My new hobby!

So this is about a month overdue but better late than never, right?! I entered to win a giveaway on Sandra's blog and I won THIS....

Isn't is the cutest thing?! She made this sewing caddy to hang off the side of a table. The top is a huge pin cushion and the hanging bag collects all of the scraps and cut pieces of thread that normally end up on the table or the floor. There are also a few pockets to hold scissors or other accessories. I loved it when I saw it on her blog and was so excited when I won. Especially since I got this....

just a few days before! (Yes, in case you are wondering, that is my great grandma's old sewing machine that my new one now sits on. I have had it for years but it needs a few repairs and I just never have checked into fixing it up. We have always just used it for a desk) I have never been much of a seamstress but my mother is awesome. I have done some sewing through the years but as of late I have really had the desire to do more. I had planned on getting my own machine when we got our tax return and luckily when I went to pick it up, it was on clearance-$40 off! Winning the sewing caddy just a few days later confirmed for me that the Lord had plans for me to sew more for my family!! That is exactly what I have been doing. I do not have any patterns laying around and I have watched my mother sew everything under the sun with no pattern so I just decided to use what I had. I have been VERY lucky and never had to buy clothes for my kids very often. My grandma is the garage sale queen and supplies my kids with tons of very nice clothes every summer. Monty's sister also sends them new things often. I have a sack of clothes that are too small but too nice to just throw out so I started looking there. I found 2 green A shaped sun dresses that were size 4. Kalysa has several denim skirts that still fit her tiny behind but are getting a little to short. I started by cutting the green dress off below the sleeves and added it to the bottom of her denim skirt and made her a new long skirt that she loves.

You can't really tell in the photo, but the denim has little pink embroidery flowers around the bottom and the green dress has very light pink flowers stitched across the bottom of it. It came out even more perfect than I had expected. I have to make sure this one stays clean because it has now become her absolute favorite thing to wear.

For Keslee I took a blue jumper and cut it off just above the pockets. I then took the other green (with polka dots) size 4 A shaped dress and cut it off under the sleeves. I added the green to the bottom of the blue and then put elastic in the top and WAALAAA....

another favorite! The girls love these so much because they are so full that they do not restrict them in their running and playing but are long enough that they do not show anything that they shouldn't during that same running and playing! (just ignore the fact that I used a dirty blue dress! I washed it after it was all finished☺)

Keslee and Kalysa have both decided (on their own) that they do not want to wear pants but rather skirts, dresses or culottes. I saved several very cute pairs of pants just waiting for the chance to use them. Keslee had a very cute pair of capri pants with little red flowers on the pockets and a red belt. I cut the seams out of the legs and then added a piece of a shirt with pretty red and blue flowers.

Again, you can't tell in the photo but the shirt had a ruffled front so the front of the skirt now has a pretty little ruffle between the denim.

Kalysa also seems to have several high waisted dresses. Now that they are getting to short, I just cut them off right under the breast and add elastic and have a very simple skirt with just about 15 minutes worth of work.

This was a denim dress with colorful little hearts. The dress buttoned all the way down the front so I just sewed it closed but left the buttons.

This was another high waisted dress that is now a skirt that will probably fit Kalysa for at least another year.

It has been so much fun to make things for my kids. I love when the kids bring me something wanting me to repair it for them or being able to quickly replace the zipper in my husband's pants. Having a dedicated area in my home that now houses my sewing machine means it is always out and always ready for me.

Unwelcome Visitor!

Kenyon went outside to start mowing the front yard and found a visitor on the sidewalk right in front of the porch.

VERY UGLY AND NOT WELCOME HERE!!!


I was able to get him in a small trash can and have a piece of wood on top of it. He will stay there until some big strong brave man comes along to do something with him! Monty wont be home until about 2 am, so he may be in there for a while!

Facebook Funnies

I do not like it Uncle Sam, I do not like it Sam I am. I do not like these dirty crooks, Neither how they cook the books. I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their secret deals. I do not like the speaker Nan, I do not like this 'YES WE CAN'. I do not like this kind of hope, I do not like it, nope, nope, nope.

