family

Cranberry salad

Andi

With Thanksgiving here and all the December holidays just around the corner, everyone will be cooking. But what if you aren’t great at cooking? You could just go grab some rolls or a fruit tray from the store and call it a day, or you could mix up the easiest cranberry salad ever made. So if you want to bring a homemade dish to the family gathering but aren’t super successful with cooking, I’ve got the solution for you.

Calling this a salad is a bit of stretch because it is anything but. However, it’s been Cranberry Salad as long as I can remember, so that’s what I’m calling it. My mother used to put this all in a blender and then stick it in the fridge for a day so it came out more like a jelly, but I kind of like the chunks of fruit in it. I open all the ingredients and add all of them to a large bowl.

1 Can Jellied Cranberry Sauce

1 Can Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce

1 Can Fruit Cocktail

1 4oz package Walnuts

1/2 tub of Whipped Topping

Marshmallows (optional)

As I said, my mother would blend this all together but I don’t. It mixes just fine with a spoon. But, and I cannot stress this enough, use a plenty big bowl. If you want to use the pretty bowl that matches the other dishes, mix it in a big bowl and transfer to the pretty bowl when you are finished.

Now, my husband insists it has marshmallows on top. I never remember there being marshmallows and I’m pretty positive he’s thinking of something different, but this sugary bowl can’t get worse with more sugar, so I topped my bowl of “salad” with Marshmallows.

If you’d like to, make a day ahead and leave in the fridge, covered, for 24 hours. It isn’t mandatory, but it does firm up a tiny bit and may be easier to dish out.

This takes a grand total of about 10 minutes from start to finish, and will most likely be a big hit with every child at your dinner. Just be prepared for the sugar rush that’s sure to follow.

family

Christmas Cards

Andi

It’s a beautiful day! Christmas is coming up fast and I decided this year I wasn’t going to ship gifts and everything had to fit into a regular envelope with a regular stamp.

Sidebar: shipping is expensive!! I spent more on shipping gifts than I spent on the gifts themselves. I could not believe how much the cost of shipping was. End Sidebar.

So, to make things still a little special and unique, I decided to make hand crafted Christmas cards. Luckily, I have a friend that does paper crafting and we set a date to bring all of our supplies together and spend the day making cards.

We crammed the table space we had full of stamps and dyes, scissors and glue. Time went by so quickly as we got sucked into our crafting.

We did accomplish our goal. They are not anywhere close to perfect, but they are still pretty cute. More importantly, we, both mothers, got some time together to enjoy each others company.

family

Damnation

Andi

This one is a doozy, so before I get started on it, I want everyone to take a deep breath and stay calm. I say that because people are very touchy about their faith, and tend to become reactionary when you talk about it. I’m not out to anger anyone.

However, I am out to talk about hell. The place of damnation in most Judaic and Christian religions. This is a piece of faith I kind of ignored because I just didn’t want to think about it. It made me uncomfortable. But recently pieces on hell kept coming across my various news feeds and it seemed time to just delve into it.

Growing up, I was taught that hell is a place of eternal damnation, continual torment, fire, anguish, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. We are all sinners, and sin must be punished, so we are all destined for this awful place. That Jesus was the only way to escape this torment. If you were to ask for his forgiveness and recieve his mercy, he would wash all your sins away, and spare you eternal punishment. Most Christians believe some variation of this narrative, so to challenge that a part of it was incorrect would be to challenge the entire foundation of their faith. So I understand anyone who may be uneasy or wary of the idea. I certainly was.

There were two things that made me uncomfortable with this idea of eternal torment for non believers.

The first was the question about people who never heard of God during their time on earth. This could be as result of being remote and secluded from civilization, or infant death, or mental disabilities. What if a child died before they were able to understand salvation? Now, for the people I was around, most of them made caveats for the mentally disabled and babies, but used the remote civilizations as a rallying cry for further missions. We have to take the gospel to them or they will go to hell. They received no caveats. This just did not sit well with me. I could not fathom a loving God never giving them a chance of redemption.

