Sidewalk Paint

I saw this idea in a recent issue of Family Fun magazine, which I love love love. And their website is great, too. I like the idea of sidewalk chalk, but for some reason chalk of any kind has always given me the heebie jeebies. Something about the dust it leaves on my hands. Ooh, I'm getting the chills just thinking about it. Thank goodness I always had dry erase boards in my classroom when I was teaching. Anyway, you just mix equal parts cornstarch and water (I used 1/2 cup of each for these batches); mix with a fork as it gets a little clumpy at first. Then add some food coloring and you're done. It can make for a good little lesson in what colors mix to make what, which Eliza still has trouble with. Here are some pictures of our outing today. I think I enjoy it more than she does!

My rendering of Eliza. Sadly, that's the extent of my artistic ability.

"A" for Effort

Well Davis woke up from his nap today and decided he wanted to start walking. Or walking and falling is more like it. But he's been doing this all afternoon and he's so darn proud of himself that I just had to take a little video. He's not quite there yet, but I'm guessing it won't be too long now!

Team Hoyt

Stephen and I saw this a couple of years ago while watching coverage of the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, THEN a marathon) and I was blown away (and brought to tears) by this amazing father-son team. Thanks Jackie, for bringing it my attention again today with your email! As incredible as Dick Hoyt's love for his son Rick is, it's only a smidgeon of the love our Heavenly Father has for us. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around that idea---that the God that made the universe loves little ole' me THAT much, unconditionally, and there's nothing I can do to ever get outside that love. Wow. You may have heard this story, but it never loses it's inspirational message to me. Watch and enjoy, and grab your tissues.

This first video is a clip from the Ironman coverage interviewing Dick and Rick and giving background to their story. The second one is video of them in the actual competition, with "Redeemer" (one of my faves) playing in the background.

Our New Pet

Stephen took Eliza to Wal-Mart this afternoon to pick out a fish to bring home. So here is our new pet, Bluey (named by Eliza).


And here's Davis barking at the fish (the only animal sound he knows how to make).



Here's a little video of Big D pushing his shopping cart. Now only if he would start walking on his own!!!! (you might want to turn your volume down as I sound really loud. Am I always that loud?? I'm sure Stephen would say YES.)

Stationery for Missions!

This past Sunday we attended our cutie-pie nephew Cooper's dedication at Chris and Ann's church, and their fantastic pastor Jeff is doing an interesting series to the Christian response to world problems. Sunday's sermon was on poverty. Jeff put a website up on the big screen (very big---they meet in a movie theater!) that I believe was called "How rich are you?"; you can type in your yearly income and it tells you how you compare to the world population in terms of wealth. He typed in various amounts to see how they compared to the world; when he typed in $50,000/year, it came up as the top 1% in the world. Whoa. That means that most of us around here have more wealth than 99% of the rest of the world. It made my whining about not having a bonus room seem pretty trivial. The one thing Jeff said that really stuck out to me was this: "Wouldn't it be great if when God increases your income, instead of increasing your lifestyle, you increase your giving."

Then later this week, my friend Suzanne and I had a great convo at the park while the kiddos played about our perspectives on money, and how they are changing. I told her about Jeff's sermon, and she said she and her husband had recently been talking along those same lines. We both felt that God seemed to be putting it on our hearts to approach our incomes in a different way---to not always focus on making more money so we can get more "stuff". Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my "stuff" and I don't think this means selling all your belongings; it's really more of a change of attitude and perspective I'd like to take on. Looking for ways to do more meaningful things with our money, which really belongs to God anyway, right?

So here's my little step in that direction. A few years ago Stephen met a man named Adam from Poland who works for Campus Crusade there and was here raising support. Stephen had lunch with him, and was very impressed with Adam's sincere heart for the Polish people and his ministry there. So we decided to send him a little bit of support each month. He and his wife have three precious children and can always use more help. Last month, Adam sent a letter to all his U.S. supporters saying that since the American dollar has become so weak in Europe, his support from here is not stretching quite as far. So I've decided to start sending Adam 50% of all profits from my stationery site, Hard Candy Papers. I just started doing stationery for fun, just to have a little hobby because I really enjoy designing that kind of stuff. And now I'm really excited that God can allow me to use this little hobby to hopefully further Adam's ministry. Crafts and missions----who knew it could be such a great combo! It makes my little heart happy.

I've re-vamped the site a bit to make it a little more user-friendly, and hope to be adding more items as I get them time to design them. With Back-to-School and Christmas coming up in the not-too-far future (my two favorite times of the year!!), I'm getting excited about making some new stuff. Yes, Hobby Lobby already has some Christmas decorations out. It's crazy. But I love it!

Summer cleaning and crafting

I must confess: I am a very messy crafter. When I start working on something, I'm usually interrupted by children, phone, life in general, etc., so I just leave everything I was working on right there. When I had a craft/guest room, I could just shut the door and pretend it wasn't there. But since Davis took over that room, I now use a little corner of my bedroom for my sewing machines and part of my closet for all my supplies. Until this weekend, my closet was in a constant state of disaster, as I would end up digging through all kinds of junk until I found something I was looking for, and then quickly shut the closet door and try to forget it was there. Although I would never call myself a great housekeeper, I do like to keep the rest of my house somewhat straight and picked up, as I feel much more relaxed when everything is in it's place. For some reason, this feeling has never crossed over to my craft and sewing stuff. But on Monday, I journeyed to Target to get some shelves and get myself organized. I can't believe I'm posting these pictures, as they are completely embarrassing. But I love before and after pictures, and you really can't appreciate the after without seeing the before, so here goes

My closet BEFORE (ooh, it just makes me cringe with shame):

My fabric stash BEFORE (and a pair of PJ pants I've been looking for--hurray!)

