Currently

Drinking: Iced vanilla chai tea lattes.  When I lived in the DR my mom sent me this wonderful vanilla chai tea latte mix.  It was a special treat on rough days.  This summer I have been drinking it iced since the weather has warmed up.  So yummy.

Listening to:  More than Conquerors by Rend Collective.  The other week I Bible journaled the lyrics/verse to this song (see this blog post).  On Saturday night I went to church.  The worship leader said, "Tonight we are learning a new song for this church."  And guess what song it was...  I love it when God taps me on the shoulder with the same lesson until I start listening.

I also discovered a new Spanish artist, Jaz Jacobs.  I even bought her cd.  "Senor sobre mi situacion" and "Purfume a Tus pies" are two of my favorites.

Writing: down my blessings.  One of my mentors in the DR gave me a cute little jar before I left Santiago.  It is a blessing jar.  It is amazing how when we are obedient, He blesses us abundantly.

"All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God."  Deuteronomy 28:2

Watching: Ghostbusters (Kevin was my favorite) and the Last Ship

Reading:  Blog posts by these wonderful ladies.  Writergirl5786 has beautiful posts on the Illustrated Faith Revival Camp.  I absolutely adore reading what she does each week with the prompt.  Seeds of Creative Grace has beautiful posts that make me want to buy everything in Illustrated Faith's shop.

Wanting to read:  Uninvited by Lysa TerKerust and Without Revival by Lisa Bevere

How has your week been?  What have you been learning?  Reading?  Sipping on?

Con mucho amor. 

Currently

Drinking:  Lavender lemonade.  The temperature is slowly rising in Oregon.  I've been looking for yummy drinks to cool me off.  My mom and I both enjoy lavender, so we thought we would make our own lemonade.  Plus, it helps get rid of stress which is a huge bonus.

We took 1 cup boiling water and mixed it with 1 teaspoon lavender.  Let it seep for 20 minutes.  Strain into two cups and fill the rest of the way with regular lemonade.

Listening to:  King of My Heart, Peter Pan, H.O.L.Y, Gracia Todopoderosa

Praying:  For Fun in the Park, VBS, and youth group.  This weekend there is an outreach event in the community where we will be sharing about our church.  I'm praying that God opens up doors for new people to come learn about Him.  Next weekend we have... VBS!  We are in full throttle planning mode.  We turned the church into a cave yesterday.  I'm praying that the event would bring new people to the foot of the cross and glory to Him.  Tonight we have youth group.  I am praying that God would be planting seeds in the heart of the middle and high schoolers.

Eating:  Downtown Portland has the most wonderful place called Waffle Window.  They have amazing waffle concoctions, and they just opened a cart 20 minutes from my house!  Yay for not having to find parking downtown to eat a yummy waffle.

Creating: These simple picture frames.  15 boxes of old books sit in our entryway as I type this post.  We cleaned out the attic space at my grandma's old house.  We can't quite bare to get rid of them yet, so we decided to put them to use in a cute craft/gift.  I made two, one for me and one to send to a friend for her birthday.

I found a book full of old maps, and since I love traveling I used pieces from those pages to collage my picture frame.  I stuck a picture of me and my world traveling bestie when she came to visit me in the DR last year.

What are you eating, listening to and praying about this summer?

Con mucho amor.

Valentine's Day

What we did to celebrate:  I love celebrating love.  Valentine's Day landed on a Sunday this year.  (Here's the link to how we celebrated at the Reyes Academy last year.)  I had some friends over for dinner.  We ate pasta, and we ordered the yummiest cinnamon rolls from my new favorite place: Mari's Cakes.  I also had the apartment decorated for the holiday.  (Thanks mom for sending such cute decorations!)  

The Reyes Academy celebrated Valentine's Day on Monday.  We first made Love Rocks.  Here's an article that explains where the idea came from.  A couple lost their daughters a few years ago.  To help cope with the tragedy they started making these love rocks to spread joy.  Visit their Facebook page here to learn more about what they do.

My mom made one for my roommate and I last year, and I loved the idea of randomly blessing others.  We could leave them at the supermarket, give them to people on the street, or set one on a step of the apartment.  I thought the concept of spreading love went perfectly with Valentine's Day.  The kids each made 2-3 using fabric scraps and modge podge.

Next we did black out poetry with using 1 Corinthians 13 or 1 John 4.  I loved seeing how different the 6 poems turned out.  Christin and I also participated.  It really helped us to think deeply about the text and its themes.  I would love to incorporate this same strategy into English class sometime.  

We ended the celebration by giving the kids their valentines.  Over Christmas break I found these poop pencils, and I knew they were perfect for the boys.  They absolutely LOVED them.  We had fun laughing about sticking poop in our noses, eating poop, and touching poop.

Christin and I made cookies and cake to give to the guys at the colmado and to bring to Bible study.  Through a friend on Facebook, I discovered a website called 40 Acts.  Each day of Lent they send an email with an act to do for the day.  I had already planned on making these things, but when I opened my email the act for the day was to make food to give to someone.  It was fun to randomly bless those around us.

How did you celebrate love year round?

Cookie Monster

What we've been eating/doing:  My mom's friend Mrs. Davis sent us some cookies in the care package from my mom.  Mrs. Davis makes these incredible cookies.  If you want to see some of her other creations, check out her Facebook page here.

The first ones we ate were a special treat while we were watching the last Spanish movie for the film unit.  They were Dominican Republic shaped cookies with a heart over Santiago!  The kids loved them.

