God is good and truly worthy of our praise!

My kids and I  - squinting in the sun today

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mothers out there!

I hope you are feeling blessed today and that you have been thanking God for his goodness to you! I am truly feeling blessed and so the scripture that I am choosing to share today is:

   Psalm 111:1-4
"Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart,
In the company of the upright and in the assembly.
Great are the works of the Lord;
They are studies by all who delight in them.
Splendid and majestic is His work,
and His righteousness endures forever.
He has made His wonders to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious and compassionate."

 Some of the blessings from God that I am thinking about today are:

~ My Mother. A godly woman who along with my Dad gave me a childhood that I am so very grateful for and who continues to be there for me. She is one of my closest friends and a great encouragement to me.

~My Mother-in-law. Another godly woman who I am very grateful for! When I got married I didn't really think about the benefits that I was getting beyond a husband but I am so thankful for them and they include and Mother-in-law who encourages me, teaches me and loves me. I am blessed.

~ My Children. I could go on and on about each one but I won't. :-) I just want to share a little of how blessed I have been feeling this last year. I love babies very much and enjoyed my children immensely when they were small, I also felt rather sad to be past that baby stage of life but I guess I just never realized how much I would love and enjoy my older children. There are so many neat blessings of older children. This year especially has been one of me realizing how fast my children are growing up, how capable they are and how much I appreciate having them in my life. I love how they make me learn more by asking me questions (and expecting that I will know), I love the discussions that they will start when we read the Bible together, I love being able to play music together with them, I love the fact that they can pretty much run the house on their own and that they are very good workers, I love just that even though I am the Mom and they do respect me and honor me that we can also be good friends and totally enjoy being together.

   I am blessed. I hope you are feeling blessed too.

Today was a good day at church, at home a little and then enjoying a family bike ride. Ken took the picture above of our kids and I on the bike ride.

When God makes Lemonade {Book Review}

   Recently I had fun reading through the book "When God makes Lemonade ~True Stories that Amaze and Encourage" Created by Don Jacobson. Our God is the God of miracles and I love reading accounts of what He has done and continues to do in people's lives. This book is full of true short stories about people where it they faced some sort of problem or tragedy but then in the end good came from it.

    I truly enjoyed this book - not every story in it was the most exciting ever but it was quite fun to read, God was given the glory for the good that happened and it was encouraging.

   I appreciated all the people that went through problems and though they may have struggled they were able to come out on the other side and see the good that came from that time of struggle. They were able and willing to say "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose". (Romans 8:28) Stories (Real ones) of people like that are always a blessing to me. I think that when we read about others who do that it will help prepare us to do likewise when we end up facing trials. This book helped remind me again of how we don't really understand everything that is going on in life, we don't see the big picture but we serve a God who does and when we are willing to seek His will for our life, to let Him lead and trust Him then He will bless us and care for us.


 
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Avoiding some last minute forgetfulness

Today I have been doing some things to get ready for a graduation party for my Sister-in-law, Molly Bea (She is graduating from the University, ready to teach school). Anyway as I packed up the buns and other things that I made and took them out to the van I realized that getting things ready and putting them out in the van as soon as they were ready is something that I picked up from my Mom and something that has been quite helpful for avoiding last minute stress.

   Now I am still working to overcome my procrastinating tendencies but I am learning.

  When I need to take something somewhere it is so much nicer (when it works okay, sometimes a thing needs to be kept at a certain temperature and the van which is in the garage doesn't always happen to be at that temperature but many times it does work just fine) to just get it out to the van, so it is no longer in the way in the house, it is already to go and I can just forget about it until we get to that location.

  I love to be able to use this "trick" with stuff I need to use in the class I am teaching at church, things that need to be returned to my parents, whatever.

   Besides putting stuff out in the van I will also sometimes put notes out there. Things like "Pick up Lutefisk while in town" (There was only once that I wrote that note!) or "Ask so in so about such and such at church". You get the idea.

  Do you start loading your vehicle as soon as you have something ready to go? Do you have any tips for smooth departures? I always love to hear from you!
 

Short pants turned into Capris

 Mara's growth spurt this past year that left her taller than me also left her with various pants that fit fine around but were a fair amount to short.

This pair of tan slacks was one of those pairs. She has still be wearing them some but they looked almost like they were capris but not quite and so they looked a bit silly. Today when she came out wearing them I decided to do something about it.

 I took them and cut off the hem and then cut a slit in the side and then I hemmed them up.

Much better I think! It was a very fast project but, in my mind anyway, made her outfit look a bit more normal and put together.

 Have you ever done a project like this? Any tips you would like to share on improving your wardrobe without spending money?

Expressing Gratitude to your Husband

 Lately I have been thinking again about the importance of gratitude. Towards God to be sure but also gratitude towards other people.

  I looked back and realized that I had not about this this marriage strengthening "tool". Also my thinking about it was a good reminder to me to remember to tell my husband thank you and let him know just how much I appreciate what he does for me and our family.

  Hopefully all of us feel thankful but I know sometimes I not all that good at expressing it that gratitude - especially, to be perfectly honest, when it is the normal way things work. For instance Ken works very hard at running his business and the reason he does that is to provide for us, his family. I do tell him thanks for that every once in a blue moon but I think it wouldn't hurt to tell him a little more often how much I appreciate how hard he works to take care of us.

  It would be nice to let him know that I am very thankful for him taking time to read to the kids, for going on bike rides with us, for being neat and orderly and not leaving messes for me to clean up all the time, etc. You get the idea. I did actually recently tell him how much I appreciate that he is careful with our money and that he takes care of all the bill paying and stuff like that.

   Gratitude is something that can draw relationships closer together and that is certainly what I want for my marriage -don't you too?

Mending socks

 In our house we have some boys that wear through socks very fast. At least it seems that way to me. Well one of my life motto's is: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" and this year especially I am working to put that into practice. So a couple of weeks ago (after some complaints that they had "no nice socks to wear" ) I decided to see if I could do something about "making it do" with our socks.


Now I really don't think this project is for everyone. Some people I know would just get a little bit stressed over the idea of mending socks and so any financial or environmental savings that they incur just wouldn't be worth it to them. For me however, the whole idea and challenge of making something last longer before it is thrown out (which then saves me money) is very fun and I love it. I also found the activity of mending the socks fun. I did it on a Saturday that I wasn't feeling to great so I just sat around for part of the day and mended socks while reading a book. That is my idea of a fun Saturday when I am ill.

  Here is what I used to mend socks:

• Old socks (in this case they were all black - a great color for boys in my opinion as you can't see stains) that all had holes in the heel and some in the toe too.
• Fleece fabric scraps
• Needle and Thread
• A pair of scissors and a baseball

 I stuck the baseball inside the sock to kind of stretch it to the right shape and create a nice surface for sewing on. Then I cut a patch larger than the hole (I tried to make it so it would be even under their heel or toe too, for comfort) and whip stitched it in place.

This is a pair that is finished and ready to go. The boys love the fleece patches - they say they are more comfortable that they were originally (that was a concern of mine). I think they look just fine. Now we will see how long they last. They have only been wearing them a couple of weeks so far.

A while before one of Mara's favorite pairs of socks (she loves really long and patterned ones) developed holes in the heels so she patched them using portions cut from another old pair of socks. That doesn't look quite as nice but it has worked and extended the wear on her socks.

  Do you ever mend socks? Is it something you would consider or do think it would be a waste of time? Have you ever done something to "Make it do" that others might consider extreme?

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