Before church on Sunday we started two crock pots and a dutch oven with pork shoulder to make a meal for a family that just welcomed baby number 10!  Praise the LORD!

I’ve done this before.

I made a mistake this time.  Somehow.  Still not sure how.  Didn’t notice the problem at noon when we got home.  Turned the oven off and left it to stay warm.

When I got home from play rehearsal at 3:00PM I noticed.  Boy, did I notice.

Even the bone was charred.

This is my beautiful Dutch oven my mom gave  me for Christmas last year.

 

It took a lot of tools to extricate the meal.

Since it cooks in root beer, sugar, and vinegar, it created a very, very burnt substance all the way around that I had to scrape out with an ice cream scoop.  The consistency was like the burnt part of a marshmallow that catches on fire when you roast too close to the flame.

Johanna wanted to help me by asking for her favorite toys – measuring cups.

This is what I got at the bottom of the pan.

The meat didn’t make it.  I suppose we could have tried to eat it.  But I wasn’t about to serve it to anyone.  And really, I could never have gotten past the visual in photo one.

I will finish this post by sharing that it is clean.  Thank You, God.  I love this pan.

I followed this set of suggestions on ehow.com.  It came clean today.  Step two worked!
I can’t help but wonder what the piano teacher thought I was feeding my family by the smell of it!  LOL.

And not a moment too soon.  Beef stew for dinner tomorrow!

 

How to eat spaghetti, Hanny-style.

Doesn’t every five-year-old pretend she is an Egyptian slave-master?
She developed the costume herself.

It’s okay.  Last week she pretended to be Laura Ingalls.

And look at her cursive.  Surely she isn’t that dangerous!

While she needed some assistance with the spelling, she needed NO help with the penmanship.
I am so proud of her.  She didn’t know her ABCs to save her life in September.  Now she is reading steadily.  She is still behind where the others were at this age, but she is so stinking smart in other areas, I am not so stressed anymore.

 

At co-op today, Nigel studied how air can move and lift things, Stewart made glow-in-the-dark slime and discussed the Biblical directive to tithe.  Tabitha made Valentine’s day cards and talked about peaceful hearts.  Marie made butter like Laura Ingalls, discussed school rooms in colonial America, and  made and studied eyes. 

And while Johanna is really enjoying the daily naptime reading of Goodnight Moon, it was Good MORNING moon around here the other day.  This is what I get to look at while I do the dishes.  I still get giddy some days that God picked this house for my family. 

This is the poem for the week for Nigel and Marie. 
It is an excerpt from The Barclay of Ury.

I don’t know what a barclay is, or where Ury is…
But this passage is timely.  I love it.

‘Through this dark and stormy night
Faith beholds a feeble light
Up the blackness streaking;
Knowing God’s own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest
For the full day-breaking!’

John Greenleaf Whittier

 

*alright* just looked it up.  Ury is a mansion in Scotland.  In the 17th century Ury was established as the North East Scotland headquarters of the Quaker organization by David Barclay.  It is deteriorating now and a developer wants to put a golf course on the grounds. 
Whatever.  The words are GREAT.

We received an email today from our pastor’s family.
His brave and beautiful bride described these days as, “The last lap of Jeff’s cancer journey.”
The sports-themed analogy doesn’t surprise me given Jeff’s sports interests.
For months and/or years I have been praying for a [growing] handful of people who are on cancer journeys.  In my prayers, I have asked God not to make these days the end of their stories.  Sometimes I say, “The last chapter in their lives.”    My literary-themed analogy doesn’t surprise me, either.

I don’t want Jeff to die.  I like him a lot.  I love him.  John loves him.  Our kids love him.  Over and over sweet Marie imagines scenes like, “Mom, wouldn’t it be cool if Pastor Jeff called us right now and said, ‘I had a miracle; I am fine now,’” or “Wouldn’t it be great if right now [during offering] Pastor Jeff came running in and said, ‘It’s a miracle.  The cancer is all gone!’” 

Since Christmas time we have been talking a lot about the ways he has blessed our family.  I am just bowled over by the sheer number of MEMORIES we have surrounding him.   I’d like to share a few.  Maybe more for me than anyone who reads here.

