Candied Grapes

I am really excited!! This is the first food post I have written, ever for this blog, well just ever, period.

I have been on the hunt for ideas for snacks and other healthy recipes lately and Pinterest is one of my favorite places to collect them all.

I saw this idea on Pinterest for “Glittery Sour Patch Grapes” and wanted to try it. Mostly because it looked good and super easy! The other reason I wanted to try it is because my son is in a stage where he is constantly eating and the first thing he wants is something sweet. I’ve been on the hunt for some healthier alternatives that my VERY picky eater will actually eat. The pin said they tasted like sour patch candy so I thought for sure it was something to try.

Because I have a boy and anything “glittery” is girly, I just called them candied grapes. I also only used one flavor of jello instead of two. That is one of the great things about this recipe too, you can choose any type of grape and any flavor jello and the combinations would be limitless. Another plus, using sugar free jello would make this even healthier.

Candied Grapes

Ingredients:
Grapes, washed and removed from stem (we used purple grapes)
1 pkg unprepared Jello (we used strawberry flavored)

Directions:
All you do is pour the unprepared jello into a bowl or on a plate and roll the grapes in it. Put them in a container with a lid that you can refrigerate. Store them in the refrigerator or freezer if you like frozen grapes.

It’s just that easy!! Not only is it a healthy snack, but something fun and easy that your kids can make with you. My picky eater loved them and keeps asking for more!!

The only down side for this to me was that the jello mix got on your fingers and stained them. My fingers were red for the rest of the day but after several washes, it came off.

If you try them, let me know what you think!

Halloween

The end of October is here. Facebook and Instagram are full of pictures of cute kids dressed up for Halloween activities they are attending. Pinterest is saturated with pins of yummy Halloween treat recipes and super cute Halloween crafts and DIY decorations (like the peacock pumpkin and gourd pictured here). People everywhere are planning and attending all kinds of carnivals, festivals, and parties to celebrate the occasion.

Growing up, I lived in the same house for as much of my childhood as I can remember. We lived on a circle with only one way in and out. For the most part, the only people who drove through either lived on our block or were visiting someone who lived on our block. My parents knew almost all of the neighbors and trick or treating around our block was safe and fun.

When I was younger, ours was a neighborhood where people would come on Halloween to trick or treat. Flocks of kids I didn’t know would come in by the car full to our little block and would ring our doorbells and ask for treats.

Occasionally I remember us going to a carnival or fall festival where we could dress up and wear our Halloween costumes. These were either put on by our church or the Christian School that we attended. Good food, games, face painting, hay rides, and just plain fun is what I remember about attending these events.

As I got older things changed some on Halloween. Familiar houses became unfamiliar as long time neighbors moved to other communities. Fewer kids came onto our block to trick or treat with us. I grew up and had a child of my own. Now all of the sudden, I’m the adult trying to decide what is appropriate and safe for my child on this particular holiday.

Obviously when he was little it didn’t matter too much what we did. He didn’t know that we were even supposed to do anything special on that day. As he grew up and understood what Halloween was (or at least what the other kids around him said it was) he would ask me if we were going to trick or treat.

A few years we have gone to another neighborhood and became one of the “flock of kids”. Most years, I have searched out church carnivals that we could go to. I didn’t care too much what church was hosting it; I was just looking for a fun, safe place for my son to enjoy the night.

As I have grown both into adulthood and grown spiritually speaking, there are things about Halloween that bother me. Kids dressed up in costumes that just make you cringe. Short skirts with fishnet stockings, or blood and gore like your six year old just came out of the latest R rated horror film. Neither of these things (regardless of your beliefs) are age appropriate for the children I have seen wearing them.

Unless you live in a small community and still know your neighbors, trick or treating is no longer safe. You can’t allow your kids to roam the streets and even if you go with them, you don’t know what you may end up with. You don’t know what you may expose your children to without realizing that you will. I’ve been to a few homes that just felt “evil” when you walked up. Regardless of how much innocent fun you can come up with for your kids on Halloween, it is hard to avoid the spooky, scary, and sometimes evil that comes along with it.

I’m not saying that Halloween is all bad and that you can’t find something fun and safe to do with your kids. My son will participate in a few Halloween activities this year and will dress up a few times this week. I will not ban him from participating in Halloween. However, I will find opportunities to talk to him about what is ok and what is not ok for our family to participate in. I will find opportunities to help him understand what things about Halloween line up with what we believe and what things do not.

For me, it isn’t about avoiding Halloween, it is about guarding against spiritual forces of darkness and teaching my son to do the same.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. – Ephesians 6:12-13

This year my son is dressing up as his own made up superhero, Super Jonathan (yes he made that up himself). Super Jonathan will be reminded this week about the whole armor of God: truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the word of God, and prayer. Put on the whole armor, then you can go out and be a superhero!

