my {heart} day

I bet you are wondering how I spent my valentine's day.
I'm sure of it. *cough, cough*

The day before the big "V" day...I took a quick trip to the dollar store (because I'm not all that big into just throwing my money away to large corporations because they "say" I should...but I am really big into showing my family just how much I love them...and those two things don't have to go hand in hand.  It doesn't have to cost a lot to mean a lot.) I wanted to fill my day to the brim with actions of love and kindness!

So I bought a few small and sweet things for my kiddos (a *small* box of chocolate and a v-day balloon). I bought 3 red candles, some heart-garland to wrap around them, and a few conversation candy hearts in order to create a simple center-piece for our kitchen table. And I bought Mike a bag of chocolates, that I put inside a v-day vase, and had a "balloon-on-a-stick" stuck into the center of the candy vase.  When I got home, I placed Mike's treats on his work desk for him to find in the morning.

I got up early on Valentine's morning.  I set out the kids' treats and my center-piece.  And I got to work on breakfast.  Homemade pancakes with fresh strawberry puree.  I then cut hearts out of my pancakes just like this idea I found on the internet (I google everything....it's yet another sickness I have):

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Super cute...huh??

I lit the candles and brewed up some coffee as my children slowly woke from their dreams.  My daughter and I delivered Mike his coffee in bed (and she brought him a few candies on her own accord...I just LOVE her empathetic, sincere, thoughtful and loving heart.)

And we all enjoyed a nice breakfast as a family...complete with strawberry milk, of course.

I made sure to cut hearts out of cheese for lunch and made a few chocolate covered strawberries.

Not too much of a fancy day...but enough to make my family feel special.  (And enough hugs, cuddles, kisses, and snuggles all day long...to get the message across loud and clear.)

Later that night, Mike and I went out to dinner and coffee.  And what I love is: our friends.  Friends that are willing to "swap" with us.  Meaning?  They watch our kids so we can sneak out on a date on one night.  And the next night, we watch their sweet little 15-month-old man so they can sneak out for their date.  Perfection.  Not only do our kids have fun with each other AND we all get a night out to reconnect with our significant others...BUT we are helping each other protect our marriages.  Because it's SO IMPORTANT to make date nights a priority...regardless of the occasion! (And it didn't cost either us a red-cent for a baby-sitter!  Score!)

What a great day.  It was not only lots of fun and filled with endless sweetness, it reminded me how beyond blessed I am in this life:

• with a loving husband
• wonderful & happy children
• great friends
• a good God

What more does one need??  Except maybe a good cup of coffee...

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....I'm on that.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

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st. patty's day cookies

I checked the freezer.

We were out of ice cream.

And it was an ice cream kinda day.

I eat ice cream most days.

But especially on my bad days.

The tough days.

The cry-till-your-eyes-are-puffy days.

Necessity breeds invention.

And I needed a major soul-nourishing treat.

Realizing that large doses of sugar consumption should be included.

I turned to my Gramma's famous sugar cookie recipe.

But yesterday I was lazy.

Like....really lazy.

I didn't want to put the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.

I didn't want to flour a cutting board and roll the dough out.

I didn't care about cutting out shapes.

I just wanted to eat some cookies.

A lot of them.

Now.

Can you tell I'm really big into instant gratification?

Just blame it on my generation.  Generation X, that is.

So here's my solution:

 I whipped up the sugar-cookie dough.

Added in some green food coloring.

I scooped out the dough (about 1 rounded TBL) with my small Pampered Chef scoop.

I plopped it in a dish of sugar.

I proceeded to completely cover the ball of dough in sugar {mmmm...sugar}.

 I then put each sugar-coated ball of dough onto my cookie sheet about 2" apart.

I pressed each ball of dough down so it was flat and about 1/2" thick.
(I used one of my fondant tools, but using the bottom of a drinking glass works just as well!)

I placed them in the oven and baked them for about 9 minutes.

(Your oven may cook differently than mine, so be sure to pop in on them every so often to check and adjust as needed.)

You want them to be **slightly** browned on the bottom.

Transfer to a cooling rack.

 Now you could just eat them this way.

Which would be super lazy easy and just as yummy.

But that little leprechaun bit me.

and I decided it would be nice to go one step further.

 I had some left over icing in the fridge from a birthday cake I just made the other day for a friend.

So I took it out of the fridge when I started making the cookies;

 this way it would be the right consistency when I would eventually need to use it.

I kept it in the plastic zip-loc bag I had originally stored it in,

snipped a small portion off the corner

and used that as my "pastry-bag".

I hand sketched a four-leaf clover

(you could just print off one from your computer's clip-art collection, too)

and cut it out (see picture below).

I used it as a guide to draw a clover onto each cookie.

And, voila!

My sugar therapy fix come to life:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

66° Rainy and wet.

annaleigh's christmas singing debut

Yesterday, the "cherub choir" of our church blessed the congregation with their cute-lil-selves.  My favorite "cherub" happens to be the little girl all the way on the right, in the red and white dress with pig-tails atop her sweet head.  She just moved up to the 2s and 3s sunday school class last week!  And now, quicker than you can blink an eye, she's standing before a crowd exercising some mad clapping-and-jingle-bell-shaking-skills!  {Even though she's famous, now, don't worry, she hasn't forgotten the little people in her life.  She'll give you her autograph.  I could tell you wanted to know.}

Is that my baby?  Is she growing up?  Can't we stop it?!?

please?

