About Me

My photo
Sinner saved by grace. Wife to a cute preacher. Momma to 2 precious baby boys. Blessed beyond measure. And I deserve none of it.

Blog Archive

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Try it Tuesday

By Jules request, here are the recipes for the sweet potato casserole and cowboy caviar. I used to never like sweet potato casserole. Now I can not imagine my life without it. Also, this cowboy caviar is by far my favorite dip now!

Grandmomma's Sweet Potato Casserole

3 cans of yams

1 cup of sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

2 tsp of cinnamon

1 egg

1 cup of milk

1 stick of butter

Combine butter and yams in a microwavable bowl. Melt butter. Mix with mixer until yams are smooth. Add other ingredients. Pour into 9x13 pan.

Topping

1/3 cup of flour

½ cup of brown sugar

1 stick of butter

1 cup of chopped pecans

1 bag of large marshmallows

Mix together and sprinkle on top of sweet potato mixture. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Take out and line marshmallows on top. Bake for 20 more minutes or until marshmallows are gooey and brown.

*Most people either do just the nut mixture or just marshmallows… my hubs likes both so we combined them. It was a hit.


Cowboy Caviar

1 yellow pepper

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

1 onion

1 can of black beans

1 can of pinto beans

1 can of white corn

1 cup of sugar

3/4 cup of apple cider vinegar

¼ cup of olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp of pepper

Heat in a small saucepan: apple cider vinegar, oil, and sugar until all the sugar is dissolved. Add salt and pepper. Set aside

Chop up peppers and onions. Drain cans. Combine in a large bowl. Add sugar mixture. Stir well. Chill before serving. Can be used as a dip with tortilla chips or just as a crunchy side.


Enjoy!!!

Monday, November 29, 2010

Thanksgiving Missouri Style

Rented van.

Cramming the luggage.

51/2 hours of driving.

Car sickness.

Yay, for sister having Dramamine.

Gas stations.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Running on Farm Road while it was sleeting and sister gagging numerous times.

7 people sharing 1 shower.

Baking.

Lots of people.

Dogs that beg for food.

Lots of hugs.

Christmas movies.

Pictures.

Cold weather.

Board games.

Shopping.

Football.

Good Thanksgiving Feast.

Boys Golfing.

Black Friday ads.

Perfected sweet potato casserole.

Twitter intervention.

Eating way too much.

Famous homemade pizza.

Boys playing basketball.

Bass Pro Shop.

Delicious fudge pies.

Cozy air mattresses.

Slumber party with k and j.

Daddy's breakfasts.

Bought hominy instead of white corn.

Delicious cowboy caviar anyway.

Grandma belching.

Chinese food. Springfield has tons of Chinese restaurants!

Kacie yelling "Red box!!!!" Like a man... bursting everyone's ear drums.

Red box movies.

Classic Krispy Kreme run on our way home.

Yep, there's nothing like a Missouri Thanksgiving.

Sister you were right.....

it was legend....

wait for it...

dary.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

checklist

Pocahontas hair for our Thanksgiving Feast. Check.


Mini Thanksgiving Program. Check.


Thanksgiving Feast... at 9:00 a.m. Check.


Hugs and goodbyes from my Pilgrims and Indians. Check.


Clean up. Check.


Lesson Plans done for next week. Check.


Bags packed for Missouri. Check.


Groceries packed. Check.


Hurry up 4:00!!!!

Monday, November 22, 2010

Thanksgiving Prep

D and I love Thanksgiving. We love to eat so its no surprise that this holiday ranks ups there as a favorite. Every other year we spend Thanksgiving in Springfield, MO with my dad's family. This has been a hard transition for D...I am being a little dramatic.... he loooooooooooves his grandmomma's Thanksgiving meal. So for him to sacrifice that for me is truly love. I will agree that northern Thanksgivings are good, but there's just something about southern cooking.

I decided that I would fix one of his favorites up there. Sweet potato casserole is the ticket to his heart. But not just anyone's sweet potato casserole....his grandmomma's. Not only marshmellows on top, but the nut mixture and then marshmellows on top. So after getting her recipe... literally having to say, "Grandmomma, now how much sugar?" Her response, " I'm not really sure. I just pour." I began to get worried. How was I going to make "grandmomma's sweet potato casserole" without the correct amounts?!

Thankfully every year at our church we have a Thanksgiving Feast the Sunday night before Thanksgiving. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try it. I actually fixed it on Saturday since I had some time, refrigerated it, and then baked it Sunday afternoon. It looked so pretty!





