Wow.

There are some things that just hit you. They hit you hard. I don't mean like you literally got hit, but sometimes I see a picture or read a quote that just figuratively knocks me off my feet. That happened this morning. Side note, I did ok on the whole take a break from facebook, I think I could still do better!

As I'm resting, because I am once again sick (I might add that two dear people in my life commented that perhaps the Lord is teaching me patience through all of this....this coming after my frustration over my sickness as well as the sickness of a dear loved one. Granted, these are not life-threatening illnesses but the durations and unknowns of them have me less than patient. A sin, I know, and have confessed numerous times. Praise the Lord they are not serious and for those that are suffering seriously, may the Lord be with them and show me how to help! Flu type A had a school shut down. My students are going home daily with fever to find out they tested positively for flu.), I started some devotions (praise the Lord for this, somewhat forced but I'm sure foreseen by the Lord, time to rest)!
 The title was, "The God Who Can Heal Us."

Ok Lord, I'm listening.

You have my attention.

I read the examples of how Jesus cast out demons and healed the sick. Specific illnesses went unnamed ("Then he healed many who were sick with various diseases...Mark 1:34.") yet healed. Serious illnesses, like leprosy, were mentioned and He healed.

The kicker came when I read this quote, "Lord, if it will be to Your glory, heal suddenly; if it will glorify you more, heal gradually; if it will glorify You even more, may Your servant remain sick awhile; and if it will glorify Your name still more, take him to Yourself in Heaven!"-Ole Hallesby

Did you just feel like you got knocked over too???

He's absolutely right, however!

God is King and Master; the coming home of a saint is glorious to the Lord!

 Oh but my sinful heart longs for days on earth. Pray with me that the Lord would change this wretched heart to desire all the more my King and Master. Pray with me that we would desire to be in His home. This place is temporary. "Better is one day in His courts than a thousand elsewhere." 

This reminds me of the classic and profound hymn, "It is Well with my Soul."

I recently helped with the technology during a preschool Christmas program. The song was played, "All is Well" sung by Michael W. Smith and Carrie Underwood. You know, it basically says that it is well with my soul.

No matter what, the blessing of a child of Jesus comes because he can state, those two things: all is well and it is well with my soul.



Hallelujah! The King came to save His People. It is finished! Rest easy dear saint and weary traveler.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So I have opted to be on facebook much, much less. Perhaps if an engagement or something super exciting happens, I'll be on more. Until then I'm content to login less. I love all my friends on facebook but I also don't love the distraction it held/holds in my life.

In other news, K5 is a whirlwind full of laughter and tears! I am so grateful that the Lord has helped me find a sweet spot in the teaching world as of right now. I have 14 precious little ones.

I have attempted and successfully complete quite a few pinterest recipes for dinners and desserts as well as crafts for the kiddos! You'll have to check out my pinterest page! Nutella bites, mini monkey breads, one pot meals and more!

Lily is growing and energetic as ever! After we rescued her, she is a new energy puppy! I love waking up to her happy tail wag every morning! The potty training is about over and we enjoy giving her more freedom in the house!

Found this gem at chapel today and thought I'd share in light of the holiday coming up!


Also, I'm so excited to share a second Thanksgiving with Reed! In light of that wonderful time, I found this gem!

PS My daddy says we should have rooms at separate ends of the house...the farther the better!
Oh the joys of dating! Sweet memories!

Flashback to that time when we got to see Cirque du Soleil live and Reed just couldn't/wouldn't take a normal picture...it's his specialty!

Life is an Adventure, that's for sure!

Here's a peak into my life....I'd love to hear about yours!

Lily is so curious ALL the time. She sticks her nose in EVERY-THING! Our walk was no exception....I love the water sploshes on her nose. The sign of a good walk! I'm also so grateful to the Lord for providing me with a home that is in walkable distance of a school and school walk/field!

