Prayer/Personal Journals

Tuesday night was our monthly Keepers of the Faith club meeting. It was my month to teach and our topic was prayer and personal journaling. I thought it would be fun to decorate our own journals, and we decided to include the boys (Contenders of the Faith club) as well.

Jeff did a talk on prayer and then I did one on journaling, after which we all dug into the craft supplies and started creating. It was so much fun to see the different ideas that all of the children came up with for their journals. The children made smaller journals than the one pictured above (which was beautifully made by Laura yesterday). Here are some of the samples that I made to show at the club meeting -

This one is a girly one, simple but frilly -

And one for the boys – I love this paper with the vintage cowboys on it! -

On this one, the notebook was already so decorative, that I had Sarah just add ribbons – it turned out great and made this one the easiest one to make!

I take that back – this was the easiest to make. I took a ready made journal that I found on the clearance rack at Michael’s for 50 cents -added a ribbon and pencil, and a sticker on the front to cover up a “T” initial (which would only work for Tommy around here, and he wasn’t too keen about the pink color!) -

Here is one that Laura made as another sample. She added a ribbon bookmark to hers -

Laura also made this one using a blank assignment book -

Tommy created this one using two different scrapbook papers, stickers, ribbon and a leather cord -

Our basic plan was to cover a small notebook with scrapbook paper and then embellish it with ribbon or twine and stickers. My stamp club leader showed me how to do this, so that I could share it with the children. Thanks Michele! Want to try it yourself? Here are the steps:

- Separate the cover from the rest of the notebook by either: removing the spiral wire by rotating it around and around until it is removed – or by sliding it off of the spiral (if it is designed this way). It just depends on the design of the spiral.

- Lay the cover on the back of the chosen scrapbook paper and trace around it, also tracing the spiral holes on the edge.

- Cut out the paper on the traced lines and then punch out the holes along the edge. You need to try to carefully match the size of the holes with your punch. I ended up using my eyelet hole punch with a hammer, as it was just the right size – just experiment until you find one that matches your spiral. I think that the boys probably enjoyed using the hammer and it made this craft a bit more to their liking!

- Glue the paper to the cover, being careful to line the spiral holes and edges up well.

- Reassemble the notebook with the spiral wire.

- Embellish as desired. To get the ribbon effect along the edge, we simply tied a length (about 4 1/2″) of ribbon onto each wire in alternating patterns all the way across (or down) the notebook. Most of the boys used twine or leather cording to attach a pencil or to make a hanger across the top. Many of the children added ribbon across the front of the notebook for decoration.

All of the children really enjoyed making these and my own came home so excited that they spent most of yesterday making more. In fact, I hear them hammering in the other room now – so someone is working on one as I write. (either that or they’re taking the house apart – maybe I’d better go check – ok, everything’s fine.) Here are some of the notebooks that my kiddos created -

Sarah made these two at the club meeting -

And then she made this one at home yesterday -

Michael made this one, which he is hanging beside his bed. It has a list of people in it that he is praying for each night -

Tommy has made many (I’ve lost count!) in the last few days. Here are a few of his -

Even Anna made one too, with a little help!

This craft isn’t too challenging (kind of depends on the type of rings on the spiral), but is very rewarding, and creates a useful, personal notebook that can be used in many different ways. Laura has already started filling the one at the top with drawings of wolves!

Let me know if you try it!

Blessings,
Nancy

From the Learning Room ~ Homemade Dye and “A New Coat for Anna”

One of our activities last week to go along with our study of “A New Coat for Anna” by Alfred A. Knopf was to make a homemade dye, as they did in the story. In the story, Anna and her mother picked lingonberries to “make a beautiful red dye”. This was the first time I had ever heard of lingonberries, so I didn’t expect to find any, but I did have some fresh blueberries in the freezer that would make a nice substitute.

First I boiled a pan of water -

Next I added the blueberries (thawed) and let them boil for about 1/2 hour – until it looked like the water had turned a nice deep color -

I took them off of the heat and let them set for awhile to steep as much color out of the berries as possible. I then strained them through cheesecloth into another pan. I gave each child a swatch of white fabric and they each placed their swatch into the pan of dye. We pressed the fabric down into the dye with a wooden spoon and left it for awhile, while we watched our nightly “Little House” episode. -

When we came back to it, the white fabric swatches had turned a lovely shade of purple! We squeezed them out and laid them on waxed paper to dry.

Tommy’s finger here is pointing to the white swatch (hard to see) we started with, which shows the transformation -

I will be ironing these and then cutting them into the shape of a coat(s). We will then mount them on a piece of cardstock with the title of the book and they will be placed into the children’s notebooks.

