Josiah Queen - Can't Steal My Joy feat. Brandon Lake (Official Lyric Video)

This is a new release and it is great!  Enjoy 

Our Weekly Snapshot

 Here's a quick glance back at our week

Nate got to enjoy his birthday party on Saturday.  Since his birthday is December 22nd we always wait until January for him to celebrate with friends.  It's a nice break in a long month!  This year he decided to have a few more friends over than normal and just hang out during the day instead of an all nighter.  It was a very enjoyable day!  (He has great friends!) 

Wednesday included haircuts!  It's always fun to see them with new cuts :-)  

Joshua and Nate headed off to Winter Retreat with our church youthgroup and these are the best photos I was able to snap 🤣

Weekly Menu

 As we settle into 2025 I'm trying to continue to be intentional with meal planning to make sure that I am using our budget as wisely as possible and stretching it as far as I can.  I really love doing my shopping online and ordering groceries each week.  The system is not perfect but it sure is a great way to budget as I can see exactly what I'm spending and remove/add/change items to stay within the budget.  I also run into thinking I added an item to my cart but when I get my groceries home, it is "missing". (Not really, I just didn't order it).  Overall though, it really is great!  

Here's the plan for the coming week - the first week of February! 

Friday - We are taking Josh and Nate off to winter retreat so it will just be quick food before we leave - Tacos!  

Saturday - All of a sudden (as winter retreat was just scheduled LAST week!) Darryl and I have no kids HA!  IF there is a good movie showing - we will use a Christmas gift from Darryl's sister to see a movie.  If not, I'm not sure what we will do.  :-) 

Sunday - Josh and Nate return mid afternoon and then Darryl,  Josh, and Nate are attending a Chili Cook-off Men's Conference in the evening.  I'm not really sure what we will do for lunch - the guys will be hungry after the retreat so we may take advantage of a gift card and get taco Bell or Pizza on the way home. 

Monday - Creamy Tortellini Soup (a carry over from last week)

Tuesday - Shrimp and Grits and Corn Bread (I usually only buy shrimp when it is on sale for buy one bag/get one free which means we get to enjoy Shrimp and Grits a few times in a row!) 

Wednesday - It is youth group night so Darryl and I might grab something for dinner. 

Thursday - Spaghetti Carbonara and French Bread (another carry over from last week) 

Weekly Song - Phil Wickham - Song In My Soul (Official Lyric Video) ft. Hollyn

It's time for a good worship song!  The last few songs I've shared have been fairly new releases but this one is not!  It is several years old but just recently popped up again and I just really enjoyed it.  It is easy to sing along with and brings me joy. 

Our weekly snapshot

 We had a pretty quiet week because of the bitter cold and snow.  I personally enjoyed days of staying home but I think my guys were glad when we could venture out again! 

On Saturday we finally enjoyed Christmas with Darryl’s family.  Josh snd Nate both got Lions sweatshirts. 

On Sunday Joshua and Nate went to Winter Jam (a huge Christian Concert) with our youth group. 

Joshua used is blood testing kit he got for Christmas to find out what type of blood he has.  

Finally we had our co-op and they had to build towers ….. without talking😊

Weekly Menu

 This past week we dealt with arctic temps - it was crazy!  On Wednesday morning when Darryl left for work it was -4 with a feels like of -27.  Thankfully it is going to slowly start to warm up and we are supposed to be above zero finally HA!  Because of the brutal cold everything extra we do was cancelled so we (well, the boys and I, Darryl still worked!) have enjoyed just being at home.  Joshua still had school to do while Nate had finished his first semester classes last week.  We also ate at home and all together every night this week instead of running different directions most nights!  

Here's the meal plan for the coming week

Friday - Spaghetti and garlic bread. (This is great for busy nights because I can make it the day before and just reheat it!) 

Saturday -One last party!  Nate's birthday get together is done.  We don't do big parties every year but they always get to have a few friends over if they want.  This year Nate decided to not do an over nighter (he actually does not love them - he loves his sleep HA) but rather he wanted to have a few friends over for the afternoon to hang out, play games, and have dinner.  So, that is what we are doing today!   

Sunday - Chili with Fritos

Monday - Chicken Tortellini Soup 

Tuesday -  Amish Breakfast Casserole and banana Bread 

Wednesday - Youth Group - Leftovers

Thursday - Spaghetti Carbonara and French Bread

Joyful Week 1 - Co-Op Class

 While I know this doesn't interest everyone, I like to share my co-op class lesson plans and ideas along the way because I search for ideas every semester and I wish that someone would share more!!  Especially teen classes.  So many teen classes are heavily educational and/or for credit.  That is not what I enjoy teaching - I focus more on relationships with our teens.  We spend 4 days focused hard on school for the sole purpose of being able to enjoy our Friday Co-Op, hang out with friends, and build relationships. 

I started teaching my Joyful class several years ago for the sole reason that Joshua asked for a "just teens" class so he didn't have to take all three hours with younger kids.  Well, teaching teens was not high on my to-do list!  I created this concept because I was already focused on the idea that we need to find joy in all aspects of our life.  When I first offered the class I had 5 students.  By the end of the first semester I was asked to offer it again . .. and then again. . .and again!  Each semester is fairly unique except we do "Breakfast and Bingo" every semester.  My class now fills up (15 students) and the idea of teaching it two hours so that more teens can participate has been brought up.  For now, though, I enjoy my one class.  

Week one of our semester started last Friday and here is my lesson plan: 

1) This semester I am sharing a short devotional around the idea of why we memorize scripture.  I'm taking my thoughts from HERE.  There are 10 Biblical reasons to memorize scripture so I'm sharing one each week. 

2) We then do our Joyful Bucket.  Each student has to name one thing that brought them joy throughout the week.  Sometimes this is hard.  I try to help them understand that their item doesn't have to be a "thing" - something they did or experienced - but rather even something simple they saw that brought them true joy. They also get to chose something out of our treat bucket. 

3) We review our scripture memorization.  We spend the semester memorizing scripture that we then share at presentation night. 

4) Our activities!  We did two activities this week.  First up we played a simple ice breaker game called "Human Taco". 

The basic overview is that each person received a paper with part of a taco listed on it.  They then had to find four other people with the different parts of a taco to make theirs complete.  We played two rounds and it went pretty quickly.  They laughed, it was was fun.  It would have been better in a larger space so I could have sent them to different corners making it hard to find people.  The game can be found HERE

Our second game was The Toilet Paper Game: 

The basic overview is that you pass around a roll of TP and each person takes "as much as you think you will need.".  Some took 1 piece and some took upwards of 20 pieces.  Once everyone has their pieces they are informed that they must share one fact about themselves for each piece!  Boy, we got some laughs.  I think those that took 1 wished they had take a few more and those that took over 20 (yes there were a couple of those) wished they had taken a few less!  One of the girls took 25 pieces and when she was done everyone said, "After that, we still didn't learn one new thing about you" HA!  I would recommend this game to any group.  It really was fun and you can find complete instructions HERE. 

Both of these games would make great activities for a youth group.  The Taco game would be great with a larger group too - the more people; the more crazy the search would become!