baby projects

I've been making lots of gifts for the recent baby boom of friends having children. It's been so fun. I love making something special for my friends to show them how excited I am about their new arrival. Here are some of the recent projects and links to tutorials I used (cause who needs original ideas anymore? .... thanks pinterest)

This was a blanket I made for a friend of Jeff's from work. I got this idea from a gift that one of my friends gave me when H was born. That blanket is his favorite and he takes it with him to daycare everyday. It is actually a really easy project. It only requires a yard of flannel and a yard of the soft, bumpy fabric. I've made a few of these but this was my first attempt to embroider...I used this book to learn the stitches, but I totally free handed it, so that was not the best idea.



Since I have a boy, it is really fun to get to buy/make girl things. I've been wanting to make a tutu for a while and found a great tutorial on you tube that I used. The best part is there is absolutely no sewing involved! So when I found out my friend was having a girl I immediately ordered some spools of tool on Amazon. Just an FYI it is much easier to use spools than to get a yard from a fabric store.



My next project was a onesie for my nephew Bryce. I had my sister's friends all make her or buy her a special onesie for Bryce that symbolized them. I saw this one on etsy a while ago and knew I had to make it. Since there wasn't a pattern this was my first time drafting my own pattern and figuring it out myself. I ended up making two of these in different sizes and on one I left the edges raw and on one I pressed all the edges. The one with the pressed edges turned out better.



Finally, I saw this adorable tutorial over at Lil' Blue Boo (I totally have a blog crush on her) for a sock bunny and decided to make one for H for Easter. It turned out so cute! I don't have a good picture of the one I made for H, but here is his holding it at the Easter egg hunt today.





I've got a few more baby gifts to make, but don't think I'll be able to get much done until after my comprehensive exam on April 25th. So, please don't come early babies!

The Cross

Around Easter, especially during lent, I try to spend daily time meditating on the person of Jesus and on the consequences of the cross. You won't find pretty, ornate crosses in my house because I try to see the cross for what it was - an instrument of death and torture. Particularly in America, it seems that we are often in a hurry to jump to Easter, the 'happy ending' as it were, and skip over the anguished death of Jesus and the hope of the world dashed to pieces. I don't know how I can truly say God's grace to me was not without effect(1 Corinthians 15:10) unless I am willing to descend into the depths of hell with Him when he bore the sins of the world for the sake of the glory of God. The cross isn't just about nails and pain and the price for MY sin... the cross is so much greater than that. You know that song, the one about how 'He took the nails for me' - that is so far from the whole truth about Jesus. To get to the heart of the cross, we have to get to the heart of God - primarily the deep love of God to manifest His glory among the nations.
Even in the Old Testament, God chose to use individuals, but it was for the greater purpose of manifesting His glory to the watching world, both in righteous anger and awesome acts of mercy. He didn't take the nails for me, for you, or for Christianity. Jesus chose to endure suffering death on the cross so that all men could come to God and God would be made glorious. Somewhere along the way the message of Easter became personal salvation rather than the great mercy of the Father toward his children for all eternity. He is made great, not me.
The recent martyrdom of Jeremiah Small hit me very hard - not because we were close, but because it woke me up. Having lived in the very city he was living in, among the very people whom he loved and gave his life for... it reminded me what is real. Jeremiah was not controlled by the world, but by the love and will of God - that is what led him to Iraq several years ago. When we decided to move overseas it was because we wanted to be obedient and felt compelled to respond to the love of God. But, my experience there and since returning to the States has taught me that living a life controlled by the love and will of God has much more to do with what is inside your heart than your physical, geographical location. I have been a fairly ineffective vessel of God in that I have allowed myself to be controlled by many things and Jesus said it best when he said that "You cannot serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other." Matthew 6:24, Luke 6:13 Jesus didn't give us a lot of room here to love him and love everything else too. In fact, he was very black and white about it being love and hate. I don't think this means we hate in the sense that we express hatred toward everything worldly, that is surely not how Jesus lived on the earth. I think it means we hold in our hearts a single, all consuming passion for only one thing.... and whatever we choose will be the thing through which we filter everything else. If we choose Jesus, than it will be Jesus who inspires us to love those around us, Jesus who inspires us to appreciate the beauty and joy to be had in the world, Jesus who brings us to submission out of his overwhelming kindness towards us.
Jesus died. Jeremiah died. I don't want my life to be unaffected by either of these things. The story of the cross is full of torment and I think it should be. It is good for my soul to meditate on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and in turn respond with overflowing gratitude for all that was purchased on my behalf. Easter is certainly a celebration, without Easter there would be no Christmas. I've always loved the verse where Paul says "And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world." 1 Corinthians 15:19. Jesus made a way, through the cross for us to have a lasting hope - a hope for all eternity. I pray God's grace in my life will continue to be 'not without effect"

