Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
If my husband and I had a show on Food Network, we’d have to call ourselves the Messy Chefs. We are pro at making a complete mess of the kitchen anytime we cook together.
The kids are starting to get in on the action, and I’ve considered sending Food Network some feedback about the challenges on their shows. Cooking for kids? How about cooking with kids? Now, there’s a challenge.
And it’s one I’ve voluntarily undertaken. Anytime I start preparing food for lunch or dinner, I’ve got two willing helpers instantly at my side.
Sort of like this.
Now, I know someone is going to warn me about the dangers of letting my kids “help” too close to a hot stove.
Trust me; it’s more dangerous if they don’t help. Like yesterday when we were making ratatouille (which I’m pretty sure is French for “everything but the kitchen sink”), I didn’t have much for them to do, so they made their own fun.
A pastry brush became a paintbrush. The meat mallet was a hammer that had to hit everything. (I cringed with every “BANG!”) My favorite, though, was the whisks, which they whisked into guitars. “Guitar, guitar,” Corban yelled as he air strummed through the kitchen.
Anyway, I decided to partially harness this eagerness to help and let Isabelle pick out one meal a week (that’s the goal, at least) that she wants to make.
We used this book:
To make these last week:
Piggy pies, they were called. And the only problem was Corban kept trying to eat the eyes (peas) before they went in the oven. How creepy would blind pigs have been?
They both had a blast, and I think Isabelle enjoyed eating more because she had helped make them.
Of course, this whole experiment requires large extra doses of patience and a frequent letting go of control, both of which do not come easily to me, especially when trying to accomplish a task.
Gradually, we’re letting Isabelle, and Corban to some extent, help more with food prep.
Here, she was helping us make baked hush puppies for Phil’s birthday meal on Sunday.
I love her two-handed method for stirring the wet and dry ingredients.
Cooking with kids isn’t always easy and sometimes we break a few eggs (unintentionally) but for me, it’s more fun to have them helping, even if the whole process takes longer.
Do your kids like to help in the kitchen? How do you let them be involved?
So I’ve been at this weight loss challenge for 2 months now with nothing but gain to show for it. I’ve gained weight. I’ve gained perspective. I’ve gained insight. I’ve also lost some things, too. Desire, motivation, pride.
Besides the actual act of losing weight, I’m struggling right now to make exercise and eating right a priority. We’ve had to — and will have to — make some tough decisions about what’s going to be most important to our family. Exercise is part of it, but in the last two weeks, we haven’t been able to follow through on that. Spending time together as a couple, time as a family, my husband’s last year of seminary, restoring the house to some kind of normal after being gone for two weeks … these are what we’ve spent our time on.
The next two weeks won’t be “normal” by any means — we’re having company; we’re taking a trip to Denver for my cousin’s wedding. I haven’t finished unpacking from the last trip yet and I’m already starting to think about packing for the next one.
I feel like I’m waiting for conditions to be “perfect” for exercise to fit into the routine. I know I’m kidding myself. Life with two little ones will never be perfectly right for making exercise a priority.
Help me out, here. How do you make exercise a priority? What suffers when that happens? What benefits do you get from it?