Manic Monday-- Red, Yellow, Black and White..

Perhaps the most treasured gift my daughter ever received was a set of paper dolls given to her on her third birthday by her Aunt Denise. My sister had began working on the multi cultural set when Emma was a small baby. No telling how many hours she spent, cutting, laminating and affixing each and every little piece, to magnet sheets. She is a kindergarten teacher and has so many fun and creative ideas for kids. There are several different dolls of different colors. One with glasses, one with more narrow eyes. Emma spent countless hours changing out outfits, hairstyles and accessories using the hundreds of pieces that my sister had worked on so diligently. And, it provided me a wonderful opportunity to teach her that God makes us all unique each and every one of us and loves us all, just the way we are.

Now had I been left to my own devices, Emma would have no doubt ended up with paper dolls that would have lasted through one or two uses but, with all the hard work that my sister put in them, almost every piece survived her preschool years. They now have a home on a shelf out of reach in our playroom closet, waiting for Chloe to get old enough to somewhat understand their value.

Though I surely can't supply you with the kind of quality paper dolls that my sister supplied us with, I can provide you with the source,The Making Friends website, where she found them. And, if you are in the competition for the title of "Aunt of the Year", these will surely give your running mates a run for their money.

Thanks Aunt Denise for a gift that is priceless. We treasure them.

Blessings,
Dana

Family Friday--

I actually don't have a ton of pictures to post.. Adam has been out of town all week so I've been a little oh, frazzled maybe? Wow, I've got to find some single mothers in the area and give them a hand. They totally don't get the credit they deserve. And somewhere during the week, I stopped going crazy and finally got all the way there because I decided to end my already stressful week with a trip to Walmart... I loathe Walmart with a purple passion... When I get in there, I always want to scream: DO YOU PEOPLE SERIOUSLY THINK THAT THIS STORE WOULD BE HERE IF YOU WERE THE ONLY PERSON THAT EXISTED?! And there is room for two buggies to fit down one aisle. If, people would keep their buggy on one side and not in the middle of the aisle while they read the ingredients on the vitamins looking for the magic pill that is going to turn them into Jessica Alba.. Okay, so that was me looking for the pill that would turn me into Jessica Alba.. But at least my buggy was on my side.. And maybe all of us miracle vitamin shoppers should entertain the idea that maybe the thing that will make us thinner is MOVING!

So anyway, I haven't been to Walmart in about three months, because as you can see, I nearly lose my religion every time I go. But, I went today because we don't have any sort of craft store on our side of town and I had seen this nifty idea on one of those oh so talented mom bloggers page where she had turned placemats into throw pillows and I had just happened to have got a fabulous deal on some cute placemats but needed to find some stuffing for them... It looked so super easy and I was so excited about the opportunity to feel like I had some decorator's skills because the truth of it is.. The best I do is trying to keep my house clean. Not because I want A Soft Place to Land like the chic that runs that blog of whom I'm totally envious but, because I don't want to be landing because I tripped over something. So anyway, I went for some stuffing for my pillows that I was going to boost my domesticating ego with and, THEY HAVE GOTTEN RID OF THE CRAFT SECTION! So in light of that news, I say to my friends at Walmart, "Sam Walton would have been so disappointed in you'! And I am for real done with you now because unless you decide to pay me some big bucks to put your banner on my page, I NOW HAVE NO USE FOR YOU! Seriously, you would think that a company that big would do some marketing research to find that they were the only place to get craft supplies within 20 miles. You would also think they'd get on the bandwagon with having buggies that will hold more than one child. Even Lowe's has them! Did I mention that I LOATHE WALMART?

But, I did manage to grab my camera for a few shots this week. All though, I did skip getting pictures of my two girls with their mouths taped shut because I couldn't stand to hear them whine, "but daddy gives me a trick to help me go to sleep when he puts me to bed" one more time. You don't have to wrestle with whether or not you should turn me in for abuse.. I didn't really tape their mouths shut. But, only because I didn't have the idea until now.

But alas, here are the few pictures that I have gotten since I've been back from Alabama..