Christmas so far

Week 1 of Christmas vacation has been glorious! Lots of good family time, hanging out with friends, sewing, cooking and nap taking! Can I get an Amen?!





We've had lots of good time with our cuddle bug who loves to be in the middle of whatever is going on!y

I made some quilted Christmas coasters for my mom with the leftover Christmas fabric from the bows I made for our tree last year. They turned out pretty cute. And I found some chocolate wine to go with them.... I don't know if it is any good, but it sounds good! I'm in the process of now making Christmas placemats with the fabric I bought to make them 2 years ago.



We did Christmas early with my mom because she is traveling to PA to be with my sister and bro-in-law for Christmas this year. H sure had a lot of fun opening his presents!









We took H and his friend E from church to Jumping Monkeys this week to play on all of the inflatable toys. It was a lot of fun! We were both sore afterwards from the obstacle course - totally getting old....









H's favorite parts of the outing were the ball pit and dancing with E and Santa Claus before we left. It was so much fun. Both kiddos were in tears when we had to leave. Enjoy the dancing video below and Merry Christmas!!

We made it!

I've been waiting for this day for several weeks now, and it is finally here! I'm off work for 2 weeks and 1 day and I have no school for almost a month. I've been waiting to update the blog, and sleep in, and take a nap, and catch up on my sewing projects, and I have lots of activities planned for H and I! We are all desperately in need of a break!

Here are some pics of us getting ready for Christmas







H had a lot of fun helping us decorate the tree this year. It has been fun to see him get excited about Christmas and understand a little more about it. He's had several opportunities to meet Santa and until recently it did not go well. He recognizes Santa and points him out anytime he sees him on TV or in decorations, but at Jeff's Dad's Christmas party Santa showed up and gave each child there a present. For the first time H actually sat on his lap and after he opened his present he went back and told Santa, "Tank You" - it was adorable!



H's daycare had a Christmas pageant this year and H's class was supposed to shake bells and sing jingle bells. We've been practicing jingle bells for weeks now and H's teacher tells me that he is always the loudest singer, so I was hoping to capture him singing sweetly... instead....



Here he is before the song started and before he spotted us in the crowd, and after...



He spent the entire song wresting with the teacher to run away and crying. Poor kid, maybe next year.

Jeff and I got a group together from our church this year to go to a local homeless shelter and host a Christmas party. I didn't get any pictures of it, but we had such a good time singing Christmas Carols, sharing the hope of Jesus, and passing out presents to the residents. While we were there one of the residents had a gift he wanted to give us and he sang, O Holy Night, and he had the most incredible voice - it was truly a gift to worship with him. As we were leaving Jeff & I were talking to a man who told us that another homeless person had just been shot and killed at a bus station just a few blocks away and he was telling us his story of how he ended up in the shelter and how grateful he was to be there. It is always so humbling to hear the stories of others and such a blessing to see how God chooses to provide for them and the joy and hope they have in spite of really difficult circumstances. It was so much better than a white elephant gift exchange and I think we started a new tradition at our church!

We went to Jeff's company Christmas party last night and took a picture together before we went. Sadly, we realized the last picture we took of the two of us was our anniversary last year. oops



Merry Christmas Friends! Wishing you a season full of Joy in Jesus and opportunities to share his glory and greatness!

