HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

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Happy Halloween!!

I know some people don't like Halloween or don't agree with it, but I think you can have fun with it with out going off the deep end and getting all dark and stuff!

First off I enjoy decorating my house for Halloween...and like I said in my previous post I like using fun colors, not all dark scary stuff!

Plus, carving pumpkins is a fun Halloween tradition that brings back so many memories for me as a kid...and even through college I have carved a pumpkin with friends almost every year! Some of them were awesome and took a lot of time, others like this year was short and sweet but still turned out cute!

This is from this past week...in case you can't tell it's a bat!

It was also fun to give the boys an opportunity to experience this "American Tradition..." although they didn't understand how this could be FUN and really just thought it was nasty! haha I think they eventually enjoyed it though!

Our Family Pumpkins!

Then Halloween also makes room for fun parties where people can dress up! I must say...I have hosted some awesome Halloween parties in my day! (Usually assisted by friends) and my favorite part about parties is the fun festive food that you can make!

Throwing up pumpkin!

Candy Corn Sugar Cookies---homemade!

Plus I loved decorating a Pinterest like Halloween table this year, all on my own! For the party I made Cheese dip, homemade salsa, guacamole (throwing up pumpkin), my famous pumpkin spice bread, caramel apples, popcorn, candy corn cookies, plus some candy! And we had hotdogs & smores with all the kids!

Party Table!

Party Table with the lights off!

Along with the fun food, at our party for our boys friends we had a great game for them to play! I named it the "Ooey Gooey Guessing Game" We set up a table of buckets filled with different kinds of food...we then covered it with an old sheet and left holes over each bucket for their hands to go through! They had to walk by and guess what was in each bucket!

To make it more fun, we decorated outside with spider webs, a black light, candles on the table, and I made labels for each bucket saying what they were supposed to be.

Ooey Gooey Guessing Game

Here's the list for each bucket:

1) Human Tongues: banana pills

2) Blood & Guts: whole peeled tomatoes

3) Veins: cold spaghetti noodles

4) Brains: gooey puddy

5) Dead Fingers: baby carrots

6) Eyeballs: pilled grapes

They had a blast!

And tonight I am so looking forward to giving candy out to sweet kids dressed up ringing my doorbell! I have never been able to do this because of where I live, but I am excited for tonight!

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It's Fall at my house!

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So I woke up this morning and when I walked outside my front door Abilene surprised me with a dark/dreary, cool day. I LOVE IT! To me it is the first sign of Fall, and then with that was a dark sky that was full of color which is also a wonderful treat to start the day off with.

So anyways, since I'm feeling Fallish today I decided to start a series of Fall crafting blogs....highlighting things that I have been doing around my home to make it feel like Fall!

So I will start off with my mantel!

(I am sorry that my photos are not that great of quality....I need to quit being lazy and put my phone camera away and start using my Nikon!)

So here is a look at my mantel with our mantel spotlight shining on it. When I decorate for Halloween I enjoy fun colors and pretty things...I try to steer clear of scary decorations.

So let's take a closer look at what I did.

This idea I got from PINTEREST. Basically these are 2x6 pieces of wood that my husband cut into different heights. Previously I printed out the black letters using a regular computer printer and then I cut those out along with the correct size of the scrapbook paper and glued the letter to each paper. Then I glued the paper to the wood and modge podged over it. (I also added a small spider hanging from the middle of my O, just for fun)

Then after they dried because of the size of the wood they easily stood straight up on their own.

On the left side of the letters I put these fun wine bottles that I painted and sticks in them.

First I took wine bottles and soaked them to get the labels off, then I took them outside and spray painted them different colors that matched my fun color scheme. I wanted all different shaped bottles to add some fun contrast. Then I took some spare crafting ribbon and yarn that I had to decorate the middle bottle. That is gray yarn on the top and bottom of a black rosette covered ribbon. I then found a few sticks and spray painted those black to add a more Halloween look to it.

To the right of that is a cake stand that we made for a school event. Although you can't tell in the photo, it is also spray painted a lime green. For this we bought martini glasses and silver platters from the dollar tree, meaning I spent $2 on this. We glued them together and then spray painted the bottom different colors. It is great for holding a cute pumpkin or for holding cupcakes or something at a party.

Then on the right side of my BOO I took several of my glass jar/vases I have and filled them with various things. (I have so many of these because we bought them to use for our wedding chocolate candy bar. They are very helpful in decorating my bigger house though :-)

For the first one I took some gray moss that I bought from the dollar tree and filled the bottom then put an orange candle that I had inside of it. SIMPLE!

