And more to give...

Today I am giving 6 puzzles to the thrift store. I often buy my puzzles from this store, so I thought it would be good to donate some of them back so that others can buy them and have the puzzle joy that I've been able to have! :)

Final game.

Final game of the season. sigh. The 2009-2010 basketball season has drawn to a close.

Tonight was our first game in the MCC conference tournament. Sadly, we lost the game, so our season is over now. I'm sad that I won't get to watch Nate and Eric play anymore. They are both amazing athletes and their love of & dedication to the game make them a pleasure to watch on the court.

One of the final team huddles

The ball getting ready to fall into the hoop and score us two points.

I went to the game with Deanna and one of my former RAs - Rachel. We had a fun time together - stopping to eat at Chipotle on the way and cheering for our leafs!

me & Rachel

What will I do with my time on Tuesday evenings & Saturday afternoons now?

Week 2, day 3 of Lenten giving

Today I decided to go through my cookbooks and find 6 to donate to the thrift store. Two were especially thin, so I counted them as 1 cookbook, so I actually got rid of 7 cookbooks instead of 6. It was actually more difficult than I imagined it would be to find some that I would be willing to give up. I spend a lot of time leafing through my cookbooks found that I couldn't part with several that I've never even made a recipe from just because of the way they inspire me to think about food!

Free pancakes!

Today was free pancake day at IHOP. I met Megan (my niece) and her kids at IHOP for dinner tonight. We didn't get any photos of the pancakes, but here are some cute shots of us and the kids. :)

Gavin and Megan

me and Lily

The kids were so excited that they got to have pancakes for supper! They were talking about how they were going to tell their friends at daycare all about it. Too cute! :)

More things to give away...

For those of you who don't know, I collect snowmen. I have well over 100 figurines/stuffed ones/mugs, picture frames, etc. I put them out on display when I set up my Christmas tree during Thanksgiving weekend each year. I take down my tree around New Year's Day and then leave the snowmen up until the end of February. I spent my evening tonight taking down the snowmen. I left 6 out to add to my donation box for the MCC thrift store.

I hope these snowmen make someone else happy with their cheerful smiles! :)

A new week of Lenten giving...

This week my Lenten giving will be a collection of items from my house that I will give to our local MCC thrift store. On Monday I went through my collection of t shirts and found 6 that I was willing to part with. I think the middle of the bottom row will be a big hit at the MCC store - it's a Mennonite Disaster Service t shirts...those Mennos will eagerly grab that up! :)

Giving away t shirts for Lent

Roasted Acorn Squash and Gorgonzola Pizza

This week I was watching "Everyday Italian" on the Food Network one afternoon. (Giada is not my favorite food personality, but it was the best thing I could find to watch at that point.) She was making a pizza with flavors that piqued my interest...roasted acorn squash, arugula, and Gorgonzola cheese. I knew I didn't want to eat the entire pizza myself and was having trouble thinking of who might be bold enough with their taste buds to try it, and then it hit me...AMANDA! Amanda works at Rachel's Bread - a local artisan bakery with a wood-fired oven where they emphasize local and organic foods. This is just the kind of food that they make at Rachel's. So, I asked her if she wanted to forgo our planned post-church restaurant outing and opt to try this new recipe out together instead. She was game and we ended up being very glad that we tried it! The flavors were a wonderful combination. The sweet heat from the glaze on the squash partnered with the tang of the Gorgonzola and the peppery arugula was simply divine!

Here's Amanda...eager to dig into the goodness!

Here's just the pizza.

And here's a link to the recipe if you want to try it out for yourself!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/roasted-acorn-squash-and-gorgonzola-pizza-recipe/index.html

Saturday fun

Saturday was fun! I spent the morning on the couch in my jammies watching the Food Network and playing on my iPod touch.

In the afternoon I headed over to the Rec Fit Center to watch the last home men's basketball game of the season. It was Senior Day. I found myself tearing up a bit while I watched the Seniors play their last game. I sat there remembering the day they moved into my dorm, that first night when they came down with their floor to meet me, learning who each of them were, sharing meals with them around my table, watching them play LOTS of basketball, some of the growing pains that we experienced together, and all the laughs we've shared.

Nate (my RA who plays this year) taking a free throw shot.

The seniors - Eric, Nate, and Shawn.

The 2009-2010 team in their last huddle on the GC court!

After the game I headed over to Bill's (the VP for my department at work) house for a department social. He built an outdoor pizza oven last summer, so we had a pizza party. After making and eating pizzas we sat around and watched the Olympics for a while. It was a fun time of hanging out and chatting - also marveling at the amazing athletes in the Olympic games.

Shirley, Launa (my boss), Andrea, and Shawna

Bill, Steve, Suzanne, and Mark

The star of the evening - Bill's dog Otis...too cute! :)

Day 4 of Lenten giving...

Today instead of buying something at the store to give to the food pantry, I took 10 items from my own pantry to donate. This donation is a nice segue into my theme for next week's giving...next week I plan on donating 40 items from my house to our local MCC owned thrift store.