Another short project that I did with the littles last week was to make these cotton ball sheep -

The olders and I read about sheep in the encyclopedia and we all took a short drive down the road to take a look at a neighboring farmer’s flock of sheep.

I shared these pictures earlier of the children weaving placemats to complement our study -

We haven’t played that game of “Made for Trade” yet, as I did end up taking Anna in to the doctor for an infected ear, but we did spend some time discussing bartering and, hopefully, we’ll be able to get that game in today.

If you’d like to see what other topics we discussed in relation to this story, click here.

Have a wonderful day!

Blessings,
Nancy

From the Learning Room – “Stopping By Woods…”

Last week our study was on the poem/book “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost with illustrations by Susan Jeffers.

This is a lovely poem to study in January, especially in Texas where we don’t get to experience snow very often. I thought that this would be a wonderful poem for us to memorize. When I mentioned this to the children, they insisted that they could never do that! However, by the end of the week, without even trying, they had it down, just from reading it, studying it, and living with it all week. They had such fun reciting it over and over, and were pleased that they were able to do it after all. One of our activities for the week included cutting out snowflakes to tape on the dining room windows.

We discussed Robert Frost, which led us into a discussion of John F. Kennedy, as Frost recited poetry at JFK’s inauguration, and then died two years later, along with the President. We discussed taking a field trip to downtown Dallas to visit the museum there sometime.

We also discussed rhyme and rhyme scheme and were easily able to decipher the rhyme scheme of Frost’s poem (A-A-B-A, B-B-C-B . . .)

As Mom read about how snowflakes are formed and why snow is important to us (besides the fun!), the children created these snow pictures using pencil erasers dipped in paint and a snowflake punch.

We looked for the artist’s hidden animals throughout the book and discussed her use of black and white with only small touches of color. We also discussed hibernation of animals – why, when, how, where, and who.

The man in the poem left a gift of seeds and grasses for the wild animals to enjoy in the forest, which led to our final activity of the week – the making and hanging of birdseed pinecones.

The supplies – pinecones, peanut butter, birdseed, and ribbon -

I tied a length of ribbon on each pinecone and then the children spread peanut butter all over the pinecones -

Next, they rolled their pinecone in the bird seed, coating it well -

We hung these in the trees by the bird feeders, so that they birds would see them when they came to the feeders, and so that we could watch them through the kitchen window!

I think these went up just in time, as an ice storm is due today and now the birds will have an extra treat to ease the icy days.

Our Five In A Row meal for the week was one of comfort and warmth after coming in on a snowy evening – Tater Tot Casserole, with Peach Crisp for dessert -

It was a very nice week, and we did manage to fit in that trip to the ice rink for 3 of the children -

I’m hoping to write up a post about the skating and post more pictures soon.

I especially loved this book because of the emphasis on the enjoyment of nature and taking time out of our daily busyness to stop and marvel at the glorious creation of our Lord – a reminder that we all need from time to time.

Stay warm and enjoy a nice cup of hot cocoa – we’ll certainly be indulging a bit today!

Blessings,
Nancy

A Few Craft Projects

I have several different handwork projects going and thought I’d give you a peek –

This is my main sewing project of the moment. It is Michael’s Christmas stocking that I am cross-stitching. I have finished all of the cross-stitches, and am now working on the backstitching or outlining all over the stocking. As you might be able to tell, I am partially done with this, too. I really want to get it done this year for Christmas, as it has been an on-going project for a number of years now – I pick it up for awhile, and then ignore it for awhile. I need to finish it, as there are two more stockings waiting in the wings to be sewn for Anna and David.

Here is a quilt I am “working” on. I hesitate to call it that because I haven’t worked on it in months. But it is sitting on my dresser, staring at me, begging me to give it attention – and I really, really want to, but there always seems to be something else calling my name, as well. I have only completed one block. It is a block-of-the-month program through my local quilt store – I pick up a new block kit each month and am storing them up until I have time to work on it. It is called “Be Attitudes” by Nancy Halvorsen. It would probably go much faster if I used the sewing machine, but I am hand-stitching it, so it will take a bit longer.

Here is what the finished quilt should look like (someday) -

This is another quilt that I have going. I started it before I joined the block-of-the-month above. It is a Thimbleberries pattern called “Month by Month” by Lynette Jensen. There is a different block for each month of the year. I have completed January and February, and was working on March when I set it aside. If I remember correctly – someone got into my basket and decided to practice cutting on my almost completed March block, and I never got around to recutting fabric to redo the sections that were damaged. I do love this pattern, and look forward to picking it back up again soon.

