My Big Boy

My dear Tanner,

It is hard to believe that you turned five today. I am misty-eyed just writing this letter, feeling like you have crossed some sort of imaginary line and entered boyhood. While I realize that you haven’t been a “baby” for several years, there is just something about turning five that makes it official for me.

I remember like it was just yesterday the day I found out I was pregnant with you. Your daddy and I were so excited to get that positive test result, after months and months of negative tests. I also clearly remember the day we found out you were going to be a boy. We were having our 13 week sonogram and the technician asked if we wanted to know what we were having. We were shocked because we never suspected that they would know that early! In fact, we hadn’t even decided at that point if we wanted to find out in advance or let it be a surprise. But there was just something about the simple fact that someone else knew what we were going to have, and all we had to do was ask and we could know. Well, it only took a little discussion to decide we couldn’t handle the suspense, and she told us we were having a boy!

I remember the first time I held you and fell so deeply in love with that precious little baby in my arms. You were truly a gift from God and our lives were changed forever the day you were born. I never realized how much I could love someone until that day!

Over the years, you have brought incredible happiness to your Daddy and me. Your love for life, beautiful smile, and sweet spirit bring us such joy. We feel blessed beyond what we deserve that God chose us to be your parents!

Our prayer for you is that you would follow the Lord all the days of your life and serve Him with all your heart. We realize that ultimately you belong to the Lord, and our desire is to raise you in such a way that you understand and value the importance of a personal, close relationship with Him. God has a unique and special design for your life, and there is nothing I desire more than to see you accomplish what He has planned!

I love you Tanner and I am so honored to be called your mother. And I will continue to enjoy and soak up those sweet little hugs and kisses for as long as you are willing to give them. I know the day will be here sooner than I like when you won’t be so free with them!

Loving my sweet, little 5-year-old!
Mommy

My little sister

My youngest sister, Miranda, is currently in Kenya serving as a communication intern with World Concern for 6 weeks.

God miraculously provided for her and I am so excited about this great opportunity that she has!!

Miranda is such an awesome young lady that loves the Lord, and I am very proud of her.

Check out her blog here (or click the picture below) and you can follow her adventures over the next 6 weeks. It should be interesting - I hear they even have a curfew every night so they don't get crushed by stampeding elephants. Crazy!

The Holy Trinity

Chris informed me the other day that he and Tanner had a long discussion about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as they were driving in the car.

The Holy Spirit?? Really??

Apparently Tanner brought it up and was very interested in the topic. Chris said he even informed him that "Jesus is the Word"...very matter of factly.

Deep stuff for a 4 year old! Sunday school must be working :)

That night, it was obviously still fresh in his mind as we sat next to his bed for our nightly prayer.

Part of Tanner's prayer went like this:

"God, please come inside me. And the Holy Christ come too."

I tried not to giggle as he continued with his prayer. I think it will be awhile before he fully understands the Holy Trinity...but he is working on it!!

New product line

Wow...that title sounds like I have this huge, booming business!! LOL!

One can dream...

My etsy shop has undergone some product changes, due to patent infringement issues. I never in a million years would have guessed that there was a patent out there for household gloves trimmed with an oilcloth cuff.

But apparently there is...and I got the email notification two weeks ago that I had 10 days to remove my gloves.

I can't even begin to tell you how upset and disappointed I was. They were so fun, and I enjoyed making them. Who gets a patent for oilcloth gloves anyway???

My initial reaction was to just ignore the email...my rationale being that I wasn't a real threat to them. I mean really people, 11 gloves sold in 3 months IS NOT hurting your business. You think that argument would hold up??

But once I calmed down and stopped long enough to hear what God was trying to tell me, I knew that the right decision was to just move on and find something else to focus on.

I have had several ideas rattling around in my brain...and I just launched one of them today on my Etsy site.

Adorable, custom totes with an initial appliqued to the front. These are small, little-girl sized totes. If you click my Etsy shop banner in the top right corner, you will see more pictures of them in my shop.



I'm still not convinced that the price is worth the time I put into them, but I am going to try it and see.

I also got my stuff in one of the cute boutiques here in New Braunfels, which I am super excited about.

Now, if I could actually make some money from this endeavor!

4 year old theology

Tanner was singing a new song the other day in the bathtub...

And I couldn't resist the urge to pull out the camera and video it.

Good thing he's not old enough to be embarrassed that his mommy is videoing him while in the tub!

I hope you enjoy Tanner's theology on God's love.

Creative uses of a dish towel

One of my favorite blogs, Grace Violet. had a post several months ago about making little girl skirts from dish towels. Of course, she had found these ADORABLE dish towels at Target and despite my endless searching I was unable to get my hands on the same towels.

Mind you, I don't even have a little girl to make these for. But they were so cute, I wanted to try it anyway.

So, I was at Target last week and saw some new dishtowels and snagged them up. Still not quite as cute as the original towels, but they would work. So I have been busy sewing today, and made three skirts for my good friend's three little girls - ages 4, 2 and 6 months.

In my haste and excitement to make them, I didn't stop to take "before" pictures. And of course, I can't find them on the Target website. I might have to go to Target tomorrow and take some pictures so you can truly appreciate this post!!

But here are the finished products:





The only thing I added to the dishtowels was the pink ric-rac on two of the skirts. Other than that, I just cut the towels in half, trimmed a little off the sides, sewed the sides together, and made a hem at the waist for elastic. And voila!

So cute. So fun. And so easy!

That is my kind of project.

Three skirts for around $11 - not bad!!

If you want to try it yourself, check out the great tutorial here.

And the green award goes to...

I was working on dinner the other day, and heard Tanner say...

"Look at me Mommy. I have a lot of medals!"

I turned around to see this.



I had to laugh. We may not be the "greenest" family on the block, but Tanner has the award for reusable bags!!