Celebrating Special Girls

This month has been one of celebration for our family as we brought our new baby, Kynthia Joy, into daylight on August 2nd, celebrated her birth with a dinner put on by my church friends last Friday, and are getting excited for daughter, Selah Elizabeth's, 5th birthday on Monday!

My sweet friends from church held a dinner and diaper shower for me and Kynthia.  It was so fun to get together and show her off!

My friend, Darlene, always makes the most gorgeous flower arrangements!  Big sister #2, Selah, had a matching rose in her hair!

Here's my gorgeous mother, Christy, holding Kynthia Joy.  She was asked again at the shower if she was my sister...sure hope I inherited those genes!

Kynthia received several nice gifts, including a pink ladybug outfit!  I'll be sure to post her on Pink Saturday here in 9 months or so when she can wear it!  Big sister #3, Avalon, took each gift over to Grandma to show it off!

Here's Kynthia posing with the pretty flowers Julie bought for her.

Me and Kynthia right before bed time...sleepy!!

This weekend I'll be busy wrapping up gifts and making a special PINK princess cake for sweet Selah's special day on Monday.  It's so hard to believe she was as little as Kynthia just five short years ago.  What a special blessing she has been to us.  "Selah Elizabeth" means, "Pause and Reflect (on the) God of Plenty".  Such a great reminder of God's blessing and provision in our lives.  I'm so thankful for this beautiful life!

I'm linking up with Beverly's Pink Saturday today.  Take some time to go visit if you can---there's lots of great pinks on display!

Preparing for Baby

Only 14 days left until our sweet new baby is due to make her appearance in the world!  I've spent the week getting ready for her to come!

Her little bed is all ready...

Her clothes are all hung up...

Her pacifier...for the benefit of us all!!

A little mobile hanging above her cradle for entertainment...

A few days' worth of diapers!  Guess I better go stock up...

MY bags are packed and ready to go...all we're waiting on is you, Baby!

Meanwhile, big brother is exploring the nooks and crannies of the living room... This is what happens when Mommy leaves a 14-month-old to his own devices for awhile...

Sweet Baby Liam has no idea what's coming...  He will be a great big brother!

I'm linking up with Beverly's Pink Saturday today!

Happy Week!

It's been a happy week here at the Coller house!  Jamie and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary on Monday!

He brought me home 18 of these gorgeous PINK roses that smell soooo wonderful!

I made us all a cake with our wedding topper.  We had hamburgers for dinner and shared our cake with the kids for dessert!  They all made us pictures and Lynzie painted us each a small painting.

Later in the week, I made Lynzie this pretty dress.  She has been saving her own money for several months now for a Revolutionary War era costume.  She ordered her own shoes and stockings and helped pay for some of the fabric for her dress.

Here's Lynzie showing off her buckle shoes! We still need to make her a lace shawl and mob cap but she's feeling pretty cute in her new outfit!

 Jamie will be home from work in a couple hours and then my weekend begins!  I plan to work on baby announcements all weekend and just generally be crafty!  Baby's due in 3 weeks!

Linking up today with Beverly's Pink Saturday!

Blueberry Scones, Chili and What We Did Today

I've just tucked my kids into bed and am ready for a little quiet blogging time before my husband, Jamie, gets home from work.  The kids and I are all feeling very accomplished today as we got a lot done and each had an enjoyable day.  I'm hoping that Jamie will have had a happy day as well!

First thing this morning, I cut up two cantaloupes and served them in my new cabbage bowl.  I found this at a yard sale in Pendleton, Oregon Friday when I was visiting my mom.  I saw one similar on a blog a couple weeks ago and loved it!  (In case you're wondering:  one cantaloupe fits in the bowl.  I served everyone and then cut up the other one for the fridge! :)

Then I cut up a bunch of fruit and vegetables so we will actually EAT them while some of the kids played a fun game they made up.

They made paper pizzas and opened their own pizza shop. 

The living room was trashed but they had a lot of fun!

After I finished my produce-cutting adventure, I made 3 batches of blueberry scones.  Two batches will be eaten at breakfast tomorrow while one went into the freezer.  Recipe at the end of the post...

Avalon said, "Take a picture of me, Mom."  After I took it she said, "Me see Avi."

Then, because the kitchen wasn't quite hot enough, I decided to make 5 loaves of banana bread!  Recipe is Betty Crocker's...just a basic one.  All of these went in the freezer.

