Silent Sunday

My crazy idea and my dad's photographic talent! Here are some FUN photos we took at White Sands this summer! (these are the ones I promised I would post)

So many great ideas...

I have been rolling through my Twitter roll the last couple days and have come across SO many great ideas from my fellow bloggers that I finally decided I just needed to share some of them on here for you to enjoy too!

The first is a re-purposing idea for organization from Beechem Bright Spots blog

(Picture from Beechem Bright Spots blog)

Second are some VERY thought provoking questions about the book of Ecclesiastes from Rachel Olson's blog (she is from Proverbs 31 Ministries).


Next up (and one I will be trying TODAY) is Homemade French Vanilla Coffee Creamer from Mrs. Happy Homemaker. And oh while you are there check out her Prosciutto Egg Cups Recipe! It looks SO yummy!



And this last thing isn't an idea but a reminder: If you are participating in Beth Moore's Living Proof Ministries Siesta Scripture Team then it's officially time to sign up for the 2012 Celebration Event!! Here's the link: CLICK HERE

That's all for now! Have a wonderful Saturday :)

Cute laterns for any occasion!

About a month ago I found this cute craft idea in a magazine. It was for the 4th of July and had the cutest star patterns on them but since I found it AFTER the 4th of July...I let my kids just have at them!

Start by filling two aluminum cans almost full of water and put them in the freezer (remember to remove any paper before doing this).

Next pick any pattern you like, or in my case just freehand it, since this was a quick project to keep the kids busy for a bit anyways! Take a nail and a hammer and nail holes to make your pattern in the can. The ice keeps the can from denting or folding under the pressure.

I highly recommend holding this freezing cold can between your bare feet. It felt fabulous! (Just in case you didn't pick up on the sarcasm in that...note now that I was being saracastic and please do not follow my example)

Once you are done nailing your pattern leave out in the hot sun until all the ice melts. You may need to hammer the bottom back in if it popped out due to the freezing.

Once all the ice is gone dry it very well! On the outside! Do NOT stick your hand in the can - the nail holes are extremely sharp! My husband found this out the hard way when I was busy and asked him to please dry the cans.

Next get out some paint and have at it! Again if you want a 4th of July do red, white or blue with star patterns or fireworks perhaps. For fall time or Halloween do a pumpkin shape with orange and black paint...you get the idea.

But remember this was a project for me to keep the kids busy and entertained so they just went at it with all kinds of colors!

Obviously this was my boy's.

And this was my girl's. Isn't it funny how they naturally pick those types of colors??

Then when the paint is dry, place them on an outdoor table or by a fun family game inviting guests to play by a soft warm glow!

Silent Sunday

My impromptu KIDS DAY! (I highly recommend it)

I had my first teacher training workshop as a full-time teacher a couple weeks ago. The guest speaker was The Ooey Gooey Lady - which if you haven't heard of and you have toddlers or young children then you NEED to look her up! She is absolutely hilarious. A little sporadic but great! So I spent the whole day being inspired and finding fun fabulous things to do with my little toddlers in class and all the while thinking of my own babies. Granted they aren't babies, but you know us moms ALWAYS call them "our babies". You see a couple days before this my mother-in-law decided she was done fighting. She had battled (and conquered) cancer however the tolls it took and were still taking on her body were horrible. She decided that she knew where she was going and she would rather be there then living this kind of a life. So needless to say my husband took the first flight he could be on back home. My little ones didn't really understand daddy leaving so suddenly and they were also stuck in babysitting at my school all day because we had thought hubby would be home to watch them. I felt bad and really wanted to give them some one-on-one time to let them know we were STILL there for them no matter the chaos around us.

So that's exactly what I did. I made up my mind driving home that I could push everything on my "To-Do List" aside and I would declare tonight "KID NIGHT"! Which meant all fun and crazy activities JUST for my babies and no distractions allowed!

Yep it started out like this! Now granted they DID begin with making yummy Ice-Cream Sundaes, however in my rush that morning I forgot to turn the thermostat back to A/C so our house was in the high 80's when we got home! I thought ICE CREAM would be perfect cool-me-down. But in hindsight with it that hot it wasn't the best of ideas. However the kids loved it! Once it melted it turned into their own soup creations! Haha - they even named them and yes they drained all my syrups.

This picture came soon after. As we were putting the ingredients back from our ice-cream (what was left anyways) it began to rain. Now we live in southern Texas where we've been in some crazy abnormal drought this year so I was Ecstatic! So of course I yelled at the kids "Get your crocks on - let's run in the rain!! After their initial shock and questions of disbelief at what mom had just stated, they quickly obliged. Gracie was a little reluctant so I gave her an umbrella to begin with.

