Pillar of Salt

Hello.  This is Julie blogging today.

Halloween is tomorrow!  At our house that means getting costumes finished, gathered, ect.  This year Jackson is going to be a race car driver, Kate - Queen Victoria, Landon - a football player, Isaac - a soldier, and Jonah - the old man from the movie Up.  When I've got the time, I really do enjoy creating costumes for the kids.  This blog entry is about a lesson God taught me while making Jonah's costume.
So here's the story.
                                                    Glynne found this picture on Pinterest...

and we just knew Jonah had to be this for Halloween.  So, I asked Bryan if he would make the walker part.  Even though he's been really swamped lately, he happily sat down and drew out detailed plans and off he and Kate went to the hardware store.  When I got home later that night, he had the walker done.  Jonah adored it!! Pushed it all over and would not let anyone else touch it.  But...it didn't look like the walker in the picture. 

Pause on that story...and join me in a different one - Lot's wife in the Old Testament.  (I know...bear with me...it'll make sense in a second!)  I've always thought - why didn't she just listen to God?  God told her not to turn around and look back at the city he was destroying or he would turn her into a pillar of salt.  Dumb woman.  How hard is it not to look???  Well...back to Jonah's walker.

I saw the Pinterest picture laying on the counter and the H.S. (Holy Spirit) said, "Do not say it!  Do not say it!  Just keep it to yourself."  Julie: I know it's wrong to say this.  I know it's wrong to say this, but I WANT to make it known.  "You know the walker you made does not really look like the one here in this picture.  I thought it was going to look like this Pinterest one."  Silence.  Bryan:  Quietly.  "Well mine is better because it has wheels."

Ouch.  Why did I have to say that?  Why couldn't I have just kept those words to myself?  Essentially, I was telling God, I don't want to listen to you. I want to do things MY way.

Ok.  Back to the pillar of salt story.  Now I can sympathize with her situation.  It is EXTREMELY difficult to stop doing something when you are downright bent on doing it. I no longer see her as the dumb woman who just had to look.  I see myself.  If God would've said at our kitchen bar that night "You keep on going down this track and I'll turn you into a pillar of salt," I would've been very salty.

It's hard to be presented with our faults, but I'm glad God reveals them.  I believe he does this not to make us feel badly, but just the opposite.  He loves us deeply and wants to make us more like him because he knows we'll be happier. Next time I'm in a situation where I need to exhibit tongue control (living with 8 children and a husband that will be sometime in the next 5 minutes), I will be grateful he cared enough to reveal himself to me - while soaking in the bathtub.  Hey, I know it's crazy but it's hard to find a quiet place to hear God's still, small voice!

                                                              Have a great Halloween!!

Thriller

     A month or so ago, someone from Southwestern College contacted our dance teacher and asked for our funk teams to perform for their first basketball halftime. Unfortunately, we weren't going to have time to perfect a routine, so we decided to do Thriller since it's so close to Halloween! Most of us already knew the dance because we do it for fun almost every year. We joined together our two funk teams and some extra people from our jazz classes and had a blast working it out. 

     Our good friends (you've seen them in many blog posts before), the Gardners, came over to rip apart our clothes for costumes.  

Emma thought we were doing a zombie look... I didn't get the memo. 

Mom bought us candy to eat while costume-making. Annelise's candy had 6 wrappers on one candy! I had to take a picture. 

This is how we show affection. We love to crush each other. 

Annelise was going for a super-girly, babydoll zombie. I love the bow. 

Katie wanted some bloody handprints on her shirt. Kate volunteered to help her out. 

It looked great! 

We made our costumes a week before performing, so now it's time to look at the pictures from the next weekend! 

Zombie make-up time! 

We all had so much fun doing this. We love looking creepy. 

And there you go! Real life zombies. Well, close enough, right? 

Performing the dance went pretty well. We all remembered the steps to the 7 minute dance, which is great! But... I forgot how sticky the gym floor is and almost fell on my face... and I was right in the front. Yeah. It's alright though. I just barely caught myself. 

A friend video taped the whole thing, so if they put it on YouTube I'll put a link up! 

Have a great week!

Jonah - 11 Months

    Time has flown by. None of us can believe that Jonah is already almost a year old. It's insane and a little sad. He's walking around some, and has an awesome sense of humor! I took him on a 20 minute photoshoot yesterday to get his 11 month photos done, and they may be my favorite pictures of him so far!

Go to this link - Jonah's Photos - to check out the rest of the pictures! 

Fall Pinterest Party

    If you are an avid reader of this blog (or just someone who reads it whenever I annoyingly share it on facebook...), you've probably read about our first Pinterest Party with the Nuszs - Pinterest Party #1. We had so much fun that we decided we had to have another one. This time, we wanted to make it a food testing Pinterest Party. And not just regular food. No. The best kind of food. Fall food! That means pumpkin flavored things. Yum. 

