Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to the two women in my life that have help me become the mother that I am today.

Mom, 

Thanks for everything you've ever done for me.  

I treasure our friendship and appreciate the fact that you saved it for my adult years and were my mom first.  So many mothers try to be their children's friend when their children are still children.  You were always my mom first and then when I grew up and moved out you slowly transitioned into a friend!  Thanks for that special gift.

I also want to thank you for the legacy of Jesus Christ that you gave to me.  What an amazing gift you gave me, introducing me you Jesus as a child, always having us in church, praying for us constantly, listening to our questions and helping me have my own relationship with God.  I am forever grateful for that gift and even more grateful now that I am a mother, knowing that your introducing me to God as a child opened up that door for future generations, namely, my own children, to have that relationship, what an amazing gift you have given my children!  

Thank You!

Kathy {my mother-in-love},

How grateful I am for you.  So many women I know have a bitter, spiteful relationship with the women that raised their son!  I have known from the first time Beau introduced us that you were special!  You truly are a gift for me and my entire family.  I treasure you, your love, your guidance, your prayers!  You are a mother-in-law that women everywhere desire!

I also want to thank you for the legacy of Jesus Christ that you gave your son!  I am beyond grateful to have met, fallen in love and married your son!  He leads and guides our family towards God every day and that is because of the gift you, as his mother, gave him by introducing him to Jesus.  Thank you for the legacy of a relationship with Jesus Christ that you have given my children.

Thank You!

I also want to thank both my mom and mother-in-law for the legacy of marriage they have given my children!  Because of your love for God and your relationship with Jesus Christ, your love for your husbands and children you have committed loving marriages!  I have no idea the issues either of you have faced in your marriages {having only been married for just under 15 years I know it's hard work}, I can't begin to grasp the struggles that you two have overcome in your marriages, in a day and age when all the marriages around you were crumbling, I thank you for fighting it out, holding strong, loving your children enough to hold onto your marriage vows, the promise you made to your husbands and God!  Thank you for that gift, that legacy, that you passed onto Beau & I and to your grandchildren!  In a day in age when 50% of marriages end in divorce our children can look around their family and see two sets of grandparents and one set of parents {and an Uncle & Aunt}, no steps, that's 4 marriages that have broken away from the statistics and  have set their marriages in God's hands and not in the world!

Thanks, 

May your Mother's Day be blessed!

p.s. Thank you Kathy for the gift of a kid free weekend with my husband!  

Menu Monday {kids edition}

how do you make your menu?
same thing every week...think of it while your shopping?...poll the family before you go shopping?...do the kids and husband make the menu?..open the cupboard and fridge and throw stuff together?...

I seriously don't like making a menu
very much dislike grocery shopping
but HATE life in my house at 4:55 pm when I have NOT made a menu and grocery shopped off that menu!!!


so I did something slightly crazy for my menu this time...

I handed the ipad over to the kids,
pulled up the pintrest app, had them look thru my Yum- dinner & yum-crockpot boards
& they made the menu....this will get us thru the next 2 weeks...and depending on how well it works we may or may not have the kids make the menu again!

 Baked Panko Chicken Tenders {both kids}

Olive Garden Alfredo {girl child}

The Best Parmesan Chicken Bake {girl child}

Slow Cooker Honey Soy Chicken {girl child}

Italian Sloppy Joes with Ranch Style Beans {both kids}

Slow Cooker Taco Chicken Bowls {both kids}

Vegetarian Chili with cornbread {boy child}

Pretzel Dogs {boy child}

Homemade pizza {boy child}

Not Soggy Nachos {boy child}

Bread Bowls with Chicken Chowder {boy child}

what's your menu making style...?

it's just hair

whatever...

I don't have amazing hair
never have
it's thin, straight, limp,
with just your basic
     I-got-it-trimmed-approximately-4-months-ago-style
good thing I'm not a hair person...
or maybe I just don't care enough,
          maybe I have the potential for amazing hair but I'm too lazy
     {this is a very high likelihood!}

but I married AMAZING hair,
my husbands hair is full and wavy and amazing
he sadly had rocked a mullet in high school...and NO it was not the 80's!
{for the record I DID NOT know him during the mullet and was already hopelessly in love the first time I saw mullet pictures}
since we've been together {almost 17 years} he has had more hair styles than me!


and back on track...
our son has his father's amazing hair...





and has worn it pretty shaggy most of his life
{something about his weird mom not cutting off those precious curls until he was almost 3, but he was bald for so long!}

pretty sure the shaggy hair had something to do with a lazy busy mom that would forget to make an appointment for a hair cut and months and months would pass before she would realize that her son's hair was out of control!

there have been a few times that I attempted the 'trim' myself, and that always resulted in something the boy child likes to call a 'mushroom head'...so that doesn't happen any more.





anyways...
about a month ago I had made the guys a hair appointment
{this hair is too amazing for any ol' barber shop/walk-in-for-a-cut place!}
when Beau was getting ready to leave Wilson asked if he HAD to get his hair cut...
well, it's getting kinda long buddy...
Yeah, I want it long...
okay!

the guys after Beau's hair cut and Wilson's non-cut

it's only hair, we have 3 hair rules {that apply to both him and his sister}
1.  keep it brushed
2.  keep it clean
3.  keep it out of your eyes!

 this is the boy child, yesterday, rocking some sort of 1977 Shaw Cassidy look....

makes me chuckle when boys have hair touching their ears and I hear a parent say it's WAY past hair cut time!
it's just hair people!

Who Am I?

Why, Hello There!


