An unexpected break

It seems I am taking an unexpected break from blogging. I have things to share but I don't have the interest in working on my blog lately. I will definitely post again as soon as I feel the fun of writing again, but I don't know if that will be tomorrow or next week. Please bear with me as I get back into the groove of things again!

All is well with us - we've been fighting minor coughs and colds but that can take away your energy more than you know! Hope all is well with you and your families!!

New words of wisdom

Two new favorite quotes in two days! My newest favorite is from a new book I picked up today (for a small group I am attending). The book is Creative Correction by Lisa Whelchel.

"My children aren't perfect, but neither are yours. If we ever run into each other's children on the streets let's not judge each other as bad parents. Let's give one another the benefit of the doubt!"

Sounds like a great deal - any takers???

Carved on Stone

Today I read something that makes me want to avoid error more than ever before! I want to print this out and put it on all the walls of my house! This is so easily forgotten when your child asks you the same questions over and over and over and you just want one minute of quiet! This is so easily forgotten when you are in a hurry and they want to talk about the worm on the sidewalk!! This sparks a huge shift in my recognizing the temporary phase of all of this. I want to encourage the questions, not stifle their love of learning! I want to encourage their gifts and not argue they are not valid. I want to see clearly and not get caught up in a distracting snow storm that isn't a valuable use of my time! Here is the quote I read:

"What you learn in old age is carved on ice.
What you learn in childhood is carved on stone." (David Kherdian)

Stone is permanent, ice is temporary! What a strong analogy!

I am reading a book I've read before "Child-Sensitive Teaching" by Karyn Henley. I read this book before I became a Mommy. I have been involved in children's ministry for more than 10 years (this was suggested as a good book during those days). I know I read this statement when I first bought this book, but now it means so much more. The preschool years are one of the more important stages of training. I know I mess up from time to time. I think I am on the right track most of the time. Reading this again makes me want to buckle down and make sure I am not missing any key opportunity to pour the right things into my kids.

I want them to feel safe and secure (when they feel their love tank is full, without doubt) they are then free to care for others. If they are constantly working to get attention from us, they are self-focused. I want my kids to know they are loved and cherished so they are free to grow into healthy life giving adults. I want them to know right from wrong so they won't ride the fence wondering "Is this really wrong or only wrong when I'm caught?". I want them to be fully equipped to live the life God intends for them to live. I don't want my mistakes, or my bad days, to misguide them. Only God knows what is in their hearts today. Only God knows what good or bad we (hubby and I) have done to affect their view of life, love and God. I can't let myself play the what if game. The only solution is to surrender again to God's ability to know more than I do. Surrender again to the fact that I will mess up, but with God's leading He can take what is meant for bad and make it become good for my sweet kids!

I am SOOOO glad that the big stuff is HIS job!! My job is to point them to Him, His job is to draw them to Himself. What stress life would be if I thought it was all on me. Granted - parenting is stressful at times, but I can't imagine how heavy a burden I would carry if I thought I was the one responsible for my kid's very souls! They are my responsibility. I am charged to raise them up in the way they should go, His job is to change their hearts! Whew! Thank God for that!!

Hot Spots!

I have noticed that I have had to remind myself of the following a lot lately: "We should look to God to fill us and not our husbands, not our kids, not our friends nor our family." I often find a lack in my life and expect (secretly of course) another person to miraculously fill my lack! To take away the empy void in x-area.

We had the best dogs in the world ever a few years ago!! Our sweet Sampson was a scratcher. If he were left to his own devices he would literally scratch his skin off, when it became dry. We had to buy ointment or put those awful circle things around his head to keep him from picking at the itchy spots aka "hotspots".

I know I have hotspots in my life. They are usually 'hotspots' I have given to God so He could heal me, but if I am not guarded against offense I go there! I get my feelings hurt, I shut down, I isolate. I begin thinking - how could someone be so insensitive. That is if I let myself scratch away at my old wounds!

What fruit is there in reliving past hurt and comparing it to a current hurt?? What good is there in building a wall around ourselves to keep hurt out?? NONE!

