Photo Booth Friday: Indian Summer

Autumn Storehouse

I'd like to take October days
And store them in my mind,

To warm me during Winter's reign
When nature proves unkind.

Then I remember sunshine,
The Autumn rich with gold,

And tawny fields a-flower
With wonders quite untold.

My thoughts will ease the moments
When in reverie I dwell,
And linger for the present
In some bright majestic dell.
Virginia Borman Grimmer

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
Albert Camus

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. 
So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Happy Friday!

Celebrating the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

Aaahh, Valentine’s Day…some people love it, some people hate it, some people are just indifferent.

I know it gets a bad rap – just a ploy dreamed up by card companies and flower shops to make people spend their hard earned cash on overpriced gifts, and blah, blah, blah…

But personally, I love the thought that as a believer, I can take this commercialized secular version of the holiday and redeem it – to use it as yet another opportunity to celebrate and share the love of Jesus, with my husband, my children, and an unbelieving world.

A day to celebrate love –not the fake, mushy-gushy, lust driven, cheap, feelings oriented, Hollywood chick flick kind of love…but the lavish, extravagant, undeserved, unearned love of my Savior – now THAT’S something worth celebrating!

So here’s a peek at how we’re celebrating at our house this year.

We made valentines…

What better way to celebrate the love of God than to show that love to other people? I got these little card making kits in the Dollar Spot at Target:

Lily had blast coloring and stickering (that’s a word, right?;) to her little heart’s content. Each card got a message and a special verse about love then we kissed it, and put it in the mailbox to be sent out – one to each set of grandparents, great-grandparents, and cousins.

And speaking of verses, that was also part of our Valentine’s celebration…we memorized verses…or rather, a verse :)

There are so many wonderful verses about love in the Bible, but the one we chose to memorize was this:

I John 3:16
This is how we know what love is – Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.

Thanks in huge part to this CD that my Mom and Dad gave Lily for Christmas – it has all kinds of verses set to music and Lily absolutely LOVES it! It was easy for her to memorize the verse because she’s sung the song so many times!

I love that she was able to recite the verse to Grandma and Grandpa yesterday…albeit rather quietly and shyly :) And I pray that someday the truth of those words moves from her head down into her heart!

And lastly,

We made homemade goodies…

Ok. MOMMY made homemade goodies :)

Some yummy Homemade Oreos with pink icing…

…and some Valentine’s hair bows!

I’ll share recipes and tutorials for those later this week :)

Thanks to an idea from this lovely lady, we gave a plate of the Homemade Oreos and a Valentine’s card to our mail carrier as a thank you for all his hard work!  And this afternoon, we’ll be taking advantage of this nice weather to walk over to our neighbor’s house with a plate and a card for them as well.

Poor Sophia…unfortunately for her, part of her Valentine’s Day included a trip to the doctor for a check up and some shots :( But while we were there, our nurse got a singing Valentine, which was rather funny :)

And of course, I can’t let Valentine’s Day go by without mentioning how much I love this guy:

It took me 20 years, but I finally found a guy who makes the romantic aspect of Valentine’s Day worth celebrating. And yes. He was worth the wait :)

So today, I am embracing Valentine’s Day as a day to celebrate love…the love of my husband. The love of my children. And above all else, the love of God, for without Him we wouldn’t have a clue what TRUE love looks like.

I John 4:10
This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Whether single or in a relationship, I hope you can take a moment today to celebrate the extravagant love of Jesus today.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you!

Is It Too Late to Wish You a Merry Christmas?

I know it’s probably a little bit late to be doing a Christmas recap, but c’est la vie.

(I actually don’t know what that means, but it sounds right :)

Dave gave me a new camera for Christmas, but have no fear. You can continue to expect the same mediocre quality of pictures from me that you’ve come to know and love. I’m not a photographer. I’ve come to accept it.

And, as per usual, I was so busy enjoying the celebration that most of the time I completely forgot to take pictures anyway.

(This is where Dave slaps himself on the forehead and wonders why on earth he bought me a camera in the first place)

Anyway.

We had our own little celebration at home on Christmas morning, then headed to my parent’s house for brunch.

Here’s one of the only three pictures I have of Lily. Note how Dave’s arm is in focus but Lily’s face is blurry. I’m talented like that.

All the little boys got K-State jerseys and helmets. They were a big hit.

 

Even Lily got in on the fun.

Sophia had fun playing laying with her cousin Adyson – born just shy of one month apart.  Can you tell which is which? Their cousins couldn’t :)

I’m not sure what’s going on here but it must’ve been something interesting because I took a picture.

And that’s it.

New Year’s Resolution #1 – use my camera.

We really did have a wonderful Christmas, even if I don’t have the pictures to prove it. I had planned on doing a nice little Christmas post with our Christmas card and a poem that I love but didn’t get around to it then…so I’ll just do it now, even if it is a little late :)

Let the stable still astonish;
Straw – dirt floor, dull eyes;
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said: ‘Yes.
Let the God of all the heavens
And earth
Be born here, in this place’?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts
and says, ‘Yes.
Let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here --
in this place.’