This first one was taken by Mark Grayson at our churches 4th of July festivities. And this was right before Emma and I lost our balance and my camera lens knocked against the picnic table causing it to snap in half. Thankfully, it wasn't my most expensive camera lens. But it is why all of the rest of the pictures you are going to see are over exposed. I am most partial to my 85mm but, it does such a good job of letting in light (a necessity for good indoor pictures) it isn't a good match for a super sunny day. Actually, taking pictures outside not in shade on a super sunny day isn't a good idea for any camera. But, sometimes, you just can't wait for the sun to go behind a cloud to make memories.

We got to spend some time with Maggie last week while her momma had an appointment. Here is Chloe serving Miss Maggie some tea. I'm not sure Maggie quite got why she was sitting out in the hot sun, parched, drinking something that wasn't actually there but Chloe enjoyed having her as her tea party guest. We did go inside to grab their sippy cups shortly after this picture was taken.

Here is Emma and her friend Avery and Chloe (who wouldn't take her eyes off of Strawberry Shortcake) meeting SS at the summer reading program that our library does.

Avery and Emma making wands to go with their princess dresses.


Okay, here is the part that I am most excited about showing you. Not only am I not much of a decorator, I am also not a gardener. However when my mother-in-law aka: Nana in our home, heard that I had wanted to try to grow some vegetables with the girls, she got me these grow boxes. Since Lynn shares in my gift of having a brown thumb (no, I am not getting myself in trouble. She has a brown thumb by her own admission and she is totally secure in her brown thumb as well as I), and she had gotten vegetables to grow that way, she just knew that I could too. So, we decided to start easy and plant cucumbers and carrots, two of the girls favorites. I didn't have much confidence that anything was going to amount from it. And I had thought we had been successful at growing some weeds but, I became suspicious that we might have a little more than weeds in the carrot box when the cucumber box was making nothing. So, I jumped on the internet and looked up "carrot leaves" and low and behold, I found that we were growing carrots! And for me, one out of two when it comes to gardening, is a huge success!

Cucumber left Carrots right

So the other night, I let Emma pick one and I couldn't believe my eyes but there was a full grown carrot there! I peeled the one carrot and cut it into small pieces to share with some friends we had over and they all declared that it was the best carrot that they had ever tasted. I told Emma that I wanted her to wait to pick the rest until I had my camera ready . So, this afternoon was harvesting time! Except for one carrot that she left to pick with her daddy. So sweet!









And I was about to get a domesticating ego boost because of the carrots and then I recalled something.. Chloe and I had planted the cucumbers, Adam and Emma planted the carrots.. Oh well. Someone else that can do it for me.. EVEN BETTER!!! And besides, they are in my backyard so I'm claiming them!

Adam did make it home safely around 1:30 a.m. He and Emma are watching Narnia since they just finished reading that book together and Chloe is taking a nap and I'm about to go outside and get some sun on my white body! I wish you a happy weekend with lots of family to love!

Blessings,

Dana

Blessed Lord, take my hand--- and sometimes, Lord, you'll need to drag me..

We had been doing youth ministry for five years when I found out I was pregnant with our oldest, Emma. Even though I had endometriosis and had been told that I probably wouldn't be able to have children, and being a wife and mother had been pretty much my only dream since early childhood, the surprise of this little life growing inside me sent me into a pure panic..

2 Corinthians 12: 9 -10 had long since become the theme scripture for my life..

9.but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10.That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I had fallen head over heals in love with a youth minister and knew all too well that God had made the most unlikely of choices for a youth minister's wife. But, as I began my journey with a loving husband that taught me more truths about God's love and grace that I even knew existed, I learned that it was just that, the unlikely that God chooses for his purposes. So as I set out on the journey with Adam determined to be the best wife I could be, I clung to the scripture above, trusting in God's promise that he could use me because I was/am weak.


