Ten on Tuesday…

1.  My sweet Myla turns FIVE this Friday.  I’m in shock over how quickly this has happened.  She is SO excited though and has asked me every day for the past couple of days, “How much longer until my birthday?”  I can’t wait to celebrate her.  We’re going very low key this year. Last year we had a big shindig which was great fun, but this year we decided to do more of a “just family” party, as Myla calls it!

2.  I’m amazed at my mom and how well she has done after her shoulder surgery.  We have been over there twice to “take care of her”, but she hardly needs any help.  She must have the highest pain tolerance.  She also never complains, so it makes her a pretty easy patient to take care of!

3.  My mom gave me some new hangers for my closet as my “thank you for helping take care of me” gift.  Ha!  I think she was just looking for an excuse to give them to me because I don’t feel like I’ve done much to take care of her.  Anyway, the hangers are Joy Mangano hangers, and they really do help give you more space in your closet, and everything looks much more orderly.  Even Michael was impressed, saying the closet “doesn’t even look like the same place that it was before”.  Or, maybe it wasn’t actually the hangers for him or just the fact that I had picked everything up off of the floor in there and found a home for it! 

4.  When we were decorating Myla’s nursery before she was born my mom gave me a big canvas painting with her name on it to go above her bed.  We used it until we moved from our old house, but I decided not to hang it in her room in this house since eventually the girls will be sharing a room.  But, I didn’t want to throw it away because I was hoping I could use it for something. After seeing several tutorials on Pinterest about how to make chalkboard paint, I thought I would give it a try and then I remembered this canvas, and I thought it would be perfect for that project!

Making the paint was super easy.  I found the white, non-sanded grout at Home Depot.  It was around $5 for this box, and I only had to use 1 Tablespoon.  If anyone needs any grout, please let me know!  You use 2T of grout to every 1 cup of paint.  I didn’t think I would need a whole cup of paint, so I halved the recipe, and I’m glad I did!

I taped off the canvas because I had planned on making a border around it, but I ended up having so much black paint that I just went ahead and painted the whole canvas black.

The finished product now hangs in our kitchen!  I really like how it turned out, and I plan on switching out the verse each week.  One thing we are going to do with homeschooling is memorize scripture (as well as a lot of other things…that will have to be its own post one day!), so I thought what better way than to have the verse on our wall so we can talk about it through the week!

4. Myla and Selah have really taken on a whole new level of playing together.  I love to watch them interact and play.  Their conversations are so sweet.  Right now their favorite thing to play is “grocery store”.  They get their little shopping baskets and WalMart sacks and go shopping with all of their toys…filling the baskets to the brim then they “check out”!  They are definitely sisters though because just the moment they are playing beautifully together, a cat fight breaks out. After that is settled they typically go right back and play again.  Too funny!  I hope as the grow, their friendship will grow as well!

5.  I am in a cooking funk!  I feel like I cook the same thing over and over and over and over….  Sweet Michael never complains and is willing to eat those same things over and over, but goodness sometimes I just want something different!  Any ideas would be appreciated!

6.  Sometimes I am amazed at our God.  He is so faithful and compassionate.  I have had a difficult thing happen in my life this week, and as badly as I have wanted to be bitter and hurt over it, God has sweetly provided scripture that perfectly pertains to what I have needed, other people that have greatly encouraged me, and also songs that have spoken straight to my hurting heart.  Just yesterday morning after I had prayed that God would calm my heart and help me take captive every thought, I read in Jesus Calling,

“Stop worrying long enough to hear my voice. I speak softly to you, in the depths of your being. Your mind shuttles back and forth, hither and yon, weaving webs of anxious confusion. As my THOUGHTS rise up within you, they become entangled in those sticky webs of worry. Thus, my voice is muffled, and you hear only “white noise.” Ask my Spirit to quiet your MIND so that you can think MY THOUGHTS….Sit quietly in my presence, letting MY THOUGHTS reprogram your THINKING!”

I was in tears thinking how God was so faithful to give me words that were like a healing balm.  My flesh still struggles with bad thoughts and hurt feelings, but I know God will be faithful to take all of that away as long as I LET Him.

Then last night at choir practice, we practiced a song that had these words:  “Be still my soul, the Lord is ON YOU SIDE.  Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.  Leave to Thy God to order and provide, in every change He FAITHFUL will remain.” Again, my heart felt so peaceful, and I was just reminded of God’s faithfulness, and I sat in my choir chair and thanked Him for that!

7.  After Michael’s grandmother died, and we were going through her house, I asked if I could have some of the old, solid wood, interior doors.  I have seen so many fun things to do with old doors to decorate.  Well, they have been in our garage now for a few months and in a shed at my parent’s house for months before that, so I am finally going to try and do something with them!  We have an idea about how to use several of them as a headboard for our bed, so that is going to be our first project.  I started yesterday stripping the old layers of paint off of them.  I realized it is going to take an eternity long time to do them, so I must be patient…which is not my greatest virtue!!

8.  A funny Selah story…yesterday morning she asked, “Mommy, where are we going today?”  I told her that we were going “nowhere”.  Obviously in her mind, she thinks “nowhere” is a real place because all day she kept saying, “Mommy, I’m ready to go nowhere” or “What am I going to wear to nowhere?”  I couldn’t get her to understand that we really weren’t going anywhere.  Bless her heart…it was a bit frustrating for her.  Another Selah funny is that she so desperately wants to chew gum like Myla, but after she gets a piece in her mouth she usually swallows it pretty quickly.  Well, not long ago I gave her a piece and after a few minutes I noticed she wasn’t chewing it anymore.  I asked her if she swallowed it, and she quickly replied NO!  So, I asked her where it was, and she said, “I not swallow it, it is in my froat (throat).”  She was adamant that she had not swallowed it!!!

9.  My last crafting project that I’m working on this week is some wooden “frames”.  I absolutely love the large, distressed wood frames at places like the Mustard Seed and Sugar Magnolia, but I do not like the fact that they cost LOTS of money.  The one I really want is $198.  WOW!!  Can’t do that.  So, I got some inspiration on Etsy.

This was my inspiration….just a piece of wood and hold the glass in with 3 screws and slide the picture in the top.

This is what I have come up with so far.  I had pictures made of the girls last Thursday, so once I get those in I am going to get the glass cut and finish them.  I called the glass company, and he told me an 8x10 piece of glass is around $7.  I can’t wait to see how they turn out, and I will definitely put pictures up!

10.  Last, but now least, I think it is PAST time for an adoption update.  I am going to work on that tonight!!!  Stay tuned…it’s a lot of new news!

Happy Tuesday…we’re about to be off to the movies!!!!!!!