Handcrafted Inspiration

I know you all have just been dying to find out what projects we accomplished today on our second day of Project Week!  I decided to focus today on the tedious little projects, the handcrafted stuff. Here's what I ended up with:

1) Handcrafted Monogram frame for Dad's birthday

Easy to do!
What I used:  decorative frame (bought at dollar store on sale for $1.50!!), piece of cardboard to fit glass, gold tissue paper, fine paintbrush, paint, glue
What I did:  I just layered the cardboard with the tissue paper. Only put the glue around the edge or it will wrinkle the paper. Paint the letter onto the tissue paper (I google-image search for the letter to find nice calligraphy letters to replicate) Put into the frame when it is dry! EASY!

2) A remake of my daughters Proverbs 31 mirror: I made this for her pre-school graduation a couple of years ago, but it broke. I promised her a new one and here it is:

What I used: mirror (any will do), fine paintbrush, acrylic paint, Modpodge
What I did: I hand painted Proverbs 31:30 on the mirror (Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.) The first time I did this project, this is all I did. However, this time I coated it with Modpodge to make it easier to clean. Not sure I am completely happy with the finish of the Modpodge...

3) This next one was dear to my heart. While I was pregnant with each of my children, I challenged myself to learn a passage of scripture during the nine months. I memorized a good chunk of Psalm 119 with my daughter, and then all of Hebrews 11 with my son. Based on these, I chose a "life verse" for each of them. When they graduate from Preschool and become "big kids", I frame their verse for their rooms. I then give them another special inspirational gift (made by Mommy!) to go along with it. My daughters was the original of the mirror above.
My son loves animals and cowboy stuff. So, for my son's special gift, I took some old pictures of my dad (his Grampy) when he was young and used to be a bull-rider. I put them in matted frames and wrote inspirational quotes on each matting.

I made three like this. One had the arena quote by Theodore Roosevelt, one had Joshua 1:9, and the above one had the character quote by Thomas Paine. I can't wait for my dad to see these!

So that is what I accomplished so far today! How about you, friend??

Project Week Task #1

Schedule Solutions for the Homeschool Room

Project Week begins!

When life gives you lemons, well, let's face it - it's been over 100 degrees outside everyday for weeks now, we all know we'd be rejoicing for those lemons -and we'd make lemonade! As I've shared, we've recently been dealt some lemons of our own, but it is times like these that make us realize the important things in our life. It is also a great reminder that we are not alone and that we are always dependent on God's provision. One of my favorite proverbs is Proverbs 30:8b-9 (NIV):

Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, "Who is the Lord?" Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

God has graciously gotten us through this time and I am happy to say that I have caught up on everything that was so far behind! I am now ready to move forward again! At the beginning of this summer I made a long list of things that I wanted to get done over the summer, you know, while we weren't busy with school and the normal youth gatherings, etc. With visits to family, the fair, mission trips and unexpected adventures, I have accomplished very few of these tasks. This week, however, my husband is gone to camp for a week and it is just the kids and I - with no other obligations! Therefore, I am going to dedicate this whole week to accomplishing things on my list!

I will keep you posted on my accomplishments! We will call this week Project Week! Feel free to share what projects you are accomplishing this week and a link to your post on it if you have one! We will encourage each other on toward our summer tasks, before summer is gone!

So welcome to Project Week!

Happy Birthday, Princess!

Today is my daughter's birthday. She is turning six years old! I am so proud of her. She is beautiful, inside and out. On her birthday, I always find myself faced with these questions:

1) Does she have any idea how much I love her?

2) Am I training her (especially by example) to be a godly woman?

I am not sure if these are typical questions, but they are always mine! So as I get ready to go off and decorate a table, pick up a cake and love on a very beautiful girl, I want to leave you with a little encouragement, Mom.

You are doing a great job! If you are loving God with everything that you are and you are selflessly living in order to raise your girl and teach her to obey God, then you are doing everything right, dear friend! Mistakes are just good opportunities to teach her how to handle life. Face everything with a loving, patient spirit and trust that God will mold her into exactly who he wants her to be!

True Freedom

In honor of our country's Independence Day, I wanted to write about freedom. There are so many things we could discuss in regards to this topic, but the past few days that I have had have led me to want to share about our freedom in Christ. In the United States of America, we celebrate, and hopefully hold dearly to, those freedoms that allow us to make our own choices, especially in regard to our religion. This is a blessing! Not every Christian enjoys these freedoms, though. However the Bible talks about freedom that we all find in Christ. Let's begin with Romans 6:16-21:

"Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey —whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
¹⁹ I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. ²⁰ When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹ What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life."

