Daddy the fisherman

This is one of those memories that I want to freeze in time so I thought I'd write it here to look back upon it one day ;)

We had a friend come over for dinner last night and I was tucking Lauren in her bed as the guys were chatting in the living room. She asked me if daddy's friend has Jesus in his heart and told her that he didn't but daddy was talking to him about Jesus right now.

Suddenly a light bulb went off and she said, 'my daddy's a fisherman! He's fishing for men like Jesus says!'.
Melted.my.heart.


“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” Matthew 4:19

Rainbow pancakes

I'm beginning to see a theme here with my posts in the past few weeks... the kids and I are always in the kitchen either cooking, experimenting or crafting ;)

Yesterday we made Rainbow pancakes; nothing special really, just colored batter but the kids thought it was super cool!

Voila!

I was planning on serving them with butter and syrup but the kids had other plans...

Rainbow pancake sandwiches!

It was a fun, yummy breakfast... for dinner ;)

Parking Lot Sight Words

Lauren will be starting Kindergarten this year and Jake will be starting PreK, so I decided to implement a fun game to get them both learning the sight words they need to memorize. This is pretty similar to the Fishing game I posted yesterday but this was specifically made for Jake since he's my car boy ;)

Supplies:
-Paper
-Cars
-Marker
-List of sight words

Directions:
Draw parking spaces and fill in each space with sight words.

Your child should park a Hot Wheels® car on the designated word that you call out. You can also cater this for younger children with letters and numbers.

Happy Learning!

Sight word Fishing!

A few days ago at my friend Mandy's Pinterest party, I made my kiddos this fishing game, which is simple to make and lots of fun to play. I had read about it somewhere a while back and decided it would be a great way for them, specifically Lauren, to study their sight words in addition to the Parking Lot Sight Word game I also made (esp. for Jake; separate post coming soon).

Supplies:

Colorful card stock paper

Paper clips

Scissors

Yarn

Round Magnet (available @ any craft store)
Glue Gun
Wooden Dowel or simple stick

Directions:

-Cut out fish shapes from various colored card stock, and attach a paper clip to the fish cutout. Then write a sight word on one side of the fish.

-Next take your dowel and attach yarn to it (you can determine your own length), but don't make it too long otherwise it can make the string harder to control for the kids when fishing. Then take a small round magnet and hot glue gun it to the end of the yarn.

-Have your child go fishing.. Once the child catches a fish, have them read the sight word. If they read it correctly, they get to keep the fish. If they don't know the word, tell them how to pronounce it, and put it back in the "lake". The goal is to catch all the fish.

I love that it's made memorizing sight words FUN!

Pinterest party!

My friend Mandy hosted a Pinterest party about a week ago and it was SO.MUCH.FUN!! Since it was my Birthday earlier in the week, Mandy dressed me up in her usual embarrassing attire, as evidence above :)

There was lots of yummy food; caprese appetizer bites, spaghetti, eggplant parm, bread, salad, red velvet cupcakes and my fave, strawberry shortcake (with homemade butter bundt cake and homemade whip... thanks Sarah!!)

We had so much fun chatting, eating, crafting and watching Brian do stunts, haha :)

So, so, so thankful to call these women my friends. Love you guys!

PreK graduation

::sniff sniff::

My baby girl graduated from PreK.
It's bittersweet for me. Lauren LOVES school. She's thriving there, no longer shy but making lots of new friends. And she's reading. And writing. Everything I prayed for in terms of PreK has happened. It's been a wonderful, successful year.

And yet, that means that she'll be in Kindy in just a few short months. The plan was to begin homeschooling, and yet, God was apparently teaching me a lesson. Just because He laid it on my heart to homeschool, it doesn't necessarily mean NOW. It means when His timing is right and clearly I jumped the gun. But it's okay and I'm thankful that for now, it's not the right time; mainly because Lauren has BEGGED to go to Kindergarten with Mrs. Cooper, knowing that it's everyday and she'll have to miss out on fun things like LLC. Also because it gives me time with Jake and Megan while my big girl is in school daily.

With all that said, Graduation night came and both kids graduated... Lauren from PreK and Jake from the enrichment class :)
They performed a few songs:

Then they each said a Bible verse. Jake said "Love one another":

Then Lauren said "Trust in the Lord with all your heart":

The enrichment class kiddos got their little certificates:

and then the Prschoolers came out in their caps and gowns. I'm not gonna lie, I got all teary eyed seeing what a big girl she has become :)

All of the PreK kids went to the microphone, said their names and ages, and then were handed their Diploma

At the end of the night, Ms. Wanda and Ms. Sheri got on stage and thanked each of us for the opportunity for being a part of our children's lives. And holding a bouquet of flowers, they called me up on stage, thanking me for coming every week to cook with the kids. I was surprised and honored :)

And so, one leaves PreK while the next enters it. Here's to another year with wonderful Ms. Wanda and Ms. Sheri :)

Mothers Day 2012

I didn't get a picture of the kiddos and I on Mothers Day because I spent most of the day in bed being sick :( Thankfully my family took care of me, bringing me breakfast in bed (oatmeal prepared by Lauren and Jake) and then a yummy spaghetti dinner.

