Almost a Toddler

I suppose if the definition of a toddler is one who "toddles" freely around on their own two feet, then I'd say we are very, very close to having a toddler in our house! This week has been a big one for Samuel. He has taken his first step and is deftly cruising around the furniture. Sam even took Hank (his wooden rocking horse) for a walk today by holding on to one handle and walking circles around him. As you can see, he also now has eight teeth!

Sam loves to open doors, cabinets, and drawers. Basically, he feels it is his utmost responsibility to inspect every inch of our home. He particularly loves playing with these colorful bowls in the kitchen numerous times each day. He stacks them inside each other, bangs them together, and turns them over and pushes them all around the floor. This brings him great joy!

Our son is also now picking up anything and everything off the floor and putting it into his mouth with incredible speed, ease, and secrecy. So far I have been able to rescue carpet fuzz, Mommy's hair, a popcorn kernel, a rock from a shoe, numerous kitchen crumbs, and lint from Samuel's gullet. I wonder how much floor fare he has eaten recently that I don't know about?

The Beauty of God's Creation

See the front loader outside the window? They have been busy the past two weeks with all the snow. Can you believe I get this kind of view outside my office? Here we really don't have people watching... just Creation watching.

(This is Dave's post, but Lisa just had to add this picture and say that we do a lot of baby-watching around here!)

Sam can't seem to believe the spectacular view, either. He loves the daily occurrence of Alpen glow. Because the sun angle is so low in the southern horizon, the sunset seems to last for almost an hour!

This furry resident near the weather instruments seems to be guarding it... or maybe just allowing the almost 2 ft snow depth to protect him from the 0 degree windchills! We see rabbits like this one all over town all year long.

Just another example of our public works department doing a great job of keeping the roads cleared. They are ready for the next snow dump that we might get this weekend... wahoo!

Best Pumpkin Recipes -- Enjoy!

Spicy Pumpkin Seeds
Ingredients:
- nonstick cooking spray
- 1 large egg white
- 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 1/4 teaspoons sweet smoked paprika
- 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 cups pumpkin seeds

Heat oven to 300 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and coat with cooking spray. Whisk egg white in a medium bowl until very foamy. Add sugar, salt, paprika, cayenne, and cinnamon; whisk well. Stir in seeds to coat. Lift them up with a slotted spoon, allowing them to drain, and spread in a single layer on baking sheet. Discard leftover liquid. Roast seeds, tossing them several times until puffed and edged with brown, about 25 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool completely. Gently pry the seeds from the sheet and break up any large clumps into smaller seeds. Seeds last two weeks in an airtight container.

Rebecca's Pumpkin Soup
Saute in 3-quart saucepan:
- 2 tablespoons margarine
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 1/2 cup chopped onion

Add and bring to a boil:
- 3 chicken bouillon cubes dissolved in 2 3/4 cup hot water

Reduce heat to simmer and add:
- 1 16-oz. can pumpkin (or 2 cups fresh pureed pumpkin!)
- 2 tablespoons chopped green chilies
- 1 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- dash pepper

Stir with wire whisk until well-blended. Cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Remove 1/2 cup pumpkin mixture and gradually add the eggs, stirring constantly. Gradually add egg mixture back into soup, stirring constantly. Cook over low heat 5 minutes.

Add and heat thoroughly. Do not boil.
- 1 cup milk
- 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

May garnish with chopped tomato and serve with chips. Serves 6.

Pumpkin Latte
Ingredients:
- 2 cups milk (we used 1%)
- 2 tablespoons pumpkin
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 2 tablespoons vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon cloves
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- small pinch ground ginger
- 3/4 cup strong brewed coffee

Whisk mixture together. Ladle into mugs, and garnish with whipped cream and additional cinnamon. Yum!

Dave's Pumpkin Bread
Ingredients:
- 3 cups pumpkin puree
- 2 cups white sugar
- 3/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 cups ground cinnamon
- 3/4 cups vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 5 eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 9x5 inch loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, oil, sugar, maple syrup, and eggs. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well-blended. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed, and a sharp knife inserted in the middle should come out clean when done.

Someone Special Had a Birthday...

Praise God that He brought you into this world 31 years ago! We are so blessed by your Christian witness of love and your gift of encouragement. I am also very blessed to be called your husband!

Lovely 4th Anniversary

I Love This Man

Happy 4 year anniversary, honey! I love being your wife, and it is an honor and a privilege to walk through this life with you. Thank you for your faith in the Lord, your adventurous spirit, your sweet friendship, your love for me and for our son, your hard work to provide for us, and so much more. I could go on and on about all the things I love about you!

I praise God for bringing you into my life and look forward to many more years together, by His grace and for His glory!

Now THIS is Serious Snow!

