Happy Halloween!

 Happy Halloween!

Our pumpkin in training. LOL

Sarah's on the left. Mine is on the right. BTW her idea for the puking pumpkin.

Here is mine at night. Sarah's doesn't show up to well with just a candle in it. I made this in honor of my handsome hubby who loves angry birds.

I hope everyone had a safe, enjoyable Halloween.

A point to ponder

These past few weeks have been fairly topsy turvy.
So much going on in our lives right now.
We have had some news that hits pretty close to home lately.
We are busy with the paperwork for the foster to adopt.
We have been busy every weekend doing something or the other.
Life just doesn't seem to slow down.

Here is my girl getting ready to go on her weekend teen retreat. I had wanted to take many pictures of her while she was leaving. Partly to post on her, partly for her scrapbook and mostly because I was going to miss her.

In the midst of it all my bible studies have really grounded me. They are keeping me focused on what is important. HIM!!

You can tell by her beautiful expression how sick she is getting of me taking her picture.  

This past week I have noticed a large change in me. I am calmer, I am happier, (even with all the stuff that is not so happy in my life), I am much more open about being a Christian. I am slowly starting to live the life I know God wants me to live.

In the midst of it all my family is reaping great rewards. Me being calmer and happier has to be a huge blessing to them. I am slower to anger. I love deeper and stronger. I am letting go of my old hurts one by one. I am learning to love Him and let Him into my life so much more.

Here is that beautiful smile that I love so much.

It is amazing what something so simple as letting Him into my life more and more fully can do for everyone around me. Imagine what it will be like when I finally let go and let Him in totally. Now imagine if we all did that. What a world it would be.

Sparkly Spiderwebs

This month I was committed to making several crafts. Since hubby and I went out to the shed and was unable to find my Halloween decorations I thought I would peruse Pinterest to see what I could find. I showed how I made my dryer vent pumpkins here.
Well I saw this I knew I had to try that. This is a very inexpensive craft.
All you need is some glue and some glitter. I found white school glue to be the best, although I also used some gel glue. It made thinner webs.
Also something to put them on. A piece of wax paper works great.

Start by drawing out whatever pattern you want with the glue. We made webs, 'Boo', and a couple misshapen ghosts.

For the webs I drew circles around each other. Each one a bit bigger. I simply eyeballed this, but if you wanted more perfection you could easily print something off of the computer and put it under the wax paper as a pattern.
I then drew lines through the circles.

Next came the dollar store glitter. This went a long way. We made 5 webs, 3 Boo's, and the two ghosts and only used about 1 and a quarter of the glitter bottles.

Then sprinkle it all over the glue. Make sure to cover all of the glue as this is what makes it sparkle and stay together better.

The directions say to let it sit for 24 hours and then shake the glue off and then let it sit for another couple of days. But I will be honest I was impatient so I started picking at the first one within 12 hours. I never did shake the glitter off until I removed all of them. It is best to let them sit for at least 2 to 3 days. The middle of some of the webs was still sticky after even that long.

I then used some white thread as that was all I had on hand. I wanted fishing line, but hubby was away and I wanted them up.

We then hung them in the window.

I think they turned out really cute.

This is such an easy craft. And very inexpensive for all 10 items we made it maybe cost two dollars. Maybe.

If you decide you want to try your hand in these I would love a link back to be able to see how they went.

Is it really that time already?

What a emotional roller coaster this week has been. I must say I am rather glad that for the most part it is over.

As far as my goals this month...

1. Continue to work on our outside chores and all the inside ones that are needing done before winter.
Well we didn't work on this at all this week. But this why.

Isn't it pretty. Needless to say we didn't get any more work done. But for the most part we were done anyway so this is not a big deal. I steal want to plastic my windows but that can be done anytime.

2. We had our first visit with our foster care support worker yesterday and as I said before she left a ton of information and a ton of paperwork for us to do. So this month I plan on working on that. The sooner we can get that done the sooner we can get our home study started. She figures over two months for the home study so I need to get on it. :)

Well no course this weekend. Our criminal record checks didn't come back in time. However we are for sure signed in for the next one. Unfortunately it is not until February, but not a lot we can do about it. The good news is that when we met with our social worker yesterday she told us if we can get the paperwork in for her my next Thursday she should be able to start some of the home study work. So I am excited about that. So needless to say these next few days will be filled with lots of questions answered. 
She also informed us that if we have everything else done by our training in February that we should be able to be ready for a placement!! Whoohoo!!