There was lots of snuggling, story reading and kisses though... which made my day ;)

Anyway, all of that to say that I'm pretending the picture above was taken on Mothers Day... it's close enough ;)

Happy Anniversary my love!

Happy Anniversary to us! Yesterday we celebrated six years!

As we were then...

And as we are now...

My husband is a good man, a godly man, a man who loves the Lord Jesus. He works hard to take care of us and spoils me rotten ;) I am so thankful for my husband, for our marriage, for how well my husband loves me, and for our life together, including three beautiful children. He knows me like no one else and yet remains my biggest fan! I love Jesus more and I see His grace better through the love lavished on me by my husband. If you'd asked me years ago after being brokenhearted by divorce, I wouldn't have thought it possible that I would one day love and marry again. Thankfully, God had bigger and better plans than I could have ever dreamed of and placed Justin in my life. I am blessed. I am grateful. I love him so.

Happy Anniversary babe. I can't wait to see where God leads us ;)

The enemy lies

A few quiet moments to myself.. that's what all busy mama's dream about ;) A chance to sit on the sofa with my feet up, browse Pinterest for a moment, or make myself a cup of tea in the kitchen without getting bomabarded with 'mom, I'm hungryyyy!'. I hope and pray for these moments of quiet time, and usually they do come at night when everyone is bathed, jammied, read to, smooched on and tucked in ;) And then it's just me and my thoughts...

So I sit on the sofa with the intent to just be. I imagine it will be relaxing. And refreshing. And just easy.

But then my mind starts to get overwhelmed. I can't just sit and be because I should be doing dishes! The kitchen is a mess. And while I'm in there, maybe I should make a menu for dinners this week. Oh, and speaking of food, I should be on the treadmill, burning off today's calories. Or doing a workout video even. But wait, there's Bible study I haven't had a chance to get to today... that's even more important. And I have that new Bible devotional my girlfriend gave me that I should begin. But I still haven't even finished that book I began a month ago. Ahh, scratch that; I'm not caught up on Megan's baby book. I should be doing that instead because she's not getting any younger. Ahh shoot, my hubby is sitting next to me studying... perhaps we should play a game like Yahtzee? Or snuggle on the couch cause it's important for us to connect. Hmm, nevermind,  I didn't finish putting away the laundry. Or get the kids clothes out for tomorrow morning... those have to be done before anything else. Or do they?

etc, etc, etc...

Seriously, this goes through my mind within a matter of moments (and we wonder why our poor husbands can't read our minds? ;) ). And it's sort of debilitating because it causes me to sit immobilized by all of the things I HAVE to do. Things that don't matter in the long run because they aren't eternal but yet, there I sit overwhelmed and ashamed.

But sharing it aloud right now? It's sort of invigorating getting it off my chest and hopefully reaching out to someone struggling with the same issue :)

You see, I've been praying fervently about this. And because He is faithful, I have found much comfort in Him and His word.

As I sit immobilized by the things of this world and the things I MUST get done, Satan is beaming, thrilled with my anxiousness. Why? Because he delights in getting our focus off of the One who cares for and loves us. Every chance he gets to undermine God's GOOD plan for us, he's all over it. The enemy is out to deceive, lie and tempt us to take our eyes off of Him... our Saviour whose plan is to prosper us.

Once the Lord opened my eyes to see what Satan has been doing, I began searching His Word to ingrain these truths in my memory for times like this when Satan begins to deceive me and get me off track. And as only the Lord can do, His Word spoke to me deep in my heart:

 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  -Philippians 4:6-7

And so, this is one of the Scriptures that I am meditating on because He loves us, He adores us, He died for us...

If you struggle with this whole 'downward spiral' of lies Satan feeds us, will you join me in prayer? Lets lean on Him and each other as brothers and sisters in Christ to find comfort and peace in Him and Him alone ;)

Shall we? I'm in!

Rolling foamies

My girlfriend Mandy and I enjoy sharing ideas on fun projects, crafts and activities to do with the kids. So when she saw this idea, she sent it to me and I'm so happy she did because my kiddos LOVED it :)

Anything my kids can do with paint, they'll all in ;) Thanks for the fun idea girl!

Applesauce muffins with my girls

Jake ended up taking a super long nap a few days ago. Between the constant eating and napping lately, he must be on some sort of a crazy growth spurt :)

So it was just me and my girls for a while. One of Laurens favorite things to do is bake with me and seeing as how I didn't learn to cook or bake until I got married, I'm a little hyper sensitive to making sure my kiddos learn how to prepare food. So that's just what we did and ended up making some yummy, healthy applesauce muffins which I found here :)

Even Meg got in on the action:

She really liked the batter licking part :)

Yummy, easy and healthy. Plus, it was fun baking with my biggest girl :)