Some updating.

Hello there, sweet friends who actually still read this. We are--all six of us--still alive over here. Blogging has taken an extreme backseat to living, which seems completely to fill up my time on its own (imagine that!). Things are very slowly settling down though. Here are updates on us:

• We moved into our very first home the day before Christmas Eve. It was a crazy, crazy time, as I'm sure you can imagine. The kids' first night here was Christmas Eve. It will most certainly be a holiday we will never forget! God is so good to me, even in the little things. He knows how I work. If I get too excited too early, it wears off and then I'm left with blah. I kept wondering why I wasn't jumping out of my seat every time I thought about moving into our house. I just was not that excited. Ready, but not excited. Overwhelmed, but not excited. Looking forward to what I hoped it would mean for our family, but not excited. You get the picture. But since we've moved in, I've seen the kindness of the Lord at work in this small thing in my heart. Because instead of being prematurely ecstatic, I have slowly and sweetly been realizing specific things I love about our house. I know that my coming about it this way will make my thankfulness grow permanent in my heart. I am so grateful to the Lord for working in me this way about something that is so near and dear to me as a wife and mother: my home.

• I am almost 21 weeks pregnant (I always want to round up the weeks when I'm pregnant, ha.) We have yet to find out whether this sweet one is our second baby girl or our third baby boy. We've had issues with switching insurance, otherwise we would probably know already! It's funny how stuff changes with consecutive pregnancies...I would have been losing my mind if I had gone this long without knowing with my first one! We had the date planned and I literally could not sleep the night before. With this one, our precious fourth, I am so much less anxious. I still want to know, absolutely, but I'm not flipping out. Don't even really know why! Perhaps I have a few other things to distract me during the day....

• Elizabeth is almost 4 and a half, Judah is almost 3, and Rivers is almost 10 months. They are my discipline and my joy, my tears and my laughter. They are the the low and high of every day, the worst and the very, very best. Hard to explain, but maybe you've been there too?

I really did not intend to do a lengthy, pictureless post, but I was already at the computer and waiting for something to download and there you go. I had lost my good camera's battery charger, so there is a depressing lack of quality pictures from Christmas and the move-in. Found it when we moved though, so there should be some pictures on here the next go round. 

I'll leave you with yet another link to Kingdom Poets. I couldn't help it--T.S. Eliot is the most recent post, and not only that, but the excerpt featured is one of my most favorite of his. Maybe THE most. Feed your soul, and I hope I'll see you back here soon enough.

"The dove descending...."

Guest post, sort of.

{This is a post I hijacked (with permission) from my talented 

graphic designer friend Charlotte from pickle.}

     "I have been so excited to share this project. It has been a work in progress since the summer. Jaclyn Thomas (of Jaclyn Thomas Designs) asked me to design the invitation for her wedding this past Saturday.

Jaclyn has been a mutual best friend for the past couple of years. She and Lauren have been best friends since high school, so we have crossed paths many times. Jaclyn’s new hubby went to WKU so I got to know him through Ryan. All that to say, when Jaclyn came to our wedding in January, I asked her to do my makeup. So I was thrilled to be part of her day too.

We met up in the summer and she shared her wedding idea book. It was all gorgeous. I was thrilled to be a part of something so amazing. Jaclyn had some ideas for her invitation and I knew I couldn’t do it alone. So Rachel Fisher (of the Written Words and my sweet mentor through high school) created the handwritten part of the invite. It was our first collaboration project– something we had been talking about for a long time. I loveeeee the finished product!

After Jaclyn saw the amazing work of Rachel Fisher, she decided she needed some more! We did place cards for all of the guests at the reception. It was a big job, but so beautiful. Then Jaclyn decided to do an extra large seating chart (over 5 feet tall!). Chris built a wooden stand and she attached my chart.

Rachel also did a map for the guests. I had no idea that she could draw so well! Sorry, but these pictures do not show how amazing the maps are. The paper was thick and textured with rounded corners. It doesn’t much better than this:

The program had some of Rachel’s letter too. Jaclyn did such a great job of tying everything together.

And on top of all of the paper goods, the rest of the wedding was amazinggg!! The reception was in a airplane hangar and was beautiful. Plus I got to see sweet friends.

I love this picture!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Journey!!!"

Soul food.

Here I am, back again promoting Kingdom Poets. Found an especially good one today by John Newton.

Why should I fear the darkest hour

Why should I fear the darkest hour,

Or tremble at the tempter's power?

Jesus vouchsafes to be my tower.

Though hot the fight, why quit the field?

Why must I either fly or yield,

Since Jesus is my mighty shield?

When creature comforts fade and die,

Worldlings may weep, but why should I?

Jesus still lives, and still is nigh.

