With

This morning the kids are cleaning their rooms and about 20 minutes ago Clayton came running from his room holding a blanket, "Momma, Momma! I thought this blanket was lost but I looked under the bed it isn't lost, it's with me now!"

It's funny when some little phrase catches you off guard. I fully expected him to say, "I found it! I found it!" but no, he said, "it's with me now!". And it set my mind to thinking.

In the parables of Jesus he talks of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15) and there is rejoicing when these are found. But these things are not just found, they are now with the finder. With implies interaction.

Sometimes we find things just to put them on the shelf or to put them in the place they belong but when Jesus finds us (or we find him) we are found to be with him. We are not found to just know where we are...we are to be with him now. In his arms, being carried by him, interacting WITH Him.

It's a small little word but it made a huge difference in my outlook this morning.

Table Tent

A few weeks ago on Cowgirl Clippings, Chelsea shared a tent idea that she found on the blog, The Artful Parent.

Oh my, it was love at first sight.

I love forts, always have. BUT...and it's a big BUT... now as a parent and a stay at home mom trying to keep some order to the chaos I have started to loathe the building of forts, because it takes all my chairs and strews many blankets across the floor, house and furniture. BUT...and it's another big BUT... just because it may irk me some does not give me a good excuse to deprive my children of the joy of fort building.

So today I pulled out my sewing machine, a couple old sheets, an old table cloth, and a basket of leftover quilt binding and got to work.

And here you have it:


Three windows and a door, and the oldest three are, as I type, enjoying it fully.

I've even gotten a few random hugs of joys and a thank you every couple minutes!

I'm going to go see if I can squeeze in and join them.

Garden Treasure

Saturday I took recycling to Cart'm and surprise, surprise, I found another treasure.

Erik rolled his eyes.

He does that just about every time I go to Cart'm; at least every time I come home with treasures from Cart'm. Which, if I'm being honest, means just about every time I go to Cart'm.

But this time I found this:

I have no idea what it was used for before I found it. It was a box with a window hinged on it. The boards on the short ends of the box stuck out past the box part by about a foot on each side and the back had weird notches cut out of it.

I bartered and came home with it and Erik helped me cut off the ends and then he cut out the back. Then we set my new cold frame in one of the garden beds and Miss Moddy helped me plant lettuce in it.

I'm so excited.

A few of my seeds I planted weeks ago are actually growing. Not many, but there are a few snow peas poking up.

My parsley is doing really well, but that's not new. It's been growing for awhile. I just love the green!

And do you see the shadows? Do you see the light? The sun actually came out for a visit!

Oh it was beautiful.

Wedding! Oh and other things...

My dad commented the other day that I hadn't blogged in awhile so I figured I better get on it.

Hi Dad!

But I'm going to skip the obligatory "Sorry I haven't blogged in awhile, I've been..." and just head straight into the big news.

Erik's brother Tony got married this last weekend. My kiddos are so excited to have another Aunt! So, Welcome to the family Aunt Kendra! (I'm also excited to have another sister in law!)


Erik was a groomsman and Ivan was the ring-bearer. They both looked quite handsome.


And I've got a million pictures to sort through but I thought I'd just share a few.

Also life has just been crazy.

Last night I performed "The Story of Gomer" for a Village Missions Pastor's Conference in Cannon Beach. It was really fun being able to share the story again and I already have a few offers to come perform it at other churches in the near future! I'm quite excited about these opportunities that God is presenting. It's quite humbling to be used of God and quite scary.

Tulips are blooming in my yard. The seeds I planted in the garden a few weeks ago are slowly sprouting and just a few little green shoots are venturing above the surface of mud. Sadly I think many seeds were drowned.

My sister Mindy is at Ecola Bible School for the spring term and we're loving having her around. At least once a day Miss Moddy asks for "Minny". Though sometimes she asks for "Bethy" (Aunt Beth) and I have to tell her that "No, we're just going to see Aunt Minny right now".

Hopefully I can get back into the habit of sharing more often. But often that's "a pie-crust promise, easily made, easily broken."

Name that movie.

"New" Couch

Thanks to my lovely, wonderful mother, my couch has been re-upholstered!

We bought a brand new flexsteel couch years ago when Hannah was just a few months old. Not thinking anything of it, we picked out a red couch. It was covered in a wannabe micro fiber type material. We loved the red but the plainness did nothing for camouflaging messes.
Fast forward about 6 years and we were the owners of a well built but really dilapidated looking couch. Every stain showed and you could see the strain on the fabric from the couch enduring four rambunctious children. The fabric on the cushions was starting to fray and there where a few places that my children could get their fingers in and remove stuffing. Not good.

(Notice the couch behind my sleeping handsome boys.)


