Life in General!

Wow!  Another month has come and is almost gone!  In our home the month of August is like one big party month!  We start with Savannah's - our oldest who has turned the big 1-3.  Yes, we are officially parents of a teenager :0)  Sarah's is at the end of the month and is 8.  I love our birthday celebrations.  They are full of family, friends, and fun. This month is also a start for many of school.  I now have all five in school.  Two in Christian school, one in public school and two homeschooling.  So far it is going okay.  I don't really enjoy the early hours, but I think we have gotten better about that...it is called GOING TO BED at a decent hour.  Sadly, I have given up watching Jimmy Fallon through the week.  I can stay up on Friday nights to catch his "Thank you notes" segment.  Other than that is early to bed early to rise - which I posted this one time before - it causes a struggle within me.  So far my ...

I was wanting to make something neat for Benson that I had seen on pinterest -- this neat handprint art project! Well, we looked at the kids' handprints and my handprint and Benson's.  It was no problem with Benson's because his hand was bigger than everyone else's!  Now mine was a different story! My oldest daughter's hand was bigger than mine. So I thought about another thing.  I could take all of our hands and put them on a 12x12 paper and make a wreath. I let the family members pick out their paper and then traced their hand on the paper and cut it out.  I chose a neutral background for the wreath of hands. ( ~right ) I didn't know what to do next - I thought about using more scrapbooking paper. Then I remembered I had saved some Thomas Kinkade calendars.  I chose four calendar pages from the four seasons.  I taped them together on the back of the pages.  I flipped over the calendar and glued the wreath of hands onto the front ( b...

Nothing is sweeter than getting together with some good friends and precious family and have a baby shower!  That is just what I got to do a couple of weeks ago.  We had a sweet time of fellowship, food, games, and fun! I thought I would share a few pictures of what we did.  Sometimes it helps get your creative juices flowing when you see what someone else did - kind of like a starting off point! Here is - as Sandra Lee (I think that is her name!) would call it a "Table Scape" -  My sisters-in-law and mother-in-law had more to doing the layout of this than I did!! We had an existing tablecloth and flower arrangement, so that was very helpful.  A simple vellum-type balloon was attached to it. Some pretty dishes, including an antique punch bowl as seen below, followed by some gold foil trays, make this shower treats table so pretty - easy, but pretty! We had cupcakes instead of the traditional sheet cake.  My mother-in-law and one of my niec...

  The history of Father's Day is very interesting indeed.  In 1909 one lady tried to start it as a holiday in Fairmont, West Virginia, in a way to honor 361 men, 250 of them fathers, who had lost their lives in a tragic mining accident.  Due to so many other activities and celebrations of July 4th, the holiday did not get the recognition it needed.   Just a year later, another young lady in Spokane, Washington, wanted to honor her father, a Civil War veteran, named William Jackson Smart.  She wanted to honor him for his raising her and her 5 siblings ALONE!  A single dad of six!  Imagine that!   She spoke to her minister about a special service recognizing fathers.  He was unable to do that the first Sunday of June, which was her father's birthday.  He planned to hold a special service the third Sunday in June.  Other ministers heard of his idea and followed in suit.    The actual holiday was not made official until 1972!...

  Mother's Day is a special holiday that dates back to, of course, the Greeks and Romans!  It seems like there are always one of these two people groups involved in holiday histories!  Anyway, I read a little bit on this on the   History Channel website , and I find the story pretty interesting!   Turns out the lady who wanted to have Mother's Day recognized as a holiday in America fought for part of her life to have it renounced as a holiday.  Quick story -- she had started a group where the ladies got together to learn to properly care for their children.  It was seen as a way of peace-making seeing that the time period was near the time before, during and after the Civil War.  The ladies hoped their coming together from both the Union and the Confederate states would promote that sense of peace and reconciliation!  Well, as usual, the card, flower, and candy industries wanted their "cut."  So, the commercialization of the holiday beg...

  Today is a day of both sadness and joy in the lives of Christians everywhere.  Good Friday is the day when Jesus was beaten, bruised, rejected, torn, and ultimately hung on a cross to suffer, bleed, and die.  The ones who did not love Him, more or less hated Him, were glad to see this day come.  His mother, family and friends sobbed uncontrollably that day, I am sure!  They watched as their innocent Loved One was beyond cruelly treated.   Why did this have to happen? Jesus came into this world with one task, and one task only -- to ultimately die on the cross to bridge that gap that separated us from God.  It was a horrible death - just horrible.  I have heard pastors over the years described the things were taking place in His body as he was dying on that cross.  It tears my heart to know that while He was on that tree for you and for me that He saw me.  He saw me in my angry state, my pitiful condition - my times when I wallow in th...

  We have Irish heritage in our family.  I think of that especially on St. Patrick's Day.  I don't know the background of this holiday, so as usual, I have looked it up.  (fyi - I'm listening to Rod Stewart singing "Forever Young" while typing this :)     This date is the traditional date on which Saint Patrick died.  It is a recognized day for which to commemorate Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland.  It is said that he used the shamrock to explain the Trinity!!  As a homeschooler I think that is a pretty neat thing -- those things are all over in the spring/summer!!  Anyway, St. Patrick's Day is a time where Lenten restrictions are lifted for that day.  Celebrations are held all over and recognized by many denominations.  For several years now there have been many celebrations that last for several days.  I have gotten this information from this website .  It is an interesting read - I will tak...