Planned for Years...

Years this has been brewing in that creative part of my brain. Years I have been patiently gathering shades of lovely color. Years I have been fighting the impulse to begin too soon when I peered at my shelves of magical color. But this weekend....it was time to begin. Here are glimpses of a peaceful work of hands. Worked on while waiting for precious friends to arrive, worked on after they left this morning giving me a chance to ponder all they had shared about the new adventure they were embarking on, and worked on after a good afternoon of yard work while I sat and watched my kiddos play under the sun. Just small snips of time, but each filling this rug with warm memories. I hope to finish this within a year, but I will not rush, I will simply enjoy and hope that it will become an heirloom.

A Special Gift from A Priceless Teen...

We have a very special student from church, who let us know this week that she has a gift for our girls. The Lord is moving her family on to a new home, new job and new church family so, she had something special to pass on to our girls and she called this afternoon to see if they could drop it off. I should have had the camera ready to capture my daughters' eyes when they brought this house through the door! We have occasionally stood wide eyed in the isles at hobby stores admiring doll houses such as this, so to have one seems like a lovely dream! The girls have been studying all the neat furniture they brought with the house and finding new ways to rearrange it in the house. Even Noah is having fun pretending with Bell right now. It is such a beautiful gift- But in all honesty, I would gladly trade in the house to keep them here. It is so hard to see them go even though I know the Lord has plans for good in their lives! The house will be a constant reminder of the blessing they all have been in our lives. It will also serve as a reminder to pray for them as they make a new start and look for a new church family.

The Rescue of My Wedding Quilt.....

A few years ago we decided to get a dog. We had finally bought our first home, we had settled in, we thought we were done having wee ones, and it seems quite perfect to add a dog to family life!! So, that is how Max came to be in our family. We rescued him as a puppy, he was a beautiful husky lab mix with quite the character!!! He was already housebroken and crate trained-could it get any better! We found that he would be much quieter if we laid a blanket over his crate at night. It just became routine. Then life took a drastic change of course for us. We found out we were expecting our fifth wonder!! This news for us was awesome! But also very scary-as I have hyperemesis with my pregnancies and it had increased in severity with each one. I quickly became bedridden and had a home nurse to help care for my needs. We, as a family struggled, but have always been amazed by the Lord's grace and blessings through such a difficult time. But, our poor newest member Max didn't get the best end of the deal! This energetic pup, spent a lot of his time in the crate because I was unable to spend time training and playing with him, and my amazing husband was playing Mr Mom and Dad to our four other kiddos. Max dealt with his boredom in ways like eating everything in sight or reach even when he was crated! One dreadful morning I had come down to get him out of his crate and had discovered that our wedding quilt had been eaten!!! I honestly could not even tell you who put it on his crate-most likely it was me, simply being to tired and sick to even care what I grabbed when I tucked him in for the night. But, my heart was crushed and for at least a year I am sure, the thought of what happened to the quilt would leave a huge knot in my stomach. The quilt was from my Husband's Grandma who has passed away now, and I had always looked at it as an heirloom. Well, I gathered it up and folded what remained and put it awya on a shelf in my studio. I just couldn't part with it and had a vaque hope that I would someday find a way to repurpose it. Well that was over two years ago, alot of life has happened in our family. We had our little Noah-who I always new I had yet to meet. Our oldest son is now not the only brother of 3 sisters! We sadly passed Max on to another family who could enjoy his energy as we began again with the newborn stage in our home. And just this past weekend, I finally repainted our kitchen in a sunny yellow after collecting blue dishes for 3 years!! Little did I know when I picked out the colors for our kitchen 3 years ago, that our wedding quilt would be the cherry on top! I finally pulled my beloved quilt off the shelf today, grabbed a pair of sissors with my heart thumping and made the cuts! The quilt now lays lovingly on my island as the centerpiece and brings with it a wonderful bundle of memories!!! Most of which, I can now smile at.