Reliving past hurt and comparing it to current pain only causes the healed area to bleed again. It is then tender again and I become super sensitive. again! So when someone nudges me unexpectedly, in that tender spot, I react out of my pain. The pain I react out of is unrealistic. I then cause further damage because I react by isolating! I leave our encounter thinking they've hurt me, when they've only nudged me without knowing and without intending to do so. (9 times out of 10 the current pain was unintended and we attach constant pain done by another person to the new first time offender.) I become cold towards them and in return they are bewildered wondering what went wrong or they are clueless. Result - they think I need space and give it to me. Result - I think they don't care and close up even more.

Why do we let ourselves go in these unending cycles?? Eventually I begin hurting others if I let things go unchecked!

Luckily, this time I am seeing the cycles BEFORE I react. No. Not luckily! THANKFULLY I see the cycles AND realize the potential harm that might follow. I am keeping the pain to myself now and letting God heal me fully. The recent incidents have shown me I am still vulnerable in these areas. They draw my focus to my need for God! My heart cries out: "God heal me fully in this area. I don't want another band aid. I want a full and total healing!"

My recent awareness of the cycles caused me to rejoice! The cycle is not accidental nor is the understanding of it to my demise. God used the incidents to reveal my progress in some areas (and the lack of progress in other areas)! I rejoice knowing that God would not have shown me the 'hotspots' again if He didn't intend on working on them!! So, I rejoice in my soon to be full healing of some of my oh so familiar hotspots!! God always uses the things intended for our bad to HIS good! I expect nothing less! He wouldn't promise to do it if He didn't mean it!! I already see good from the incidents!! I didn't let the little issue get me down this time. It only made me excited about the victory to come! Rejoicing!
(I hope this doesn't sound like mumbo jumbo!! If it does - I apologize! I don't want to give life to the little cycles by using examples! I am sure we can all relate if we try?!)

This is the way we build a FlRE...?

We've had fire places before. We've even used them! But they've used gas. This was our first fire with the kids and our first time to "build" a fire. I guess we are laughing about this??

We first began with fresh logs and a few starter pieces of paper.
That didn't work.
More paper strategically placed..
Nope! Didn't work but looked good for about 1 minute.

Then our best go was when hubby used a flame starter that will remain nameless because I think it was NOT a safe choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looked good for 2 minutes??
We gave up on night one. Hubby went to buy the fire starter logs MADE for use in a fire place and boy did that little starter burn... The wood didn't!
Second starter log... we never had a fire people!!
I hope you all enjoyed our lesson in how to NOT build a fire! :) The weather sure is perfect for a fire - if only....

SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOORAY HOORAY!!! WE ARE HAVING A SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HC tasting snow!
HC finally has the snow she prayed for!!!!!!!
It keeps snowing and snowing and snowing!!!! YIPPEE!!!!

ICE

Here is how our day began yesterday! The kids wanted to go out and play. I knew rain was on the way later in the day so they went out that morning. Here they are all bundled up. They played for maybe 15 minutes and said "Mom, I think it is too cold to play today." Great idea I thought! So we went back inside.

While the kids took their afternoon naps - I saw this on our neighbor's roof. That would be ice. I KNEW HC would be thrilled. She was so disappointed that Santa didn't bring snow on Christmas, this would really make her smile.
She woke from her nap and we went out to see the ice forming everywhere. It was like shaved ice bites. I have to tell you HC HAD to taste it. I let her have a bite of the clean ice. :) JB didn't want anything to do with the ice.
All this ice of course leads any 4 year old to one conclusion. LET'S CALL DADDY AND HE CAN BRING HOME SOME ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HC made the call to Daddy and we had ice cream BEFORE dinner!! Notice her sampling the top of the ice cream container??The anticipation!!!!!The prize!!OH yeah!! This hits the spot!JB actually ate his ice cream. This was a first! He never eats it. He didn't finish the whole thing but he did eat most of it! I was glad he tried it!
So that is the adventure we had yesterday!! Tons of fun! Happy times!

Homeschool Giveaway

Heart of Wisdom Blog Contest: A Free Book Random Drawing will be held every Monday through the months of December and January at the Heart of Wisdom Blog. Each week one Heart of Wisdom subscriber will be randomly selected to receive one FREE Homeschool Book or Heart of Wisdom Ebook from Homeschool-Books.com. A new title will be given away each week. Click here to enter.