The last one I have to show you is just a little tidbit that I started the other night at our monthly Keepers of the Faith meeting with the girls. Our lesson this month was on crochet, which I do not have any experience with. I tried to teach myself years ago and gave up, so I was glad to have the opportunity to try it again. I really don’t intend to make this one a new hobby, since I don’t have time for the ones I already have, but I really did enjoy working with the yarn – the colors are so beautiful – and so, I may pick it up from time to time and work a few rows. We’ll see.

That’s all for now – if I get myself off of this computer, I just might have some time to work on some of these projects! If I don’t show back up later – which I may, I have a delicious apple tart recipe to share – have a lovely weekend!

Blessings,
Nancy

Summer Bloggy Giveaway Time!!!

Yes, it’s that time again! Another fun-filled week of zooming around the blog world, visiting hundreds of blogs, signing up for giveaways and finding new friends out there to inspire and encourage us!

In keeping with the summer timing of this bloggy carnival, I will be giving away this lovely Summer Scrapbooking Package –

This package contains a dozen sheets of 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper in summer patterns and colors, embellishments including various summer die-cuts, Paperkins swimming paper dolls, summer phrase stickers, patriotic die-cut squares, Disney swimming stickers (Mickey & Minnie), 4 page toppers (Fourth of July, Lazy Days, Picnic, and Summer Days) and 4 yds. of beautiful ribbon to round out the package. Get ready to scrap away those summer vacation, pool, beach and cook-out pictures! As a special bonus, I am throwing in this -

Yes, that is chocolate! Something sweet, smooth and creamy to delight your tastebuds as you’re working so diligently on all of those scrapbook pages! Scrapbooking and chocolate – it doesn’t get much better than that! (unless, of course, I could include free time in this giveaway, so you’d have time to actually indulge yourself – if this is your situation, you can always shelf the supplies for a rainy day and go ahead and enjoy the chocolate now!)

So, here’s the complete package the winner will be receiving! -

Now for the rules – to enter this giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. That’s it – simple. This giveaway is open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike – just make sure to include your blog address or an e-mail address so that I can contact you if you win!

I will take entries until midnite (Central time) Saturday night, August 2nd. I will then pick a winner using the Random Number Generator and will announce the winner on Sunday, August 3rd. All shipping costs will be paid by me, and international entries are welcome.

To find the exciting and ever-growing list of participants in this Bloggy Giveaway, please visit Melanie at the Bloggy Giveaways site, and be prepared to ice those fingers down when they start aching from all that blog hopping! A journey well worth the price, filled with new friends just waiting to be found!

Have a fun week, and be sure to come back and look around when you get a moment – I’d love to visit with you!

Blessings,
Nancy

I Won a Prize!

I was so surprised to learn that I won a prize in the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival! I didn’t have much chance to sign up for too many giveaways, so I really didn’t expect to win anything. After all, the most fun part is finding new blogs to visit and reading all of your kind comments! But, hey, it’s always nice to win something.

Here’s what I won – a beautiful custom clipboard from Sue at Country Pleasures! She has a lovely Etsy store which you can visit here. She is very talented and has a number of adorable country farmgirl type items. Sue was willing to make my clipboard from my choice of colors and themes, but when I saw this one in her store, I knew that it was the one I wanted –

Isn’t that so cute?

I will enjoy using it in my kitchen and can’t wait ’til it comes in the mail!

Just wanted to share my excitement with you.

Blessings,
Nancy

Bloggy Giveaway Time!

It’s time for the quarterly Bloggy Giveaway Carnival again! Time to get those fingers warmed up for many hours of cruising blogs and signing up for giveaways! Time to visit some old friends and find some new ones, too! Please come back and visit me again when your fingers have cooled down and you have time to sit and visit a bit!

My giveaway this time is a lovely Spring Scrapbooking package –

This package includes a dozen sheets of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper in various spring shades and patterns (yes, of course I included some gingham!), embellishments by Jolee’s Boutique and Laura Ashley, gingham buttons, pastel mini-brads, pastel sticky stitches, vellum stickers with various spring/Easter sayings, picket fence border die-cut and four lengths of spring ribbons.

All you need to do to win this package is leave a comment on this post! This giveaway is open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike – just make sure to include your blog address or an e-mail address so that I can contact you if you win! I will be shipping the prize out to you completely free of charge. International entries are fine.

This contest will close at midnight (Central time) on Saturday, April 26th. I will draw a winner using a random number generator and will announce the winner on Sunday, April 27th.

To enter more marvelous giveaways, visit the Bloggy Giveaways site for the list of participants (almost 700 now!) and get ready for some wonderful blog surfing!

Happy entering and I’ll see you at your giveaway, if my fingers hold out!