Thankful

This is a little late, but I figure belated gratefulness is better than no gratefulness at all right? We have SO much to be thankful for this year. It is amazing how much has changed over the last year. In the last year we both started new jobs, H got into the daycare we'd been on the waiting list for, bought our first house, got a new (used) car (did I blog about my new minivan?), I started grad school, we started a small group at our church, Jeff was ordained a deacon at that church, our baby turned 2 and we had enough vacation time to visit our friends and family a few times.
We hosted our first Thanksgiving at our house and minus the fried turkey juice in Jeff's eye and me dropping an entire pie all over the floor, it was a pretty good day! I was reading the other day about how God loves to give good gifts to his children and as a parent I totally get that. I am constantly buying H random stuff just because I know it will make him happy and how much more does the Father know how to give good gifts to His children? Not that the year has been without its challenges and hard times, but I'm so grateful for the ways that I feel like so many things we have been praying for and waiting for have come to fruition over this past year. God is good indeed, in spite of our circumstances, in spite of our feelings even, God is so good to us.
Here's what's been going on since I last blogged.


Family picture fail from when Papa Bill visited for H's 2nd birthday. H has the greatest grandparents ever, seriously!



We went to a wedding of some good friends in Waco. It was so fun to get to spend time with so many of our friends and we feel so lucky to have such an incredible group of people who we totally love.


Elyse and I celebrated our 28th birthday on the day before our actual birthday (Thanksgiving) and H totally thought the party was all about him.




It was so wonderful to have Elyse & Stephen down for Thanksgiving. H totally adores his Eese & Seeven. Aaaaaand you might notice that Elyse is carrying her own bundle of joy that will arrive in March! Yay!!!!


Christmas should be a blast this year as H is totally into the Christmas spirit this year. It has been fun to see him get all excited and to talk with him more about why we celebrate Christmas. He has his own nativity set and likes to take turns putting the animals and "Bebe Cheesus" on the roof.

He is Risen!

We had an eventful Resurrection weekend! I wasn't sure we were going to make it through it at first! I started coming down with a cold on Thursday. Thursday night Papa Bill & JoJo came down to stay with us for the weekend. Sometime in the middle of the night Thursday Jeff started throwing up and had a fever. The next day he was pretty much toast. Friday night I started feeling bad and thought I had what Jeff had and his fever went way up again. By Saturday we were mostly better except my cold had become a sinus infection. Fortunately we didn't seem to infect our guests and we still managed to have some enjoyable quality time together!


Here we are dying eggs


H liked to throw the egg into the dye



H kind of lost interest in the egg hunt after about 6 eggs, but he did a good job finding them!






There's chocolate in this one!




Easter Stickers!


Ready for Church



Thanks for coming to visit Papa Bill & JoJo! We had so much fun with you!!

Belated V-Day!

I took pictures to post on Valentine's Day... I even took them the day before... but here I am just now posting them.


H had his first Valentine's Day party at school! It was fun to make little pink cupcakes for his class!



My sweet husband got my car detailed for V-day (it is what I wanted) so no more cheerios and trash - for at least a week or so? And to top it off he let me buy a way too expensive purse! The Kate Spade sample sale is going on this week and they are having huge sales!! I haven't bought a purse since before we moved to Iraq so I really wanted to get a new one. This was obviously more than my monthly 'allowance' (I use quotes because I tend to spend more than 'allowed'), but hubs agreed to let me pay it off in installments and won't even charge me interest. Right, hubs? He was a little vague on that point... =)



Isn't it beautiful? Happy Valentine's Day to me. I got hubs some socks... he really wanted them? I know... he wins, or do I? I like to think of it as a win win.

Happy Grandparents Day!

Sunday is Grandparent's Day and I wanted to take a minute to say how AMAZING Haydn's grandparents are. I mean seriously, this kid is so lucky to have such wonderful, loving, fun, involved grandparents. Jeff & I are so grateful for the ways you love H and the special things each of you do and will do with him.


Grandpa, thank you for always playing with me and letting me cuddle with you! I am always so happy when I see you! I love you.


Agi, thank you for singing to me and letting me jump all over you! You take such good care of me and I love you lots.


Papa Bill & JoJo are the coolest! JoJo, thank you for always thinking of me when you go shopping and for making special time for me. PaPa Bill, thank you for coming to see me and for letting me get you really dirty! I love you both and can't wait to see you again!


Grandma, thank you for always being willing to entertain me and play fun games with me! I love to go to your house and play with all of your toys! You are so special, I love you.

Happy Grandparents Day to the most amazing Grandparents around. You are such a blessing to our family

Easter Basket

Aunt Elyse & Uncle Stephen got H his first Easter basket and we took some pictures of him with it today for them. He sure liked to chew on it and roll it.









Thanks Bealers! H will love it for his future egg hunts.