She also made me US shaped cookies.  We are studying US History so I knew I could incorporate them somehow.  The week after I received the package, we were going to start a book called Bound for Oregon.  It is a novel about the Oregon trail and a family's adventures.  I had the boys map out the Oregon trail on the cookie using the special pens.  They had to label 6 places along the trail, and they had to do some research on those places.  I wish they would have wrote more about the places, but overall it was a fun way to use food and the cookies to visualize the Oregon trail.

Joseph's quote from the day:

"There's nothing cooler than writing on a cookie!"

Other ways to use edible pens/cookies in the classroom:

• Use the food pens on a slice of bread to draw or illustrate a concept from math or science or history
• Creating a timeline on food of some sort. 
• Create picture frame cookies like these ones.  Get mini easles from Michaels craft store and study different artists.  For a final they could use the food pen and the cookie to create a piece of artwork in the style of their artist. 
• Make a cake to represent a character or theme or novel that was read during English class. We could use the pens to write on the cake (character traits, events, quotes/text evidence). 

How are you using food in the classroom?  

Y.U.M.

What I've been eating:  I am loving this year because my roommate Christin and I eat many of our meals together.  We have been creating new recipes and trying out different concoctions.

Tostones: These are a typical Dominican staple at meals.  They are kind of like large french fries, but they are made from plantains.  Christin taught me how to make them.  They are not the healthiest things to eat, but boy do they taste good.

Oreo Truffle Balls from here:  I made these for a tea party I had with the boys while we were learning about the Boston Tea Party.  The only problem is the balls did not stay together.  With the humidity and heat of this country, they just melted apart.

I made them again for a sleepover with the church youth group.  This time I spooned the batter into cupcake holders to make it easier to eat.  They turned out much better, even though they definitely weren't truffle balls anymore.

Overnight Oatmeal from here: I love the peanut butter and jelly combination.  My favorite one that Christin and I made was one of our own creation.  We used chinola juice and milk for our liquid.  We added shredded coconut and crushed almonds.  It was so delicious.

Hot Italian Sandwiches from here:  These were probably fairly unhealthy, but man did they taste yummy.  Lots of meat layered with cheese.  The herb butter was the icing on the cake.  I never thought of mixing butter with herbs before.

Anything with rice: We have been using lots of rice this year, learning to be Dominican.  We typically mix it with corn, beans, peppers, cheese, etc.  We throw whatever we have in our pantry and fridge in together.  Christin has a rice maker, which makes it much easier to prepare it.  The next day for lunch we will throw it on a pan (since we don't have a microwave) and throw it in a tortilla, or on top of tortilla chips.  Super easy, simple, and yummy.

2 Ingredient Banana Muffins from here:  These are my favorite thing in the world to make.  You only need two ingredients, and bananas are super cheap here.  1 for 5 pesos, or 3 for 10 pesos.  10 pesos is approximately 20 cents in US currency.  I added chocolate chips to the recipe when I made these for Bible study.  It made them taste even better.

Chicken Salad from here : This recipe called for some improvising.  Dried cranberries are rather expensive, so we had to leave those out of the creation.  We ate these on pita chips, or on tortillas.  I love that it is super filling dinner or lunch.

Chicken Bacon Ranch Chicken from here:  This recipe did not work out as well as I would have liked.  The bacon was not crispy.  Next time we need to cook the bacon beforehand so that it tastes better.  Also, the whole recipe was rather watery.  I am not sure why it did that, but maybe next time I would try it with less ranch sauce.  It was not my favorite meal that we made.

Stuffed Bell Peppers from here .  These were incredibly delicious when we first made them.  It was harder to eat them once they were cold.  Since we don't have a microwave, we could not really heat them up.  They tasted okay cold.

Lucky Charm Treats from here:  These were really tasty.  I made these for our Readathon day in September.  We ordered pizza and I made these for dessert.  They were incredible.  It would be fun to try different cereals mixed in, or on their own with the marshmallows.

Baked Parmesan Zucchini Rounds from here:  I had never tried zucchini before, but when I saw the picture of these little sides, I knew I had to try them.  It took us awhile to find zucchini in this country.  Our oven has no top heat; the heat only comes from the bottom.  It was harder to melt the cheese.  These definitely need to be eaten right away.  They don't taste very good cold, but they were a great way to get another vegetable into our diet when they are warm.

What I want to make next: 

Ritz Cracker Chicken from here  Or I could substitute the crackers with pretzels.  This summer I tried pretzel chicken from the Cheesecake Factory.  It was so delicious, and I thought I could modify the Doritos chicken recipe I've used before.

Bloomin' Baked Apples from here :  These seem like the perfect fall treat.  I saw the caramel squares last  year in stores, but I have not seen any this year.  Fingers crossed they will appear so we can try these amazing-looking apples.

I bought a can of pumpkin last year and I still have not used it yet.  My friend makes really yummy pumpkin bars that I could try copying.  Christin and I also found an overnight oats recipe that calls for a can of pumpkin that would be fun to try.  

What are you eating right now?  Do you have any yummy recipes to share?

Con mucho amor.

Busy Saturday

What I'm eating: A friend showed me this recipe two months ago and we made them and they were soooo good!  I decided to make them for today as well.  The second time turned out just as good and I wanted to share the easy recipe with you all! 

What I'm creating:  Here are my ICADs from the past few days :)

What I'm making:  I saw this idea for colored tissue paper on another blog, (to see it, click here) and I never had thought to make it myself!  I save random wrappers and gift wrap all the time.  And this summer I had saved some white tissue paper that something I bought was wrapped in.  It was perfect for this project.  I will post after pictures in the next few days after they dry a bit.

Also, I have a special project in progress.  Here is a sneak peek.  I will show more once it is finished. :)

Well tonight I am dancing at halftime for an alumni football game.  Gosh that makes me sound old.  Have a wonderful Saturday!

Much love.