Found the book!

I know, it's been a while since I have blogged....sorry. But...

Woo Hoo! I finally found the BEST Crockpot cookbook ever! (It's even part of the title of the cookbook) :-)

I am very picky about my Crockpot cookbooks...it started a little over 4 years ago. We remodeled our kitchen and all I had in the Dining room was a Crockpot, a Microwave and a Refrigerator. I didn't have a stovetop, as we gutted the kitchen down to the studs, so, I couldn't use any crockpot recipes where you had to pre-brown ANYTHING. So, the search was on..and I found one that was great! Only problem is...I lost it. I don't even remember the name of it. So, off and on for the past 4 years, I have been on the search for my Crockpot cookbook. I finally found one that is FANTASTIC! It is called, "1001 Best Slow-cooker Recipes". I highly recommend it. The recipes are FANTASTIC. I made a Roast the other night...WOW! The BEST Roast I ever made.

Our kitchen has been done for many years now, but I have to say, I like the fact that I don't have to pre-brown anything. It just makes preparing that much quicker. So, check out the book and happy eating!

Until next time, God Bless.

Potty training

SUCCESS!

For the past Month, we have been diligently working on getting Cody potty trained. I had to get my good friend Michelle to take Cody for an afternoon to get him used to the idea. That went well, then a week later, we started and kept at it. Cody is now trained in the day. All we have left is the night time. I know all we have to do is stop giving him water right before he goes to bed. Well, we have done that for a couple of days...I'm still not ready to take the Pull-ups off yet. I think within the next week or so, he will be good to go. I am just so thankful he gets it now.

Oh, also, Cody starts Pre-K on September 1st, and Connor starts 2nd grade August 27! We ALL are very excited about this.

~Until next time, God bless~

Church Life

Exciting things are happening at our church.



We have Home Group every other week. Home Group is basically Home Church. What we do is discuss how to put into practice what Pastor Daren's sermon was on during the weekend. Each Home Group is between 5 and 12 singles, couples, or a mixture. It has been in the past, no more than 12 couples or 12 singles. As you can imagine, we get burnt out pretty quickly, but Pastor Daren has a solution for this.



Starting this coming January, we will be changing things up a bit. We are going to be calling the groups, "Growth Groups". They will still be at somone's house, and will have 5-20 people in the group, will be meeting EVERY week and only run for 10 weeks! At that time, you can stop leading; change groups; lead a group or take a month or more break. Also, there will not be Growth Groups during the summer. I think this is very beneficial in the long run. Looking forward to that. :)



HARVEST FESTIVAL



Every year, we have a "Harvest Festival" instead of celebrating Halloween. It happens on Halloween, and is usually in the parking lot of our church. But, this year we are hosting a "Fall Festival" at a local park and it is going to be HUGH!!! It is proposed to be a Revival. We are expecting 2,000+ people to come through. There is going to be games, Extreme Inflatable stuff, mechanical bull, rock climb, petting zoo, pony rides, concert, etc. We are soooo excited. Please keep us in your prayers, that everything goes well, and that God gets the glory and works on peoples hearts right now.

Until next time, God bless~

Puppies up for adoption

Hi everybody. My friend from Grade School and High School has a friend that needs to find good homes for a few puppies. Here is the email message and a picture of a couple of the puppies...

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Hi, A friend of mine has some puppies that she wants to give to a good home.

If you're able and interested in adopting, let her know.

* They are pure breed, miniature poodles.

* They now drink and eat solids on their own.. but the milk is still for newborns and on solids just a lil a day.

* As soon as we give them their first shot, they are ready to go.. that will be within a week or two.

* Girls are $500

* Boys $450

* The parents are right under our knees (we can send pics of them too)

* We have 4 girls and 2 boys...

Guillermina Najar (Guillermina.Najar@MolinaHealthCare.Com

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These are just too adorable. If you are interested in any of the puppies, please let Guillermina know. Thank you.

Improving on an invention

I am an avid Cross-stitcher. I LOVE doing cross stitch. When I started, I started with a kit. A kit includes your canvas, all the thread you will need and 1 needle. It took FOREVER to do ONE project! I took this and bought a BUNCH of needles and threaded each needle with the thread. I then needed something to put all these needles on. So, I took one of my dad's legal size notepads and took off the cardboard. (When he was finished with it of course) I then took a small sticker and drew the symbol on it and put the pin through it. I have been doing this for years!

Here is a picture of what I do:

The problem with this, is that stickers don't stick forever.

So, I found this and would like to improve on it.

What I would like to do is make that holder flat, and maybe have a cover; as this would make it more portable.

I would like to make this happen, but I don't know where to start making this happen...any ideas?

Even though our Anniversary isn't until this coming Friday (5/22), Bill and I celebrated our 10 year Anniversary yesterday (5/16). The day started with taking Connor and Cody to our friend's (Rick and Teresa Horvet) house for the day and overnight.

We then went and had lunch at Whole Foods Grocery Store! (I know it sounds strange; I thought so too at the time, until I saw the Deli Section) Their Deli Section is AMAZING!!! It has every kind of food you can imagine.

We then headed down to Buena Park, and went to a Pirates Dinner Adventure. It is a dinner theater. It is similar to Medieval Times, but with a pirate theme. It was FANTASTIC! I highly recommend it.

We saw the early show, so we had the rest of the night, and we WERE close to Disneyland.....so......

We ended up going to Downtown Disney and went to the movie theater there, and saw the new Star Trek movie. Another highly recommended thing to see! WOW! What a great movie!

We finally got home around Midnight! What a wonderful day!

I just have to say..... I have an AWESOME husband!

Transitions

Why are some transitions so hard for us? We get attached so easily to people. They become such a deep part of our lives, even though we may not know them well. They could be acquaintences, or very close to us. Our Senior Pastor has moved on; our new Pastor is in and we love him and his family very much. I know these transitions that we have been going through lately at our church are of God. They have been prayed about, tested against the Bible, confirmed, and are of God. This is definitely a time of growth...lol I think the stretch marks are beginning to show...but in order for us to grow, and build strong character, we must endure. It is a choice that we have to make in advance. When we were told that our pastor was leaving, it wasn't going to be immediate. We all then had a choice to make...accept it or not. In a way, we had to make an advance decision, because he was going to be going whether we accepted it or not. We also had to make an advance decision to accept our New pastor or not, whether we liked it or not, he was coming. More transitions are happening at church...in staff, in the worship center, in services, etc. re-structuring is happening...for the better? I believe so (some would argue that point). We will miss all those that go, but really and truly, we are excited to see what God has in store for us. I am reminded...when situations seem like they are too difficult to bear, God knows how much we can handle, and will give us no more than we can handle (we just need to keep our eyes on Him). Then there are times, I feel, when God gives us slightly more than we can handle, so that we can grow. Or maybe it isn't more, just many things that we can handle, all at once, which makes it seem, like it's more than we can handle.

Jer. 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

There is definite hope and a future in our church. Thank you God.

Just something I was thinking about, maybe even wrestling over tonight.

Until next time, God bless.