How did we get here?

I wanted to share how we got to our choice of foster care/ adoption. There is so much answered prayer that has lead us here, and I will have to share about that another time, but I wanted to specifically share about how we chose foster care.

I always knew that I wanted to adopt a child. It is in my heart, I know God put that there, and I am thankful. It honestly surprised me to learn that some people do not immediately love all children. I always have. Of course having my own is different, but I have always wanted to love on every child I babysat, or watched in the nursery, or taught, or played with. I am not worried about bonding with a child and I am thankful for how this opportunity.

 When we started early discussions about adoption, international adoption wasn't really ever even brought up. I know we aren't called to do that, at least now. We have friends who have, and that has been wonderful for their families. Money plays a big role. It is a lot of money. But mostly I worry about the ethics surrounding international adoption right now. As Christians we are called to care for orphans. But are we called to steal them from their families and cultures? Not saying this is the case all the time, even most of the time, but it happens. I would love for the christian community to help these families stay together, rather than separating them permanently.
I thought this blog series was very informative, here is part 2 and Part 3. Also if you haven't read this post, you simply must. So funny! I am also about to read this book, nice and freshly downloaded to the kindle. Maybe I will share the review when I am done.

So international adoption was out, and pretty much the same for domestic infant adoption. We did like the foster care option though. I have known a few friends and friends of friends who have adopted through foster care and could not be happier. Not to say it wasn't a hard road, but definitely a happy ending. It pretty much costs nothing to adopt from foster care, so that is great for us. It is extremely rewarding, and I know it is going grow our faith leaps and bounds. Most importantly we want to be a foster family because abuse and neglect of children happens everywhere. It is terrible, but true. If we can be a safe family for a child, even if it is only for a little bit, then we are happy.

Blogging!?! Update on life

It's been awhile! 8ish months to be exact. In order to be a better child of God, wife, and mom I knew I had to give up blogging. It is not something that I am passionate about. I enjoy doing so many things, but blogging is not really up on that list. I still craft as much as possible and love it! My favorite hobby for sure. I think when I blogged about it, I felt so much pressure to have great, witty posts and beautiful pictures, that I stopped enjoying it. It has been so long since I blogged that there isn't even blog reader anymore!

So what have I been up to and why am I blogging now?
My hubby and I have been married for 8 years now and loving that man more and more each day.

I have been busy with my crazy boys, now 2 and 5. Brady starts kindergarten in a few weeks!

We have been busy with friends and family.

Going on lots of fun trips.

My mom and I had an amazing 13.1 mile hike up to the top of pikes peak. It was on my bucket list, and I am already excited for the next time I get to do it. So special being able to hike my 1st 14er with my mom.

I am training for a half marathon in October. The longest run I have ever done is a 10k so I am super excited  for this race. I am only at 4 miles at a time right now, so I still have a lot of training to do, and it is keeping me busy.

I have even gotten a few projects done too. This is my $5 garage sale find I redid. Loving it.

Hardest part of our year so far was loosing our lab Coco, she is so missed.

Overall we have been doing great and feel so blessed!

So why am I blogging now? We are on a path to expanding our family. We have always wanted to adopt and we are now starting the process. We have felt called specifically to foster to adopt a baby. We are excited about becoming a foster family and our hope is to one day have a permanent addition to our family. While getting more information and figuring out the process I felt a little lost. There are so many options and every state and county is different. So the main reason I am blogging is to share what we are learning and to share what our process is. Every family is different, so our path might not be helpful to everyone, but it may help someone. Of course on this road we cannot share any info or pictures of our foster children, but we can share what steps we are taking, and how God is working in our family on this journey.
I hope to explain in a lot more detail soon, and what we have been through so far. We are super early on, but if just one person can be educated in foster care or foster to adopt, I will be so happy.

Girls Night

I have been wanting to start having monthly girls nights. I eventually want to have a group of ladies to craft with and just be girly with. The first night was double duty. Girls night, while also helping out my friend Cathy who is starting out her Mary Kay biz. I wanted desserts and lots of them, so I knew I was not going to want to wear tight cute pants. I wanted the coziest clothes I could think of, so I decided on a Pajama party!

Only Problem with that is, I did not have any cute Pj's. I typically just wear an old t shirt or maybe some sweat pants. But that isn't fun, so I had to have some new ones. Christmas is coming, money is tight, and I have a ton of fabric, sooo that results in making some pants.

Actually made them into Capri's. I think they are pretty cute. I really like the soft satin ribbon bow. The picture on the other hand....

I sort of looked over this tute before I started, but I kind of just went with it.

Source: danamadeit.com via Melissa on Pinterest

They aren't perfect, one leg needs to be fixed, but good enough!

Perfect for my fun evening with the girls.
We had, Peanut butter cookie sandwiches. So good! Recipe here...

