Changing the Wold, One Bag at a Time!

So I mentioned in my last post that after reading Half the Sky I really wanted to do something. At first I considered going back to school to become a surgeon, dragging my family to Africa, and spending the rest of my life in a fistula hospital. Still a possibility but Jeremy encouraged me to start with something a little less extreme! I knew I wanted to help but funds were limited and I’m not awesome at building awareness…I needed something to help me do it.

Enter Thirty-One! My mother-in-law had been selling their products for about a year and I loved everything so much. But this was the push I needed. This is such an amazing platform to make a step towards changing the world! It’s already a great company that cares deeply about empowering women. So that, of course, was encouraging but I knew that I could take it a step further. So, 10% of all my sales go toward something awesome. Mostly I want my focus to be on women, but I have offered to let my hostesses choose what is close to their hearts so that the money from their parties goes toward something they are excited about. For example, I did a party this last weekend and we have raised over $60 to donate to CASA - the court appointed advocates for kids in foster care in Travis County! Awesome. I have a party coming up that is donating money to the Invisible Girl Project in India! I am SO excited! So pretty much, you buy a bag and we can help change the world! Are you intrigued? You could host a party and choose something to donate too! I think this would be a great opportunity to raise money for adoption or for mission trips.

Anyway, I’m super excited and I have an enticing opportunity for you to help out (other than contacting me and telling me you want to host a party, which would totally make my day!) We have a pretty great special going on this month. For every $35 you spend, you can get our Jr. Duffle for $10 or our Pro Duffle for $25. They are awesome and as you can see on your left, Capri and I have matching mother-daughter duffles! It’s a great deal and I am willing to make it just a little bit sweeter for you! If you order the special between now and April 13th you can get free shipping! Want to place an order? Check out my website and then leave a comment here on the blog letting me know you’d like to place an order and I will contact you!

Recent Reads

Apparently I haven’t written about any books that I’ve read since before the start of the year so I’ll just quickly let you know what I’ve read so far in 2013!

Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. 4 Stars. I wish I had read this book 10 years ago when it was first popular. I think it would have helped me deal with some of the issues I was struggling with concerning God and women. I didn’t love all of it, but there were some core truths in there that really spoke to me.

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Sheet Music by Kevin Leman. 4 Stars. This was technically a re-read. I read this before I got married…7 years ago. For real, my thought while reading this back in 2006 was, “what’s wrong with these people? Why don’t they want to have sex every.single.day?” Haha….fast forward 7 years and 2 kids later and even though I feel good about where Jeremy and I are in this area of our marriage, it was definitely a good time to read this book. I highly recommend it!

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No Perfect People Allowed by John Burke. 5 Stars. I was surprised at how much I liked this book. I don’t know why I had low expectations for it, but I totally recommend this book. It is a good perspective check for Christians.

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Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. 3 Stars. Oh, Orson, I haven’t given up on you even though the last couple of books I’ve read have not captured me the way the first ones did. Still…I think I may finish off the series. It’s hard to escape the Endoverse (yes, I’ve been come a borderline dork with these!)

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Sleep Sense by Megan Faure and Ann Richardson. 4 Stars. I read the whole thing in one night while trying to tune out the fact that my precious baby girl was struggling to fall asleep. I read this book in desperation at the thoughtful suggestion of one of the moms in my Hello Mornings group. It was exactly what I needed to read. I needed a reset. I needed to be told I was doing a lot right. I needed help formulating a new plan. I needed to be told that what I wanted to do was ok and that I could do it. I am so glad I read it and if there is every another infant in my house, I’ll probably read it again!

Kids in the Kitchen: Simple Recipes That Build Independence and Confidence the Montessori Way by Sara E. Cotner and Kylie D’Alton. 5 stars. I highly recommend this to anyone with young children. It’s so great! We already do a lot in the kitchen but this helped give me new ideas and I’m looking forward to the day when we start doing recipes from this book together (probably soon!)

Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. 5 Stars. This book will mess you up – you have to read it! I read this for our bookclub and I’m so glad that I did. If you can’t read it, you should at least watch the documentary. There are so many atrocities happening to women around the world – we need to help! I was left with a deep desire to do something after reading this! And I made a plan and began to execute it! I look forward to sharing with you how I hope to do my part to change the world for women!

