Silly me

I was cleaning out Luke's closet yesterday and found something there amongst the stuffed animals piled on the shelf-a Webkinz!

I have a black bear that was so cute and I cannot for the life of me remember where I got it from but there it was-with a Webkinz tag that I have not noticed for probably years? (talk about unobservant!)

We of course know about Webkinz because Madison and Hannah (Luke's cousins) have several of their own! They even gave one to Momaw (Aaron's mom) for Christmas! So now we have one too-well, she is Luke's Webkinz now, her name is Lulu. How fun is that?

Cousin Tre

Tre's bathtime pictures:

He looks alot like his momma (my sister Amanda).

What a Cutie!!

"Stuntman"

I was making the bed, changing the sheets-all that. And I had our blankets and pillows on the floor. This is was followed:

He was doing this for several minutes-so cute!

Flat Stanley, Take 2

Our niece, Madison, sent her Flat Stanley to come visit us this past week, (don't worry Madison-he's on his way home!!). These are some of his adventures here:

First we went to Giordano's, where he not only ate with us, but he also got to go back in the kitchen and help make Chicago style deep dish pizzas!

Then we went into Chicago and took pictures with some landmarks: Aaron and Stanley are posing here with Michael Jordan's statue in front of the United Center; he and I are standing in front of Oprah's studios.

Vaguely here you can see the Sears Tower in the background!


Stanley was lucky enough this visit to go sledding with our youth group! We had a lot of fun:

Stanley even made his own Snow Angel!

Thanks Madison for sending him here! We had a great time. Love you!

P.S.-If you want to see our visit with our other niece, Hannah's Flat Stanley, Click Here.

Brrr....

The Chicago weather just highlighted our area-Aurora on the news tonight. Why? Because this morning our temperature was -20 degrees. Yep, that's right it is very cold here. Very, very cold.

Big Boy Tre

My sister Amanda's son Tre eating with silverware!!

Yeah Tre! Good job. We are so proud of you.

I am a USCG Sibling.

YN3(Yeoman) Amanda Jenkins and Seaman Cody Durham(soon to be ET3-Electronics Technician).

These are my younger siblings in their United States Coast Guard graduation photos.

They are both stationed right now in California, very close to each other-which is awesome!

This summer my family is planning a big vacation to California for Cody's graduation from A-School, and we also get to see my sister Amanda 9 months pregnant! I am so excited.

I believe most of you know (or at least know of) Amanda and Cody, and so I thought you might like to see these pictures. I am so proud of my brother and sister (not just because of their decision to serve in our military, but that is something to be proud of).
Remember that our military is not composed of nameless faces; they are sisters, brothers, cousins, parents, sons and daughters and so on. Please keep them in your prayers!

Apple Pie Cookies

This is a picture of one of my first batch of Apple Pie Cookies. My Grandmother gave me a Beta Sigma Phi Recipe book called, "Comfort Food-All Time Favorites". This is the first recipe I have tried and it has become a definite in the "Top 5 Greatest Cookies of All Time" in my opinion. So I am sharing it with you-so print this and get out your rolling pin!

Apple Pie Cookies
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Filling (see below)
2 cups confectioners' sugar
milk
cinnamon to taste

Beat the shortening and granulated sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg. 1/2 cup milk and the vanilla and mix well. Combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Add to the shortening mixture gradually, beating constantly. Divide dough in half. Wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 2 to 3 hours. Roll each portion of dough 1/8 inch thick on a floured work surface. Cut with a 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter. Place half the cookies 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Spread 2 teaspoons of Filling over each cookie. Top with a second cookie. Crimp the edge to seal. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes or until brown. Cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Mix the confectioners' sugar with enough milk in a bowl to make of a glaze consistency. Stir in the cinnamon. Drizzle over the cookies.
Yield: 3 dozen cookies.

Filling Ingredients:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tart apples, peeled and grated
3/4 cup water

Filling Directions:
Combine the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, apples and water in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the apples soften and the mixture thickens, stirring often. Cool completely.

They are fantastic! And great with Ice cream. Giving due to the creator of this amazing recipe(according to my book): J. Wiggins, from Ohio.
You should definitely try them!

Bonner Look-alike Meter

Well, this is just for fun, I copied a friend of mine...what do you think?

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Geneology

whew

Blogger has done an amazing thing: they can translate into several different languages-the whole site, for users! Very cool. Even Hebrew, which flips the entire page, because Hebrew is written in the opposite direction.
For fun, I clicked Ukrainian. Wow, that looks different! Then I clicked Hebrew, whoa-very different. But, uh-oh...now I can't read the language names to get back to English!
Well obviously I figured it out, but it took a while. lol. Funny.

My Siblings' Cali Christmas

This was the Christmas in California with my brother, sister in law, sister, brother in law and nephew Tre:

Dr. Jones

He's back, and he brought someone with him...Shia LeBeouf. May 22, 2008. Indiana Jones 4 comes out. I'm excited. Can you tell?
Here is the Official site. Have fun. Listen to the music. Get ready.

