Mark 12:30

I've been thinking about this verse a lot lately...

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind 

and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30)

 I started going to Holy Yoga in October.  I love it!  It's been a great way for me to renew my mind, body and spirit.  I go almost every Thursday.  I don't know if it was at the end of December or the beginning of January, but Holy Yoga has been on my heart and mind almost constantly.  I am feeling like God is calling me to become a Holy Yoga Instructor.  What?!?!  I don't read my bible every day (unless the kids' bible counts), I'm not comfortable leading people in prayer and I don't like public speaking.  These are all things involved in being a Holy Yoga instructor.

So, why am I feeling this way?

I don't know.  I'm praying all of the time to try to figure this out. 

Megan

Here's a picture (unrelated to this post) because I think everyone like to see pictures :)

Taken by my dear friend, Kristi Atkinson, at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
I will be sharing more of these since they are so fantastic!

A Digger Birthday

So, I realize that I'm a month late sharing pictures of Myles' birthday.  Sorry, better late than never.  We had  a wonderful afternoon celebrating his 2nd (oh my, my baby is 2!) birthday with family and friends. 

Here's the wreath I made to greet everyone.  All I did was take a wire wreath form and tied caution tape around it and then tied diggers, bulldozers and road graters to it with yarn.  So easy and fun!

Here's the sign at the other door.  I covered a sign I had with caution tape and then printed off and cut out a large 2.  Taped it on and done!

Here's his birthday cake.  I found my inspiration here, but changed it up a little.  

We had so many people celebrating Myles' birthday with us that I had to make cupcakes too. 

Opening presents with Uncle Jared.  Notice the digger on the floor (a new favorite). 

Paul helping open up the "learn to dress monkey."  Which is another favorite.

We were so blessed to have not only one set of Great Grandparents there with us,  

but two sets.  What a blessing to share the special day with them! 

Myles with a nice chocolate mustache :) 

Barrett eating cake with Papa. 

If you wanted to use the bathroom, you had to step into the port-a-potty ;)

I had so much fun decorating for his birthday and an even more fun celebrating my baby turning 2 with many of the people that we love most.  

Til the next birthday... which Barrett tells me with be Batman themed :)

Megan

It's Wednesday!

So, I'm so excited that today is Wednesday!  We get to go to Family Night LIFE (Living in Faith Everyday) tonight at church!  We haven't made it the last two weeks because we've been sick.  So, I'm even more excited to go tonight! 

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We're having tacos for dinner and then I get to sit with my friends and talk (aka adult interaction and conversation) about the study that we're doing Knowing the Bible 101.  

Here's hoping that you're excited for your plans tonight too!  If you're not, join us!  

Megan

Brotherly Love

Myles wakes up almost every morning before Barrett.  The other morning was especially sweet.  We were playing in his room and my back was to the door.  He was facing the door and we starts yelling "Bare, Bare, Bare."  (That's what he calls big brother).  I turned around and there's Barrett standing in the hallway with a HUGE smile on his face.  These two really do love each other so much.

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Myles wants to do everything that Barrett does.  If Barrett is going to school, Myles says "me, me me?"  Soon enough little guy, soon enough.  For now, I'll keep you at home with me :)

Hoping today that your house is filled with laughter and love.  

Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him. (Psalm 127:3 NLT)

Megan

Update: Fancy Hot Dogs

So, last time I told you about Fancy Hotdogs I didn't have my own pictures.  Today, I do!  So, I really wanted to share them with you.   

Here's the recipe from my original post...

1 Tbsp butter

5 turkey hot dogs, sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices

1 red onion

1/2 cup pureed low fat cottage cheese

1/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt

1/4 cup pureed acorn squash

Dash of garlic powder

Sprinkle of dried parsley

Sauteing the hot dogs and onion in a frying pan.

Hot dogs and onion with pureed cottage cheese/plain yogurt mixture and acorn squash. 

The finished (and DELICIOUS) product!

Happy cooking everyone!  Do you have a favorite an EASY go to meal?  Please share it with me!

Megan

A New Kitchen

For Christmas this year we decided to make the boys a kitchen set.  It seems to be the thing they both love to play with wherever they go, so we went for it.  After scouring the internet for hours trying to find inspiration we came across this amazing kitchen set.  It wasn't girly and we LOVED the details!  So, we found an entertainment center on Craigslist for free, yes FREE, and started making our list of materials that we would need.  We took lots of ideas from our inspiration kitchen set because it was done so well.  But we really tried to put our own twist on it too.  Hope you enjoy the pictures of our journey.  We started this on Saturday, December 17 and "finished" it on Friday, December 23rd.  Just in time for Christmas but not completely finished.  We had plenty of mishaps along the way :)

Here is the very UGLY entertainment center before we did anything to it.

The plan was to do two coats of primer, two coats of paint and one coat of poly.  After researching painting laminate online, we bought some KILZ Complete Oil-Based Primer.  We used some leftover paint from our kitchen.  We thought that was kind of cute that their kitchen would be the same color as ours.

See if definitely needs another coat of primer!

Me staining the wainscot in a beautiful gray

 Here's a picture of it after three (YES THREE) coats of primer!  Only two coats did NOT cut it.  Ugggggghhhhhh!  That was not a fun thing to do three times.  Primer is really stinky.  

Beautiful... you can't see the ugly laminate anywhere!!!

We picked up most of the accessories at IKEA.  This idea came from our inspiration piece.  We got the pan rack, s-hooks, faucet, knobs, burners, felt food, utensils, timer and dishes from there.  I had the canister and the oven rack laying around the house. The boys got some wooden food for Christmas from my parents too!

The "finished" product.

Close up of the sink and stovetop.

The lower half (fridge, shelves and oven).

The side pantry.

We still plan to add an oven door, fridge door and freezer door.  We need to add some shelves in the fridge and more... we just ran out of time.  Like I said we started a week before Christmas (we're nuts!)

Hopefully we've inspired you to do something fun like this too.  We had plenty of mishaps during the week; chipping paint, cracking paint, having to totally change what we were planning to do because our original ideas were NOT so great when put into action.  It was a fun experience for us to do together.  

Have you ever done something like this?

Megan  

Stuffed Baby Peppers

I decided to try out a new recipe for my family Christmas this year, Stuffed Baby Peppers.  They were so good, I had to share them with you!  You can find the original recipe here.  I did make a few changes, which I will share a little later.

Start by washing your mini bell peppers, cutting off the stems and cleaning out the seeds and veins.  This takes awhile, but they are sooooo good it's worth the time.

When you're ready to stuff your peppers this is what your filling will look like.  I used turkey bacon instead of pancetta because it's what I had on hand.  I also completely forgot to add salt and pepper, but they were still amazing.

After reading reviews on the site I decided to use a ziploc bag with the corner cut off to fill my peppers.  I thought it would go much faster (I had 48 to fill) and be much neater.  This didn't work for me.  It was messy and I wasn't able to get filling all the way to the tips of the peppers.  So, I grabbed my icing bag with a coupler.  I didn't put a tip on it because my peas and bacon wouldn't be able to come through.  This worked GREAT!    

Here are my beautiful peppers filled and ready to go in the oven.  They were fabulous and I think I could have eaten all of them.  

I will definitely make this again... I just have to find a day when I have time :)

So, because it took me so long to make them (I enjoyed every second) we were running a little late to get to the Christmas party.  I didn't get a chance to take a picture of them when they were done in the oven.  Here's a picture of them from foodnetwork.com

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Happy Cooking!

Megan