Posted on

Pretend Church

STROKE OF GENIUS. Or just the Spirit. Probably the Spirit.

My little lady is MASTER of pretend. She plays pretend for hours! If you don’t call her by her pretend name you either get no response or a quick reprimand: “I AM NOT LINA, I AM MARY.”

So when we were deciding how to better incorporate Come, Follow Me this year it hit me! PLAY CHURCH!

So now, we are going to play pretend church every Sunday and each have a role. This last week dad was the bishop and speaker, I gave a testimony, and the kids prayed and taught primary. Podiums and microphones are a must. Oh yes, and a nursery for the rowdy children.

It was the most successful family home evening I think we’ve ever had!

How have you incorporated gospel learning in your home? I’d love to hear it!!

Posted on

Zuppa Toscana

This will be the most basic recipe you’ll ever find that resembles Zuppa Toscana from Olive Garden. Does it taste just like the stuff you get there? Not exactly. But it is SO DELICIOUS! My husband even likes it better.

The part I like about this recipe is I that I can change how much kale I put in depending on how “healthy” I want to be! I personally like my soup HEAVY on the kale because this is one of the only ways I can tolerate the superfood.

Honestly, you can change the amounts of ANY of the ingredients and still get great results. I will include the amounts that I had the last time I made it.

  • Spicy Italian Sausage 1 lb
  • Onions (optional) 1/2 medium onion
  • Chicken broth 6 cups
  • Potatoes 4 medium russet cut into bitesized pieces
  • Kale 3 large stalks
  • Half-and-half or heavy cream

Directions: Brown the sausage (and onions if desired), add chicken broth and potatoes to the pot. You cook all of those in the boiling broth until the potatoes are soft. Once they are ready, add the kale and cream! You notice I have no “amount” for the half and half or cream. That is mostly because I pour it in until it looks yummy. Sometimes that’s 1/2 c, sometimes more!

The spicy sausage flavors the soup pretty well, but you can always add your favorite spices!

Extra tips:
Cutting the potatoes thinner makes it cook quicker! Which is a definite win for me, because I more often than not, don’t decide what to make for dinner until I’m HUNGRY.

Posted on

Nesting

You know how, thanks to the nesting phase of pregnancy, the nursery is usually all cutsie and put together before the baby is born? Or at least dreamed about. Yeah, that did NOT happen for us.

Two months before my baby was born I was still praying fervently for us to find a better, cleaner, safer place to live. We closed on that house 8 days before I was to be induced.

So all that time nesting I focused on purging all the excess rather than getting what I needed for the baby. In fact, when he was born we did not even have a bed for him, just a rock and play. I think we got the crib 2.5 weeks later.

It’s been two month now and this week is the first his room has even resembled a bedroom. He gets the privilege of sharing his room with our “office” so up to this point it has been full of boxes we didn’t get around to unpacking and SO MANY PAPERS that had no home. As well as stuff we shoved in there actually for him.

Last night we moved his crib in there (more so my annoying cough would stop waking him up than anything), and it feels so happy to me! He has a space now! We still have some work to do, but that one step made me smile.

It is surprising to me what things can bring happiness, they truly are the little things!

Posted on

Legos

Today I spent 2.5 hours building this LEGO treehouse. WHILE nursing!

In the beginning, is was internally rolling my eyes, having a bad attitude because:
1- I knew their dad would freak out if we didn’t follow the instructions*
2- There were WAAAY too many unnecessary tiny pieces (I CANNOT overstate this)
and 3- The finished product was only going to last .5 seconds.

Fast forward and hour. I was in. to. it. Each step and each page turn was a triumph!! I was SO EXCITED to get to the next step and felt a sense of accomplishment and rightness every time.

And for sure, there were WAAAAY too many unnecessary tiny pieces and the finished product did not stay the same for very long, but I will tell you this: that LEGO treehouse and accompanying pieces was played with for HOURS. And I was had become a master architect.

I would consider this a win!

*Let it be noted: I NEVER followed any instructions playing legos as a child. I rarely follow recipes to this day. Coincidence?

If you’d like to spend your own 2.5 hours feeling successful and having something at the end that will buy you some great time, find the treehouse here!