I was so pleased. It was delicious! I think its safe to say he enjoyed it.



So look out Missouri fam! Sister and I are baking several things for you... this included!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Believing God

I am currently going through Beth Moore's book Believing God with my friend, Angela. I don't know why I always act surprised when I go through a book or study and think, "this is what I needed!" Again, God is using Beth Moore to radically shake me. This doesn't mean I have figured it all out and have mastered perfection. I am far from both! I will tell you that I have never felt as close to the Lord more than I do right now. I am learning so much about who He is which in turns tells me a lot about myself... most of it is not good.

I have simply finished chapter one and feel like my life will never be the same. Chapter one talks about Promised Land Living. All along God intended for His children to succeed. We were challenged with: "Are our Christian lives successful? Are they achieving and experiencing what scripture said they would?"

So many of us, my self included, have or are currently living the unsuccessful christian life. Stuck in the same rut. Bored with worship, sermons, bible study, and at times other Christians. We are bored and ineffective because we choose to be! We must completely surrender our will to Jesus. Who cares if we don't like the sermon or style of worship. Who cares if someone is talking about you behind your back. Who cares if we don't really like the bible study choice. It's not about you or me! We must get over ourselves. The Christian life is about dying to self. That is the only way to be real.

The book talks about this, but D actually said it Sunday in his sermon, "The only way we are going to reach the next generation is to prove that our faith is real." No one wants anything to do with fake Christianity. I know its real! The question is do we have the fruit to back it up? We can't convince others about a faith that isn't working for us. It will take genuine surrender. The giving up of sin and self. We may highlight or underline every verse in our bible, but if we don't flesh it out...what good is it?

God never meant for us to merely get by as Christians in this life. "We're getting by, but getting by was never our destiny. We were meant to be profoundly effective. Why have we accepted average?"

Why for 25 years of my life have I accepted average?!!!

She said this about herself, but as I read it I knew it was me too! "I finally came to a point in my Christian walk where I grew bone weary of inconsistency being my only constant. Occasional wisps of authentic spiritual living only multiplied my frustrations. I then knew a place of fullness and effectiveness in Christ existed, but at best I was a drop in. My soul needed a place where it could live. I longed for my defeats to be infrequent visitations, not my victories." She goes on to say..." Our personalized lands of earthly promise are places we're invited by God to dwell in Christ. It's high time we stopped dropping by and starting taking up residency."

We were meant for so much more! Beth gives a great analogy...I love good analogies! She was walking one morning and saw several ducks splashing in a mud puddle on the sidewalk. Sadly there was a large pond just over the hill. They were settling for a mud puddle! She immediately felt the Lord speaking to her, "That's my church. My blood bought, Spirit promised church splashing in a mud puddle with a sea of living waters within reach just on the other side." Let's stop splashing in mud puddles!



"Your Promised Land is the place where God's personalized promises over your life become a living reality rather than a theological theory."



Wednesday, November 17, 2010

R.E.T.A.R.D. with neat ideas

I am an idiot. Thanks to all of you who read yesterdays post and said NOTHING. It didn't even occur to me until hours later that I had written a Wednesday post on Tuesday, yet thinking all along it really was Wednesday. To bad today isn't Thursday....

For those of you who are still around and not judging me because of my frazzled (no we didn't get a fall break!) teacher mind, then I owe you a sincere THANKS. And because I love you so, I will share some cool things I have recently discovered.

FlyLady



A friend recently told me about this and I am truly excited. Well, as excited as organizing and cleaning my house can be. This is totally free. You can just go to the website and look at all of her tips and plans. You can also have her email you a daily chore. This will keep you from never having to spring clean again! You focus on one part of your house every day...I mean the first day is cleaning your sink. So easy! Its centered more on people who are already living in clutter and chaos, but since I seriously live with Mr. Clean then it will help me maintain and deep clean these certain areas. Heres the wesbite: FlyLady
Happy cleaning!



Another neat thing I discovered was....



Coming to the Botanic Gardens:
November 26 & 27
December 3-4, 10-11, 17-23, 26-28
5:00-7:30 p.m.

(Last entry 7 p.m.)

Bring the family to celebrate the holiday season at the Garden!

Stroll through falling "flakes" and play in the "snow box," plug your designs into the giant light bright, create winter crafts, enjoy fun & games,
and musical light display all along the way!


Concessions available, including hot cocoa & cider, s'mores & marshmallow roasting pit, & cookies.