But, in discovering the news that I would soon be realizing my dream of becoming a mother, the meaning in the scripture was even more so magnified. There were so many things that I wanted to fix about myself. So many quirks,and insecurities that I wanted to make sure that I had a grip on so that I wouldn't pass those things on to my child. I was frantic knowing that nine months was not long enough to cure all my character flaws. For several years, I had watched the teens in the youth group with their parents trying to find the rhyme and reason between the behavior of the child in connection with the behavior of the parent. Now I don't want to negate the fact that Adam and I have witnessed countless families with outstanding parents. We observe on a daily basis when a parenting decision that we make reflects the parenting that we've witnessed in the past from other people that played such an important role in our lives whether it be our parents, family, friends, ministers we've worked with, the list continues on.. We are so thankful that we come from a long line of love. But truly, when I analyzed these situations, I began to realize that sometimes, there wasn't a rhyme or reason.

So somewhere in the middle of the fear of that realization, I had clarity about two things.
1. I had to be okay with not doing it perfectly and rely on God to fill the huge gaps I would leave.
2. The one thing that I could control was how, when, and what I prayed..

Someone at church had given me a book on prayers for mother's to say for their children. I searched the book for the perfect prayer. Not finding one that was just right, I combined several prayers, and added pieces of my own, trying to make sure I covered all the hopes and dreams that I had for my children not leaving out a single detail. I posted this prayer several years ago but I feel the need to post it once more. Since I wrote the prayer the first time, my heart as made room for another little girl, something I had once thought was impossible. And still having many of those quirks I mentioned, one of them is being sensitive about being a second child (I must add here that this feeling is irrational and not merited. I am crazy about my older sister and my parents were always purposeful in letting me know that they "tried many years for me") But still, there is this fear that maybe Chloe could feel like she isn't as important as Emma because she wasn't first. When she looks back through this log of her life years down the road, I want her to know that I made the proper adjustments to include her being the completing piece of the crazy puzzle we call our life. And, even though I tried to make sure I had every aspect covered, as I've watched them grow and have grown with them, I have found that it is incomplete and have made adjustments..

So for now, until further adjustments are made, here is my revised prayer for you, Emma and Chloe... Though it is also not that uncommon for me to say this prayer for a niece, nephew, friend or a child of a friend that is struggling..

Dear Heavenly Father,

I want to thank you for the wonderful blessing you have brought into my life by given me Emma and Chloe. They have brought me so much joy! Having children has taught me so much about the love and happiness you want to bless your children with. I know that Emma and Chloe are your special creation, anticipated by you from before the beginning of time, now given on loan to me, for me to help grow and nourish into a child who will carry out your perfect will.

God, please call Emma and Chloe to you by name as you have called me. Thank you that you promise to knock patiently on the door of each heart in this family. Thank you that you pursue us. You did it for me--- please do the same for Emma and Chloe.

I pray that they will love your word. I pray that by loving your word, they will receive important warnings about life and be blessed with great personal reward. Help them to be obedient to you. Please help them to know that you discipline us and give us guidelines for our own good and because of your great love for us. Help me to share in this motivation of yours when I ask them to obey. Lord, let them see that I obey you because I love you. Help them to have an honest heart. Help them feel your delight when they speak the truth and to remember that you hate it when we lie. And when they perseveres toward truth, let them feel great freedom of spirit so much that the passing reward of a lie looks as cheap and fleeting as it really is. Help them not to value the material things that the world values but the things that you value. Most of all, I pray that their character would bring praise to you. May your light shine so brightly in them that it will be obvious to everyone that they love you, and people will have no choice but to praise you and give you all the credit for their goodness. I pray that they will put a high priority on love and faithfulness, exhibiting them like beautiful clothing or jewelry. Bless them with a beautiful strength, a wise innocence, and a shielded vulnerability.

I pray that Emma and Chloe will develop a passion for purity. May they always think of their bodies as your dwelling place and want to keep it pure for you. Help them to feel they can bring their questions to their dad and me. Please give us the right words in awkward moments. Nudge me when it’s the right time to pass on an important attitude or piece of information even if they aren't asking for it. Fill them with a genuine and enthusiastic desire to save sex for marriage. Thank you that you not only created the abiding love of marriage, but you also understand crushes, puppy love, and the storms of teen romance. God please protect their hearts. I pray that you would help them to develop healthy relationships with members of the opposite sex throughout their lives. I pray for husbands that will help them grow towards you that they will spend her lives with. Bring them together in your perfect way. Have your hand on them even now. And, may their eventual commitment to marriage be strong enough to stand up against any trouble or testing life brings. While they are growing up, please help Adam and I to be a good example of how beautiful marriage is meant to be. Please introduce her to other couples that will do the same.

