Gettin' Creative

So, curtains are so expensive aren't they?  It really is just a long piece of fabric hemmed but they charge so much money for 1 panel!
I was at Target the other day and found a tablecloth I liked.  I thought it may be too busy for a table so I thought about using it for a curtain.  They are the exact same length as standard curtains, too!  So I bought a couple packages of those clip-on rings for the top and hung them up - voila! 
Two curtain panels for $3.47 each ;) 
Try it!  It's so fun and simple!

A Mother's paycheck

Being a mom who has been blessed to see her first priority on this earth is DIFFICULT work.  I was telling Spencer yesterday, through tears of frustration, that being a stay-at-home mom is not a fairy tale.  You don't get any payment that shows you did anything, and everything that you know you did that got undone wasn't appreciated by anyone (at least to the extent you thought it should have been). The world thinks we may have it easy, but if we are really doing what we're supposed to be, "easy" is not the word I'd use. 

Deuteronomy 6: 4-7 commands us (parents, especially to moms, I think):
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."
With that job requirement in mind, maybe the world could see why it would be so tempting for me to not want to "rise" each morning.  The battle between self and love for Christ is waging every minute.  Did He leave any time out up there in that verse?  Does He really mean ALL of the time? 

Every morning I rise, every night my head hits the pillow in failure... but praise the Lord! - every screw up has already been forgiven and not only that (as if that isn't amazing enough), but is being used to teach me and sanctify me!  Is there really any other way a mother, with such a burden as what's been commanded of her above, would not fall into the abyss of depression? 

And then God gives you those random, fleeting moments when your children actually heard what you taught them!  They confess their sins in order to find mercy; they ask forgiveness with genuine sorrow; they show kindness to their sibling without knowing that someone is watching; out of their mouths come Truth.  Thank You, Father. 
That must be a mother's paycheck. 

My Four year old's DRAGON Birthday!

Everyday for 2 weeks, Isaiah has been asking me about when his Dragon Birthday is going to be.  He was so excited about it that everytime he asked, he whispered  for special effect...
"MOM!  I'm going to have a Dragon Birthday..." - with big excited eyes and a smirky grin. 
He fell in love with the movie, "How to Train Your Dragon" and since then decided dragons are for him (because they turn nice, of course).

Well, it takes about 5 minutes to upload one photo so, that's all for now.

It was a GREAT weekend of celebrating!

Crows and Cardinals

I want to sing to my kids more often.

When Isaiah was growing inside of me, I was basically bed-ridden and so I had a lot of time on my hands.  I couldn't read because it made me more sick, so I sang to him, mostly "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and an old Raffi song called "Baby Beluga" that we sang in grade school (I know - quite the spectrum :)

After he was born and we would be driving in the car somewhere, he always seemed to be hungry or something.  Whimpering would turn to weeping and weeping to wailing and the ONLY thing that could calm him was me singing.  His favorite was Baby Beluga ;).  I cannot tell you how many times I sang that very short song over and over and over to him.  Annoying song, but so worth it.

Well, in the business of the now-a-days, I forget to sing.  I find myself more like a crow than a cardinal. 
I set these little resolutions for myself and then I inevitably fail for the most part, but I still ask God to remind me. 
When my kids grow up and start writing their own blogs, my prayer is that somewhere on it they might write something like, "I remember my mom singing a lot.  I learned my catechism, my Bible verses and a whole lot of what I know about Jesus because she sang it."

Blessed

Since my title is Simply Blessed, I guess I should explain why.  Let's see...people could read it and assume:

She's bragging.

Nope.  I couldn't do anything to win favor with the Blesser, and I am no more blessed than any other of His children, so that's out.

She's saying that her blessings are meager.

Nope.  Compared to what I deserve they are extravagent.

In the past, when someone casually asked me how I was doing, I struggled to come up with an answer that was not flippant nor a complaint in disguise.  I now say, I'm blessed.  It really is that simple!