Second was how hell has been used to manipulate and control people by terrifying them. You must do as we tell you, or you aren’t truly saved and probably going to hell. People didn’t come to God or to church because God is loving and supportive, a very present help in trouble. They came to God and Church out of absolute fear of burning consciously forever in a lake of fire.

One piece I read put forth that hell was not taught by Jesus, or the ancient Jews, it was an idea that crept into Judaism from the Greeks during the span between the Old and New testaments. This idea piqued my interest.

So I looked it up. Every time hell is mentioned in the Old Testament and what was the Hebrew word that was used. Turns out, the English words vary depending on the translation you are using, but the Hebrews words do not vary. So the same Hebrew word would sometimes be translated to English as “Hell”, other times as “death” or “the pit”.

The most common word is Sheol. This word is used in the Old Testament frequently. According to ancient Judaism, Sheol is the place of the dead. Not a place of punishment or of reward, just a place you went after you died. This is why it is sometimes translated as “the grave” or just as “death”. When I was young I was told Sheol was synonymous with Hell and the words could be used interchangeably. I remember this being associated with the Proverbs passage about the seductive woman who tempts a young man and it being said her footsteps have taken hold in Sheol. This was always taught metaphorically, usually to shame young kids into abstinence. This woman was promiscuous and led to hell, the same fate is in store for teens who have lots of unmarried sex.

But what if this isn’t metaphorical? What if we take this literally? If Sheol is the place of the dead and she was on her way there could that mean this woman was dying? It’s made clear, she tempts lots of young men. Hygeiene was not much back then, STIs had to exist, and antibiotics did not. Even just a virus would be easy to transmit. It’s in Proverbs 5:5 that says “Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;” And another passage about temptresses in Proverbs 7:27 says “Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” Could this verse mean literally, this woman will kill you? Do you see how that changed the entire meaning of the passage? It still serves as a warning to not succumb to temptation, but instead of eternal damnation as the outcome, death is the outcome.

Next word I came across was Abaddon. This one is a little more tricky. It appears in both testaments, and means destruction, but in the New Testament it is personified as an Angel. So is Abaddon a place of destruction or is it the Angel of Death? I found lots of conflicting info on this. Some believe Abaddon is actually sent by God to hand out his punishment before his return in Revelation. In the verses I found it in the Old Testament it was coupled with Sheol. So it came as death and destructin.

But then I moved on to the New Testament. Not just needing to know what my English translations said, but what the Greek said. So again I looked up the word hell in the New Testament and which word in the orginal language was used. Most references of hell, or specifically, the lake of fire come from Revelations. Entire book series have been dedicated to explaining the end times, so I’m not going to. I am going to let you know what I can dissect from language though.

The first word I came across was Gehennna. I never heard this word growing up, I first heard it in an anime, as an adult. That is because in the KJV, the version I was raised solely reading, it is translated to hell every time. In this case, it may be more appropriate than with Sheol. Gehenna references an actual place. A valley, where people performed child sacrifices. The land was declared cursed and became synonymous with wickedness, understandably. It became the place where the evil were sent, and over time became known as the land of the wicked. Its is simple to see the connection between it and the idea of hell. Only the evil are sent there, cast out and separated from good.

Another word used in the New Testament is Hades. This word is used in the same manner Sheol is used in the Old Testament. This, actually makes a lot of sense to me. Hades is the god of the underworld, and the land of Hades is were the dead are. It’s a station the dead pass through. The idea of a neutral place all the dead go to, aligns with Sheol and even the Greeks idea of Hades’ realm. Now wouldn’t this confirm the piece I read about Greek culture seeping into Judaism? Maybe. But I could also see it as a simple borrow of their language as well. Although in English it may have been changed to hell, I dont think the ancients meant it as a place of punishment.

Then there is the word Tartarus used only once in 2 Peter 2:4. In KJV this verse says, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” In the Complete Jewish Bible, this verse reads as “For God did not spare the angels who sinned; on the contrary, he put them in gloomy dungeons lower than Sh’ol to held for judgement.” And in the Youngs Literal Translation it reads, “For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,” It is usually traslated as hell, like in the KJV though sometimes left as tartarus, as in the YLT. This I do find interesting as Tartarus is the pit Zues trapped the titans in after he defeated them. Where the realm of Hades was the land of the dead, Tartarus was a place deeper, a place only the most wicked were sent to be imprisoned. Even though, this seems to borrow from Greek mythology, it also aligns with the idea that hell is a place reserved only for the most Evil, as with Gehenna, and is a seperate place than Sheol or Hades.