Blessings,
Nancy

Birthday Party Weekend! Part 1 . . . The Girls

Whew! We have just finished birthday party weekend! Sarah and Tommy both had parties this weekend and we all had a great time, but I must admit that I’m glad the weekend is behind us!

It all started Friday, the 28th – Sarah’s actual 10th birthday. We spent the day getting ready for Sarah’s birthday slumber party which was scheduled to begin at 6:00 pm. I made a trip to Wal-mart to pick up the cake and finish shopping for some odds and ends for both parties. Believe it or not, I didn’t return home until 5:00 pm – 1 hour until party time! And. . . I forgot to pick up the cake in my rush to finish shopping and get home! No worries – Jeff could get it on his way home.

My children did a fantastic job of cleaning up the house in my absence and it was all ready when I got home. HUGE BLESSING!!! All that was left to do was to hide clues for the mystery hunt, decorate the table and put together goody bags for the girls. Sounds simple, huh?

About the time some of the girls started arriving, the challenges began. I sent Ryan to the gas station to get a bag of ice. He called a few minutes later, and reported that his car wouldn’t start and he was stuck there. At the same time, Matthew received a phone call from work asking him to please come in – they were short-handed. He needed a ride there asap. Jeff wasn’t home yet – he had gotten halfway home when he realized that he left his wallet at work and had turned around to go back to get it (he works about an hour away from home). I left all of the kids with Matthew and Laura and ran down to pick up Ryan, who left his car at the gas station. When we got back home, Ryan took Matthew to work in the van. When I went to find my coupon to order the pizzas, I found that it was expired, and I couldn’t find a current one that was nearly as good as the deal I was expecting to get. (Is your head spinning yet? Mine was!) During all of this fun, girls were continuing to arrive, and I spent about 10 minutes each tme visiting with the parent who was dropping them off. Jeff called and said that he had called the pizza restaurant and gotten a good deal (without a coupon even! – he can always manage to do this) and that he was almost home and would pick up the pizzas himself (delivery time was running an hour and a half.). He finally arrived with the cake, ice cream and pizzas around 8:00 pm.

Once all of the girls arrived (there were 9 in all), things settled down a bit and we started the party games. The party had a few themes – Nancy Drew mystery, “Enchanted” the movie, and scrapbooking. We had an ongoing mystery game that lasted most of the evening. The girls were given small notepads to record clues that they would find hidden around the living room, dining room and kitchen. They had to find eight clues and then use the clues to solve the mystery of what the prize was that was up for grabs. They looked for clues as we went throughout the evening doing other activities.

Another game we played was a sheet of scrambled up detective/mystery words – the girl who solved them all first won a prize. Next, we put a sticker on each girl’s back which had the name of a female Disney character on it. The girls went around asking each other questions to try to figure out which character they were. This game was drawn from the fact that the movie “Enchanted” contains multiple references to other Disney movies throughout it.

We ate pizza and chips as soon as Jeff arrived, which, amazingly, happened to be as we were finishing up the last game (except for the continuing clue hunt). Next we had cake and ice cream. Here is a picture of the cake – it was an “Enchanted” cake.

After cake and ice cream, Sarah opened her presents, which were lovely and very generous. Jeff and Ryan headed back out to jump and retrieve Ryan’s car from the gas station and to pick up Matthew, who was now finished working.

I cleaned off the table and set it up for our next fun activity – scrapbooking! We had asked the girls to bring some photos to scrapbook with. I handed them each out a small foam-covered scrapbook (I found these at Wal-mart) and they proceeded to start filling them. We had scrapbook paper, stickers, foam stickers, gems, buttons, wavy scissors and glitter glue for them to use. It was lots of fun and they all really enjoyed themselves. They scrapbooked for a couple of hours, and then went back to it some more later in the night, as well as in the morning, since we left everything out on the table until the party was over.

By 10:30 or so, the last clue was found and someone solved the mystery and won the prize – a complete scrapbooking kit! We said good-bye to four of the girls around 11 pm, as they were unable to spend the night.

We laid out six sleeping bags on the living room floor (Anna wanted to join them), and the girls changed into their pj’s. We popped popcorn and filled two small bowls with M & M’s to snack on during the movie. The girls had earlier voted between watching “Nancy Drew” and “Enchanted”. “Enchanted” had won, so we settled down to watch it at exactly midnight.
(I was 2 hours behind schedule due to the earlier challenges, but noone seemed to mind!)

All of the girls enjoyed the movie and surprisingly stayed awake until the end. We told them goodnight and after some talking and giggling, they finally fell asleep. Or so we thought – it turns out that Sarah and one of the girls kept talking until around 4:30 am! (We found this out the next morning.)

