Happy Birthday Tante Sara!

Today is my tante Sara's birthday.  She would have been 92 today, but instead she's 7 years old in heaven. I celebrate her birthday every year because she was one of the most important people in my life.  Even after she's gone, her life has been blessing me still to this day.  So, to celebrate this wonderful woman of God, I thought I would just share some fond memories that I have of her.

Growing up, I'd go visit tante Sara every Wednesday after school.  I would call her Tuesday night and ask her if I could come over the next day, and of course the answer was always "Ja!".
Tante Sara would make me a snack right when I got there on Wednesday afternoon.  Most days is was "reis mit milch" (rice with milk).  I know, it sounds weird, but its soo good!  I still eat it to this day.  After that, I would play or color while she cooked dinner.  I played with my special Barbies that she had at her house.  She sewed and knitted special clothes for them too.  I would color with my special box of crayons (that I actually still have:).  Dinner was usually the same.  Mashed potatoes (my fave), scrambled eggs, and some sort of vegetable.  I got super excited on days when she made lima beans.  I'm weird, I know.  As I got older though, tante Sara would let me fry my own eggs.  So when it was almost time to eat she would call me into the kitchen to cook our eggs.  The smell of melting butter on a frying pan still brings back memories of her place.  Then after dinner I would help her clean up.  Then she would make me do my homework, and then we played.  We played lots of different things.  We had special puzzles that we put together.  I still remember one was a picture of baby chicks sitting on colorful easter eggs.  The other one was a Mickey Mouse puzzle with "The Queen of Hearts" poem written on it.  I can still recite that poem, if you want me to. :)
Another thing we would do was play hide and seek.  I was super good at hiding because I was little enough to fit anywhere.  She wouldn't allow me to hide under her bed though because she was afraid it would fall on me.  Haha!  Sometimes I still hid under there to throw her off.  Tante Sara wasn't a very good hider.  She usually only hid behind doors.  It was pretty obvious when she was standing behind a door, because I could see her through the crack, and because that was her only hiding spot.  I usually pretended that I didn't know where she was, because I felt sorry for her bad hiding skills.  One time though, I really couldn't find her.  I was so confused.  She wasn't behind any of the doors.  It took me forever to find her.  Finally I found her hidden inside her closet.  "Genius!", I thought.  I couldn't stop laughing after she came out of there.  It was so unlike her to actually have a good spot to hide!
Sometimes we would go for a walk through her apartment.  We would take the elevator all the way to the top floor, 6H.  We would walk a circle around the top floor, then take the stairs down to the next one and do the same thing all the way to the main floor.  I loved going for walks.  I remember smelling all different kinds of food that people were preparing in their own apartment.  Even though I'd already eaten dinner, it made me hungry all over again.
Sometimes we'd go to the game room on the main floor and visit the other old people putting puzzles together.  Tante Sara would brag to them about me.  She thought the world of me.  She called me her little sister.  She always made me recite my special poem to them:

Hab Sonne im Herzen
obs stuermt oder schneit.
Ob der Himmel voll Wolken,
die Erde voll streit.
Vertraue auf Gott,
verlier nie den Mut.
Hab Sonne im Herzen,
und alles wird gut.

I still have this poem hanging in my kitchen.
Another thing we would do is play games.  We played "Mensch aerger dich nicht!", which is the german version of the game Sorry.  Once again, I felt sorry for her, so if I had the chance to land my piece on hers and send it home, I wouldn't.  I would pretend I didn't even see it and try something else.
Tante Sara also taught me how to sew, crochet, and knit.  I believe that a lot of my creativity comes from her.  We would sew little purses together, knit little pot holders, and make presents for my family.
Every once in a while I would spend the night with tante Sara.  She would set up two beds on her living room floor on her bright red carpet.  We would sleep next to each other there.  Before bed she would read to me from the Bible.  Tante Sara taught me a lot about Jesus.  She taught me to love Jesus.  She was such an amazing example to me of what kind of person I wanted to be.  She was amazing.
So, those are just a few of the wonderful memories I have of my tante Sara.  I'm not sure what the rules are about this, but I often ask God to say hi to her for me, and to tell her about my little Sara.  She would be so in love with her, I just know it.  I am forever grateful for my amazing great aunt, and she will never be forgotten.  I hope that I can be a great woman of God like she was.  I look forward to teaching my little Sara about all the things I learned from tante Sara.  I also look forward to the day when I get to spend eternity with my Lord and Savior, and dance and sing with my tante Sara again.
So, tonight, like we do every year, we are celebrating tante Sara's birthday by making her special dinner: mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, and vegetables.  And for dessert we always had ice cream bars.

