Our Visit

Here are a couple pictures of our visit with the Fuetterer’s. We had such a wonderful time…it didn’t last long enough! Joerg, Eva, Me (w/ Rayna), Rich (w/Alayna)

All the Kids! Amelie, Alayna, Micah, Joel, Elias, Jacob, Seraphina, Rayna

Our Little Cowgirl!

A week ago yesterday a friend of mine at church gave Alayna an adorable little cowboy hat. Cyndi had used this when her son was little, but for us, it’s a cowgirl hat. Alayna loves it and just had to have her picture taken….

My Famous Brownie Recipe

Christina’s Famous Brownies
1 1/3 cups flour (I use freshly ground whole wheat flour)
2 cups sugar (I use Rapadura sugar [best option for sugar] or “unrefined”/”raw” sugar)
3/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1 teaspoon baking powder (without aluminum)
1 teaspoon sea salt (I use Redmond’s RealSalt, it is a “pink” sea salt)
1 cup chocolate chips
4 eggs (Joyce’s fresh eggs )
2/3 cup cooking oil (I use unrefined coconut oil)
2 teaspoons real vanilla

Mix all dry ingredients together in a medium sized mixing bowl. (If using “raw” sugar, I put it in my blender for a minute or so. This sugar is so coarse that it doesn’t dissolve well unless it is helped along a little bit.) Add chocolate chips. Mix wet ingredients in a small mixing bowl. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and gently fold together just until everything is wet. Do not overmix or the texture of the brownies will not be right. Spread into a greased 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 23-25 minutes….just until the brownies are no longer jiggly in the middle. Cut into 24 pieces.

I sometimes add nuts or swirl some peanut butter into the batter before baking. Use your imagination! These are very moist brownies, not cakey. I don’t think they need any sort of frosting.

ENJOY!!

Good Friends

It certainly is difficult to find really good friends! I have lots of friends, but I would say that only a very few of them are really GOOD friends. I consider a “good” friend to be someone with whom I can talk about the Lord, to be encouraged by her as well as admonished by her. She is someone who shares my love for the Word of God and my passion to serve my Lord in all that I do.

I had a really good friend here yesterday. She is someone I have known for several years. She attended the last church we went to before we moved here on the eastern shore of MD. I spent a lot of time with her during a very difficult time in my life (when Rich was in Iraq for a year). We don’t really talk all that much when we are together. But, she is still a very good friend. We both love the Lord and are striving to raise our children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (can’t remember the reference for that verse). It had been 2 1/2 years since I had seen her when they arrived yesterday. When I saw her and her children it seemed like it had just been a day. We spent the day as we had so many other times, just being in each other’s company, talking a little here and there….about church, our kids, our journey’s in our walk with the Lord. My friend is Eva, she is German and I, of course, American. She understands quite a bit of English, but doesn’t speak much of it. I understand quite a bit of German (though her English is better than my German), but don’t speak too much of it. Despite the language barrier, I believe that Eva and I are very good friends because our hearts are in the same place. It was so refreshing to be with her yesterday, a really true friend!

I also love having people over to our home. When we lived in Germany we had people over for lunch, dinner, coffee, or sometimes even for breakfast probably about every other week, sometimes more often. I miss doing that! I LOVE having people over. Here in the States it seems that people are so often too busy to get together in our homes. It is so important in our walk with the Lord that we get together…to simply fellowship. By fellowship I mean encouraging each other in the Word, admonishing one another to continue on and move ever further in our walk with God, to weep when others weep and to rejoice when they rejoice. Sure, friendship is talking about what we had for dinner and how that football game was but fellowship is basking in the God’s presence with others that love Him as we do!

I thank God so often for the truly good friends that I have and the fellowship we have together!

Hey There!

Well, I am rather new to blogging. I have one other blog that I started awhile ago. I don’t think it’s gotten many hits, but that’s OK. My other blog, Inky Wings, was meant as a business tool for me. I was hoping it would help me to build my home-based business as an Independent Demonstrator with The Angel Company. I haven’t gotten any business from it, but I still have high hopes for what it might become.

This blog is so much different than my other one. I really couldn’t care less whether anyone else reads these postings or not. Of course, I don’t mind if they do, which is why they are here. If my everyday life can help someone else in their everyday life, then so be it! This blog, {Mama’s Blessings}, is about my life, my passions, my joys, my pains. It is all about my everyday journeys both spiritual and physical.

One of my goals is to share a daily verse….something that has meant something to me and I hope and pray will bless you as well.

I welcome any comments. May the Lord be glorified in all that I do! I Corinthians 10:31- “Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”