Two HEALTHY Super Bowl Snack Recipes

I've been on a quest to find some healthy alternatives for next week's big game. And even though "Deflate-gate" has had me angrier than I care to admit, I know my family will want snacks. It's sort of a tradition. Last year, Abbey handled most of the cooking and it was amazing, healthy, and even better because I didn't have to fix it! But this year, I'm on my own for finding healthy options.

I almost put in a request to Liana Shanti to ask her to develop a Super Bowl recipe book. Her Rawganic Vegan recipes are always tasty and usually fairly easy with very few "weird" ingredients. [weird = difficult to acquire in the Midwest U.S.A.] She must have read my mind, because although a booklet has yet to arrive in my inbox, she recently shared a delicious dessert hummus recipe that I made today and received a hearty thumbs up from three of the four who tried it.

The Double Fudge Chip Hummus (mine pictured above) has just enough sweetness, in addition to substantial protein from white beans and nut butter, to make this an awesome alternative to pancreas-overwhelming fruit dips you find in the store.

My favorite magazine, Urban Farm, also came through with the Hungry Locavore's Orange Salsa recipe. I made both of these today and let's just say lunch was pretty awesome!

If you have any tried and true football snacks that are healthy and delicious, please share in the comments below. While the boys in our clan will chow down on their favorite Buffalo Chicken Dip (yuck!), the girls and I will be highly anticipating our tasty whole food and vegan alternatives.

Are Your Wise Men on the Move?

Nearly a decade ago, I read a little something in a children's magazine about a cute and clever way to commemorate The Day of Epiphany on January 6th. Considering I did not grow up in an orthodox, Catholic or other mainline denomination, this was a new concept to me. As someone that has always wanted to penetrate what I have been told about Scripture to get to the truth of what it really says...I embraced this little holiday completely.

Each year we pick one set of Wise Men to make the journey. This year, I chose my favorite tree ornament. The picture above shows their current location in our hallway. 

Although after all these years we don't always do it perfectly or consistently...the Wise Men making their journey across our family room, bedrooms or kitchen to arrive at the nativity, although not completely accurate...does remind me of a few things that we often forget about the real story:

• The wise men did not arrive at the stable. So while it's cute and sweet, wise men in nativity sets are not historically accurate.
• We are told that they were wise, not rich. We are making that assumption based on their gifts to Jesus and their reception by King Herod. But whether they were wealthy or not, their journey was long, arduous and at great peril to themselves and their companions. 
• Scripture hints at the length of the journey when the Wise Men do not return to give Herod the report he has requested. Herod has his own men calculate the timing of the appearance of the Star and then has all male children that age and under slaughtered. Two years is the age given. If this is two years by our reckoning, then it is three Jewish years. A person's age was calculated from birth as year one. Thus, our two year olds in ancient Jewish terms were in their third year. Whether Jesus was two or three when visited by The Magi, their journey was a great distance. This was no two week journey through my family room. (see Matthew 2 for the full story)

My entire purpose for starting this tradition was to remind myself and our children that there is always  more to the story, if we will just take the time to plum the depths of it.

On January 6th, we celebrate in a small way...either with a small gift, a little candy or a special dinner. The point is simply to remember the risk these great men took to meet the Savior. This year I need to be reminded that my willingness to leave all behind to follow my Lord needs to be just as compelling when He calls. 

As an added bonus, I have a challenge to all of the "elf on the shelf" people out there who also call themselves by the Name of Christ. I don't want to chastise you for having fun and playing the elf game leading up to Christmas...it's your family, thus it's your call. I would simply like to invite you to spend a little less time and energy on a new tradition...one that teaches history, love, dedication and determination to get to the Savior no matter the distance. Sure, there's a little gift at the end of the journey, but that wasn't the point was it? No pressure to be "good", no threatening letters when bad, or shenanigans in the middle of the night...just a passion...a fervor...a daring to risk it all just to meet my Messiah.

I think that is a tradition worth embracing.

A Simple Christmas

About a week before Christmas, I sat down with our kids and talked to them about why we don't make a big deal out of Christmas or cram a bunch of activities into one month just to make it feel like December is special. They've already picked up on a lot of this, but to have the formal talk was important...I thought at least.

My point was that every day is special...a gift. And every day, we should be focused on loving and serving Jesus. We shouldn't run to a soup kitchen in December to make ourselves feel better about spending hundreds of dollars on "stuff" at Christmas. We should be loving our fellow man daily.

We also should be watching our spending daily and only buying the things we need, can use often or will help streamline our lives so we have more freedom with our time to serve God. If we put all purchases...including Christmas ones...through this filter then we'll not only spend less and have more resources for God's use...but we will have a more simple lifestyle that will look very different from the materialism and consumer-driven culture around us.

Did I 100% live by this standard of gift-buying? Of course not, there were still fun and pointless things under the tree. But hopefully, those were more appreciated and will be better taken care of because there was not an excess.

But here were the best gifts I received:

photos of all four of our kids, taken and framed by our oldest, Abbey

Not even my gift, but Abbey painted the cover of The Great Gatsby onto a mug for her dad and I was very impressed by it.

Also, getting an "I Love You" note in my stocking from Leah.

With some Christmas money, I purchased a new vacuum because ours has slowly been falling apart for the last two years. I never dreamed I could be so excited to sweep the floors! Truly...poverty and the inability to buy whatever you want, whenever you want has huge blessings.

I also bought a toaster oven...our first. We haven't owned a microwave for about three years now. With the addition of the toaster oven, we could not only get rid of our broken toaster...but can now reheat leftovers without using the oven or caving into the use of an unhealthy microwave.

But yesterday, as I reflected on the past week, there were two gifts that stood out even though they weren't wrapped and placed under the tree.

When we learned that a blizzard was coming toward Indiana on the day we planned to drive there, we offered to let the kids open their presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning. Traditionally, we insist on staying home Christmas Day, but the anticipated weather required a change in plans. I expected the kids to be excited and to immediately want to rip into the presents...but no, the two oldest were very disappointed and insisted on waiting until Christmas morning. Our third child just wanted to do what the majority wanted and a small disagreement ensued when the youngest saw her hopes raised and dashed in a matter of seconds...so we compromised and each opened only one that night. We saved the rest until Christmas morning.

Best gift #1? We've reached a place in our family where tradition and spending time together matters more than "stuff"...at least at Christmastime.

And best gift #2 was that because we left early to head to Indiana, we were there when Dale received a call that his mom was heading to the hospital on Christmas afternoon. Dale's sister lives in Indiana as well and they were able to take off to Ohio together and be with their mom while they tried to find out what was wrong. Turns out, she'd had a minor stroke. She has been blessed to have very minor side affects that will mostly include speech therapy, but she's already home and recovering well. The gift is that God's protecting hand and foresight of our futures kept Dale and his sister from having to travel in a blizzard and prevented Dale's mom from enduring a long, slow recovery.

Really, as far as downtime versus running around...it wasn't a "simple" Christmas. Instead, it was the "simple things" that made it great.