Easy creativity

Well, this weekend was crazy getting the house ready for the realtor to take pictures.  Last night I needed to focus on something for stress relief after my daughter went to bed for the night.  I decided to finally finish a coffee filter wreath I had started and also wanted to make a heart out of some cardboard I had saved.  Here's the final product:

Both of these were super easy to make but a little time consuming.

For the coffee filter wreath: you need some form of plain wreath(got mine at the dollar store), coffee filters and a glue gun.  Fold the coffee filters how you like and glue away.  It took me a little bit to plan out how I was going to do this, but once I got into the groove it didn't take long to finish.

For the heart you need: cut pieces of tissue paper, glue, a pencil and a heart shape(either poster board or cardboard).  Glue the area, wrap the paper around the end of a pencil and place on the cardboard how you want it.  Then, I used a hole punch to add some ribbon to hang it on the wall.

Please continue to pray for Julie Longstreet.  She is now home, but is weak and has some mental confusion.  She goes back to the hospital for chemo on Friday. 

Trying something new...

Instead of reviewing books, I've decided to become a BzzAgent. Basically, I get to try products(which are free) and tell you my opinion.

I signed up for the Oroweat Healthful Breads campaign because we always need bread in our house.  I'm allergic to wheat, but I do eat bread every now and then.  Thanks to BzzAgent, I received this awesome coupon in the mail which covered the cost of the bread.

Since I am allergic to wheat, when I do choose to eat it I'm pretty picky about what I splurge on.  I decided to make this oven baked french toast for breakfast.  It tasted so wonderful(although my body didn't think so while I was sitting in church this morning!)!!

The bread may be low calorie(80 calories per slice), but this recipe is not:

6 large eggs

1 cup milk

1 tsp powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon

6 slices of bread

1/3 cup butter

Preheat oven to 375, beat eggs with fork, stir in milk, powdered sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon.

Dip bread in mixture and put in prepared baking dish, pour any left over mixture onto bread.

Cut butter in tiny pieces and scatter over bread.

Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown.  

Dust with powdered sugar and add your favorite syrup

Although this recipe was a hit in our house, we won't be having it very often.  This bread is yummy and we mostly use it for peanut butter and jam toast for breakfast.  I would highly recommend this bread for sandwiches!

Please pray...

For Julie Longstreet, a mother to a friend of mine.  Her body has had a rough couple weeks and had chemotherapy on Friday morning. The initial diagnosis was leptomeningeal metastasis, a cancer found in her brain and spinal fluid, related to the breast cancer she had before.

She will have another round of chemotherapy on Friday and Jenny, her daughter, is concerned she won't be well enough.  Julie is having a hard time recovering from this past Friday's therapy.


Julie is a woman who has a great faith in God. Please pray for strength for her body to endure through this time of intense treatment.  Also, please pray for family members to be able to get rest in this time of uncertainty.  Jenny told me she'd been sleeping at the hospital in a cot(sharing it with her dad), but tonight went to her parents home to sleep because she desperately needs rest.   She had a hard time leaving the hospital due to anxiety...


I believe in the power of prayer, please join me in praying for this family.

Guest Post: Tara's Corner

So I'd like to start by thanking my dear friend Angie for inviting me to be apart of her wonderful blog! I hope that I can do her proud and am able to come up with something that is interesting to read.

I figured I would start with and introduction..My name is Tara, I am 31 years old and I live in the same tiny town in Idaho where I grew up. I have been married to my first love for 12 years and we have had 6 children, 4 here with us to raise and nurture and twin baby boys that were born at 18 weeks, watching over us from heaven. I call myself a stay-at-home-working-mom and that is because my primary job is taking care of my kids, but I do have the random part time job to help make ends meet. My oldest son, Talon, is 10 followed by my twins, Hayden and Chloe who are almost 8, and my youngest, Tucker, who is 4 1/2.
I have been told I have experienced a lot of different things for my age. Not all have been pleasant, but I am grateful for every single challenge, good or bad that I have faced, for it has made me the person I am today. Mostly, I am just trying to do the best that I can to have a successful, loving marriage, raise my kids to be kind, responsible, respectful people and still try to enjoy the ride. I hope you will join me and have as good of a time as I am!

Stay tuned for more from my dear friend, Tara.  I'll leave you with this picture, as I'm sure there are days where all of us feel a bit frazzled.  Lately, it seems I've been frazzled more often than normal...

Book Review: The Skin Map

The Skin Map by Stephen Lawhead is a story that deals with alternate time lines. A young British man, named Kit, during a trip to meet his girlfriend. meets a man claiming to be his great grandfather. He shows Kit it is possible to travel from 1 world to another, each world having a distinct history.  Along the way, Kit loses his girlfriend or accidentally leaves her behind in one of the worlds.   Kit is trying to find her, but along the way he needs to find the skin map.  It is a map made of human skin which contains a road map for traveling between the different worlds.

This audio book caught my eye because my Dad is a fan of this author.  I've probably had it for 3 months and waited until we were on our Christmas drive to listen to it because it is 11 hours long.  Honestly, it didn't really keep my interest but that could have had something to do with me being in the back seat keeping our toddler entertained.  Or, audio books just aren't my thing.

So, here's my husband's view of the book: plot unfolded very slowly and the story wasn't particularly compelling.  It was meant to be part of a series, but the book didn't wrap things up well enough to make us want to get the next book. Basically, it helped pass our time on the road during our Christmas travels.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. 

Project Gillen: Birthdays

Leah's birthday was Saturday and Anna's birthday is today!  I signed up to send them a package this month.  Along with that, I also wrote the Carolina Panthers an email as soon as I heard Leah and Anna were football fans.  I knew they would be getting some goodies in the mail (thanks to my contact who got back to me quickly), I just didn't know when.  I was so excited to find out the package arrived on Leah's birthday:

Items included: jerseys, logo cups, notepads, car magnets, stuffed Sir Pur (the Panther mascot), team picture, key chain, etc 

And here's a couple pictures from opening their gifts from my family on their birthdays:

I also included yellow and pink nail polish, with the names of "excuse me" and "jamaica me crazy"

 Leah told me they like their gifts!!