Redeemed Conference - L.I.F.E.

A few days before the beginning of the Redeemed Fall Conference, I received a random text message from Angelia Carpenter, the District Women’s Director for the Arkansas Assemblies of God. She was looking for a vinyl chair and said, “If you see one anywhere, let me know”. That made me curious, so I asked her what she needed it for. She told me she had this idea to redeem a chair for conference and then auction it off to raise some money for L.I.F.E.

That is all I needed to know. I didn’t have one or know of one, but there were a few resale shops close by, so I decided to go look for her. The first place I went to, there was this chair. The only chair in the place and it was only $8.00. I sent her a picture and picked it up for her.

Have you ever heard the saying “duct tape can fix anything”? Well, duct tape can redeem things too!!

We put the mat from the chair out and had anyone who wanted to put a piece of duct tape on the chair. Collectively, ladies at conference turned this plane jane chair into a redeemed work of art!

The chair was auctioned off and we raised money for missions! What a fun way to raise some mission’s money. That is one of the things I have picked up on since I’ve been around Angelia and some of the other ladies that work with her. I am always hearing someone say something like, “we could do (insert a million different ideas here) and raise money for missions”. I love it! I truly wish I had more opportunities to say that myself. Maybe I need to start looking for them.

If you are interested in learning more about L.I.F.E. please visit the Arkansas Women’s Department website.

Redeemed Conference - Redemption Crosses

“Redemption is Jesus taking the pieces of my life, the beautiful and the broken, to create something of worth for His Glory.”

One of the activities available at conference was making a Redemption Cross. This project is truly a depiction of redemption. The idea is that we take the pieces of cloth (the pieces of our lives) and place them on the cross. When we have finished the project, we end up with a patchwork cross that is not only a great decoration to hang or put on a shelf, but it is a representation of redemption in our lives.

Earlier in the year this was done at the women’s leadership training as well as at a women’s luncheon at our church. Ladies were encouraged as they laid their pieces on the cross to pray for a specific thing in their life that needed to be redeemed. They were encouraged to let that piece represent something that they were going to lay on the cross for Jesus to redeem. What a healing time for some of the ladies who participated in that!

There was a group of ladies that came in during conference to make a cross together as a group. There was a man in their church that was going through a lot in life it sounded like. They had decided to make a cross to take back to him. They were praying over their pieces and that cross while they were making it. I wish I knew what church it was and how the man reacted when he received it from them.

On to the craftiness!!

Here is how you can make your own Redemption Cross.

Materials:
1 wooden cross (you can either make your own or buy one)
Various Material Scraps/Pieces (cut to size)
Glue (Mod Podge is the best, but can get expensive. If you don’t want to use Mod Podge, you can mix Elmer’s glue and water half and half)
Sponge Brush for spreading the glue

Instructions:
The instructions are pretty simple. You take a piece of material and spread the glue mixture on the back. Place it where you want it on the cross. For best results, stretch and flatten the material so that it is smooth and there are no bubbles or bumps in the piece. Continue doing this until you cover the entire cross.

If you are using Mod Podge, after it is finished and dry, you may want to use a sealer finish to seal the edges well. If you are using the glue mixture, we found during conference, you really had to use a lot. You almost had to soak the material for it to stick.

The cross that I made at conference with the glue mixture turned out pretty cute, but after it dried there were quite a few air bubbles that weren’t there when it was wet, so if you can spare it, I would definitely recommend using Mod Podge!

Here are some pictures from the craft room at conference.

Redeemed Conference - Redeeming our Perspective

Friday night’s service was an incredibly powerful service. The presence of the Lord was there from the beginning and never left. From the first utterance of sound to the last person leaving the auditorium, you knew you were in the presence of the Lord.

So many wonderful things happened even before Kerry began to speak. Anointed worship, tongues with interpretations, encouragement to keep trusting God and to keep walking in His redemption.

Kerry’s message Friday night was “Redeeming our Perspective”. We all have times when we let life get in the way of our perspective. I am guilty of that quite often actually and I was really glad that this was what she was speaking on.

Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.”

In this verse the Lord is claiming you! You are His! He created you, redeemed you, and called you by your name. He knows you and He loves you!

Psalm 139:16-17 says, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!”

In these verses we are reminded that God knew you before you were even conceived. He wrote the days of your being in his book before you even existed. He thinks precious and good thoughts about you.

These verses are a great place to start considering what our perspective should be. For me personally, but I think for women in general, we don’t give ourselves enough credit. We don’t think we are pretty enough, or good enough, or talented enough in life. We put ourselves down and we don’t feel worthy. I am the world’s worst at taking a compliment. When other people give me a compliment, my first reaction is, “yeah right”. But in these verses, God is complimenting me. He is complimenting you. He is telling you that you are worth something to Him. He is telling you that you are valuable to Him.

