Blessed Beyond Belief

I'm learning to have a heart full of praise. To praise God for the little things as much as the big things.



We woke up to this beautiful sunrise. The picture doesn't capture the majesty of it. Blessing: noted #1.

It's been a full day, we headed down town this morning, planning for me to give my two week notice because Robert has too much work for me to keep working now. On the way, we had a very close call, barely missing an accident. Blessing: noted #2.

I gave my notice, feeling very apologetic. I hate to let people down, but I know my family has to come first. On to Mom's Group/Playgroup for the kids. Blessing: noted #3, friends in my life.

Then we had lunch with my husband since he was also in town. Blessing: noted #4, a wonderful loving, patient (most of the time LOL!) husband, and two beautiful, healthy, usually well behaved and sweet children.

Robert went to bid another cabinet job. He got the job. Blessing: noted #5, enough work to support us in these very tough times.

In all things, all around us, God is sharing His love, asking for us to draw near to Him, to seek Him. To love Him. I need to pay attention to these blessings in my life, note the big ones and the little ones and give Him all the praise. Despite my humanness, my faults and my stumbles, He's greater than them all.

Oh, and the best blessing yet. Blessing: noted #6, the love of Jesus, His willingness to shed His blood for me, to pay the ultimate price, that even in my selfishness, He still loves me and calls me. How peaceful is that!

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Because I can't be too serious all the time, a little fun today as well. We decided that it was finally time to have the car washed.


Is there a Suburban under all that dirt?? Yeah, um, it was dirty. The guys at work were asking me what I've been doing. Nothing besides coming home!

One car wash later and it was still very dirty, but I have a thing against spending $20 to have my car washed, so one trip through the car wash was all we did for the day. It'll have to wait for another day to be really clean!

A Happy Day! & Lots of Pictures

Oh, it was a good day! We had a call a couple weeks ago from someone wanting a cabinet bid. We gave them the bid today and they loved the number! Yippee! We landed a pretty good job that will really help us out financially! Thank you Lord!! It's definitely an answer to prayers.


And now onto the pictures. This is why I almost always carry my camera, my SLR, really. Ask anyone who knows me.

I can't believe my luck on this one! Looks just like I posed him.....(which is darn near impossible! LOL)

The kids had a blast today - we went to two, count them, 2, playgrounds. Every child's dream! And it was so nice after being stuck inside all winter!!!

We stopped by the scrapbook store, and the clerk let the kids play with the punches. They thought it was wonderful to "work" in the work room.

And as another little bonus for the day, I promised the kids a trolley ride. Well, unfortunately there was a bus shortage today, so we rode the "short" bus, but the kids loved it. Cody was very serious the whole time. I asked him if he wanted to get off or keep riding and he wanted to go more. I finally figured out that he wasn't scared, he was just analyzing the bus. He's a little engineer, has to know how everything works. And I mean EVERYTHING! (He is always asking us how much horse power everthing has.....)

I'm not sure they liked that they didn't have to ride in their carseats, or if they were scared. I think it was all just a shock to them.

Thanks for stopping by. I promise I'll share some scrapbook pages in the next couple days!

(PS, Laci J, I still need your info for the RAK you won).

nothing really......

but since I've abandoned my blog so much lately, I thought I'd share a few silly pics Aly & I took today.

Aly & her pink blanket named purple. Yeah, she's 2.

She & I have been having an argument the last few days, if you want to call it that. She keeps saying "Jesus, born couple days ago." I keep saying, "No, Jesus was born 2,000 years ago." Well, she's 2, and she's adamant that Jesus WAS born a couple days ago. After having this discussion for about 10 minutes, I figured out that she named the baby goat Jesus. The rest of the family had named him Hugs, but, to Aly, he's Jesus. So Happy Birth - day Jesus.

Yeah, she's 2.

Oh, I'm feeling so domestic tonight. I roasted a chicken for dinner. And trying to be economical, practical and resourceful, I am making broth. Yeah, you read that, homemade broth! Thanks Bethany for the idea!~ Yeah, I'll let you know how it turns out. We'll see how "Laura Ingles" I truly am.

So now, I'm going to retreat, in an effort to do a LO. I'm trying for a design team member spot for the local Craft Warehouse (well, 100 miles away local - it's a fact of life where I live, if it's not Walmart, it's 100 miles away! LOL)!

Lots of catching up & a RAK WINNER!!!

Don't they say when it rains it pours. But first, the winner of the Pay It Forward RAK (PIF) is.........................

Laci J

Laci - e-mail me your address & I'll get it mailed out.

www.tnwoodworking@hughes.net

Okay, so now onto the week we've had (and why I was late drawing the winner - sorry).

It's all because of this poor little guy. He started coughing Wednesday evening, didn't sleep Wed or Thurs night. Friday we went to Wenatchee and were in the car ALL day. He slept nearly the whole time. His breathing was really fast and shallow. Got home, hoping he just needed some more sleep, but after 5 hours, he was still really struggling to breathe, so we took him to the ER. We knew he was feeling bad when he answered "yes" after asking if he wanted to go to the doctor. So down the boys went at 11 p.m. to the ER.

Turns out he had a severe strep throat infection. Poor little guy. So the doctor put him on some heavy duty antibiotics and after a few days, he's back up & at 'em now.

