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Weekend Check-in: February 14

What I'm Cooking
Sweet potato and apple casserole. The boys love this, so I often make it when I'm not going to be home for dinner myself. I didn't have any juice on hand and just used water.

Whole-wheat crepes (for breakfast this morning). This time we filled with chocolate chips and banana slices, and topped with raspberry syrup made by a friend. Delicious as always!

Rachael Ray's chicken and green bean casserole. I leave out the mushrooms entirely. I had every intention of linking to this recipe, but the one on her website is not the same as the one I took out of her magazine. Lame. If it sounds interesting to you, let me know, and I'll get you the recipe!

Six Sisters' crockpot chili and whole-wheat honey cornbread that I didn't save the link for. It wasn't the best cornbread I've ever made. I wish I'd stuck with my usual cornbread waffles to go with chili.

What I'm Reading
I'm reading another book on discipline, but I'm only halfway through, so I'm going to hold off on my review until I've had a chance to finish it. More on that next week, most likely.

I also read the first two books in the Alaskan Courage series by Dani Pettrey. Because who doesn't love a little murder-mystery-romance set in Alaska. (Yes, Toby is still getting up in the middle of the night, and I'm still reading mindless things to keep me occupied.)

Weekly Snapshots
Decorating the heart cookies that my mom was kind enough to mail -- all of the fun without any of the baking work! (Not that baking is work, I do like to bake, but time is at a premium these days, and this was a perfect way to have the best of both worlds.) Thanks, Mom!



This one did a lot more eating than decorating.

Favorite blog post: Honestly, this week I've been reading a lot of articles on 50 Shades of Grey (I don't even want to link to the book or movie page, for fear of what you'd find there), trying to decide whether to be bold in my stand against it, and to have information at my fingertips if I decided to do so. I didn't, really, beyond answering one Facebook post that happened to connect my name to the controversy. I think my favorite article about it was this one by Matthew Jacobson, which helped me understand why "normal" (as in, not into weird sex stuff) people are so intrigued by the books and movie.

Hands down, the easiest response was this one from the MOB Society's post on Facebook (that's "Mothers of Boys" Society, for those of you unfamiliar):

Don't watch it. Jesus died to set us free from sin and bondage, not to give us freedom to run toward them. Don't allow your mind or your home to be influenced by something that required Jesus' blood to overcome.
That's it!

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