3. Working on crafts. I am hoping to get a lot of Christmas crafts/gifts done this month. This one is a bit more of the hopeful. LOL

Well I showed you all how to do beach glass and next week I will show you about the sparkles. Just in time for Halloween. 
I have to say I made quite a few crafts this month. It has been a great feeling to feel crafty again and be inspired.

I already have a couple ideas for next months goals. What about everyone else??
I am linking up today with Aurie.

Wednesday's Walk

Wow it has been a while since I did one of these posts.
As I said yesterday I was feeling pretty melancholy. The rather funny part about today is my oldest son came and talked to me for a little over an hour. Mostly about his life and what is happening. I guess I am still needed in some way. :)

Anyway I decided today to go and take a walk and try and capture the beautiful snow fall that we had yesterday.

Please forgive me I am not a photographer.

Anyway as I was out and about I was thinking about my walk lately. How Jesus is transforming my life. He is bringing people into that He knows that I need during this time.
That got me to thinking again if what I was doing was enough.
Yesterday my cyper friend Lynette wrote this post, and it really had the wheels churning in my head. For many many years I thought that I was not good enough, that I wasn't living, breathing, understanding the word as so many of my Christian friends were.

I was not doing it all. I was not the perfect Mom, far from the perfect wife, and even farther from the perfect Christian. I wanted to make fabulous homemade meals every night. (ok if my husband is reading this he is rolling over laughing right now. Cooking is far from my strong suit. )
I wanted to never get angry, always have patience galore. (Now if my children are reading this they are rolling over in laughter).
I always wanted to attend church as a family every Sunday. I wanted what I thought was the perfect life.

Then I woke up. I have a great life. A life God has blessed me with. It hasn't been easy and I know we still have many road bumps along the way but HE is letting me see that I am special. I am worthy, I am His!!

I still fail. Daily I still fail. I often lose my patience. I am so not fond of making suppers so I tend to cheat a little there. I like my sleep so I am not an early riser. However now when I do rise, before my daughter I spend that time with the Lord. We have our time before the world starts.

It amazes me how much I need it. How much I was missing out on.

This week Monday I failed big time. I knew starting my day that I was not in the right frame of mind. I had had a bad dream (one that I can't remember) and the feeling was staying with me. I thought for a moment about asking for prayer and then decided against it. I thought I could do this, I could conquer this on my own. Boy did God teach me a lesson that day. I just got angrier and angrier. I swore, I lost my patience numerous times, I was to wrapped up in my feelings and emotions to realize exactly what was happening around me. In the evening I broke. I realized what was happening. I prayed.

This week has been a week of challenges. Emotion and spiritual challenges. I know that no matter what is happening in my life I need to turn to Him. I need to lean on Him and not think that I can do this on my own. I am far from perfect. I am a sinner. I fall short regularly. But I am HIS. He loves me no matter what. He made me perfect for me. Even when I act sometimes like a spoiled brat He is still there holding me and loving me.
For that I must thank HIM!!

I am linking up today with Mary Beth.

I am a little of my rocker.

I'm feeling a little off kilter tonight.
Today is our son's 21rst birthday. The night he came into the world was very similar to what the weather today was like. Cold, blowy and snowy. In fact the night before hubby and I went to go get some clothes from our house (we were staying at my sister's in town) and we had to go 4x4ing in the snow as we got stuck. Anyway I digress. Our healthy boy came into the world at exactly 2:32 am weighing in at 8lbs 7.5 oz.

He is now far from that weight. LOL We have had many ups and downs in our raising of this wonderful young man. Mostly during his teen years. We learned that he has some learning challenges and was diagnosed with ADD. However when I look at the man he has become I can not help but be filled with pride.

This picture of my boys was taken this past August. Matthew is the one with the sunglasses on his head.

So with all this wonderfulness of today you would think that I would be euphoric. I am sorta. It feels weird. He is spending the day with his girlfriend. Which is awesome. She is a really nice young lady and both Rob and I like her. However for the first time I will not see him on his birthday. My baby is growing into a man. I am not sure when that happened. What was I busy doing?? His girlfriend said the smallest innocent thing on Sunday. She told me she was baking him a cake. That should not mean much right? Except to me it did. It meant that he no longer is in need of me to do that for him. I now officially know what my Mother in law feels like. It kinda stings. I am really really happy for him. But for a moment I am taking a bit of time to weep for the boy we no longer have, even while I rejoice over the man that with God's help we raised.