He didn't say much at all on Friday, but when he did talk, he sure pulled at my Momma's heart strings. He looked at me and said in the quietest, meekest voice he could, "Momma, when you going to make me feel better?" Oh, my sweet boy......

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Okay, so now for some fun!!

Isn't this just so sweet? Daddy & his little girl....oh, I just love this picture!

Yeah, we've established that Aly's just like her Momma, it's all about the frosting sugar!

Gotta say - my little man impressed me. Can you tell what this drawing is? I came home from work yesterday, and Robert told me to go look at the drawing hanging on the hooks in our bedroom. Robert asked Cody to go draw a picture of our state, so off he went for a few minutes and this is what he returned with. A pretty precise drawing of Washington state for a four year old, drawn from memory!

Our project for the day was making a magnet board for the alphabet. We used the cricut and SCAL and cut out (century gothic font) the alphabet, including all partner letters (upper & lowercase). We also cut out a complete set of numbers so we can work on some math stuff. Laminated them, stuck on magnets and put some magnetic strips on a piece of chipboard. Now we have our own board to work with!

I know it will be very useful for pre-school activities!

PAY IT FORWARD RAK

I've had a few wonderful surprises in my mailbox the last couple of weeks. People I have met on the scrapbooking message boards have randomly, out of the kindness of their hearts sent me LARGE boxes full of scrap goodies.


So I want to do a Pay It Forward RAK to keep it going. Unfortunately, I can't be as generous as they were, but I wanted to share the blessings!

Here's a sneak of what is in the package!

Post a comment here and I'll draw randomly on Sunday evening. (If you enter on the message boards as well, you will get two entries).

Thanks everyone!

Amanda

Budget Baby Gifts, A Couple Pages & the Cutest Kids Ever

hows that for a title!?!

I have a few friends that either just had a baby or will have a baby in the next couple weeks. Unfotunately, the family budget right now doesn't allow for much for gifts. But I'm always looking for a good deal, and had a couple packages of onsies that I bought when I found them on sale (to keep as my emergency - oh shoot I forgot today was the shower - stash). So, I robbed the stash, broke out some fabric scraps, the heat'n'bond and my cricut & VIOLA! Some super cute baby gifts that didn't cost much!

This pink one also has some hair clippies on the neckline that I made using American Crafts ribbon from my scrapbook stash and my glue gun.

I haven't had much time to scrap since I started working, we're still trying to get the new routine down. But I did manage to get a couple pages done. Sorry - I didn't keep track of supplies for these.

And just because they're the cutest kids ever!

(I love candid shots that you don't see the whole face, or that their not looking directly into the camera. I think it captures so much more of my little sweeties personalities - thus, I'm not crazy - these are just my favorite shots!)

I love those bare little legs - it was so nice to have weather warm enough to be able to wear a dress without winter long johns!

i ADORE

I've yet to decorate it, but I was so happy with how my word book turned out! I have to find the right pictures to put in it, but here it is!

Supplies: Martha Stewart Christmas paper, Bind It All, 5/8" o wire

I'm sharing the files for you to download and cut out with SCAL if you have it. Enjoy, but if you share these online, please credit me! Thanks!

ADORE

yum, yum, nothing beats homemade!

I haven't had much time to create anything this week since I've been working extra. But I wanted to share a few things anyway.

My family loves granola bars, but they get kinda expensive and I don't like to feed them too much processed stuff. I've been wanting to try making some of my own for a while now, and today I finally did, and they are SO yummy~! I put in quite a few nuts because I have a hard time getting enough protein, but this is a yummy way to get some!

2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup chopped almonds (with part pecans if desired)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp fine ground sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup craisins
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix oats, nuts, wheat germ and flax seeds in 9x13 pan and toast about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In large saucepan (I used my family sized double handle pan) melt butter with honey and brownsugar. Heat just until brown sugar is melted, then turn off heat (if cooked too long you'll have a carmel like substance). Add salt, cinnamon and vanilla.

Remove oats from oven, add to frypan along with craisins and coconut. Stir until oats coated, add chocolate chips.

Line 2.2 qt cake pan with parchment paper. Press mixture into it. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Let cool compeletly, remove from pan and cut. Put into ziplock bag and store for up to a week.



The other favorite snack in my house is popcorn. But since we have solar power, we don't use an electric popper or the microwave, we do it the good old way! I use the same large pan, put in about 1 1/2 tbsp popcorn oil and 1 kernel. Put lid on pan. Heat over medium heat until the kernel pops. Add about 1/4 cup more kernels, cover again and shake over heat until popped (I have a propane stove, I would NOT recommend this with a ceramic or inductive cook surface - pick up an oldfashioned pan with the spinner in it). Remove from heat add salt and eat! (If you're not worried about calories, a little melted butter and it's so ScrumptiouS!)

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Just a few pictures from this week.

When we get animal feed at the big box stores, the kids love to climb on the bags. Yeah, I know, we're bad, but it's the highlight of their trip.

Just for a laugh, I went outside with Cody this morning and saw the baby goats (Hugs & Kisses) climbing all over Rusty the horse. Thought it was pretty cute. Robert says they do that all the time. Just another funny thing on the ranch!