Leaning into Love

She presses her cheek against mine, my toddler daughter still groggy, sleep gently visible in lines scattered across her face. And I press right back, leaning into mother-daughter love. Trying to memorize this moment, etch it into my brain. Because life is just this--a collection of moments...the beautiful, the ugly, the extraordinary, the everyday all bleeding together forming days, weeks, months. To savor moments such as these makes life more tender and soft, like a warm child's cheek slightly sticky and fragrant with the faint scent of saliva on cotton. We gaze out the window together, this quiet simple moment, staring into February woods. Leaning on one another, leaning into love. Pressing together toward the unknown, embracing the safe familiar.

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Happy Blogiversary to me! {and a GIVEAWAY!}

I've been blogging for an entire year! It's been a great journey, this wacky, wonderful world of blogging. I've met some truly beautiful people, people I can actually call "friends." Here, in this little space of mine, I've poured out my heart, shared my ideas and was encouraged by you--my wonderful readers. Here, I write my hopes, sorrows, joys and everything in between. It's truly been an adventure. It's amazing how technology has the ability to make the wide world seem just a little bit smaller, its people more connected. For all of the negatives of the online world, there are certainly benefits tucked in between.


I look forward to continuing my bloggy journey for another year, to see where it takes me, and what I will learn. And I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading these lines of mine and for sharing your heart with me as we walk this journey together.

And so, in the spirit of my Blogiversary, I would like to have a giveaway! This is not a big giveaway type of blog, but I want to give a little something back to you, for all you have given me. And, besides, what's a celebration without gifts?! :)



I was thinking about what this blog has meant for me, and how I might extend that same blessing. This is my creative space, a place where I express the things that matter most. And I wish to give you a special space--a place to work toward goals, whatever they may be. Whether you wish to create more, get more organized, pray, cook, decorate, lose weight, get fit, read more books...whatever it is you want to achieve, I wish to encourage you in those endeavors. And so, I want to give away a .... (drumroll)...

my Smashbook :)

A Smashbook! Have you heard of these? They're really great! They're notebooks full of funky patterned pages, a built-in pen/gluestick...and a world of possibilities! There are all kinds of neat accessories, too, like pockets, tabs and notepads. I'm including a blank smashpad in the giveaway to get you started:



You can use a Smashbook for ANYTHING. Seriously. It can be a scrapbook, an idea book, a personal journal, school/homeschool diary and planner, dream book, cookbook, calendar, inspiration book...anything! And, if you use the neat-o little tabs, your Smashbook can be a combination of many things! I use mine to jot down quotes I like, write ideas, arts & crafts inspiration and lists of all sorts. It's greatly reduced the amount of clutter that had taken over ...errrr, inhabited my desk. Basically it's a dumping ground, in book form, for my brain. And it's pretty. And I would love for you to have one, too. :)

Love the pen with with built-in glue stick!

This is not a sponsored giveaway-I'm receiving absolutely no compensation for this, other than the fun of giving something away! It's just a gift from me to you, my way of saying thank you for being a part of my blog, a part of my life.

If you would like to enter to win, here's what you do:

1) Leave a comment below telling me how you would like to use a Smashbook. (One entry per person, please)

2)Please provide your name and email address (you can email me this info. if you'd rather not leave it in the comments section, but make sure to also leave a comment, or else you won't be entered!).


I will leave this give-away open for one week, until next Friday February 10th at 10:00p.m. EST. I will select one winner at random and announce it the following week.

That's all I got! Thanks again for walking this path with me!

Sharing with:

Works for Me Wednesday
Women Living Well Wednesday
Hip Homeschool Moms

Cinnamon Nut Dessert Wontons

As part of our Chinese New Year celebrating, I decided to try this recipe for dessert wontons. They are sooooooooo good! And the best part is they're soooooooo easy!! I think they took me about 10 minutes to make. Yep, that's it. So, I thought I'd share the recipe with you, courtesy of an old issue of Everyday Food. The recipe below makes 12 wontons, but I just used a random amount (whatever I had leftover after making dumplings!) and tweaked the ingredients accordingly. It's not a fussy recipe where everything needs to be just so. Anyway, here's what you do:

Ingredients:

-12 wonton wrappers
-1 T melted butter
-3T sugar (I used brown sugar for extra yum!)
-1/4 C finely chopped almonds (we used pecans, which were also delicious!)
-1 1/4 C fresh strawberries, sliced
*optional: dash of cinnamon (my own add-in!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place wonton wrappers on rimmed baking sheet and brush with melted butter.

mmmm...butter :)

Sprinkle with sugar, nuts (and dash of cinnamon, if using).

Bake in oven until golden brown and crisp, about 5-7 minutes. Be careful to get this just right. If you pull them out too soon, they're chewy, but if you wait too long they'll burn rather quickly. That's the only slightly tricky part of the recipe, but it's not too bad. Just don't, you know...go vacuum or dust or something while they're baking (not that *I* would ever be in danger of doing either of those things anyway! Ha!).