Oh relationships. I'm so blessed to be dating Mr. M.C. Long story short, last night he got me a red cactus. Not typical but he had a point that my floral care is limited (although I think I'm doing better!). He wanted it to take it back but I said presents are not to be taken back! I asked him to take a picture and seeing again as to how he just feels so passionately about pictures (please pick up on the sarcasm here), this is what I got....the angle and lighting is kinda cool! I like to caption this pic: SillyReed....

Success!

So the bluebbery/lemon cake that I posted about previously was a success! I don't think I've ever made such a complicated cake but it was definitely doable! I ate a whole bunch along the way as I always do...a perk of baking right???!!! I did not add the lemon extract to the icing and I ran out of powdered sugar so I substituted regular sugar. Reed and I agreed that move was ok as the sugar wasn't grainy enough that you would be put off by it. It must have been a hit because Reed's not a big fruit and fruit in cake person but he had quite his share!

Infamous blueberries in colander pic:

Ready to bake! (this was a little tricky because I had to pull one out and leave the other two in and cook it way beyond the suggested time, also still need to invest in cooling racks so I just used plates)

Ah happiness. Happiness comes in many forms. The candle does make some happy. This candle was given to my roommate as a teacher present I think. I just love the packaging. For some, happiness is in the form of a slice of cake. I'm one of those 'some'. What makes you happy? That's just one of my happy things....I like to think happy things are joys from the Lord! In fact, happiness stems from joy in the Lord-the source of all good things!

PS Kitchen decor is credit to the roommate and her momma! Pretty blues, greys, black.

Here's One More!

Ok so I just can't resist posting this! Meg Pitts took some pics for Reed and I when we went to visit. Because we are so quirky and he doesn't love pictures, we only got one good one but it IS a good one! Meg is awesome, feel free to check out her artsy site here!

Also, my pinterest attempt for this week might be a little late but we went blueberry picking so I plan to make a blueberry lemon cake recipe I found there buutttt since I'm a single gal I realized I have not purchased cake pans yet. So I'll have to do that before I make it and pick up a few other ingredients. I'm coming to realize that the longer I am single, the more I'll have for when/if I get married so we'll get to spend money on other things! Blessings in disguise, no?!

Oh did I mention I went to my first drive through Car Wash....again the whole single girl thing-I took my mom! Give a girl a break now, I'd never been before and didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised and they even had a free vacuum (do you ever have trouble spelling that word?)! Yes, since I took my mom she wanted to take my picture. Oh mom! I did get a pretty cool picture though. Word to the wise, they do kind of make you feel claustrophobic!

Puppy Post....Long Time Coming, I know!

So Lily is kind of already in her terrible two's but she's not even two! We have a make shift gate which is awesome to keep her in the kitchen but alas, she has discovered how to use her nose and open it! We find ourselves coming downstairs to a big pup! Still working on a solution to that one!

She's VERY smart! Hence the two pics below. No, I did not put the blanket on her. She did that herself and she obviously really wanted whatever was on top of the crate; caught her in action!

In other news, she has a major shedding problem. I don't know if it is because of her breed or what. She is a mix of supposedly Labrador, Retriever, and Shepherd. I am hoping to get a shedding brush to see if that will help. Do you have any ideas? Found this article and seems helpful. I will definitely ask the vet about the types of brush and her skin. She's a rescue so she may have skin issues a lot. Just takes time and research I suppose. The nice shedding brushes (the Furminator) seem expensive so may need to be a Christmas present. Anybody used them before? Says it is to reduce shedding up to 90%! There are some video reviews online and seems pretty good.

Mom always knows best and she recommends daily brushing so I'll have to work on that. I've almost got the daily walking down since she's a very active and energetic pup but I'm always learning!

I've also got to work on figuring out how to get Lily socialized on walks. She loves people SO much that she often pulls on the leash or jumps and for certain dogs, growls. She is my protective buddy, but I'd still like to work on training a bit more! 

Finished! The legacy remains. Praise the Lord for lives well lived!

So I've had some summer projects! Lately they have involved recovering or fixing up chairs! I recovered my chair for school and touched up the paint but the big-deal one this summer was fixing up a chair from my Great Grandma's House!

