Crockpot Chicken Taco Meat

Simple.  Yummy.  Freezes well.

3 T. taco seasoning

1 c. chicken broth

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I use frozen without a problem)

Dissolve taco seasoning in broth.

Put chicken breasts in crockpot and pour broth over them.

Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Shred meat with forks and serve in tacos, burritos, etc.

(I triple the recipe for our family and have enough leftovers for lunch the next day or to freeze for another meal.  If freezing, be sure to include broth,)

Sunset

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Persevero,

Scribe

This is a Must-See Video!

Watching this will take away less than 10 minutes from your life, but it could truly inspire you to rethink the choices you make each day.  Every day the world is telling us what God calls sin is not sin, and Christians like to play with this kind of fire quite a bit.

I love how Pastor Harris emphasizes what God calls us to really know, and it's not all of the details about evil.  It made me reflect not just on my own heart, but also on the hearts of my children.  Am I being as diligent as I should be in turning them away from evil and to good?  Where do all of the daily influences lead?  And what voices am I listening to to determine what is good and evil?  Is it the Word, or do I too easily give in to the thought that other Christians find certain things acceptable and therefore shrug my shoulders and agree that I should, too? 

It's much food for thought, and it's definitely convicting.  As the song says, bondage to sin is most often a "slow fade" as we let our guards down bit by bit.
~Queen Mom

Claire

What fun it is to take pictures with this camera!  I especially love the last one which captures Claire's blue eyes so well.

God's Painting of Our World Today

Check out Scribe's blog to look at some breathtaking pictures......he captured beautifully how God painted our world today..

2010 Reading Lists

"I find television very educating.  Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room to read a book." ~ Groucho Marx

"He who lends a book is an idiot.  He who returns the book is more of an idiot."~Arabic proverb

"Never judge a book by its movie."

~J.W. Hagan

Why did we wait so long to do this?

What is this? Well, this is simply sitting down together and brainstorming about our reading goals for the year and then actually making a LIST.

Is the list to impress or give us the illusion of being smarter than we are?  Hardly.  The purpose of the list is to help us have goals and to actually know where we want to go.  It's about living intentionally and being good stewards of the little time we have. (It's been said that we'll be the same persons five years from now except for the people we meet and the books we read.  Thankfully, God doesn't just leave us to those two things, though....He's sanctifying us day by day.)

I'm terrible about knowing the many books I want to read but then getting distracted by the latest book recommendation, never making significant progress even though I'm always reading something.  And,  though I probably won't get to read every book on my list, I will at least have a focus and most likely be much more productive than I think I'm going to be when I'm just winging it.

Sitting down together and discussing what we wanted to read this year was so much fun.  We encouraged one another and made recommendations (Scribe and Little Big Man especially), and left the table feeling like one of the most difficult things was done (or perhaps making the list was actually the easy part!).  I'm also looking forward to the discussions our readings will provide as we'll be enjoying many of the same books together.

Scribe posted his reading list earlier.  Today I'll post Mountain Man's and then Little Big Man's and my own.

I must say how proud I am of my Beloved for even agreeing to attempt this.....his free time is so scarce.  He will be doing many of his books on audio since he has so much drive time each day (3-1/2 hours).

Personal Productivity

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Memory Mechanics by Gary DeMar

Money Management

The Complete Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

Christian Living/Discipleship

Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Desiring God by John Piper

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

(ahem....Scribe slightly influenced this list :))

Family Life

Shepherding A Child's Heart by Ted Tripp

Your Family God's Way by Wayne Mack

Culture/Politics

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes by Kenneth A. Myers

Glenn Beck's Common Sense

The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield

Is Christianity Good for the World by Doug Wilson

Historical Fiction/Fiction

Witch Wood by John Buchan

St. George for England by G.A. Henty

At Agincourt by G.A. Henty

The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

Classics

The Confessions of St. Augustine

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Biography

Joe Meek the Merry Mountain Man by Stanley Vestal

A Heart Promptly Offered-The Revolutionary Leadership of John Calvin by David Hall

The Journal of Jacob Fowler

Education

When You Rise Up by R.C. Sproul, Jr.

A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille

Philosophy

The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton

History

"1776" by David McCullough

The Battle for Iwo Jima by Robert Leckie

12 Days of Christmas~Tabletop Air Hockey

Our celebration of the 12 Days of Christmas is winding down, and one of our favorite family gifts has been this air hockey game.  After seeing it recommended in Real Simple magazine, I searched for it at JCPenney on-line, but they were sold out.  Then, while shopping at Kohl's, I found it in the store!  I was skeptical that such an inexpensive and miniature game would be durable and fun, but it has brought quite a lot of laughs.  With this illness working its way through the family, I'm eager to see everyone laughing like this once again.

Weekly Rewind 12/27-1/2/10

This past week has almost gone by like a blur, except I do have pictures to remind me of the things we actually did.  Right now we're fighting an unidentifiable bug that's brought a few of us down (in other words, everyone has different symptoms with a few in common).  But, the week started out beautifully as we enjoyed all of the extra time with Mountain Man.

~Monday we enjoyed the River of Lights.  Having our new camera allowed us to capture with exceptional clarity many of the displays.  Don't worry.  If any of our family actually visits us at Christmas, we'll be sure to take you!  (Hmm, it's been over 7 years since we've had family enjoy Christmas with us....)

Notice the absence of sweet Peep from these pictures.  About 20 minutes after arriving to see the lights, Peep broke out into the loudest of cries and continued until I could get her back to the van (about 15 minutes later which felt like about 2 hours because of the crowd  I had to get through and the many people observing that she must not be happy.....ya think?) :)  Scribe was gracious enough to follow me back to the van where we promptly warmed up Peep and fed her, and she was soon her happy self.

~Tuesday evening we enjoyed playing games and talking smack (well, just some of us) with our friends, the Heckendorns.  The children enjoyed playing outside, dressing up, watching some DVDs, and playing games as well.  We managed to leave their abode around 2:00 in the morning and got home almost an hour later because we ran into quite a bit of snow.  Can you believe that, except for Peep, all of our children were awake when we left to go home?

~Thursday we enjoyed spending the evening with our friends, the Radigans.  We enjoyed a yummy dinner together, played games, watched some football (well, the guys did), enjoyed delicious desserts, rang in the New Year, and finally parted about 2:15 in the morning.  Yes, we do have some crazy friends, don't we?  It was lots of fun, and we're hoping to make it a tradition to spend New Year's Eve together.  Here's an especially cute picture of the "pajama group" as they called themselves. (Elisabeth wasn't feeling well and had already fallen asleep.)

~Friday we enjoyed visiting with some friends at their New Year's Day open house, pretty much relaxing the rest of the day.  Yesterday Mountain Man and I enjoyed dinner and a movie.  Today we have a couple of children on the mend while Mountain Man and Scribe are hoping and praying to feel better soon.  Meanwhile, all of us are bracing ourselves for the return to "normal" as we know it, but Queen Mom thinks it might elude us for a bit longer. :)

Great Reads to Start Off 2010

Here's quite a variety of thoughtful posts to help make 2010 a year of more intentional living.  To God be the Glory!


New Year's Questions

Got Goals?

Embrace the Rain

A Beautiful Reminder to Give Thanks Every Day

Beautiful Resolutions

The Kind of Bible Reading Plan I'll be Following

Wonderful Way to Include Readings in Family Worship!

Looking Beyond Today

A Wanted Child

A Tamer Tongue