This is what they'll look like when they come out....Ooo-la-la! Crispy deliciousness!

Transfer to wire rack (or be lazy like me and pop 'em onto a plate instead) to let cool. They cool very quickly--about 5 minutes.

Top with sliced strawberries and enjoy! Feel free to plop a big ol' dollop of whipped cream on there, too...or yogurt, or honey, or cottage cheese...whatever floats your boat, really! But they're great even with just the strawberries, trust me. :)

See, wasn't that easy?!

If you decide to give them a try I'd love to know about it! :)




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Works for Me Wednesday

One Thousand Gifts {part 20}

As January comes to a close, I pause to reflect on the many blessings this Wintery month has brought. From the beauty of nature to the wonderful people in my life, grace is all around. So I continue to count the ways the Lord fills my life with good things, blessings from above:

564. "I Love You Because..." board. So many smiles and laughs we've had!

565. "MOPS Swap" de-cluttering the house while blessing others!


566. Luke remarking on the beauty of snow twinkling in sunlight, "like a bunch of diamonds shining!"


567. Letter from one of our sponsor children

568. Still a little light out past 5:00pm!


569. waking up to a Winter Wonderland

570. mugs of hot cider after playing in the snow


571. family game day


572. coyote passing through the woods in our backyard. Breath-taking.


573. "snow faces"

574. my 2-year old saying grace


575. Cinnamon rolls in the oven


576. meeting a wonderful new friend!


577. Chinese New Year celebrations

578. cold egg rolls


579. playdate: legos, crazy costumes and catching up with wonderful friends

580. answers to prayers far better than I ever imagined


581. handsome little heads of boys with fresh haircuts


582. Megan using the potty for the first time!

...more to come

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Our Week in Homeschool {The Chinese New Year Edition!}

One of the things I'd like to try to do is blog more about our homeschool days. It's such a huge part of my life and yet, somehow I don't seem to write about it all that often! So I thought I'd give the "Homeschool Mother's Journal" a try:



In Our Homeschool This Week:

We've been enjoying lots of Chinese New Year celebrating with books, crafts and yes, of course-- Chinese food! We borrowed some great library books to supplement our collection at home:



We also explored other topics related to China: Great Wall of China, silkworms, Chinese inventions, traditional Chinese Calligraphy and Panda Bears. (*I* learned that Panda bears have slit-pupils, like a cat! How cool!)

Calligraphy in the works...

We made "Fai Chun" thanks to a craft page from the latest issue of Spider (love that publication!). Luke thought it was highly amused by the fact that you hang them upside-down since "Spring" rhymes with "upside-down" in Chinese!




The kids loved playing with this Chinese Zodiac spinner (Thank you, Enchanted Learning!):

They were fascinated to find out which animal they each were and their characteristics!

Chinese Lanterns:

By-the-way these are really easy and fun to make! My boys first made them last year, and now they ask to make them for many occasions throughout the year! We've made them for Valentine's Day, Halloween and more!

We also made "Lai See" :

(The kids were all over any opportunity to get a little treat!) They each got $1.00 and some ancient Chinese coin replicas I picked up from Oriental Trading. Fun!

Some scratch-paper fun to celebrate the "Year of the Dragon" :

Luke scratching away...

Adam's dragon

Chinese food lunch-love any occasion to have lunch delivered right to your door! The kids got to use (fake kid-friendly!) chopsticks with their zodiac symbol on them, which, after lunch became some sort of ninja weapons. :) (Gotta love boys!)

yummy!

You can totally see him plotting alternate ways to use the chopsticks!

I also made steamed dumplings (sorry, no pics! ) for dinner. They were messy and time-consuming (hence the lack of pics!) but I eventually got the hang of them. The kids liked them, but *I* inhaled the most! YUM! I think they'll be easier to make next time (I hope!). If they come out better next time I'll take pics and post the recipe!


With the leftover wonton wrappers I made this deliciousness:

Baked wontons with cinnamon sugared nuts & strawberries on top.
Sooooo good! I'll post the recipe next week!

Other Subjects:

We're memorizing the beginning poem from White Snow Bright Snow (at Adam's request!):

We've also been working our way through these sweet alphabetical virtue coloring pages from Pondered in My Heart. Love these! (This week is "G" for "Gratitude.")

Working our Way through the Faith and Life Series for religious study:

We discussed Corporal Works of Mercy, and how we can look for opportunities to put these into practice.

We're also reading through Emily Post's Manners book:

The boys love acting out various "good manners" scenarios from this book (we make them up as we go). They're always in stitches over feigning bad manners when we do these scenes! :p


And we continued plugging through our regular lessons from: Handwriting without Tears, Spelling Workout, First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease and Saxon Math. Adam is loving Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. He also loves practicing his letter and number writing. He feels like such a big boy sitting at the table alongside Luke this year! :)


Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share:

Luke has been enjoying the Nate the Great series we borrowed from the library. He highly recommends them. :) And I highly recommend anything that Luke is excited to pick up and read on his own!