Twirl Skort - almost!

Here is the latest pattern I've tried! It is SewSensible's Twirl SkOrt! At first I thought it was a skirt but later realized it was better - it is a skort.
My daughter LOVES wearing dresses and skirts but I often have battles with her when we go to the park or to the jumpers and I tell her she must wear shorts or pants. I don't like her to show her undies so this has become quite an issue in our home. Now this is the solution I needed! Here is my final product:The only problem is my fabric (the top fabric) was a little more difficult to work with than I first thought. Originally I thought the stripes were vertical so I planned on it being the bottoms. As I began sewing I realized it wouldn't show all the different stripes, so I made it the skirt. After cutting the fabric and once I began sewing, I quickly realized that the reverse side was not a straight line match of the front. I am sure it is a direct mirror of the front but it is more difficult to cut it perfectly and match it. I was becoming discouraged. I was to the point of attaching the skirt to the shorts when my husband waltzed in and told me the fabric was too much together. I began second guessing my choice like crazy - not like I wasn't doing that already with my lopsided matching of the skirt. So, I decided I would make the skirt separate from the shorts so that my work wasn't a total loss. So the photo above is the skirt worn on top of the shorts. Here's how the look when worn apart:
It didn't go as I expected (not due to the pattern but due to my fabric woes) but I am still pleased with the end product. HC will get much wear out of both pieces. Clearly a good ending. Plus I can use this pattern for skirts alone if I want!! Yay! Thanks SewSensible!! I believe this pattern is available on Ebay and will be available at You Can Make This soon too!

Last week wasn't ALL about sewing!

I've posted a bit much about my sewing wins lately but there were other things going on besides sewing. We were entertained by the newest band in town!! They totally ROCK!

The kids took a break from pretend swimming and boat rides to investigate cardboard caves.
HC from within the cave.
JB in the cave!
The discovery of being able to climb through the cave (all the debris was the Christmas wrapping paper that was stuffed in the box - these became snowballs - also referred to as snow globes by my two explorers).HC's turn to climb through the cave.This picture was taken in the dark with my flash.Same shot (except they switched sides) but without the flash. They were having so much fun with their flashlights! I love how well they play together! They even found time for an official tea party. They were talking with high pitch voices and drinking real live water! :) That was a special treat!We also had a much needed visit from Grandma. Grandma is the one in the apron and reading a goodnight story (at noon) to JB. Grandma had a fake voice too. It was hilarious!Then they had fun taking their naps in their great sleeping bags. What a fun week we all had!! I just wanted to share the fantastic adventures we had together last week while I also squeezed in my sewing victories!!

I sure do love these two little ones!! They are such good friends too! (HC also read some this week, she has read in the past but every word - even when repeated in the prior sentence - was so struggled. This time if she read 'Dad' in the first sentence, she just said "Dad" without a struggle in the 2nd sentence. She didn't struggle with sounding it out again. She just said it! This was a HUGE victory too!! We celebrated big time on this one!!!!) What a super super time!! I noticed that in most of these pictures JB is wearing his PJ's. When we hang around the house, he likes to stay comfy while HC MUST wear a dress or skirt of some sort! So that is the reason for PJ's, we stayed home most of the week! FYI! :)

Outfit #2. Done!

I KNOW you may be tired of all the sewing posts but I can't help it!! I am so excited with my latest creations!! I know I went on and on about how tough the pattern was for the white blouse I made HC, but after take 2 I have a different perspective!!!!! This chocolate blouse (using the same pattern) was so much easier to make. I haven't made the blouse (not counting the white one a few days ago) since Easter last year. That shirt (I made 1 year ago) was made with an instructor helping me. So HC's white blouse was my first official go with that pattern on my own. I felt like it was super difficult, just like I did one year ago.

When I made this shirt - I had no trouble. I guess I needed to get my mind thinking differently with the collar and this time - no problems at all!! I didn't have to rip anything out AND it looks well made on the inside too!! The white one is all puckered and after more inspection there are spots that should be covered (gaps in fabric near the collar) that are exposed if you were to lift the collar. So, I think it just takes one awful go of it and take 2 is much better! I feel great about this outfit.