Though all the flocks and herds were dead,

My soul a famine need not dread,

Jesus is my living bread.

I know not what may soon betide,

Or how my wants shall be supplied;

But Jesus knows, and will provide.

Though sin would fill me with distress,

The throne of grace I dare address,

For Jesus is my righteousness.

Though faint my prayers and cold my love,

My steadfast hope shall not remove,

While Jesus intercedes above.

Against me earth and hell combine;

But on my side is power divine;

Jesus is all, and He is mine!

The third and fifth stanzas made my heart swell as the truth of them resounded in me. And "Jesus is all, and He is mine!" Yes!

[Incredible] Crispy Beef Fajita Wraps.

First of all, this is going to be kind of a downer post, as there are zero pictures. I have reasons for this, though, which are the following: 1) I didn't expect the utter deliciousness that this dish ended up being, and 2) I was entirely too busy. I'm posting the recipe anyway, mostly to have for my own records since all my cookbooks are still in a box somewhere and I have resorted to carrying around recipes on a piece of notebook paper folded inside a book in my purse. Not kidding.

You could make these wraps at 9:30 in the morning or at 9:30 at night and not be sorry. It's that good.

(This is a spin off of this recipe, mentioned here the other day, as featured on this blog. How indirect and six-degrees-of-separation is that? It's a spin off because I used beef instead of chicken (we didn't have any poultry on hand) and it's much more Mexican-y. Yum yum delicioso.)

(Also, can I give a quick second to the greatness that is Pinterest? Please. It's like the Picasa collage things I've been into recently. The organization is just...making...me...so...happy! My meager beginnings can be found here.)

Here you go! Get thee to a kitchen.

Crispy Beef Fajita Wraps

INGREDIENTS:


THE MEAT SEASONING

- 1 to 1.5 lb. flank or strip steak, cut into 1-to-2-inch strips

- 1.5 tsp. garlic powder

- 4 T. minced onions (I used the dry kind)

- 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

- 1 T. coarse salt

- 2 tsp. ground cumin

- 3 T. lime juice (two whole limes)

- a good, generous sprinkling of liquid smoke (~1-2 tsp.?)

- a good, generous sprinkling of Worcestershire sauce (~2 T.)

- drizzle of olive oil

THE RICE MIXTURE (straight from original recipe)

- 1 C rice (I used long grain, brown), already made.

- 1 can drained and rinsed black beans

- 1 to 2 green onions, green + white parts, chopped well.

- 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped up pretty well.

- 1/2 bunch cilantro (I use the top half of the bunch, stems and all, just chopped well.)

- juice of 1 lime

- 1/2 T. chili powder

- 1 tsp. cumin

- 1/2 tsp. garlic salt (which I didn't have, so I used half garlic powder, half regular salt. It worked.)


OTHER


- sour cream


- freshly grated cheese (I used colby jack)

- 8-10 medium tortillas

- 1 stick REAL butter (my addition)

DIRECTIONS:

Dump everything in the meat seasoning list on top of the already cut meat on a plate. Mix and rub into meat with your hands.

Melt half a stick of butter (1/4 C) in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Throw the meat in and let it sizzle on one side for a good bit, until the red is almost out of the top. Believe me, it tastes good if it gets a little blackened on the underside. The second batch I forgot about got a tad charred, but it was the best. And I don't generally like charred meat. I was also worried about the meat being tough because I didn't have time to marinate it, but it wasn't! It was just right.

Cut up the green onions, bell pepper, cilantro, and mix them and the black beans and the spices (chili powder, cumin, and garlic salt) all in with the rice.

When the meat is finished cooking (make sure the pieces aren't too big!), mix it into the rice too. Now you have one big goulash mixture of everything, which tastes unbelievable by itself.

Heat 1-2 T of butter in skillet over medium-high heat. Take the tortillas and one by one, add sour cream and shredded cheese down the middle, then spoon the rice + meat mixture down over that. Roll tightly and place seam-side-down in the skillet. Repeat for as many will fit comfortably in the pan. The goal here it to crisp them up (or I guess essentially fry the outsides in butter...there's a big clue to their yumminess). When the undersides are nice and crispy golden brown, flip them and do it to the other side. Remove and place on a plate. Slap some more butter in that pan and do another batch and another batch until you use up all your tortillas and rice + meat mixture.

The crispyness combined with the creaminess combined with the caliente-ness is just so delicious. We ate these tonight with a salad and some chips and homemade salsa, which I must have made literally hundreds of times. My recipe mostly follows this recipe, previously praised and featured here, and is something Tony and I crave weekly, if not daily.

Sorry for this extremely loquacious (I love that word!) recipe, but I like recipes that explain things thoroughly. I feel it's better to err on the wordy side, at least for recipes anyway.

Happy Wednesday, and happy eating.