Happy Birthday tante Sara, Ich liebe dich!  Wir vergessen uns nicht!

Deine kleine Schwester,
Marcy

New Year, new projects!

I don't know what it is about starting a new year, but I feel like I get to start over new.  And what I mean by that, is I get to start new things in my home!  I love decorating (although, I can't say I'm a pro) my home.  I have been finding some really fun ideas on pinterest.com.  My house is pretty the way it is, and I have done a lot, but now I have new ideas and I want to do things differently.  Plus, I feel like my style changes with time.  There are colors in my house that I don't like anymore, and there are things that I've done that I'm not happy with anymore.  I have so many things I want to do, and I'm the kind of person who wants it all done NOW!  But of course I'm not able to do that because I have a kid, and I'm not Martha Stewart.  So here is a list of things that I'd like to accomplish in my home this year.

Bedroom:
-new duvet cover (I found a really cute one on ikea.com)
-paint furniture. bedside tables a pretty sea blue, other stuff, probably white.
-re-cover headboard with a pretty fabric.
-re-arrange my wall decor and maybe change it up a bit.
-make some fun pinterest crafts to go on my walls
-find some super fun accent pillows for our bed
-curtain rods and curtains (ikea has the cheapest ones!)

Hallway Bathroom:
-find a cute antique looking bathroom mirror
-different shower curtain (preferably a lighter color with a simple pattern)
-new towels, and new rug (white, light blue, green, gray color inspirations)
-change decor to lighter colors, with some pops of brighter colors
-new lighting (if I'm brave enough)
-find tiles and cover the part of the floor where the carpet used to be (in between the bathroom and hallway)

Kitchen:
-clean out cupboards and make more room
-put up a glass shelf across my window to display my antique teacup collection
-find fun centerpiece ideas for my table so its not always the same thing

Guest Bedroom downstairs:
-paint walls a light brown/goldy/taupe color (very relaxing)
-paint shelves and put up on wall
-do a bunch of pinterest crafs to display on the shelves (letters, painted coke bottles, framed art, canvas art)
-get a duvet cover (something white)
-find some fun decorative pillows (and maybe do a doily decorative pillow project)
-paint lamp and get new lampshade, and get another lamp for other side of bed
-find a little side table for the other side of the bed (ikea has a super cute $20 one!)

Living Room:
-paint or stain our side table
-paint the wooden toy chest white (or maybe a fun color, depending on how I'm feeling that day)
-find some fun decorative pillows to put on the toy chest

Sara's Room:
-pull up the ugly brown carpet so the beautiful wood floors can show
-curtains for the windows, or just a cute window treatment

So thats as far as I have gotten with my list.  I'm sure it will grow!  Here are some pictures of ideas and inspirations that I've found.

Here are the colors that I want in our bedroom.  Our walls are already green, so I thought painting our bedside tables that blue color would be pretty.

Here is the canvas art that I am collecting toilet paper cardboards for.  Thats right, its made with canvas and toilet paper middles!!!  I will probably make one for the guest bedroom.

Here is the inspiration picture for the guest bedroom downstairs.  I think using tan colors with gold accents would be beautiful!

Here is the duvet cover that I'm saving up for from IKEA! I can't wait to get it, because the duvet cover we have now is a very dark color and shows all of Lucy's fur and all the stupid little feathers that pop out of our feather comforter.  It always looks dirty! Ew!

Here is a mirror that I love, and I think it would be pretty in our bathroom.  Right now we just have a super plain rectangle mirror and some ugly lighting.  

I thought these mirrors would be super cute in the bathroom or the guest bedroom.  They are so fun and unique!

Well there ya have it.  My 2012 house plans.  Now that I have a list it'll be easier for me to stay on track and get things done.  I'm not sure where to start, but at least I have a list to give me direction!  Oh I'm so excited!  I love this kind of stuff.  I'm such a dork :) Happy New Year!

A fabulous night

Johnny and I are in New Hampshire right now on vacation.  What a beautiful place this is!!!  I just had to write about our dinner tonight because it was absolutely FABULOUS!
We were taken out by another couple from Johnny's company with a few other couples.  We went to this cute little restaurant right next to our amazing, gigantic, beautiful hotel, the Omni Mount Washington Hotel.