Poker Chips

I made my first "catered cakes" today. A friend of a friend needed some cakes made for a 50th birthday party. My friend mentioned that I make cakes and that I might be willing to make the ones that her friend needed. I talked to the woman and explained that I am an AMATEUR, not a professional, but would be willing to make the cakes for her if she wanted to take a risk. She decided to take the risk! :) The cakes were for a casino night themed 50th birthday party. They wanted the cakes to look like poker chips. Here are photos of the cakes I made - each one is 12 inches around.

The ones iced in purple icing are chocolate cake.

The writing is off center and that really bummed me out! :(

I think this one turned out the best.

A side view.

The three together.

I hope the lady who ordered them and her friend like them!

Day 2 & 3 of Lenten giving

I continue with my food pantry theme for this week's Lenten giving. Thursday I picked up 10 bags of rice. I chose rice because it is a good staple that goes with so many different foods.


And for Friday I purchased 10 cans of cat food. I'm actually not much of an animal person, but I have several friends who care about their pets as though they were family. I think that care for God's creatures is a special thing in them. I also remembered that when I worked at the food pantry last spring they mentioned the need for pet food as well as other staples. So, I purchased the "9 Lives" for those reasons.

Desserts!

Wednesday evening one of my floors had a progressive dinner. They went to houses off campus for appetizers & a main course and then came back to my apartment for dessert. I made several mini desserts for them...mini banana cream pies, tuxedo brownie bites, and chocolate/raspberry truffles.

The platter on the left is the mini banana cream pies. I used my regular banana cream pie recipe and instead of putting the filling into a pie shell, I used those little mini phyllo dough cups. (and the cute pink plates & napkins were courtesy of the 1/2 off Valentine's Day items at Wal Mart!)

These are the tuxedo brownie bites around the outside of the platter (brownies filled with a mixture of cream cheese, white chocolate, powdered sugar, and cool whip - with a strawberry wedge and drizzles of chocolate on the top...yummmm!) and the chocolate raspberry truffles are in the center.

First day of Lent

I mentioned in my post earlier this week that I would be sharing about the 40 things I am giving away during Lent. I'm actually going to give away 40 "things" each of the 7 weeks of Lent. Each week will have a theme. This week my theme is the "Food Pantry." Goshen is in Elkhart County, which has been hard hit by unemployment in the past year or two. And while experts say that things are getting better, there are still a great number of families that are struggling. I decided to donate 40 items to the food pantry this week.


Today I was at Wal Mart buying food for a student dessert party that I am hosting this evening. While I was there I picked up 10 cans of Mandarin Oranges (my favorite canned fruit) to put in my box of items to take to the food pantry.

Baby shower

On Monday evening we had a baby shower for my friends Rob & Sandy. Rob is my friend from waaaay back and Sandy is his lovely wife that he married 3 1/2 years ago. They are adopting a baby boy from Kazakhstan and just received their invitation to go to Kazakhstan to finalize the adoption! While the process has been going on for over a year, this invite to go to Kazakhstan has happened pretty quickly and their home group rapidly planned a lovely shower for them. I was only able to stay for half of it due to a commitment back on campus, but here are a few photos of the fun evening...

Jeremy really enjoyed the chocolate diaper game...is he TASTING that?!

Pretty sure Brian has his tongue out there to get a little lick. Ewww!

Amanda looks pretty disturbed by what she sees.

And here's Jeremy with the cutest member of our church family
...his daughter Talia.
Isn't she just too cute?! :)

Plans for Lent 2010

This year for Lent I've decided to do two things.

Before I tell you what I'm doing, I want to share something I learned this year...Lent is commonly know to be 40 days long, while the period of time between Ash Wednesday and Easter is actually 46 days. The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days because each Sunday represents a "mini-Easter", a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.

The first thing I am doing for Lent is giving up Diet Coke (all soda really, but Diet Coke is what I drink 95% of the time.) Please note that I will give up Diet Coke for the full 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. I think this is a good thing for me to give up for Lent, since I will miss it a great deal and it will affect my day to day life - as I'm predicting I'll be much more tired at the end of my day without the generous caffeine infusion I get from my regular 3-5 glasses of pop a day.

I found this photo online and thought the added "completely addicted" was a fairly honest representation of my current relationship with Diet Coke!

The other thing that I am doing for Lent is giving something away each of the official 40 days of Lent. I will try to blog each day to let you know what I give away that day and any observations that I have about the experience. I look forward to sharing this journey with you all.

My pretty flowers

My niece gave me a pretty bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day! It's a mixed arrangement, so it looks different from every side...

Pretty orchids and pink roses.

Carnations, Daises, and more pink roses.

My favorite view...with the brightly colored gerber daisy!

And here's me posing with the flowers.