Luke's skills

Last night's showoff time:

and then this morning Aaron said "13", and Luke followed it with "14"! He is so ahead of us. lol.

My Little Teapot

Last night we were entertained by this performance:

Isn't he too funny?

Long devotion share:

I think sometimes I have gotten so familiar with some passages in the Bible, that I can read it over and over again without seeing something new. It can be difficult for me not to skim. I bring this up because I consider the Gospels fairly familiar, and recently I was reading Luke one of his books that has Bible stories in it and I came across something new. Now, not "new" obviously, but something I don't ever remember reflecting on. This isn't necessary a failing on my part, but more a testament to God's Word always being relevant and alive and having such depths to it that we can never be in It enough! That God is always showing us something, sometimes familiar, and sometimes "new"! How amazing.

Well, so the story is found in Luke 5:17-26. Jesus has just begun his earthly ministry, he has been healing and teaching and casting out demons, and just recently called some of his first disciples. The priests are getting interested in Him and were present with a multitude of other people; and Jesus was teaching.
Four men (as it more specifically states in Mark 2:1-13) were bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed. They knew that if they could just get their friend to Jesus, He would heal him. In the story that is just a fact. And they were doing their best to make that happen! They set their paralyzed friend on a pallet and carried him to where Jesus was, but they couldn't get in! Not even close, not even to the doorway of the building where Jesus was inside teaching! But these men loved their friend, and believed in Jesus enough that they just had to get their friend to Him. These guys were admirable, they didn't stop there, they thought outside the box! They got their friend, on his stretcher/pallet, onto the roof, pulled up the roof tiles (carefully-no one is mentioned getting hurt by fallen depris!) and looked down on Jesus. But that wasn't all! They were ready for what they planned to do next- they lowered their friend on his pallet down through the roof! Directly in the center of the room, right in front of Jesus! Talk about mission impossible! And these guys did it!
As they looked down through the hole in the ceiling they had just made at their friend, lying before Jesus, they could do no more. They knew that they had done all they could-they set him before Jesus-in full faith that Jesus could heal him. And you know what? He didn't...well, not at first--> Luke 5:20 says, "And seeing their faith, He said, 'Friend, your sins are forgiven you'." That was the heart of the matter with Jesus. Jesus could've just healed him and sent him on his way, but Jesus came to save the world, not just put band-aids on it. What would just healing this man have done? Given him a better life, but eternally-nothing. So Jesus forgives his sins.
Now the Pharisees and scribes and all those people start grumbling...its blasphemy to say that-Jesus is saying He is God, because only God can forgive sins. Jesus knows they are thinking this and He asks them, "Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins have forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? And then in order to prove that He had the authority to forgive sins, He healed the man. And the man was healed! He got up, stronger now too because he picked up his own bed, and he left glorifying God. So awesome. Well, everyone there was pretty amazed too, they all began glorifying God as well, and did Jesus have people following Him after that! Wow.

One of the "new" things I saw was the amazing friends this guy had. They believed in Jesus, and knew that He could heal their friend. They did all they could do to get their friend in front of Jesus, because only then could the healing take place. They worked together, they made a plan, they put thought into this(they made their friend a mobile bed, and made sure there were enough of them to carry it)! But then when that plan wouldn't work all the way(they couldn't get in to see Jesus because of the crowd) , they tweaked it-they looked for a better solution-they thought outside the box (the roof!). But they took this plan and also thought it through-they were careful and prepared(carefully removing the ceiling tiles, and having the rope ready to lower their friend down) . Then, when they had done all they could do, they had faith that Jesus would do the rest, they just waited and trusted. The Bible says that because of their faith, the man's sins were forgiven. Here I notice that these guys maybe didn't get the response from Jesus they were hoping for...forgiven? But we brought him to You to be healed...? Isn't that how it is in our lives? We come before the Lord with what we want, knowing He can provide that for us, but sometimes He doesn't give that to us-sometimes He gives us the better thing that we didn't even know we needed, and then as a bonus He also throws in that other thing we wanted too?! We don't know the condition of this man before he was healed, we know he was paralyzed, but we don't know how badly, or even if he had faith that Jesus could heal him, but we do know his condition after his healing! He left giving Glory to God. And a big part of that was because of his friends.

I guess I come away from that wondering...am a friend like that? When I have a friend who is perhaps unsaved, or hurting-in need of the healing Jesus can bring, am I like these 4 men? Do I do my best to bring them before the Lord? Do I help them when and where I can? Do I go about it purposefully? Do I think outside the box when some of my initial 'plans' or my first trys don't get anywhere? Because of my faith (and prayers), will something amazing happen in the life of someone I love? Will I be a part of something lifechanging in one of my friends' lives? Finally, do I place that person before the Lord in total faith that He can heal my friend? How He sees fit? Great questions. Very challenging to myself.

....and soo....I thought I would share. I hope that you are challenged as well! Thank you for reading.
Love you all, my friends.

very important:

In the midst of Bowl Games....Luke has learned...."Touchdown!"