Please Give it up For….

Dear Readers,

I have not had a ton of time to blog lately. And so much of what I sit down to write about feels trite and shallow in the face of recent world events. But yesterday I read a wonderful bloggy entry by my friend Missy, and I just had to share it with you….it spoke to my heart, and is right in line with much of what we are discussing as we work through A Quest For More by Paul Trippe.  (Which, if you have not read it, is fabulous and I highly recommend it!)

For some background, Missy and her husband Walker have four young kiddos and are in the process of adopting a little girl from Ethiopia.

I hope you are as blessed by Missy’s thoughts as Jay and I were.  For those of you who do not like hot links embedded in text, click

HERE

to read her post entitled, “I Don’t Want My Children to be Happy!”

How We Rock it on Valentines’ Day at House of Horne

Last year we brought you what we think was the first annual installment of the Horne homemade heart-shaped pizzas for Valentines’ Day. It was so much fun that we had to repeat it this year.  This is a really fun way for the whole family to get into meal prep, no matter your kids’ ages. And so I bring you “How to wear your heart on your pizza”….

I put our favorite bread machine pizza dough recipe into the bread maker right before we left for (and were late for!) church.  For Valentines’ Day, we like to make personal pan pizzas. After separating the dough into six sections, we had this:

Get your toppings of choice ready. We like tomato sauce but have used alfredo in the past too. Other favorites are: fresh garlic, pepperoni, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, fresh chopped basil, and onions/peppers.

We start with a greased cookie sheet. Shape your dough into whatever form you like. It helps if you have really cute, chubby fingers for this step.

Some of us are very serious about shaping the dough.

All done! Before adding anything to our crust, we always brush a thin layer of olive oil onto our pizza. It adds such great flavor.

Let your brother add sauce to cover the surface of his pizza.  Wait patiently, this process can take awhile.

Sisters take even longer with their sauce.

Mustn’t forget the cheese! You can never have too much of this:

It’s time for toppings! Grab whatever you like. If you’re a kid, you’ll want to start with some uber-healthy pepperoni!

Sisters really like it when you make helpful suggestions for how they can top their pizza most effectively. Our most creative topping today was basil eyebrows for the face of Jonathan’s pizza.

Right before they went into the oven, our six pizzas looked like this:

While you’re waiting for your delicious pizzas to finish cooking in the oven, pour yourself a nice glass of red wine, and pose for a few gratuitous Valentines Day pictures!

It’s time to eat! Look what we made!

Happy Valentines Day, Everyone!