The pants are from the SewSensible pattern I mentioned on my last post!! SOOOO very very easy! My only problem was with the ruffle this time. This was not due to the pattern but to my fabric. It was too thick for me to make ruffles the usual way. I had to manually fold out my ruffle on this outfit. Once I figured that out, I attached the ruffle with the pattern going upside down, so I had to rip it out and do it again! :) The fun!! Once I righted that wrong the pants were fantastic! SEW easy!! LOVE it!!!!

The best part is my daughter, who hates wearing pants, runs around the house in these pants with great joy. She LOVES to twirl in them!!!! I plan on making a few more pair with leftover fabric, but I think I will make the next pair in capri length, instead of long pants.

The easiest thing I've made yet!

My good friend SewSensible has another great pattern available on You Can Make This . I LOVE HER PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I made a pair for HC last night!! SEW easy!! :) SOOO easy too!! My daughter is not a fan of pants and she actually likes these too. She calls it her skirt pants because they are so comfy and swirl out a teeny bit when she spins.


Here is what I made. I still need to put buttons on the shirt but I love the shirt with the pants!!
I plan on making the same outfit above with this fabric. The printed fabric will be the pants and the chocolate will be the shirt. I can't wait!!!!! I love this fabric and already made a dress for her with this, now I can use my remaining fabric on another cute outfit!! I've been saving it with hopes that something precious would cross my path and when SewSensible shared the pattern on her blog I KNEW this was the one!! I hope you will visit SewSensible and see ALL the cute stuff she has going on!! She has the most precious pattern for an Easter basket!! Not to mention the twirl skirt that I CAN'T wait to try too!! Thanks SewSensible!! LOVE LOVE LOVE the pants!!!

BAM - I took it up a notch

I have shared my sewing achievements over the last few months. Like this dress: I made a dress for my niece this Christmas and her mom held it up to a shirt with a peter p*n c0llar. I LOVED the way the shirt really dressed it up. So I made a shirt for HC to wear with her dresses. This shirt is quite frustrating to make. It is worth the effort but I put my blood, sweat and tears into this blessed shirt! :) I cut the fabric Saturday night and I sewed it this Sunday. I only have to put the buttons on and I am through! I love it! I will make her other shirts like this - but only after necessary breaks in between. I can become quite angry with the collar on this little thing if I am not careful. Once the collar is finished it is a breeze. That collar kicks my butt though! :) So here it is - the shirt:

I took a shot without using the flash in case it shows the shirt better (I see there are a few threads I need to cut).
The dress with the shirt. Don't you think the shirt dresses it up (more than a turtle neck does)???? Here it is on my model: I think when the buttons are on the shirt, the collar will lay better. It will not stick out as it appears to in the photo. Plus it needs to be ironed since it is complete.

And with a pair of jeans!! I am so excited!! It was work but it was worth the pain!

BCS Championship Game

The celebration!!!

I love it!! Geaux Tigers!!
We'll miss you Bo Pellini!!! Thanks for giving us your ALL!!!!!!
YES!!!

Tonight was the night!! LSU and Ohio fighting for #1. The road to this game was very stressful and utterly exhausting. With all of the grief about who should play for the title, I am thrilled this day has finally come. I needed the break from this season while we awaited this game. My Tigers truly wore the fans out with all the close games. I am thrilled that this game was not as close as many other games we played. All of the overtimes and all the close finishes in prior games. AHHH!! I still can't think about it without feeling the urge to hurl, a teeny weeny bit!!!! Even with all of that grief - I know I will miss the weekly games. Thankfully THIS win against Ohio seems to have been fairly easy compared to the season we've had this year! GEAUX TIGERS!!! BCS CHAMPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!!

(Photo below of SEC win 12/2007)
GEAUX TIGERS!!!! LSU 38 - Ohio 24 LOVE MY TIGERS!!!!!!!!!


I LOVE MY TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS FOR A GREAT YEAR!!!! WE'RE #1!!!!!!!! National Champs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!