don't have love....I am nothing.
If I give stuff to those less fortunate, even if I gave them all of my possessions, but didn't have love...It was for nothing.
If I'm basically a good moral, law-abiding person, but don't love....I mean really LOVE....I'm doomed. Because love is greater than all those great things.

Here's what love is:
patient
kind
not envious
not boastful
not proud
not arrogant
not rude
not selfish
not irritable
not easily angered
does not rejoice at wrongdoing
keeps no record of wrongs
doesn't delight in evil
rejoices with truth
bears all things
believes all things
protects
trusts
hopes
perseveres
endures all things
never fails

Can people say those things about me? Can I stick a "Heidi" in front of each of those? Heidi is patient. Heidi does not rejoice at wrong doing. Heidi keeps no record of wrongs. Heidi does not insist on her own way. Heidi perseveres. Heidi endures all things. Heidi never fails. Yeah....Heidi has a lot to work on.

I'm realizing that if love is selfless then it isn't measured by my gauge of comfortableness or happiness or peacefulness. My love is measured by how I act and treat others even when I feel they don't deserve it. It's not about getting, it's about giving. And just because you are the one doing the giving and letting the other person have their way doesn't mean you are weak. Anyone can do what they want. Babies do that. That takes no strength. Strength is showing humbled controlled resistance to your own will to benefit someone else.

The greatest act of love was Jesus dying in my place. He wasn't comfortable, or happy, or untroubled. It wasn't easy. It hurt! He bled! He died! It wasn't about what He would get out of the deal. It was about what He knew we would get out of the deal...life! It wasn't about His best interest. It was about our best interest.

And even though the process of showing love to others that we may feel don't deserve it may be uncomfortable, I have to believe that in the end there is joy and delight! When you do truly love someone, you find happiness in their happiness.

Here's the full passage from I Corinthians 13.</sup>

The Way of Love

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, butrejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Mediterranean Chicken

This is another knock-off dish. Tony and I like to eat at authentic hole-in-the-wall little mom-n-pop shops. The kind where the husband and wife are the only employees, and they don't speak English, and they don't accept credit cards. Because you know it's gonna be good! This one is inspired by a dish from The Black Sea on Snelling Ave in St. Paul. If you can find it, you should eat there!
The Chicken
4 chicken breasts
1 med. onion
2 T paprika
1 T garlic
salt
pepper

Puree onion in blender or food processor. Add rest of ingredients. Marinate chicken in it for at least 15 min, but feel free to do more.
Grill and slice.


The Pita Bread
I usually just buy it, but one time I had a crowd to feed and pita bread ain't cheap so I tried this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It was fun to make because they puff up like cute little yummy pillows!


The tzatziki sauce
This is what really makes the dish. REALLY! If you don't have this, I wouldn't bother. The rest is actually just an excuse to devour this sauce. If you ever see a container of tzatziki sauce (a.k.a. cucumber sauce) buy it! Buy 10 of them and freeze them! But it's hard to find, and not all brands are the same, so luckily I found an awesome recipe from this blog. (Don't you love the interweb!) So now I can make it whenever I want, or run out, or see cucumbers on sale, or hear the word pita. Really! It's that good!

Eating it up
So, what we do is just put out all the ingredients in the middle of the table. Besides what is mentioned above we also do rice pilaf, lettuce, tomato, peppers, and onions.
Then you take a little pita wedge and assemble to your liking--a little sauce, a little rice, a little chicken, a little more sauce, some veggies--then dip it in some more sauce and eat it up! Then repeat until you are stuffed, or the sauce is gone, or you are the last one at the table.


**Hey! It's GF without the pita and the pilaf (just do plain rice).

Menu Monday

I only have one meal planned so far and it's for tonight. Then tonight after supper I'm taking my birthday $ and buying a Costco membership so we'll see what we get for the rest of the week :)

Roast beef/carrots/potatoes
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Menu Monday

Happy August everyone! Can you believe there is only one month left of summer?

This week will be nice and easy for me. Hope it is for you too!

grilled chicken salad/craisin wildrice bread/flourless chocolate cake
Happy Birthday to me! No cooking allowed :)
pizza at church business meeting
chicken/pita/veggies/tzatziki sauce
eating somewhere on the way to Wadena