(I'm horrible at taking "before" pictures...so I had to search hard for these two, the one with Ivan in the helmet is from a year ago and notice the nasty stains on the arm of the couch.)

It needed help, badly.

Now, I have attempted a few re-upholster jobs in my brief history but all my "jobs" where cheap chairs I found at the dump re-sale shop, so it didn't matter if I got it right or not. But my couch...no way, not by myself.

So I called my mom. "Mom, will you help me re-cover my couch?"

Without hesitation she said yes. My mom is awesome. And also she has quite a bit more experience re-upholstering things. She knows what she's doing and she's good.

Back in October I went to Fabric Depot and found a great upholstery fabric for $7 a yard, and bought all that they had left; I think it ended up being about 18 yards. I wanted to be on the safe side ('cause it's not like I could run out and buy more mid-project). It's textured and patterned and will hide stains well.


And the fabric has been waiting in my craft closet until my mom purchased the pneumatic stapler she wanted and found the time to come help me. Though as it turns out, I mostly helped her...

She got here Sunday night and Monday morning after the kids and I did a little schoolwork we got to work taking the couch apart.


The key is to take it apart slowly and use the old pieces as patterns.


We got it all taken apart and the main body of it, except for the back, put together again on Monday. Erik even helped with the stretching, pulling and stapling. And then Tuesday we spent working on the cushions. My mom did all the sewing, so I did most of the taking apart of old cushions, so we could use the piping and zippers, and the cutting out of new pieces.

The back cushions used to be attached, but I hated it. They were quite scrunched down and I hated not being able to turn them, so we didn't attach them this time. In doing so we discovered we didn't have enough piping to go around the "new" back cushions. So my mom checked at Creative Fabrics in Wheeler and Doris gave my mom the number for Jerry's Custom Upholstery in Bay City. I called and he said he would sell me some, so I hopped in the van and drove down there. I only needed 10 yards, so he just gave it to me! He said I paid more in the gas coming down, so just to take it! Lovely!

We finished last night at about 11:20pm.


I really like my "new" couch. My mom does good work.


And I did help some, and so did Erik. I have about 7 or so yards of material left! So maybe I went a little overboard with the fabric, but have no fear, I'm already planning a few projects for it.

Marilyn Oliva

I thought many times about sitting down yesterday and writing a Birthday post for Miss Moddy but amidst the many things going on, it didn't happen. We also haven't "officially celebrated" with cake yet. We're waiting until Sunday and she'll share a cake with Aunt Mindy.

My little girl is 2.

2!

I'm having a hard time believing it.

She's a spunky little thing and sometimes I just look at her and wonder, "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

She's full of life and energy. She loves animals, her "special job" is feeding Quincy in the morning (she gets really upset if she sees anyone else doing it). She loves playing outside. She's a sweet cuddle-er and my favorite thing is in the morning she'll come stumbling into our room if we're not up yet, climb up next to me and lay across me and snuggle. She also likes to help unload the dishwasher.

She still takes a nap in the afternoon and usually requests me to sing. Her favorite song is "Bible tells me so" (Jesus loves me) which she requests two or three times in a row. Then if she's feeling particularly silly she'll interrupt me mid-song with a smile, a laugh, and a request for "lu-lu". (Another lullaby I've sung to the kids since they were little.)

Happy Birthday Marilyn!

Love you baby.

Garden Dreams

This year we're getting a head start on the garden. I just planted a few colder weather veggies directly into the ground and I'm hoping they actually grow.
Sunday was a gorgeous day, still cold but the sun was shining so Erik and I headed out to the garden to work the beds. We dug up most of the invading buttercups and tilled the soil.

(Side note: Erik now wears a wool hat instead of a baseball cap...and oh boy do I like the look of it.)

We then worked some of this wonderful compost into the beds. This beautiful dirt came from our worm bin. We have red worms and a huge box that we throw all the compost from our kitchen into. And in turn we get to "harvest" this beautiful dirt to put back in our soil. I never thought that worms and compost and dirt would make me smile but they do.



This is what the inside of our bin looks like. Nothing fancy, but we started by throwing all the compost on one side of the bin and when that got full and subsequently worked down we started throwing the compost into the other side and the worms migrated over, leaving the garden ready stuff behind.
Miss Moddy came out after her nap and helped drop seeds in their rows. She was quite helpful and careful.

Then she joined Clayton in the hammock for a swing.

Three beds are worked and two and a half are planted with snow peas, kale, swiss chard and spinach. There's some garlic growing that I planted last year and a few onions that were missed last harvest.
Here's hoping things grow this year and that the slugs stay away. Spring is around the corner, I know it. My irises are blooming and just today, in spite of the rain and blustering winds I spotted a yellow tulip just about to open.