At lunch my friends mentioned that my neck had yellow on it. I had to explain that I was posing with my flowers and must have gotten pollen on my neck!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day can be a real bummer when you are a single gal. I made sure my day was filled with fun plans so that I didn't start to feel sorry for myself. I had the college students from church over for lunch today and then planned to go see "Valentine's Day" the movie with the women in my building. Unfortunately the movie was sold out by the time we got there, so I ended up back at home for the afternoon. I thought the idea of a nap sounded pretty good, so I was ok with that. Then my niece called and asked if I'd like to watch her kids for a couple of hours. I adore my little niece & nephew, so I was happy to oblige!

Here are Lily and Gavin posing with the box cake mix that we used to make cupcakes for my RA dinner tonight. They LOVE putting on the aprons and baking with Aunt Susie! :)

Here they are with the cupcakes ready to go into the oven.
Such proud happy smiles! :)

My RAs surprised me with a BIG Valentine's Day card when they came down for dinner. It was so sweet of them and was extra special because one of the boys thought the idea up and actually made the card...quite thoughtful for a 20 year old guy! :)

At 9:00 I opened my home to any students that were interested in decorating (and eating) Valentine's Day cookies. I baked about 120 heart shaped cookies, bought lots of fun heart shaped sprinkles, and put out two colors of frosting. Lots of girls came down and decorated cookies. We watched the Olympics on tv (figure skating) while we decorated and chatted. It was a fun evening!

Some of the gals with their cookies.

Ashley and Laura with the cookies they decorated for each other. Aren't they a couple of cuties?! And they are super sweet good girls on top of being adorable!

All in all it was a lovely Valentine's Day. I also got flowers from my niece. I will take photos of them soon and post those as well.

Happy Valentine's Day to you! :)

I'm a tad kooky!

Those of you who know me know that I'm a tad kooky..well, maybe more than a tad! I have waaaay too many photos of me doing silly things. Here's one that Kev took at home group last night. I was in the Beck's kitchen impersonating the Statue of Liberty with my leftover lettuce and cookbook.

Notice the yummy pizza in the front corner...I made it and it was delish! :)

Super Bowl Party '10

Each year I try to keep the programming that I do for students fresh - not just a repeat of the exact same activites we did the year before. (That would actually be easier, but not the most interesting or fun way to do things!) This year my Assistant Resident Director really wanted to throw a Super Bowl party...so we did!

We started the party with a wing cooking competition - judging occurred just before kick off.
Here are our celebrity judges - the men's soccer coach, our head chef at the cafeteria, and the president - posing with the students that were involved in the competition.

Here's a nice shot to show you how full the room was.
We placed the couches on top of tables of various height to make "stadium seating."

Here's a shot of our halftime spread...
Papa John's pizza and wings from the cafeteria!
Yummm!

I love being an aunt!

The older I get the more I realize how unlikely it is that I will have children of my own. This makes me a bit sad, but I choose (most days) to focus on the amazing children God has placed in my life. I have 12 nieces and nephews and probably another dozen or so of "honorary nieces & nephews." I treasure the opportunity I have to be a part of shaping the people that they are becoming, to shower them with love (and hugs & kisses), to share special moments with them, and to watch them grow up.

Two of my favorite little ones are my niece Megan's children. My little great niece and great nephew - Lily & Gavin. I had the opportunity to spend the evening with them on Friday. When I picked them up at daycare, when asked by her teacher who I was, Lily said, "That's my Susie!" I felt SO special...is there anything more wonderful than being loved by a child?!

I decided that this time we wouldn't just hang out at my place and bake cookies (like we usually do), but instead would go to Chuck E. Cheese and Build-a-Bear!

Chuck E. Cheese was a thrill for them! This was their first trip there and they were SOOOO excited when we pulled into the parking lot! They immediately began singing the "where a kid can be a kid" jingle from the ads. We ordered our pizza, got some tokens and spent about 45 minutes trying each of the rides in the toddler area. I then coaxed them back to the table to eat some pizza before we went and blew the rest of our tokens!

Here is Lily showing off the proof that we were actually at Chuck E. Cheese and Gavin is chewing on the plastic-ware (don't ask me why?!)

Here's Lily acting like a ham with her pizza and Gavin is probably pondering how he's going to eat Lily's olives off her pizza without her noticing. :)

And the kids with the star of the joint...Chuck E. Cheese!
Gavin was VERY excited to meet him!

After dinner at games were over we piled back in the car and went to the mall to Build-a-Bear. Each of the kids made a bear and chose an outfit for it - Lily chose a ballerina outfit for her bear named "Fluffy Kaluffy 8" and Gavin chose a police officer outfit for his bear named "Officer Edward." (They thought the names up, not me!)

I had never been a part of the Build-a-Bear process. It's really creative and fun! The woman who helped the kids was very kind, funny, and made them feel special. Lily even mentioned in the car on the way home that she thought the lady at the store was a very nice lady. :)

Watching the bear get his stuffing put in!

Needless to say, my niece said that the kids fell asleep very quickly that night and so did Aunt Susie! :)