This is birthday week at our house!

Both the girls celebrate birthdays this week. Grace turns 12 tomorrow! I seriously can not believe she is that old already!

This year for her birthday we are keeping it small. She has always wanted to stay the night at a hotel with friends. So in just under an hour I'm taking Grace along with two friends to stay at the Embassy Suites near a great mall. We will enjoy the room doing pedicures and blindfolded make-overs (Grace's idea), pizza for dinner and the girls will swim (while I relax and read...). Tomorrow morning after breakfast I'll brave the mall so the girls can have a look around. 

It is probably the easiest party I have planned!

Grace loves Tiffany blue and black together so she choose these invitations this year. I purchased them on Etsy from, Eloyce Designs. 

I purchased these beautiful fondant chandelier toppers from Harriet's House of Cakes, for cupcakes but Grace decided she would rather have cheesecake so we'll top the cheesecake.

Grace and her friends are GIRLY and very tween! For party favors I kept it sweet and simple, lip gloss, Tiffany blue nail polish and just a little candy (since there will be more to have at the hotel).

I'll be sharing Jilian's party later this week. Wish me luck! :-)

Happy Birthday Grace!

 

Living Intentionally Part II

The intention of writing a Life Mission Statement was to help us focus and center ourselves on what we dream for our lives.

All to often in my own experience, I find myself wanting one thing in life but I make  choices that take my life in a different direction.

Writing out my own Life Mission Statement brought me clarity to what is really important in my life and what I want to make a priority.

The next step of the challenge is to learn to evaluate our life choices in light of our Life Mission Statements.

What does that look like?

Keeping your Life Mission Statement in mind, are you making choices to support your mission statement? Or are you making conflicting choices?

For example, here is my Life Mission Statement:

To pursue Christ with my whole heart, mind and soul.

To love and support Jeremy (my husband), so he can be all God has created him to be.

To play with my girls. To be their encourager. To help them learn and grow into women that love Christ.

To create space in my life to allow for creativity and to cultivate an intentional home.

To live a life that inspires others to live as children of God.

What I need to ask myself: am I making choices with my time that allows me to pursue Christ with my whole heart, mind and soul? Am I making choices to allow for play with my girls and time to be creative? Or am I getting distracted by the wrong choices, i.e. too many commitments, outside responsibilities, playing on the computer, etc.

Unfortunately, the answer is yes to the last question. I am getting distracted and making the wrong choices.

With this challenge it is not my intention to guilt myself or you because we have made wrong choices, but to shed light on our choices.

If we deeply want something for our lives than we must train ourselves to make choices consistent with our desires. Otherwise we run the risk of running too fast in the wrong direction and becoming unsatisfied.

My suggestion is to run each decision you are faced with through the Lord's filter and through the filter of your Life's Mission Statement. From there make choices that follow the Lord's leading and that support your Life Mission's Statement.

This is something I am just learning to do myself. It comes from the place of too many years, doing too many things and feeling disappointed that I do not have the time to do what is most important to me or what the Lord has laid on my heart.

It is my hope to discover a greater Joy.

Patriotic Fruit Salad

I first had this fruit salad in the hospital of all places! After having Jilian the salad was part of my first meal there. I loved it so much I requested it several more times before going home. :-)

It is super easy to make! Great for the 4th of July or to take camping. This photo is from one of our Summer camping trips. For camping I take the three fruits and cut them when we get there. The bananas brown quickly so you can't make it ahead of time.

The recipe is simple, blueberries, chopped strawberries and bananas. That's all! For our family of four, I use a cup of blueberries, one container of strawberries and about two bananas.

Enjoy!

4th of July Rosette Headband Tutorial

I saw this super cute headband on Pinterest. You can view the picture HERE. I didn't want to post it without permission. It inspired me to make one of my own for the girls.

Supplies:

Felt in red, white and blue

White elastic 

(I bought my satin elastic from Pamper Your Princess on Etsy)

Hot glue gun

Needle and thread in red, white and blue

Step 1: Cut three strips of felt approximately 1" x 12"

Step 2: Twist each piece of felt

Step 3: Holding one end of twisted felt, slowly wrap felt around center, tuck end piece under the bottom

Completed rosette

Step 4: With a needle and thread carefully stitch through all layers

You can also choose to use hot glue and add dots of glue as you wrap

Ta-da! Three pretty little rosettes!