The smallest one is filled with orange and tan sand, which is actually our Unity Sand from our wedding :-)

Then in the last one I put a little bit of moss and then filled the rest with baby pumpkins. (This isn't shown here because I took this before getting the pumpkins.

So finally this is my Halloween mantel!

After I was done I realized it was missing something so I took some tan tulle, also from my wedding and wrapped it through what I had up, adding some paper leaves throughout it also.

I partly wish I could do something above it but we chose to put that giant, heavy glass frame above it. Which means it would be so much work to take it down, Meguell would have to do it lol, and there would be two huge screw mounts in the wall where it hangs. So anyways, I'll keep it for now!

I love having a mantel and having a bigger house to decorate!

Stay tuned for more Fall decor, and follow me on Pinterest where I share and get a lot of my ideas from!

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Crafting is consuming my life....AND I LOVE IT!

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I have been so bad at blogging lately....so I want to say sorry to my blog and sorry to my blog followers! I am going to be better!

Lately though, I have been so busy with work, school, college ministry, the boys, being a wife/semi-mother, traveling, and CRAFTING!!

Notice crafting is bolded and italicized....that is because I am LOVING IT!

Since we have a new house and all, and with getting so involved with pinterest, I have had so much motivation to craft! And it has been awesome! The next few days I will be blogging about my recent craft adventures....one of those blogs will be all about Fall decor/crafts! YAY! I love fall...and sidenote: the weather in Abilene today is very Fallish and I am loving it! Speaking of I made a cute scarf last night and am wearing it today! Definitely ready to pull out my boots!

So here is the most time consuming, high-skill leveled, and biggest project I have been doing lately...and along with this my husband is helping A LOT....and I have had some major sewing accomplishments as I have started this project. Still not totally done though, but let me explain with photos!

So this is the outdoor couch/bench that Meguell made...totally from scratch! And it is not totally done, he is still in the process of staining it! We have a wonderful outdoor covering in our backyard, and we are going to set this up with a matching chair, hopefully put some lights out there, and our fire pit and it will be great! I cannot wait to show you the final pictures! Our plan is to have it done by a week from this Friday, which is the day that we are having a Halloween party for our boys friends at the house! (which I am so excited about!) So hopefully the week after that I can post finished pictures!

Then, as you notice the couch above would not be comfortable to just sit on, so I have made some great pillows for it! So I went to Hancocks Fabric and found some amazing sales! I probably saved about $100 on the fabric because outdoor fabric was on sale, I got some of it from usualy $20 a yard to just $5 a yard! Awesome deal! And then we got foam and pillow forms for 40% off! So these projects were looking great, now it was up to me to do a good sewing job to make it look nice!

The first thing I did was learn how to sew on zippers! This is a photo of my first one! I am so proud of these! It wasn't as hard as you think once you wrap your mind around it, and these turned out looking great!

Here are the first two pillows I made. (Since then I have made the two other ones that I need...) The yellow and white one is the fabric that will cover our chair, and the strips will be on the couch. These giant pillows are the backs that you lean against...I still have to do the cushions that you sit on. Also, just a little fyi, these are the first pillows I have ever made!

A close up of the chair pillow.

Then last night I made this small rectangle pillow. This one is just an added color/pattern to the couches! It will just be a throw pillow, and I will probably make 2 more of these in all different shapes/sizes. This one doesn't have a zipper, it is just stuffed.

Here's a pic of the process ( I used the Iphone app "diptic" to make the framed look)

Anyways, I am so proud of our work so far! But now is the hard part....doing the square cushions....because they are four inches thick, it will be different than just sewing the pillows, but hopefully YOUTUBE videos will come through for me again, as they did with teaching me to sew on zippers :-)

I will keep you updated on how it goes!

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sometimes I don't like conviction

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Sometimes I wish I didn't have the conviction of the Holy Spirit in me...ha ha meaning.....

Sometimes my feelings of frustration get so big that I want to let them out!

I wish I could tell people just how I feel without knowing that it was wrong.

People say things that hurt me, and that I do not see as truth, and I am unable to express my true feelings about it!

I know that this is what the Lord has called me to do though....especially because it is a personal defense to want to say something back when people express their thoughts.

For now though I guess I will continue to just share my feelings of frustration with the Lord, because that is the safe place to do it!

And I pray that I will not let my flesh get the best of me like it has before....

I guess in actuality, I am thankful for the conviction of the Holy Spirit, yet in my flesh I wish I could scream about my frustrations and how people hurt me!