MBG members $5
Non-members $7

Under 2 FREE


I copied all of those details from the website. Doesn't that sound so fun?!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Monday, November 15, 2010

Terminology

Being in youth ministry, we are constantly learning new things. Whats cool, whats not.... and let me just explain that these things change frequently.

For example: Crocs are so uncool. D wears them after he finishes playing golf and you should have heard some of our kids voice their opinion on this. Crazy.

One of the things that we've enjoyed is learning new cool terminology. Our new word? Flodge. It means to bail, flake out, etc. Don't believe me. It's in the dictionary. Urban dictionary that is.

Another big one...

Fire. Meaning awesome. Not used as a noun, but an adjective. "That party was fire." I don't get it. I think it sounds retarded and I feel retarded trying to say it to sound cool so I just don't.

Did we have weird words like this growing up? I guess we probably didn't think they were weird, but good grief. Kids these days...



Friday, November 12, 2010

Camping

Camping. I am not really a camper. I don't like to be dirty. I don't like smelling like smoke. I don't like peeing behind trees. I'm more of an indoor girl. However, I don't mind a good slide tackle on the soccer field or a slide into second base every now and then. I don't even mind sweating when I'm playing sports. I don't mind the outdoors, but I prefer perfect temperatures if I am to just be outside for the sake of being outside.

Too bad for me. I married Bear Grylls. He may be preppy and a competitive athlete, but D is all about some outdoors.



I would never let D do all the CRAZY things Bear does! He enjoys the outdoors and all manly things that it entails. Hunting and gathering firewood. Building fires. Making shelters out of branches and sticks. Drinking pee. Just kidding. D would never do that.... well unless his life depended on it and if the situation was that serious I guess I would want him to. Anyway... my Bear Grylls planned a camping trip for our youth. Now it is by no means a roughing it kind of trip. We are 50 ft. from a restroom area. There is electricity that is easily accessible. He goes down early that day and sets up the tents, etc. All we really do is hang out, play games, explore, eat smores, etc. This I can do. At least for 8 hours.

Last year we went in mid October and it was unusually cold. The temp dropped down into the 30's! Thankfully we are suppose to have perfect weather for tonight. I'm hoping my Bear Grylls gets enough of his testosterone juices flowing from this trip so he won't plan a real roughing it camping trip next time!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Word

God continues to kick my butt through Beth Moore... I was so challenged by this.

"If we don't know God's word (His knowledge expressed to man), we can hardly recognize what is setting itself up against the knowledge of God. The more we know God's word, the quicker we recognize Satan's attempts to cover it."

I don't know about you, but I don't spend enough time in it. And when I do I feel like I don't take the time to savor it and really grasp it. I'm normally in a hurry so I try so quickly to get it done that its not beneficial. So to live a life of victory from the enemy we must know God's word. Therefore we must really read it!


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Love





"One of the biggest and least addressed obstacles to truly loving God is thinking I already do when, truth be told, I really don't."



O.U.C.H.



I have heard 1 John 4:19 all my life but now it means something completely new.

"We love because He first loved us."

We have done nothing close to deserving or earning this love, yet He has, is, and will always love us.

Beth Moore says, rather than singing or saying, "God, I love you." We should instinctively say, "I love you too." He has, is and will always say it first. How do we know this? His word proclaims it over and over. Not only that, but he demonstrated it with the sacrifice of His son. How dare we doubt His love!

We know He loves us, but do we really love him?

We can say we do all day long and we can even serve Him, but do we really love Him? She gave a great analogy. She said think about the people that you really love. How do you know you love them? Most of us can list off many reasons. She used her grandson as an example and explained why she loves him so much. We can easily identify this love in other areas of our life, but how come we fall so short when talking about our love for God?

Some of you may even be thinking, you're right I don't really love God. There have been times in my life where I have gone through phases of apathy. Not caring if I didn't pray or spend time in His word. We know the Christian life isn't all about mountain top experiences. So how do we get back to truly loving and desiring God?

We must pursue it diligently through prayer. Literally, proclaiming, "God give me a love for you!"

Others of you may say, well, I think I love God or yes, I know I do. Here's a test:


1. Does God regularly circulate into my thoughts?

2. Am I often drawn to spend time with Him?

3. Does my life demonstrate a love for God?

4. Do I often enjoy God?

5. Do I ultimately find relief or satisfaction in obedience?


"To love God in the way defined by the great commandment is to seek God for his own sake, to have pleasure in him and to strive impulsively after him."

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Letter Cc

Today I introduced the letter Cc. We talked about the letter name, letter sound, and then looked at our name tags to see if they could find a Cc on them. Several of my students were really bummed that they didn't have a Cc in their name. One of my students finally said excitedly, "Mrs. Jerkins! My nickname has a Cc in it!" I asked her what it was and she smiled and said, "Pookie!"