Our dinner started off with some wine.  I am not a big fan of wine, but I asked for some white just because it felt appropriate at a place like this.  We got to order some amazing meals from a menu that had things like Ox Tail Soup and Pickled Beef Tongue on the menu.  Yup, it was THAT fancy!  I ended up getting a pork chop served on warm apple sauce, a side of butternut squash, and some delicious sweet potato frittata.  It was absolutely amazing!

It felt really weird sitting at a table with people twice my age, drinking wine, and eating this fancy food. I felt like I was pretending to be a rich grown up!  Haha!

We had some wonderful conversations while eating our fancy food.  There was this man named Ron, and he told us some stories about raising his two children.  He shared with us some very good advice that I will be sure to follow.
First, he shared his christian faith with the whole table of people which I thought was bold of him.  Then he went on to give us all some advice.  He shared with us two tips that are sure to help us raise our children in the right way, because minutes before I had shared that some days I feel like I'm the best mom in the world, and other days I really don't know what I'm doing.

His first tip was this: pray with your children.  He shared that he started praying with his son every day before school when he was in high school.  This changed things drastically for his kid, because he started to do better on his tests and just better overall in school, and ended up graduating an A student!
 
His second tip was this: read the Word to your children.  He shared that when his daughter was in high school, she always had some sort of drama going on in her life.  She would come home and tell her dad all about it, and he would try and give her good advice.  But if you know a teenage girl, they don't want advice, they just want someone to listen to them vent!  So one day she came home from school and started talking about the latest stuff going on at school, and this guy Ron immediately said, "Honey, lets sit down and read the Bible and see what God says about this situation.".  So they sat down, searched topics that related to her situation in the concordance, and read the Bible.  He said this situation was so different than the other ones, because she was actually open to hearing what God wanted her to do.
Ron went on to share that its so important to follow these steps, because you always have to leave your children with something bigger than yourself...God.  He said that if you fall down alone, there will be no one to pick you back up.  But if you fall down with God, you are never alone and He will always pick you back up.  That is the most important thing that you can teach your children.  You may not know what you are doing some days, but as long as you put those two steps into practice, you will always have God to fall back on, who is bigger than yourself.

This was such an important conversation for me to listen to, because it encouraged me to put these two steps as my first priority.  You always wonder what you can do to be a better parent, what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and you just always feel like you should be doing more.  But this reminded me that I need to teach Sara about Jesus, and pray with her and for her, and read her the truth of the Bible, and the rest is just details.  As long as I am taking those steps, the rest is in God's hands.  That is the most important thing I will ever be able to teach her.

So anyways, I just had such a fabulous night eating fancy food and having amazing conversations with some really really great people, and I wanted to write about it so I wouldn't forget.  I am so thankful to be on this vacation, I am so thankful for my husband and daughter, and I am so thankful for my wonderful God.  I am so blessed.  This vacation in New Hampshire has been so amazing, and I just can't wait to look at all my pictures and make a shutterfly book with them, and tell my family all about it.  This is the kind of trip we were planning on taking later in our lives, but we are so happy that we got to experience it now.

Traeger, 18 months

We got to spend some time with our good friends Chelsea, Ryan and their little guy Traeger the past few days.  It was much needed since they moved to Pueblo a few months ago and we haven't got to hang out in a while.  I got the opportunity to take Traeger's 18 month pictures (even though he's really 19 months), which was awesome because we missed his 1 year pictures.  Anyways, we had so much fun with these guys, and I had a blast taking Traeger's pictures.  He was smiling all day long!  Here are a few....

The Gordon's - photo shoot

My good friend Trish asked me to take pictures of her girls.  I already got to take pictures of Kenadee last year when she was 2 years old.  This year Kenadee is 3, and her new little sister, Pieper, is 3 months old.  These three girls are sooo precious and I really enjoyed taking their pictures...not to mention they are GREAT models!  Here are a few of my favorites.

Why Weight?

This world tells us that we need to look a certain way.  Like we all need to fit into the same type of mold.  Tall, skinny, pretty.  Who decided that anyway?  I am surrounded with negative comments about appearance every day.  The comments might not be about me, but they still hurt every time I hear them.  Because I am a woman.  And because it makes me wonder, "Well, if thats wrong with her, then whats wrong with me?".  It seems that no matter how perfect a person may seem, someone will find something wrong with them.  "They need to get their teeth fixed", "They need to lose about 10 pounds", "She needs to get that mole removed", "She looks like a man", "Look how big her tummy is".  Do these comments make you feel good?!  Not me!  They hurt me, and make me hurt for my fellow sisters.

