Memorial Day

Wishing you all a happy Memorial Day. I pray you're enjoying time with loved ones. For those over seas fighting for our freedom, I pray for your safety.

Blessings.

A Good Read: Heaven is for Real

So I wrote my last "A Good Read" post one day and said I was going to start reading Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo. Well I started it that afternoon and finished it the next morning. It is such a good, quick, easy read.

I have a few friends who had read this book before me and they said it completely changed their perspective of what Heaven is like. I have to admit this book brought up a few things that I kind of sat back and went "Hmph, I never thought of that before." I think it will make the majority of people think about eternity a little differently.

I also really like Todd Burpo's {the little boy's dad} writing style. It's like your sitting on a big comfy chair across from him with a cup of coffee and he's actually telling you about his son. I think that's what makes Heaven is for Real such an easy read.

Have you read it? What is your opinion on this book? Please share!!

Blessings.

Gardening

It's time to start our little garden. Actually it was time about a month ago but we were still getting snow about once a week. Lovely Northwest weather!

Because our weather was so unpredictable through the month of April and early May, we started our garden inside. We went to Lowe's and picked up one of these...

And some of these...

And got to work doing this...
Wow. Right?

Okay so we followed the directions for the indoor greenhouse and planted some of our seeds. We put the lid on and placed the greenhouse on our dining room table, right in front of our big sliding glass door that lets lots of sunshine in. I thought this would be a great way to start our little garden.

I was wrong. About a week into it all of our starts had this layer of white fuzzy fungus all over them. I did a little Googling and talked to a couple green thumb friends and determined that this was normal if the plants were too moist and warm. I should take the lid off the green house and worse case scenario the plants won't germinate.

Well I didn't want to waste a bunch of time and energy growing plants that weren't going to germinate. So our little starts went into the garbage and we started over. This time I left the lid off the greenhouse and the starts are doing fantastic! We haven't had any of that white fungus. Yay!

Here is how our veggie and sunflower starts look right now.

We need to clean up our raised garden bed a little before we can put the starts in the ground. Apparently we were growing rocks over the winter. So once those are taken out and we add a little compost into the dirt we'll be ready to rock. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Blessings.

A Good Read: Grace Based Parenting

For the past ten weeks or so I've been attending W.I.S.H. (Women Intentionally Seeking Him) at my church every Tuesday morning. There are several different workshops offered, I picked Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel. Parenting is a HUGE part of my life right now and I figured we could all use a little help in the Grace department.

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Each week we read a chapter and discussed the questions in the back of the book. It was very interesting to get the perspectives of the women around me. Dr. Kimmel really went into depth about raising our children in a home of grace.

Many parts were very eye opening. Such simple things I was doing or saying to my little chicks that could quite possibly be crushing their spirit. Something I NEVER want to do. I learned a lot from this book and would recommend it to any parent who wants to raise their children with the grace our Lord gives us.

Here are a few things I highlighted/underlined in my book:

• Kids brought up in an environment of legitimate praise build a strong resistance against the insults and put-downs that often bombard them from our culture.
• They need to see us turning to God with confidence when we are afraid, out of energy, out of ideas, or out of money. They need to see how we have trusted Him to overcome our helplessness in every situation.
• One of the great factors that determine whether children grow up to be these kinds of healthy adults (i.e., adults who are not dominated and manipulated by their feelings) is how their vulnerabilities are handled when they are children.
• Grace-based homes provide and outlet where the children can respectfully voice their disappointment without fear of reprisals.

You can check out more about parenting, marriage and family at the Family Matters website, their blog and specifically grace based parenting, here.

Now I'm off to read the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo.

Blessings.

What They're Doing

It's been a few weeks but you may remember my trip to Ikea on Easter weekend. I picked up all these great finds.

Well, I'm finally getting around to tell you what all these things are doing around my house.

My 365+ containers are holding our rice and spaghetti, fettuccine & angel hair pasta.

Three of the JAMKA containers hold cereal and oatmeal, which it looks like we need more of.

The fourth JAMKA container holds our raw almonds. A favorite snack of the Tall Man & I.

The two smaller Sockerart pitchers are up on top of our kitchen cabinets. I'm not completely happy about this is set up but haven't figured out exactly what I want to do yet.

I love what I did with the large Sockerart pitcher. Filled it with tulips from Michael's.

I chose fake flowers because the pitcher is food safe and I didn't want to put real flowers & plant food in a pitcher I may use for drinks later.

So there ya go, that's what I've done so far. The FLYTE magazine files have yet to be unwrapped but I'll get to them soon enough.

Blessings.