{And here's some bonus info:  the two sweet little girls next to her 

--in the green dress and in the white dress--

belong to Julie, their sweet Mama.

And so does this blog.}

quiet snowman toes

If you follow me on FaceBook, then you are already privy to some of this information.  But if you don't follow me, consider yourself lucky, because I'm expounding to you the extended version.

With the 2nd year anniversary of my daughter's birth comes a big change.  Lots of growing up {for her and Mommy, that is}.  She moves into the 2s and 3s class at church where she plays with big(ger) girl toys, has a "hook" with her name on it, takes trips to the bathroom {even though she's not potty-trained yet, she just likes to tag-along, they tell me}, participates in snack time, drinks from paper cups, sings songs, is taught an actual lesson, and makes an arts-n-craft project. 

Yesterday, our church's Mom's Alive! group met for our monthly meeting {it's a combination between my SWF group and the well-known MOPS groups}.  And Annaleigh went to her "new" room.  Upon picking her up...I'm handed the most adorable snow-man ornament my eyes have ever seen.  An ornament crafted by my own daughter.  My 2YO baby.  This is monumental to me, to say the least.  And I had such mixed emotions.  So proud.  So sad.  Her first creation created in the "outside" world.  Without me.  Was that jealously I just saw creeping into my heart?

Every time she notices her ornament on our Christmas tree, her eyes flicker.  "Do you see that, Mom?  Yeah.  I totally made that.  I'm awesome."


Speaking of Mom's Alive!...the most exciting this about our December meeting was that it was designated a "Mom's-Day-Out".  You drop off your kiddos and run away for 3 hours.  And run away I did!  Straight to Starbucks.  Earlier that day, I searched high and low to find lost coins in my house.  I looked in piggy banks of small children.  The junk drawer.  The bottom of our catch-all baskets.  In our office desk.  Pockets.  Bottom of my purse.  All in vain.  60 cents in dimes.  That's it.  {well...honestly, I found some pennies, too.  But it's humiliating enough to count out silver coins for your smanshy-fancy drink...never mind whipping out copper currency...}

But low and behold, my knight in shining armor came to my caffeinated rescue once again!  Michael texted {is that even a word?} me to say he had 2 bucks in his pocket that I could have.  {you mean I get to pay with REAL money??  Humiliation annihilated.  Love that man.}

I walk into Starbucks and peer behind the counter.  I see the most beautiful words written in chalk:  Espresso Roast.  Oh.  This is a good day.

Grande beverage.  Bible.  Good book.  Journal.  And my thoughts.  {My very own quiet, un-interrupted thoughts for 3 hours.}  Sweet mommy-hood bliss.

In other news this week, John David has discovered the existence of his feet.  And his obsession is simply adorable.  The second you change his diaper, his feet leave his jammies{or if you take his socks off - that's if he hasn't kicked them off first} as they sense the light of day, and fly right up to his face so he can get a good look.  His hands grope his toes, a smile adorns his face and contented coos leave his lips.  Like I said, adorable.  And some bonus info about my little man:  he probably has the sweetest countenance of any little guy I know.  Such a gentle spirit.  Just as darling as ever....which makes him easy to snuggle.  And kiss.  Love that little man.

crackling magic memories

I have such fond memories, as a child, of decorating our house for Christmas.  It always felt like a big event to me.  Something I enjoyed very much.  I'm really big into making things feel important.  Maybe it's because I've always experienced things with my whole heart open.  Allowing in all the joy, details, and warmth that life can bring your way.  And so, I feel it's my mission to help others experience life in the same way.

Some of you may not know that my parents divorced when I was 5 years old.  My mother had full custody.  Meaning, I lived with her a majority of the time.  This created a bond between her and I.  The time between her first marriage and her second was saturated with attention.  I would say that was the time in my life was when I felt the closest to her.  Maybe it was because we had only each other.  A love grown out of dependency.  Out of necessity.  Out of fear, as we clung to each other in a desperate need of some sort of materialized stability and love.  Whatever it was...it was tender.  And it was real.

Days after Thanksgiving, I always knew it was coming.  When we would shop for a real-live Christmas tree.  One that dropped, more than a few, pine-needles by the hour and smelled of evergreen-heaven.

Then my mom would pull out her Christmas records from the entertainment center cupboard. You know, the ones that are 10x the size of a CD and play a sound that touches your soul deeper than any YouTube video could create?  {When I saw the episode about Frank being irate at Raymond for converting his beloved records to CDs, on Everybody Loves Raymond, I'm pretty sure I was just as upset.  How could Ray not know that CDs do not sound better than records??  No matter how hard Ray pleaded to his father that they did??}

She'd lay them on the record-player.  Turn it on.  Place the arm on the outer-edge.  Turn the sound up.  And then...you'd wait for it...the soft crackling.  The quiet-popping.  Your ears could practically taste the music.

