All Kinds of Craziness

Soccer, Softball, Dance Oh My!!!

Spring is a busy time at our house.  My family is my passion.  So in the midst of this craziness we will be attempting to focus some quality time.  Looks like we will have to schedule it to make sure it really happens.

Last night was Emma's first softball practice of the season.  She came home dead tired, apparently she has a really tough coach, he ran them until their legs fell off.  I hope I don't have a run in with the coach.  He's pretty cute, I'd hate to have to put him in his place.  :)  Emma wants to pitch and I'm prepared to kiss up to the guy so she can play the position she really wants.  Isn't that what all good moms do when daddy's the coach?

This morning Reagan's soccer team had their first game.  Can I just say, once again the Comets are a dominating force on the field!  Reagan scored 3 goals and played amazing defense.  So proud of all the girls.  They passed...they ran hard...they had a great time.

Tomorrow both of the girls have softball practice while Olivia and I will be heading south to Fairbury for a birthday party.

Monday starts a new school week with orchestra and dance.

Where is it in the bible that God tells us, "BeStill"?  I need to read that passage again and again.  Thank you Lord for your words of direction and encouragement.

Spring Break trip

easter baskets from nana

Easter Sunday at Oma and Opa's

nature walk in Hutchinson

so glad no one fell in the water

the best part of an overnight trip for the kids is the hotel

this one had a great pool

quality time with Aunt Delma

i'm so glad the camera worked well in space otherwise who would have believed i finally made it to the moon.

Easter Egg Envy

Making Progress

Our vegetable garden is showing signs of progress.  The cantelope were the first plants to break through the soil and hope to soon see sprouts of green peppers peaking out into the light.  The kids are so excited and asking all kinds of questions about when we will plant them outside and how soon we'll eat our produce.  Believe me, I'm excited too.  Purchasing store-bought fruits and veggies bring me down.  :)  Yesterday we made it out to Lanoha's Nursey for a little inspiration. Afterward, we started our green house (2x the size of this one) with flowers.  If they all grow we won't need to mow this year.  The whole yard will be full of flowers and produce...should make Chris happy.

Totally unrelated but thought you might be impressed with this pile of "Vincent fur".  The lion cut is not complete but he was done being patient.  I hope to go at it again tomorrow after everyone goes to school.

Easter is one week away.  Last night we attended "The Victor" at our home church.  The greatest story ever told came to life in a dramatic musical portrayal of the passion of Jesus. We witnessed the historic events of the Easter week: the Triumphal Entry, the miracles of Jesus, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. What a powerful night for the Raabe family.  It was a little too much for little Olivia but brought real meaning to the phrase, "Jesus died on the cross for our sins" for Emma & Reagan.  We all need that reminder from time to time.  If I don't "talk" to you again before next Sunday let me be the first to wish you a very happy Easter.  May the truths of Jesus' life become real to you. 

Blessings my friends.

MSG

Do you know what it is?  Monosodium Glutamate, food additive and flavor enhancer.  Most people know the common name and maybe even heard about it from time to time in the news but do you know the other names found on ingrediants lists that are also MSG, or contain MSG? 

natural flavor
seasonings
yeast extract
hydrolyzed protein
yeast food
gelatin
textured protein
yeast nutrient
autolyzed yeast
sodium caseinate
calcium caseinate
hydrolyzed corn gluten

This information is also found at the website  http://www.truthinlabeling.org/

Excitotoxins are molecules, such as MSG and aspartate, that act as excitatory neurotransmitters.
MSG is found in nearly all processed food
Glutamate is the neurotransmitter that causes dorsal horn spinal cord chronic pain sensitization

This is bad stuff and we consume way too much of it daily.  READ labels and educate yourself.  You health and life just might depend on it.

Emma

Emma and I spent the evening at the mall.  We got some great pictures taken at Picture People and then free drinks from Dairy Queen.  The only thing that could have made our evening better would have been pedicures before coming home.

Spending time with my oldest daughter one on one is truly what I call a perfect date night.  I love you Emma!

Think Spring...Think Green

We are trying hard to "think green" but after snow 2 days ago, it's pretty hard to believe today is really the first day of spring. Chris is taking another step towards going green. He has always been a big recycler but this year he is building a compost bin (pictures to follow) and expanding our garden. Today our garden officially started...inside. We plan to eat well this summer.

Proud Papa

Reagan and Olivia planting seeds

We hope to start seeing some sprouts break through the soil in a couple of weeks. You can be sure I will keep you up to date.

Now if we could just raise our own beef and chickens our grocery store trips would be few and far between. Maybe I should try canning again.