Stop right here for a moment. I also realized reflecting back on my evening that several things had biblical meaning as well. Such as the umbrella. When people are going through things in life and you are trying to help them along or trying to get them to understand a concept that is a little stretching for them - you must remember to be graceful and tactful in dealing with them. Find ways to make them comfortable and allow them to baby step into it. Like giving my daughter an umbrella. Of course she soon ditched it and ran in the rain with the rest of us crazies. But it gave her enough comfort to try it in the first place.

Okay back to our story. So after sword fighting my son with closed umbrellas and twirling with my daughter we came back in the house, wet, but satisfied.

Next upon entering the house and getting in dry play clothes, (Which if you're a mom you know means cruddy dirty clothes you really don't care if they get messed up clothes) my son found an empty box from a package I had received that day. He asked if he could use it to play with. Now this is Kid's Day so I had to respond "yes" instead of a "no, I need that for later". Being a boy he collected all his colored pencils and began stabbing it making accompanying sounds of course.

Which of course triggered another idea - one of those "I never let them do this but they always want to...so today is perfect for it!" I gave my kids hammers and nails!! *GASP* Yes. I said that correctly: I GAVE MY KIDS HAMMER AND NAILS!

Break Time: Another lesson here. Boys innately want to build, to hunt, to create and conquer. Why do we give them cheap little toys when sometimes they just need the real deal so they can learn REAL things?! My son always wants to build with wood. So obviously he has a passion in him somewhere for it. As parents its our job to encourage them to discover themselves and what they are good at and enjoy. So if he wants to build with wood and nails - then we need to give them opportunity to LEARN safely under our supervision while the "WANT" is still in them.

And my boy was SO creative when I let him do just that! He hammered a smiley face in the first box - naming it his robot. He of course then needed another box for the robot's body so once again obliging he nailed a straight line to connect the two boxes. He even got scissors and cut out a square minus one side to make a flap to be able to put his robot's batteries in! He really thought it all through and I was so impressed!

Now I said I was at a teacher's workshop so of course I had picked up some new recipes! I gave my kids a choice and they picked the funniest sounding one: OOBLECK! Yep, like from Dr. Seuss.

And sorry I didn't get good pictures - when I had the chance to take some it was still too watery. It usually is really sticky ucky stuff! Which it did turn into eventually for us!

Okay RULE of a Kid's Day: YOU MUST NOT BE AFRAID OF A MESS! Because let's face it, kids are messy and you can't have a true kids days without mess.

Which brings lesson #3: When wanting someone to try something, or maybe you want to try something yourself, be prepared and UNafraid of the mess that COULD result. It's a learning experience after all.

Okay wrapping up our night couldn't be something small after all we did so we made a fitting fort ,in mom's room of course, for the kids to "camp out". When I say we made a big fort I wasn't kidding:

And it's hard to judge from pictures but we have a fairly large room and this stretched across almost the entire way! Want to recreate it - just get some sheets and tie them onto your curtain rods as so:

I think it goes without saying that my kids had a BLAST! They asked if every day could be kids day, lol. And of course God always has perfect timing for about two hours after they drifted off to sleep after a good story and bedtimes kisses - I got the call that their grandma had passed away.

A Quick Look Back...

This summer has been crazy. It's been hectic and stressful, yet fun and relaxed. It's been hot and miserable yet exciting and full of surprises! It's been a SUMMER! Since I've taken a LONG break from my Project 365 due to way too many personal circumstances going on in our lives right now I am going to reminisce for a bit however on my great summer before it's gone forever. Well until next year! So here's some recap and some pics to cover my butt:

This was technically before summer but HAD to be mentioned! I met one of my all-time favorite christian rap artists, KJ-52! He came and did a concert for our youth group and it was SO neat getting to meet him in person and go eat with him afterwards (yes I'm bragging a bit) He was very down to earth and we even agreed on an herbal tea that does wonders for sore throats!

Next of course is Graduation which seems to officially start our summers as youth pastors because we always know WAY too many graduates! It's a bittersweet time - we are SO proud of them and can't wait to see the lives God has for them yet we hate to see them go! We will miss them!

After the hectic end to every one's school year our friends grabbed us away for a much needed weekend camp out! Did I mention this camp spot had four-wheeling trails through the forests, jumps and all?! Oh yes. F-U-N!

We also got together with my husband's side of the family and all took off on a Caribbean Cruise to Progresso & Cozumel! Snorkeling in the coral reefs of Cozumel was SO breath-taking and such an awing experience that I am hooked for life! I can never describe how it felt. It was incredible!

Only downside - this was our "potty" on this fishing/scuba boat! HAHA

In between this time I took my trip to New Mexico but more posts on all that later - you've already seen the Fredericksburg one of that trip! And we weren't even to our destination yet!