And why is it that when someone compliments you on how you look, they have to add, "have you lost weight?"  Does this mean that to look pretty I have to get skinnier?  Maybe not, but it seems to be the first thing anyone notices or cares about.

 God has created each one of us to look different.  We are not made from the same mold, so why are we all trying to fit into the same one?  Why do we look at someone and criticize their appearance?  Who are we to say these things?

Some of us have wide hips, some of us have big feet, some of us have huge ankles, some of us have larger noses, some of us are covered in freckles, some of us are abnormally short, some of us have weird hair lines, and yes, some of us are bigger than others.  So who cares?!  Thats the way God made us!  If you criticize someone because of their appearance, well then you are criticizing God's work of art.  Does it really make us feel better to do that?  To insult the Creators work?

I want to be different.  I want to be set apart.  I don't want to be scared of a number on the scale.  I see the way my body is made, and I see that it is different from every other person.  But that is not a reason to hide, it is a reason to rejoice.  I am beautiful.  I have cellulite...so what?!  I have curves...I am gonna own those curves!  I don't want to be ashamed of how God made me just because I am told that I don't fit a certain mold.  Most of all, I don't want to raise my daughter to believe she needs to look a certain way.  I want to teach her to love herself, and love others, and accept that everyone is different.  That is the way it should be.

Don't be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes.  You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.
1 Peter 3:3-4

Our beauty will one day fade, and all the plastic surgery in the world will not be able to "fix" us.  We need to clothe ourselves with God's love, and His beauty, which is not seen on our outward appearance. It is seen in our heart.

DIY art project

I have been wanting to update our living room for a while now, but I wasn't sure what to do.  One of the main things I was wanting to do was get some new art work for above the couch.  I had a few ideas in my head but I was too picky and couldn't find anything that I loved.  One day we were shopping at Flatirons mall, and we walked into this really fancy store, and I saw exactly what I wanted.  It was like 3 wooden canvases with bird and branch silhouettes.  It was perfect!!!...but it was $600!  That was a little out of my price range...actually a lot.  So Johnny and I decided that we could make it ourselves.  So as I distracted the store lady, Johnny pulled out his phone and took a pic of the art (which I'm sure is not allowed in a fancy store like that!)  Here is the pic of the art from the store.

So off we went to Home Depot to get the supplies for our new project.  Here are the step by step instructions on how to make a beautiful, wooden canvas art project!

Step 1- Take your crippled husband to Home Depot to pick up some wood! Hehe :)  

You need: 

-rectangle piece of plywood, and get a Home Depot person to cut it into thirds for you

-3 1x2 pieces of wood (the long ones on Johnny's shoulder in the second pic)

-wood glue

-wood stain (whichever color you prefer)

-nails

-picture hangers

-black paint

-little paintbrushes

-wipe on poly

-sand paper 

Step 2- Measure out your 1x2's so that they act like a frame for the back of your plywood pieces. Cut 'em up.

Step 4- Check on your kid and make sure she's out of the way! If you have a kid, that is.

Step 5- Glue the frame pieces to the back of your plywood pieces and then nail them down.  (Make sure your plywood pieces fit together like a puzzle with the grain of the wood and everything.)

Frames are on!

Step 6- Sand those babies down!  You want them to be smooth and pretty.

Step 7- If you have more than one option for stains, try them out on the back of one of your canvases.  We chose the lighter one of the two because then the bird silhouettes would show up better.

Step 7- Wipe on the stain with an old cloth.  We did two coats just to get a richer color. Let it dry!

Step 8- Once its dry, use a pencil to draw your design.  I used the bird design, but we also saw some other cool designs like a world map, and a tree.  The options are endless!

Step 9- Start painting those birdies!  This was my favorite part.  Then, let it dry.

Step 10- Now comes the fun part...NOT!  Once the black paint is dry, use some ultra fine grit sand paper and go over each canvas very lightly, just smoothing some of the little bumps.  Once thats done, wipe on some poly with a cloth.  Let it dry.

Now treat this step like lasagna...keep layering it on!  I think we probably did around 8 coats total.

Step 11- Hang those beauties up!  It might be a little challenging, because in our case the Home Depot guy didn't cut each piece exactly the same size...so it just takes a little extra measuring, but no big deal. Its worth it, look at that art! Woo!