I went up to Virginia to help my parents sort through the estate of my late Great Grandparents. They were special and precious people! I remember them watching pastors on tv and the fake green grass. You know the one I'm talking about, the artificial turf that was big back in the day!

My mom and I get much of our love for crafts from her! She also had an amazing talent of storing things! Boxes and boxes galore of all kinds of ribbons and papers and more! Every nook and cranny had a little something. She still had perfumes and lipstick on the dresser! What a lady! Great Grandpa was a truck driver and Great Grandma never really drove so Great Grandpa would take her to the store once a week or so and she would get her craft materials then!

I was blessed to receive a mirror tray that I fixed up as well (well my parents helped! I'm still learning!)! We also discovered their only daughter's wedding dress and shoes.

It was a beautiful little home and my Great Grandpa didn't touch Great Grandma's things after she passed. Like my parents said, it seemed as if the two just ran to the store and never came back. I love seeing the Bible verses around the kitchen-that's a legacy!

My mom tells me this chair was Great Grandma's visiting chair! When guests would come, they would sit in the chair and talk. Oh what joys in the conversations we can share with others! I am learning more and more that God loves friendship. There's a reason he put people in our lives! So with this chair, if and when I get a new home, it shall have to become my 'Visiting Chair' and perhaps bless others as I'm sure they were blessed when they came to visit my Great Grandparents!

Week 5-And then there was soup.

So I found this recipe for a pretty easy looking crock pot meal. Wanted to use up my ham slice. It was super easy but not super tasty. To me, it was ok but extra salty for some reason. Probably wouldn't make it again. I added a red onion because I had it and am trying to eat up/use up all my food. Also subbed cheddar cheese for Velveeta and didn't add the mushrooms. It seemed better the second day but not the best. I'm not sure how I expected it to turn out but it ended up like soup or stew. Oh well-worth a try!!

Week 4-Salmon and Left overs

I used to not like Salmon. I used to not like a lot of foods but I always say college broadened my desired taste buds. So there's a running joke in our family that we like salmon aaannnnd "It's so good for you!"

Not too expensive, I got two fresh pieces at Publix, so I could have left overs. It's just me eating so I usually cook for at least two or more because I haven't figured out the whole no left overs thing yet. Anyway, bought a lot of new seasonings (couldn't find or figure out white pepper but oh well) and set to work!

I liked how well coated the salmon was but I didn't realize I was supposed to coat it in olive oil before putting on the rub. Still worked out ok but ended up more blackened (but not bad tasting) then the picture online. I wasn't entirely sure how long to cook it so it was probably over done. They say you can eat salmon raw so I should probably err on the side of under cooking next time.

Loved the fruit salsa and already even made it for Mr. MC's mom and step dad. I don't care for avocado and since other fruit salsas used strawberries with mango, I did too! I love cilantro and the smell of it too!

Overall this meal was great and could be quick! I did have a whole left over meal the next day. Put it over rice the first time as I had that left over from a meatloaf meal. I see a theme of left overs going on here! The salmon and salsa did have a bit of a kick to it! I think I would use the already seasoned Publix fresh salmon next time and then it probably wouldn't be as spicy! I bet if you took out the red onion that would take the kick out of the salsa too. If you are interested in the recipe, check it out here and see how mine compared!

Week 3....not pinterest but for your interest

Ok so last week I took Mr. MC on a surprise trip to Greenville to see the Pitts family! We had a blast exploring Simpsonville and Greenville. I dropped Lily off at the parentals, also known as Grandma and Grandpa.

We started the trip going to a place called Funnelicous. I was a little disappointed, ok a lot disappointed, because I really wanted to try their fried mac n cheese and fried mashed potato balls and they were all out! Kuddos to them though for not selling a poor product. They said they just weren't sticking together right and something about ingredients and shipping so they should be back on Monday.

Alas, we left on Sunday so we'll just have to go again! I got a funnel cake but Reed said the classic without all the candy on top is better! My favorite was the potato chip fries. You can pick your seasoning too! It's pretty much pick what you want and they'll make it. If anyone has ever had the fried mac 'n cheese and/or potato, let me know!

