He is the same!

I've often times wondered these questions, and while talking with my husband tonight about some people in our lives that have cancer- a beautiful 3 year old at our church, a 14 year old that my husband teaches, a mother in her 30's, I've started wondering these questions again. This is such a devastating disease!! Cancer is so horrible- so ugly!

But Jesus heals, right? I *know* He heals! I guess I just don't understand why so many people die everyday of cancer, why so many kids brought to grave so early and -stay- there.

The Bible talks about how the God I serve healed people with leporsy, made the blind SEE, the deaf HEAR, who raised people from the DEAD!

Why haven't I seen anyone raised from the dead? I honestly don't think I've ever prayed for that though. I have certainly prayed for someone with cancer to be healed- and they weren't.

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Hebrews 13:8

Well, if Jesus Christ is the SAME- then He hasn't changed. It must be us!

Why is it that we haven't seen anyone raised from the dead? He's the same God!

Why is it that so many people die of cancer when they're surrounded by people who are praying for them? He's the same God!

Why?

I don't understand it!

"Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20

A MUSTARD SEED!

Do you have any idea how small a mustard see is? Surely my faith has to be bigger than a mustard seed! Right?

I know God has the bigger picture and He's in control, but He use to raise people from the dead all the time! People were always being healed!

Are we as christians just getting so lame, so lack in our faith that we're settling for "He has the bigger picture" mentality and just sitting around letting things happen? What if his bigger picture is to have someone raised from the dead? What if the bigger picture is for that 3 year olds tumor to be COMPLETELY removed?

When is the last time you asked the Lord for that?

"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." John 14:12

I want to see these things! We're not suppose to get dull in our walk with God, we're suppose to be doing GREATER things than what He did!

Anyways, just my thoughts and challenges!

Blessings! 

Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil Giveaway!

The other day I posted about how I used coconut oil in my recipe instead of regular vegetable oil and I got to wondering if they would allow me to host a giveaway so some of my awesome readers could get a chance to win this awesome stuff! So I emailed them and they were very quick to get back to me and offer a FREE quart of their Coconut Oil (retails for $37.50 + shipping) to a lucky winner!

You will need to:

#1 Subscribe to my blog
#2 Join their mailing list:
http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/subscribe_for_special_sales.cfm
#3 And leave me a comment with your email address and something nice to say ;)

As my kids are growing up and I have the responsibility of providing healthy food and environment, finding things like the coconut oil gets me so excited! Not only is it healthier than any other oil, but it makes the food taste SO good! 

You can do more research on the oil if you like and find out all the health benefits for yourself! Here's also a video for you to watch if you're interested in the way the coconut oil is made!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h6eycjf29M

Also, here's a great link for some great recipes to use your coconut oil with (although I just replace the vegetable oil and butter in recipes with the coconut oil ).

http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/index.htm

Just a small disclaimer, Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I chose so.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product. I really do love the product and would love for you guys to try it out too!!

Tropical Traditions also offers a complimentary copy of the Virgin Coconut Oil book with your first order by taking part in their referral program. Whenever you're checking out, just add 5610816 to the "How did you hear about us- Refer a friend" box. Does that make sense? lol

I will choose a winner November 8th!

Also! Don't forgot to enter the milk saver giveaway:

http://lovingtouchwetbags.blogspot.com/2009/10/milk-saver-giveaway.html

Anyways! Happy Giveaways!

YUMMY Banana Bread/Muffins!

This afternoon, my wonderful husband took the kids outside to play. I was debating whether to aimlessly zone out into the internet for the hour or to do something productive, so I decided to be a good wife/mother and make some nice yummy chilli and some banana bread/muffins to warm them up when they came in from the cold.

I decided to make muffins instead of bread so it would be easier for the kids to eat, but I used the same recipe (with a little adjustments which are noted). These have to be the BEST banana bread/muffins I have ever had! They were SO good!

Banana Bread

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Instead of the 1/3 cup of melted butter, I used 1/3 cup of coconut oil  and instead of all-purpose flour, I just used the same amount of whole wheat flour. Just made them a little bit healthier!

I won the coconut oil on my friend Jenn's blog- The Daily Burns. It's definitely not the cheapest to buy, but the health benefits are wonderful, and it adds a yummy coconut taste to almost anything you make! We have loved using it!

