What we do for fun. Stick the kiddos in bright red carts, pick up a latte or chocolate chip cookie, and meander.

A group of my friends gets together every week to eat a meal together. One household cooks the meal and everyone else is left to enjoy a night without food prep or cleanup. One of the unofficial rules of community dinner is that you come as you are. Had a rough day? Just come. Feeling tired or more than little introverted? Come anyhow. And stay for as long or as little as you’d like. Sometimes one of us will show up with tupperware, eat a quick meal, then carry some take-out home to an ill roommate, husband or wife. The dinners have pulled us together in a unique way and have created a family where one didn’t exist before. Because of this family attachment, the deep friendship formed over shared meals, we still greatly miss Brook and the O’Donnells.

A year ago we started Needs More Butter as a way to keep track of community dinner recipes. Stop by the site for new meal idea—and to enjoy Renae’s abundance of posts for NaBloPoMo. I’ll post the following recipes on Needs More Butter eventually.

Chicken Lasagna Florentine

Zion Cookbook, Carrie Moseman

• 6 lasagna noodles, prepared according to pkg directions
• 10oz pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drained well
• 2 C chicken, cooked and chopped
• 2 C shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/3 C onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 – 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1 T cornstarch
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 t pepper
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
• 8oz carton sour cream
• 4oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1/3 C mayonnaise or salad dressing
• 1 C parmesan cheese
• butter pecan topping (recipe below)

In a bowl, combine spinach, chicken and all remaining ingredients expect parmesan cheese and butter pecan topping. In a lightly greased 11×7 dish, arrange 3 noodles. Spread half of chicken mixture over the noodles. Repeat procedure with remaining noodles and chicken mixture. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and butter pecan topping. Bake lasagna at 350 for an hour, or until heated through.

Butter Pecan Topping: Melt 2 T butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add 1 C pecans and cook 3 minutes. Cool completely.

French Bread (with an Italian flair)

Zion Cookbook, Kristie Strahm

• 3 1/2 C flour
• 1 T sugar
• 1 t salt
• 1 T Italian seasoning
• 1 T rosemary
• 1 1/4 C water, lukewarm
• 2 1/4 t yeast

Place ingredients in a breadmaker on dough cycle. Remove, punch down and roll into a rectangle shape. Roll dough in a jelly roll shape, cut slits in the top, and place on a baking sheet to rise for an hour. Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then reduce oven to 375 for 4-8 minutes. Brush melted butter on top and sprinkle lightly with garlic salt.

I asked Mom where she normally sat during concerts with Nancy. “Oh, somewhere off to the side. In a space reserved for family,” she said. Well, for whatever reason, the first concert I attended with Mom and Nancy had family sitting in the FRONT ROW, smack dab in the middle of the large church worship hall, planted firmly at Charlie Peacock’s feet. Protesting that we weren’t front row kind of people, we ended up there anyway, not wanting to abandon the one family member who was holding seats for the Webb family.

Turns out the Art*Music*Justice event was an amazing evening of music and social awareness. And when I tried to forget that I was sitting front and center, I found myself lost in the most worshipful concert I’ve ever attended. I heard Derek Webb, Nancy’s son, play years ago at Covenant College when he was with Caedmon’s Call. The Caedmon’s album I bought became the soundtrack for many of my travels over the next four years. I had also heard Sandra McCracken play at Covenant Seminary, and more recently I’ve been a frequent listener of this great album, The Builder and the Architect. But Sara Groves, Brandon Heath and Charlie Peacock were fairly new to me and I thoroughly enjoyed their songs and stories that night. If the tour is coming to your area in the next two weeks, you should definitely go. It’s an inspiring evening.

I learned one more thing that night. Tour buses, as cool and glamorous as they are, contain *tight* sleeping quarters. Nancy showed us the teeny bunk where her grandbaby sleeps. Super cute, but again, teeny! It blew my mind to imagine all the folks on the tour sleeping in one bus and I couldn’t help but wonder what happens when Sara Groves’ kids wake up with bad dreams or when the stage crew/merchandise guys snore too loudly. The bus seemed to me to be a traveling commune—everybody together in one space. I bet they all know each other really well when the final concert comes around!

Livia attended Elsie’s Wizard of Oz theme party last weekend. I wasn’t sure about creating a decent costume, but Renae told me how to put together a little scarecrow outfit and voila! There’s Liv in all her scarecrow-y glory. The kids at the party were super cute. There were lots of Dorothys and Glindas, another Scarecrow made an appearance and Toto was adorable with a collar and little pigtails. I wish I had snapped photos of all the work Amanda put into this gathering… There was a yellow brick road welcoming guests in the driveway, complete with the dead Wicked Witch’s legs poking out from underneath a playhouse. Each platter of food was labeled with a creative title and the cake was decorated to match the theme as well. There were millions of people there and perhaps even billions of children under seven years old and Amanda smiled her way through the whole event, looking as cool and calm a hostess you could imagine. The thought of entertaining those billions of young children makes me go into a cold sweat, but I know enough to appreciate all the work Amanda did for this amazing party. Well done, friend!