Then to add a bit to my melancholy  to day, I received news this morning that we didn't make the deadline to go to our foster to adopt parenting course this weekend. The next one is not until February. I am sad. I wanted to get this process on the road. Although I know this isn't the worst thing, it just feels like such a delay. Oh well not much we can do about it. In the mean time we will be busy getting all our paperwork done and our house ready so we can start with the home inspection process. That could take up to two months anyway so really if we have everything done by the parenting course we could still be on time for Feb/March possibly receiving some children.

So I guess it all boils down to asking for prayer. I am feeling a little weird during this season in my life.
Thank you so much.

Beach glass

I saw this really cool idea on Pinterest a while ago and I just knew I had to try it.
For one I am really loving teals and turquoises at the moment. Well any moment to be honest. I am much more of a blue person than a pink one.
When I saw how easy it appeared I knew I had to try it out right away. I had nothing really to try other than an old cooler bottle and a pickle jar. But I tried it out anyway.

All you need is some white glue, water, dish soap, food coloring, a brush and something glass to paint.

Please ignore all the junk in the background. I decided to try my hand at a bunch of different crafty things that day.

To start with I got a small container and mixed about 3 parts glue to 1 part water. I will fully admit that I did not measure this at all I only eye-balled it, then add about 2 drops of dish soap. Then I added a few drops of blue and green food coloring and stirred until I got the color I was looking for. You could totally do this any color at all. Oranges and reds for fall, Reds and greens for Christmas, anything your imagination takes you.

Now get ready to paint.

This is really easy to do. As you can see from the pictures though it is really runny so you do need something to protect your counters. After I painted them I just left them to drip dry on the cardboard. It didn't take long at all. In some places it was a bit streaky so I just added another coat.

When the jar was finished I added some beach rock and a flower.

I decided I liked it so much I wanted to actually try it on stuff that I would keep as decorations around the home. By the way so far it cost me per pennies as I had everything. The glue would have cost me a $1 for the entire bottle and the rest I recycled in this bunch.

Then I went to the dollar store and spent 4 dollars on a couple of vases.

Again I painted these with the same leftover glue mix I had from before.

Left them to dry and then add the accents.

I love how they came out.

By the way the mirror is what I was talking about in this post. I found this mirror at Home Hardware. The original price tag said $54.00 The sale because it was pretty banged up had it marked down to $15.00. So I grabbed it. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it when I saw it. Hubby I think thought I was a little crazy. LOL  I wish I had taken before pictures. But all I did was rough sand it. It was already done in dark brown so I just added a couple coats of dollar store turquoise paint, let dry, sanded a bit to let the brown show through and Voila I have a much loved mirror. Now to find the perfect place for these. LOL

So what do you think. If you decide to make some I would love a link back here so that I could see what you had done. :)

Homeschool Mothers Journal.

This is a first for me, but I thought I would give it a try and see how it went.
So here is my week in a nutshell. LOL

In my life this week: Well as usual it has been crazy. We had to run up to a town about an hour away to take my quad to the doctor because it had an oil leak. It is finally fixed and hubby is picking it up tonight!! Just in time to go out again tomorrow!!

In our homeschool this week: It was a pretty nice week. I decided to not school on Wednesday and instead Sarah and I went to town. We window shopped around and bought some groceries. It was kind of nice to have a skip day.
Her math program is finally up and running so she is back on that. A test in social and studying for a test in science combined with all her other subjects kept her busy.

I'm inspired by: My husband. He works hard, he never complains. He just works harder and harder to provide for us. When I asked him how I could make this home more a refuge for him he just told me it already is. He loves just coming home to us he told me. I love that he is always willing to help others. Often puts his needs way on the back burner to be there for his family.

Places we're going and people we're seeing: Well as I said we are off quadding with friends tomorrow. (Praying for decent weather) Then on Sunday Rob and Sarah are off to a Swedish smorg. with his parents, uncle and brother (and his family). I have a meeting and since I am Gluten Free anyway I decided it would easier if I just skip it this time.

My favorite thing this week:

Was definitely finding this on my meds this week. I love my daughter.

I'm grateful for: A hubby and a daughter who stood up and helped out when I was hurting this week.

I'm praying for: That these bible studies continue to help me grow stronger in my walk. That I always put HIM first.

A photo, a video, a link, a quote to share: 

What I saw when I was relaxing on our quad ride this past Saturday.

I am linking up today with Homeschool Mothers Journal.

So much accomplished.

We had a great productive week here. Not to mention we through in a ton of fun activities as well. Last Saturday Rob and I went quading with friends while Sarah went to an Unhindered concert. It was tough who had the better time. Lol

This week I was hurt so I will admit I was a bit lazy, but now I am feeling almost 100% again so house cleaning was on the agenda for today. Not much fun, but very necessary.

