doing other things

I realize that at times it may seem that I don't do much more than sew :) but it's not so! In fact, I've decided to slow down on the sewing to allow for other things and to take the pressure off myself a little bit. I love making gifts, but I can no longer keep up with making every gift that comes down the pike, so from now on I will be gifting books most of the time, something else I absolutely love to give. Ya know, there really are books out there for everyone.

Speaking of books :) I have had a lot of them on my current reading list, so I want to share some with you.

I don't usually have this many books going at the same time, but I'm finishing up one of them and I've barely started to others.

1. What is a Family by Edith Schaeffer--I've only read one chapter of this book, but I know it will be a winner. It was written a few decades ago now, but the things she has to say about why the concept of family is going the wrong direction in America today and what we can do to change that with our own family legacy.

2. The Mentoring Mom by Jackie Kendall; 11 way to model Christ to your child. I bought this just the other day and the first page said something that stuck with me.

"God put Noah in an ark that had no rudder, no sail, and no motor and sent him into a horrible storm. yet he was in the safest place possible, because it was God's will." (pg. 9)

Encouraging words in my current circumstances!

3. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell--This is one I've been itching to read since my friend Katie let me borrow the movie North and South from the same author. I've been really loving the classics this past year. I recently finished the Count of Monte Cristo and absolutely loved it (very different from the movie!) and before that I read every Jane Austen novel there is :) Love her.

4. Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster--I have talked about this author before. I really loved his book, Celebration of Discipline, but didn't like this one quite as much. I was looking for ways to introduce simplicity in my daily life and how to foster of spirit of simplicity, but most of this book felt like a solution for the whole world, instead of for individuals and families. Maybe I'm not explaining this very well. However, I did enjoy the first part of the book more. I was convicted in areas of generosity and honesty and began praying for ways to offer generosity with our somewhat limited resources. God truly answered that prayer, as my eyes were opened to many ministries and opportunities to share what we have.


In other reading, I'm going to be getting the children's church ministry up and going again at our church. I've been thinking about this for awhile and last week it sort of fell right into place, so I'm thrilled. I'm on my own for materials and lesson plans and it just so happens, my Mom brought back all these object lesson, craft and puppet books, yay! Then, I had no trouble finding full lesson plans online. Here's my favorite site: http://ministry-to-children.com/
Also, Casey was cleaning out the garage and found a big "pin-the-smile-on-Larry" game from our days working for Family Christian Stores. That will be tons of fun :)

P.S. See that pretty mug up there, holding my latte?? Casey bought me that from Anthropologie as a sweet little surprise for me. What a guy :)

Oh, and one more thing! I have started a GoodReads account and it's over there on my sidebar so you can see what I"m reading. Feel free to befriend me too so I can see what you're reading. Thanks to my sister and to Katie for opening my eyes to GoodReads, what fun!

bubbles

I took some pretty pics of my kiddos the other day. Have you seen these awesome bubble things? They say no-spill and they mean it, these things don't spill! (As a side-note, no-spill does not mean no-mess, especially when they get the giggles and start flinging the bubble wands everywhere, mostly at each other. But, they're bubbles, they're self-cleaning, right?)

I can't believe I got this far

I finished Layla's quilt top! Applique in huge quantities has never been my favorite, but it turns out, I really didn't mind it so much on this. Maybe I liked how it was turning out so much that I was motivated to finish. Here's the entire top (well, as much as would fit in the picture.)




I'm so excited to get some batting and start quilting this one. I've never hand quilted before, but I think it's the only way to go on this quilt because of those flowers. I'm a fast hand sewer when it comes to bindings and things, so maybe it will go faster than I think?? I'm open to any machine quilting suggestions you may have before I get started, though!

On another note, we planted a little window sill herb garden yesterday. My pots look so much prettier here than they did in the pantry :)

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday. It was filled with worship, food and family and we are so thankful for all of those things. I hope your day was wonderful too :)

stripes!

I started this stripey crochet bag some time last week when I needed something to do while watching Chuck on Hulu. Casey was gone for a week with his reserve unit and keeping my hands busy helps pass the time. I reallllly like this bag. It is a FREE pattern here!! You can make one too :)

Last night, I got these two little dresses out of my mending box. They are the same style and the girls loved them (because they were long and twirly) but Natalie's had a huge pizza grease stain on it and Layla's was too small. Sooooo....

I chopped them off and made skirts out of them. They both wore them today, so I guess they were a hit! Great way to re-purpose stained and too-small dresses.


Thanks for the encouraging comments after yesterday's post. Casey actually has a (5th!) interview with a particular company today, so maybe I'll have some good news on the job front to share with you soon. In the mean time, I will "do the next thing," (Elizabeth Elliot) and do it with joy!

Springtime in the Rockies

You have to love Colorado. One day we're at the park, playing our little hearts out...







...and a few days later we have over a foot of snow. Of course, it's melted by now and we're up to 80 degrees today! Woohoo! I'm ready for Springtime and soooo glad it's here.




We went down to Colorado City to visit Casey's family over the weekend and had such a great time there. Sometimes it's good to get out of the city and feel like you can breathe. It was a nice little mini-vacation for me. Back to reality, though and it's a tough reality for us lately. We have some decisions to make in the coming months and are excited to make those decisions, but are still in a holding pattern. We know that God has a perfect plan in mind and it will be better than what we've ever imagined for ourselves. But, how do I find contentment when I know what I have is temporary and how do I settle in to my current situation when I know it will just change again very soon? Thoughts??

Family Fun

Last month I bought the most recent issue of Disney's Family Fun magazine. I have never bought this magazine before, but after flipping through it and seeing several projects we could do together, I went ahead and bought it. It was SO much fun, I am thinking about subscribing now.

The first thing we attempted was the Curly Birds. After I measured the strips, Natalie did most of the cutting and both the girls did all the gluing. He's hanging from our chandelier now :)


Then, I already showed you these rainbow cupcakes I made for Natalie's party. These were pretty easy and a lot of fun for the kiddos. You can see that mine don't look as perfectly layered as the picture in the magazine. That's because that would have taken forever and my mom taught me that "done is better than perfect." It's become one of my life's mantras, hahaha :)



Also for Natalie's party, we made these little butterfly snack baggies as party favors. I loved this idea because I don't like buying a bunch of cheap favors that I know will get thrown away in a matter of days and I also don't like to give out a ton of sugar, so this was perfect! And cute :)


Then, we HAD to try these sock bunnies. I have a weird thing about using worn socks for craft projects, so I bought new, since the girls could use some socks anyway, but you could use socks you have around the house too. Stripey ones would be fun! Anyway, the girls really love these little bunnies, they've even been sleeping with them. However, I have had to reposition the neck ribbons a couple of times, since they tend to swing them around by the ears and the heads become really tiny :)





I've had so much I've wanted to blog about lately, but seem to lack the time! I have a like list on the back burner, though, as well as a like list, reader's edition, so hopefully I'll be able to post those soon. In the mean time, we're going down to Colorado City to visit my in-laws for the weekend. I'm very excited, it's like a mini-vacation for me when we go down there and a nice change of scenery for the kids, too. I bet I'll have some time to blog while we're there!

making progress

I finished Natalie's Easter dress!! This one turned out soooo cute, I really loved the pattern (the link is in my last post) and think this dress looks so boutiquey :) The bubble hem is everything I hoped it would be.


And I also finished Layla's hat!! It matches her dress and was not hard to make at all. This pattern is also linked to on my previous post, in case you're interested.


P.S. I received a lot of comments on my last post about my cute kids, but actually those pics are just the pattern covers to the patterns I'm using, so thanks! but I had to give credit where credit is due :)