My favorite thing this week was:

Hmmm...probably laughing at all of the good manners silliness that ensued. And eating dumplings & dessert wontons. They were really, really good. :)


So, that was our week in a nut shell. Phew, that was a lot to type! This makes me feel like less of a slacker, seeing our week all typed out! Whenever I'm suffering from the latest case of "Am-I-doing-enough??" I'll have to keep this in mind. ;)

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A Year of Courage

At some point in December as the year's end approaches, I begin to think about the life lessons I've gained, and about what it is I hope to accomplish in the year ahead. (Yes, I know--me and about a gazillion other people!) And while I sometimes make concrete resolutions for the upcoming year, what I really love to do is come up with one word summing up the way I want to approach my life, sort of like a...character goal of sorts.


Last year my word was purpose. I set out to live 2011 according to my purpose. I wanted my hobbies, activities, relationships and pastimes to all reflect my purpose in being here. 2011 was the year of using the gifts I've been given to refine my purpose and be intentional about my comings and goings, rather than giving away my precious time to empty less fulfilling pursuits. It was a year of ups and downs, to say the least. I experienced great moments of joy throughout our homeschool days and participation in various groups. It was the year I began living a life of "eucharisteo,"; a life of intentional gratitude. It was also a year of great loss and heartache, as I conceived and lost my sweet unborn child at 14 weeks. The physical and emotional recovery of that experience helped refine and strengthen my sense of purpose as I leaned hard on family, friends and faith, trusting in His plan. To say I learned a lot doesn't even begin to cover it. I'm so thankful for all of the life lessons of 2011. My year of purpose also pushed me become more brave. Through life experiences, changes and transitions, I found myself stepping further out on the proverbial limb, taking more risks and trusting more.




And so now, as we begin 2012, my word for the new year is courage. I've always struggled with courage in the past, letting fears of the unknown hold me back. Afraid to take chances, haunted by the shadow of old insecurities, I've tended to play it safe, not wanting to put myself out there too much, afraid of getting hurt. But I feel the Lord leading me to be more courageous, to tell my stories that are hard to tell, to share the things I've learned along my winding way.


I grew up always hiding, always trying to fit in and be "normal." But as I've grown into adulthood and in my faith I've come to learn that being normal is...well, pretty boring, actually! It's a lot of work and really, not much fun. I came across this great quote somewhere (I don't remember where, unfortunately!) that said: "Please always continue to be your weird wonderful self." And that's precisely what 2012, the year of courage, is all about for me--being my "weird wonderful self."


So, 2012, the year of courage, the year of taking risks, will be an adventure. I don't know what lies ahead, but whatever comes my way, I plan to embrace it, be fully present, and be courageous.

What is your word for 2012?





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Thought-Provoking Thursday

A {sweet and simple} Valentine's Idea...

I've seen several variations of this popular craft idea on the internet as well as Pinterest and thought it was high time I finally made one myself! Behold, I present to you the:

"Re-purposed-frame-turned-dry-erase-board!"

Some operate as errand boards:

Source: realsimple.com via Cari on Pinterest

Others as calendars:

Source: theaestheticwriter.blogspot.com via Amy on Pinterest

but my personal favorite is the "I love you because..." board:

Source: eighteen25.blogspot.com via Erin on Pinterest

It's just a sweet and simple way to bring a bit of sunshine to your relationship each day. We've had ours for a few weeks now and it has truly been a blessing! It's so quick and easy to use and it's out in the open, which makes it easy to remember. In other words it doesn't end up becoming one of those well-intentioned things that winds up collecting dust in some dark dingy forgotten-about drawer! (Love coupons anyone? His & Hers Communication Journal?! I *always* forget about those kinds of things! Please tell me I'm not the only "out of sight out of mind" person in the world! Am I?!?) Ahem...anyway, moving on. :)


I thought this little frame would make a wonderful and affordable Valentine's gift! Here's what mine looks like:

simple and sweet :)

You can stick it anywhere you think you'll use it most. Ours lives on a nightstand in our bedroom. It's very easy to use in the morning or at night, and since we're not in that room very often it's a nice way to surprise one another when we enter. If you plan to use it as a Valentine's gift it would be lovely to decorate with all kinds of pink cupids, hearts and all of that good "Valentinesy" stuff (I make up my own words from time to time!). Ours happens to be blue to match our bedroom decor. If you want to go really crazy you could even print off a set of 12-one for each month of the year! The sky is the limit! Let those creative juices flow, baby!


I used a couple of coordinating scrapbook papers to make mine and printed the message across the top in a font I liked. I would recommend using a light colored paper without too much "jazz" going on, or else it'll be difficult to read your messages. Once your design is complete just pop it into your frame, grab a dry-erase marker and you're ready to go!

If you decide to give this a try I'd *love* to hear about it!

shared with:

Serenity Now
Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Tater Tots and Jello
Works for Me Wednesday
Women Living Well Wednesday
Raising Homemakers