• We had our first visit to PCC just before the World Trade Center bombings and I made a call to the church shortly after 9/11. I had questions about raising children [we had just ONE at the time!] in the world today. His answers were warm and sincere and met me where I was at spiritually at that time. He also played cool role in our future in that short phone call as he suggested a call to a woman named Jennifer A. This homeschooling mother-of-five [at that time] was a building block to our lives and that family serves as a mentor to us even now.You just never know how the small things in life may lead to big things as the Adams have served as mentors to us ever since!
• There were the visits to the NICU at Strong when Nigel was born, as well as the visit to Park Ridge when Marie was born.  I didn’t call the church office when the next two were born, b/c I knew he’d take the time to make the trip and I didn’t want to pull him away from the office!
• There were the visits to Rochester General ED when John had his heart attack in 2006 and again with his repeat ED visit one night when we were scared.  That makes three hospitals he visited us at!
• There were visits to our new house when I was struggling with fears and evil thoughts.  John called him with his concern over me and Jeff drove his blue HHR to our house to pray with me.
• There were MANY phone calls, and visits to his office over the last 10 years as he helped us answer hard questions and navigate some rough patches.
• There were the visits he and his wife made to MOPS to discuss fetal loss, and talking about Christmas in the school.

Over the last year or two, we’d taken to turfing the kids “hard” questions to Jeff, looking forward to them building a relationship with him.  We’d stop by his office before or after piano lessons to ask different things of him.  He always greeted the kids kindly and made time for them.  He answered them honestly without being condescending.

We didn’t see much of Jeff in 2011.  We spent 2011 as itinerant worshipers visiting about a dozen churches in the area.  John had met with Jeff before we started our church visits.  We wanted him to know what we were doing, and wanted him to also know that we weren’t doing it because of HIM.  Frankly, we were only stopping by in September after returning from a vacation when Jeff introduced a new series he was starting about the letters to the churches in Revelation.  We were eager to hear what he had to share, and decided to stay at PCC for a season.  Then, a few weeks in, we learned of his diagnosis.  He only preached one more week after that.  I can’t say for sure what will happen now.  But that is another post.

I am sad Jeff has to die now.  I am really sad that his wife, son, mother, and father, have to say good-bye to him so soon.  His son is a high school senior. 

A lit bit of me is very, VERY excited for Jeff.  When I imagine that at any moment he is going to get to see Jesus it makes my heart flutter and my brain bug out.  JESUS.  GOD.  Angels, and prophets, and disciples.  And the children they lost to miscarriage – he gets to meet them.  Soon and very soon.  And there is NO DOUBT in my mind that Jesus will say to him, “Well done, My good and faithful servant.”  No doubt at all.  JESUS.  He will see Jesus.  That makes me smile beyond the tears.  But then those tears come BACK.  For Joyce.  For Carson.  For Sue.  For Jerry.  For my church family.  For my family.  For me. 

Maybe you remember my entry about winter.  How much I dislike winter.  How much I LOATHE winter.

This has been the best winter of my life!

Thank you, LORD Jesus, for this mild, easy winter.  Thank You for the warm days.  Thank You for the lack of snow.  Thank You for easy-driving, no-mittens-needed, bootless winter. 

We’ve been plugging along.  Six weeks into 2012 we’ve been pushing forward with our school work.  We’ve finished 2/3 of our school book work and only just met the school’s half-way point.  We get to pull back a little, enjoy co-op, plan some field trips, and make room for more play dates.

Winter’s not over yet. 
The school year’s not over yet.
But I feel like we are over the apex of the year and are now on “the other side of the mountain.”

Co-op is fun.  But it is a lot of work for mom.  Preparing class. 
Packing bags. 
Making lunches. 
For kids it is a ton of fun.

Stewart is taking a class, “Slime and Gadgets.” 
He made slime.

 

We don’t do that at home.

I’ll try to get photos of different kids each week. 

We go on Fridays.  Ten of them over the next 13 weeks.

Monday night the kids got to share their work with us at the piano recital.

Marie just re-started piano the first of January, and she was also invited to play.

The theme was, “A Night at the Movies,” and each of the kids played one traditional piece, and one movie theme song.

Marie did a song from Winnie the Pooh.  Nigel did the Cantina song from Star Wars.  Stewart did the Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back.

All the kids did such a wonderful job.  They are all such nice young people and they have a really great instructor.  He is the worship leader for our church and an all around good example for our kids.