Source: eatcakefordinner.blogspot.com via Melissa on Pinterest

Oreo Truffles, Cheesecake stuffed Strawberries, Some Popcorn

And just a good time with Pjs, make up, and friends. One thing I forgot to mention... Because a lot of my girl friends husbands are deployed or out of town, we had kids come also. There ended up being 11 kids, 10 of them boys! It was a crazy mad house. Still fun though! (Next time, no kids!)

Shoulda whoulda coulda

We are just going to skip over the whole "I am sorry I haven't blogged in forever, I have a million excuses" thing. I am simply lazy, and busy, but mostly lazy.
I do feel the blogging urge right now though. So here is just a little something on my mind.

Do you ever think about doing something, but never get around to doing it? And when you finally do it, you wonder what took you so long? You realize you should have done this long ago. This happens to me often.

Today, Bryson was once again trying to pull out everything out of my wallet at church and spilling everything everywhere, leaving my credit cards who knows where. Then later today he pulled everything out of Jeremy's wallet, mistakenly left on our bathroom counter. It was time. I was going to finally make time to get this baby his own little wallet.

For some reason Jeremy had an old wallet, and I had an old coach wallet (you can't throw that away!) So I found old cards I had given to the boys to play with, like old insurance cards and store loyalty cards. We always have a billion of those. I stuffed them all in the wallet, and voila.
I am telling you it was genius. Both boys were occupied with their little wallets for at least a total 45 minutes throughout the day. So why did I not so this sooner? I should have done this long, long ago! Now I am trying to decide if I should take away the wallets for a few days, and then bring them back.

This one is fun, the pen would make me a little nervous though.

Source: the-acts-of-grace.com via Melissa on Pinterest

Next on my list to keep my little guy busy....

Source: aspottedpony.com via Melissa on Pinterest

So you have to tell me, what is something that I should have done long ago? It's the simple things that make Mom's lives easier, and they are too great not to share! Hopefully see you soon friends :)

Blogging!?!

Shocked? Did you think maybe I fell off the earth?
I have thought about blogging often. But then I think, it has been so long, why start now?
For the record I started this on 5/27......

.......And started again 8/29. Don't know is it lack of motivation? Too busy? Lost interest?

Most of my spare time over the past year has been spent working on my Jamberry business. I do like it and it is going very well. However, my passion, the one hobby I love the most is sewing/crafting. I have not stopped, I just never blog about it anymore. I find time to do other things, so I think I am going to find time to do this as well. I have made quite a few things over the past year, but I have not shared them. Hopefully I can catch you up, and start blogging again!

I miss it. I enjoy blogging. I am going to shoot for once a week. Brady starts preschool again in a week, and that makes it just me and the crazy, now old baby 12 hours a week. He will still take naps so I am hoping to free up some time to spend working on some additional things I love.

See you soon? Hopefully less than a year from now :)

Black Friday Sale

I am not about promoting myself all the time, but I did want to share an awesome deal with you all! You do not even have to get out of your PJ's or fight the crowds to get it either!

This Thursday and Friday (November 24 & 25)
Purchase the Black Floral and/or Black & White Horizontal Stripes at
HALF PRICE!

Receive FREE SHIPPING on your entire order when a Black Friday Special is purchased.

Additional savings: Purchase 3 nail shields at regular price and get 1 FREE!
(3 for 1 offer does not apply to the Black Friday special)

What a great deal on some stocking stuffers, or as gifts to friends. And these styles are definitely some of my favorites, and this is a better price than I can even get them. I will be stocking up! You can head to my site on Thursday or Friday, and purchase them there, or contact me if you have any questions. 

Anyone else headed to do some black Friday shopping this year?

A few more gifts

I am not editing these photos or anything, just wanted to quickly share something. This week shall offically be called craft week, so I am going to have some great things to share once again. Poor blog, so neglected. 

Months ago now, I made a few gifts for some friends and their new babies. 

 My friend  Jennifer had a sweet baby girl, and her Big brother is just elated.

 Now they can matching shirts, and plus big brother feels included.

 Next up was another friend with another little girl. I Loved this quilt top. And I loved the idea of it quilted.
And then I started quilting! I feel like I ruined it. I did not pin enough, and I thought I was using differnet batting.

 Oh well, it is still okay, just very homemade looking, not professional at all.

 At least I can learn from it in the future.

Sorry, that was a bit boring huh? I promise, something good soon, I miss this little part of the web.  Hope you and you family have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful for Toilet Paper

We are Thankful for toilet paper rolls that is. I bet you thought I had forgotten all about my toilet paper roll projects, huh? I have not, and I am excited to start sharing some of them with you again.

We are a VERY blessed family, and I love that it is our focus this month. We are always thankful, but it is nice to be extra thankful during this time. So we made an advent calendar that we can write on each day what we are thankful for. On Thanksgiving, which is at house so I better start cleaning now, we will reread all of our things that we are thankful for. Brady is so cute in what he comes up with.