The Pitts family is awesome and we just love them! Meg has a blog and store so please check it out!

After church and nap time on Sunday, yes we all tried to nap, we walked to the ice cream store! Reed got a huge Sundae and I got a kids chocolate cone dipped in chocolate! I had a really hard time eating it and got it everywhere but it sure tasted good! Reed finished his ginormous bowl before me! The little ones would also highly recommend the purple and orange smoothie!!

So instead of a pinterest meal, here's some ideas for summer fun travels!

Fourth of July (Week 2 attempt, Trial 2, Holiday)

For the week of July 4th, I attempted a sweet treat! Find it here and see how mine compare! Was that a rhyme? Note, this link has some other cute ideas and of course pinterest is full of them if you just search. I feel like the pictures online looked better and may have tasted better than mine but it turned out ok. At first I wasn't too proud but they were eatable! I was afraid there wouldn't be enough so I attempted decorating some quick 'just add butter and oil' sugar cookies and let's just say the parentals said I shouldn't bring them to the party. They kind of looked like those pinterest fail pictures you see online. I didn't want to take pictures of them but they did bring about a good laugh!

Speaking of laughter I laughed until I cried while we played Uno with our long time family friends! God knows just what we need, praise the Lord! Oh and we also watched the hot dog eating competition AFTER dinner. Um le'ts just say I will probably never compete in one of those. Check out the link!

Beware, I had a lot of red velvet cake left overs. Mom suggested you make parfaits with them!! Great idea! I also couldn't find blue velvet cake mix so I just made it out of one regular red velvet cake mix. I probably should have purchased two boxes and it would have yielded more! It was a fun activity though! Thanks to the roommate who had star cookie cutters of varying sizes (K4 teacher for the win!!). I have to add that the icing was super easy and quite delicious! I was trying to transfer it and definitely dropped the big scoop on the counter-whoops! I salvaged what I could though, which is why I needed to make the sugar cookies because I had so much icing left over!

Hahahahaha I am not schooled in cookie decorating or maybe so many others would school me in it! Can I just say for a minute too that I am so sad that the icing and food coloring most readily available seems to be the gel kind? Gels are not easy to work with. Maybe I just got distracted by the fact that the gel icing had sparkles in it. I do know though that the old liquid food coloring is really tricky to find these days! Ok venting over but really if you know a local convenient store that sells the old liquid food coloring let me know! My mom and I figured it out once where to find it but it's tricky!

Trial 1-Parentals taste CrockPot Lasagna and Cookies

Yesterday the parentals came over for dinner! I jazzed the place up with some flowers and made a crock pot lasagna (from pinterest of course!) The recipe was SO easy! Check it out here!

I made a few adjustments: I had left over spaghetti sauce in the freezer so I pulled that out to save the making of the sauce step. I tried to cut the portions in half but kinda guessed on the cheeses. I gave it a good 4-5 layers? Gluten Free noodles for the win too just for my momma! Had trouble finding those at Walmart and Publix so I ended up at a local health food store in the area. Maybe I would have more success not on a Saturday (the seemingly most shopped grocery day of the week).

I even made a dessert: white chocolate chip macadmia nut cookies. Yes, it's macadamIA not macadmion like I thought. My parents had gotten me some Hawaiian macadamia nuts when they went to celebrate my mom's big birthday. My daddy fulfilled a childhood and life long dream of hers to visit the islands! This recipe I found was delicious! It was very easy and I love that both recipes didn't require a ton of ingredients. I had most of them already so didn't have to buy too much! I did leave out the nuts for the first batch just for the boyfriend (he doesn't like nuts so I eat them instead because I certainly LOVE them!!)

The boyfriend couldn't believe I made them, they were that delightful! Let's just say that I had trouble making brownies when he was around and we were first dating so now he doubts my skill!

The parentals said both recipes were pinterest successes and even wanted to come try my recipes every week!

