a moment

I used to think I would remember every sweet/touching/funny/absurd moments with my children - not every moment of their lives, just the ones where, at the time, I say to myself, "I'll always remember this."

...since I don't have a picture of the cards...

Eight years in and I realize I've forgotten more than I've remembered. (sheepish grin) Which is probably a blessing in many cases.

But, there are times where I really do not want to forget, which is part of this blog's purpose. Once such moment was yesterday...

Brianna and Reese were looking forward all summer to the return of their Missionettes and Royal Rangers classes. Reese decided to make cards for his leaders yesterday to express his gratitude. On one he wrote:

"I am so glad Royal Rangers is back." Love, Reese

on another a simple,

"I love you."

And, my personal, tugs-at-my-heart favorite:

"I am a happy man."

crafting like crazy

The past week I've been sewing up a storm to get ready for my very first craft show in October. I dedicated last week to pairing up fabrics for more women's, teens and girls reversible headbands.

 

Before we left on vacation, mid-August I excitedly worked on my very first esty custom order - a tablecloth, potholders, napkins, hand towel and napkin rings for a play kitchen. Once I get beyond the craft show, my plan is to create a "Kitchen Play" custom listing in my shop.

I love "painting" with fabrics - combining colors and patterns to create something beautiful and useful and am so thankful the Lord has given me this creative outlet.

the boundary (scripture snapshot)

A picture from our vacation, and I think a fitting one, too, in light of Hurricane Irene.

Linking up with Scripture and a Snapshot @ Katie Lloyd Photography

homeschooling and a how to

This week in homeschooling we got back into the swing of things...

After completely stressing about every detail of school last year and burning myself out by the end, this year, I'm leaning on the Lord to help me ease into things and enjoy the teaching moments He brings before us...like having Dave encourage the Brianna and Reese to do book reports and he even put together the book report form. I decided we needed a place to house these reports-to-be, which leads me to the "how to":

Creating Book Report Folders

What you'll need:

What to do:
Choose a picture of your child or an image of their choosing, then go picniking (in case you haven't encountered it before, picnik is a great photo editing site and is free, though it also has a monthly fee if you want premium features). Here are my originals:

Make any edits to your photo as needed (such as cropping or adjusting the light). Then click on the "create" tab. Pick the "effects" button and scroll down until you see the "pencil sketch" feature (it's part of the free package) and select the button. Adjust the radius and strength slide to get the best "like a coloring book" look to your picture - I found moving the radius slide to "5" worked best. Hit the "apply" button.

Next, select the "text" tab and add in your text. If you buy the premium feature, you'll have more fonts to choose from - I used the handwriting-type fonts available in the free version. The text always appears in white at first, so you'll need to adjust the color in the text properties pop-up box. (To create the strikethrough for Reese's picture, I went to the sticker tab, choose the geometric shapes button, selected the rectangle and adjusted it to create a thin black line.)

Save the photo (click the "save and share tab"). Before I printed, I inserted the photos into Publisher (you could use Word, too, or other similar programs) so I could adjust the final print size - if you print directly as a photo, you may be limited in your size selection, but check your photo print options on your computer).

Here are the final products:

I had Brianna and Reese color their pictures, then I pasted them to the front of their folders (I chose to do all the cutting and pasting, but this is something the kids could easily have done).

Since Dave wanted the kids to see where the books are published, I found some maps (world map here, US map here) and printed, cut out and pasted them to the backs of the folders.

We decided we'd like to reward Brie and Reese for the reading and reporting. So I created a book meter with starfish on every nine spaces (there are 36 spaces - one for every week in the typical school year). Each time they get to a starfish space, we will take them to Half-Price Books to buy something for their personal library.

Finally, we used the pockets inside the folder to store blank report forms so they're handy for the kids.

