{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Joining in with SouleMama

 

My Beautiful Boy

Joining in with Dayle at A Collection of This and That for Simple Pleasures this week :)

Happy Resurrection Day!

HE IS RISEN!  What a glorious day!

 We have been spending a lovely weekend as family doing a whole lot of nothing much :)  We did some grocery shopping yesterday with an attempt at couponing and managed fairly well!  Hoping to see some real results within the next month when we start getting coupon packs in the mail and our rewards cards begin showing some savings.  I guess if we keep at it we'll start seeing huge savings within about six months.  If we could just cut our grocery bill in half we'd come out on top!  Anyway, it was a pretty messy day so other than grocery shop we just hung around the house.  Sometimes it's really nice to just do nothing!

We had a great morning at church listening to a wonderful and emotional message from our Pastor.  Our worship music was even more amazing than it usually is - the band performed all new worship songs and absolutely rocked the house!

Then we came home and had an Easter egg hunt in our front yard:

Egg hunt booty

Foil covered chocolate eggs

More booty

Who knew Easter eggs contained money???

One happy boy!

Little man has been such a happy boy today...he's tooling around in his tee-shirt with a "He is Risen" sticker on it that he got from his Sunday School class :)  We are truly having a blessed day!  He was all dressed up in his freshly ironed Easter shirt and tie and was so proud of how he matched his handsome daddy :) Take a look:

I couldn't be more blessed than this - it makes my heart so happy to see my two favorite men so glad to be together!  Of course you don't see me in any of these pics - LOL - I'm the one hiding behind the camera lens!

I'm taking a mini break from knitting for a while - I decided to finish a cross stitch project I barely started eons ago.   It's a lovely angel playing a harp and I thought it would be the perfect gift for my MIL's birthday in July.  This gives me lots of time to finish it up and maybe have it framed for her.  No worries - she doesn't read my blog so I'm not spoiling her surprise!

I had done most of the dark blue years ago so that was the first color I finished. 

Added the aqua accent to the gown and started the pink sash -
the book in the above ground is my current read
a thread so thin by Marie Bostwick

Here is my current work with the pattern photo - pretty, isn't she!

This is a piece I made for my Dad for Fathers Day nearly 10 years ago!
I still love the beaded stars :)

I wish you all a very Happy Easter!  Eat a lot, stay safe and praise the good Lord above for all your blessings!

XXOO

{this moment}

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. 

The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, 

stood at a distance, watching these things. 

Luke 23:44-49


{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Visit SouleMama for more!

Feeling Plaid

My sister in law is the crafty one.  She always has great project ideas and is a very talented multimedia artist in her own right.  And I try to copy her as much as I can!  She gets a kick out of it and loves to share her projects so we can have craft time together :)  Today was such an occasion!  Our niece is almost eight and absolutely adores horses.  She asked her talented Auntie to paint a horse in her bedroom.  So my intrepid SIL went online to see what she could see for ideas and came across this lovely idea for cardboard horses.  The artist, Ann Wood, made up 100 of these lovelies and named each and every one!  She provides a link to her templates so today we printed off a couple and cut out some cardboard horses.  My SIL has been working on this already and is making 25 horses to race across our nieces bedroom wall!  What a clever thing to do!  So I made this one for the wild man's room:

We originally were going to paint them and then I came up with the idea of covering the horses in fabric - see?  Sometimes I have an original crafty thought!  Anyway, she loved the idea and made one covered in pink flowery fabric with pink and brown legs for our niece.  I wish I had thought to photo it before she left!  Anyway, this is such a clever thing to do and with a little bit of time cutting out the pieces and decorating them you will a wonderful horse-y silhouette to dance across your wall, too!

In other news, I whipped up a beaded and felted purse for a friend who is getting married next month.  It was a quick knit and the first time I've ever used beads!  I think it's lovely and when it's completely dry I intend to do a little accent embroidery around the flap.  I also need to figure out what type of fastener to use.  Here's a peek!

Before felting...

After felting - still a bit wet :)

That's it for now!  Hope you have a marvelous Monday!

XXOO

Ta-Dah!

Finished project complete with buttons :)

Aren't they just darling?

Unfortunately my camera isn't very good at true color pics because this green looks very washed out.  It's much prettier in person and doesn't clash so horribly with the buttons!  LOL!  In any case, it's been completed, wrapped and delivered and will hopefully provide my friends baby with many months of warmth :)

Have a lovely weekend!

XXOO

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

*** *** ***

Yarn Along

Joining up with Ginny at small things for her weekly yarn along :)

It's a ta-dah! moment over in my humble abode - the Bernat baby hoodie is done!  Well, except for the buttons anyway.  Instead of covering them over with knitted swatches, I'm getting something cute and baby-boyish.  This pattern was super easy to knit up and very difficult for me to seam.  I'm really all fingers and thumbs when it comes to sewing - I have no knowledge of how to piece things together - so I did the best I could using internet video tutorials and I think it came out pretty ok.  The side seaming and sleeves came out very nice.  The rest?  Well, hopefully no one looks too closely!

I'm finishing up the Fannie Flagg book, I Still Dream About You, and it's really good.  Started off slowly, in fact, I considered not finishing it at all it was dragging so much, but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did.  About 2/3rds of the way through the story starts moving along and you get more background to the characters.  I can't wait to see how she ends it!