Spring Ahead

If nothing else, this must be a sign that spring is here. Tonight we will set our clocks ahead by one hour (spring ahead). It's a bitter sweet idea for me. On one hand, I really like my sleep and that one hour of missing shut-eye is precious to me. Maybe if I wasn't one of those chronically sleep deprived people it wouldn't matter so much. On the other hand, this day marks a wonderful moment in time...SPRING! I know it's not official anywhere except in my mind.

Losing that hour of sleep makes me remember Easter one year when I was a kid. We were late for church because we forgot to move the clocks ahead. If Easter isn't a mark in time to think "spring" then I don't know what is. Spring is new life....hello Easter is all about new life in Jesus Christ. The winter kills all green plant life and in the spring the plant emerges from ground with new life. 2000 years ago Jesus Chris died and on Easter morning he emerged from death with new life.

I can't say happy Easter tomorrow, not even Happy St Patrick's Day yet but I can say happy March 14th all you sleepy eyed people. Have a wonderful Sunday.

What a Surprise!

Last night I was ready to post some pictures of my snowless lawn and flowers breaking through the soggy ground. My spirits were beginning to brighten, I could feel spring in the air. And then I woke up this morning to a white blanket covering everything outside. If you know our family, you know my hubby loves a good practical joke so I first thought, maybe this is a big joke. That's a little too big for even Chris to pull off. It has snowed ALL DAY LONG!

Go ahead and feel sorry for me...I know I sure do. But one day soon it will be a perfect temp of 72 degrees and my yard will be green. There will be veggies growing, flowers blooming and my husband will be a gardening FREAK, truly my little world will be right again.

Working Girl for a Day

I have no desire to go back to work but today I'm pretending to be a working girl again. Pearson Chiropractic is a blooming new wellness center opened by my friend Nicole Pearson (no relation). Today I am sitting at her front desk acting as if I know what I am doing. So far so good, I think I have even fooled a few people. Being a full time mommy is my passion as well as my calling so going back to work is a foreign thought. But volunteering to help a friend for a day is both fun and stimulating, especially when I consider the alternative laundry and cleaning my bathrooms. Dr Nicole has someone to smile and answer phones today which comes with a cute little 4 year old bonus. Olivia adds a bright spot to the office, if I do say so myself. I hope she can hold out for just a few more hours and then I'm going to owe her lunch.

Enjoy your Monday. Lend a helping hand today. You never know what that small task may do for someone else.

More Birthday Pictures

Silly girls! Just a quick trip to Target for snacks before bowling and they found the perfect disguise. Kimberly and I being great role models encouraged this behavior and made them pose for a picture.

These girls have been friends for many years, dating back to our days at Third City Christian Church. Celebrating Emma's 11th birthday just wouldn't be right without her 2 dear friends.

Better Than Happy

Have you ever considered happiness and what that means? What makes you happy? For me it's little things like pedicures, Starbucks gift cards, hugs from my girls, dinner with my husband and a girls night out. All these things are great but not long lasting; toe nails chip, coffee isn't good for me, kids get busy, families get distracted and girlfriends come and go.

May I propose to you that joy is even better than happy. Joy is deeper, well grounded and not based on something superficial. Joy remains through trials and in spite of my good intentions as well as epic failures. My joy is found in my faith in Jesus Christ. He is steady. Read anything that Paul wrote throughout the bible and you will learn about joy. Paul's joy did not come after a day at the spa but often sitting in prison.

My challenge this week:
Read the book of Philippians. It's a short read, only 4 chapters. If you don't have a bible go to www.gatewaybible.com. I have a link on my blog at the daily verse to the right.

Find joy this week. You won't regret it and I believe you will be a better person for it.

On My Knees

This message may ramble a little because I am so full of emotion right now and I need to let it out. There's your warning. :)

My heart is breaking. I actually feel an ache deep inside of me for my friend who has possibly been hurt in the name of religion or maybe just conservative christians. I don't know the past but I do know the description this person offers of evangelicals does not at all fit the description of Jesus Christ. So what has happened? What should I do? I want to defend my faith. I want to prove that I am not what this person thinks "we" are. I want to show the path that leads to life eternal is not full of ugly, uptight, bigots. However, it's not about me, it's about Jesus and His unfailing love.

Sitting here in my quiet family room I can "hear" an overwhelming voice telling me this, "Pray Pray Pray!" I know there's nothing I can do to change a person's heart. Praying hard but it is difficult when I'm being torn apart verbally.

Today's verse....
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD." Isaiah 55:8
So maybe I should allow God to take control of my friend's heart. :)

Thanks for letting me share my heart.