While the bread was baking, I made the rounds with my camera again.  Here Avalon is feeding her baby some cereal in her high chair.

Cainan is making more messes pizza...

Elisha's got his pizza baking on books from the kids' bookshelf.

A Ha!  Here's Miss Lynzie Mae, the dedicated artist, busy copying a painting from an encyclopedia.  She spent the afternoon in the kitchen working on her paintings.

I believe Michael said this was a Papa Murphy's Cowboy Pizza....

More by Lynzie...

Oh!  More by me too!  I made chili and cornbread for dinner.  Cornbread recipe came from the side of the box but I'll put my chili recipe at the bottom of the post too.

Avalon said, "I just LOVE tornbed!" (That would be "cornbread")

Because we had some strawberries in the freezer, I decided we needed a quick batch of strawberry jam to go with our cornbread!  You can make this delicious freezer jam in 15 minutes!  You can find my easy tutorial here. 

After I got all the other little ones to bed, I had a chance to go in and look at the paintings Lynzie did today.  This is her favorite of her hero, George Washington.  Looking good, Lynzie!

I love being a homemaker and am so thankful for the opportunity to be home with my kids and care for my family.  This beautiful day in the life of our family was made possible by the selfless sacrifices of:

and ultimately, the Lord Jesus.  Thank you, God, for this blessed life!

Blueberry Scones

(makes 8 scones)

1 cup blueberries or other fruit
1/3 c. + 2 Tb. sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, in cubes, slightly softened
2/3 cup half-and-half or cream or cold buttermilk **TIP: (I mix a couple TB. of bottled lemon juice with regular milk and let it sit about 10 min. for easy cheater buttermilk)

Topping:
1 tablespoon sugar (I used coarse decorator sugar)

Preheat oven to 400.
Sprinkle bite-sized fruit with 2 TB sugar; set aside.

Mix the rest of the  sugar with the flour, baking powder and salt. Using a pastry blender, mix in the butter until it looks crumby...(not CRUMMY...there's a difference!! :)  Stir in fruit and then buttermilk.
 
When it's all mixed together, set it in a big blob on a cookie sheet and form it into some semblance of a circle about 3/4 inch thick or so.  Cut into 8 wedges and either space them out on the sheet or bake them in the cut circle and recut on the lines after they're baked.  Sprinkle with coarse or regular sugar.  Bake 15 minutes or until golden in places and no longer doughy.


Chili


(makes about 10 servings...you can half this or freeze the remaining if you don't need this much)


6 cans beans (We like to use black beans)
2 cans refried beans
1-2 pkg. taco seasoning
1/2 c. bbq sauce
1/4 c. dijon or spicy mustard


Rinse 6 cans beans in strainer.  Place them in a pot with the refried beans and all other ingredients.  Add 2-4 c. water.  You want to start out with the chili quite a bit runnier than you like it.  Cook and stir often until it has reached your desired thickness.  This could be anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half...depending on how much water you add.  The more water you add, the longer you have to cook it and the more flavorful it will be as the beans absorb the flavors from the other ingredients.  If you're in a hurry, just add a couple cups of water so there's a buffer there to keep it from sticking to the pan while it's heating up and dissolving the seasoning and you'll be good to go in about a half hour.

There is SOMETHING new under the sun!!

I am taking an History of Christianity class this term and am thoroughly enjoying it! It helps that I'm an enthusiastic debater and the professor requires us to respond to one another's writings! Ha! Tonight, one guy posted a question that went pretty much like this:

The ministry of Jesus was about inclusiveness, peace, and love. His main group consisted of men but many of his followers were women and he did not discriminate against anyone.
Women of less reputable status, such as Mary Magdalene, are mentioned as well as his mother. After his death, the new church became an "exclusively male dominated one and women were denigrated to a subservient role. So my question becomes why did the followers of Jesus, who must have seen their leaders treatment of women decide to place them in this role? Why has it remained to be this way in many denominations of Christianity?"


Here was my response:

I think the question that needs to be asked is: are we interpreting the entire historical past based on the "rights" women think they have been entitled to in just the last 80 years or so? Just because a group of feminists that are only as old as Grandma say that women should have absolutely equal status with men in all things doesn't make it true, nor does it make it what God intends for us.

