“I’m just a musk.”

A cute little blue-eyed blonde in our house runs around on a stick horse enthusiastically saying, “I’m a musketeer! All for one and one for all” quoting her current favorite movie Barbie and the Three Musketeers.

Tonight, she took her dress-up dress off her teddy bear and asked me to help her put the dress on. So, I helped her change and she ran into her bedroom. A few minutes later she ran out into the living room on her stick horse with Cole’s Indiana Jones hat and shouted, “I’m a musketeer! All for one and one for all!” I told her she didn’t really look like a musketeer with her sequined dress on now and without missing a beat she replied, “I’m not a musketeer. I’m just a musk.”

Can you guess what she’s wishing for?

 

Yep, for Mommy and Bubby to stay home and play with her tomorrow. Come on snow!! It took a lot of effort for her to get her fingers crossed like that and I’m pretty sure there was a lesson involved in the process. :)

Can I make this? Yes, I ……

Well, we’ll see this weekend. :) I bought this pattern today to make a few coffee sleeves as gifts for Valentine’s Day. Aren’t they cute? The tutorial is fabulous! If you are looking for a frugal gift for friends or family, I highly recommend this pattern from A Green Sleeve on Etsy.

Photo source: A Green Sleeve

Compassion

This past week, our school had the opportunity to participate in two different Haitian relief efforts. We took part in our state department’s hygiene kit program and also a Hats for Haiti fundraiser. Cole had seen on the news that another school allowed the kids to wear hats to school if they donated $1 to the relief efforts. He mentioned the idea to our principal and she told him yes, if he had a sponsor. I willingly offered to be his sponsor because I wanted to encourage and support him in doing something compassionate for others. I’m so glad I did!

Our school district raised enough money to purchase  110 kits to add to the kits the students brought to school. We ended up taking over 376 kits collected this past week. The kits included a full size shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, a hand towel and a comb. Our elementary goal was to collect 10o kits and we ended up with 273 from the elementary alone. That is practically two kits per three students. I know times are hard for people and this effort came on the heels of a fundraiser for Camp Barnabas, so I was truly overwhelmed with the generosity of our students, teachers and community.

 

Most of all, I’m so proud that my son has a heart that is compassionate. I hope that age and the world will not change his heart. He recognizes the need to help others in need. Period.

Taking the boxes to Convoy of Hope yesterday filled a place in my heart that I will not soon forget. Each and every person we met at Convoy  was friendly, kind and hard-working. They even let Shelly back her truck up to the loading dock so they could unload all of the boxes for us.

 

Although our efforts may seem meager compared to the enormity of needs we have in our country and others, it’s so humbling to know that we have the opportunity to be able to help in some small way.

A super special thanks to my friends, Shelly and Kristi, for staying at school with me until 10 PM on Monday, to count, sort, package and load the boxes to be taken yesterday.  They are amazing!

 

 

We also got to see one of my dad’s childhood friends.  He helped Cole unload everything.  :) (This made it even more special!)

I prayed over the kits in hopes that they will be given to children who will feel blessed, in some small way, amidst all the tragedy that they have seen and endured since the January 12th earthquake.

Is it wrong to wish for a snow day…again?

 

I know the last snow we got seemed to bring out the cabin fever in most households, but I thoroughly enjoyed staying home with my kiddos. Now, a few weeks back into school, I find myself selfishly wishing for more family time already. I think I’m going through withdrawal. I’m fully aware that we will have to make up the days we miss, but is it wrong to wish for some forced ‘stay at home’ time? Sounds like Heaven to me! Bring on the snow…pretty please!

She feels pretty! Oh, so pretty!

This is what happens when your house is actually silent. ;)

Audrey enjoys sitting with me to put my makeup on every chance she gets. I enjoy the time with her, too. She completely soaks everything in and seems so content just to watch what I do and to ask questions about where all the make-up goes. However, the time has come when she seems to be more content with doing it herself.

I must not have done a very good job if this is where she thinks the mascara is suppose to go. Hee, hee!

My heart breaks for Haiti

This week, my emotions are all over the place. I’m heartbroken for the victims in Haiti. The mass burials. The loss of life. The desperation and the struggle for the survivors to begin living a new life with less than they had before.  I want to be able to do more, but I feel so helpless. My meager donation to the American Red Cross feels less than adequate.

I have been reading Money Saving Mom’s blog for quite some time and I want to encourage you to visit Crystal’s post about how she and her family are helping the victims in Haiti. Just by blogging about my small donation, her family will donate $10 to Compassion’s outreach in Haiti. If you have never heard of Compassion International, you should visit the site here.

(Click on the picture  to go to Money Saving Mom’s post.)

When I got on Facebook tonight to catch up on status updates, I was very disappointed to read a few of the discouraging words people were saying about the aid that is being sent to help the Haitians and it broke my heart even further. I am not usually one to let others opinions sway my feelings toward them when I know they are passionate about what they are saying, but sometimes I feel like we are so desensitized to everything anymore that all we think of is ourselves. We don’t stop to walk a mile in anyone’s shoes before we start complaining. 

