You should really make these

But only if you like chocolate.

Take one brownie mix.

Prepare according to package directions and pour into pan.

Unwrap your favorite individual chocolates.

I have a thing for Dove. Greg keeps me stocked year-round. :)

I used caramel.

Press the chocolates down until they are even with the batter:

Bake as directed on the box.

Can't even tell there is a little surprise in there, can you?
Oh, but there is.
Enjoy.

And try to share.

Your family will thank you.

Just make sure they brush their teeth reeeeeally good. :)

More on Easter 2008

Note to self:

Don't wait until after church, after lunch, and after egg hunting to take pictures. You know where that puts you ?

Nap time.

I'd say these turned out pretty well, considering I learned this lesson by experience!

I mentioned earlier wanting to share about our Pastor's Easter sermon.

He read from John chapter 20 when the women had come to the tomb and found it empty. All but Mary had left. She didn't realize she was talking to Jesus; she thought he was the gardener.

The key verse was this one:
"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" John 20:15a

Bro. Bryan made some very good points stemming from these two questions.

He said if you don't have Jesus as your Savior, it is easy to know why you weep. You weep because you have no peace.

Saved people should have no need to weep in despair, but we should weep for 2 other reasons:
1 - weep for the lost
2 - weep for joy for what Jesus has done for us.

The 'whom seekest thou' should be fairly easy to guess what the answer should be.
There is nothing this world has to offer that is worth our time, attention, and devotion more than Jesus.
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33

WFMW - My new favorite children's book

If you have young children, you must get this book:

The Jesus Storybook Bible - Every story whispers his name

I borrowed it recently from our Library, and I love it so much I will be buying a copy to keep for our kids forever and ever.

It is not a substitute for the Bible, but a wonderful extra to have. It contains 44 Bible stories, retold in beautifully descriptive, yet simple language, and vividly illustrated. Woven into each story is God's plan to rescue his people through Jesus.

Some excerpts:

From the introduction -

"There are lots of stories in the bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them....
at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle - the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture"

From the time God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac -

"Many years later, another Son would climb another hill, carrying wood on his back. Like Isaac, he would trust his Father and do what his father asked. He wouldn't struggle or run away. Who was he? God's Son, his only Son - the Son he loved. The Lamb of God."

From when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments -

"But they (the Israelites) were wrong. They couldn't do it. No matter how hard they tried, they could never keep God's rules all the time. God knew they couldn't. And he wanted them to know it, too. Only one Person could keep all the rules. And many years later God would send him - to stand in their place and be perfect for them. Because the rules couldn't save them. Only God could save them."

EVERY story is like this. Every story points to Jesus and our need for him. Our Rescuer. The chapters on the crucifixion and Resurrection do this beautifully. Simple language, but very well-said.

Again, there is no substitute for the Bible, even for kids, but to reinforce Bible stories and to help give your kids the Big Picture of the Bible, this book is wonderful!!

Be sure and go see What Works for others!

(P.S. Yes, this was originally posted in March... but in March I did it incorrectly and it never made the WFMW lineup. Oops! So I'm trying again!) ;)

T'was the night before Easter...

This "taking my kid to the doctor" thing seriously eats into my blogging time! Alan had an appointment today, which meant getting ready and going to bed early last night, leaving at the crack of dawn this morning, and then being gone allll day.

But I'm not complaining. No sir, not one bit.

He's so worth it. :)

But still... no blogging time. And I have so much to blog about!
I have all sorts of things for show & tell about Easter.

Like pictures of the boys in their matching outfits.

And the wonderful sermon our pastor gave.

But I'm going to start with this:

We were invited out for a family barbecue Saturday night, and my Aunt and Cousin put together an egg hunt for the kiddos. With lots of eggs. And every egg was filled with candy!

I hadn't really ever thought of it before Saturday, but Dale had never been on a 'real' egg hunt.
We've hidden a few eggs in our own backyard for him, but he's always the only hunter, and the eggs are always empty.

