Christmas gifts for Gracie

Got these in the mail today. I didn't order them to do for Christmas but since they came I figured why not. Used my Cricut to cut out her name on the little snack container and the G on the sippy cup.

Passy clip holder.

Got a onesie at Target and put a zebra stripped G on it for her.

Crafting today

Enjoying my day off by crafting. Made these cute flower clips for baby Gracie. She has a crochet hat that you can change out the bows. While we were at a craft fair Holly found some of these that were $5. She was going to buy them and I told her not to that I would make them. Don't get me wrong, they are worth the $5. But I wanted to save Holly a pretty penny. I loved making them for Gracie.

Here is a water bottle that I also did today.

Why are you in the top of your closet?

Will in the top of his closet eating Frito's. He should not be eating in his room but I guess he thinks it's okay if he is in the top of the closet.
He didn't even need a chair to get up there or down from there. My little monkey!

While in AR

Cousins

Faith and a cat at Meme's that she claims is hers.

Will and Bo that he claims is his. The best kind of pets. Ones that stay somewhere else and you don't have to take care of:)

Gifts that I have made lately

I had an order for some monogrammed note cards and filled the order today.

These are some hand sanitizers that I made up to put into the girls goodie bags for Faith's birthday party. I figured that we will keep the swine flu away!

While we were dealing with the death of Brent's brother we had several people do some very nice things for us and I wanted to give them a little thank you gift.

Faith's Birthday

Faith and Gracie

Faith and her sewing machine!

Faith turns 10. We had a party at the skating rink.

Desk items for teachers

A couple of different items I made for the kids soon to be teachers.

Here they are in the bag!

I thought that I would make myself some desk items also. I don't make myself very much stuff.

VBS volunteer gifts

Here are 2 of the 5 VBS volunteer gifts that I made for the volunteers for each day. The first picture is 3 pieces of Hershey's milk chocolate nuggets wrapped with paper. I got the idea from the "pink stamper".

This is just a water bottle with a hanging card with the same paper. Can't remember where the idea came from. I have seen several different ones online.

Having fun making cards

These cards I made at a Stampin Up party! This was the first SU party that I had been to. I had just started making cards not too long ago and thought that it would be fun to go and learn more about card making. We also made a cute card box to put them in but did not get a pic of it.

Made these 2 about 2 weeks ago while at a friends house.

The card that says 'Thinking of You" is so far my fav.

Here are 2 BDay cards. A little different but close to the same.

Two baby cards. They are not my fav. I will be trying to think of something else for baby cards.

Birds and owls seem to be big right now.

So now I have a little stash on hand so I don't have to scramble to make a card quickly when a birthday comes up or I just need a card. I have really enjoyed making these cards. I always said that I would never make cards but it is a lot of fun. Never say Never.

Some thank you gifts

Here are some little 'Thank You' favors that I made today. It is a post it cover. I got the idea from a blog "chic'n Scratch". Very easy and was quick. I got about 4 done in 30 mins.

A New Craft!

Made Faith some flip flops. Got Faith some flip flops for less than $2 dollars at Hobby Lobby when they were half off. I made some bows and attached them to the flip flop with Velcro. Very simple! When we were in Pensacola we saw some at a store that were pretty pricey. And of course I said I can make those. Now I just need to start working on some more bows to change out.

Wanted to share something that I read today with you!

Okay well I thought that the pictures were going to be down at the bottom of this post but it didn't happen that way. Please read the post then come back up and look at the pictures to see the difference in the pictures.

Today I was reading a devotional book "A Closer Walk" by Steve Troxel. The devotion was titled, A Vessel of Purity. It talks about the greatest commandment is "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). God wants all our love he does not want to share it with anything else of this world; "For the Lord your God is a jealous God" (Deuteronomy4:24)

I wanted to paraphrase what he said in this devotion but I will just type what he wrote not to miss anything.

Giving God the fullness of our love requires that we live a very focused and holy life; "But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do" (1 Peter 1:15). Our love must be intently focused on the holy things of God rather than the corrupted things of this world. Any time we allow our love for God to mix with our love for the world, the worldly love initially dilutes and eventually completely over takes any love for God.