My mom and I would pull out all the ornaments and lights, adorn the tree with its yearly jewels, and listen to Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby as they sang our life's soundtrack.  We'd spend hours until the tree was perfectly decorated.  Changing record after record to be sure each moment never lacked the sound of crackling-Christmas magic.  

Nothing gives me a warmer and fuzzier feeling. 

Nothing makes me want to rewind my life more than those days.

To continue with my mission, I long to create those feelings for my own children.  I want them to feel that magic.  That awe.  That joy.  Unfortunately, there's no more family records to accompany the harmony of their memories...but I hope against hope, that I make their lives feel special.   Just like those records.  Just like my mom. 

Especially at Christmas-time.

the jesse tree: an advent calendar {with free printables!}

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, 

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

Isiah 11:1

This idea is not original to me.  One Christmas, we celebrated at my sis-in-law's house.  She had one of these "Jesse trees" and did this each morning with her two boys that year {she may still even do this}.  She took time to explain to us this "tree" she had sitting on a table in her dining room.  It was an advent calendar, of sorts.  One with a "Christian" perspective.  I was smitten with the whole idea of it.  And even, at that time, before I had my two babies, I knew I wanted to make this a family tradition in our home.

It's a bit time consuming to start it up {preparing each ornament and the coordinating verses}, but I was determined this year to make it a priority.  {Seeing as Annaleigh can currently quote lines from the movie "Elf."}  I take Deuteronomy 6:4-7 seriously.  I want my children to know God and have an understanding available to them so that, someday, they will, God willing, make the choice to choose Christ as their Savior.  How else does this happen without intention?  Even my life, as it's lived before their eyes, must be intentional.  It must be intentionally infused with a biblical mindset and attitude.  So that all I say and do glorifies the Lord.  Enter: the Jesse Tree.

Ok, Michelle. Enough talking...what is a Jesse tree anyway??

I'm glad you asked.

I will tell you.

The Jesse tree represents the family lineage of Jesus {Isaiah 11:1}.  There are 25 ornaments that will eventually adorn the tree.  Each ornament represents the ancestors of Jesus or events leading up to the birth of Jesus.  A biblical reference is located on the back of each ornament, which offers an explanation of the image found on the front of each ornament.

Our family has wrapped the ornaments in tissue paper.  Every morning in December, we will unwrap an ornament and read the correlating scripture.  The story of Jesus begins with Creation {although, some Jesse trees, I found, have even begun with "eternity":  God existing before everything else...but, I figured, you could include that into the account of Creation} and leads to December 25th, where you unwrap baby Jesus lying in a straw bed!  

To me, the concept of opening Jesus on Christmas day, after opening all previous ornaments and reading the scripture of His awaited first coming, will simulate {just a smidgen} of the anticipation and EXCITEMENT(!) that the Jewish nation felt when the promised Messiah had finally arrived!!  

How can you have one of these, you say?  

I'm glad you asked...  

I have done a ton of research on this thing, and let me tell you, the quality of scripture seemed to be lacking.  I had to collaborate a lot of the information I found in order to create the ornaments and collect scripture that properly represented {in my mind, anyway} the heritage of Jesus.

First, go get a tree.  Any kind of tree.  Whatever kind of tree you like best.

Next, download and print up the ornament images and scripture references {located below}.  Adorn and embellish.  As much or as little as you like {or have the time for}.  Note:  Some of the ornaments I've seen on the web are beautifully elaborate!  If I had the time and money to make them 3D and colorful, I would.  But who has time these days?  {If you do, I'll just call you lucky...}

Last, wrap up the ornaments and begin a meaningful tradition in your home!

Free printable ornaments 

and scripture references:
(click on images to download)

Ornaments - page 1

  

Ornaments - page 2

Ornaments - page 3

Ornaments - page 4

Ornaments - page 5

Click HERE for the Scripture References



Here are some additional pictures, ideas, and information:

(click on an image to be directed to it's website)

                         

       

And a bonus:

Ann Vonskamp has written and provided 

a FREE Jesse Tree Advent Devotional e-book

on her site, A Holy Experience.

{I wish I had known about this when I was putting mine together!}

I hope you enjoy as you {intentionally} keep CHRIST in Christmas!

fall family tree

   

I found the tutorial for this fall family tree HERE.

And I'm as much in love with mine, as the first time I saw Abbie's {original} version.

It was SUPER easy to make.  I had so much fun!

{btw, I got the canvas at JoAnn's for 50% off!!}

You should head on over to the tutorial and try making one for your home

because it's just so darn pretty once you do!

P.S. I just wish I wasn't a craft-schizophrenic!  I bounce from one random project to the next!

Have fun!

Linked up here today...

easter firsts

Annaleigh's first...

...pigtails.

...Easter-egg dying adventure.

...Easter basket & hard-boiled egg.

...Milky Way bunny.

...sugar-rush that leads to wild air-mattress bouncing.

...touch of spring. 

...Easter bonnet. 

What were some of your favorite Easter memories?