Hello Mornings

I mentioned in this post that I was starting the Hello Mornings challenge. Well, it’s been 2 months now of getting up before my kids to spend time with Jesus and prepare myself for the day. You know what? It’s been totally awesome! I really do look forward to it! Before bed I set my coffee pot to go off right when my alarm does so my coffee is ready to go. I set out my little granola bar with my books (I read my Bible on my phone) and it’s so cozy. I so enjoy that time of being alone. And it has made such a difference in my attitude. I am in a much better mood when I have some time to prepare myself instead of being woken up by my kids every morning. I have set my alarm for 5 minutes earlier each week slowly making my way to my goal time (I’m just one week away from getting to it!). Anyway, I am loving it! I totally recommend it! Now my day feels off when I don’t get up and going before everyone else! And my Facebook group has been so encouraging. I don’t even know all the girls in it in real life but I think we’ve created a special community. There is something bonding about being up in the early hours of the morning together sharing our joys and struggles. my summary – it’s awesome!

Sprouted Kitchen

It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. We went through some serious sleeping (read: sleepless) issues with Colette for a while and I just went into survival mode. However, I feel like we are coming out of that and moving forward. I have cooked more than what’s in this post but honestly who can remember?

Jeremy and I had been talking about our food and some of the changes we were wanting to make but we felt a little foggy as to where to start. Enter my cousin Courtney who came to visit for a few days. She had just graduated from culinary school as a natural chef. While she was here we talked food, I looked through her text book, and best of all, she cooked a meal for us! Needless to say we were both inspired! She left a list of cookbooks for me to check out and I went right away to use up a birthday gift card and purchased the book The Sprouted Kitchen. Amazingly I hadn’t run across this blog before, but believe me it’s made a permanent place in my Reader! In the last week I’ve made 3 of the recipes and have a couple more on the docket for this week!

First I made the Multigrain Carrot-Date Muffins (note: this link is to a gluten free version so it’s not the exact recipe I used). 5 Stars! These were sooooo yummy! The only change I made was using brown sugar instead of muscovado because I couldn’t find it at either Sprouts or HEB. I am definitely going to make them again. Unfortunately it was these muffins that seemed to confirm that Jeremy is allergic to almonds so I will have to fore go the almond meal

Next I tried the Crunchy Curried Chickpeas. 3 Stars. Not gonna lie, these were not as exciting as I hoped they would be. That’s all I really have to say about them.

Finally, Monday night I made the Quinoa Collard Wraps with Carrot-Misso Spread. Now one of the reasons I had the guts to make these for my family is that Jeremy had seen the picture and had commented on how good it looked. Fast forward to last night when he sees my bowl of shredded beats and asks what they are. Turns out he thought the beets in the picture were pieces of bacon…I can understand his disappointment. Either way, these were excellent! I cooked my quinoa with some homemade chicken stock I had in the freezer. I had to substitute chopped baby spinach for the sprouts since I couldn’t find any at HEB this morning. These get 5 stars too! Very tasty and I felt super healthy.

More adventures in clean eating to come!

When You Need to Hear the Gospel

A few weeks ago my sweet friend Krista from The Girl Who Said Yes wrote a post entitled When You Need to Hear the Gospel. It’s not super long, but it is such a great reminder of speaking the gospel to our kids throughout our day and being willing to acknowledge when we make mistakes and need to ask forgiveness for our sins too. Not to mention, what a great idea to have ‘morning meetings’ with your kids and work on Scripture memory with them! She recently gave her blog a little update and I think you’re going to like what you find there.

The Ache of Motherhood

I have heard it said that having a child is like having your heart walk around outside of your body. How a mother aches to protect her child. And yet all the while, from infancy to adulthood, a good mother is training her child to move ever more away from her, to need her less and less. Mothers love and long for their children. Their hearts ache for them, over them. A woman bleeds when she gives birth, but that is only the beginning of the bleeding. A heart enlarged by all a mother endures with and through her child’s life, all a mother prays and works and hopes for on her child’s behalf bleeds too. – Captivating, 175-176

I recently finished reading the book Captivating (I know I’m about 10 years late on this one). This quote was in there within the chapter on Mothers and Daughters and I felt like it describes a little bit of how I feel. I love my husband so much, but my love for him is so different from my love for my girls. It really does feel like my heart is walking around outside of my body. I’m not a natural worrier, but I do worry about them. I have to use real discipline to not worry all the time. If it’s hard for me to let them live life right now when they are so little I can’t imagine watching them do dumb things when they are teens or adults…Is this how you feel too?