So simply based on the language used in these words we can start to paint a picture. Sheol/Hades is a land where the dead are, neither in happiness or anguish, waiting to be transferred to heaven or hell. And Gehenna/Tartarus is a sereate place reserved only for evil beings.

This brings us to two questions. First being, aren’t believers taken directly from their earthy bodies to heaven when they die? The concept of a realm of the dead kind of contradicts that. And second, is hell then eternal?

For the first, let’s look at the verse so often quoted at funerals and at greiving family members. 2 Corinthians 5:8 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” KJV It is often summarized with a rub on your shoulder as, “you know as the Bible says, absent from the body, present with the Lord.” To try and comfort you about the deceased relative. But if Sheol exists, we are not imemedietly present in heaven the moment we are absent from our earthly forms. The passage this comes from talks about the eternal bodies we will have and how burdensome our earth bound bodies are, so this connection is not hard to make. However, this passage doesn’t ever say were immediately present with the Lord.

Conversely, I think many of even common Christian’s beliefs support the reality of Sheol. In the end times there will be a resurrection and the dead will rise at the trumpet sound. Its pepperd throughout the NT this resurrection of the dead. John 6:40 reads “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” KJV (Notice that little prepositional phrase “at the last day”?) 1 Corinthians 15 is where we get the trumpet sounding from. Verse 52 says, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” KJV the resurrection is taught, and sung about endlessly. But if all the dead are already with God why are they being resurrected? I’ve heard this explained as their spirits are with God but their bodies aren’t and that’s what raises at the trumpet sound. Although I’m not sure people want their old bodies in heaven and if we are given new perfect bodies, we don’t need the ones we’re riding in now.

Now for the eternal question. Nowhere else in all of the Bible is the Lake of Fire, often described as hell, mentioned outside of Revelation. So much of this book is confusing and complicated. Chapter 20 speaks quite bit about this Lake of Fire. Starting in verse 10, “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” And then in verse 14, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” ESV Before this death and Hades give up all the dead and they are judged according to the book (the Lamb’s Book of Life) and then those not found within were also cast into the Lake. This should undoubtedly settle eternal hell right? It does say the devil, the beast and the false prophet are tormented forever and ever, but does not say that about the others. This tiny phrase “their part” in Rev 21:18 leads some to believe that for even the worst of us, the Lake of Fire is temporary “But as for the cowards and unbelieving and abominable [who are devoid of character and personal integrity and practice or tolerate immorality], and murderers, and sorcerers [with intoxicating drugs], and idolaters and occultists [who practice and teach false religions], and all the liars [who knowingly deceive and twist truth], THEIR PART will be in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” AMP Even others draw from the previous chapter that the saints were resurrected before this, and so the dead rising in Revelation 20 would be the non believers who are then judged and punished for their deeds according to the books. “And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades (the realm of the dead) surrendered the dead who were in them; and they were judged and sentenced, every one according to their deeds.” Revelation 20:13 AMP So does this mean only the worst could not be reconciled and had to be sentenced to the Lake of Fire? Several other verses refer to those in torment and state they still refused to repent. Which gives the idea that they had the opportunity to do so.

None of us have been dead, and the end times have not come yet, so all of this is ultimately unknown. But from what we know of God, and what we can learn from the Bible, we can get a pretty solid idea. When we die we kind of hang out in suspension until the ressurection at the end of time, at which point we are judged. The righteous are spared punishment, the other’s sentences are handed down, and some may be punished in the lake of fire, but no one is denied repentance. So according Revelation the lake of fire is real, but I believe it is not a permanent punishment. Only Satan, the beast, and false prophet are tormented forever.