You may {or may not} have notice my blog has been silent...
for over 4 months now I've blogged nothing!
zero.
zilch..
nada...

why?  why did I go silent?

it's been a lot of little reasons and a few not so little reason that have kept me quiet...

the first, maybe the biggest...
was the day after my last post
{I posted last on Thursday, Dec 13}
was Friday, December 14
Sandy Hook Elementary

that rocked me...
those little boys and girls
going to school
in a quiet small town
public school...
just like my kids...

I started to write a post the day after, Sat Dec 15, it has sat in my drafts folder all these months...
I had this overwhelming feeling of "Who Am I" to write about this loss, why do I get to chime in and have any sort of feeling for these families that are grieving!

Grief is personal...
it was their kids,
their school,
their town,
their state...

I also did NOT want to start {and still won't} a discussion on gun control....

....the more I thought about what happened at Sandy Hook...
the more I wanted to be present for my kids.
I also didn't want to write a trivial post about my collection of Nativities when something so devastating had happened... {not that Christmas and celebration the birth of Christ is trivial...but you know}

I was stuck between
     "who am I to write a blog about Sandy Hook"
          &
"I can't just ignore Sandy Hook and post a weekly menu"

so I decided to take a break, cherish my kids, and wait until it was time to come back...
and then Monday happened...
the Bombing of the Boston Marathon....
and it was just as horrific...
     {why does it have to be children, seriously!}

I'm in an 8 Week Get Healthy Challenge with some friends...and one of them shared this Bible verse on Monday....
 I have told you these things, 
     so that in me you may have peace. 
          In this world you will have trouble. 
               But take heart! 
                    I have overcome the world.
                            ~John 16:33

Guess What?  We live in a sinful fallen world...'in this world you will have trouble'
but that's not the end of the story....
HE has overcome the world...
AMEN....

lots of other things have happened over the past 4 months...
my life is busier...
but I DO want to still blog...
I will post about the changes in my life...
I will post about my journey of getting healthy...
I will post weekly menu's {when I remember}
I will post God Moments...
I will post the silly things my kids do...
I will post craft projects when I actually finish them...
but I will also blog around my family's schedule,

one thing I have learned from Sandy Hook, the Boston Bombing, and just all the tragedies of life is that cherishing moments with my kids and family is way more important than anything I can blog about!

see ya soon...

Tour of Nativities

My Tour of Nativities continues with one of our first nativities.  

I bought this the year Beau and I were married (it's our 15th Christmas)...

It's nothing special, I'm sure I picked it up at WalMart or Target...

it's ceramic but durable.

I've always let my kids play with my Nativities...with supervision of course.

I have these mini suitcases in our living room, I use them for decor all year round, and I usually set up one of my nativities on/with the suitcases...I think it's fitting, with all the traveling this little family did!

I've always liked this baby Jesus...so sweet...When Madison was little she would always want to nap with baby Him!

Here is the far away look...it's sharing a table with our fish tank...Jesus can hang with the fish, wasn't he a fisher of men?!?

 

do you have a special way of displaying your nativities?

Tour of Nativities

Christmas isn't Christmas until the Nativity has been set up.

...or Nativities....

As a Christian and a pastor's wife, I've been asked the question so many times, "Do you put of a Christmas tree or a nativity?"...

that is such an interesting question to me.  I never thought of only doing one, not both...

We do both...

one tree and multiple nativities all over the house! (I guess I have a few tiny fake tress scattered around the house also)...

I see no reason why we would have to choose one over the other.

Anyways...

I love my collection of nativities...

and I decided to give you a tour of them over the next few days/week...

this first one I picked up at a weird yard/book sale thing that we went to a few years ago.  It was a house & property that had 1000's of books, bookshelves everywhere, inside and outside all under tarps and easy-up's, etc... and most of them were for sale...it was the oddest thing...

anyways, the girl child pointed out this glass nativity sitting on top of some books, I asked the lady how much for it and she said I could just take it...okay!  

Not all the pieces were there, I don't think, sometimes it's hard to figure out if you  have a Joseph, Shepherd or wise-man...I feel like this one is missing Joseph and Shepherds...

I set it up this year in our kitchen window on a cake stand.  I had some cranberries that I didn't use at Thanksgiving (yes, they are real)...and then some moss that I found in a cupboard in the garage, not sure where that came from.  But, anyways...I just threw them together for a fun little display...

and here is my whole kitchen window...(with a small fake tree in the back right corner!)...

Do you have more than one Nativity set?

Where do you display it/them?

Merry Christmas...

Advent Calendar

This is just a short little post to share with you the Advent Calendar I made today.

My mother-in-law sent me this link to the FREE Dayspring Printable Advent Calendar

and I just printed them out on white cardstock,
cut and glued them to colored cardstock on the back and then hung them with clothespins to some greenery that I hung around our entryway...
it's totally simple and easy...
and LOVE the Advent Calendar
all the references are about God's Promises Fulfilled, with a Bible verse and then a prompt about the promise/verse...
example
Dec 3...The Promise of Light "I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  John 8:12... Where will you walk today in order to bring the Light of the world to the world?

be jealous of my mad photography skills!

 The greenery hanging around the entryway with the Advent cards clipped down both sides

can you find the camel in this picture?
again, mad skills!

 Close up of one side of the 'calendar'...with the Advent cards clipped..

 cards on other side...

back of cards with scrapbook paper so when we flip a card over after reading it that day it will still look nice.

Starting sometime this week I will start my Nativity Tour...I will show you my collection of Nativities and where/how I display them!

Do you have an  Advent Calendar you use?