Monday, November 8, 2010

Phil Wickham



Friday night was the Phil Wickham/Mercy Me concert. We have a friend that hooked us up with free tickets so we went. We love Phil Wickham. Sitting in on his concert...or rather worship service... was such a cool experience. I love nothing more than when a christian artist puts on a concert, but its for an audience of one. A true worship time. That's exactly what he did. He led us in worship. I know I pump Lecrae ALOT, so here's a new one for you. If you haven't already, go check him out. Phil Wickham. You won't be disappointed.

My favorite song.







Friday, November 5, 2010

Friday Fall Favs

The one and only MCRIB. It's here! I know I've posted about this before. Don't judge me. I know you may be gagging over your keyboard right now, but you must at least try it before you bash it. No pickles, extra onion. Yes please.





Coffee scented candles. I am in love. I have always enjoyed them, but for some reason now I can not get enough of them. I keep one lit on my desk almost all day long. My cousin bought it for me for Christmas last year...I've got to find out where he got it.





Christmas Tree Cakes. Now I realize this isn't fallish, but they start putting them in stores during October. We had a family dinner the other night and my mom had 2 boxes bagged up for each of us....sister and I that is.... D and J haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet. They may eat them, but they didn't squeal with excitement like I did. The crispy green sprinkles on top...my mouth is literally watering. I will confess. I kept one box in the pantry at home. The other box took residency in my top, left desk drawer. You might be thinking, we'll if your mouth is watering so much for one why not just open that drawer and get one?! If only I could. I already ate them all.





Now I know this post, especially about the McRib and Christmas Tree cakes, is like a walking nightmare for those friends of mine like, Ashley, who is a nutritionist. Hopefully you'll still love me anyway.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Ten Things Thursday

10. Because of this....




I have become obsessed with this...



I am a twittering fool. Both in posting and stalking...but in a nice friendly way...not creepy. Come find me: @candacejerkins, but I may come stalk you back. :)



9. My zebra iphone case is currently being shipped.





8. Whoever invented fire pits was a genius. Thanks to this genius, you can basically have a small bonfire wherever you want. It was a life saver at our tailgate party last night!






7. I love country music. I grew up on it. Though my first choice these days seem to be rap...Lecrae that is.... christian music is what i listen to mostly. But I love a good country song...not twangy stuff. I'm talking Carrie Underwood, Lady A, etc.






6. Ok even though this one is a little twangy.... I'm in love with it! So fitting. Warning...you may cry.






5. God knew what he was doing when he created Daniel Jerkins for me. I am so blessed.






4. A week from tomorrow...we're taking our youth camping. Crazy? Yes. It will be even more frigid than last year!






3. Christmas in the Valley is this weekend. Come check it out with us!






2. Why didn't I get a fall break? I think it should mandatory for all teachers to have one.






1. I have become a huge fan of Scentsy. My friend Hollie has begun to sell it. If you're interested... check her site out.

hholland.scentsy.us


Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Out with the old...

Despite the fact that I got this off of Bill Rancic's tweet….and he meant it for business purposes…. I thought it was a perfect example of why churches die. If only people in our churches could understand this.

“You can't do today's job with yesterday's methods and be in business tomorrow.” -unknown



Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Lately

School Spirit Night

We had FUSION outside a few weeks ago. We called it school spirit night. Our students were encoruaged to represent their schools. D challenged our youth to take advantage of the mission field they have at their schools. We had a great turn out and some interesting outfits. One of our kids, who goes to MUS, brought his sword or whatever it's called...he's on the fencing team. That thing in the dark with teenagers playing with it...not a great combo.



Several of our homeschoolers made their own t-shirts and purposely misspelled almost everything to properly represent homeschoolers. Just a joke... those of you who homeschool or are thinking about homeschooling. I was homeschooled and turned out okay so I am at liberty to make homeschooler jokes. Don't take it personally.




Some of our faithful leaders










Family Night

Once a month we have Family Night at church. This month we had most of it outdoors. Fire pits, s'mores, hayrides, and pumpkin painting.














Fall Festival

Sunday night we had our Fall Festival at church. It began with a chili cook off and ended with a trunk or treat. This cute cowgirl, my cousin Taylor Grace.... I mean Jessie...



came and won the costume contest for her age group.

Here we are with our trunk ready for visitors.


Monday, November 1, 2010

I'm officially an adult...



I finally own one of these.