Note: the bananas in the pic are to encourage me to keep making my smoothies! No pics of the lasagna...it looked a little crispy and like what you'd imagine. Not the most attractive dish in the world but certainly tasty, quick and easy!!!

Still gotta look for some doggie articles like maybe about how to train dogs to be quiet when they shouldn't be barking. I've tried the 'leave it' command and some other things but it's getting tricky!

Well what do you think, pinterest success or fail???

Welcome Back!

Welcome Back! My oh my as usual it has indeed been ages since I have posted!

If you are new here or haven't been in a while (my apologies for not updating) my name is Emily and I'm a 20something (yes, I've finally reached that point where it may not be cool to share my age anymore and besides it's the internet! I don't want scary people knowing my age!) teacher going into my 3rd year! They say the first is worst, second is best, and well 3rd? I don't remember the saying but I do know that most people say if you can make it to your 3rd year, you'll decide if teaching is really for you or not!

Well, there are no words to describe these last two year except that there were many times I considered throwing in the towel but by God's grace He sustained me! I made mistakes but He always helped me pick myself up (after the bucket loads of tears because let's face it, I'm a people pleaser and perfectionist!!)

So now I turn to a new age group....after teaching fourth grade for two years, I'm going to tackle those little bitties...dun dun dun.....K5 and I am SO excited! Also praying for God's help and continual guidance.

Now that you know a little bit about me, (oh ya I'm also a sister to my all time favorite Portlanders Josh and Alli, a daughter to the best parents ever, a mom to a bunch of kiddos and an adopted pup, and a girlfriend who loves to have fun with her man!)

Who's Lily? Lily is my almost-one-year old baby! She's a mutt, but the most friendly, silly, and crazy girl out there! She loves to run, walk, be outside, chase the birds and play with her toys (which mostly means pulling out all the stuffing, eating as much as possible, and destroying it until mommy throws it away). Lily likes bones too! She's my side kick and my blessing from the Lord!

*photo credit: daddy

Side note about the Portanders-Alli is an amazing florist and Josh is an amazing photographer! God gifted them in the arts and if you ever need either of those things you should check them out!

Ok now you know what we are up to but do you really?????

Why all the 'welcome back' shenanigans? Since I am a teacher on summer break, I've decided one of the things I'll add to my list of 'things-to-do-that-I-really-hope-get-done-this-summer' is work on improving and actually posting to my blog! After spending an hour on pinterest I figured out what I should do! This will be all about school, Lily (dogs), and food....which is pretty much my life right now. Well I also help out with the youth group and they may make an appearance on here, but for now we'll leave them in our hearts and minds. Back to the whole teacher on summer break thing. It's funny we so long for a break and after about a week, if we aren't working our second job, soaking up some sun at the beach, or sleeping....we kinda don't know what to do with ourselves. Relax? What's that? How do you do that? I need to be prepping for next year!!! Might I add one little thing, it's ok to rest. In fact it's encouraged by the greatest teacher of all (Matthew 11:28 and more!)!

Why am I changing you ask? Well I'm ready for fresh starts. I love fresh starts (praise the Lord I serve the King of all Kings who's all about fresh starts, 2 Corinthians 5:17!) Plus I just feel like Facebook is getting old. For that matter, blogs may be too but I still like it and hey, maybe you do too! Well I hope you do if you are still reading this! I kind of think I might attempt Twitter and Instagram and do away with facebook all together. I've been saying that for years now and yet I still keep it. I do love the connections to people far and wide but I spend WAY too much time on there. I mean it! So perhaps this will give me a goal and a new outlet! I'll keep you posted (no pun intended) on the other media worlds I enter.

So back to the real goal-post about K5 and teaching, food, and dogs. I might even attempt a pinterest food thing, meal, dessert, smoothie or something a week and I'll let you know how it goes! You can decide: success or fail? I'd love to hear your feedback! I'll try to post articles related to teaching and doggies too! I can use all the help I can get about training my sweet Lily! We need to go back to puppy training class, or rather, I need to go back ;)

Oh and did I add, I'm already off to a great start! I got an awesome blender for my 2- th birthday! (And you thought I'd give my age away!) I just love it and made a blueberry, strawberry, banana smoothie! It was a great summer treat! Check out the recipe here! It was from pinterest to boot!