The end of our summer wrapped up in South Dakota with my husband's family and his momma who is still battling cancer. It's been a hard and long fight but she is still fighting with everything she has. South Dakota also means my brother-in-law, Nate. And his new toys. Enough said.

Yes I shoot. Yes I hunt. And I LOVE every minute of it!

(Oh and the first picture of this post was a new fave picture of mine my husband snapped of us while on our cruise ship.)

How has your summer been? If you have a post of "your summer" please share it with me! I'd love to check it out!

A stop on our journey...

Since my blog name is "A Walk in My Shoes", I figured I'd give you a literal walk in my shoes. Well okay not MY technical shoes but I WILL tell you all about a fun stop we took on my latest trip to New Mexico! One of my parents and I favorite spots to stop is Fredericksburg, TX. It's located in Hill Country and has SO many cute little shops on their downtown strip. It's blocks and blocks of fun shopping! It's tourist crazy in the summer so beware of summer weekends but if you hit it in the off-season it's not bad at all! Course if you don't mind crowds then who cares!

A couple days before we left my mom hopped on her iPad and made reservations at the Peach Tree Tea House. This is a quaint and DELICIOUS place to eat! We had a late reservation because of travelling and were starved and tired when we got there but my complaining ceased as soon as I tasted their food! It was WELL worth the wait.

Again this a highly popular place so I recommend making an online reservation if it's a weekend. But SO worth it! They also have an attached gift shop with home decor and a few other things that you can toodle around in while you wait for your table. It's located just one block off of the Main street.

The second place is a new clothing boutique shop I found called Hip Dingo! Don't care too much for their logo, however the clothes were very fashionable and trendy and SO well priced!

To make my point I bought this adorable summer dress there:

And it only cost me $30!! I know right?! Tell me that isn't a cute dress! (okay not really - I don't want to hear if you don't like it because then you'd burst my bubble!) But still lots of cute clothes including the blinged out pocket jeans similar to Miss Me brand! There are only 5 locations or something like that. I did find a website but I'm thinking it's brand new because hardly any clothes were really on it yet. However you can just click here, or on the logo above, to find it. Maybe they'll be adding things soon.

Last but not least (we were travelling THROUGH so we didn't have much time, sorry) was a kitchen store that we ALWAYS stop at! Literally we ALWAYS stop. Of course we are Italian and so cooking is a passion for us. So if you're Italian, or you just like cooking definitely stop in at Der Kuchen Laden! It has so many fun gadgets and pretty serving and prep dishes! This past trip I got a Le Creuset Grinding Stone for my mom's birthday, two crown shaped cookie cutters (one large, one small), a cow-print chocolate milk maker mug - I may have to post about this, it would make a GREAT gift for a little boy or girl - because it has a button on the handle that you push and it stirs up your chocolate milk! My kids LOVE IT! And then I also threw a Blender Bottle (those cool smoothies cups with a metal ball inside for mixing!!) and a fridge magnet that says"My Cup of Tea" (because I'm a daily tea drinker!)! Okay I'm rambling but it's a fun store - go check it out! Click on their logo below to see their website:


And I really need to be going but if you are spending some time there my mom would also highly recommend tasting some Becker Vineyards wine and definitely stopping to see the lavender fields at Wildseed Farms! Oh and who can forget some fresh peaches! (If it's peach season that is :) ) Happy traveling!

One of my favorite APS

I feel like a well-worn traveler! This summer has been kind of crazy as I'm sure a lot of yours has as well and in the last month I have been home maybe 5 days. My first trip was the best: I spent two weeks in New Mexico (home) with my parents. We slept in, had big breakfasts on the back porch, went camping and played Scrabble among several other things. Oh and we took my new favorite trick photo - which I'll be sharing later! But first a story about our Scrabble games. You see both my parents are teachers, my dad even being an English teacher for some time, so Scrabble was something we always LOST at. And badly. Well thanks to technology and aps there is a new highly popular game called "Words with Friends". It is essentially Scrabble on your phone. You play against a friend who also has the ap, sending your turn to them to open up and play when they want. Since I have been playing this quite a bit this past year as soon as my mom (with her brand new iPad) asked me "know any good aps?" I immediately saw a grudge match in our future!

I showed her the game which she was excited about. It also has conversation or texting abilities inside the game for you to communicate with just in case you wanted to know that. However, I did challenge them to an old-fashioned Scrabble game. And guess what happened? I CREAMED 'em! Ha ha, what did you think I would say I lost? No way Jose! It was fun and of course my mom called for a rematch. Oh of which I won as well may I add, however it was a VERY close game second time around. Anyways, it was good times and if you are like my mom looking for fun aps, Words with Friends is a fun, challenging, and playful ap!