James 3:11-12

"Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."

Are we trying to walk on both sides of the fence? Do we maintain our "Godly" activities along side our "ungodly" activities? Do we praise God and discuss Biblical issues during certain portions of the week and then lust after the world during the other? If so, beware! The ungodly will soon overtake and totally consume the Godly - and we won't even be aware it's happening. If we're not careful, we will one day look at what consumes our attention and say, "How did I come to this place in my life? When did I leave God's path?"

The good news is we have been given the Holy Spirit as the Great Purifier. If we make the time to carefully listen, He will "guide us into all truth: (John 16:13). If we submit to His leading, He will strain, sift, distill, and refine until all that remains is the fresh and the pure.

Purity does not come by separation from the world, it comes as our heart is wholly separated into God. We have been planted amongst the weeds of the world and there we will remain until the day of the great harvest (Matthew 13:24-30). But while we must live and minister among the things of this world, and while worldly blessings and provisions, we must never give our worship to the things of this world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15).

Jesus has made us into a new vessel and asked that we be filled with what is pure and Holy Let's stop mixing fresh water and salty water, Godly and ungodly devotion. Let's commit every area of our life (without compromise!) to our Heavenly Father and glorify Him in all we do by maintaining a vessel of purity.

This devotion really spoke to me this morning. Yes, my toes are flat from all the stomping! This one is one where I could understand the part of the fresh water and the salty water mixing. If I had read this 3 weeks ago it might not have spoke to me as much as it did today. While we were in FL on vacation I got to see what water looks like when fresh and salty mix. It is not very clean looking. At the time when I saw it I did not know why it looked the way that it did. I just told the kids that it looked dirty and that they couldn't swim in it and to wait till we could go back to the other beach. I later found out that it was brown because of the salt and fresh water mixing. I know that I don't want my life to look like the brown water I want the blue clean clear water. I hope that in these pictures you can see the difference. The brown water picture was taken on the Navy base beach and the blue water picture was take about 30 mins. down the road at Pensacola Beach.

Gracie Mae- My new niece

Last night we got to go and visit Gracie in the hospital. She was born on May 7th. She weighed 7lbs. 10ozs. Here are some pictures that I took. She is beautiful!! Sorry about the date. I haven't changed it yet.

Gracie with Grandma and Grandpa

Gracie holing her mama's finger.

Gracie with mom, dad, and brother Lane.

Cousins

Gracie with her brother Lane

Gracie and her aunt Kristen

Will and GracieFaith and Gracie

Gracie sucking her finger

Teacher Appreciation Week

May 3rd-9th is teacher appreciation week and May 5th is teacher appreciation day. I do appreciate Faith and Will's teachers so much. They take great care of my kids through out the day. I wanted to make them some gifts to let them know that they are appreciated. They will get a gift everyday through out the week. Here is a treat container that I did for them. I used my Cricut to cut out the letters out of vinyl. I put the white paper in the container so that you could see what it said. I also added 2 bags of candy.

Here is some water with a drink mix and 3 little Milky Ways wrapped up. The water has a tag on it that says, "Thanks for quenching the thirst for knowledge" and the Milky Way wrapper says, "You are out of this world"


Here is some microwave popcorn wrapped up and an envelope that has 75cents in it so that they can go and get a coke from the coke machine. The popcorn says, "Just popping on by to say you're a great teacher. The envelope says, "Pop, pop, fizz, fizz. Oh what a great teacher you is!" I know that it is not correct English but it sounds cute.

Here are some candles that I used my Cricut machine to do the letters on. It has a tag that says "Thanks for letting your light shine"

Here is some bath salt. It says, "Some days can be a strain on your body and your brain, so when you feel stressed, a hot bath is best, it truly will help keep you sane."

Here is some clipboards that have paper glued down to it and some pencils. The tag on the pencils says, "Pencils are #2 because teachers are #1."

This is the backside of the clipboard.

I hope that you will let your child's teacher know that you appreciate them with a note of thanks.