Pinned It, (Over) Did It! Dried Strawberries

We had most of a pint of strawberries left over and I didn’t think we would get through eating them before they went bad. I remembered a pin I had seen and wanted to try out some dried strawberries. I quartered them because I wanted to make sure they were small enough for Capri…that was my downfall. Apparently they were too small and I burnt them. Maybe I wouldn’t have burnt them if I had checked on them but I totally forgot about them! My sweet friend, Laura, came by to drop off a book and my timer started going off. She asked if I needed to get it and I looked at her and said, “I have no idea what that timer is for!” Turns out…I should have only halved my strawberries and checked them before the 3 hours were up! Oh well…another time perhaps!

Gentleness with our Littles

It’s late. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long couple of weeks. After Christmas the girls and I got sick. That knocked us out for a little over a week and then it has taken even more time to reset and return to routine. Colette stopped taking her pacifier while she was sick and now my wonderful sleeper is learning how to fall asleep on her own again. Also the sickness got her in the habit of waking up every couple hours so she isn’t sleeping through the night anymore. Capri has also struggled to return to normal and she hasn’t been sleeping well either. Whether it’s not going to sleep or waking up in the middle of the night. So it’s been a struggle. I’m tired. Every night my prayer is, “please, Lord, let them fall asleep quickly and stay asleep all night…but if that isn’t your will for me, give me strength, patience, grace.” I’ll admit to some moments of frustration. Maybe some unsavory words have slipped out in the wee hours of the night when I’ve gotten out of bed. again. But overall I’ve really felt God’s presence with me. I certainly have received a measure of strength and even joy that is not from myself. God is good. This parent thing is hard, but God is good.

I read this short post by Sarah Bessey. I read it at 10 pm after having put both girls to bed 3 different times. God knew I needed it. I want to show that gentleness to my girls. I want to show them Jesus -  even at 3 in the morning.

14 Days of Love!

I hesitate to post this and it’s totally an insecurity issue on my part. I had planned on doing this for a while and then I had a friend make a comment after a recent mom’s meeting to me. She was teasing me and being funny and I wasn’t offended at all (so if you’re reading this, don’t worry about it – I’m fine!), but it totally sparked some weird insecurity in me. The comment was about crafting with toddlers. A joke had been made at our mom’s meeting and I guess some of the girls at her table had mentioned my facebook posts about our 25 days of advent and she jokingly told me that they ‘cursed’ me and my crafts. I laughed and it was funny, but it totally made me feel insecure! It happens. It especially happens for me around other women, but I’m not alone in that right? Just because my mind went crazy with, ‘OMG! They were talking about me! It doesn’t sound like they like me! Are my facebook posts annoying? I haven’t posted anything in a month and I’m still annoying them! What’s wrong with me?  Should I apologize? Should I put some sort of disclaimer with any crafty pictures saying how it only occupied her for a total of 3 minutes and ended with a crazy temper tantrum on the floor and a huge mess for me to clean up that I only did a half-ass job of cleaning up because let’s face it, my house is always dirty?’ You get it, I have issues.

What was I talking about? Oh right, 14 days of Love. I totally love Valentine’s Day! Which is kind of weird because my birthday is the day before and I always felt like Valentine’s day kind of stole my thunder. However, I still love Valentine’s Day. I kind of have some things on my plate right now. I’m hosting a baby shower in a couple of days and Capri’s 2nd birthday is the right before Valentine’s day, but I loved our advent activities so much that I really wanted to do another mini version for Valentine’s Day!

Luckily we have pinterest! For real, what was my life before Pinterest? So I had a myriad of Valentine’s crafts and activities at my disposal. I’ve picked out 14 for us to do  with a few substitutes for days that it’s just not going to happen (because we have those days and on those days…we’ll go get a cake pop from Starbucks!). Here is my plan! We’d love for you to join us for 1 or 14 days! Let me know if you do!

For a visual of my plan, check out my Pinterest Board! Note: I’ve already made some changes so it might not be exactly the same.