Please help them to develop strong and faithful friendships. Please bless them with the kind of life long, faithful friendships you have blessed me with. Please help me to be an example of the kind of friends that they should be as well as the kind of friends that they should choose.

God, sometimes I wake in the night and feel how helpless I am, ultimately, to make life turn out okay for my little ones, to keep accidents, evil , and disease from touching them. Thank you Lord that when I’m afraid, I can turn to you. Help me to remember that your spiritual warriors can shut the mouths of lions and defeat the agents of Satan. Thank you that even when they are out of my sight, they are never out of your sight. Please watch over all that they do and every encounter that they have with the world. Thank you that I can surrender them to you and place them in the dangerous river of life, knowing that you will be watching over them, not from afar off but from very nearby.

Finally, father, help me to pray faithfully for Emma and Chloe, being a good example of the importance of confession and worship. May I be a witness morning and night of your love and faithfulness.

In Jesus name I pray, Amen

Tuesday's tips and tricks-- How to unclog a drain without using harsh chemicals.

In my quest to be frugal along with my desire to remove as many harsh chemicals from my home as possible, I've found a few ways to take care of common household problems. I don't know if you're like me but with both of my children, when they were about four months old, I began losing hair by the handfuls. This resulted in a few broken vacuum cleaner belts and many clogged drains. Well, for the clogged drain, look no further than your pantry because here is a very effective way to unclog drains using vinegar, baking soda and water.

Step 1 - Put about 3/4 cup DRY baking soda down the drain. .
Step 2 - Pour 1/2 cup of vinegar down the drain after the baking soda. Be sure to cover the drain immediately afterwards with a rag or plug, filling the hole completely so nothing can escape. This is because the interaction of the two will cause a “mini volcano” that will want to come up and out of the drain..you want to keep it down there.
Step 3 - Leave this concoction in the drain for about 30 minutes. While you're waiting, boil about a gallon of water.
Step 4 - After 30 minutes, remove the plug and slowly pour the HOT water down the drain.

Wha la..

Blessings,
Dana

Manic Monday-- Peanut Butter playdough

Since everyone is home on the weekend, and often, we have friends coming in and out. I try to focus on spending time with the ones that I love and save the housework for the week (this is hard for me because if my house is a mess, my head is a mess) But, I try.. Anyway, this makes for a mad rush on Monday trying to get things back in order. So, just in case, you too, are trying to get life back in order, I thought I would share a kids activity that might (no promises) keep the kids busy for more than a half a second.

This activity comes from my friend over at Hyperactive Lu. Lu is a very dear friend, a domestic diva (especially in the kitchen!) and just an overall fun gal!. You should check her out.

Alas, I give you peanut butter playdough!

JUST FOR KIDS: PEANUT BUTTER PLAYDOUGH
1 c. peanut butter 2/3-1 c. nonfat dry milk 2 tbsp. honey Mix ingredients. Add enough powdered milk to make playdough dry enough to handle. Shape into balls. Add raisins to make a face. Or stir in chow mein noodles and make a bird's nest. Or stir in Cheerios or chocolate chips for fun. Eat and enjoy!

I would be remissed if I didn't mention peanut allergies. So, if you've got little ones that haven't yet experienced peanut butter, keep that in mind!

Thanks for the great idea Lu!

How to make your own blog button

And per my friend Becky's request, I found some really easy to follow directions over at A Heart For Home.

Let me know when you make a button, I'd love to see what you create!

Blessings,
Dana

How to make a three column blog template.

If you are going to change your blog to a three column template, read this whole post before you start, less you find yourself like I found myself, frustrated and ready to throw the computer out the window because you were like a man and didn't read all the directions. (Sorry to the man out there that actually does read directions. I have not given up faith that you really do exist)

I have had a couple of people ask me about my switch to a three column blog template and how to put a "grab my blog button" link on a page. So I thought that instead of answering everyone's e-mails about it, I would just put it out once, just in case the information is useful to others as well.