A Few Cards

I may be slacking on my blog, but I haven't just been lounging around eating bon bons. I've been working on a few crafty things, had family in town, softball has started and working on a new business venture for myself. So very far from lounging. With everything else going on I haven't taken the time to actually write posts about the crafty things I have been working on. So here I am, taking a few minutes to try and play catch up.

A while back I decided I was going to spend a day each month and make cards for all the birthdays, anniversaries and special events happening in the next 30 days. So a couple weeks ago I sat down and made Mother's day cards, a couple anniversary cards, wedding cards and a couple blank cards for whenever I feel like just saying hello to a friend.

I used my Cricut with various different cartridges such as Straight From the Nest, George and Wall Decor and More. I also used my stamps from Stampin' Up. So fun! Well, here they are...

A couple wedding cards.

Blank and Thinking of You cards.

And a couple Mother's Day cards.

There ya go, some of the cards I've been working on. I have some more that I haven't taken pictures of so I'll have to share those another time.

Blessings.

Linking to: House of Hepworths

A Gift for Tea-cher

I realize tomorrow is the last day of teacher appreciation week but better late than never, right? Ugh. I know, I know, I stink at this. I get these great ideas in my mind but don't bring them to life until it's too late for anyone else to take a stab at them. So I apologize.

This is a pretty quick and easy gift you may be able to pull together for tomorrow though.

I went to Ross and picked up a four pack of coffee cups for about $3 and that's it. That's all I had to buy for this gift. I brought the cups home, gave them a good washing and waited for them to air dry. While they were drying I ran up to my office and used the Cricut and From My Kitchen cartridge to cut out the word tea and the Wall Decor and More cartridge to cut out a cute little teacup.

Then I went through our collection of tea's. We have quite a few different varieties, all Stash. I really like Stash tea. It's individually wrapped so you don't have to worry about it getting stale and it fits perfectly in my little tea tray. I picked out a variety of teas and tucked them inside the tea cups. One for each of my three chicks teachers. Next I wrapped the cup in clear wrap and tied the tag on with some white ribbon. The tag says "To A Great Tea-cher".

There ya go, a pretty quick teacher appreciation gift for all those procrastinators out there.

Blessings.

Linking to: House of Hepworths

What A Weekend

What an eventful weekend. I kicked off my weekend by watching the Royal Wedding. I wasn't up at 2 am, I DVR'd the coverage and watched it later in the morning.

I caught a lot of grief about it from some friends but that's okay. Prince William is only a few months older than I am and I find it fascinating, that in his late twenties he leads the life he does. I don't know, something about it just amazes me. It is SO far from the life I lead. The whole Royal family interests me.

Can I just say, this dress is A-MAZ-ING!! Don't you think? I thought Kate Middleton looked stunning!

We spent Saturday morning in a meeting at church and the afternoon at my Mom's house. We were there to watch the Mariners beat the Red Sox. It was a great game, I thought. My Mom was able to play with our little chicks and the Tall Man and I watched the game.

Sunday morning we woke up early and headed out to the Fisherman's Breakfast an hour away, where my Dad lives. Every year the fire department in this small town host a Fisherman's breakfast with pancakes, sausage patties, hash browns, fried eggs and coffee or juice. Can you hear the cholesterol rising?

When asked how many pieces of sausage they'd like our chicks said two, thinking they were getting the puny links they get at home. They were pretty surprised when they saw these huge sausage patties. They ate every bite though.

We came home, worked around the house and yard for a bit then headed out to a picnic at the park with our small group. It was absolutely wonderful! The kids played on the play structure and rode their bikes and scooters around the park. The adults talked and threw a football or softball around. Good times with very good people.

Our weekend ended with the news of Bin Laden's death. Immediately I felt a sense of victory and pride for our nation. I felt a sense of relief for those who lost loved ones on September 11. I felt excitement for the men and women who have fought so hard for our country.

Then I watched coverage of people singing and dancing in the streets celebrating the death of this criminal. I am relieved to hear Bin Laden, himself, is no longer a threat to our country. What he masterminded on September 11, 2001 was absolutely awful. But as I watched my fellow citizens celebrate I thought of the way Osama's people celebrated when our country suffered such great loss. I thought, "Are we any better?" Then I started thinking about what our Lord would think of the way this was all playing out.

Ezekiel 33:11 says " I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live." These words are from God's mouth. This makes it difficult for me to take pleasure in the death of any one.

I realize by saying this I may lose a few followers and that's okay. We are all entitled to our own opinions, this is simply mine. Don't doubt that my American flag still flies high and I am proud to call this country my home. Instead of dancing right now I choose to pray for the safety and future of this beautiful nation.

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Blessings.