Let me tell you a little about what's going on at my house. You know that old saying, "when it rains, it pours?" Yes, it's pouring around here! Last week, in one day, we had our hot water heater go out, our dishwasher stop running, the dryer will only run half a cycle and to top it all of beautifully,  a screw slipped on my computer when I closed it and the whole things snapped in half. Problem being, we don't make a whole lot of money to fix things all at once like this! Our landlord (love him!) replaced the hot water heater and we decided that our top priority (given how much of our ministry is done via online media - teens!) was our computer. So we spent what little savings we had and bought a computer and I resorted to washing dishes by hand. Ok, moving on. You didn't think that was all, did you? So this week the kids and I took our annual trip to St. Louis to site see with my sister (there are great free family things to do around that area!) The last day there I made a horrifying discovery: the kids and I had lice. I have no clue where it came from, but we had it bad. Therefore, I had to use the remainder of our regular savings to buy all of the treatments, sprays, etc, in order to rid ourselves of this plague! In the process of getting everything in the house washed with hot water to decontaminate, our washing machine broke. No, I am not kidding. So, my dear husband (who was my knight in shining armor this week, by the way!) and I had to break into our anniversary savings money to get a new washer. See, my daughter was born on our first anniversary, so we decided then that we would save money each year instead of celebrate, and every 5 years we would do something grand! Washing machines were not in that plan.

I guess what I am getting at is this: while we are blessed to live in the US and experience numerous freedoms, we are not free from life. We are not free from struggles and burdens and worries. The freedom that we have is the freedom to choose. We are free to choose whether these circumstances are going to get the best of us. We have the freedom to choose whether to focus on these things or to look outside ourselves for opportunities to continue the work for the Kingdom. We have the freedom to choose to wallow in hopelessness and self-pity or to rely on the never-failing faithfulness of God to supply every need. We have freedom from sin, which means no matter what the situation, we can choose God and in the end we will receive eternal life with him because of that freedom.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. -- John 8:36

Borrowed from beamerfilms.com

Here's a little something I have learned from these trying times in my life - think about Job. Satan doesn't give you the time of day if he doesn't think you are worth it. But if he thinks there is some value to steering you off course, then he will give it his all. That means, that in times like these, take it as a compliment: 1) that God would find you trustworthy of such trials and 2) that Satan thinks you are worth coming after. Don't let him win. Let him throw at you whatever he will, but keep your eyes locked on Christ Jesus and focus only on what you can do to glorify him. Claim the victory of this battle and rely on Christ to be your strength.

What's "Bored?"

I have seen rather a few posts lately centered around beating summer boredom. My initial thoughts are, "Bored? I would love to be bored right now!"  Summer is all but boring in our home. It is the time of year that we get to do all the exciting things that we can't do during the rest of the year. So I thought that today I would give you a little taste of our life right now. If you are in the same boat, may you find encouragement and laughter, knowing you are not alone. If you are battling summer bordom, let us give you a little inspiration!

Last week we finished up the county fair. For our first fair, I was rather proud. Princess brought home four blue ribbons and a white ribbon, plus a few participation ribbons, for her photography and chicken show, and even caught one of the greased pigs!. Brother brought home a red ribbon for his rooster (cockrel). I was rather proud of them.I was also proud of myself. See, I don't like birds one bit, but the love of my children found me outside "dunking" chickens into the swimming pool, getting them washed pretty to show. I felt so awefully bad for the shivering little chickens that I pulled out my extension cord and hair dryer and began blowdrying them, right when my sister called to see what I was doing. Awkward! We also attended all the other events to cheer on and encourage all of "our other children." That pretty much filled our week! By the time we made it home for the weekend, my son was so obsessed with showing that he was a "show sheep" for three days and would not speak to us without a "baaa!" in front of it. As I set the food out on the table one night he slipped in and stole his plate. I found him in his "pen" eating on all fours with his face in the plate because "he was a sheep." My daughter was just so tired that every little thing was DRAMA. Again - Bored? Really?

Yesterday, it was really hot, so we were unsure of what to do for our family day. The kids wanted to swim and play, but the heat. So we had an Underwater Theme Day. We began by coloring some pictures of undersea creatures. We watched some Under the Sea movies and then had a grilled fish dinner. The kids swam and pretended to be under the sea creatures and then we read some underwater stories before bed. It was a splash!