Merry Christmas! Though the holiday rush is over, I pray that we will continue to praise Him for “choosing this” all throughout the New Year.

Cookies For Mommy…Er, Santa

Remember last year when I did that massive Christmas baking day with my friend Mindy? We had such a blast doing it that we vowed to make it an annual event.

Then we went and had babies just 10 days apart from each other which really threw a curveball in our 2010 baking plans. Two nursing newborns + two ornery toddlers = no time for things like giant Baking Days.

But I still wanted to make a few Christmas goodies, even if on a much smaller scale than last year, and since Lily is old enough to enjoy baking with me, I decided to make some sugar cookies.

I don’t really bake sugar cookies that often, but several of my friends swear by this lady’s recipe, so I decided to give it a try. The verdict: it’s a keeper. Even I couldn’t mess it up.

When baking with your two year old, it is imperative that you pre-measure your ingredients.

Otherwise you might turn to find that your toddler was eating handfuls of flour and cracking eggs behind your back while you were trying to find the vanilla in the pantry. I personally have no experience with this. I’m just guessing.

*Ahem*

See? Just like on the cooking shows. Only unlike Rachael Ray, I didn’t have any prep chefs to do it for me. Wouldn’t that be nice?

    
Wow. That’s a lotta sugar. I suppose that’s why they call them sugar cookies, eh?

Anywhoo.

Lily’s job was to help me dump the ingredients in the bowl and turn on the mixer. Then we put our hands on our belly to keep them from getting caught in the beaters. Safety first!

Sophia’s job was to sit in her swing and look cute. I think she did a pretty good job, don’t you?

Every time we dumped in a new ingredient, Lily would look at me hopefully and say, “Now we gonna eat ‘em Mommy?”

I told her that the dough had to go in the fridge until after her nap, then we would bake them and eat them.

The news did not go over as well as you might have expected.

The first thing she said when I got her up from her nap was, “Time to eat cookies now, Mommy?”

So we went right downstairs and started baking and frosting.

Note the outfit change. This was due largely in part to the unfortunate decision on Mommy’s part to dress her in a white shirt and then feed her spaghetti for lunch. Live and learn.

Lily lost interest after decorating about three cookies. I swear, sometimes she’s got the attention span of a two year old. Oh, wait…

We decorated a special cookie just for Daddy. He thought it was absolutely beautiful.

 

Finally, time to enjoy the fruits of our labor! 

I think she liked them :) 
Since Lily wasn’t interested in decorating anymore, I tried my hand at a few.

It’s supposed to say, “Let It Snow”. It was pretty in my head.

I think I came to the conclusion that sugar cookies are a lot of work and at the end of the day, I’d rather eat them than bake them.

How about you?

Christmas Tour of Homes

It’s party time!

The Nester and Kelly are kicking off their annual Christmas Tour(s) of Homes today. I look forward to this every year. Mostly just because I’m nosy and I like seeing what the inside of other people’s houses look like :) And I figure if I’m spying on other people that way, it’s only fair for me to let them see my house, right?

So here’s our holiday home!

You may remember {or not} that last year at Christmas we basically had a hole in the wall covered with sheetrock instead of a fireplace. So I was SUPER excited to have the completed fireplace to decorate – especially the mantle!

Somewhere…can’t remember where exactly…I saw the idea to hang ornaments above the mantle and loved it! I just used fishing line and thumbtacks.

 

I used the same bronze ornaments for our “pretty” tree as I did last year.

I really wanted a tree skirt but didn’t want to cough up the money for one – my mother-in-law suggested finding some fabric and then it hit me – why not use tulle? It’s cheap, comes in all different colors, and is really soft and pretty.

And did I mention it’s cheap? Like, $.77/yard. If I would’ve thought of it sooner, I would have bought some extra to wrap around the tree as garland. Wouldn’t that be pretty? Maybe next year.

 

And here’s a nighttime shot. Super blurry. Oh well.

 

I think our dining room table centerpiece is one of my favorite spots in the house right now. I looove how it turned out!

The trees are just those grapevine trees you can get at Hobby Lobby. They’re plain brown so I used some spray paint {Rustoleum Aged Bronze for the darker ones and Krylon Caramel Latte for the lighter one} plus some glitter spray to glam them up a little. Some Dollar Store hurricanes and extra ornaments and voila! A centerpiece.

This is where I ended up putting my ginormous clearance candies. Do me a favor and pretend like you don’t see how messy my counters are. I’d like to tell you that it’s not normally that bad but the truth is, it looks that more often than I care to admit. Just keepin’ it real ;)

So there you have it! Our Christmas home.

Hope you enjoyed!

DIY Ballard Inspired Ornament Pillow

Before I start this post, can I just say how absolutely lovely this weekend has been?

