Little Friend!

I also wanted to include some pictures today of the little guy I get to hang out with this summer!
Little weirdo... :)
Fave...
After losing the first tooth... In a sandwich and eating it!

More Crafts! :)

If some of you haven't seen it at my house... I made a new bench! Mom helped me with a lot of if, but it was really fun! The top we took to a cute little man in Muleshoe to cover for me. He has done lots of upholstery work for us, but he took the buttons and actually attached them through the foam down to the wood! Hopefully they will hold up like that for along time!

Unmotivated...

I want to start off and apologize to everyone (if anyone) who follows my blog... Geez... It's been so long since I've posted anything. It's pretty embarrassing!

Not a whole lot has been happening around here lately, but I really just haven't set aside any time to make any posts!

I have started a new project though... And I'm really excited about it! My friend Courtney is having a baby in October, and I'm making her a baby quilt! :) I spent yesterday afternoon with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law picking out fabric for it and all the supplies I'd need. Courtney is making her own bumpers and bed skirt for the crib, so she showed me that fabric and I'm incorporating it into the quilt.

Like I said, I'm really excited to get started and see what I've got in me! I'm really going to try and document the whole process, so if I get out of this "blogging funk" I'll be sure and post it!

Forgive me for being so lethargic with this lately!! :) Hang with me!

InFLUenza... BOOO!

Sunday: Kelsey stayed home from church. I was pretty sure it was due to the fact that he spent every night of the week before out with Pledge Week until 11 or 12 - in the cold. Then he spent Saturday night with Koinonia until... oh... 4 in the morning. I figured he was just really tired and this caused a cold or something. Sunday night we realized he was pretty sick!

I slept on the couch. :) No one wants to be sick... and someone has to make some money around here!

Monday: He stayed home from work and I went to work, came home, cooked dinner, and made him stay in our room. I slept on the couch again. :)

Tuesday: Kelsey still didn't feel good so he stayed home again and I went to work. After lunch, Deuce (one of the boys I help take care of) and I layed down on the couch to watch Up. I started feeling a little bad, just coughing and stuff. I didn't think I was getting sick, just maybe a cold (and it didn't help that Deuce kept coughing right in my face - haha!) By the time I got home at 6, I was feeling pretty bad, and by 9 I had a pretty high fever. Kelsey had started feeling somewhat better so he moved to the guest room :( and I took over our room.

So Wednesday I went to the doctor and tested positive for the FLU. I didn't work the rest of the week and still don't feel 100%!

What a mess.... I hate being sick! The thing that makes me laugh though is that I feel like we are roommates the past two weeks. He would get home at 1130 or 12 from Pledge Week and I would already be in bed. He gets up before me and wakes me up before he leaves and then I wouldn't see him the rest of the day that week. Then we got sick and started sleeping in different rooms because by the time he felt better I got sick! Blah! This is no fun!

Anyway... besides feeling useless and frustrated, I'm just ready to get things back to normal. If you call us normal... Whatever we USUALLY are, I want that back! :)

Confessions...

(It took me about 10 min to write this, and about an hour more to post it... wondering if I should. I obviously took the leap... be patient (and gracious) with me...)

All right, if any of you know me very well, you know I'm pretty honest... Sometimes too honest. But when it comes to talking about myself and my struggles I clam up. Well here it goes, here are confessions I would like to make about myself (hoping that saying them - or writing them really - will convict me and help me change these things I dislike about myself). I apologize in advance if this gets long or I ramble too much. This is literally just me... I am NOT writing this for pity and if you want to stay away from this, I suggest you turn around right now! :) I want to be better. I want to be filled to the brim. I was compelled today to share:


-- First of all, I am a child of God and I strive every day to please him with what I do and how I live my life. I fail daily. Maybe even hourly... :( This is so discouraging to me because it has taken me a really long time to discover grace. I always heard about "grace" in Bible school and from the preacher but never really understood what it meant. I finally concluded that if I just don't sin, I won't need grace. And that would be true if that was obtainable...

