Because of my dairy allergy, (and a serious Starbucks addiction,) I've been making these at home for a few years now.... and though I try to enjoy them in moderation, they make for an awfully yummy treat!

For 1 serving:

• 1 cup chocolate milk     (I use chocolate Silk (soymilk). *Raw milk lovers can use 1 cup raw milk plus 2 Tbsp cocoa powder. If you do this, be sure to increase your sweetener a little)
• 1 Tbsp instant coffee granules
• 1/2 - 1 Tbsp brown sugar   (I use raw honey)
• 1 cup of ice    (this is approximate... play around to acheive your desired consistency)

Blend all ingredients together, and if you're not avoing the dairy top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup!

This morning, my hubby decided that we should take the kids to Chick-Fil-A for dinner in honor of their Cow Appreciation Day... so this afternoon, we "crafted up" some cow costumes and set out for our first Cow Adventure!  Our little calves had a blast, and "moo'd" all the way to CFA, (and partly through dinner. *grin*)

I picked up a book from the library, The Family Under Siege, by George Grant. Now, I haven't read the entire book, so I can't speak to the soundness of it in its entirety... but I found this history about Henry Laurens to be particularly interesting.  The quote below, taken from the excerpt, holds so much truth. This story is long, (and I hope I'm not violating anything by sharing it here,) but well worth the time spent reading it.... enjoy!




"At a time when liberty is under attack, decency is under assault, the family is under siege, and life itself is threatened, the good will arise in truth; they will arise in truth with the very essence and substance of their lives; they will arise in truth though they face opposition by fierce subverters; they will arise in truth never shying from the Standard of truth, never shirking from the Author of truth."


"He was a prize catch.
Henry Laurens was just off the coast of Newfoundland when the British cruiser Vestal chased and intercepted his lone rebel packet, the Mercury. Fearing the worst, he emptied all the diplomatic papers from his trunk, stuffed them into a leather bag weighted with shot, and threw the heavy bundle overboard. Unfortunately, he failed to deflate the air within the bag-- so it floated, was sighted by an alert sailor on the Vestal, and subsequently was hooked on board.
On thus discovering both the identity of the Mercury's prominent passenger and his intended mission, the commander of the Vestal had the small packet boarded and Laurens was arrested.
It was September 3, 1780. The rebellion of England's American colonies was now in its fourth year. And the war was not going particularly well for the mother country. Although the rebels could boast precious few actual field victories, they were a stubborn and elusive lot. They were poorly equipped, under-financed, and lacked even a modicum of formal military training, yet they continued to harass supply lines, out-maneuver troop placements, and evade naval blockades.
The morale of His Majesty's troops was at an all-time low. The distance from home combined with the constant frustration at arms had taken a bitter toll. The war, never particularly popular before, was now stirring a near mutinous restlessness among the conscripts.
The commander of the Vestal was hopeful that the capture of Laurens might actually afford the royal cause the advantage it now so sorely needed. He was, after all, one of the most important leaders of the revolution and its fledgling government.
A wealthy merchant from South Carolina, he was a member of the first provincial convention in Charleston in 1775. The next year he was elected vice-president of the sovereign state under its new constitution and was chosen to serve as a representative in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He was so highly regarded by his fellow delegates there that when John Hancock resigned his position as president, they unanimously elected Laurens to succeed him on November 1, 1777.
His tenure as the fourth president of the newly independent United States was predictably tumultuous. Besides all the difficulties of trying to mobilize the tiny confederated nation for war against impossible odds, supply the widely dispersed Continental army, hold together the fractious congress, and secure international recognition for the rebel cause, he also had to deal with the acrimonious conflict between his Commander in Chief, George Washington, and the temperamental General Thomas Conway. But somehow he was able to do it all- with amazing success. Furiously outspoken, unflaggingly ambitious, and decisively brilliant, his obvious leadership abilities won him the admiration of the American patriots- and the enmity of the court and Westminster.
At the end of his distinguished term he was appointed to supervene John Adams as the legate to the Dutch government at the Hague. And it was to that assignment that he was traveling when he was captured.
The commander of the Vestal delivered Laurens to his superiors at home amidst a flurry of publicity and fanfare. The London papers trumpeted the news with all the gaudy gossip of a palace coup. They displayed the worst qualities of journalism: all its paralysis of thought, all its monotony of chatter, all its sham culture and shoddy jingoism, all its perpetual readiness to cover any vulgarity of the present with any sentimentalism of the past. One of the papers declared that the rebel cause had at last been "dealt its death blow" Another predicted that American resistance would likely "collapse within the month." More prudent press observers, while admitting the vital significance of the former president to the colonial cause, cautioned that his captivity might only serve to "stiffen their resistance."
Whatever the American reaction might prove to be, it was clear that the English reaction was profound. Though he has been "thoughtfully neglected" in our own day- as the esteemed southern man-of-letters M.E. Bradford was wont to say- his greatness was certainly recognized in his own day.
Laurens was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Steeped in English history and the blood of many of its leading participants, the infamous fortress on the Thames had dominated the London skyline ever since William the Conqueror built it to repress his unwilling Saxon subjects. It thus served for centuries as the scene of state and private violence, of torture, murder, and execution.
Although he had been a lifelong churchman, Laurens was not particularly known for his piety- quite unlike his close friends Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. But cut off from the noisy forgetfulness of public life, he resolved his faith into what he called a "God-fearing, Bible-reading, hymn-singing passion for permanent things." Each day he was allowed to attend private services in the St. Peter-ad-Vincula chapel. Within the precincts of the vast Tower compound, to the northwest, the little sanctuary was built by Henry VIII on the site of a previous chapel in 1519. In it were buried his second wife, Anne Boleyn, and his fifth, Catherine Howard- both of whom he had beheaded on the Tower Green a few yards away. Also killed there, and buried ignominiously below the chapel floor paving, were the old Countess of Salisbury, Lady Jane Grey, the Elizabethan Earl of Essex, the rebel Duke of Monmouth, and a host of others. The associates of the place make it rather oppressive, even today; old terrors and miseries seem to hang in the air.
But Laurens found "an unspeakable comfort" there. Although he would be released at the end of the war- exchanged for Lord Cornwallis, following the surrender at Yorktown as a part of the negotiated cease-fire arrangement- he maintained to the end of his life that it was in that "dismal, haunting chapel" that he found "genuine release."
The experience of prison often changes the outlook of men. According to the Greek author and journalist Taki, it "strips away all the inconsequential peripherals of daily life and hones close to the bone of what matters most: faith and family, principle and priority." It is, he says, "a fundamental reordering" of what is and is not really important:

Imprisonment throws a searchlight of brilliant clarity on all that we are and all that we do. Every sham pretense, every false motive, every empty ideal, every corrupt ambition, and every shallow desire is exposed for what it is. Thus prison either drives men to greater sagacity and keenness or to deeper vapidity and tedium. It either breaks men or makes me.

It made Laurens.
Though he was no less irascible in his resistance to English rule, no less belligerent in his revolutionary insurgency, and no less antithetic in his sedition against tyranny, he was far more pensive, for more judicious, and far more principled. Years later he would summarize his new "Christian vision" for "social involvement" as the "natural outworking of a threefold covenantal responsibility." He wrote:

"At a time when liberty is under attack, decency is under assault, the family is under siege, and life itself is threatened, the good will arise in truth; they will arise in truth with the very essence and substance of their lives; they will arise in truth though they face opposition by fierce subverters; they will arise in truth never shying from the Standard of truth, never shirking from the Author of truth."

Laurens asserted that this threefold perspective in dealing with the enemies of freedom- focusing as he said, "first on us, then on them, and then ultimately on Him" -was attainable "only by one means: that being the means of grace." He had come to understand that "the crucial question" in squaring off against any political or theological juggernaut is "not so much: How have they violated truth? but how have we, in word and deed, told it?"




...Christians must not assume that if we are able to help pass a few good laws, or elect a few good traditions, that we will ensure the integrity of the family or establish the foundations of freedom.
America's character must change, not just her laws, not just her judges, her schools, her media, her legislation, or her priorities. And in order for America's character to change, the character of America's Christians must change.
...Only then will we be able to turn back the current siege on the family, and begin to solve the many problems that plague our cities and communities. Repentance, revival, and righteousness among God's own precedes social renewal. It always has. It always will:

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14, RSV)

The Family Under Siege, George Grant

I've been having TONS of fun with the Pioneer Woman's Photoshop actions... if you have photoshop, they're a must download! (And they're free!!)  Be sure to download both sets!

And here's a few pictues from the family birthday party Sunday night...  William missed his nap and so he was begging for bed before we got the camera OR the cake out...

"The smith, who makes an edged tool, -an axe, a knife, or any such instrument, -first works the iron and steel into the form which he wishes, and then tempers it. While he is working it, he wants to keep it soft, so that he can work it easy; and this he does by keeping it hot. But after he gets it finished, he heats it in the fire and dips it in water, so as to cool it suddenly, and that makes it hard. But, if he let it so, it would be so hard that it would break all to pieces as soon as it was used. So he holds it again over the fire, and heats it a little, to take out a part of the temper, and make it just of the hardnesses that he wishes. An instrument that is very hard is called high-tempered; one that is very soft is low-tempered.

This is a good illustration of temper as it appears in us. A high temper is one that is easily excited, and that runs so high as to be in danger of doing great mischief. A low temper is a disposition easy and indifferent, like a knife tempered so little that the edge will turn the first time it is used. Now you want temper enough not to be indifferent, but not so much as to fly all in pieces. And I know nothing on which your usefulness and happiness more depend, than in the proper regulation of your temper; and not your own happiness alone, but the happiness of all around you. One of the first and greatest moral lessons is, to learn to control your temper. "He that is slow to anger," says Solomon, "is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city."  But, "He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls." By indulging an ungoverned temper, you expose yourself to many evils. You show the weak points of your character, and lose the good opinion of others, and your own self-respect. You cannot help thinking meanly of yourself after having broken out in a sudden gust of anger, or given indulgence to a peevish, fretful spirit. To be ill-humored, peevish, or cross, is to be unhappy, and to make others unhappy. But a sweet temper will not only make you happy, but like the balmy breezes of a summer evening, it will shed a sweet fragrance all around you. Nothing will render your character more unlovely than ill-temper."

-Harvey Newcomb, How to be a Lady

My sweet firstborn turned 5 today!  It's so hard for me to believe that 5 years have come and gone since I had Davina... I am now truly beginning to understand why my mom always said that life just flew by once she started having children!
Davina is my little miss "happy spirit," she gets so much joy out of helping her mommy, and she is such a delight to my heart! She has reached the age where we have so many fun conversations together, and her pure love for the Lord continually draws and reminds me to have a childlike faith. Our precocious little firstborn has given us many a good laugh, and too many memories to possibly ever remember. Isaac has recently begun having us go through Spurgeon's catechism booklet at family worship each night, and Davina's little "thing" of late is to sit down in Isaac's office with the booklet and "quiz" daddy on his catechisms. It is so much fun to watch!  We're having her "big birthday party" with Isaac's family next week, but I thought I'd share pictures of her from over the years.