I've got lots more to post about but little time to do it in...I still need to get lunch for my wonderful hubby and pick up the wild man from preschool.  So I'll close out for now and catch up with you soon!

Have a lovely week!

XXOO

Yarn Along

Joining up with Ginny at small things for her weekly yarn along :)

 

I'm doing Bernat's knit hoodie for a friend's baby shower in 10 days and I hope I can finish seaming and doing the button bands by then! I've never assembled a sweater this way.  I've always done raglan style baby sweaters so this will be a new experience for me :)  The pattern also calls for buying buttons and covering them with knit swatches - YIKES!  I'll give it a try then maybe just get some cute baby boy style buttons that don't need any extra fiddling around :)  I'm using Lion Brand's Vanna's Choice yarn in Dusty Green, worsted weight.  The sweater should be size 0-6mo.

The book is Fannie Flagg's I Still Dream About You.  You may know she authored Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.  I love her style and have just started it.  So far so good but I'm only a few pages into it.  I'm hoping it's as well written and captivating as Fried Green Tomatoes :)

We've been fighting a bit of the stomach flu around here...wild man had it on Monday and now I've got it.  Blah!  I'm hoping it's just the 24hr variety like he had.  My poor belly is feeling very unsettled :(

Hope you all have a wonderful week!  I'll post more when my energy isn't flagging so much!

XXOO

Photo Friday and Thoughts for the Week

This is what we woke up to this morning...

It was coming down in huge sticky clumps.

The weight has crushed my outdoor chicken pen.

This tree has been shedding snow like mad, in great scary clumps banging on the roof.

Even the dog was thoroughly disgusted, picking his way out to do his business.

 We also have a tree down across the outdoor goat pen - photos of that to follow when I get the gumption to don my boots and wade outside to see what's what...  In the meantime, happier photos from earlier this week:

Biking at the school with Daddy

makes him a happy boy!

New haircut!

Maple Sunday - looking through a sap pump :)

Field trip to the local airport!

It's been a busy week for the wild man and despite a rather nasty cough, he's been having LOTS of fun!

On the knitting front, I missed Ginny's yarn along again this week...I'm working on finishing up a baby sweater for a friends shower next month.  I still have an arm to finish up today and then I can cast on for the hood.  I'm also reading Kathy Reichs' Spider Bones, it's thirteenth in her fabulous Temperance Brennen series.  You probably know this series is the inspiration for the TV show Bones - if not you do now!  Anyway, here is a poor shot of what I've done so far...the true color is more a sage green - this pic is a tad washed out.

Hubby and I have been doing our own Bible study after the wild man is in bed.  We've done 22 sessions and have begun praying together.  I've always been a skeptical believer, if that even makes sense - maybe more of a seeker, I guess, and this week God has given me glimpses of what awaits me when the skepticism finally drops away.  We've been in a financial crisis and hadn't enough money to buy groceries.  We had started praying about becoming good stewards with the money we were blessed with at the beginning of this crisis and as a result decided to cut out all unnecessary extras; such as eating out, buying magazines, toys, yarn (*sniff*) and we looking at other ways to stretch the dollars.  During one particularly bad week we were trying to decide how we were going to get the bare essentials and put gas in the truck so hubby could get to work.  I told hubby we needed to scrounge up about $50 so I could get enough stuff to stretch into two weeks.  Hubby had about $23 in the bank after the bills were paid and needed $20 of that for gas and I don't work so we were really trying to get creative.  I began rolling pennies from our penny jug and hubby made a trip to the recycling center with several bags of returnables.  This is what became amazing to me - between the few dollars we had between us in our wallets, the rolled coins and the returnables we had exactly, to the penny, $50!  Now you can't tell me God didn't have a hand in that!  Not only were we blessed with this small windfall but I was also able to get what we needed for only $40, leaving us with $10 in case we ran out of milk or bread the rest of the week.  The bottom line?  We ended up with gas in both vehicles and plenty of food and still had a little left over.  The math doesn't work and I can't explain it any other way except this is a glimpse of the blessings that await us when we continue in our obedience to Him.

I just read a familiar passage in Philippians 4:10-13 that has been resonating with me in a new way.  I know the words, have read them many times before, yet never understood the context the way I think I do now.  Paul is talking about learning to be content with your situation, no matter if you have plenty or are in need and then reveals the secret of contentment.  It is "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."  Verse 13.  The NIV describes everything to mean everything pleasing to God and him who gives me strength as Christ himself.  Giving it all up to God and trusting in Him will give us contentment - the key being to give it all up.  That's very difficult for those of us with control issues!  It's a learning process, isn't it?  And when I get encouragement from the good Lord Himself I know I'm on the right track.

Stay safe, God bless and have a lovely weekend!  (Once the snow melts, of course!)

XXOO

**ADDED NOTE:  We have two freezers full of poultry and hamburg so we aren't starving - it's needing fresh fruit, veggies and daily staples like milk and juice that supplement the meat.  We are fortunate to be very blessed with the bounty of our farm and recognize that many people struggle every second of every day to put food on the table for their families and many are unable.  My point is to emphasize stewardship - we created our own crisis by being irresponsible with what God had entrusted us. We have many blessings which we are very thankful for.  To God goes the glory!