Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yesterday, I made the most amazing pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. For some reason I was (but actually still am) in this baking mood, although our adorable little apartment was insanely hot and humid. Here is my mouthwatering recipe:

1/2 c margarine ( I always use butter, it makes everything better!)
1-1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. canned pumpkin
1 t. vanilla
2-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 t salt
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. cinnamon
1 c. chocolate chips 
Optional: chopped nuts

Cream margarine and sugar together; set aside. combine egg, pumpkin, and vanilla; blend into creamed mixture and set aside. Mix dry ingredients together; blend into pumpkin mixture. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets; bake at 350' until lightly golden, about 8 minutes (mine took about 12 minutes though).
Makes about 3 dozen

fun...fun!!!

Proverbs 17:22 " A merry heart doeth good like a medicine..."

On our way back from camp we had a few kids that were a bit hyper. Laughter is truly contagious.

Just some fun, and very crazy, traveling from camp pictures.

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ARM WRESTLING~ All of our kids placed in this fun competition. Our kids are tuff!!!!

Wallow Fire

Please pray for my brother as he is helping fight that enormous wildfire in Arizona and now New Mexico. I talked to him last night and he said it is heading toward Reserve New Mexico now. The smoke and ash is still very thick from miles away. His camp has already had to move once due to the thick smoke. It has burned many acres of wildland, burned many peoples homes, and it is not stopping anytime soon. They say by the time this fire get put out it will have been the largest wildfire. I didn't realize really how bad it was until my amazing brother called me a few days ago asking me to pray for him. He has never done that before, and has been to many different fires.
This is a news video I had watched on it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43364879#43364879

We keep looking at the pictures to see if my brother is in any of them. We haven't seen him in them yet but I will still post some here for you to see.

 

 

 

 

This picture is the smoke in Albuquerque New Mexico! I couldn't believe it when I saw this picture. It is so unhealthy to be breathing all this stuff. It is amazing how fast this fire is moving.

Camp Adventure

Our trip getting to camp was rather interesting as I  mentioned in my last post. So we left at 5:00am to head for camp. We got to Shamrock and the van started being weird and dying every few miles. We took it to a shop there, which took a few hours. They didn't really know what it was so they told us they thought it would be alright to keep driving. We got right outside of Erick and it commpletely died. After waiting in 80 degree, humid weather for about 2 and 1/2 hours Bro. Rice and Bro. Carter came to pick us up and we had to get the van towed to Elk City. We did finally make it to camp a little after 5:00 in the evening.

To get home, Bro Rice and his group from Fritch took us to Elk City. We had lunch with them at Mazzios and we picked up the van. We had a great time with them and the young people they brought to camp. We ended up making it home with no problems. Through all of this God was good. We had a wonderful time traveling and just getting to know eachother better, as we haven't been here that long.

Thurday night we all played volleyball in the dark. It was super fun!

Brother and sister that went with us. Very sweet kids!

Our whole group, acting crazy. Our trip home was so much fun, as you can see.

The very cute song they sang for me to record.

Cedar Hills Baptist Youth Camp

We just got back from taking the most amazing group of young people to camp outside of Binger Oklahoma. Although it was rather eventful on the way there, God is good and we all had a wonderful time. God knit our hearts even closer together through this trip. He also worked in many young people's lives.

These are our marvelous, talented young people that went with us. They won a trophy for 3rd place. Very Exciting!!!!

They also won ribbons and placed in many of the competitions they competed in. The competitions are amazing as they are all areas of ministry. They do teaching (girls), preaching (boys), flannel graph, music, soul winning, puppet shows, and many other areas that they can use to serve in their churches.

Me and my only girl camper. She was a great blessing to me!

I will be posting more on our crazy adventure and how we finally got to camp.

Ugandan Beads

As many people know, I have been selling the most amazing beads from Uganda made from magazines. My cousin is a missionary in Kampala Uganda and is working with street kids. Street children are extremely hated in Africa. They are sold into prostitution, shot like rats in the streets, and even sometimes killed and given as sacrifices to gods.
 "According to the U.N. there are an estimated 120 million street children in the world- 120 million children sleeping alone and cold at night under bridges, in trees, or in any filthy hiding place they can find. These children have no one to love them; they feel completely forgotten and abandoned in the world. Street children are the "perfect injustice" and no child should ever be alone on the streets. Hope for street children exists so that every street child in Kampala Uganda could know they are loved unconditionally, and live out the amazing God given potential inside of them." www.hopeforstreetchildren.com

 Aren't the beads absolutely fabulous!!!!

She has been doing this for many years, anyways, now these beads are becoming very popular and Reef has started putting these beads on sandals. Their Ugandal sandals sell for between $40.00-$60.00. Reef is only giving the women making them 1% of the proceeds, you do the math, that is hardly anything for them. They talk about it being fair trade, but is this really a fair trade. The proceeds from the jewelry I sell for my cousin all goes back to them. The sandals, and the beads my cousin's boys do in the home, are in no way related. We need to really care about and love these marginalized people, not just turn what they do into a moneymaking market for ourselves.

You can look at my cousin's blog at www.africa-love.livejournal.com. You can order beads and read more about her on www.globalhoperesources.org, Or you can contact me to order some of the jewelry also. There are bone bracelets and earrings and beaded necklaces, bracelets and earrings. The pictures at the top are actual pictures of the jewelry I have right now.

My Brother

My brother is the most amazing brother ever. A lot of people probably think their brother is the best, but that isn't possible because the best is already taken, he's mine! He is a wildland fire fighter with the BIA. Yesterday he was sent out to a fire 30 miles south of Taos, which he is super excited about. I am so thankful for my wonderful brother!!!