Happy Baking!

Be still...

Be still my aching heart, God is still in control...

Thankful!

I'm so thankful for friends who will tell you how God see's a situation, even if it's not what you ~want~ to hear- but it's what you ~need~ to hear! 

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." Proverbs 27:17

I'm also thankful for my 3 1/2 year old daughter who randomly sticks a box on her head and starts walking and talking like a robot, and for my two year old son who points to his boo-boo and says "bye-bye boo-boo" when I tell him it's getting better, and for my 8 month old daughter who loves to seek out paper and eat it (yuck!!)!

I'm very thankful! It's not how I started off today (I was super grumpy), but it's the way I'm *choosing* to think!

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8

What are you thankful about today?

Custom Spot!

Hey everyone!

I'm so excited about all my new followers!

In case anyone is interested, I'm stocking a custom spot tomorrow at noon (est). I am no longer taking custom orders, so snag this listing while you can!

I've been working hard tonight on setting up catagories for my store. Since I haven't been taking custom orders, I've had a chance to stock some bags (yay!) so my store is starting to get full and I wanted a better way to organize it, so catagories it is! How do you like the catagories? I think I like it better this way!

Anyways, here's a link to my store:

http://hyenacart.com/lovingtouchwetbags/index.php

Sorry I don't have anything truly interesting to read tonight :) Maybe sometime soon!

The Milk Saver Giveaway!!

I'd like to start off saying, if you're a male, you don't want to read this...just trust me!

All through nursing my 3 kids, I've always hated wasting the milk that came out on the opposite side I was nursing from. Whenever the child would get the "let down" the other side would also leak. Sometimes not very much, but enough for me to wonder how much milk I would be able to save if I was to get a bottle or something to collect it! I never did get a bottle. I guess just the thought of how funny it would look for me to be nursing a baby on one side and holding a bottle on the other.

A few weeks ago, I received a newsletter from a store I shop with a lot online www.Mom4Life.com. They were advertising The Milk Saver. So out of curiosity I went and checked it out. I was SO excited to see that this is the type of thing I've been dreaming about and it's so discreet! So I'm determined that I NEED this item! Since it was $25 (with always free shipping from that store) I decided to wait and ask my husband if I could purchase it, and to my surprise, he gave me to go ahead!

The week that I received I was suppose to  be going out of town on saturday all day to do a farmers market in another town, so I knew that I was going to need to be pumping so my youngest daughter would have milk to drink while I was gone. I hate pumping. I do, I HATE it! Who has time to pump with you have 3 young kids running around? So when I got the milk saver, I washed it and the  very next time I nursed my daughter I put the milk saver in the opposite side. I was SO surprised to see that I had saved 1/2oz to 1 oz of milk. 

My milk supply is pretty leveled out now that my daughter is 8 months old, so I was pretty proud of that 1/2oz!! So what I did for the rest of the day is that I put that first 1/2 oz in a milk storage bag in the frig and then next time I nursed, I would collect the milk and put that milk in a bottle- you can't combine milk until it's the same temperature it can ruin the nutritional value. Then I put the milk in the bottle in the frig. The next time I nursed, I used the milk saver, then I combined the milk from the bottle to the storage milk bag since they were both the same temperature and then washed the bottle out, dried it, and then put the new milk from my recent nursing into that bottle. Do you see the pattern? By the end of the day, I had about 3 1/2- 4 oz saved! 

Every morning I was able to get a lot of milk being that she sleeps through the night. I would get at least 1-2 oz's in a morning feeding!

Anyways, I HIGHLY recommend this to *any* nursing moms! It's a nice easy way of saving your milk, saving you time, and saving you on nursing pads!!

I am SO SO SO excited to announce that I have spoken with a lady named Helen from Milkies Milk Savers and she has offered to send to you for FREE a milk saver AND a breastfeeding advocacy shirt!! I'm so excited that someone gets to try this for free!!


If you would like to be entered to win, please "follow" my blog, and leave a comment here with your email address and your fondest breastfeeding moment (just b/c I'm so in love with nursing and would love to hear everyones stories lol). Easy enough?

This will end November 1st to give people plenty of time to enter and tell their friends about it!

For more awesome information about the milk saver or nursing, check out the Milkies website!
http://www.mymilkies.com/