We have reached the part of January that I have been dreading. Andrew is out of town this week. He is in Ft. Lauderdale at a continuing education conference. I REALLY miss him already!!! I will see him shortly Saturday night and Sunday. (Hooray! 🙂 ) Then he has to leave on Monday for another conference in Hot Springs (Boo-hoo!) and will be back on Wednesday the thirty-first. Absence makes the heart grow fonder!  I have taken off work an extra week to stay home and take care of the kiddos, and Alesia is coming to help out for a couple days next week so I can return to teaching! I am excited to begin teaching again too!

Friday I made this delicious chocolate mousse! It is so easy to make too! Melt about eight ounces of milk chocolate with half a stick of butter. Temper four egg yolks with some of the warm chocolate, then add it to the chocolate. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Make some whipped cream using a quarter cup of sugar and two cups of whipping cream. Then fold in about half to three-quarters of the whipped cream into the chocolate. Save the rest of the whipped cream for topping! It’s heavenly!!

The weather has warmed up here, and we have enjoyed being outside the last couple of days. Yesterday I took the kids to the park. We enjoyed playing outside and running off excess energy!

We ate lunch at Chik-fil-A, one of David’s favorite places to go. Not necessarily because of the food, but because of the playground and the ice cream. 🙂 So after he ate his lunch, (because I always tell him he has to eat his chicken nuggets before he can play or have ice cream) he played some more and then had ice cream. Emma’s not quite old enough to enjoy the Chik-fil-A slides, but she sure did love the ice cream! 🙂 We then took a trip to the pet store, where the kids loved looking at all the animals. The Pet Co store we go to has a good variety of animals. They have fish, snakes, lizards, turtles, spiders, birds, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, and rats. David has always loved going to see the animals, and Emma is starting to enjoy it too.

We had a good worship service at church this morning. I played a peppy prelude that I hope you will enjoy listening to on my worship music archives page!

I made a delicious baked ziti for dinner tonight! We had plenty left over, and I packaged it up into smaller containers and put it in the freezer. I love having meals ready to go in the freezer! Here it is, Baked Ziti recipe

Here is our menu for this week!

Mmm… Delicious!

Monday: Lunch, Polish sausage and Navy beans with green peas. Dinner, Steak, baked potatoes and spinach salad.

Tuesday: Lunch, Ramen stir fry. Dinner, Tacos.

Wednesday: Lunch, Steak salad. Dinner, Parmesan-panko chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Thursday: Lunch, Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and fruit.  Dinner, Pizza and salad.

Friday: Lunch, Steak Fajitas. Dinner, Spaghetti Carbonara. 

Saturday: Lunch, Cheeseburgers and Chips. Dinner, Baked Ziti. 

I also have some sad news.  It’s not my story to tell, but I will share what pertains to me and from my perspective. I got word after church that an uncle has passed away. Technically he is my dad’s uncle, but growing up we always thought of them and called them uncle and aunt. I always thought of their kids as cousins. Their daughter and I were particularly close. We spent a lot of time together during holidays and I even went on a few trips with their family as a youth. When I was very young, uncle Frank would often jokingly tease me. He would ask me if I could count to ten yet. For a while I would actually begin to count to ten, and he would somehow mess me up or make it seem like I had messed up. Ha ha! After a while I got smart and when he would ask me if I could count to ten I would say yes, and walk away! It was our thing. 🙂  Uncle Frank will be missed! I will be attending his funeral later this week. Please help me pray for comfort and peace for his family.

Peace,

PK