Feel free to share you knowledge and thoughts on this, but again I demand kindness and tact.

family

Rats in the Building

Andi

I watched Seth Meyers new Netlfix comedy special Lobby Baby today. I do recommend. It was funny, and it did make me laugh. Maybe in a way only another parent could do. I liked that they gave people a skip politics button for those of us so burned out by the constant barrage of political news stories every single day. Even though I personally did not use the skip politics button.

But then he made a joke that wasn’t actually that funny. Not that he was being offensive or I was hurt, but because he was making light of an actual incredibly serious topic. Which I get, is his job for the most part, and the reason I didn’t skip the politics section. He makes light of some serious topics and sometimes makes them more digestible. But this was so close to home, it made me pause for a second.

He was talking about pedophiles, and then segued into talking about the Catholic colleges he’s done shows for. You see the connection there?

But it was the next analogy that really dug in. I’m paraphrasing this but He said,

if you found out your favorite restaurant had a rat problem you’d say, I really like you, but I’m not coming back until you get rid of the rats. But when you came back a few months later and asked if they’d taken care of the rats they said, oh yeah! We found 1,000 rats in the dining room, so we rounded them all up and moved them…to the kitchen.

And then he said no more. But the point was so clear and so direct, because this is literally what churches do. And he may have been speaking specifically about the public issue within the Catholic church, but it’s not only the Catholic church with this solution.

I’ll give you a real scenario. Pastor is accused by several girls and women of harrasment and assault, church denies it, women persist, pastor claims he’s being attacked by Satan, eventually resigns only to be moved to a different church in a different state. This has happened and is still happening.

This is a huge problem, but you probably don’t hear about it because churches are really good about keeping it under the radar and convincing congregations that anything they hear are lies from the Devil.

He said, and I will say, its not the members of the faith (usually) who are responsible for this. As I said, when enough raucous is raised the pastor is fired or resigns but then is just moved elsewhere. It’s the leadership of the faith, the denomination heads, the elders of the churches, that need to deal with this.

Seth’s rat analogy could not be more perfect and well laid out. I went from haha he made a joke about his kids toy to oh damn he’s dropping some truth bombs. Because he is right. There are rats in the Christian churches of many denominations, and they need to be dealt with. Not just moved out of your sight, but removed from the building.

family

What’s For Lunch?

Andi

If you’re anything like me, you have probably worried about your kids getting all the nutrients they need to thrive and grow. How do I get them to eat healthy stuff? I’ve actually been surprised by some of the things they will eat, all I had to do was present it to them. Like peas for instance. I don’t like peas, so I never bought them until they were called for in a recipe and my kids ate every last one. Who knew?

I like formulas and structure, so I made one for their lunches. Breakfast is usually a light meal, fruit or scrambled eggs or something such. Dinner they eat whatever my husband and I eat, which is sometimes a big hit and sometimes not so much. Lunch is the meal focused around them and their likes. So of course I hyper focused on it for a while and panicked about their food groups. I had to come up with something that put my mind at ease.

They get a protein, a fruit, a vegetable, a grain, and on occasion a sweet with every lunch. Dairy is usually covered in one of these categories, as would be fats and carbohydrates. Sugars are in lots of other foods we eat so I don’t think they need their own special place on the plate. This covers the food groups pretty thoroughly. We don’t eat exclusively organic, or gluten free food, or stick to a strict diet. For everything in our kitchen I try to buy as close to the source as possible. For instance I only buy meat sourced from farms in the state I live in. This is pretty easy for meat and produce, but I do also buy noodles and canned tomato sauce. I’m nowhere near the point of making my own. We try, but again, we are not a perfect family.

The protein is generally the main course so to speak. Be it a grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets, or a bean burrito. This of course has a lot of variety and options that can change according to what they are into eating at the time. I have not had a problem yet (big YET here) with my children insisting on one specific meal and refusing any other food. Right now, my oldest loves alphabet soup, so we eat that more often. A few weeks ago it was hotdogs. So we mix it up, and they get the variety.

Fruit is pretty much straightforward. I give them a handful of fruit with their meal. I let them pick out the fruit at the grocery store, and they always eat all of their fruit portions. This will change by season and what is available. Bananas though are a staple. We always must have bananas.