But it isn't.

I fall short every day and was finding myself overwhelmed with guilt. Guilt about things I had done years ago, last week, yesterday...

I can safely say I discovered grace sometime in college. I was able to really FIND myself with God, creating my own personal relationship with Him on my own, without people telling me how to do it. It took alot of breakdowns, fits, and resentment to finally wake up and say, wow... you really love me God? - Even after this??

And today I can stand and say without a shadow of a doubt that I continue to yearn for Him, falling short over and over trying to please Him, but get up, stronger than before and press on while he holds my hand. I pray that feeling never leaves.


-- One of my biggest struggles is contentment. Even saying the word makes me want to turn around and RUN! But it's true. It is SO hard for me to happy with my car, my house, my "stuff", myself... I find myself constantly wanting newer and better.

I am always thankful and feel humbled by the things God has blessed me with and try and use everything I have to bless Him, but...

Here comes the little devil on my shoulder saying "Well, if you just had a bigger house more people would like you!" "If you were prettier more people would notice you." "If you made more money you would have more friends." "Why save up money for something you will never get... spend it all now while you have it!"

Whew... it's a roller coaster of emotions trying to be the best I can, while Satan tugs at my thoughts trying to bring me down.

So this is all I can think to do... "Please Lord, HELP! Help me be content with what I have, how I look, who I am... I have turned my back for a split second to let Satan have a chance to talk - take me back! Here's my hand and I want to go with you to the end. Bless me with contentment."


-- Speaking about contentment, brings about another feeling: Jealousy - the little green monster in everyone's mind. I discover quite frequently how I become jealous about not looking a certain way. There is a certain way that I have for some reason formulated in my mind of how a girl/woman should look, and I don't fit that category. I honestly can hardly say anything more about it, because that's just it: I don't fit the mold I want to.

I want to be happy with myself, embrace my body, and feel beautiful every day. There are some days I truly believe this and I know this is because I wake up in a good place with God. But then other days, when I don't feel happy and beautiful, Satan's there again... telling me that I'm not happy and I'm not beautiful. And I listen. :(


-- I want grace so badly, but am so stingy with giving it to anyone else. When I get hurt, I instinctively want to hurt back. :( This is NOT an endearing quality and I want to be rid of it today: RIGHT NOW.

In my head sometimes I think that if I hurt them like they hurt me, it will make me feel better... This is not the case and I have a directly opposite feeling: disgust in my own self.


*** I probably could ramble on and on about my struggles all day, but I won't. All I ask if you have read this is to pray. Pray for me and pray for everyone else (or yourself) who has struggles like these that are hard to deal with. I realize that all of these things can be changed. And I want to take a stand today and do just that! We are WOMEN OF AN ALL-POWERFUL GOD! I want to stand together and tell Satan to SHUT UP! He's so dumb! We don't have to listen to anyone telling us our house is not good enough, we are not pretty enough, we are not smart enough, or we are not good enough. Those are ALL lies.

It's time to face the truth: We Are Loved. I Am Loved.

Back to work...

Christmas break is over... And now it's back to work! We had a great time with family and friends, but now it's time to get back into the routine again... I made a few more crosses that I wanted to share with everyone! The two above were small, so I just took the picture together. This next one I made for my aunt Lori (again, sorry for the quality - I took the picture with my iPhone!

And this last one is the same picture I took of the cross I made for Chicken Express, but hopefully you can see it better!

I also wanted to include this picture of the cake I made for my friend Abbie for her birthday! She had her birthday before Christmas but we didn't get to celebrate it, so we did it at our party with our small group on New Year's Eve!

I'm here to tell you... it took a REALLY long time and two cramping hands, but in the end, I was really impressed with myself and it made it really worth the time (and pain!)

I hope you all have a really great year this year, and I hope I can stand up to my resolutions and make some changes this year! :)

More Crafts!

Here's a project I made for Sarah for Christmas...