A Small Snippet

in case you are wondering, i checked “yes!”

and my Valentine also surprised me and the kids with these:
we have always been pretty big fans of fruity candy around here. we can take or leave chocolate, for the most part. but we have always had some sort of fruity, chewy candy lying around. well, since our food changes, all that candy quickly found their resting spot either in the mouths of the hub’s bible study boys or in the trash can. there have been moments where i have craved a lemonhead, or a giant chewy nerd, but i am learning that cravings quickly pass, and i’ve been able to deal with it without it being a big deal!

but when the hubs brought these home yesterday, i about flipped my lid!!

the thought never even crossed my mind that we could find some candy without refined sugar!! so when he happened upon this ingredients list, full of only fruit, he couldn’t resist! he sure knows the way to my ♥!!

he found them at a health food shop a couple beaches over, so he decided to bring me back there to pay them a visit to see what other kinds of treats we might find. and right next door is a special frozen yogurt shop, so after school, we took the crazies on a special trip to get some frozen yogurt.

its not exactly on our list of “all natural foods” but this particular place uses only organic ingredients, including organic cane sugar (which at least eliminates GMO). we let them choose their flavor, and add in whatever fruit they wanted, while staying away from the other toppings. so even though we broke a “rule,” we didn’t feel one ounce bad about it and enjoyed our special treats! it was a holiday, afterall! it was a good trade too…a much better option to have organic frozen yogurt with fruit than all that Valentine’s candy they came home with! they didn’t even miss not having the candy. score!

that shop also happens to be in the same exact part of town where jake and i had our first date, and then where he later proposed. as we looked out over that same beach where all that initial “magic” happened, guess what we saw??

i’ve told you this before, but on that same beach, in that same spot, the night of our first date, there was a rainbow just like this one from yesterday. we saw that as a Promise from Him…a confirmation of His blessing. and then the night of our rehearsal, just a little ways down that beach, God gave us another rainbow over the ocean as we practiced our vows and prepared for our life to begin together. we like to think that He gave us this one yesterday too, as a special Valentine’s Day reminder, of His Promised Blessing of Love!!

i like to think that Jake and I have a pretty cool love story. i might tell it to you one day. its unique, to say the least. (think: teacher and student…that’s all i’ll give you for now and with it being Valentine’s Day and all, you can’t help but to reminisce on your own love story….

but what if i told you a better love story than any you’ve ever heard? one that is personal, and calls for a massive celebration, far better than chocolates and fancy dinners or all natural fruity candy??

take a look at this book…and keep reading, cause it represents something beyond what you can see in this picture:
say this book represents Jesus’ life. everything in it is a detailed description of His life…every word spoken, every thought thought, every action or deed, every feeling…everything!

according to God’s Love Letter to us (aka: The Bible), we know that everything written in that book with Jesus’ name on it would be perfect. not one single detail would be less than perfection! no sin, no bad word, no judgemental feeling, no angry deed, etc…

now…take a look at this:

say that this book represents my life. everything in it is a detailed description of my life…every word spoken, every thought thought, every action or deed, every feeling…everything!

i won’t go into detail, but lets just say…if you read the first paragraph, maybe even the first sentence, you would not be my friend, you would not keep reading this blog, and you would think i’m just down right rotten…to the core.

i’m not joking. you really would. i promise.
its filled with crap. i’m full of it. and i’m not just saying that. ask the hubs…or the crazies. just the other day, bella said to me, “mommy…even when you are the meanest mommy ever, i’ll still love you for fifteen hundred years…” she knows the real me…you only see a small snippet. so just trust me for a minute…

the comparison of these two stories, these two lives, couldn’t be more different. on the one side, you’ve got perfection. on the other side, you’ve got just about everything less than perfect.

in fact, the Bible says that i’m not the only one who falls short of perfection. it says that we all fall short. there is no one who is perfect…not even one. and that even our attempts to be “good” are full of filth…and are not enough (Romans 3:10, 23, Isaiah 64:6)

which puts us in quite a predicament, because we have a God who is in charge who demands perfection. and WE CAN’T DO IT!!!

that might make you feel hopeless. it should. we are a desperate people.

BUT….

that’s the very place we need to be to be able to really hear the rest of this Love Story…

2 Corinthians 5:21 (my all time favorite verse ever)

“God made Him, who had no sin, to become sin for us…”

Jesus…who had no sin, who was perfect, becomes sin for us…
takes off his covering…
detaches Himself from His perfect life that He lived…

and replaces my covering with His. in doing so, He takes all the credit for my life…everything written in my book now becomes His…
and He stakes His name to my life. and He takes credit for my junk. and then deals with the consequences for me…

by dying…in my place…with my junk on Him…because of one reason and one reason only…

BECAUSE HE LOVES ME.

i don’t deserve it. i didn’t do anything to earn it. its simply and only BECAUSE HE LOVES ME. I have a Daddy who knows i’m hopeless…and wants to RESCUE ME.

that’s quite a LOVE STORY…but that’s only half the story…

this next part is my all-time favorite. its what changed my life.

