Falafel

Sorry I've been gone so long!

We've moved on base and just found a renter for our house. Things are good.

I'm sharing this awesome falafel recipe that I made for dinner last night.

1 onion, 1 lb. dry Garbanzo beans (chickpeas), 1 bunch of cilantro, salt, cumin, 4 eggs
Soak beans overnight, covered. Drain, put in food processor then dump in a big bowl. Grind onion, drain off the water and dump in bowl. Put in the entire bunch of cilantro, grind, then dump in bowl. Mix it all together and regrind in the food processor until it's a paste consistency (kind of - it's still grainy feeling). At this point, you can separate into 2 batches and freeze one. If you use half of the stuff, add 2 eggs, 1 tbsp salt & 1 tbsp cumin. Fry in 1 in of oil and drain on paper towel. Or make into cookie like balls or patties and put on a cookie sheet (rubbed with olive oil) and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Until insides are hot and done. 

A Novel

4 bed 2 bath Southern Hills home

We're moving! On base at Barksdale, that is.
So now we need to sell this house. Within the next two months, Lord willing.

Anyone need a 4 bed 2 bath home in Shreveport?
We want to sell before we actually move to another base (assuming that we will someday).

We can't have chickens on base, but we can't in our current home either. It would be harder to have a home birth on base, but I'm thinking I'll use a birth center or a friend's house in TX if we're here for another baby. It would be like a little kid-free vacation!

So our prayer is that this house sells quickly. We're trying to do it ourselves for now.

Autumn Decoration

We don't watch TV much in the living room. So now it's a lovely autumn colored decoration. Lorelei is in the pumpkin hat in the picture. 

Divided: The Movie

I got this post from the movie website... time is short for blogging around here. :) 
"As you look on the church landscape, youth are leaving the faith in droves. The modern church, overall, is struggling to reach the next generation with the gospel. What has happened? Whether for good or bad, men, for many years, have been inventing solutions or brainstorming ideas without fully relying upon the foundation of God’s Word. God, however, is greater than man, and as the heavens are above the earth, so are His ways higher than ours and His thoughts than our thoughts (Is. 55:8-9). We have substituted the greater for the lesser – God’s wisdom for man’s ideas. Jesus said that he who hears His Word and does it, is like a man that built his house upon a rock, and when the storm came, it stood firm. On the other hand, he who rejects His Word, is like a man who built on the sand and when the storm came, the house fell (Matt. 7:24-25). Shouldn’t the church, as a whole, abandon the sandy ideas of man and shamelessly return to the firm rock of the Word of God? God’s Word sufficiently identifies how youth are to be reached. For more information on this issue, please see the filmDivided, which is a documentary on age-segregated youth ministry in America. Watch it for free (for a limited time) at www.dividedthemovie.com. For an in-depth study, the book A Weed in the Church delves into the topic and more thoroughly handles the Scripture passages that address ministry to young people. For other details or to help spread the message, visit www.dividedthemovie.com."

Say Yes to the Dress

Somehow, I ended up watching the last few moments of an episode of TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress" today.

The lucky bride-to-be had found her dream dress and it fit off the rack! So it brought the price from $5000 down to $3600 (only $500 over budget).

All this. For one day. And will any of those brides-to-be put any amount of thought into how they'll choose to give birth? Probably not. For the cost of that dress, they could have a midwife attended birth (if insurance didn't cover it). Yes, birth is one day as well. But it will impact your health, that of your baby, and any future babies (as well as family size).

But let's worry about the dress. Let's say "Yes!" And then we'll say yes to the doctor too. When he says we should induce, or section, or augment... or supplement or sleep train.

Perhaps it doesn't all start with the dress. Maybe these women who spend so much research on a dress will be the ones to ask questions about their bodies and their births as well.

Maybe?  I guess I'll be an optimist. But that's another show on my list to never watch (another is all those Baby Stories...).

Liam at 7 months.

Me around the same age.