No, I don't know how to use html. However, I have become quite skilled at making my computer think I do. I often will come into blogger and post something into my blog and then grab the html code so that I can use it somewhere else. But, instead of stealing the information that I used to change my format and posting it to my blog as my own, I decided that I would fess up and give credit where credit is due. You can find directions on how to change a blog from two columns to three columns by clicking HERE

Okay, now this is where I got frustrated. Once I got three columns, they were all squished together. I sat there making one minor adjustment after another in the html code until I got it close enough to live with (It still is off on the sides but I didn't figure it was worth the high blood pressure that it was going to cause me). Anyway, if I had just read all of the directions, I would have found that there were also instructions on how to adjust your margins within the columns which you can find HERE


Thanks to the guy or gal that was kind enough to build a separate blog for this!

PS: If this information was useful to you, I'd love to hear about it. If there is something else on this page that you don't know how I did, leave me a comment and I'll tell you how I did that too (or more likely, link you to the place where I found the directions). Information on how to get your own blog button coming soon!

Blessings,
Dana

Family Friday

I'm going to cheat and post a slide show of our trip to Alabama. I have so many pictures that I will never get them posted if I try to post them individually. We were there two and a half weeks and saw lots of our friends and family but still didn't see everyone. That's okay though because I'm quite sure that my friend Kristen and her family are going to be visiting me soon :).

I also need to say that I also had the pleasure of having such a wonderful visit with two of my high school friends Ashley and DJ. But, I failed to get a picture. Which, is really sad because we had a long chat about cameras. But, even though I don't have a picture of them, they are still two of my favorite people ever. I also missed getting Nana and Granny in a picture but they were there and lovely as always. The pictures that I'm posting of our college student center reunion, I totally stole from SUSAN's blog because mine are lost somewhere in my mess of a hard drive.

Anyway, we really enjoyed our trip and were so blessed by all of the people that we love. But we are glad to be back at home and in our own beds and living by our much more lax than the school year, summer routine.

And here, is a video that some of you requested of Adam singing with "Majesty". Thanks to Susan since I ended up with a Video camera and dead battery with no charger. Susan, you rock!

867-5309-- Jenny changed her number

Okay so that isn't my number and my name isn't Jennifer but did you ever wonder what happened in the lives of the people who actually had that number? I'm pretty sure they were disconnected pretty quickly anyway... Totally random but hey, that's how my mind works..

But, I do have a new cell phone number. I was sharing a cell line with my mom. But, my grandmother was needing a cell phone and we were going to get her a pay per plan but it turns out that with those plans, you have to put 20 dollars a month on those cards to keep them active and since she just wanted it for emergencies, it made more since just to add her to my mom's plan. Anyway, I handed my phone over to my grandmother and in the craziness of it all, I forgot to change my message. So, if you call my old number, it will say it's me but the phone actually lays in the hands of my grandmother who I'm pretty sure does not know how to check the voice mail.

And of course I'm not going to put my new number out here for everyone to see but, if you will shoot me an e-mail, I'll pass it on. And, after I have a chance to pass on the new number, I'm going to get rid of our home phone too because really, the only people that use that number are solicitors. And, the only reason I set up a home phone line to start with was because my cell phone wasn't local but now that is.. Let's face it, home phone lines are so yesterday. If internet communication is your main mode of communication, that is swell with me. You won't have to hear my kids screaming in the background!

And the Winner Is....

George at.. The Tri Runner

The winner was chosen totally random at www.random.org. However, he does just happen to hold a special place in my heart.

George was one of our students in our youth ministry when we were in Albany Georgia. We just recently got the privileged of spending the weekend with his family. They have a wonderful story of love and triumph over trials. You should also check out his Mrs. Tri Runner's blog.

And most importantly, George has teamed up with a group called Oneverse to raise money to translate Bibles into the language of languages that don't yet have a translation. I have no doubt that you will read more about this great cause on here but to find out what you can do to help George reach his goals, you can read about it HERE.

We love you George and family!