As far as my 3 in 30 this month so far we have done a fair amount.

1. Continue to work on our outside chores and all the inside ones that are needing done before winter.
We managed to get most everything done outside. The only thing left is to take down the top of the gazebo. As far as inside we still have to plastic windows and a few other things but all in all I think that we just might manage to pull this one off. 


2. We had our first visit with our foster care support worker yesterday and as I said before she left a ton of information and a ton of paperwork for us to do. So this month I plan on working on that. The sooner we can get that done the sooner we can get our home study started. She figures over two months for the home study so I need to get on it. :)

Ok so the visit wasn't yesterday now, it was a few weeks ago but the goal is still the same. This week I actually managed to work on some of the forms. I went through them again today and realized there is still the ones that Rob and I have to fill our separately so I am hoping maybe this coming week we can get that finished. Next weekend is our course so I would like to get as much done as possible before then.

3. Working on crafts. I am hoping to get a lot of Christmas crafts/gifts done this month. This one is a bit more of the hopeful. LOL

As I mentioned last week I did some already. I showed my pumpkins on Monday.

 Have I got you intrigued yet? The top two are done and the bottom two I am just waiting to be able to go and get a couple supplies and then they will be done as well.

I can hardly wait! Squeal!!

This one is what was left over when I had done a particular craft. I also have another one I did this week that involves a mirror and some paint. I love it. I wish I had remembered to take before pics. :( 

I promise that I will keep you all involved in all these. So far I am really happy with them. 

*Edited to add the link up for the Beach glass craft. 

Well that sums up my week. A tad on the crazy side but happy to have so much accomplished.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

I am linking up today with Aurie.

How can I count the ways?

I am so thankful so very thankful. Even with everything that is going on right now I think I am even more thankful. Walking closer to God has made me realize just how incredibly blessed I am.



I am thankful this week for a wonderful husband who takes care of me. He even drove to pick up our daughter yesterday from dance when he knew I was hurting. He cares so much about me. I am truly blessed by a wonderful man such as him.

I am thankful that we have had some nice weather for a day or so. Helps when I know that soon it is going to be cold all the time.

I am thankful that even though I am hurting and slept in this morning I still managed to find some God time. It is so important.

I am thankful that the morning studies I am do are challenging  me so greatly.

I am thankful that I have found some great twitter friends that are loving the Kept Study.

I also am sooooo thankful this week for a wonderful daughter. Whom when I went to get something out of the kitchen this week I found this attached to my meds.

Then the next day as I went to change the laundry over I see this.

These just melted my heart.
We have been obviously writing them back and forth and putting them in spots where we will find them through out the day.
Today she even sent me on a treasure hunt to find different pieces that say when put together that I am an awesome mommy.
Can I just say simply that she rocks!!

I am linking up today with Lisa.

Top 10 reasons why I am homeschool

A few weeks ago I had Sarah guest post on the ten things she loved about homeschooling. At the time I promised a view point from me. Well here it finally is.

Some of them are similar but for different reasons.
1. For example she likes to sleep in. Well yes we do sleep in later than we would if she would be in public school, however, I still like to start at a decent time. What I like most is the fact that we can adjust this if need be. For instance she dances late on Tuesday and Thursday and on Wednesday nights she has youth group until late. This means often on Friday mornings I let her sleep in later to allow for her body and mind to rest after three late nights in a row.

2. I love the fact that she can work where she is comfortable. Lately it has been on the floor stretched out or under her desk. It doesn't bother me as long as she is working and learning.

3. We often listen to music. This is particularly nice as I have a large selection of worship music that we enjoy listening to. I have a rule though that there is no TV until 2 pm. this way it helps keep her focused on school work and not just rushing through so she can watch a favorite program. This year she is usually finding something else to do and TV is rarely on.

4. We can school anywhere. As long as we have wifi for us anyway as most of her work is done on the computer. However we both have laptops and I have an iPad so we are pretty portable. This is great during dance festival season when we are never home. :)

5. She can work at her own pace. If she is finding something particularly challenging she can work on it longer and on the flip side is she completely understands something she can fly through it. This is great for her in math. She is learning right where she needs to be. She is not pushed through or getting bored if she is rocking it out. This is also vastly helped her grades. It is amazing what happens when you have the time to take to understand the work.

6. She is learning how to be her own person without fear of judgement. She is a very happy exuberant young lady. Most of her friends are into make up, boys, ...  She is mature enough to know that she doesn't need any of that stuff to be wonderful.