Fish on Friday!!
Fish on Friday!!
Fish on Friday!!

So this was an actual cheer in Chris' high school back in the day, when they played the catholic schools. Dumb right? I thought cheers during basketball games were suppose to build up your team or tear down the opposing team. However, today I was happy that Catholics don't think fish is meat because I love the lenten fish fry. Papa and Nana know all the good spots to hit not only in town but all the surround little communities. I guess that's something lots of people plan out because as I was sitting across from a sweet little elderly couple tonight they were telling me all the best churches to hit for fish. It made me smile. Another oddity at a Catholic church fish fry is the guy walking down the line of people waiting to get in, selling cups of beer. No wonder Methodist don't have fish fries; beer in protestant church would probably cause the building to burn down. ha ha

After ice cream back at nana and papa's house the girls managed to work out an invitation to spend the night. Worked for me. Chris is working late and the house is quiet. Best of all, I will be sleeping in tomorrow morning.

Love one another. Yes I agree, some don't deserve it but those are the people who need it the most.

Sorry, No Pictures

My hope was to add several pictures from our February activities but Blogger isn't allowing me to add pictures right now. So frustrating.

This week we are about 30 degrees below our normal temp. That is just wrong. I am concerned that my weather induced depression is going to turn ugly if I don't get some sunshine soon. We are so use to gloomy days that one day last week we had a glimmer of sun and Olivia complained the whole time that her eyes were hurting. It made me smile. I just had to stop and thank God for that brief break in the clouds.

Past Due

I'm not just talking about my current library book, it's taking me forever to read "Twilight" Guess I am not as into it as the rest of the world. ha

What I am actually referring to is updating my blog. Soon, very soon I have some pictures from Emma's 2nd birthday party and other interesting Raabe Family details. (Don't get too excited, it probably isn't really all that interesting.) :)

Today I am having a power scrapbooking work day which means tomorrow I will probably need to see my chiropractor. Not only have I been scrapping but I raised my table to help my neck/back issues, loaded some pictures on the computer and backed up everything. Whew! Why have I waited so long to do that? Time to get back to work. I have a new order due mid March...4 layouts down...26 to go.

Be a Blessing!

From the Mouths of Babes

Today I was almost brought to tears as I stood in my kitchen listening to my 4 year old Olivia witness to her 3 year old friend.

"You don't know Jesus but he loves you. And Jesus loves me. Now I am going to pray...."

Yes, my mouth hung open in total surprise. I certainly learned from my daughter that it's super easy to tell a friend about Jesus and being direct really does work.

That is my happy message of the week. Now go be bold in your faith!

And What A Surprise It Was

Fun, Exhausting, Loud, Crazy
It all describes the surprise of tonight. I just couldn't let Emma miss out on a birthday party with friends from school so I invited 6 girls over for a surprise party. These chatty girls managed to keep it quiet, Emma loved it!

DECORATING

Emma just walked in.

Here's the crew... Liv kept herself in the middle of the mix all night.

My homemade decorations...thanks Martha.

Cake Pops

My super creative, can do anything friend, Sandy showed me a blog this weekend which started this whole project. As always, it proved to be pretty time consuming and my little cake pops did not turn out nearly as cute as Little Miss Expert's did over at www.bakerella.com You've gotta see all her creations!

So here I start with pink cake, since that is what Olivia picked out, go figure.

Even though I used a little melon scoop my balls are a little misshapen.

I love to start a project, only to realize at a very critical stage that I don't have all the necessary tools or items. I don't love to do that, it just seems to be my MO. As you can see here, I have used drinking straws instead of sucker sticks. Chris couldn't find them at the store and it was too late to run to Michaels. I did get them the next day and it was so much easier.

The second half of batch number one turned out much better. I became a better ball roller and I added shortening to my candy melts. Wow! What a difference. Note I ditched the sprinkles idea and just drizzled candy melt over the top.

My creations are now ready to go to school with Emma on Thursday. I have about 100 pink cake and chocolate cake cake pops (I used the word cake a lot there, huh) with a variety of colored coatings on them. Each in a celophane bag tied with a ribbon. Aren't they pretty?

I know my darling husband is secretly wondering why I would spend an ENTIRE day doing this when Emma would have been just as pleased with store bought cookies or donuts as a treat for her birthday. That is a valid question unless you are a person like me who just has to make it (whatever it may be) look cute. These are the blessings of staying home and being a full time mommy. If I were working outside the home, this never would have happened.

Whew! So glad I have pictures to prove I did something today.

Have a blessed day! Be sure to go out of your way to make someone feel special.