Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Lutheran hen house. This year flew by as most seem to do when there are five chicks in a house. Everyone is growing and learning and living each day in the forgiveness so freely given to our by our Savior, Jesus Christ.

I feel as though we have been greatly blessed this year. When most people think of blessings, they think of earthly things. In a baptised child of God, we think of our forgiveness as a blessing. Everyday our sins are before our eyes and we may feel like we will never be able to accomplish the tasks before us. Our Father in heaven knows our every plea and sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be the perfect lamb for us. Jesus was blameless, we are not. Jesus was kind, we are not. Jesus was taking care of his neighbor, we are not. Jesus was spotless, we are not.

Through our baptism we were crucified with Christ and raised from the dead. We are now the spotless lamb because Jesus Christ dwells within us, through our washing at our baptism. "He Saved us though the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying." Titus 3:5-8

Here are the five chicks after the Christmas Eve service at our church tonight. As you can see Chick number 4 wears glasses now. He also broke his arm last spring. He loves math and plays games with numbers all of the time.

Chick number 5 is now THREE. She is cute, cute, cute and likes to snitch butter, look at babies, play with her sibling and ask for chocolate milk.

Chick number 2 has learned to count many, many carbs. His type 1 diabetes diagnoses came in September and our lives have been forever changed. It is just our new normal.

Chick number 3 has the best imagination in the world. She loves to play and sing and talk and change clothes and decorate and use glitter and anything else that is fun.

Chick number 1 reads and reads and reads. She also helps me a lot! She is what you would call, my right hand gal. She has begun to babysit and like the extra pocket money that she can make.

Chick numbers 3 and 5 had matching dresses this year. Thank you Nana and Papa for the cute outfits.

Enjoying their goody bags after the Christmas Eve Service.

Dutch Baby adventuers

My friend, who is a much better cook than I am, taught me how to cook a dutch baby. Some of you may now be asking, "what in the world is a dutch baby?". It is a fluffy type of pancake, a play on a popover, because it is baked all together. I use this recipe for my dutch baby and have tried it three times.

When I first made one the children were very concerned that we were going to eat a baby. Kids are funny that way, especially mine. They try to whip me into a frenzy every chance they get. Chick #5 was the most confused by the title of Dutch Baby. The first attempt at cooking a dutch baby involved sauteing apples. After the apples were tender, the batter was poured on them and it was baked. It also involved melting butter on top of it and drizzling some lemon juice upon it during the final minutes of baking.

Dutch Baby number three was full of bacon and sausage. It was a huge hit and completely disappeared. My sister and her son were here so the dutch baby knowledge was passed on to her.
The bacon/sausage version has been the most popular one I have made so far.

This morning I tried a coconut dutch baby. I added flaked coconut to the batter before I baked it and I loved it. The kids were half and half in love with it. It was not a hit so I am not sure that it would be worth it to try this version again. Coconut does have a funny texture and a few of my kids do not like the way that it feels in their mouths. I would like to know how it tastes when made with coconut milk. If I ever try that one I will let you know.

Here is the coconut Dutch after I served it. I tried to make homemade whipping cream but you can tell I failed. I added the powdered sugar right away and I bet that did something to the chemistry of the fat and fluffing and the whipping. I will have to search out a episode of Good Eats to figure out why my cream flopped. There is a good thing about cream and sugar, it always tastes good even if it is not fluffy.

Here is the coconut dutch baby hot out of the oven. Yummy!

The feast

Chick #1 was confirmed on Palm Sunday. We had so many family and friends that traveled to our little neck of the woods to celebrate this wonderful occasion with us. Some of you maybe be wondering what on earth is a confirmation any way. First I will begin by explaining what it is not. It is not a graduation from church or Sunday school. It is not a turning over of one's life to Christ. My daughter did not turn her heart over to Christ or ask him to come into her heart.

A Confirmation is a confession of one's faith. A faith that was given to them by the Spirit. It is also a understanding that our learning of Christ is never ending and that we live in continued catechises for our entire lives in this world.

My daughter became a Christian by hearing the word of God. My daughter became a child of God at her baptism when she was only 11 days old. She was baptised with plain water, "from the tap" to use her words. This water was then combined with God's word and she became holy and set apart from all people.

During her questioning which was before our pastor, family and one set of friends she spoke of the faith that was given to her by God. In a very poised manner, she told us of the triune God, her sinful nature and her need of a Savior. She spoke of the Commandments, Creed, the Lord's prayer, Absolution, Baptism and Communion. She was alone and the only confirmand and she did a beautiful job.

In the Sermon our Pastor did a beautiful job of telling Chick #1 that Christ was coming and where he would be. He would be placed into her mouth under the bread and wine of communion for the forgiveness of her sins.

Chick #1 with some of our dear friends. I have known the lady in this picture since she was born.

Chick #1 always giggles when she is visiting with this lovely women. She prepared beautiful food and everyone loved it.

My sister decorated this beautiful cake for the special day. Chick #1 had a hard time coming up with an idea for the cake but we guided her to this nice design.

Here is the whole family.

Chick #1 with The Rooster's father. It was so nice having him and his sister and bothers there for the afternoon.

Here she is again with The Rooster's mother and step-father. We are very lucky to live close to them and spend a lot of time them.

My parent's were able to make the trip down and Chick #1 was very excited to have them here, so was I.

These are her Godparents one set traveled 10 hours and the other 16 hours. Thank you so much for coming and spending time with us.

Our Pastor, he who must not be named, posed for a picture with our churches only confirmand this year. I need to get a copy of this picture to our church soon, so I can be hung on the wall with the other confirmand photos.