Lameness...

Ok, so I obviously need help posting more frequently then every few weeks. I think it is because I don't know how to make this page look like what I want it to and I have a hard time posting pictures. How lame am I, 24 and I can't figure out how to use a blog. Went to the womens retreat with my church and a few others in Vail this past weekend. We had such a great time roaming around the hotel in our robes, swimming in the mountains in the rain, searching for coffee every free second, enjoying great worship and doing business with God. The retreats theme was the Holy Spirit. Though I feel like I know quite a bit about the Holy Spirit is was good to be reminded about His working in my life to empower me, to be reminded about the gifts of the Spirit and to seek God about what Gifts He has given me. Great weekend!
Also, I am hosting a Crafting Christmas party. The idea is to get together one night and everyone contributes ideas for something to make for someone else for Christmas. It could be smething that can be handmade or a recipe for those who aren't to crafty. The whole point is to make things for people because we can make it so much more personnal and we can make it so much more cost effective. Anyways, it is coming up so I need to hit the thrift stores so start looking for frames for an idea that I will post about once I finish. Hope you guys have a great weekend. Hopefully I dont wait so long to post again.

T-shirt party

Wow, I really need to get on this blog thing. I didn't realize how long it had been since the last one. Owen has been super fussy, has a runny nose and a cough. I am pretty sure he is allergic to milk ,so glad to know Owen will soon be back to his happy self soon. So a few weeks ago we had the t-shirt party that I blogged about a few weeks ago. It was so much fun but alot more work for the girls shirts than anticipated. So much so that I don't have a finished one to show. We copied the white one shoulder shirt from the site psimadethis.com. The shirts we bought were to wide so we needed to cut them seam and tighten it up and that took the whole time because we were also managing babies while the boys were getting their creativity on. I only have a few pictures right now because I took pictures on Eriks blackberry and this is all he has sent me.
The first picture is one of the two shirts my husband made because he is oh so creative. Seriously, when we went to pick up the spray paint he picked up this hunter green and I was shocked. I was for sure he was going to pick up red, when I asked him what he was going to do he told me I had to wait till the next day to find out. Which means that he already had thought ahead to what he was going to make, not what I was expecting. He ended up cutting out templates for deer, scopes and trees for his tribute to hunting shirt. Note: it was really hard getting the spray paint to not bleed, you need to keep the can far enought away and you also want to do it alot thicked than you would think because it fades alot in the washing machine. The second picture is our friend/pastor Nate making a cute outfit for himself, just kidding, it is for his adorable son Caleb who is just a few weeks older than Owen. I was quite impressed. I will post some pictures soon of the progress Jen and I made on our shirts. For now that is all. Soon I will be blogging with pictures about the boys birthday party.

Rain clouds

I was listening to a new song to me two nights ago called 'Grow' by JJ Heller, shout out to her, she is amazing! Anyways she gave me new perspective on trials. The song is about her asking these clouds to rain becuase IF WE DRY UP, WE DON'T GROW. It was a light bulb moment. I know trials make us grow but this song connected dots and brought a joy to me in thinking through trials and gave me peace in expecting them. We will dry up and not grow if there is no rain in our lives. Something to think about. Also I just borrowed this book frommy mother in law called," God knows my name." Good book and just a great reminder about how well we are known by Him.

This past week...

So lame, I just started this blog and then haven't posted for a few days. Owen and I both ended up with colds this past week and then our computer got a virus so we were out of commission for a bit but we are back in business. I started getting things ready for Owen and Erik's lumberjack party last night. I stamped blue ox's onto the invitation envelopes and on some tags I am going to attach to mustaches. I also went to FedEx and they printed up the invitation, $13 for 30 full color prints. On another note I finished the canvas I was working on. I didn't originally plan to paint anything on it but it needed something to help fill in some of the spaces. Now I know people say this a lot when they make something, "it is so easy, I swear," but this really was. I DO NOT paint. I can color things in but I do not attempt free hand usually but I didn't have a choice here, I couldn't find a stencil I liked. I wasn't to nervous either because I did about a 50/50 mix of white paint and water so I knew it was going to be watery and forgiving. I love the canvas and I am so excited to make another one but I need some inspiration first.

These are a few of my favorite things

Thought I would share some of my most cherished home idea photos with you.

Missionaries

Last night at church we were going through Phil 2:17-30 and our Pastor was talking about what it means to be a missionary and asking us what our mission field is. My immediate response was Owen and Erik but I soon thought about my real, actual neighbors the ones who live just to the sides of me and the ones whose backyards I look into because in Colorado people don't have real fences. I am praying for God to show me real ways that I can extend Christ and His love to them. Nate, our pastor, gave an analogy I guess last night and it really impacted me. He said he had gone to a coffee shop that week to study and it was full of people. He went on to say that if he had been somewhere else in the world like Africa or China, he would see those people as lost souls, those he came to minister too. What makes the people he was with in Starbucks so different? Nothing. Just something to stir you up.

Where to begin...

So I finally made myself sit down and start or rather continue the blog I started in 2008. As you can probably tell from this blog I don't know how to do much and I just spent forever adding all of my blogs to google reader but I can't get them to appear. Oh, if I weren't so lame when it came to electronics, how is that even possible in this day and age? Anyways, I am so excited to put up all of my crazy ideas, thoughts, favorite pictures and blogs even if no one reads this. I guess I will share with you what I am crafting up right now. I got my inspiration from this picture- Side note: I have no idea how to properly place a picture so please forgive me. So I decided I needed something to put my hands to and that my fireplace needs some love so with this as my starting point, I headed to Hobby Lobby. I bought a huge canvas, 24" x 36", spray adhesive glue, 3" letter stencil and paint. I originally thought that I was going to cut letters out of fabric but then I was worried about the different weights of fabric so I thought I would use images from magazines but then genius struck. I decided I would use pictures of the family as the letters so I uploaded a bunch of pictures onto a flash drive and sent Erik to the store. Now I should have decided ahead of time what I wanted to spell out before he went but I was anxious to get started. I think I am going to spell out this quote,

" Oh, what peace we often forefeit

Oh, what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer."

So this involves a little over 90 letters so my job today is to measure it out and see if it will all fit. Oh last night while Erik was at the store I mixed up some paint and painted the whole canvas this really sweet, peaceful lavendar that really pops off of our gray walls. Kind of looks like this color

So I am going to start cutting letters and measuring on the next nap seeing as Owen just woke up early. I will keep you posted on my progress with that project. Ok my second and last project for the moment is a T-Shirt party. I have done a few craft parties in the past and loved it but Erik then has to find something to do that evening because he doesn't want to sit around listening to girl talk so I wanted to do something that we could do together. Yesterday when I was going through my blogs, H is for Handmade, did an awesome post. Her newphew taped a design onto a white t-shirt and then spray painted over it and it looked like this when he was done

For the girls I was thinking we will try and make something like this
I think I will spray paint the whole shirt gold. Ok, so there it is. I have to get ready so we can go to storytime at the library. Randi, this blog is truly for you, you inspired me to write down and share what I find on the web. Also, I better figure out a better way to add picture or I might not be blogging for long! Now go spend some time Jesus.