 We chose the recipes that we wanted to try and got to work. 

Image from Pinterest 

The first recipe on our list was cauliflower bread. Instead of using flour, you put cauliflower in a food processor - a process called "ricing" - and use it as flour. 

We were pretty bad at following the instructions... and we had to multiply the whole recipe 8 times so it would make enough. It wasn't quite as crispy looking as it should have been, but we all thought it tasted pretty good. 

 Next, I wanted to try pumpkin cinnamon rolls. 

Image from Pinterest. 

I was a little scared after I read the recipe because it sounded like something that could easily be screwed up. 

The recipe called for "foamed yeast". I've never foamed yeast before so I was pleasantly shocked when it actually worked. 

And there's our pumpkin roll! At this point it didn't look very pretty, so I was positive we just wasted all of those ingredients. Despite my discouragement, we powered through. 

This was the first pan that we cut. I know it doesn't look pretty here, but I promise you that our second pan looked very impressive! Ally just didn't get a picture of our nice looking one. 

While Emma and I were working on our cinnamon rolls, Danae was making pumpkin pull-apart bread and pumpkin cupcakes. 

Image from Pinterest

Image from Pinterest 

They had doubts about the successfulness of their attempt at first...

But look how gorgeous it turned out! It looks amazing. 

As you can see, we didn't even get a picture before most of the cupcakes were gone. 

Baking made us hungry. 

Courtney and Jessica teamed up and picked this recipe... 

Image from Pinterest

Unfortunately, some ingredients got left out, and we ran out of butter, so we tried substituting with oil. It didn't turn out well. 

For being our only "failure", it was delicious! When it cooled down, it became more fudgy and less soupy. All we had to do was put some ice cream on top and it was gone within 20 minutes. 

We took a break from baking (and eating) to watch some movies and paint our nails. While this was happening, our creations were in the oven. 

Emma and I finished up our cinnamon rolls at...

Yeah... It was rather late.  We ended up not even really using a recipe for the icing. 

After staying up and watching movies until 2, we fell asleep. 

  

The next morning we woke up, and ate leftover cinnamon rolls and bread for breakfast.

I thought the cinnamon rolls were delicious! Ally said they had a weird texture, but she didn't even help so her opinion doesn't matter. 

Just kidding! 

It counts. 

But only partially. 

We are already making plans for a Christmas Pinterest party! 

Hopefully, it will include more food... 

I like food. 

Have a great week! 

Dad's Birthday!

     Yesterday was Dad's 42nd birthday! He's not the type of guy that enjoys large parties, so we invited some close friends and his parents over to eat chili (that he made) and pecan pies (that Emma made). It was yummy. 

Almost every year, Dad either gets a pumpkin pie or pecan pie for his "cake." 

Kate made him a really cute card that we all signed. 

Jonah is at the age where he reaches for other people's food, and if you don't give it to him he cries. Luckily, he's still adorable so we love him. 

Ally's been taking an art class at the high school, and they were assigned to make a portrait of a celebrity. So she decided to make a portrait of Dad's favorite president, Ronald Reagan, for his birthday present. 

 It is amazing. I mean, AMAZING. Worthy of being both capitalized and italicized. So that's pretty amazing. 

After opening presents, Annelise Gardner and I did a little concert for my Grandma. We've been working on a couple songs together for fun. Carol and Jasmine, the Gardner's college friend, wanted to sing too, so we started singing Gravity in 4 part harmony with Annelise on the piano. It was so much fun! We had to stop after a while because Jonah had to go to sleep, but it was awesome while it lasted. 

Quickly, I want to share something that happened about 30 minutes ago. Mom, Landon, and I were talking about how tall he is getting. I'm estimating that he will be as tall as I am within a year and a half. I am so not ready for that! 

Anyway, Mom challenged Landon and me to race down to the mailbox and back. I declined. There's no way I'm going to lose a race to my little bro. Not yet. I have my dignity. 

So, Mom said she'd race him herself. She was super confident she could take him... 

She started off well. 

Here we are waiting for them to get back to the finish line. 

My hair got all up in their faces. Not the best picture. 

Landon beat Mom by a TON. He even took a little break at the mailbox before heading back. Oh, and Mom even tried to cheat by grabbing him and holding on. 

Do you see those two tiny, white specks in the left top corner? Yeah. The front speck is Mom. Losing. 

When she finally crossed the finish line, all she could say was that she forgot what a long way that was.  Now she has to live knowing that her son can finally beat her at something! It's ok though. She had a really good attitude about it. She loves to win, but she's also really good at losing, which is a great trait!  Lots of people aren't good at losing. 

Good job, Landon!