Whew, now I'm exposed. But I'm very proud to present, after many hours of work, the AFTER pictures of my new, organized craft area corner of my closet. And my shoes are organized! I'd forgotten to take a picture of those; they used to be all in a heap on a top shelf. I would throw them up there and run out real fast before one fell on my head. And then go on a frenzied search for a missing shoe when we were inevitably late for church (thanks Stephen for your help those days, you have an amazing knack to find missing shoes.) Now they are nicely paired together. Peace in my closet at last!!

My fabric stash now, all neatly folded and stacked. Yeah!

And I'm also proud to say it still looks like this a whole 3 days later. I'm hoping I'll be able to keep it up!

Now that I had everything organized and found things I thought I had lost, I completed a couple of projects I'd been wanting to do.

A new big-boy diaper bag for Davis.

No more schlepping around bottles and formula for my little man. I got the bag at Hobby Lobbe for $3.99 and added his name and made him a new bag tag to match; I'm loving him in plaid this summer. Ooh, I got a laminator last week---LOTS of fun!!! (I just blurred out our last name for the post---it doesn't really look like that.) This one is just big enough for some diapers, wipes, a cup and a little snack. I love it!

4th of July pants for Eliza

I found this fabric at Joann and at first couldn't decide if it was too cheesy, but finally decided I liked it. I'm pleased with the finished product. I think I paid $3.50 for the yard of fabric, and I already had the ric-rac. They took about 30 minutes to make (thanks to my friend Rebecca for the pattern; she designs the children's line Flit and Flitter ).

Now that my sewing stuff is un-cluttered, I feel like my mind is a little more un-cluttered, too. I'm beginning to think about making some clothes for Eliza for fall.....I'd better get started now!

Amazing blog

If you have any spare time this weekend, please go this blog http://www.audreycaroline.blogspot.com/ and read. It is the blog of Angie Smith, the wife of Todd Smith who is in the group Selah (that's him singing in the Selah video I posted a while back). My friend Rebecca just told me about this blog---Angie started it in January when she found out at her 20 week ultrasound that their baby would not live. Her blog is her journey through a heart-wrenching time in their lives; she is very real, her faith is amazing, and she is an incredibly gifted writer. I actually met her at a Bible study over a year ago, and thought at the time how articulate she was; she is a beautiful person inside and out, and you will be blessed and touched (and be brought to tears)by reading her thoughts.

Love and marriage, love and marriage.....

I heard this song (video below, not post title) for the first time last fall when we went to a Lifeway Festival of Marriage conference in Ridgecrest and Travis Cottrell led the worship. A girl on his praise team sang it and I was just blown away. How thrilled I was when I found out last night we will be singing it in choir (thanks Michael!). I still chuckle sometimes when I remember my middle school youth group and Travis was a student at Belmont and led our worship. He's come a long way from a little keyboard singing for some little kids. What a blessed songwriter, composer, and singer (he didn't actually write this song, or sing it for that matter---sorry, I'm jumping around. That's pretty much how my mind works). Regardless, this is a beautiful song.Oh, it's called "Revelation Song".

Speaking of the Lifeway Festivals of Marriage, I HIGHLY recommend them. We have
only been to a couple, but we are going to try to go every year from now on. They offer several sessions to choose from, keynote speakers, and amazing times of worship. Dale and Jena Forehand were the keynote speakers when we went last fall, and they were incredible. I like that they don't choose people to speak who have necessarily had fairytale marriages and just give you this fluffy advice. Dale and Jena had actually been through a bitter divorce, and an even more bitter custody battle; ironically, he was a deacon at their church and they taught a couples sunday school class while their marriage was falling apart. They have an amazing testimony to the healing power of God's love in their marriage. One thing I remember Dale saying is that reconciling with Jena after being divorced for a year and a half was not something he felt like he wanted to do; he didn't feel like he loved her, he didn't feel like he wanted to live with her again. But that God taught him that regardless of how he FELT, he need to be obedient. And that marriage was a choice; once he obeyed, God would heal and restore their relationship. They had been high school sweethearts, but over time and having children, they had not worked on their marriage, and had practically become strangers. I can so see how that can happen very easily. I'm learning over time that loving each other is not enough; it's important, but that won't marriage last forever, or make for a happy one. Years ago, when I would hear someone say that you really have to work at marriage, I'd think to myself, well, they obviously just don't have someone they really love. How naive I was. I'm so thankful I have someone I do really love, but that doesn't make it easy. So we'll keep on working. And going to conferences. (could someone please suggest to the powers that be that Ridgecrest is in DIRE need of some renovations??).

Ooh, another website to obsess over

My cousin Bethany, who is quite the photographer, just told me about this website http://www.picnik.com/, where you can edit you photos for free (hurray!). As I said in an earlier post, I am quite Photoshop-challenged, but this site is very user-friendly, and of course free (hurray!). Bethany sent me this one of my dad and Davis at Christmas, and I love how it looks kind of vintage-y.

I did these below with the photo-tinting tool.



I used the softening tool for this one. I love the fuzziness.

I'll be spending more time on this site for sure!!!

Davis's new move

Yes, he's always been a ladies man, and now Davis has added a new move to his flirtation bag of tricks: The Wink. So watch out all you little girls in the creeper class at church who love to rub his head; he is even more irresistible than before (unless those two teeth scare you away).