Happy St Patty's day!

Of course a new holiday brings new crafts! Don't y'all  just LOVE pinterest? I've never had such an addiction love of finding things on the internet before. Seriously, am I the only one  with the problem? ;) 


But here's what we've been working on around here. First up a little St Patty's day decor. A wreath inspired by the fabulous Toni of MakeBakeCelebrate. 

Then some free printables I found from Tai Dye Orginial. We don't believe in luck so this was the perfect addition to our little table.

I couldn't get a good picture of the other one, but you can see it in the back ground of the leprechaun trap. Hannah's teacher  asked us to make a leprechaun trap and I've always wanted to do that with the girls, but never have. Here was the inspiration:  Love Sweet Love's Tricky Leprechaun Hat

Next up of course the girls had to have shirts to wear for the green day: Skip to my Lou (if you're not following her blog, you should be... soo great!) turned me onto the freezer paper stencil idea. I love how these turned out! The big girls got these and SG got the sweet little shamrock on the bottom. 

 And of course no outfit is complete without a matching hairbow... :o) Those are just store bought shamrocks hot glued to hair clips. 

So that's how we're celebrating St Patty's day around here... of course there will be green snacks to give out to their friends at school for their class parties too. Thank you pinterest for once again making all of my crafting dreams become a reality! ;)

U is for Unique

For the most part I LOVE being a Momma. I love having 3 little girls who look to me for all of the answers to life's questions. I love that they love me unconditionally even on my bad days. I love that I get to see the world for the first time through their eyes. I love that they are each unique and bring their own perspective to each day. 


Then every now and again we will have a day like yesterday where everything seems just off. I'll be honest, if anyone actually witnessed my mothering skills yesterday, I certainly wouldn't have won any "best mom ever" awards. My baby is 16 mos old and gets into everything. And i do mean EVERYTHING! As i type this she just dumped out a whole bag of pretzels. Yesterday I spent all day following behind her cleaning up messes, including one yucky diaper that required a bath to be cleaned up. By the time the hubby came home I was grumbling like no other. "How was your day?" he asked. "Terrible!" was my reply. Then today started off just about the same. We went to a friend's house in which she insisted on playing on the stairs for the whole visit. And basically just keeping me from enjoying the time we were there. I came home feeling really defeated and frustrated that I couldn't keep her entertained long enough to get anything done. 


So as soon as we got home I fed her and Bekah lunch and took a few minutes for myself in the bathroom. If you're a mom you know how precious even 5 minutes alone in the bathroom can be. While I was in the library, as we call it, I ran across a really interesting article from magazine that I didn't subscribe too, but somehow started receiving. God must have known that I would need what the author of this one article wrote.   It was so good I'm going to quote it bc I don't think paraphrasing it would do it justice so here goes...


The article is called: Reality Check, when we're tempted to get discouraged  because of our shortcomings- or because of someone else's perfection- it's time to take a closer look. By Derri Smith


"Check #3 
Different children are made for different purposes, all equally valuable. God certainly put the right children into the right families.  The future God planned for one child requires an easy grasp of higher math; the future of another does not.  One child needs skill and knowledge for cooking with the most basic ingredients, perhaps bc his or her future will be far from an American style grocery store.  Another may become an ambassador, rarely cooking at all but needing to know how to relate sensitively and graciously to many types of people and perhaps in many languages.  The truth is God knows our children's futures.  He made them with all the gifts and interests they will need, and he will provide them with the experiences needed to fulfill His purposes. our charge is to stay in tune with Him and with each child, rather than trying to conform Sally to the image of Sue."


This spoke to me so strongly. Here I'd been comparing my baby to my other girls and complaining about how "difficult" she is to care for instead of viewing her as the one who God created her to be and nurturing her into that person. I was reminded that my sweet little curious girl who always wants to try on everyone's shoes, and wants to dump out every container, and empty every cabinet all while standing on top of a kitchen counter... is a special unique creation of a loving Father who must have known that she would need that curiosity to accomplish what he'd designed for her life. 


I hope you will take the time today to see each of your children for exactly who God created them to be and take a moment to appreciate just how unique they are!