Day 1 – Make a Valentine’s Day garland for our fireplace. I saw this one on etsy and am going to make a similar one! I think I may also add numbers or something…Mostly I will be doing this but I plan to have Capri ‘crafting’ right alongside me!

Day 2 – Some days you need something simple so…a printable Valentine’s angel! She has some other great stuff on her blog (including Bunnyfur, who we love!)

Day 3 – Paint by number. I got this at Party City.

Day 4 – Sugared marshmallow pops…because they were a huge hit during our Christmas advent!

Day 5 – Decorate Valentine’s cookies. We tried this for both Thanksgiving and Christmas with mild success…I’m just going to keep trying because I have cute Valentine’s sprinkles to use!

Day 6 – Little heart pillows. We’re going to sew up some little heart-shaped pillows and I’m going to see if Capri will help me stuff them…

Day 7 – Sweet Heart Rice Krispy Treats. And we’ve never made rice krispy treats before so I think it will be fun!

Day 8 – Button hearts. We glued buttons on felt trees at Christmas and it was a big hit so we’re pretty much going to do the same thing here.

Day 9 – Wood craft kit – I bought a little wooden coloring craft kit at Hobby Lobby – another easy one! (don’t know if this will really happen that day because it’s the day of her birthday party!)

Day 10 – Foam craft kit. Another one from Hobby Lobby. They had a bunch and I haven’t actually purchased one yet…

Day 11 – Toilet paper roll painting. I’ve seen this everywhere, but the kid in the picture looks so clean…my hopes are not that high

Day 12 – Make Dad a Valentine. paper, doillies, markers, stickers…that’s it!

Day 13 – Make cupcakes. I have a little set of Valentine’s cupcake liners and toppers so we’ll make some for Dad to take to work!

Day 14 – Valentines Day Basket. I’m thinking like a little easter basket but with some little Valentine goodies. I’m going to use  this printable for the basket!

Oh and alternates! Because some times your best intentions just don’t happen…

Alternate 1 – Starbucks cake pops! (this may have to happen no matter what…maybe no the 11th because that’s her actually bday)

Alternate 2 – Heart stickers…because you can’t go wrong with a toddler and a page full of stickers! I got a box of 1000 Valentine stickers at Party City for $1.99!

Alternate 3 – Candy…yep just give her some candy!

Special Memories – A Mickey Mouse Mug

You see this mug? It’s not mine. It’s a picture of a mug that I found on esty. Why did I look for this picture? Because I used to have this mug and today it broke. You may think that this is a funny thing to hold on to for years…and it really has been years. They Etsy listing posted it as ‘vintage 1987′, which is probably the year I got it. It’s a silly mug but I’ve kept it for a long time. The other side has Mickey on it and it says ‘Happy Birthday.’ You see, my dad got me this mug. The memory is a little foggy but it is such a sweet memory that it makes me feel warm inside ever time I look at this mug. My birthday is the day before Valentine’s Day so I remember my dad coming home with this mug for me and a Valentine’s Day mug for my mom (deeply sorry I was not able to find a picture of hers). Who knows what my mom thought of my dad bringing her a Mickey Mouse mug for Valentine’s day, but my dad bringing me that special gift meant so much to me. And I think I loved that my mom had a ‘matching’ one!  It meant so much to me that I have been drinking out of it for 26 years! All through my childhood, high school, I took it to college with me and even now, married with kids I would drink from it and little Capri would point and shout “Mickey Mouse!”

Making memories with our kids is so important and sometimes it can be so easy. It’s doing the special things. It’s taking the time to do something a little out of the ordinary. It doesn’t have to be an actual gift like this was. It could be taking the time to have a tea party or build a fort or go on a treasure hunt. Those memories are special. This memory to me said that my dad loved me, thought about me, and wanted to give me something special. I’m sure there were other crazy psychological things going on that stamped this in my memory…perhaps the fact that this mug is from 1987 and he gave it to me in February just one month after my little brother was born – I have feeling I was needing a little extra love and attention!

So I’m especially sad that this little mug is gone (although Jeremy probably isn’t since he has asked me more than once why I still have it!). However, it has reminded me 1) how much I love my dad! and 2) I want to be looking for ways to make special memories for my kids!

Do you have any special memories like this or little mementos that you have kept for years? What are some things you are doing with your kids to make fun memories?