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Recipe: Bowler’s Delight #canadiancookies

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At Christmas time, my sister-in-law is the Queen of Baking.  Me…not so much.  When it comes to baking, there is one recipe that I love to make and is so yummy to eat!  It is one of my brother’s favourites, so I make an extra batch for him and my SIL give me some of her.  It’s not completely fair, but I’m not going to turn down cookies!

Strangely enough, the last time I shared this recipe was for another cookie recipe exchange 5 years ago, shortly after I started blogger.  Click here to see the first time it was posted.

Bowler’s Delight

Ingredients: 

1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped nuts (we use peanuts)
1 package Graham Crackers

 Directions: 

  1. Preheat oven to 350 On a cookie sheet
  2. Place graham crackers to cover the bottom of the cookie sheet.
  3. In a small pot, add butter and brown sugar. Bring to a boil, remove from heat.
  4. Stir in chopped nuts.
  5. Pour mixture over graham crackers evenly.
  6. Put in oven for 8 minutes.
  7. Allow to completely cool before cutting.

 

If you would like to participate in the #CandianCookies Blog Hop, click the button below!

 

love your neighbour: a lesson in giving

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For the month of October, our church is focusing on Stewardship, both in our church and in our community.

For the children in our congregation, we want them to understand what stewardship is all about: they have been given gifts from God in the form of time, talent and treasures.


Also, they are learning that with each of these gifts they need to

    • thank God for what they have been given,
    • use each gift wisely
    • and to share the gifts with others.

The first two weeks we talked about time and talent.  This week we talked about our treasures.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”~ Matthew 22:36-40 ~

The kids were each given a $5 bill.  They were so excited!  With that money, they were asked to thank God for their treasure, use it wisely and to share it with others.

The lightbulb went off in my head.  Our plan for Sunday afternoon was to go to Indulge Ice Cream in Cambridge for their Waffle Stacks Grand Opening.  They were offering a special — Buy one waffle stack and get one waffle stack free…if…you brought in a food donation for the Cambridge Shelter.

After church we headed to the grocery store where we picked out some items that the shelter needed — cereal, coffee and sugar.

The girls used their treasures to pay for some of the food.  BigDaddy and I bought the coffee and sugar.  I’m always happy to give people coffee!!

They were very proud to bring a big box of food to help the people at the shelter.

And if you’ve never been to Indulge Ice Cream, you have to!  It’s in a train caboose!!

Win-win-win!

Win for the Cambridge Shelter!
Win for us — Waffle Stacks are awesome!
Win for an amazing day of friends, learning and giving!

Robbie’s Rainbow is "bowling for bowels"

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Our friend’s over at Robbie’s Rainbow are hosting a fall fund-raiser, “Bowling for Bowels” at Classic Bowl-Mississauga on September 25th. Their overall fundraising goal is to raise $10,000!

Robbie is looking for teams of 6 players ($25 for team registration or $4.25/child). Robbie’s bowling event includes: team t-shirts, pizza, pop, face painting, balloon magician, prizes and more!

Event registration closes Wednesday, September 14, 2011.

On the day of the event, team registration begins at 1:30pm; bowling begins at 2:00pm and ends at 4:00pm

By asking family, friends, and neighbours to help support your fundraising efforts, raising funds will be a SNAP! You can find printable bowling pledge forms on our site: www.robbiesrainbow.ca/

Robbie’s Rainbow provides funding to children living with severe Crohn’s disease.  The children we help desperately need a specialized and expensive drug treatment, called Biologic drugs, to keep Crohn’s disease in remission. For many children, Biologics are the last option in treatment before surgery is used to gain control of the disease.

Many families are denied access to this class of drug because they either have no private drug insurance, or their policies do not cover the cost of the drugs. O.H.I.P. does NOT provide coverage, so children are faced with using a less effective drug that doesn’t control the disease because it’s all they can financially afford.

If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact: kate@robbiesrainbow.ca

Please join us on September 25th at Classic Bowl, and impact the life of a child living with severe Crohn’s disease. Together we will STRIKE back at Crohn’s!

help for Stella!

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I was all ready to write a post about our weekend. Actually it was going to be two posts so you’ll get those tomorrow and Wednesday instead.

Last night I recived a message via FB from a friend of mine.  She asked me for help…but not for herself, for her friends Michi and Aimee and their beautiful 2-year-old daughter Stella.

Michi and Aimee need as much love and support as they can get right now.  They have recently found out that Stella has an inoperable, fatal tumor that is wrapped around her brain stem.  Currently she only has a few symptoms but this with change quickly.  She only has few months to live so her parents have taken leaves of absence from work to spend every last minute with her.

Please go to the site that they have created for Stella to learn more about this amazing little girl — http://stellabrunermethven.com/

Taking this time from work has made life more difficult financially.  Christine and other friends are trying to make sure that Michi and Aimee enjoy their time with Stella.

On Stella’s site, they have suggestions for PayPal or money transfer donations.


The money will be used to help with daily support, cleaning, hospital parking, etc.

Christine from molly cake is donating 25% of her sales to Stella and her family.

“It’s what I do and Michi and Aimee have always enjoyed my baking so it somehow seems appropriate that I have offered Stella and her family a percentage of my total sales (not just the proceeds) from now until August 15th. You can help them make the most of the time they have left with Stella by placing your order.” 

I cannot even begin to imagine what this family is going through. If you have a service that could help the family and could donate a bit of your time, if you could buy some sweets, if you can donate just little bit of money to ease their burden, I know that they would appreciate it.

If you want to share this story with other, please grab this button!

Stella Joy


“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
~ 1 John 3:18

i don’t know yet

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This was the answer to the question, “How are you doing?”

And I totally knew how he felt.


Saturday, June 25th, as I was getting in to my car, I got a text.

“My mom passed this morning. I left your mom a voicemail.”

My heart sank.


That text was from my friend whom I have known since I was 3.  We had lived across the street from each other and her family and my family spent a lot of time together.  Many great memories I have are with her.  Her parents would watch us in the morning before heading to the school bus and we’d play Atari.  My parents would go to her place for “cookies”.  That was their secret code word for “beers”.  I don’t think it took us very long to figure out what they were up to.

Her mom had been battling cancer for a long time and that morning, she lost her fight.  My friend was glad that her mom was now at peace.

The next Tuesday was the visitation and Wednesday would be the funeral.  Due to a conflict with work, I wasn’t going to make it to the funeral.

I arrived at the funeral home that Tuesday night and my friend and I had a big, long hug. Even though we haven’t been as close as we were where when we were little, we’ve always managed to keep in touch and still care a lot for each other.

When we finally stopped hugging, she said to me, “This is a little close to home for you, isn’t it?”

And with a big sigh, I agreed.  My Dad passed away 6 years ago on July 2 and was only 58.  Her mom passed away June 25th and was only 61.  Losing a parent is very, very hard.  And I know all too well the roller coaster of emotions that this family will be going though as they grieve.

She let me know that she and her mom were able to say what they needed to say to each other and she said goodbye to her mom with peace in her heart.

It took me a while to approach the casket.  Her mom had gone thru some surgery to try to get rid of the cancer and it left her face a little disfigured.  I didn’t want to remember her that way.  I did manage to say goodbye, while still remembering her the way she was.

My friends’ dad also had given me the biggest hug.  He’s been such strong husband and father through all of this. But I think I saw a glimpse through his hard shell, when I asked him, “How are you doing?”  and his reply was

“I don’t know yet”

Rest in peace, Lynn
June 16, 1950 – June 25, 2011