In Kerry’s book and in her message, she gave strategies for redeeming our perspective.

1. Allow God to define you. 
• Don’t compare yourself to others.
2. Find your security in God. 
• If I am dependent on Him, He gives me what I need moment by moment.
3. Accept your limitations. 
• There are certain non-negotiable limitations in life. We all need sleep, food, and there are only 24 hours in a day. 
• Every season of life has different limitations. 
• Live graciously within your limitations.
4. Stop longing for the ideal.
5. Embrace God’s purpose for your life

All of these things speak to me directly. I have struggled my entire life with feeling inadequate as I mentioned above. Never feeling like I was enough. But by God’s definition, I am exactly who I need to be, created by Him for Him and greatly loved.

Accepting limitations is something I also struggle with, but I think a lot of women struggle with that one too. We want to be the best and do it all. We weren’t made to do it all. At some point, we will reach our limit. We will reach a breaking point. We need to understand our limits and live within them.

Stop longing for the ideal. This one hit me square between the eyes. There are things in my life that I have struggled with and part of the struggle has been me wanting life to be a certain way. Life is not always ideal, but that doesn’t mean it is always bad.

This can apply in many ways, but here is an example. When I decided to go back to college after I was married and had a child, I couldn’t do everything by myself. My husband and my son had to pitch in around the house. We started teaching our son to fold towels. At first, I would let him fold them, but I would come back behind him and redo them. Now, this didn’t save me any time. It didn’t solve my dilemma of needing help getting things done. If I was just going to come back behind him and redo them, it didn’t do any good to ask him to do it to start with.

At some point, I realized that when he folded the towels, they didn’t sit pretty on the shelf, but they were clean and “folded” and put away. So, I finally let that go. As he got older and folded more towels, they started looking better. They still aren’t the way I fold them when he does them, but still, they are clean, folded, and put away.

The towels on the shelf don’t have to be perfect. The clothes in the drawers and hanging in the closet don’t have to be perfect. This is a topic for an entirely different post, but your spouse doesn’t have to be perfect! Live in reality and accept the fact that life will not be perfect. It is ok that it isn’t, because we serve a perfect God!

Embrace God’s purpose for your life. God has a plan and a purpose for everyone in life. Whatever that is embrace it head on and live it with everything that is in you.

I intend to continue to work on having a redeemed perspective. I want to continue to work on viewing myself the way God does and not letting the enemy convince me that I’m anything less. I pray the same for each of you.

Redeemed Conference – Redeeming our Sexuality

The 2013 Women’s Conference challenged me in many ways. One of the main ways it challenged me was through the workshop and messages presented by Kerry Clarensau, National Women’s Department Director for the Assemblies of God. Because of how much I want to say, I am going to post about the workshop and services separately.

The first thing on the workshop agenda was Kerry’s workshop on “Redeeming our Sexuality”. Before I say much more about this, let me just say that I read Kerry’s book prior to conference. I got to this chapter in the book and before I read it, I didn’t really expect it to apply to me. Boy was I wrong. There were things in this chapter of her book that absolutely applied to me and some of them were things that I hadn’t even considered before.

One of the things that Kerry said during this workshop was “God doesn’t want His daughters to carry around the baggage of sexual sin”. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the baggage is from you choosing to live in sexual sin. This could also apply to you if you are the victim of someone else’s sexual sin. These things, whether brought on ourselves or put on us by others are not a part of God’s plan for our lives and He wants us to live in freedom from them. He doesn’t want them to hold us back and keep us down.

When Kerry was talking about this, just her use of the phrase “God doesn’t want His daughters” immediately caught my attention. I forget entirely too quickly that I am God’s daughter. I go through life and I forget to view myself that way. This changes my perspective on myself. It changes the way I view myself. It drastically improves my self-worth and my self-esteem for me to view myself as God’s daughter. If you are saved and you haven’t thought about yourself from that perspective lately, try it!

Another thing that really got my attention was when Kerry said, “The world is really loud about sexual things, the Church needs to be just as loud.” I will admit, that this blog post in and of itself is a stretch for me. To be honest, I’m stretching myself to even write this post. The world has twisted the idea of sex to the point that it is uncomfortable for many people to even talk about (it is me). However, Kerry is right! Because the world is so loud about it, and because what they tell everyone is so wrong and full of lies, we need to be just as loud in speaking the truth.

Kerry shared five ways to set healthy boundaries around your sexuality.

1. Guard Your Heart
2. Avoid inappropriate conversations with your friends
3. Don’t let the flame die
4. Guard your heart from other men (never have alone conversation with someone of the opposite sex)
5. Be respectful of men. (The respect we show other people is not a reflection of the other person’s worthiness; it is a reflection of our character.