Livia hasn’t seen the The Wizard of Oz yet (perhaps due to all the nightmares this movie produced during her mother’s childhood), so I explained the story en route to the party. After learning that Dorothy is from Kansas—“We have that in common!”—Livia sighed, “I love Dorothy.” I stumbled as I tried to explain that she couldn’t love Dorothy because she didn’t know her, Dorothy’s imaginary, blah blah blah. And Liv replied, “Yes I do know her. You just told me about her!” Right you are, perceptive little one.

Later that night, Liv went on and on about “switches.” I figured she was talking about lights. But it was Jeremy who finally realized she was talking about Glinda and The Wicked One of the West. You add that to the “fire chip” title she gave nacho cheese Doritos and you have one amused mommy. I love this four year old and her grasp of the English language.

Something very funny was just said.

I’m pretty sure this next shot is crooked because I was laughing.

When you put five old friends (and a baby!) in one room, there’s lots of laughter. Want to see the baby?

Look at this kid. Isn’t she beautiful? I can see where she gets the good looks from.

Haley, Autumn, Bryonie and Charity, I love you. Thanks for loving me through the past 15 or so years.

I just returned from a fabulous weekend at the lake with the Horn Creek girls. Our last morning at the cabin Autumn commented, “Who knew resting could be so tiring?” and I fully agree. Between time with the girls and the great discussions with Joie on our roadtrip to Minneapolis (which, I must note, made Iowa’s landscape zoom by and deepened my relationship with my dear friend), I find myself back at home physically tired but emotionally renewed.

Being away for four days also made my daughter magically grow faster and become more articulate, and magnified my love for my husband. It is so good to be back with my family. And it was so good to be refreshed. More photos coming soon.

I’ve been excited all day long thinking about kids starting their very first days of school today. There’s Jesse with his new short haircut, and Dawson and Ava and Cadence (far away in Ohio, so I don’t know when her first day really is). In another year I’ll be the parent of a kindergarten student and so I can’t help but wonder how the mamas—Heidi, Christine, Tara and Julie–are all doing. I’m pretty sure I’ll be the parent who returns to the safety of her car for a good cry, but who knows, perhaps I’ll grow more stoic in the next year. ; )

Happy first day to all the students returning to LPS today!

in the evening and over the land that looks like a sea
she sings her sweet familiar song to me
she’s always singing, if you listen carefully
you can hear her sing

she calls me home
she calls me here
i call her home
this is her song, her prairie song

miles of fresh plowed soil holds hope for the year
rich and somber but always silent to a stranger’s ear
but to her people, she sings of possibilities
you can hear her sing

she calls me home
she calls me here
i call her home
this is her song, her prairie song

growing wheat and growing weeds and toiling horses
these tired men and the sunlight fades into the vast horizon
sullen fires of sunset splash the eternal sky
and still she sings
against all this youthful flames
like wild roses and flash of starlight
in the night, its fierce necessity, sharp desire
it’s singing, and singing, and always singing

and she calls to me
she calls me home
she calls me here
i call her home
this is her song, her prairie song

music & lyrics by kate venable
based off of willa cather’s “prairie spring”

There’s been far too many farewells in the last few weeks and so far it looks like St. Louis is receiving the best of Lincoln, Nebraska. Brook (pictured above with her very full car), Karen, Joe and Kate are all beginning graduate studies at Covenant Theological Seminary. (Owen, our adorable little buddy, also went along, but instead of studying theology I hear he’s studying how to walk.) It feels so strange to say goodbye and send them to our former stomping grounds. It’s bittersweet, this sending of friends. I’m excited for their futures, for who they’ll get to meet and what they’re preparing to learn, but I’m sad to no longer live alongside them here in Lincoln.

Parting with Brook was like parting with family. She’s part of our tight knit community and partaker of Community Dinners, lover of breakfast-for-dinner, tacos and hot dogs (a girl after my own heart). Brook was Master Barista at Scooters and knew how to make a drink I’d like. So last Friday, we sent our common-sensical, practical, can-do spirited friend to higher education and training as a counselor. I can say with absolute confidence that Brook will be a blessing to Covenant Seminary in the days to come. And if the folks down there are lucky, perhaps she’ll make them a latte or two. We love you and miss you already, Brook-o.

Last weekend I had the privilege of working backstage for Studio 139’s dance recital. And let me tell you something, there’s just nothing cuter than little dancers. (I should know; my own tiny dancer about knocked my socks off with cuteness each week during lessons. But then we took her out of dance because sitting in another mommy’s lap during class just didn’t seem worth the tuition.)

Here are some tap dancin’ girls backstage during rehearsal. I love it that they were practicing on their own accord, without their instructor present.

The dances were beautiful—this one may have been my favorite. The girls danced on pointe to music by Furusato-Nanbu Morioka and it was really lovely. They did a wonderful job.

Sometimes the stagehand got a bit bored during dress rehearsal and started doing silly things, things like photographing herself in semi-dramatic poses. This shot reminds me of my grandmother Iola. If she had been young in the digital age she totally would’ve taken shots like these.

Many congrats to Joie for putting on such a wonderful show. It was amazing and I’m excited for next year.