3 Steps to Poop-Free Eggs, the Best Prank Ever (Have Kleenex Handy), Our Date Night, and More in Today's Monday Morning Mix-Up 4/21/2014

Hey everyone, it's been a normal nutty-but-great week around here. I've been much better about putting first things first — my time with God (and Sundays off!), stuff with the family, and then work. It hasn't been easy every moment (a lot just isn't getting done, and I can handle that better at some times than others), but I feel more joyful inside. Even if all I do is run from one kid's horse lessons, to another one's soccer, to another one's flight lessons, or help our oldest with other things (that I'm not allowed to talk about here at all!); plus last week I tried to get to extra Holy Week stuff at church, and it was also the week for our local chapter meeting. Now it's Holy Saturday and gorgeous outside so I took a great walk/run with Matt Maher and Casting Crowns in my ears — we've got to keep trying to fit in exercise, too, of course! All that plus trying to get time to work on the computer and homeschooling the kids, whew! As I said, crazy but good. 🙂

Here's what I've gathered for you this week:

Last night Kent & I had date night at one of our favorite restaurants, Amore – try their stuffed risotto fritters if you go! And the beet salad is SO good. Then we had extra time, so we went to this beautiful church that a friend told me about recently, Sacred Heart of Jesus, near downtown Grand Rapids. It was unlocked and we had the whole place to ourselves. We prayed quietly together for a while and looked around; I thought I'd show you some pictures I took. Even if you're not a church-goer, you'll appreciate the beauty here:

The back:

The ceiling:

The front:

Wow, you can't even feel it here in these shots, there's such richness in the beauty all around. This church was built to be a replica of the church in Rome, one of the 4 main basilicas, the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. (Which I'd never even heard of.) Here's a picture of that:

Then we went to bible study where it was deep and fun as always being with great friends. It was a beautiful way to finish out Good Friday. I had some coffee there that must've been stronger than I'm used to. SO I stayed up too late and updated my resources page to add a bunch of stuff, would you do me a favor and check it out?! Click here for my resources page.

OK one more not foodie thing: I took the kids to see Heaven is for Real when it opened on Thursday! That link is to a post I put up about it on my other blog.

On to some foodie links for this week!

Want to know the 3 steps to poop-free eggs, plus the answer to the question, “Should you wash your eggs?” And if so, how? Did you know that American grocery store eggs would be illegal in the European Union BECAUSE they are washed and sanitized? Click here for more. Or pin it here.

Here's an interesting “Dear John” letter to Trader Joe's and be sure to jump in on the discussion on Facebook, too.

Did you know Kristen has a recipe for a worcestershire sauce alternative? I needed this the other day and was happy to find it at a site I trust. 🙂

What's wrong with baby oil? Two things: synthetic fragrance and mineral oil. Find out why you DO NOT want either of those ingredients touching your baby's skin or anyone else's. You will want to read the labels of every topical product in your house after reading this!

Did you guys see the “blood moon” last week? It was too cloudy here so I had to settle for these shots.

What do you think of these stacking planters? I think they would work better and be more versatile than regular strawberry pots for strawberries, herbs, or flowers – I love that it's finally time to think about this stuff! Get them here: Medium stacking pots or Larger stacking pots.

How would you answer this question? What do you think is the top superfood and the top junkfood? Click here to go to that post and share your thoughts.