You can find out more in Kerry’s book “Redeemed: Embracing a Transformed Life”.

The Almost Birthday Failure

Have you ever had those moments as a parent when you feel like you have to be the worst mom ever? I have those occasionally. I had one recently.

On the way to church Sunday night my son said, “Mom! Do you know what happens in eight days?” I thought for a minute and then I felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, “Yes”. He said, “Well, what”? I said, “It’s your birthday”.

Now, I hadn’t really forgotten that his birthday was coming up, but I completely put off thinking about it. Lucky for me he isn’t too picky about things. We can do big birthdays or we can do little birthdays, and so far he doesn’t seem to mind either way.

So, in a last minute scramble (last minute for me anyway) I initiated a plan and we now have a birthday party planned. Well, we have a place to have it and people invited and a cake ordered. I still need to get a few things and will have to pick up the cake and ice cream on Saturday morning on our way to the party.

I keep feeling like a terrible mom to think that I came so close to not doing anything for his birthday. I feel like had he not mentioned it, it may have turned out that way. But then I keep reminding myself, that it’s ok. Nothing has to be planned for a month in advance for it to turn out just fine (Although, that goes against the inner most planner that I am).

I actually think this will turn out to be a great party. We invited the kids from church to come and most of them I think are going to come. That in itself will be a great thing for him. We have had parties before where we have invited kids, but never really had many show up. So, I think he will have a great party, even if it is low key and quickly thrown together!

What do you think? How much do you think should go into a kids birthday party to make it a special day for them?

What are some fun birthday parties that you have thrown for your kids?

Redeemed Conference - Worship

Last week’s “Wordless Wednesday” post (pictured to the left) was a photo that was taken during worship at the 2013 Arkansas Assemblies of God Women’sFall Conference. What a fantastic conference, with a fantastic theme, and fantastic leadership! The theme for this year’s conference was “Redeemed” and it was a weekend of redemption for many women.

As far as the leadership, I believe this photo says it all. Angelia Carpenter (pictured in the front, center of the crowd), District Women’s Director, leads the way not only in what she says from the podium, but also by example. She is a woman of impeccable character, she is my friend, and she is the person whose example I am proud to follow.

Worship during the conference was led by Leah Smith from Beebe Open Arms Assembly of God. This worship team was anointed!! The presence of God was so powerful during both services and it was evident from the very first song to the very last.

If you get the opportunity sometime, you should attend one of these conferences. There is something about several hundred women gathering together to openly worship the Lord that is unexplainable. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” This is a promise that is multiplied by several hundred at these conferences.

I will continue to share more about this conference, but for now, here are some more photos of the worship that took place!

Wordless Wednesday

Arkansas Women Bloggers Conference 2013

This weekend I attended the 2013 Arkansas Women Bloggers Conference. It was the first time I had ever attended this conference and I am so glad I was able to go. I have to be honest, I was a little nervous about going because I didn’t know anyone and I’m not good at making friends. It takes time for me to get to know people and feel comfortable being around them so I assumed it would be a somewhat awkward weekend for me.

Partially, I felt this way because I’m a little different. I know, shocking to hear, but I am. I don’t always fit in well with groups and I usually feel very out of place. I am overweight, I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t usually dress up at all. The email we got that mentioned dress said to be comfortable but just wear a cute top since people would be taking photos. Comfortable and cute top are an oxymoron to me. I did wear some jewelry on Friday, but that is rare for me. I guess it was my small attempt to try and fit in a little bit.

What I found when I arrived and continued throughout the weekend, were warm welcomes and absolutely no judgment. No one cared what I was wearing, and nearly everyone I came in contact with spoke to me like they had known me for years. It was truly refreshing!

Multiple speakers throughout the weekend mentioned the fact that we were not competing with one another, but we were a community. We supported each other and helped each other grow. This was so true. People were openly willing to share what was working for them and what they were doing with their blog. The session speakers were wonderful and extremely helpful.

I will likely post more concerning this conference as my mind processes the things I learned, however, I want to give two shout out’s before I end this post.

The first is to The Park Wife. Not only did she do an amazing job coordinating and putting this amazing weekend together, she saved me from the BIGGEST horse fly I think I’ve ever seen. I got up to try and get it to fly away and it wouldn’t budge. The Park Wife saved the day (I’m not scared of bugs, I promise, it just wasn’t moving)!

The second shout out is to TEAM 7!!! Jacqueline Wolven, Sarea Clark, and Allyson Twiggs Dyer were amazing! So glad I got to meet them and work with them on the “Big Event”. Oh, and did I mention that 4 non-cooks won 2^nd Place!! Jackie’s secret ingredient was brilliant and taking risks and cooking with candy pays off!