Step 5: Measure your girls' head, from the back of the neck up towards her ears, to the top of her head. Take that measurement and decrease it by about two inches, sense the elastic is stretchy.

I used an 18" piece for Jilian and her head measures 20". But double check before cutting your elastic.

Step 6: Hand stitch the ends of the elastic together

You should have three rosettes and one elastic headband

Step 7: Starting with the white rosette, hot glue it over the seam in the elastic. Next hot glue the red and blue rosettes in place. You want the rosettes close together, even overlapping slightly because when the elastic stretches, there will be a little space between them.

Finished headband

All ready for the 4th of July!

Because linky parties are fun!

 

A fun and refreshing Summer drink, Italian sodas

The girls and I love Italian sodas! They are so yummy! After spending too much money buying them from local coffee shops I decided to purchase the ingredients for at home treats. They are just as delicious and much cheaper of course!

Our favorite is raspberry vanilla.

Recipe

1 cup club soda

1 to 2 tablespoons (depending on desired sweetness) 

each of raspberry and vanilla syrup

Ice

Stir and enjoy!

I got these super cute mason jar glasses at a new local gift store Pulp & Circumstance for only $3.99 each. I found some cute ones by Party Delights on Etsy, in case you want to treat yourself.  :-)

Prayer Cards...free printable

Life presents us with challenges...plain and simple. And there are times when I feel like there is nothing I can do to help however, I have learned, that prayer is doing something.

Praying for friends, family or those in need is powerful. Yet I am forgetful at times. If I tell someone I will keep them in my prayers, I want to be intentional and follow through with that promise.

To help me do just that I created a simple prayer card. To write the names or prayer requests of those in need. And even to remind myself to pray for my girls and husband. Because if I am not praying for them, who is?

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6

If you would like a copy of these Prayer Cards you can download them HERE.

Living intentionally

Part of living the life we long for is being intentional and focused. So often we fail to make choices that support our goals or the ideal we would like for our lives.

As we all well know, life is FULL. Too full. It is easy to lose site of what we are really living for with the many distractions in life and overloaded responsibilities.

In order to help us stay centered and hopefully guide us to make intentional choices, we are going to write a Life Mission Statement.

Mission statements are often used for business purposes but are very helpful in any area of life.

A mission statement is defined as "a statement of the purpose of a company, organization or person, its reason for existing."**

In essence a Life Mission Statement will help us identify our purpose.

To develop your life mission statement you will need to ask yourself a few questions:

• What roles do I have?
• For whom do I do it?
• What are my priorities within each role?
• Which roles are most important?
• Which roles are a necessity?
• What do I hope for?
• What do I want to be remembered for?

As an example here are my answers:

Roles:

Wife, Mother, Etsy shop owner, Crafter, Counselor, Christian 

Roles in Order of Importance:

Christian, Wife, Mother, Crafter, Counselor, Etsy shop owner

To write a clear Life Mission Statement we must narrow down our roles. Although all of our roles are important, we can not focus on everything. The hope of a mission statement is to help provide focus when life feels scattered.

For example, my Life Mission Statement will include my roles as a Christian, Wife, Mother and Crafter.

Next we need to dream. What do we want to be remembered for? What do we long for?

Here's my dream:

At the end of my time here on Earth, as I enter the gates of Heaven, my soul longs to hear ”Well done, good and faithful servant”, Matthew 25:21. I want Jeremy to think of me as a loving and supportive wife. I want my girls to think of me as nurturing, supportive and safe. Being creative is very important to me, so I want time to create, to establish a home that encourages creativity. I want to have fun with my girls. I want to inspire them to grow into women of God. I want to encourage Jeremy in his walk with Christ.

The last step is to turn our dreams into action statements. By rewording our hopes into actions, a foundation is laid as to what we need to do to live out our dream.

My Life Mission Statement:

To pursue Christ with my whole heart, mind and soul.

To love and support Jeremy so he can be all God has created him to be.

To play with my girls. To be their encourager. To help them learn and grow into women that love Christ.

To create space in my life to allow for creativity and to cultivate an intentional home.

To live a life that inspires others to live as children of God.

As you walk through this process, I encourage you to pray and ask for God's guidance.

I hope this process is inspiring to you!

Once you have your Life Mission Statement written, print it out and read it. Maybe even put it on pretty paper, frame it and put it somewhere you will see it often.

**Wikipedia