Last weeks Thanksgiving Tree was a huge hit! We haven’t added any new leaves yet, though I have several I need to add as God is constantly proving to me how worthy He is of Thanksgiving. I really debated about this weeks Fall Impression, I knew I wanted to do shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child and was thrilled to find out that my dad’s church was doing it this year! Even though that is a really great thing to do I felt like I wanted something more with it - we do a lot of giving at our house because it is something we enjoy and so I wanted it to be more than just giving a box of toys. I was just sitting here with my coffee thinking about what to do and realized what a perfect opportunity this would be to discuss stewardship.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) -
stew⋅ard
   /ˈstuərd, ˈstyu-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [stoo-erd, styoo-] Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a person who manages another’s property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.

I am actually really excited about teaching him what a steward is and how we can be good stewards of all God has given us. Perfect timing too as his Sunday School lesson had been about the woman who gave the only coin she had, and though the coin itself was worth very little the gesture was great because it was everything she had.

So today we are going to go shopping and learn how we can be good stewards of what we have. I’m also going to make some worksheets with Gabe’s spelling words and spaces where he can write things he found his spelling words on. Since we’re going grocery shopping also I’m going to have him help with the coupons and sales to figure how much we save. I’ve been struggling recently with Homeschooling and being in a rut but I am feeling excited about it today and trying something a little different to make it fun for all of us!

We’ll be back later with pictures of our shoeboxes and maybe some of the great deals we find!

Sundays are when I miss my New Mexico friends the most. I miss getting up on Sunday mornings, fighting with the kids to get ready on time and getting to church generally a few minutes late. I helped in the children’s department by doing the schedules and teaching or helping when needed. I miss knowing so many people and having a few really good close friends. Needless to say Sunday mornings are still hard, there are many times I still cry a little for missing my friends. I know God has us here for a reason and I know he will provide me with new friends for this new chapter in my life. I will never forget my New Mexico friends and I’ll likely always keep in touch - they have made impressions on my life that will stay with me forever!

I’m sure you’re all wondering how that has anything to do with “Sunday Fun Day”, right? Well it really doesn’t but it was on my mind so I let it all out first. Today is going to be a Sunday Fun Day for us! We are going to go to the 9:45 church service and then we are going to go to Wichita to the Warren Theaters to take the boys to see Madagascar 2. This will be David’s first time to see a movie in the theater and so we decided to take him to the best theater around! I’m hoping it doesn’t freak him out and that he just absolutely loves it! Gabe was 2 when I took him to his first movie in the theater — we saw “Jonah A Veggie Tales Movie” some things you just never forget. I remember walking through the parking lot holding his hand just having fun being together. At this point I’m not sure if the movie or the big bucket of popcorn will excite David more, but I can’t wait to find out!

I leave you with this thought today:

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

No , I don’t have my holidays confused I really do mean a Thanksgiving Tree. During the BloggyGiveaways.com quarterly carnival last week, (where I won here, here, and here! ) I found quite a few new blogs that I really enjoyed. One of those blogs is Impress Your Kids. It’s not about doing tricks or being the cool parent that impresses their kids - it’s about the impressions we make on our kids, and making sure they are the right ones! I’ve linked to it here but it can also be found in my blogroll over on the right hand side of the page here.

Well over at Impress Your Kids they are doing “Fall Impressions” which is a weekly series of activities, crafts, etc. to impress upon your kids the meaning of the season. Every Wednesday they will be posting their own activity and invites other bloggers to come up with something, post and link back to Impress Your Kids. With it being creative and crafty I jumped on board immediately. Not long after reading the post I had an idea of what I wanted to do and how Gabe ( age 8 ) could help. Before I delve into the Thanksgiving Tree here is the nifty neat-o button for Fall Impressions, click it to find out what Fall Impressions is all about:

I wanted to do something with a branch & leaves, then it came to me to make a tree! I grabbed an empty Progresso soup can from the recycle bin, sent Gabe out to find a couple different branches that have fallen in all this wind lately, and some rocks. Then Gabe & David (age 3) gathered several different sizes and types of leaves. Somehow it all turned into the Thanksgiving Tree! We even made our own plaster of paris (how cool is that?) to help hold it in place. It is still a work in progress as we have many more leaves to add but I want to add them as we lead up to Thanksgiving and become more aware of Giving Thanks. We’re also going to add some decoration to the fabric that’s covering the can - most likely buttons. I am really happy with how this came out and hope someone else enjoys it and is inspired by it! Without further ado, The Thanksgiving Tree:

Even though it looks sparse I love it. Oh and please ignore the boxes you see in the background, I am still unpacking. Since you won’t be able to make out everything on the leaves, here is what they say - in no particular order;

In Everything, Give Thanks!

