If You Give a Girl a Passport: How to Fill the Last Two Weeks Before the Trip of a Lifetime #ShareFunshine #ad #cbias

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If you give a girl a passport, she's going to ask for a trip to England. Chances are, if you plan a trip to England, she's going to need some distractions to fill the last two weeks before you go.

Lynzie and I are headed to England in less than two weeks! We're going to spend three days in Bath, a day in Chawton, and two days in Winchester. It's going to be a fun-filled, Jane Austen-fangirl, tea drinking, garden strolling extravaganza! We just need to get through these Last. Two. Weeks.

Lynzie has always been super creative so she's done pretty well filling her hours at a time when we'd normally be starting our homeschool year. This week, she's been having some fun with crafts and snacks. Last night, she made this adorable garden gnome coin bank from a Dr Pepper® bottle. 

Make sure to enter the Share a Little Funshine giveaway and then read on to see how she completed this super cute project. (Widget may take a little bit to load.)

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Most of our family members are huge fans of Dr Pepper® so we usually end up including it in fun activities like last year's end of the homeschool year party or as a complement to my candy bar granola bars. This week, I picked up a 2-liter of Dr Pepper® Cherry from Walmart.

I had made Monster Cookies over the weekend so everyone got a little bit of pop to go with their cookie (or half a cookie for the little ones---these are big!). It's really easy to make a pop bottle coin bank like Lynzie made me. First empty the bottle, then wash it and remove the label. 

Next, use a sharp pair of scissors to cut an opening for your coins. Make sure it's big enough to get the coins back out again!

Cut plastic can be sharp so I melted the edges of the opening to smooth them out.

Finally, paint it up super cute and let it dry. What a great idea to make an iconic British garden gnome!

I'm already saving for next year's trip with my adorable new garden gnome coin bank!

Michael has been pretty great about listening to all of Lynzie's exciting plans for England. I love it that my teens get along so great. She even shared her M&M's® Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches with him while they were having a chat outside.

Speaking of M&M's®, they're the key ingredient in my family's favorite Monster Cookies recipe. My mom has been making these for us since I was little and I love to make them once or twice a year for my own family. I use big bags of M&M's® Plain and M&M's® Peanut because I like to have some extras to push into the tops of the cookies to make them extra colorful.

Monster Cookies

1 lb. butter or margarine

60 oz. peanut butter

1/3 c. baking soda

2 lb. brown sugar

4 c. sugar

2 TB corn syrup

1 T vanilla

1 dozen eggs

2 c. chocolate chips

18 c. oats

2 c. each M&M's® Plain and M&M's® Peanut + extra for topping

Mix the butter and peanut butter together in a stand mixer. Sprinkle baking soda on top and mix in well, breaking up any clumps. Pour mixture into a soup pot and add sugars, corn syrup, and vanilla. Beat eggs and add to the mixture. Mix very well with a large spoon. Stir in chocolate chips and oats. Stir in M&M's®. Scoop out cookie dough with 1/4 cup measuring cup and bake on ungreased pans at 350º for about 15 minutes.

With a can of Dr Pepper® Cherry, a yummy cookie snack, some sunshine, and a great book, Lynzie was able to conquer one more morning leading up to our trip. I know it's going to be the experience of a lifetime---even though the last couple weeks can seem like forever!

Looking for instant savings on some of your favorite products? Click here to save on M&M's®, SNICKERS® Ice Cream Bars, Dr Pepper® Cherry, Skittles®, Pedigree Dentastix®. Also, Download the Blippar app from your Apple or Android store to scan your package and receive exclusive content.

The Final Call For Souls

The first time I visited Paddington Station in London, I was made very much aware of one particular thing. The final boarding call really was final. There wasn't a lot of looking around to make sure they had everyone before the train pulled out. If you weren't on when it was time to go, you were left behind. Stuck. Simple as that.

Does anyone else feel like the current events are really just one big last call for Christians? So many issues that were once "gray area debatable" have now become very much black and white.

I've already written about the big favor the Supreme Court did Christians by forcing all of us to come out of the closet regarding our stance on homosexuality, special rights for homosexuals, and whether or not we should have a right to redefine what God has already clearly defined. We now have to make a solid choice to "obey the law" or face persecution.

There are no more "valid" arguments for keeping the abortion mill that is Planned Parenthood open. It doesn't matter what other services they may offer a woman, they've been exposed as committing unspeakable, unwatchable, and very much illegal acts. We have to make a solid black or white choice now. Are we going to fight to end tax payer funding or are we going to sit on our hands some more so we don't rock the boat?

How about the Ashley Madison exposures? (See what I did there?) Adulterers without the integrity to come clean on their own have been forced to own their sin and face up to the consequences. Last I heard, there have been three suicides linked to the leaks, as well as the public humiliation of several well-known figures. Millions of men and women are put on the spot now: confess and begin the process of restoration or continue to try to lie their way out of owning it.

To top it off, the current most-likely candidate for the Republican party is Donald Trump. Seriously? I'm just going to delete everything I just wrote about him and leave this here. I can't even touch that.

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14 NKJV

Matthew 24:14 is significant for our time because it answers the question the disciples are asking about the end of the age. Not only will this be one last chance for non-believers to hear, believe and repent, it will be one last chance for believers to hear and repent.

I can't help but wonder if all the junk coming down the last few months is not just a big wake up call, but a last call. What are we going to do with all this? Are we going to vote? Christian---what are you going to do about it? Are you going to protest, act, sacrifice, debate, speak up, get up, man up? 

Or are you just going to "pray about it"? Yeah, we should pray. Pray and then act.

Preparing for England with Regency Stays

Whew! It's been a crazy few days as I've been constructing these Regency era stays for Lynzie's Jane Austen Festival ensemble. They're definitely, DEFINITELY not perfect...but they're functional and they're almost done! Yay!

This was my first time sewing eyelets by hand. Some of them look pretty good!

Hope you're having a great week!

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