Now vegetables are a big variable I am more lenient with. By that I mean I let things slide by as “veggies” when I know they really aren’t. Potatoes are not actually a vegetable, neither are cheese sticks or tomatoes. Corn is a veggie so popcorn totally counts right? My son likes black olives and pickles. So yes, I will serve him cheese stuffed olives and he loves them. They also love hard boiled eggs, and I will serve them an egg with their lunch even though an egg would be a protein. Some actual vegetables they like are peas, like I said before, carrots, green beans, and edamame. My oldest likes peppers and I will feed him those jalapeno poppers, which probably isn’t the healthiest way to eat jalapenos but it’s an excuse for me to eat them too. I still haven’t gotten them to eat broccoli though, so we are definitely a work in progress.

Grains usually come in the form of crackers. Sometimes cornbread or toast, maybe a roll. Nothing fancy by any means.

Now sweets are only for special occasions. Those occasions are I suddenly got an urge to bake 😜 I’ll make cupcakes or cookies and they’ll get a dessert with their lunch for a couple days. This isn’t often as I find sweets addicting, unnecessary and unhealthy. But even I can’t resist cupcakes all the time.

So an example meal I’d serve my children would look something like this: mac & cheese, strawberries, a whole grain roll, green beans, and if it was the occasion, a chocolate cupcake cut in half.

This big thing here is variety and exposure. Keep giving them lots of healthy options, even if they seem stuck on one food. So if your child is stuck on eating alphabet soup every day, serve their soup with some green beans and grapes. Try to get them involved in the food process. Allow them to choose the fruit they want, or the crackers they want. You might be surprised by what your kids will enjoy eating, I know I was!

family

Mister Rogers

Andi

So many adults grew up with Mister Rogers gently singing to them and reminding them they were perfect just the way they were. I was a kid in the 90s, so I got all the reruns, but he was still prominent even then. However, he has impacted me more as an adult than he did when I was a child. With the new film coming out this month, I think talking about him is appropriate.

Fred Roger’s was a musician, an artist, and an ordained minister. His ordination was to minister to children through the medium of television. He apparently was witty and slightly snarky as well if you listen to his family and work mates. He was creative and driven, and worked hard to make his vision come to life. The documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” contains many of these first hand accounts of his gentle character and clever humor.

Mister Rogers never wore a collar or said he was a minister in his show, but his faith drove what he did. He very firmly believed that God made you just the way you are. You didn’t need to change anything. You are worthy of love, because God loves you, and as a follower of God, it was his duty to love you. He believed children were very bright and able to grasp even complex concepts. That they have very strong emotions and should be able to not only express them but know how to process them. Talk about them. Understand them. Your strong emotions aren’t flaws to be subdued, but God made parts of you. So a homosexual was perfect and worthy of love. A child with a disability was perfect and worthy of love. A person of color was perfect and worthy of love. A person of a different faith than his perfect and worthy of love. He displayed this on his show and in his life in the way he treated other people. Always with respect and always with kindness.

He is one of the only people of faith I look up to and desire to imitate. The kind of faith he had is what the world needs. It doesn’t need the anger. It doesn’t need the hate. It needs the powerful love. And a person brave enough to show it.

He is also a model of good parenting in my eyes. Kids need to know their emotions aren’t bad, but they need to know what to do with those emotions. They need to know they are special, the way they are. As parents, we need to be teaching our kids how to process their feelings in a healthy manner. Children should also be given the comfort of knowing they have love for who they are.

It is beyond fathom for me to imagine any person on earth that disliked Fred Rogers, but they existed. He got questioned about his own sexuality because he was soft and talked about his feelings. People said he was evil because he told kids they were special without having to work for it. He was blamed for entitled children. Rumors started that he wasn’t actually a kind gentle man, he was a hardened Marine who was covered in tattoos and killed lots of people. None of these were true, but I find it interesting the worst rumor they could come up with was tattoos and military service. There were enough people that hated him that there were protesters outside his funeral. People said he was going to hell, not because he was gay because he wasn’t, but because he tolerated gays. He told them he liked them, and God loved them, and apparently that is abominable. That’s the kind of man this was. He was hated for loving people.