And that's it! My favorite part about this project is that Dave initiated it and got it underway - it's always lovely to be supported  :)

huh-dahs

Ben LOVES cars and trucks - any vehicle really. His word for anything bigger than a car is "huh-dah" which, I think he gets from trying to pronounce "fire truck." When we're driving, I often hear from the back seat whenever we pass a large vehicle. "Oooh, big huh-dah!" (To which we all need to respond "big huh-dah Ben" so that he knows we understood him.)

So when my parents and I took Ben for a walk at the cottage one night - he was feeling left out of the "monster" game Dave plays with the kids - a big treat was in store for him...we saw not one but three big farm vehicles reaping wheat, baling the straw and transporting it in the fields which border the gravel road leading to the cottages. I believe this was a special surprise God cooked up for Ben since He knows how hard it is to be a little guy who wants to keep up with the gang but is still a leetle to young. ;)

 bringing in the wheat

 oooh...big huh-dahs!

 what the baler left behind

 stopping to watch the hoppers going by

time to go home

wfmw: laundry and lunch (travel edition)

Although most extended vacations are now over with the school year beginning, here are a couple travel-related ideas I used on our recent trip to store away until your next out-of-town getaway.

Laundry

my double decker laundry baskets :)

In the past, when we've traveled we come back with suitcases brimming with dirty and clean clothes - which means lugging everything upstairs and sorting through it (which usually extended the unpacking process into a week-long event). For our trip to the cottage, I took a slightly different approach...

As I packed, I put the clothes least likely to get worn (cool weather & "town" clothes) at the bottom.When we arrived at our cottage, I took out all the everyday beach ware clothes and placed them in drawers and kept the others clothes in the suitcases. We also tucked away a couple of large bags specifically for dirty clothes.

When it came time to pack up and leave, I transferred all the kids never worn and still clean clothes into one suitcase and piled the rest into the laundry bags. At home, we could simply toss the laundry bags downstairs and bring the bags with the clean clothes upstairs - a strategy which meant I was unpacked by the next day! Although it still took a few days to get through all the laundry. ;)

Lunch
When we started having and children and then traveling with them, my usual get-there-as-quickly-as-possible strategy was, thankfully, derailed. Although it would be possible to stick to the travel centers and restaurants situated along the highway, it didn't offer much in the way of entertainment for the kids (especially in the times when they needed to wait while I breastfed one of their siblings).

Thankfully, God used our children to show us a much more interesting approach to breaking for lunch.

We discovered that if you take an exit off the highway, you often are rewarded with discoveries that cannot be found on the main thoroughfare and often are not placed on a map or "points of interest." My two favorite discoveries so far are...

a beach with dunes, grasses, playground and picnic tables off of 1-90 in New York

plum trees next to a church's parking lot in North Carolina (we found a couple on the ground and they were sooo good)

If you want to try this approach on your next out-of-town trip, here are some tips:

• pick an exit with a town or park located within a few miles of the highway, unless you have time to go further afoot
• packing a lunch (or dinner) is cheaper than buying
• bring something along to clean up messes: paper/cloth towels and trash bags
• if you're traveling parallel to a body of water, head toward the water when you exit the highway - you're bound to find a beach or picnic spot 
• if you go into a town look for school crossing signs or ask the location of the nearest elementary school - it's bound to have a playground for the kids to burn off some energy before getting back on the road
• churches also may offer playground opportunities

There you have it - laundry bags and lunchtime adventures. They work for me.

seeing through the weeds @ Joyful Mothering

Today, I'm excited to be guest posting at Joyful Mothering. The name of Christin's blog itself was enough to get me interested in reading what she had to write - sometimes it's that fruit of the Spirit which is hard to bring forth in the messes of motherhood. ;)

Here's a smidgen of the post... and for the rest, please hop on over to Joyful Mothering:
With a quiver full of four children eight years old and under, I frequently receive the comments, “Wow! You must be busy,” “You must have your hands full,” and “I don’t know how you do it.” They are comments I have come to expect. They are ones I dread to hear.

I dread them because what I sense in these comments is a notion that parenting more than two children is a burden, not a blessing...

See you there :)