My kids are participating in the Library Summer Reading Program. This has filled in most of our gaps of free-time. Princess is shooting for top reader this year, so that has me running to the library for more books every other day or so. Brother isn't quite big enough to read on his own yet, so I use that time to work on phonics with him and do a bit of reading aloud together. I believe we are somewhere past 100 books since June 1. I even got on the band wagon and read a book myself. I only had to stay up until 1:00 in the morning to finish it!

Add in some trips to see family and some vacation spots, we will be hitting St. Louis, Grammie's and Loulou's and maybe even Nanny's for several days each. The weather forcasts the 100s coming up. I am hoping I come out as the Golden Tan Beauty and not Lobster Lady. We add in some Roller Skating, Bowling, Miniature Golfing, Lazer Tag and Pool parties with the youth group. We just finished up t-ball (such fun to watch them when they don't even know which way to run the bases!). Swim lessons begin in a couple of weeks and Princess has a birthday coming right up! Fill in the gaps with play time in the kiddie pool outside, doing our chores in the house and garden, playing backyard ball and having a few playdates with friends and we have ourselves one hoppin' summer shedule!

I am gearing my thinking towards 4th of July now. Last year we had a cozy firework display together at home. The year before found my husband and I on the roof dropping firecrackers down our chiminey to chase off bats (a story for another day!). I am trying to decide what this year will hold! I have gathered some cute recipes and ideas out of some family magazines. I will let you know how it all falls together!

For now, I have spent enough time on the computer and must return to my outrageous summer!
What ideas have you enjoyed this year?? I would love to hear how you are keeping busy!

So I Married An Imperfect Person!

Anytime a young woman is thinking about marriage, my advice is for her to decide if she can live with him exactly the way he is, because she will never change him. Some may argue that men can change, through prayer and God working in their lives, and this is true, but not a guarantee...and it is the Spirit of God that makes these changes, not a nagging wife! The best way to enter into a marriage is with your eyes wide open and a committed heart to love him and stay with him exactly the way he is!

The truth is none of us is perfect. We all sin and fall short. My dear husband made sure early on in our relationship that I knew all of what he considered his short-comings, so I would "know what I was getting into." The truth is, if I didn't stay with my husband through his mistakes, I would end up alone or with another imperfect person.

This is where forgiveness comes into play. While I was thinking of how I could approach the topic of forgiveness in marriage, I realized that it is somewhat of an obscure philosophy in this generation. We are so used to getting something new when what we have doesn't please us anymore (instant gratification) that the practice has even rolled over into our marriages. When I was a teenager, my pastor would tell me that love is not an emotion; infatuation is an emotion; lust is an emotion; happiness and excitement are emotions. Love is a commitment. You don't stay with your spouse because he makes you feel all giddy inside 24 hours a day (sorry, honey!). You stay with him because you love him and committed to stay with him "through rich or poor, sickness and health, good times and bad." The only way to possibly do that is to learn to forgive his mistakes.

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you have a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13

Think about that. How did the Lord forgive you? Completely. Selflessly. Without thinking of the wrong we had done him, he laid down his life to cover those sins. He replaced our filthiness with his righteousness and he stands before the judgement seat to defend us. How can we possibly every forgive anyone that way? We can start by giving them grace. Allow him to be human and make mistakes without holding it against him for the rest of your lives. Defend his honor. Don't go tell everyone every mistake your husband makes. Pick up where he fails. Come along beside him to help him break those unhealthy patterns instead of being bitter and closing yourself off from him. Give him a clean slate each day. That is how we would forgive our husbands as the Lord forgave us.

This is easier to say than to do, I realize! Selfishness, pride, bitterness, and just plain pain get in the way. I find myself blessed to be married to a man that I can share these feelings with so that he is able to help me forgive him. Not everyone has such open communication with their spouse. But don't forget where emotion and reality cross. Don't mistake unhappiness for a loss of love. Don't drop a commitment to your marriage in exchange for some unrealistic idea that you could be happier elsewhere. The only way to make a marriage work is to forgive and keep on working at it! No healthy marriage worth having doesn't come at a high price of hard work and selfless living. Let's make that commitment together today to love and forgive in our marriages!

(Note: Please understand that I believe there are certain situations where forgiveness and self-preservation are two different things. I do not believe a woman who is being abused or treated unfaithfully needs to stay in that unhealthy situation. If this is your case, this post is not for you and you should seek out help and christian counsel!)