This shows me two things: that someone is always going to dislike you and how to respond to those that do. Even someone as magnificent and unproblematic as Mister Rogers had people calling him evil. The kinds of people pointing fingers at you may be different, but there will be someone who doesn’t like you. But despite knowing some mocked him or hated him, Mister Roger’s never stopped treating each person he met with kindness. It had to get discouraging at times, and his family has said there were times he’d get upset, but no matter what he’d process the emotion, and step out to the world with a smile and a hug.

He is an example to us of what faith should look like, how to teach children, and how to face with world with grace.

Additions:

I think Tom Hanks is probably the only person, on earth, that could portray Fred Rogers.

I’m sure some people wonder why I love Mister Rogers so much, but I don’t care for Daniel Tiger. Despite the fact the characters are named after Rogers neighborhood friends and his own tiger puppet. I am aware. But the trouble is Daniel Tiger is trying to be Mister Rogers. They are attempting to recreate the magic for a new generation, but they just can’t. No one can. And Mister Rogers Neighborhood doesn’t need to be updated in my opinion. His voice is captivating and his singing is charming. My overly active kids enjoy the original show and pay attention to it as much as any of their other shows. Daniel Tiger is certainly not the worst show, it has some good parts, but it is also lacking in some as well. Perhaps I’m just being biased as well.

family
Andi

We had an instance this morning that I thought perfectly exemplified our choice and consequence we do with our kids.
I got up to make some breakfast and my husband was already in the kitchen getting himself a bowl of cereal. The 3 year old hopped up and asked for some cereal. I told him, “I’m fixing to make eggs and toast. Would you like some cereal, or would you like eggs and toast?” He chose a bowl of cereal. So my husband gave him some and I made eggs for myself and the 1 year old. But when the younger and I were eating the 3 year old decided he wanted my breakfast. He tried taking Bubba’s plate. “But you chose to have cereal for breakfast” I told him.
He had the choice of cereal or eggs, and he chose to have cereal. Even after he changed his mind, he still had cereal for breakfast. He ate and he’s happily playing through his day. Nobody ever raised their voice, nobody screamed, nobody was spanked or disciplined. It was a calm interaction, and a learning experience.
Because we’re trying to teach him to make a decision, be confident in his decisions, and to handle the consequences of his decisions. (And yes, a 3 year old can begin to understand this concept) Right now, its little things, like eating the cereal he chose and not being able to swap with Bubba mid breakfast because he thought Bubba’s eggs looked good. But hopefully we are preparing him for future big decisions.

Art, family

Photograph of Jellyfish

Andi

Another picture I took that I simply adored. I love nature and how incredibly beautiful it is. Nature puts on an artistic display for us to stand in awe of. It’s not all pretty landscapes and picturesque flowers either. It comes in odd shapes and colors, but still striking in it’s own form of beauty.

The other day we went to the aquarium and my children were profoundly fascinated with all the different creatures. The ocean is full of beauty and color and some of the weirdest animals on earth. I particularly liked these jellyfish. They look like they’re wearing frilly dresses. Those big southern bell dresses with petticoats and bloomers. And they were kind and stayed put so I could take their picture. Some of the other fish weren’t so cooperative.

My tidbit to you is to go outside and find something you love, something you find pretty, and take its picture.

family

Pumpkin cookies

Andi

It’s still Fall, and I’ve still got pumpkin! I love a good cookie, and I of course love pumpkin, so I made some Pumpkin Cookies. For these cookies, in addition to the ingredients I also used a mixer, a cookie sheet and non-stick cooking spray, a spoon, spatula, my measuring cups and a glass bowl.

1/2 cup Pumpkin Puree

1 Egg Yolk

2 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice

1/2 tsp Salt

1 1/2 cups Sugar

2 tsp Vanilla

14 tbsp Butter

Preheat oven to 350°. My oven takes its sweet time warming up, so I have to do this right at the beginning or it won’t be warm enough when I need it.