2 Corinthians 5:21

“…so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”

after taking credit for my life, and suffering the consequences for it, Jesus keeps going…

He then takes my covering…the one He took off to replace with His…

and puts it on His book….His life…
and gives me credit for it.

see…Jesus didn’t just die for me…He lived for me!!! He lived the perfect life that I couldn’t, and then gives me credit for it…

so now I am declared perfect, and seen by God as if I had lived Jesus’ perfect life. which means that when God looks at me, I have a new covering….and that covering declares me perfect…as if i had never sinned…as if i have NO junk…
That’s how God sees me…

“God made Him, who had no sin, to become sin for us, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness (perfection) of God!!”

2 Corinthians 5:21

do you see that?? its true! and the best news is that ITS COMPLETELY FREE! we don’t have to do a darn thing to earn it. as soon as we believe its true, all is said and done!! FOREVER! never to be lost…never to mess up.

Jesus Himself said it best…some of His very last words as He was dying were,

“It is FINISHED!”

John 19:30

We lost it all,

He did it all,

We get it all!!!

FOREVER AND EVER!

i don’t know a better love story than that!!

source for print

this LOVE STORY is the truest love story you will ever hear, because its a Love Story about you!! its personal. its for you…and me. and it changes lives, and hearts.

so as we reflect on celebrations from yesterday, Valentine’s Day, we can also celebrate how very deeply LOVED we really are!

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love how sweet and girly Bella’s turned out:
and we laugh everytime we look at Canaan’s:
i found both of these ideas here.

the hubs had the brilliant idea of picking me up some boxes from the Post Office, since we didn’t have any spare ones lying around. apparently those new flat rate boxes are free. i’m sure they expect that you are actually going to use them to mail something, and then pay the rate, but who says you can’t use them for Valentine’s Boxes? they were the perfect shape and size. (but don’t go telling your Post Office that i told you so…they might start to get mad if they knew i was sending everyone in tarnation out to the PO to use their “free” boxes!!)

i happened upon a great sale at Hobby Lobby, and picked up multiple pieces of scrapbook paper so the crazies could customize exactly how they wanted their boxes to look. i have a thing for scrapbook paper!! that aisle just sucks me in, and i can’t seem to walk away without multiple pieces, especially when there is a sale going on!! there are just way too many uses for it!!

the whole project took me a just a tad longer than i wanted, because we kept changing our minds on what kind of paper to use, and we had to cut out the names multiple times. don’t you despise having to cut letters that have an inner part, like “A’s”? those inner parts kill me!!

but overall, this was a super simple project! and i had a little more time to spend on it, considering i’m taking the way easy way out this year with our actual Valentine’s cards. since we are in new schools this year, with different kiddos, i figured why reinvent the wheel? we loved these Pop Rock Valentine’s that we made last year, so we are just going to make them again!!

see here for the original post and the printable!!

Happy Valentine Crafting,

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a few things to note:

(Ezekiel bread with all natural PB, banana and apple slices, and raisins, sugar snap peas, apples)

100% whole wheat pasta with butter and parm cheese, sugar snap peas, strawberries)

(triscuits, hummus, carrots, unsweetened applesauce, and strawberries)

(homemade mac n cheese=seriously SO good, and takes just about the same amount of time to make as that blue box of Kraft, broccoli from our garden, strawberries)

and some snacks:

(popcorn popped on the stove in Olive oil = SO GOOD! sprinkled with a little popcorn salt)

(triscuits, popcorn, cheese, nuts, sugar snap peas)

we also eat alot of muffins and cookies made with whole wheat flour for snacks.

dinners:

(spinach and swiss quiche with homemade whole wheat crust)

(spicy thai noodles, recipe here, with vegetable oil eliminated, and only 1 tsp of red pepper flakes)

(asiago pasta, recipe here, minus the chicken, and fried zucchini chips breaded with whole wheat breadcrumbs)

(spinach and cheese pizza with homemade whole wheat crust)

(homemade crock pot refried beans…)

(added to nachos…)

(served with a side of cilantro lime quinoa)

(refried beans served as leftovers the next day in quesadillas)

Desserts:

along with the Peanut Butter Cups, we’ve enjoyed:

(berry smoothies with flax and wheat germ, topped with homemade honey vanilla whipped cream)

(and the yummiest, healthy apple crisp, also topped with homemade whipped cream)

i will come back and share these recipes with you when i’ve got some time. hope this is inspiring in one way or another!

and…i must note…i realize that none of these meals have meat. to clarify…we are not vegetarians. we like meat. we eat meat. i cook meat. but we are trying to only buy organic meat, and its expensive, so we don’t cook with it all that often. and on this particular week, i happened to not cook any.

on that note, does anyone know where i can find good organic lunchmeat? any specific brands you know of? we have great grocery stores here, but the deli counters don’t have any organic options. my family likes to have ham and turkey sandwiches, but i have been unable to find any lunchmeat without sugar, additives or preservatives, and we’d prefer to only buy organic meat if possible. any tips would be appreciated!!

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