A Busy 4th of July Weekend

Independence Day weekend was super busy in our house!  Here is how we spent our weekend:

Saturday:

Our friends Josh and Cat came over to help make placemat purses for the girls we sponsor.  We sponsor a little girl named Mayerli who shares Cora's birthdate, and Josh and Cat sponsor six girls, five of whom can receive small gifts through the mail.

I loved the idea of making and personalizing a bag because it's useful for any age, and a placemat purse seemed like a great option because it's so easy and inexpensive.  Plus, this size bag would actually fit in the envelopes allowed by World Vision.

If you've never made (or heard of) a placemat purse, just google it to find plenty of online tutorials and videos.  Basically, you take a placemat, fold it in half, stitch up the sides, make a few more stitches to form the bottom of the purse, and add some ribbon handles.  It is seriously easy for anyone who can sew a straight line on a sewing machine.

Everyone got in on the action, and it was especially fun watching Jim teach Josh how to iron.  :-)

When the bags were stitched together, we used freezer paper stencils and fabric paint to add the girls' names.

Partway through the morning, Jim received an awesome - but crazy -  text message:

He recently applied to take some online classes through Dallas Theological Seminary, and this is how he found out he was accepted!!  Have times changed, or what?  Anyway, he registers this week and starts his first class at the end of August.  He is hoping to get a Masters in Christian Education.  It will probably take around six years to finish the program because he is only going to take a few classes at a time, but he does hope to eventually finish.  Exciting stuff!

Anyway, back to the bags.  

Brennan worked on drawing pictures for the kids while I wrote letters and everyone else finished up the bags.  In the end, I think they came out super cute.

One of Josh and Cat's bags was still drying, so they just have four here to show off.  I think the kids will just love them!  And they only cost us about $4.50 each!  Rock on!

Sunday:

We joined our friends, the McGregors, at the splash pad in nearby Smyrna.  The kids played in the water, and when everyone was worn out, we had a picnic dinner in a beautiful area with perfect weather.  

I realized when we got home on Sunday night that Cora is starting to become like one of the "big" kids.  She went on a little walk with Alana, Brennan, and me and kept up with all of us, she sat at the picnic table and ate her dinner, and she made her needs known throughout the day.  Where has time gone?

Monday: 

We had a lazy day, cooked hot dogs and brats on the grill, and at night Brennan and I drove over to the nearby elementary school to watch the local fireworks.  They didn't start until 9:30 PM, and fifteen minutes into the show, Brennan fell asleep.  He startled awake at one point and begged me to take him home.  I watched the finale through my rearview mirror and had him in bed, sound asleep, while most people were probably fighting to get out of the parking lot.

Since I have no good pictures to share from Monday, I'll show a few pictures of the kids dressed for church on Sunday.

I bought their outfits last year at after-holiday sales, and it was so fun to see them on!  Someday I'll probably get most of my money back as I consign them.  It will be hard to part with this dress, though.  It's just so sweet!

I hope you had a great Independence Day!  What did you do to keep busy?

Values and Priorities

Yesterday morning Jim sent me a link to an article he had read, and it bothered me all day.  It's about priorities, and here is the part that got to me:

"If an executive has their Blackberry at his kid’s ballgame because work it still a priority, then how much does he value the fleeting time he has to watch his kids grow up?

If the urgent always takes priority over the important, then how much do we value the important over the urgent?

If indeed we value things that we are not prioritizing or prioritizing things we do not value as much, then perhaps it is time to realign our priorities..."

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I have been thinking a lot about the time I spend crafting and decorating and blogging, and I have been asking myself a lot of questions:  Why do those things matter to me?  Is it okay to spend time on them?  Does God approve of this use of my time?  Can I justify making a room look pretty when there are people all over the world who don't have clean clothes to wear or food to eat?

And what about my kids?  Are they getting the best of me?

At the beginning of the year we signed up to sponsor two children through Compassion and World Vision.  And as I have thought about their lives and their needs, I have felt more and more guilty about my own life.  I feel guilty for having so much, for pursuing beauty when it is so inconsequential, for putting my time and energy into things that don't really matter (like, big-picture matter).   And yet I know that guilt and shame are not of our Father.  I know that the enemy is taking my good thoughts and using them to make me feel bad about who I am.  He starts distorting things so that I feel bad about having food to eat and beautiful clothes to wear and the fact that my kids have toys...  And pretty soon I even feel guilty for living in an affluent country.


I won't let Satan win.  After weeks of grappling with these thoughts and mulling them over all day yesterday, here is where I have landed on these issues:

- God made me this way.  I have an eye for aesthetics and a passion for the fun, creative, and crafty.  I can choose to embrace or deny these things, but they're still a part of who I am.  I can use my skills to bless friends and family with homemade gifts and baby showers and comfortable, safe spaces, or I can use those skills to seek fame and fortune, in which case I will be deeply disappointed.

- God made this world beautiful just because He could.  Several people have reminded me of this in the last few days, and I appreciate the reminder.  I have always been obsessed with trees (ob.sessed.) and I love to include them in my decorating because they make me think of my favorite Designer.  He appreciates beauty and is the source of all creativity.  Beauty isn't bad... God MADE everything beautiful!

- My kids are not being cheated.  I work hard to make sure that's true.  Sometimes I get wrapped up in a project too much and regret that I didn't spend more quality time with them, but that is true for every mom.  I am aware of my selfish tendencies and set boundaries so that the kids do not suffer too often.  And the very fact that a simple article on priorities could make me cry shows that I care deeply and my kids are going to be okay.

Honoring the Lord is what I value most in this life.  I'm going to look harder at the way I spend my time and make sure that it is also my top priority.

Taking a Family Photo

It never ceases to amaze me how hard it can be to take a family photo.  It's hard enough to take a good picture of one child!  Getting everyone to look at the camera with a pleasant look on their face is quite a feat. 

A few days ago we tried to get a family photo to send to two kids we signed up to sponsor through Compassion and World Vision.  We just signed up to sponsor on January 1st, and these were our first letters to introduce ourselves, so we really wanted a family photo instead of separate shots of each member of the family.  We also wanted the picture to be as current as possible because it can sometimes take weeks or even months for a sponsored child to receive a letter, and Cora will look completely different in a few months. 

(Take these photos, for example.  They were taken just three months ago, and Cora already looks completely different!)

Since we don't have a live-in professional photographer, we resorted to setting the camera on the coffee table and using the automatic setting.  It was interesting.  Picture this: "Okay, grab Cora.  Brennan sit there.  No, there.  Hurry, Jim!  Okay, smile!  Nope, we didn't get it... Let's try again.  Where did Cora go?" 

We never did get a "perfect" photo, but all in all, we got a few good shots and at least our sponsored kids will know what we look like.

We pray that Dalton and Mayerli will know we already love them and pray for them, and we are excited to start this journey of sponsorship!!