You live what you love.

We've heard it said "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return".  I don't know about you but I have always thought that related to a human love experience.  Never once did I consider I needed to learn to love my Savior and learn to be loved by Him.  Then God led me to this fabulous group of women studying Deuteronomy.  The first week I was there, I took away something very powerful:  "We have not begun to grasp the love of God until you can say nothing ever compares to His love."  I have been an idiot walking around saying I love God and He loves me never fully understanding his complete, unchanging, everlasting LOVE for me.  I doubt I fully understand the depth of His love, even now but I am rejoicing that He is revealing it to me.  God is one hundred percent tethered to me.  His love will never change, he will never have to try to force it to make things work, He loves me with a love I can never even return.  I've been chasing, holding on to something that could never love me like that.  I don't even think it was the person I've been holding on to but the idea.  The idea of the one marriage that stands the test of time, sin, trial, error. I sat in that classroom listening to Beth Moore tell me why and how God loved me.  The verse she goes back to over and over again is Deuteronomy 6:23 "And He brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers."  After hearing this over and over and committing it to my memory, something clicked in my brain.  HE {God} brought ME {Leah} out of THERE {that dead, self-centered marriage/lifestyle}, that HE {God} might bring US {Leah, Landen, Cecilia, Talia} in and give us the LAND {our personal promised land: security, love, stability, joy} that he swore to give to our fathers.  How do we know we've reach the promised land?  Our emotions are fleeting, they quickly change based on situations.  How do we know we've reached the land of security, love, stability and joy?  We know we are there because God tells us in Romans 8:28 "And we KNOW that for those who love God all things work together for good".   When we are abiding and loving Christ, we are living in our promise land.

"When we are producing spiritual fruit that benefits those around us . . . WE are living in the GOOD LAND. The promise is a GOOD land, not a happy or romantic land." Beth Moore 
Matthew 7:16 "You will recognize them by their fruits" 

I am far from perfect, but I am abiding in Jesus Christ, I am loving God and I believe I am producing good spiritual fruit.  This is my GOOD land.  Thank you, Lord!
Tragically, my marriage did not withstand the tests but what is more tragic is that I could have gone through this trial and never learned how to love and be loved by my creator.  How could I ever expect to love another sinner if I don't know how to love a perfect being?  What if I never learned to trust in HIM fully?  God is faithful.  He promised me a land and he has delivered.

a little bundle of firewood {camping baby shower}

My dearest friend had a sweet baby boy a few weeks ago. They are all doing well and he is so very beautiful and precious. I had intended to blog this on the day he came . . . you know, to welcome him with a joyous blog post about his awesome baby shower? Well, that didn't happen. It's here now though so be excited and say "CAMP-OUT" Sandlot style.

Welcome Baby Loving

Shower hosts and mommy to be sporting our plaid camp attire

Camping Baby Shower
The theme was developed because daddy-to-be is a rugged, manly outdoorsy kinda guy.  They decided to bring that manly-ness into the nursery to start their little man off right.  We loved the outdoors idea and went into full fledged camping mode.
Danielle gathered foliage, camping lanterns, coleman stove, mason jar glasses, lawn chairs and flashlights.

We hung a clothesline and gathered plain white bibs, burp cloths, and onesies.

The shower guests decorated the plain baby items with iron on decals to add to the outdoor theme.

Sasha made the most delicious cupcakes and adorable cupcake toppers to enhance our theme.

We put bottled root beer in the cooler and had a blue icy jello punch with mini mason jars as cups.

fruit, carrots, nut mix, chips, tortilla rollups, smores, little smokies and cupcakes

We played only one game since the guests also decorated onesies.  We guessed how big Emily's belly had gotten with little man inside.  To measure we used TP because no camping adventure is complete with out toilet paper!

The shower was a huge success.  Everyone mingled, commented on the theme and decor and loved the food!  Especially the s'more maker!

if you had no idea what i was talking about when I said "camp out" fast forward to 2:10.

   

Snow Day Breakfast

FEB 

OCT

Kansas City (and surrounding areas) were hit with a blizzard.  People are referring to it as a snowpocalypse, snowmagedden, blizzard of Oz, whatever you want to call it- it's been pretty insane.  Locally, we've accumulated approx 23 inches of snow fall, had 4 snow days, power outages up to 12 hours at a time, trees and power lines down and lots of snow creations within one week's time.
I've been feeling like a supermom lately with the snow blowing in and no man to shovel for me. (Yes, that IS man work.)  I decided I needed to make a supermom breakfast to go along with this fourth snow day!  And it was a HUGE supermommy success!  I bring you Paleo Gluten-Free Pancakes!!!  I grabbed this recipe from Hip2Save and it was wonderful!  Here's what I did:

Paleo Gluten-Free Pancakes:
4 bananas
2 cage-free eggs
4 tablespoons Trader Joe's Crunchy Almond Butter
1/2 teaspoon Almond extract (yum we kinda LOVE almond around here)

I mixed them up in the fancy Kitchen Aid and used a 1/4c scoop to put them on the electric skillet.  I sprinkled some chocolate chips in for the kiddos because it's a SNOW DAY!

flipping was tricky b/c there was no flour in them.
I need to invest in a silicone  spatula

I called them for pancakes and never once mentioned they were different.  My picky eater ate an entire pancake . . .which says a lot considering he rarely eats more than 4 bites of anything.  The girls devoured them and my gluten-free princess even asked if she could pack some in her lunchbox for school tomorrow!
Feeling like Super{single}Mom yet again!