In a mixer or large bowl stir together all ingredients except the butter, flour, and sugar. Once everything has been thoroughly mixed, add the butter, one little bit at a time and make sure it gets good and blended in. Then add 1/2 cup of the sugar, setting the other cup aside for later. Now for the flour, slowly add to the bowl allowing each bit to become fully incorporated. This part is where my spatula comes in handy. You know how sometimes when using a mixer stuff gets stuck up on the side of the bowl and doesn’t get together with the rest of the ingredients? Take that spatula and scrape the sides down to reintroduce it to the mixture. Flour does this a lot. After you’ve gotten all the ingredients made into a dough remove, cover the bowl, and refrigerate for about an hour. This step is not 100% mandatory if you are in a rush, but it does make handling the dough 100x easier.

Once the dough is chilled, remove it and grab that remaining cup of sugar. I spray my cookie sheets with a cooking spray to avoid sticking, in this case, that was a good idea. With a spoon, scoop out a portion of dough, roll it into a ball and dip it in the sugar. I put the sugar into a bowl to accomplish this. Then place on the cookie sheet, press down gently to flatten a tad, and that ball of cookie is ready to go. Repeat until you are out of dough.

Place in oven for 10-13 minutes. Once they get good and baked, remove and let cool, then enjoy!

This batch of cookies is a lesson in following directions. I read the description and it said, “pumpkin flavor that is subtle and sweet”. I thought “What? No! I want powerful flavor. I want the pumpkin to reach out and punch me in the nose!” So I scooped extra pumpkin puree into the bowl and stirred it up. They still turned out okay. They did taste good, and the kids ate them happily. Unfortunately they were incredibly dense and thick, more like a squash bread than a cookie. My kids got it all over their hands and faces because they were sticky. It was a mess. All of this I attribute to my winging the instructions and not simply following the recipe. So follow the directions, cookies don’t need extra pumpkin puree.

family

Don’t Limit Them

Andi

As you might imagine if you’ve read my life posts so far, my home life was very restricted and sheltered. I wasnt allowed to consume any entertainment that wasn’t Christian and because of the type of church we were part of, it had to be from another Independent Fundamental Baptist Christian source. I wasn’t allowed to listen to contemporary Christian music and certainly not secular music. We only had one small 13 inch TV that stayed in the parents bedroom, which was off limits to us. The books I read were monitored. I wasn’t allowed to read Harry Potter because it was demonic and so I convinced myself I didn’t like it. In middle school my mom actually had me removed from a literature class at my Private Christian school because she didn’t like the book. My mom would preview a book she hadn’t read before to make sure it was ok. I never saw the shows the rest of my generation grew up with, the songs everyone else loved or the books they were reading. Any form of entertainment I liked I had to hide, read only at school, watch at friends houses, listen to on the school bus. It defintely made me odd and out of place.

When I started showing an interest in video games, my parents of course went overboard with it. I had a laptop by that time I had bought with my own money and Halo I also bought. My mom got online and read all the backstory and read so deeply into it, she was convinced it was anti Christian and took it away from me. Not to mention it was uncouth and unladylike to play video games. I had to buy anything for myself, but I didn’t have money. So like everything else, it got limited to what I could play at friends houses.

My mother didnt like the “nerd phase” as a whole. She hated sci-fi movies because they gave her weird dreams, and the only reason she’d have weird dreams was because of the devil and she wasn’t about to let the devil into her house. My likes got squashed frequently. About the only thing I could get away with was Doctor Who and that was only because an old missionary friend said he’d watched it as a kid and loved it. So she rationalized it must be ok then.

After I moved out, I got a TV and an Xbox and two games: Halo and Bioshock. I bought Star Wars and LOTR posters and put them all over my walls. I could finally Express myself however I pleased. When I met my husband one of the things we had in common was video games. But he played Playstation, and I played Xbox. So there is proof the two can coexist peacefully 😛 We now have both, in addition to an NES and a Gamecube.

My parents still think it’s simply a phase I’ll grow out of, but it’s been over a decade, I don’t think its passing. I’ve introduced it to my children. One of the first words my son said coherently was Spiderman. So no, I don’t think its passing anytime soon.

Point is, don’t try to limit or shame your child’s interests because you don’t understand why they have them. Even if it is just a phase, they are growing into adults and learning along the way. Don’t inhibit their growth. Let them discover the world and decide what they like and who they want to be.