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. Psalms 136:1

thanksgiving - noun a day set apart for giving thanks to God

friends

Gabe is thankful for: Jesus my dad my mom grammy papa my dog my brother grandma

I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. Psalms 9:1

family

Karla is thankful for: God’s grace My Heavenly Father my loving husband my 2 crazy sons Parents who set a great example God’s provision

thanksgiving - noun the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God

Gabe and I looked up the verses using the concordance in the back of the Bible (new thing for him) and looked up thanksgiving in the dictionary to help us understand it better. He helped a lot and is also quite proud of the end result. Next week I hope to do something outside our home to learn about giving and thankfulness. Gabe is a giver by nature (I admit it’s a passion of mine also) so I think we will have a blast figuring out just what to do next week!

ETA: I meant to do this before and forgot, here is a link to how I made the plaster of paris: How to make plaster of paris I used the flour method and added about 2T white glue for a little added stick since I was using it as a filler with the rocks.

I was going to come up with some quirky title but I don’t think I have it in me tonight. My heart is heavy as we approach what is going to be an historic election. It seems as if everyone has a strong opinion on who should win. I hope & pray that as we head to the polls we make the right decision. I will personally be spending a lot of the day in prayer as we face our nations future. This election has been a long time in coming and has completely exhausted me of politics. Please vote. I realize that as I say that I may be encouraging others to vote opposite of my candidate. Even as that is true I feel so strongly this year that we need to make every persons voice heard.

Since moving we haven’t found a home church and this is a sensitive, painful area as we have some amazing friends from our church in New Mexico, however the past two Sundays we have visited the same preacher (two locations - different styles). Sunday he impressed upon us one thing that really sticks with me and sums up the outcome of tomorrow’s election. Ready? Here it is:

No matter who wins, GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE.

For this I am eternally grateful. So much lies upon who becomes President but I know that our King will never be de-throned or voted out. He was and is and is to come. Awesome.

Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that coffee and I are BFF’s. I love coffee. It used to just be plain old unflavored coffee, but this is no longer true. I love a good flavored coffee. I could go on and on about how I love coffee and my favorite brands, etc. However this time I’m just wanting to let you know about a giveaway where you could win coffee also!! I spent some time browsing this site: Get the Bean yesterday and checking out the HUGE selection of coffees and teas. Just to give you an idea of some of the flavors; Banana Hazelnut, Pumpkinlicious, Cherry-Nilla, Hot Fudge, and Peppermint Stick. That barely even touches the selection they have! So if you are drooling over the thought of these coffees swing on over to their blog Get the Bean blog and get your entry in! They are giving away a bag (one pound) a week so be sure to get in on this great giveaway!

Surprisingly it’s not something I crafted with felt! I have taken to reading a few blogs every morning while drinking my coffee (transforming from zombie to human) and one of my favorites is Keeper of the Cheerios . I ran across it after a friend of mine won a contest from there and I’ve been hooked ever since! I love finding other Christian mommas out there in blogland it encourages me and challenges me to be more outspoken about my faith.

All that to say that she is hosting an awesome contest (one I selfishly did not want to share) for a $25 gift certificate to Story Time Felts . I had never heard of them before but I have spent quite a bit of time browsing the site and I am really excited about what I see! Go on over to Keeper of the Cheerios and check out the contest! While you’re there read some of her other posts.

There are days I think it would be great to be a dog - today is definitely one of those days! While I slave away packing and cleaning all the dog does is sit around looking cute, going outside to sniff the neighbor dog’s behind, and getting lavished with love. Ok I may have forgotten being terrorized by the toddler but still - her life is looking good to me compared to what I’m doing lately! Here is a shot of her cuteness:

It’s a good thing she’s that cute because last week after moving things around in the kitchen (her room) and packing a lot of it up she let me know exactly how she felt about it. By pooping all over the kitchen floor. If there is one thing that makes me queasy it’s dog poo, and of course the pooper scooper (also known as my loving husband) was not home to clean it up. She is lucky she is so cute. After her rebellion last week it seems as if she’s adjusting to the idea of moving and even looking forward to it. This is how I found her today:

I’m sure she did that all on her own without any help.