It doesn’t matter if you make all the money in the world and live in beautiful mansions or palaces or if you live in a lean-to on a mattress in the mud, natural disasters are not something we can control and I have never heard anyone ask for something so catastrophic to happen to anyone.  Why wouldn’t we want to help?

I don’t believe that we should be so quick to judge what is going on when we are so far removed from what has actually happened. The news is only capable of showing a tiny glimpse into the devastation these people have faced and will face for years to come. Our hearts should be focused on these poor, broken people and the lives that were lost, not pointing fingers and blaming those who are trying to help in the most basic way. We can’t all get on a plane and go to Haiti to help rescue victims and take care of the injured. Making financial contributions, whether it be through our government or through our texts/phone bills, we owe it to our brothers in sisters in Christ to make a difference. 

I have so much more that I want to say, but I risk ruffling too many feathers and that is not my intention. However, if all of this tragedy was happening to you and  your family, would it be more helpful to have people tell you how you should recover or actually take part in helping you recover?

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

we’ve had enough snow days for me to start decorating for holidays I’ve never decorated for before. :) We’re going on snow day number four after a week and a half Christmas break. I’m soooo loving it! Cole and Audrey absolutely love being crafty and right in the middle of whatever I’m attempting, so we had lots of fun tonight. I hope you like what we came up with.

I started with two frames from the Dollar Tree. They are super ornate and I new I’d like them if I made them a little more shabby chic. The corners feel like they are metal even. I took profile pictures of both of the kiddos and first attempted to cut them out of red paper (to be super color-coordinated for Valentine’s Day)—big mistake! It looked ridiculous! The silhouettes ended up being too big, so I scanned them and converted them to .svg files and was able to reduce the size and use my Cricut Expression to cut out the new ones. (Thanks, honey for the super thoughtful Christmas gift!)

We took out the glass and paper and had to start our frame painting inside. If it would have been warmer, we could have attempted to spray paint in the garage, but the temps are in the single digits and we weren’t sure if the frames would ever dry or if the paint would freeze up and do weird things.

Cole used a brush to paint the frames and I used a foam brush to get in the grooves of the corner pieces.

Audrey didn’t get to help on this project, but she had fun rocking in the rocking chair John’s grandpa made for him when he was a little boy. She also got to watercolor paint which is much easier to clean than acrylic.

Here’s our finished product! Please don’t look too closely because there’s a fingerprint on the glass and our painting is, let’s just say, less than perfect. I used distressing ink to cover the corners for a little extra dimension and vintage look.

Here are the frames on top of our bookcase in the living room. I bought the glittery branches in the Christmas section at Hobby Lobby for 49 cents each this afternoon. I may add a few hearts to them. I also got the ornament in front of the large frame at HL for 29 cents. It’s a Christmas ornament, but I added a bow to it and it looks decorative enough for Valentine’s Day. I added a valentine (from one of the printable links I added earlier) to the inside of the large frame.

The candleholder and the holder the branches are in were all Dollar Tree items that I glued together with Gorilla Glue. I was inspired by Homebody Holly’s creations here. John gave me the two old red books for color and depth. :) Isn’t it sweet of him to loan me books to decorate with? He also gave me a big can of vintage buttons I’m going to have to do something with soon.

Tomorrow, we are going to work on making a 'love'ly banner.

Free vintage Valentine printable links

I am on a vintage Valentine kick to try my hand at decorating for Valentine’s Day for the first time. Here are a few sites I came across if anyone else is interested.

http://tipnut.com/vintage-valentines/

http://www.silvercollectblog.com/free-vintage-valentine-postcard-images-happy-valentines-day.html

http://collectibles.about.com/od/valentinecollecting/ig/Vintage-Valentine-Card-Art—/

http://hubpages.com/hub/free-vintage-valentine-cards-cherubs

http://karenswhimsy.com/valentine-clipart.htm

http://hubpages.com/hub/valentines-day-flowers-clip-art-images

Enjoy!

Pork Roast/Bean Chalupa Recipe

My friend, Ann, gave me this recipe this week and I made it for our New Year’s dinner. It was absolutely fabulous! Even my picky eater son ate it. I snuck the beans in Audrey’s and she ate it with crushed tortilla chips. I had to cook this on the stove because I realized through trial and a hugely messy error that my crock pot was not large enough. I guess I’ll have to add that into my New Year’s budget somehow. :)

Pork Roast/Bean Chalupa

• 1 pound dry pinto beans
• 3 pounds butt pork roast
• 1 lg. onion, chopped
  2 cloves garlic, crushed (I used 2 T. of garlic powder)
• 2 cans of Ro-Tel
  1 tablespoon chili powder
  1  teaspoon oregano
  1 tablespoon salt
  2 tablespoons cumin
• 6 cups water (I probably should have used less because we had to spoon the beans/Ro-Tel mixture out with a slotted spoon.)

Directions:

Place beans, roast and all other ingredients in crock pot. Cover with water and simmer covered until beans are tender and meat falls off bone (10 hours on low). Remove all fat from meat.

Before serving, we took the meat out and completely shredded it in a bowl.

Serve over corn chips  or on flour tortilla with grated cheese and sour cream. However, you can pretty much add any items you would normally use to top a taco or burrito.