Thank you Lord that I have you though, and that you comfort me and heal wounds that cannot be healed by the expression of how I feel, but only by the tender love of a Father!

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ZZZZZzzzzzzzz.........

Pin It Sorry I haven't done a great job at keeping up with my blog these past few weeks. I got started back up writing after the first of school calmed down....but lately I have just been so tired. I haven't wanted to write much even though I actually do have time. Pin It

Discipleship....??

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So last night I started ATTENDING a Discipleship group!

You notice I said attending....NOT leading! Thank the Lord! :-) Literally

This is something that I have been praying for, for a while now.

Although I enjoy leading in the college ministry and love seeing the fruits of discipling girls and leading girls, it has been hard as the leader, because for a while now I haven't had anyone pouring in to me.

I do have a lot of close friends that I walk with,

and I do get poured into by our college ministers through leadership stuff,

and I have been walking with a close friend through accountability, which is wonderful and something I need,

BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT!

This is an older, wiser woman pouring into me!

And what's even better....she is married!

Thank you Jesus that is an answered prayer!

Since i have been married I have not walked with anyone who is married!

And it gets hard...

Although I am surrounded by wonderful girls who love the Lord and are so encouraging and uplifting...and I wouldn't change that for anything....it is hard that none of my friends are married, and so I can't "GO THERE" in conversation.

Or they can't necessarily, truly keep me accountable through marriage stuff!

So I am so excited to have someone showing me and teaching me what it really looks like to walk beside my husband as a godly wife who loves and supports him.

Someone who will keep me accountable as I walk away from "having to be in control..." and trusting my husband and honoring him in his decisions :-)

I am truly so thankful that the Lord has given this to me...and cannot wait to go deeper with it!

To the people walking with me in this...THANK YOU!

To the girls I daily walk with, I love you dearly and would not change our friendships for anything....but one day you will understand how important this is!

To Jesus! Thank you so much for hearing my cries as I told you I needed this and through me getting so frustrated this summer, and sounding so selfish as I asked you why I had no one! Thank you for answering my prayers even when I was so dishonoring to you!

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NEGLECT!!

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Life has been so hectic since our trip to Africa!

I hope that you kept up with the blog we wrote while we were in Africa since I have been so bad and have neglected to write about our adventures on my own blog! If you didn't see the blog, check it out at Mission Moz and get caught up on the wonderful adventures and things the Lord did in our hearts and the way he used our team in Africa! We loved and we are already praying about what next summer looks like for us!

Speaking of what the Lord did in MY heart while we were in Mozambique....I know this started last Spring, but the Lord confirmed and gave me strength in this while we were in Africa. The Lord has really been giving me the heart of a mother....not only in my desires to have my own children, but to be a spiritual mother to the people we pastor in college ministry and more.

More of his heart for this came out while we were spending this time in Moz. We were at the Zimpeto Children's Center, and I was drawn towards the older teenage boys. The hard part though was that I could only get so close to them or go so far in conversation, because of my age, although I felt a mother's heart towards these boys, that is NOT how they see me....which was hard for me. But I was able to get close to some of them, and man on our last night there I really struggled. After we told them goodbye and it was there bedtime I went back to the visitor's compound and just sat alone and cried. I asked the Lord why he gave me this mother's heart for people especially here when I couldn't express it or when I had to leave these wonderful boys!

He really started showing me he was going to use that in my life though. So I have been praying what that looks like here in Abilene with the college ministry. Meguell and I are now some of the older leaders, and we pastor many people, AND WE LOVE IT! And I love all of them! I am just praying more and more that the people that we lead will see our hearts for them and know how much we care! I do feel like in Africa though the Lord showed me how to carry this mother's heart and take ownership in that it is one of the gifts the Lord has given me, and I love it!

Speaking of mother, our boys from China & Hong Kong moved in less than a week after we arrived back in America! It was a hectic first couple of weeks, we got back on a Friday evening, began unpacking into our new house that weekend, boys started arriving on Monday, and they began school on Wednesday!

It has been amazing though, they are great and so much fun! We are enjoying our lives with them very much and know this is what the Lord has called us to do in Abilene!

Thank you Jesus for choosing to use US!!

Here are some photos for you!

We took the boys to the West Texas Fair! They loved trying the new foods and riding the rides

From left: Steven, Owen, & Evan!

A photo of our living room!

Meguell has been amazing with the boys! He teaches them all different things! Here he is getting them to help him build this couch! (Meguell made this from scratch, and I am making the cushions, then this will be our outdoor furniture!)

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