Dear Lord, in the last year you have taken my favorite actor-Patrick Swayzie. You have taken my favorite actress-Farrah Fawcett. You have taken my favorite singer-Michael Jackson. I just wanted to let you know that my favorite president is Barack Obama. Amen

God says "EAT POPSICLES" ???

Scene: Kalysa sitting on the couch with a book.
enter mom: Hey Kalys, what ya doin?
Kalysa:Just reading this Bible.(little kids picture Bible) You know mom, you need to be good like it says in the Bible.
mom:Yes I should and so should you.
Kalysa:I know. That is why I am reading this Bible........You know you should be a good mom and give us Popsicles like in the Bible(pointing to a lovely picture of a family having a picnic eating popsicles.)

More reasons to go to church

I just checked my site meter. I like to check it periodically just to be sure that the rise in my total number of hits is not just the times I come to my own blog to check updates on the other blogs I like to read. I learned that the main reason people have found my blog is by googling "reasons to go to church." They are then led to this old post. I really hope that post has helped someone make the decision to become an active member of a local church. I reread my old post today and was reminded that I wrote it based on notes I had taken during a sermon of the same title. It contains several Scriptural reasons that we believers are supposed to be faithful to their church. I decided to elaborate on that and give some more personal/practical reasons why we go to church.

First of all, I believe it is imperative to give my children a SOLID foundation. I have heard many parents claim that they will wait until their children are older and let them make their own decisions about religion. I am sorry, but that is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard. When our children are 16 years old, we do not hand them a few thousand dollars and send them off alone to a car lot to purchase their first car with no more than a "Good Luck Son!". Of course a teen with a freshly printed drivers license and a wad of cash in their pocket does not have the life skills needed to handle a shifty car salesman and make the best decision without any input from a parent that loves them and wants them to be safe and have a reliable vehicle. If you would not expect a teen to make a decision about a car without parental guidance, why would we ever expect them to be able to make such life changing decisions like serving God, choosing friends or choosing their spouse without parental guidance? Their eternal future is a stake when it comes to religious decisions. When we allow them to make that decision without ever having taught them anything about it we have set them up for disaster. The fact that my children are at church 3 times a week (along with several other times the church doors are open), are homeschooled with a Bible based curriculum, are taught to pray, and are reminded to have Godly characters most definitely does not take away their own free will to decide for themselves. There will come a time that my children are grown and on their own and will have to decide for themselves whether or not to continue in the ways that they were taught. My job, as their mother, is to be sure that they have the information they need to make the best decision.
Another reason we go to church has to do with family. Not necessarily just our biological family but our church family. We do not call each other "Brothers and Sisters in Christ" for nothing. Our church family is there to be a help and an encouragement to us and we are there to do the same for them. We can not do that if we do not know each other and we can not know each other if we never spend time together. Often times, our fellow believers come from homes that were not filled with believers. Without a strong and healthy church family, they are then left with nobody to turn to when in need of spiritual uplifting. It is important for us to be there for our brothers and sisters. There will inevitably be a time in our life that we are the one in need of this spiritual uplifting. If we have failed to build relationships within our church, our church family will not know when we need help and will not know us well enough to know how to help us. A strong and healthy church family is only the result of church members that GO to church faithfully and know and love each other.
When I ask my kids why they like to go to church, " to have fun" is always part of one of the answers. When you have a relationship with other members and their children are your children's friends, fun is always included. We all love to reunite with friends. We need the fellowship, the companionship that comes with a church family. Anyone that claims that church is boring has obviously never been in the church kitchen full of ladies preparing for a dinner after the sermon, or ridden a church bus full of other members on the way to anywhere, or had a church wide cookout complete with ultimate Frisbee games played with people you normally see in suits and ties. I have been in no other situation in my entire life that you would find more fun, joy, silliness, jokes, singing, giggles, goofiness, games or laughter than at church. Definitely NOT a boring place!
Now,of course, our main reason and purpose to be in church is to worship our Lord, learn from the Word of God and thank and praise our Savior but I wanted to address some of the excuses I have heard from people on why they do not go to church. I love my church, I love my preacher, and I love my church family but most of all, I LOVE my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that is reason enough for me.

Hallelujah! Christ Arose!!

Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior,
waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o'er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Vainly they watch his bed, Jesus my Savior,
vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o'er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Death cannot keep its prey, Jesus my Savior;
he tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o'er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

♥Wishing you all a wonderful Resurrection celebration today♥

Life training

I believe my fellow homeschool moms will agree with me in saying that the actual "school" work that we do is really such a small part of the learning that goes on everyday. We can all agree that math, language, history, and science are important things that our children all need to learn. It is easy to get wrapped up in the academics and often overlook the true benefits of homeschooling; one of the main reasons many of us head out on the homeschool journey to begin with; We want to raise our children to become the type of adults that God would have them to be. I truly believe homeschooling is one vital component of achieving my goal. There are so many life lessons that our children would miss out on if they were stuck inside a classroom for the biggest part of their day and the biggest part of their childhood. So many skills that are being learned just by being with their parents everyday throughout all of the everyday life situations.
This year has not been ideal for us is the "school" part of homeschool. We started late, stopped for Kalysa's surgery, started again, had several distractions that knocked us even further off the proverbial track and have been playing catch up pretty much the entire year. I have had my share of breakdowns and feelings of inadequacy. Fears that my children are not really learning anything. Doubts that they are up to par according to standards that I don't know about made up by people that I've never met. I have wondered if I am really cut out to be a homeschool mom? Wondered if maybe my kids are just more unruly or less motivated than other homeschool kids?
While tripping over barbie dolls in the living room, making sure not to accidentally put the science experiment in the dishwasher and digging for clean socks in the clean laundry pile(not to be mistaken with the equally as large dirty laundry pile ) I come the the realization that I CAN'T DO IT! I can not homeschool my kids. I can not form them into the adults that God would have them to be. I can not make it 24 hours a day-day in and day out-with 3 children screaming "mom...mom...mom....". Every time I reach the end of my rope and am convinced I will never make it, I am reminded-I do not have to do it! NONE of us can do it! I, alone, am not able but with the Lord all things are possible. Only the Lord can do it and when I let him work through me the results are always rewarding. It is during these times that the Lord reminds me of His promise in Joshua 1:5 "....I will not fail thee nor forsake thee." He is there for me and with me and He always will be. He never fails to show me a little glimpse of the results I am ultimately working towards and it is always the best encouragement a mom could get.
A few weeks ago Monty had to run to the store and he let Keslee ride along. While they were out, Monty decided to surprise us and they came home with lunch from Sonic. As Monty was handing out the meals he said...."Here Kenyon, Keslee said you would want the chicken sandwich. Mom, Keslee said you would want tator tots instead of french fries. Kalysa, Keslee got you and her both a kids meal with cheeseburgers and bananas." In the bottom of the bag was an extra french fry and I asked Monty if they gave us too many. He said "No, I thought the girls may really want fries instead of just a banana so I ordered an extra one just in case." Well guess what?! They did not want french fries. They both will always choose a banana over french fries and Keslee knew that. Now the point of this story is not that we eat at Sonic too often. We really only eat out anywhere about once or twice a month. The point is that because Keslee is with her family and not isolated from us for 6-8 hours every day, at 7 years old, she knows every one of us so well that she could order exactly what we each would have ordered ourselves if we had been there. A few days later I asked Monty if he would pick up some toilet paper. Now, I am kinda picky about my toilet paper and so I wrote down specifically what I wanted him to get. He again took Keslee along for the ride. When they arrived home with the exact toilet paper that I had requested, I went to thank my husband for being so attentive to the details of my note. It was then that he said "Don't thank me, Keslee got the toilet paper." I just had to ask my dear little keeper in training how is it that she can get the right food for everyone in the family and then also pick out just the right toilet paper. With a little shrug of her shoulders she simply replied "I just watch you."
Now, I could write a thousand blog posts based on that one little sentence and any good preacher could do a whole series of sermons, but what I really needed at that time was the confirmation that our homeschool year has not been a wasted effort. They are learning! The math and science and reading are all slowly getting done but there is still plenty of time to learn those things. My kids are learning life lessons that they would have missed out on without this homeschool year. Moments would have passed them by as they sat inside a classroom. Moments that we could have never gotten back. These two situations with my dear daughter reminded me that these small things are really so much bigger and worth so much more.