Mother's Day

Though it's a few weeks late, I still wanted to make a Mother's Day post. I was blessed to have my Mom and Dad here the day before, and then was able to spend Sunday day and evening with Greg and our daughters. I am challenged every day to love our girls as God wants me to, and that is only possible with the help of the Holy Spirit. He is a gift to all who put their faith in Jesus (see verse from Acts below). The Bible says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22). Left to myself, I am impatient, short-tempered...basically the opposite of the above list. God should get the glory for anything good in my life.

One very fun Mother-daughter activity that has come about over the past weeks is that Phoebe has started helping me in the kitchen. She pulls a chair over to the island in our kitchen and says "Make dinner?." To keep it fun, I need to be okay with a little mess and a little slower pace for meal prep. As the weeks go by, we find more and more things for her to do in the kitchen. Though I'm sure other Mommies have thought of all of these things, here are a few of the things Phoebe does to help: puts cheese and pepperoni on a pizza, helps me pour ingredients into the bowl, stirs, shakes, transfers chopped items into a bowl, makes foil balls while Mommy works (that's just to keep her busy while I'm cutting or doing something more difficult), and, of course, samples the food. Phoebe is also helping me unload the dishwasher by stacking plastic plates and cups. I got some of these ideas from a blog I started following called Passionate Homemaking (thanks to a friend), but most of them came from watching my Mom and Mother-in-law engage Phoebe in helping them while they were here.

L: Phoebe helping me roll out the crust for our Mother's Day strawberry rhubarb pie.
R: Phoebe and Greg feeding the ducks cheerios in Schiller Park in German Village (my requested destination for Mother's Day).

Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."