It is my assumption that women were placed under the leadership of men within the church because that is also the way it was in society. Jesus treated women the way He did because He was setting an example of how people should be treated---not because He was trying to abolish the headship of the men in family, church and other situations. If Jesus had wanted women to take places of leadership over men, He likely would have modeled this by taking on some women in His core group of disciples or placed a woman in charge of his mother just before he died (rather than John---see John 19:26-27). It is only lately that women have got the impression that they are somehow being cheated by the church. Since the beginning of time, I am of the understanding that most Godly women were content to serve as faithful helpers and wise counselors to their fathers and husbands. Proverbs 31 spells out the characteristics of the "virtuous woman" and this used to be the standard for a woman to strive to achieve. It is not against Jesus' message of "inclusiveness, love and peace" for women to serve under the authority of their husbands or fathers.

There are several examples in the New Testament of women being recognized by the newborn Church. Lydia, a founding mother of the Christian church in Europe, lived in Philippi and opened her home as a "home church". When Paul and his group showed up, they were offered a place to stay---a risky and brave act on her part. (Act 16) Acts 18 speaks of Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, who ministered alongside her husband and opened her home with an attitude of Godly hospitality. The Old Testament is full of women who changed history with their faithfulness to God and their husbands: Hannah, Rachel, Rahab... The only Godly woman in the Bible that I can think of who took a leadership role over a man was Deborah and she said so herself that it would be accounted to him as shame. (Judges 4:9)

God's desire for men and women to walk out specific roles is all throughout the Bible. Even at the very beginning of the Bible, God makes their roles evident by putting curses on the specific things that they were "in charge of". Today's society sees these roles as a man domineering over his "subservient" wife. In fact, this is rarely the case. Men are given the responsibility of taking care of their wives and women are given the protection of their husbands. If this is not the way society is functioning then it's because society has chosen to walk off of God's path. If these roles have survived to this day in any denominations of Christianity, it's because people realize that it's a peaceful way to live and it's the way the Bible says God designed it. When lived the way God intended---with a wife respecting her husband and a husband loving his wife (see Ephesians 5)---this can be a very peaceful and fulfilling life for the whole family.

Also, this doesn't really apply to your question but it applies to my answer: I would encourage anyone who's interested to really read about Mary Magdalene before assuming she was a woman of "less reputable status". There is no basis at all in Scripture for her being a former prostitute as many have implied throughout history. The only mention of her former sinful nature is in Luke 8:2, "Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons." Many link her up with the prostitute in John 8 whom Jesus "rescues" from stoning. It makes for good romance that Jesus would rescue her and then invite her along for the journey. In fact, He sends that woman off to "go and sin no more". Just because Mary Magdalene was healed of demon possession doesn't mean she was a prostitute. I can think of seven demons in my own life right now---gluttony, fear, coveting, worry, unforgiveness, laziness, judgmental attitude---and I'm as straight-laced as they come! I am mentioning this because it shows something we are all guilty of.

The point that I was trying to make to this guy is that if we bring to this class all our preconceived ideas and thoughts of what so-and-so said, it could block us from learning what history really does tell us about Christianity. We wouldn't form assumptions about science or math---we would search for the most accurate answers. Studying God's word should be a challenge to ourselves to find out what it really has to say---even if we don't like what we find out!

All Scripture taken from:

New King James Version . Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001.

Whenever I see a photo of Princess Diana, it reminds me of my mom. Those who know her will probably be surprised to hear that. After all, my mom is a dark-haired, brown-eyed Potawatomi American Indian. Princess Di was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed British Royal.


It's not the photo itself that reminds me of mom---instead, it's the memory it conjures up. I can remember several times throughout my childhood that my mom would talk about watching Princess Di's wedding to Prince Charles on tv. She would say it was so beautiful and she really had looked up to her and thought she was a neat lady.


I've never been all that into her, really, but the thoughts of my mom make thoughts of the Princess more meaningful, I guess.


Today I was in Target and spotted the commemorative edition of USA Today that features Prince William's and Catherine Middleton's wedding plans. I almost didn't give it a second thought but then something inside told me to skim through it.

As I looked over photos of the couple and their relatives (including several of Princess Diana), I was reminded again how much my mom liked her and probably would have loved to have some sort of commemorative publication featuring their wedding. So...I stuck it in my cart and went on to the next aisle.

Then I went back and grabbed another for mom.