I also must say I'm SO excited about World Cup-USA World Cup Fever Baby! Can't believe I missed the first game but I saw the first goal and listened to the first bit on the radio!

Now off to dinner and youth group I go!

Real Life

Great day! I cannot believe I have not posted since the beginning of the school year and now it is 2014! I have begun reading articles online and blogs again and find them quite intriguing. Then it makes me want to write but I have so many thoughts I'm not sure where to begin and what to share with the big world wide web!

I keep coming back to thought that this is 'real life'. I can no longer claim the I'm-in-school stresses or I'm a teenager-with-raging-hormone stresses. Though as a girl, I guess I always have the hormone excuse ;). It is just that though, an excuse. I've come to realize that this is just life. In all its goodness and hardships. However, I praise the Lord that God is always there! He knows exactly what we need, when we need it. He humbles me so that I can bring Him glory!

2013 was a difficult year. I heard that from many. As a second year teacher, I thought I knew what I was doing and was quickly reminded that I have just begun. As my mom often tells me, 'put your big girl pants on'. Well, I've had to do that a lot lately and that's not a bad thing; just have to remind myself of that.

2013 was a lovely year as well. I met my now boyfriend of 10 months (I do believe that may be a record!) and adopted a puppy! I prayed a lot and cried a lot (I'm a girl, I know!). My mom celebrated her 50th birthday and we tried Thanksgiving after Thanksgiving (we decided not to do that again :p ). I got to meet 17 new fourth graders! Participated in two weddings and joined a ladies small group. Survived my first official year of teaching. Spent two weeks in Oregon. How could I forget the beginning of 2014? I moved into my first apartment and was blessed by an incredible friend, roommate, and coworker.

Because I'm sinful and tend to dwell on the difficulties rather than joys, I heard the song, "Cry On My Shoulder" and felt like that summed up the year and that's ok. It's ok to be sad but I always have to remind myself, rather God reminds me, to find the joy in the morning. In the real life, look for the joy. It might look a little different than the fairy tales, don't get me wrong, there's room and time for those too, but it's there!

It's in holding a puppy that you might adopt.

It's in the chapel service when a fourth grader sings his heart out in complete worship and you wonder if his peer will become a pastor some day.

It's in the little girl who reminds her friend that "God is NOT dead and is surely alive" like the song they learned in music class.

It's in the sunshine and the rain.

It's being held and reminded of truth after a bad day.

It's in the one email of twenty that says thank you for what you are doing, God is using you.

It's in the phone call from your brother who lives on the West Coast or the text from your Sister-in-Law.

It's in the silly string fight you have with your boyfriend.

It's in the prayer of a small group of ladies seeking the Lord's counsel.

It's when a coworker asks if you're ok knowing you are on the verge of breaking.

It's when you squeal over the phone over an engagement.

It's watching a groom anticipate holding his bride's hand after her walk down the aisle.

It's watching a bride worship the Lord. 

It's when a community reminds a 14 year old that she's in the Lord's hands as she fights cancer.

It's raising exactly the right amount to buy dinner for a suffering family.

It's when a church family tells the cashier to add my lunch to their bill.

It's in eating a bowl of ice cream.

It's "getting coffee" with a friend.

It's over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house you go.

It's completing a corn maze with the youth group. 

It's reading a verse of the Bible.

It's real life.


So in place of a recap of 2013, maybe you'd like to look for the joy as well....

Everyone has started resolutions and I do indeed love the new year. I like thinking about a fresh start; it's a symbol of how God always gives fresh starts! Some people don't like the new year because those fresh starts don't seem to last. Let's prove them wrong people! Make something last, make it count! I've got my mental list of things I'd like to work on but in light of all of this, perhaps I should look for joy in the midst of real life! So to start, here's some 'joyful' 2013 memories....