So Saturday night was a first for Dale.

And....well ...he sort of missed the idea, bless his heart.

Here's what happened. PawPaw got one big, unique, fancy egg and hid it himself.

The kiddos lined up for the hunt, and PawPaw told them about The Prize Egg. Explained how it was the only one, and whoever found it would get a special prize.

And Dale, he had his eyes on The Prize, you could say. And on the prize only. Here they are right after "on your mark, get set, go":

See? Focused. From the get-go.
Now. There are some things you need to watch for in this next video. I want you to notice:
#1 - Dale's sweet little cousin. This ain't her first rodeo. OR her first egg hunt. That girl is on a mission.
#2 - Can you count how many times Dale shouts "Prize Egg"? I can't. It's a lot.
#3 (and most importantly) - Watch what happens when Dale picks up a yellow egg and shouts "Is this The Prize Egg?!?!??" Sweet Cousin (without EVER LOOKING UP) says, "no, it's not!".
Watch what Dale does then:


Yes.

He took the egg OUT OF HIS BASKET and PUT IT BACK DOWN.
Because it wasn't The Prize Egg.

Go ahead. Watch it again.

Bless his heart.

This went on for the whole. egg. hunt. If he shouted "PRIZE EGG!" once, he shouted it 47 times. But he appeared to have a blast, even if he didn't go home with The Prize Egg (the prize was $1, by the way), and he did manage to end up with a decent number of candy-filled eggs (even after he and Sweet Cousin hid and hunted and re-hid and re-hunted together about a half a dozen times).

And I so hope you ignored the crazy woman behind the camera shouting sophisticated things like "Just pick up a bunch of 'em" and "Get 'em ALL Dale."

I don't know her.

I've been shopping again. :)

What a splendid treat! Mom and I got to do a little shopping today, just the two of us!

Together! Shopping! With no kids!

It was magnificent.

The main objective was to get summer church-clothes for Dale and find (hopefully matching) Easter outfits for the boys. Even though Alan won't be going to church, since we are supposed to keep him out of public for as much as possible for the first 3-6 months after transplant. But I still want to dress him up and take pictures and all that. :) I also figure this will be the last time I will be able to dress them in matching clothes. Dale still fits into a 5T, which is often on a rack with things all the way down to 24 months, which is what Alan wears. Once Dale grows out of 5T, by the time Alan catches up with them, I imagine he will be too old to want to dress like his little brother! :)

So.... off we went.... shopping.

Our first store was the last place I had found success in shopping for Dale, and it was a great disappointment. As was store #2.

It seems that little boys don't wear pants to dress up anymore. All I wanted was a pair of khaki pants and a pair of navy pants, with a few shirts to match. Was that so much to ask? Apparently so.

Most of the dress-up stuff was short sets! Well, there was that one rack of pants for $36 a pair.

No thank you. Greg and I don't pay that much for our pants. Why would I pay that for a pair that isn't even 3 feet long?!

But then there was stop #3. Bingo!

Not only did I find very nice khaki & navy pants for half the price of store #2, plus two different matching shirts for the boys (one set was even 40% off!)....

but I also found...

Winter. Clearance.

Brace yourselves.....

I brought home 13 winter items for Dale for under $35!

Several shirts, 3 pair of pants, 2 two-piece sets (corduroy pants and a heavy shirt to match), 1 three-piece outfit (sweatsuit), and a jacket.

Get out!

I was SO excited! I presented Dale with about half of it when we got home, and the rest I hid away as surprises or birthday or Christmas gifts for later. Between the winter stuff he saw today and the new summer church-clothes and the new summer shoes I also got, he had a blast!

So for those of you interested... let this be your reminder.... the time is right to find winter stuff on clearance. Go shopping!! And pay a 1/3 of the price you would find yourself paying next October. :)

*However.., I wouldn't recommend doing your heavy-duty clothes buying trip on the same day as a big grocery trip 2 days before a big Sunday Dinner holiday. Go ahead....ask me how I know. And yes.... we're exhausted! But it was oh-so-worth-it! :)

What We've Been Up To

I'm going to try to do this in a few words as possible, because my blog posts keep getting longer and longer. Soooo....