Morning brought a breakfast of donuts, strawberries, grapes, bananas, juice and milk. The girls scrapbooked a bit more, played some basketball and jumped on the trampoline until they were picked up around 11 am.

It was a fun party, even with it’s rocky start, and we were pleased that all of the girls seemed to enjoy themselves. Ahhh – time for a little rest and relaxation, which we had – for about an hour. Then it was time to get on with the day. Jeff took Tommy to baseball practice while I headed back to Wal-Mart to do the grocery shopping for the week (You might wonder why I didn’t do it the day before, but seriously, it never occurred to me! I was just handling one thing at a time.) The evening was spent cleaning off a bookshelf (don’t ask me why I decided to do that with everything else going on! – I don’t even know!), getting ready for church the next morning and getting ready for the next birthday party – for Tommy – on Sunday afternoon.

This one has gotten so long, I think that I’ll tell you about the boys party in the next post!

Blessings,
Nancy

St. Patrick’s Day Fun

I thought I’d share with you the little bits of fun we had today celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.  Of course, everyone tried to wear green or something with green on it.  The kids had great fun pinching me when I emerged from getting dressed and didn’t have on any green.  I don’t have a green shirt, and was intending to find a green sticker to wear, but they caught me before I could.  Well, they had fun with it, anyway.

After lunch, I sent the kids outside to find clover to pick, armed with small paper bags.  They found a big patch and picked a few handfuls each.  Actually Tommy and Sarah picked clover – Michael and Anna decided it wasn’t interesting enough - until later, when they saw what we were doing with it, and then they quickly ran outside to pick their own.

Here’s what we did with the clover -

Each child made a design with their clover on a sheet of wax paper -

I then covered it with another sheet of waxed paper and ironed them together, sealing the clover inside -

Sarah used hers as a tablecloth for her new tea set -

Michael took this picture of his creation -

Tommy cut his into the shape of a magnifying glass – he’s our Hardy Boys mystery fan -

Anna made one, too, but we didn’t get a picture of it. 

I read a little bit about St. Patrick’s Day to the children from my Five in A Row Holiday book.  Here is a short excerpt -

“Patrick is recognized today as the Patron Saint of Ireland.  Did you know that he was not born there?  Possibly born in England, he was captured in his teenage years by pirates and sent to Ireland as a slave.  But, even in this sad event a wonderful thing happened.  Patrick fell in love with the Irish people and hoped that someday he could share the gospel of Christ with them.

Escaping to France, Patrick became a monk.  From there he returned to Ireland and spread the gospel to the Irish people.  Nearly 300 churches were founded from the seeds of faith Patrick faithfully planted.”

-Jane Claire Lambert and Becky Jane Lambert

I have made it a tradition in our family for years to cook a green dinner on St. Patrick’s Day.  Some years I make green scrambled eggs with accompanying green side dishes.  This year I decided on Broccoli/Cheese Casserole, lime jello and special cookies from the store.  Here is a picture of the goodies -

I got my recipe for Broccoli/Cheese Casserole from my sister-in-law. (Come to think of it, I’ve gotten alot of good recipes from her over the years!)  Here it is -

 Broccoli/Cheese Casserole –

Mix together in 9 x 13 dish:

2 cups cooked rice

1/2 onion, sauteed

2 boxes broccoli spears, cooked and chopped

Salt and Pepper to taste.

Melt together:

8 oz. Velveeta

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

Add sauce to rice mixture and sprinkle grated cheddar cheese all over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees until cheese melts.

We topped off our day by watching “Luck of the Irish”, an old Disney Channel video that we enjoy from time to time, especially on St. Patrick’s Day!

Hope you enjoyed a peek inside our home today and I hope you had a fun day, too!

Blessings,

Nancy

Quilling

We (the girls) learned a wonderful new craft last night! It was our monthly Keepers of the Faith meeting at church and the girls group learned to quill. In case you’re unfamiliar with quilling, it is a paper craft that is simple and inexpensive, and you can create some really beautiful pictures for cards, scrapbooks, or decoration. It basically consists of rolling and shaping thin strips of paper to create a design. The girls all made a sample card first of various shapes.

Then they made the little tags you see at the beginning of this post. They will need to complete 3 more projects to earn the badge, but Sarah was already working on one right away when we got home. It was a little tedious for Anna, but she and I worked together on it until she got tired. We brought home patterns to make a kitty, an artist’s palette (sp?), an Easter basket, a picket fence with flowers and a scrolly heart, so we will have some fun ahead of us! This is a very simple craft with lovely results!

Blessings,
Nancy