7. I can teach her more of the bible. I will be honest and when we first decided to home school this wasn't a big deal to us. I knew that I would be teaching her some but this wasn't the reason we decided to home school. However this year I am finding out how wonderful it is. She is learning more about what God wants. Currently she is SOAPing through James and really enjoying it.

8. I get to bond with her. Last year (our first year homeschooling) was rough. She was frustrated, I was frustrated and we spent a lot of time arguing. It was hard for me to give up "my" time alone during the day and to be with her pretty much 24-7. However, although we have had some challenging days this year, it is becoming more special to get to know her on a different level. Now I get sad when I think that she might be back in public school next year.

9. To take the odd day off and know that we will be just fine. We decided this year that as long as she is caught up or ahead that we would take an extra day off a month to just do whatever. We knew we didn't have to make up for it another time. Do homework some time to make up for it. In September she just chilled and relaxed. We watched some TV we had PVRed.

10. One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the freedom and the flexibility of it. If we need to take a day off because of sickness, or an appointment we do. We don't worry about trying to play catch up or get stressed that she is not working on what she should that day. We can just roll with the punches so to speak.

Now for an extra one.
11. This is my all time favorite reason we homeschool. Because of her. We do it because of what a difference it is making in her. Her grades are way better. Her confidence is strong. She is not getting bullied. She is free to think for herself. It is turning both her and I into better people.

I am linking up today with Angie

Pumpkin craft

This is a super easy craft.
When I saw this on Pinterest I knew I had to give it a try.
So one day last week we had to go to town and I made a list and managed to convince hubby of the stuff we needed to buy. I was buying for about 6 different crafts so some of it he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Now that he is seeing some of them done he is much happier. :)

The first one I made was a bit of a flop. In fact I ended up throwing it out.
First of all I cut too large of a piece of hose and then I tried attaching it together with duct tape. Bad idea. After I spray painted it, you could still see the duct tape. Not pretty.

The second one turned out way better and Sarah and I made another one today.

You start with some dryer vent hose. I found a package of white. You can also use silver as shown in the Pinterest picture. However the most important of course is that it is flexible. We found this package for about $5.00 for 20 feet. I have enough to make some pumpkins for a while. LOL

I then took scissors and cut off a section. When it came to the wire part I just used my husbands wire cutters. It you didn't have any I am sure you could probably cut it with a really strong pair of scissors.
I never measured the first two. As you know the first one was a flop so for the second one I made it substantially smaller. I just curled it around until it formed a circle. Today I thought I would measure so stretched out it was 26" and squeezed together it was 1".

Please ignore all my junk in the background. 

 Then I just hot glued the ends together to form a circle. I found that this size was perfect for what I wanted. You could adjust it if you wanted it bigger.

Then I took it outside and spray painted it this gorgeous orange. It took a bit of spraying from different angles to get into all the crevices but only one coat on both sides.

Then I simply went looking for a small branch, and trimmed it to the size I wanted. I didn't want it sticking to far out of the pumpkin, but again this could be adjusted to whatever your preference was.

Then I dabbed some hot glue in the center and pushed the stick through. It is a pretty tight push so you probably won't even need the hot glue.

This was super easy and fast. The longest time it took was the drying time for the spray paint. It now sits up on my cupboard and I love it. The finished product looks so cute.

What do you think??

A productive week

Wow what a week. We even got snow twice. It is mostly melted now, but it sure was pretty to see. In fact we even worked in it outside on Monday.

1. Continue to work on our outside chores and all the inside ones that are needing done before winter.
We actually did quite a bit of this last Monday. Most of the yard work is now done. It feels good to know that if it snowed and stayed right now it would be alright. 

Hard to tell, but I cleaned out the flower bed and Sarah and I raked leaves and put them in the pumpkin bags. A tradition in our house every year.

2. We had our first visit with our foster care support worker yesterday and as I said before she left a ton of information and a ton of paperwork for us to do. So this month I plan on working on that. The sooner we can get that done the sooner we can get our home study started. She figures over two months for the home study so I need to get on it. :)

Not a lot done on this one. But it my defense it was a crazy week. Plus maybe I shouldn't have worked on so many crafts. LOL

3. Working on crafts. I am hoping to get a lot of Christmas crafts/gifts done this month. This one is a bit more of the hopeful. LOL

I actually have finished two and have 3 more on the go. I spent the good part of today after cleaning, sewing. 
This is one of the crafts that I did. Keep an eye out soon for a tutorial. 

I had such a fantastic day. The sewing machine running, Sarah in the next room visiting with me and we were listening to praise music all day. Does it get any better than that?

I am linking up today with Aurie today. Come and cheer on some others while they work on their 3 in 30 goals this month.