Anyhow for those of you keeping tabs - today marks one week from the day we leave. HOLY COW. Where did all the time go? I thought maybe I was being presumptuous by starting to pack with 4 weeks to go but obviously that is not the case as I am still packing and still have a fair amount to go. Wow. Can I just say yay for Freecycle and letting other people come pick up the things I don’t need! For those of you who have never heard of it check out www.freecycle.org it has been a great way to pass on toys, clothes, etc and pick up treasures here & there (including a swingset!).

Well back to packing for me!!

It used to be (about 2 weeks ago) that as I would fall asleep I would craft in my head. I would come up with creative ideas that I couldn’t wait to try out. I realized (sadly) last night that I am now packing in my head. I am so consumed with getting everything packed and ready to move that it has taken over my creativity. What a sad, sad realization. I have 2 weeks left to pack, of course then I’ll have to unpack. Hopefully my creativity will return in a few weeks!

Only 2 weeks ago we found out we were moving to Kansas. Yay!!! My wonderful husband was offered a job where he can utilize all his amazing skills and we can be close (a block and a half away) to my parents & my grandma! It is an amazing story of how faithful and loving God is. From the time Bill responded to the Craiglist ad for a job until he had the job was 10 days. Seriously. We even have a house to rent already and everything has just continually fallen into place. A wonderful series of “God-incidences” as my dad would call them!

Of course I can’t seem to make a post without pictures so here is what my dining/crafting area looks like now.

If you don’t hear from me for awhile it’s because the boxes ate me.

I haven’t had as much time to craft in the past few months as I would like, as my youngest -who will be 3 in a mere 2 months- decided he is no longer in need of naps. That in turn has eliminated a good chunk of my crafting time. Bummer. But never fear I will make time for it somehow! I did, however find a bunch of things I have yet to post that I made quite a while ago so I will share those with you today!

I’m hoping that at the beginning part of this week I will be able to post what I did in the boys’ room while Gabe was at my parents house this summer. Don’t hold your breath though as I’m obviously not great at updating like I want to. I’ll just credit that to having 2 kids, a husband and a dog who all distract me.

Ok, so in going through looking for pictures of my crafts for this post I am finding all kinds of things I want to post! The quilts I made for my boys and all my purses being at the top of the list! Hopefully I will make the time this week to get those up here.

Ok let’s start with an item I made for a swap on Craftster.org, this is a piece of embroidery that started as just Eeyore and I was going to use it as a journal cover. However after finishing it, I knew it had to be it’s own piece. I added grass and clouds and adhered it to a piece of wood, used ribbon on the edges to complete it, and made it so it could be hung or not! I really had a hard time parting with it too!!!

Next is a set of place mats I made for my folks, to go with all the other John Deere goodies in their kitchen.
Front:

Back:

Here is a monkey pillow case I made for a friend of mine who had just had surgery and needed a little cheering up - This fabric screamed at me when I walked past it at JoAnns “make me a pillowcase for Tabby”, so what was I to do? It did it’s job in cheering her a bit and is probably still being used if I know her….

Next up is an embroidered owl stuffie and stuffed owl pin I made for a raffle swap on craftster. It was great fun as nobody knew who they were receiving from, and unless you had great sleuthing skills you didn’t know who you were sending to either! These now have a loving home in Arizona.

This is something I hadn’t done before, I recovered my rolling chair which I use for crafts, dinner, everything really. It had stains and was looking awful, so I got new foam for the seat and used some fabric I already had, and created this beauty!

One last crafty item for today! I made these coasters for the second round of the raffle swap, which will be finding a new home soon. The theme for the swap this time around is BLUE and there are many beautiful items. A couple of my favorites (really hard to choose favorites as they are all great items): this awesome owl bag and this lovely poppet. I look forward to seeing what I will end up with! Here are the coasters I will be sending someone this week:

Well that will be it for today, hopefully I’ll be back with more this week! We had our first day of school today and it went well, considering all the interruptions a toddler brings! We will be making back to school cupcakes yet this afternoon, then this evening I will take Gabe to Barnes & Noble to get his free book he earned by reading this summer, then off to Chuck E Cheese for some serious play time!!

I’m on a crazy organizing/cleaning out thing right now and unfortunately it is not leaving time for crafting, even though I have a list a mile long of things I need to make. I am however preparing for a new school year and as a homeschool mom that means picking out new curriculum and preparing all the necessary paperwork that comes along with it. I’ve found a great resource for all the printable things I use like calendars and planners, and I wanted to share it in case anyone else is looking for something like it, just click the link below.

We will be starting 3rd grade for my oldest and I’ll be doing some preschool stuff with my little monkey. I’m really excited about this school year and can’t wait to see what great things we all learn!!

Hopefully I’ll be able to return soon with some crafty stuff!