You know I love you
As I rush round the kitchen
Dinner will be good.
Start with the turkey
Cranberry sauce, whole berry
Sugared, buttered yams
Oops! Still need dessert
What about the slow cooker?
I’ll make a cake there!
Such a good dinner
Lots of work, lots of dishes
I had fun cooking
I’m thankful for you
My family whom I love
Big meal’s no problem
* Click on the image to visit more of the Haiku Fridays participants.
I believe this photo was taken about 15 years ago, in our living room, looking out to the west of the house. In the back row, left to right, we see Sarah (7 years old), Michael (6 years old) and Philip (9 years old). In the front row we see Kayla (4 years old), Laura (7 years old) holding Rebecca (almost 1 year old) and Debra (2 years old). I’m estimating here; do you children think I’m right?
Rick was looking through some of the old photo albums and came across some of these reminders of precious days gone by.
Here’s another fun photo:
We had a large dirt pile that the children loved sculpting into rivers and roads.
Have I ever mentioned that we used to raise a couple dozen chicks every so often so that we could have fresh eggs? The older children helped with the chicken chores. Philip was especially good with the chickens. Here you see him with a TAME pet chicken:
(Image from Snapshots of Joy)
In the sermon this morning, our pastor expounded on Psalm 95. Verses 6 and 7a of that psalm say:
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.
For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand . .
After listing many of the good gifts of this life for which people are thankful, he reminded us that we should be most thankful for God Himself. The Lord, Yahweh, is our Savior from our sins, who provides for us a way of escape from the the deserved suffering of His wrath against all wickedness. He is our Good Shepherd. Christ says of Himself in John 10:11:
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
(Here’s another lovely image from Snapshots of Joy. It looks “harvest-y”, so appropriate for a Thanksgiving post.)
Since I have started working outside the home five hours per day, I have REALLY missed the time I used to spend in the kitchen. Did I mention how much I LOVE to cook and bake? So, when we got home from our Thanksgiving Day worship service, and after a quick lunch and popping the turkey in the oven for dinner tonight, I decided to have fun with a dessert. I selected a Land O Lakes recipe for Caramel Apple Pudding Cake. The recipe is available here. The only changes I made to the recipe were:
I’ll let you know how it turns out, but, like I said, I’m having a great time in the kitchen. This is my FUN, and I’m thankful to have the time today to do some experimentation.
Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Our pastor has done a funny post on his blog about Thanksgiving foods and traditions which he finds to be either UNDERRATED or OVERRATED.
I would estimate that I’m about a year old in this photo. Don’t you just love the stroller?
In this photo, where I’m about 2 years old, I’m with my Grandpa Schmitz, my dad’s father.
This photo is of my mom and me, taken when our family lived in Flagstaff, Arizona. I think I was four or five years old in this photo. I really enjoyed Flagstaff, since you really experience the changing seasons there, including getting lots of snow in the wintertime. This was all new to me at the time, since I was born in Phoenix, of desert-y dryness. In the winter, one might need a sweater, but not a coat.
While we lived in Flagstaff, my dad once built us an “igloo” of compacted snow, and took us sledding near our home. That was very special to a child used to the desert. 🙂
In a recent post, I told you a few things about my wonderful friend, Merry. Here’s a cute photo, taken during our latest visit, of the two of us enjoying a spot of tea.
Traveling is uncomfortable for Merry now, but in previous years, she and Ken would travel north to visit us a couple times of year. The children so looked forward to those visits, not just because they would get to see Ken and Merry, but because of all the goodies Merry would bring, such as doughnuts, root beer, lunch meat, cheese, and home canned fruit. So, when three of the older children and I went to visit Merry this time, we brought some goodies to her: Black Forest ham, sliced Muenster cheese, croissants, and some fancy cookies. But the best treat of all was the opportunity to visit with a good friend once again.
This image was composed by Abigail at Snapshots of Joy. She makes her beautiful handiwork available to other bloggers at no charge, so long as they link back to her.
Thank you, Abigail!
As long as I’m at it, here’s another graphic I like: 
And just one more (Aren’t they lovely?): 
The following succinct bit of wisdom is from Day By Day Grace by Bob Hoekstra:
Many Christians do not characteristically live by receiving God’s grace. Many attempt to live victoriously by merely doing the best that they can by their own human resources. They hope to achieve victory step by step. This will always prove inadequate, because victory must be received from the Lord. “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).
“Give and receive” is the language of grace (which depends upon the work of God). “Earn and achieve” is the language of law (which depends upon the work of man).