Overnight snowfall: 16 inches
Snow currently on the ground: 22 inches

We were a little late to church last night because they hadn't plowed our road yet and we could not get the Camry out in the deep snow, plus our truck wouldn't start immediately. Talk about some serious snow!

More and More Resourceful

We finally got around to cutting into our pumpkin and toasting the seeds yesterday. They were yummy! We found a great recipe that involves a whisked egg white, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, salt, sugar, and cinnamon. (I would be happy to post that recipe if anyone is interested.)

I had planned to just toss the pumpkin itself after "harvesting" the seeds, but Dave thought that was wasteful. So what to do with it? First we boiled the pumpkin to make it soft, then Dave made us some delicious pumpkin lattes, and we fed some to Samuel (he is not a fan unless the pumpkin puree is mixed with applesauce). Dave researched some other interesting recipes for pumpkin, like bread and soup and even mashed potatoes, so we will be enjoying some of those things in the days to come.

Happy Ten Months Birthday, Sam!

It is so hard to believe that our little Sam Sam is already ten months old! Amazing how the time just flies, and also how I have never been so content in my life. Thank you, Lord, for the incredible and wonderful and joy-giving gift of our boy! Time with him every day is such a precious blessing.

This is totally his personality lately. He always has to have something in his hands, and he is saying "doy doy DOY!", whatever that means. Dave has a theory that he is trying to say "three", but I have no idea. It is cute, at any rate! He also says "hi" to us and sometimes to others, and he'll even say it when he hears the phone ring. Smart cookie, this kid! He makes us laugh saying "yeah yeah yeah" in a breathless, excited voice. The other day he sang out "ee yai ee yai" on the phone with my parents and prompted them to sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm". It's definitely a lot of fun to hear the grandparents regularly singing over the phone and on Skype these days!

Samuel loves to dance. It is awesome and always cracks us up! He either bounces while sitting on his knees, sways from side to side, or otherwise bops to the beat. He drums away with his hands on any available surface (dishwasher, refrigerator, toilet seat, wall, clothes dryer, etc.), and he seems to actually have some rhythm.

We love you, Sam, and we thank God for you! What an honor and a privilege it is to be your parents! We are savoring every moment.

Too Small to Ignore: Why the Least of These Matters Most

Have you read this book? If not, you should. As I read, it is challenging me to change the way I view children. Wess Stafford is the president of Compassion International, a ministry Dave and I wholeheartedly support, whose goal is to "release children from poverty in Jesus' name". Growing up as the son of missionaries in West Africa, Dr. Stafford saw many of his friends die from mostly preventable causes. These are certainly weighty topics, but the book is also funny and engaging - you won't be able to put it down.

Just to whet your appetite, here is a little vignette from the introduction:

Late one evening D.L. Moody, the premier American evangelist of the 1800s, arrived home from speaking at a meeting. Emma, his wife, was already asleep. As her exhuasted husband climbed into bed, she rolled over and murmured, "So how did it go tonight?"

"Pretty well," he replied. "Two and a half converts."

His wife lay silently for a moment pondering this response, then finally smiled. "That's sweet," she replied. "How old was the child?"

"No, no, no," Moody answered. "It was two children and one adult! The children have their whole lives in front of them. The adult's life is already half-gone." Ponder that one for a moment.

I am also currently reading another highly challenging book for my small group women's Bible study.

This book is also hard to read because it forces me to think about things I would rather not think about, like the fact that every day 30,000 children die from mostly preventable causes, like hunger. Or the fact that a third of the world's population lives on less than $1 a day, and another third lives on less than $2 a day. Those are not pleasant, happy thoughts. It is easier to push them from our minds and go back to our comfortable lives. But I know that is not what Jesus would have us do. We are all incredibly wealthy and have so much to give, and our greatest offering to a hurting world is the love of our Savior and the hope that comes through Him. It's not a happy thought that children all over the world (and even in our own country) are dying needlessly. Instead of shutting our mind to the reality, though, let's pray for the Lord to give us courage and love and to help us do something about it.

Looking for Christmas gifts? Here are a few great ideas with lasting worth:

• Sponsor a child through Compassion International: click here
  
• Help a child learn to read and write, help save the lives of mothers and babies, supply a community with clean water, and much more through Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog: click here
• Give gifts to help families, missionaries, and communities - gifts as small as $11 for a pair of chickens for a needy family through Gospel for Asia: click here

**Note: Not sure you trust donating to these groups? Check out how they, and other ministries you support, rate at Charity Navigator.

Jesus calls us to not turn a blind eye to those in need. From Matthew 25:

⁴¹"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴²For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

⁴⁴"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

⁴⁵"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

⁴⁶"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

What a sobering thought...