The Fruits of the Spirit Subway Art

I heart subway art! At first I was slow to warm up. I thought it was cute but after seeing it every where in blog land and on Pinterest, I've fallen in love. :-) For the last month I've been wanting to give the girls' play area a little make over. One of the things I wanted to do was make subway art using The Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). FINALLY, with this last week being Spring break, I took the time to make it. And I must say, I love it! I've got a few more little things to do to the play area, I'll share those pictures soon.



You are welcome to download your own copy HERE. I printed it on 8.5 x 11 white card stock and matted it with robin eggs blue poster board (for a whopping .69 cents!).

If you want to make your own subway art, here's a quick and simple tutorial.

*Using MS Word, create a new document.

*Go to the Insert tab at the top and click on Text Box. Type in the word you want to use, with the text box highlighted you can right mouse click to select Font and pick a fun font or change the color/size.

*Repeat until you have all the words you are using. You then click on each text box and move the words around the page.

*To add a graphic simply use the Insert tab and click on Picture. Be sure to click on your graphic and choose Format Picture, Layout and select In Front of Picture. This will allow you to move your graphic where you please (without it lining up with your text).

*To make words vertically use the Insert tab, choose Word Art, choose the vertical word art option and type in the word you want to use.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Because linky parties are fun!

Red flowers...oh they make me HAPPY!

After months of dark, cold and gray days (they are still here!) I really needed some color in my house. I've had this old pot for awhile, empty in my living room, I wasn't sure what to put in it. Well the other day at Micheal's I found these red flowers. I've never been one to like fake flowers but I LOVED the red and so needed some color, I bought three, then went back for two more. Bonus, they were on sale!




Just for fun I thought I would share them for Rednesday at It's a Very Cherry World

Spring?

This is what we woke to this morning....a beautiful blanket of snow! I do love the snow, it is beautiful and I love how quiet it is. Amazing little white flakes fall from the sky and there isn't a single sound. BUT Spring came two days ago...or at least it was suppose too! :-)

Life needs to be fun!

My natural tendacy is to take life way too seriously! I often get stuck on my to do list and forget to take time to have fun and be silly. For the last few weeks I've been hearing a little voice saying CELEBRATE, each day is worthy of celebration. What a treat that would be for my girls and for Jeremy, if I could embrace each day as a celebration. I LOVE me a good party and the party planning is my favorite part!

I've fallen in-love with paper straws!! I've seen them on Etsy and Pinterest and they just make my heart sing! For no reason at all, other then to treat my girls to something special, I ordered these super cute paper straws in blue patterns from Sweet Estelle's Baking Supplies. I got (or rather, am getting soon) 24 for $6.55 including shipping.


They even came with a .pdf file of these super cute flags!


A sweet friend of mine had a garage sale and she set aside some vintage goodies for me to sort through. In the stash I found two vintage milk bottles. Ah..they are going to look SO cute with the paper straws and maybe pink milk?!


Looking forward to adding a simply fun addition to my girls drinks.

Laying down our burdens...

This past weekend I got the privilege of having a weekend away, at Twin Rocks Friends Camp in Rockaway Oregon for a women's retreat. It was an awesome time of worship, fellowship, crafting, sleeping and eating WAY TOO MUCH!

The theme for the weekend was laying down our burdens. Two women shared from very different places in life. One newly married, no children, one married 20+ years and five children. Yet both shared from their hearts. I approached the weekend with some reservations. I truly love a good weekend away and time with other women feed my soul. Yet I found myself a little cautious about the topic. Often it seems, we (I) go away, get fresh perspective and then fall-right-back-in-to-the-same-old-routine, quickly forgetting my new insights. Ever have that happen? I was concerned that I would be all motivated and then crash. So while there, I listened, took notes, and pondered what the speakers shared. It wasn't until Monday that I began to process.

Burdens are not always great, huge mountains to climb, burdens are often the daily grid. The dishes, the laundry, dance lessons, bedtimes, work, dinner.... These are the burdens that weigh me down. I strive to conquer them on my own believing that if I only had the right routine or the perfect check list or if only my children would follow the wonderful routine and checklist I have created, then all would be right in the world. WRONG! I am human and therefore inherently flawed! No matter how much might I muster I can not do this on my own. I've heard others say that we must invite Him, Christ, into our daily living allow Him to be our strength. My mind has known this for awhile but it wasn't until this past weekend that my heart discovered it.

We tend to take hold of our daily burdens, our daily living, as if it is our own. When in fact it is not. It is His. One of the speakers (the mamma with 5 children) shared how easy we trust our eternal existence to Christ but not our daily. In our daily we hold the false belief that we are in control and that we can do it. And sometimes we are even successful at it. Success just feeds the lie that we can do it on our own. I've noticed an ever so slight change in how I have approach my daily duties. I've tried to shift my focus back to Christ when I feel my blood pressure raising. I've been reminding myself that life is not an emergency but something to relish. With time moving so quickly, the reality of Kindergarten for Jilian and middle school for Grace (*GASP*) is helping me to remember, that all this is only here for a short time and with His grace, love, mercy and strength my daily burdens haven't felt so heavy. This is a process. I can guarantee that in a week I will have forgotten this and will need to remember AGAIN. I have to give myself the grace to do this and remember it is a process, that over time, will be a little easier.


Our name tags for the weekend had an image of a woman on the beach, with her arms out-stretched. For fun, as we left, my friend Michelle and I took pictures of us doing the same! It was rather freeing although a little silly

St. Patrick's Day

Life has been FULL these days and I'm really looking forward to St. Patrick's Day. I'm excited that it is on a Saturday this year so we aren't rushing out the door for school. I can take my time to treat the girls. I'm thinking of green Shamrock shaped pancakes with green milk for breakfast! As well as some fun treats for them to wake up to...from the silly Leprechauns of course!

Here's last years treats, tucked inside their shoes


Fun Ideas:

Fun green socks
Gold coins
Green apple candies
Green jell-o cups
Green pens or pencils
Green apple fruit roll-up
Green silly straws
Mint gum
Mini boxes of Lucky Charms
Jelly beans (pieces of the rainbow)

31 Ways to Pray for Your Children

On this first day of March what better day is it then to start praying for 31 different Christ like characteristics for our children? I pray for my girls, daily, for health, safety, that they would come to have a close, personal relationship with Christ but honestly I have not often prayed for specific character qualities.

A friend of mine just recently shared with me this list of 31 Christ-centered character traits (along with Scripture references) to pray over our children each day. I'm going to challenage myself to pray these traits over my girls each day of March...and beyond. Will you join? :-)

You can download the list HERE.