This project is easy, and cheap! You only need a few things.

I used a foam board that I bought from the dollar store, and painted it yellow. I like that I can see the brush strokes.

I needed 24 little pockets, so I cut toilet paper rolls in half. I did not have enough toilet paper rolls, so I had to also cut down some paper towel rolls. I painted them black, put on a number scrapbooking sticker, and then painted them the color I wanted.

Once they were dried, I glued one end, and glued them on the foam board. I added a little something at the top, and some cute owl ribbon I had. Each day we add something we are thankful for in that day's slot. The numbers might change for next year, but we can just start 24 days from Thanksgiving.

We are having fun time with it, and I think it is a great November tradition. Does your family have any thankful traditions?

Make sure you take a look back at some of the other toilet paper roll projects, and hopefully there will be more soon to come.

You ought to know...

I wanted to share a few random sites and shops that if you do not already know about, you ought to.

First off can I just share that a marriage is one of the most important but hardest things you will ever work on. I think you learn constantly with everything you do, and there is always room to grow! Though each marriage is different, they can all grow, and use knowledge from others.
The first you ought to know is a facebook page by my friend Christina called my marriage matters to me. The name says it all. Make sure you check it out, and like it!

Amanda is a friend of mine from church, and I have learned so much from her. God has really used her and she is inspirational to me. Her and her husbands testimony is all God, and she is really a blessing in my life. She has an awesome book, Prayers of agreement for wives, and facebook page. It is so important to pray for your husbands, and this book is a wonderful way to do it. Starting tomorrow, Nov. 1st we will be praying together for the month. Even if you do not have the book, you can pray along with facebook, just "like" the page.

Next is a new bloggy friend, Teresa. She makes and sells beautiful jewelry, and also has a blog and facebook page. Go on and "like" her as well.

If you have never been inspired by this next lady, then read her blog and you will. She is going through some crazy medical problems right now, but she still is able to be strong and beautiful. So many people are praying for her and her family, but I know that her story is helping others and we can all praise God for her healing. Have I also mentioned how ridiculously talented she is? Oh and my toilet paper wreath was featured on her little ole (really it is HUGE) blog! I was starstruck!

Last for today is a shop that needs no intro. Stefani ordered some nail shields, and I did not realize that she was behind this super famous etsy shop. Well I had to get some pendants, and she even threw in a few surprises for me. They are so cute and fun. I am thinking I need a charm bracelet of different pendants. This is just one of the five I have. Addicting, but very reasonably priced, they would make a great gift!

Well those are my suggestions for today. Do you know how much you help a business or page by liking them, or buying from a handmade shop? A ton! So help someone out, and look at the links above! Do you have any links that I need to check out? Any handmade Christmas shopping I should know about, I would love to hear about them!

Celebrate

Everyone has different preferences when it comes to celebrating certain holidays. We are the same way.
One day I struggle with is Halloween. Every year I kind of dread it. Growing up I did many different things for Halloween. My hubby did a church festival, and I think that is it. Now that Brady is 3, and in school it is even harder to figure out what our family will participate in, and what we won't.
We definitely do not do scary. No ghost or witches, or anything like that. I decorate the house in fall decor, but nothing really Halloweenish. We get pumpkins, and carve them, but they are nice pumpkins.
It is hard to find where to draw the line. We could ignore the day completely. If that was the case, Brady would not have been able to attend his christian pre-school for the last month and a half. They talk about Halloween, and pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns. We probably would not go to our church's harvest festival, which kids dress up at, and are encouraged to do so. I struggle with having innocent fun, and letting the world influence our behavior too much. On one hand, Brady has no idea that Halloween is associated with anything other than candy. On the other, shouldn't we be teaching him that we are held at a different standard? So I dread it every year. And we are taking it year by year.

Last year Brady dressed up and went to our church festival, which is so much fun and also introduces kids and parents to a church and God when they otherwise might not have.  On the 31st we went to our zoo and got candy, and got to see all the animals at night. It was a great night.

On Thursday Brady had a costume parade and a little party at school. Very cute. We brought his little friends treats, and they were a big hit.

Last night we went to church and the harvest festival. My nephew, niece, and her friend won a contest for their costumes. Brady was Buzz, even though I offered to make him a great costume. Bryson was a little toy story alien with a hat I made him.

On the actual day we are going to have a few friends over, eat pizza, watch Monday night football, and pass out candy. This year, I think we are going to add some bible verses to our candy. Something about this day can be to glorify God, and hopefully touch someones heart.

So that is what we are up to this year. We reserve the right to change our minds at any time. What do you do, what are your opinions? I would love to hear input!

It is actually also my Grandma's birthday, maybe we should just start celebrating that. Happy Birthday Grandma, We love you!