Yesterday morning started with some rain that turned to ice that turned to snow that got blown all over creation by the crazy wind we were having. Since “travel was not advised” and we didn’t really have any plans anyway, we put on our “comfy clothes” as Lily calls them now {i.e.: sweats and hoodies}, ate leftover goodies from the Christmas party we had Friday night, watched Christmas movies, and just chilled.

And I had a good excuse to work on one of the bajillion projects I’m in the middle of– some Christmas pillows!

It all started a couple of months ago when I got my Ballard catalog in the mail. I fell in love with these pillows:

But they were $75.00.

EACH.

Even if I had one meeellion dollars, I wouldn’t waste that much money on a pillow. Especially not a seasonal pillow.

So I decided to try my hand at making my own copycat version, and this is the end result:

I’m not going to do a full tutorial because, let’s face it – I’m not the person you want teaching you how to sew.

Basically, I used this tutorial to make a very basic slipcover for a pillow, traced the ornament shapes, and appliquéd them to the front using Heat n’ Bond. I used hot glue to attach the ribbon – no idea whether or not that will hold up in the wash or not. I still might add a couple more ribbons or other embellishments, but for the most part, it’s done.

I used some very inexpensive ticking, duck cloth, and cotton fabric from Wal-Mart – I think the total cost for the fabric was around $10.00 and I’ve got enough leftover to make copycats of the two other pillows pictured in the catalog.

So, my less than $10.00 version vs. their $75.00 version:

Whaddya think?

****************

My blog buddy Kim is having a fun party this month called Dare to DIY. This week’s theme is Dare to Deck the Halls and I’m linking up! Be sure to stop by her place and be inspired by all the fabulous projects!

This, That, and The Other

Well, hello there!

I sort of took an extended Thanksgiving break from blogging. No particular reason, really.

Our Thanksgiving included a trip to Michigan to visit family. We played games and laughed and shopped and ate like kings but I’ve got no pictures to show for it because our camera is broken.

Speaking of broken cameras, ours is damaged beyond repair so we’re in the market for a new one. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just a good quality point and shoot that takes clear pictures. I don’t know much about cameras. Any suggestions from those that do?

While we were in Michigan we went to the adorable little town of Frankenmuth. It’s a super touristy but very picturesque German “village”. If it had been warmer, I would have loved to stroll along all the little shops but it was FAH-REEZING so we just went to this place:

Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland -- I have never in my life seen so much Christmas stuff. Seriously. Insanity.

They offer free personalization on all their ornaments, so we picked up a special one just for Lily. It looks just like this one and says, “Lily 2010”

She loves it. So much so that she has a hard time not walking by the Christmas tree without yanking on it. If that tree doesn’t fall over before Christmas, it will be a miracle. A Christmas miracle!

Anyway.

Dave’s mom traveled back with us and is staying for 2 weeks. It’s like having a built in babysitter. I keep forgetting that I can actually leave the house! By myself! In the middle of the day! It’s awesome :)

I’ve been doing lots of Christmas decorating. I love pulling out all the stuff I got on clearance last year. It’s like a little early Christmas present to myself :) Like these giant candy ornaments I got 90% off at Target last year:

Fun, no?

For some reason it’s taking me forever to decorate this year, and by the time I’ve got it just right, it will probably be time to take it all down again. Oh well!

I’m also in the middle of like, a bajillion different projects. Three wreaths, some Christmas pillows, and hair bows. Hopefully I’ll be able to show you pictures.

If they turn out good.

And we buy a camera.

So in other words, don’t get your hopes up.

That’s all!

The Obligatory Halloween Post

I know everyone is probably tired of seeing pictures of other people’s kids dressed up for Halloween, but…I’m a mom. I can’t resist sharing some of my own.

Remember how I wasn’t sure if we would be able to get Lily to wear her costume?

Well, as it turns out the promise of candy in return for dressing up provided the perfect incentive.

And yes. She was already missing one hair bow before we had even left the house. The pigtails only lasted all of 10 minutes before she pulled them out completely. Ah, well! Cute while it lasted!

(Please try to avert your eyes from that basket full of laundry sitting by the door. I have a newborn, remember? At least it was clean :) I think she looked even cuter in person than she does in the pictures. But I’m her mom. I guess I’m biased :)

Sophia got in on the fun too.

She wasn’t too crazy about it at first.

But I think she got over it.   

We had coached Lily on the basics of trick or treating beforehand.

Dave: “Ok Lily, we’re going to go to the door and when they open it you say ‘Trick or Treat’ and then they’ll give you some candy! Ok? So tell us what you say when they open the door!

Lily: “CANDY!!!”

Well, ok. I guess that will work too.

So now that Halloween is over, I’m giving myself permission to start getting excited about Christmas! And loosening my belt in anticipation of Thanksgiving. On second thought, maybe I’ll just wear my maternity pants. Or a pair of these?