Monday - we wanted to get out and enjoy some spring weather before it rained for 2 days straight. We headed out to my parents' land. I wanted to find something cool like this or this, but we mostly just dodged thorn bushes. What can I say? We're amateurs. ;) Dale took it all very seriously though, and seemed to enjoy himself. At one point he plopped down on a fallen tree and asked me to take his picture "on this log". I'm not sure where the crossing his arms across his chest came from. I think that's a first - him striking a pose for a picture!

Even though we didn't make any grand discoveries it was nice to get out and just be outside. I think when all the mud dries up (in a month or two!?!) we'll go again. And pack a picnic this time! :)

Tuesday:
Last week Greg looked at me and proclaimed (out of the blue), "I just thought of the perfect gift for you." Tuesday he handed me a sweet card, and inside the back of the card was taped this:
Next to it he had written "Call Sam".
What an exciting gift! I felt all fluttery!
I 'met' Samantha just over a year ago online through Liver Families, a forum for parents of children with liver disease. She has been a tremendous friend this past year, and I adore her 2 girls. In fact, it was Sam's blog that inspired me to start one of my own!

Anyway, Sam attempted to call me several times throughout the 7 weeks we were away for Alan's transplant and I...uh... well.... I kept forgetting to send her the phone numbers for wherever we were staying that week.

Anyway....
After emailing about the gift, I sat down yesterday afternoon to call at our arranged time, and it was So. Much. Fun.

Oh yes, have I mentioned Sam lives in England?

It was amazing to be talking 'live' with someone for the first time, and to know she was so far away! I could go on and on, but I don't think I could ever accurately put it all into words.

At least not while attempting to keep this post short. (ha)
I'll just say again, it was So. Much. FUN!! :)

Other events from yesterday were not so fun.

Just after lunch Alan was pulling up to stand and slipped and bit his bottom lip.
On the inside and out.
Ouch.
And it bled. And bled. And bled.
And no wonder: the child is on ASPIRIN as part of his post transplant meds.

And then?
Several hours later we were all in the kitchen getting ready for supper and Alan was playing under his highchair.
He tried to stand up.
And was too tall.

And he fell back down.
And bit his top lip.
And it bled. And bled. And bled.

And then it swelled to match the other one:
It didn't seem to bother him too much. We all sat down to eat and he had a great time.
I was afraid his mouth would swell shut, what with both lips about to meet in the middle, but he did just fine. He's pretty good with a fork. He usually prefers to eat with one instead of just his fingers.
Look at him go:

Later we watched him spear carrots.
It went like this:
Fork in right hand. Stab carrot.
Use left hand to remove carrot from fork and put carrot into mouth.

Whatever floats your boat, kiddo!

(so much for a short post)

Works For Me Wednesday - Germ control

Even though we are getting to the end of cold & flu season, there are always plenty of germs floating around. Who hasn't had a "summer cold", or been bitten by a nasty stomach virus at any time of year?

We decided to eliminate the hand-towel from our bathroom. Even changing it as often as once a day, it can still get loaded with little germs from little (or big) hands that didn't get as clean as they should while washing.

Paper towels were a good replacement at first, but thy were bulky and seemed wasteful.

So here's what we do instead:

I bought a cheap-o pack of 30 washcloths for $5. One hand-drying per washcloth ensures no sharing germs. I bought white so they can be bleached every other wash or so.

Dale (4) folds them after they've been washed (which works double for me - it's a great chore for him, and one less job for me!) and we keep them stacked in a basket on the bathroom counter. 30 washcloths for the 3 of us that wash our hands in the bathroom last about 3 or 4 days. There is usually a need for a whites load by then anyway, so this doesn't even cost me an extra load of laundry!

A simple solution for less germ spreadage works for me!

Visit here for more WFMW tips. :)