My "Thing" - Take 2

My personal posts have been non-existent on my little piece of the internet. It's not that I don't have anything to say... my heart is so beyond full and I am always writing blog posts in my mind. Actually writing them up has been the problem. I'll probably just admit that it is me being lazy more then anything ;)

Life lately has been, dare I even say it, pretty close to perfect. I catch myself thinking "This really can not be my life." I know it is so cheesy, but it is the truth. 

Remember my little anxiety problem? My anxiety "triggers" as I like to call them are no more. The things I used to stress about (money, work, being away from my girls, etc.) are all non existent since our move. (Which I can not believe was over a year ago!) By the grace of God, I am leading a life that I had only ever dreamed about. 

Why is it then at bible study when we were asked to write down ONE word describing an area we needed prayer for did I immediately choose anxiety???

Anxiety to me is like an addiction I can't quite kick. It's not that I enjoy it, obviously. But even when I have absolutely nothing to be anxious about, it still finds its way to creep back into my life. 

So what form is my anxiety taking now that my old triggers are gone? 

I have anxiety over the fact that my life is going too perfectly. Something bad must be headed my way because life is so great. 

The other night as I cuddled my sweet healthy babies I started to cry. Real tears were streaming down my face as I thought of all the terrible things that could befall my perfect daughters in their life time. My heart physically hurt and I found it hard to breathe. (My favorite anxiety symptom).

"Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."- 1 Peter 5:8

I know my struggle with anxiety is caused by the devil. It is he who puts these thoughts in my mind. He tries to make me doubt myself, and more importantly, my faith.

"and do not give the devil a foothold" - Ephesians 4:27

I have handed the devil a foothold on a gold platter. He knows my weakness and he uses it. 

I pray about this daily. I ask the Lord for strength when I feel my anxiety kicking it. It helps me to recite this verse:

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" - Psalms 27:1

I would like to tell you that this works every time. I would also love to inform you that I have learned how to battle the enemy and that my faith in the Lord had prevailed. Unfortunately,  that wouldn't be true. While it is my faith that allows me to ultimately pray about my doubts and it is my faith in the Lord that has the ability to see the light and recognize that He is in control, I wish I could fend off these negative thoughts and feelings all together. My anxiety is no longer a daily struggle, but I would love for it to no longer be a such a weakness.

How do you cope with your anxiety/doubts?

Linking up here.

DIY Fleece Rag Wreath

I think a wreath is a must on a front door, especially a HUGE boring front door like mine. The Christmas wreath we had that we used at our old house was a bit sad and way too small for our huge door so I decided to make a new one. I wanted something fresh and pretty and big and full. I absolutely love the way it turned out!

I had seen tutorials for rag wreaths on Pinterest but none of them were exactly what I was looking for. As I was strolling through the aisles upon aisles of fabric at JoAnne one day I passed the warm and cozy fleece (that was on sale for 70% off) and knew it was perfect for this project. It makes the wreath look warm and fluffy and it is perfect for a winter wreath.

What you will need:

-18 inch wire wreath blank. (I purchased mine from Michael's for about $3.) 

-1 1/2 yards fleece fabric 

-Felt

Hot glue gun

-any type of yarn or string

This project is so simple!!! (Although I have to admit it is a bit time consuming!!)

Here is what my wire wreath frame looked like before I started.

 The first thing I did was cut my fabric. I cut the fleece into strips 3 inches long by 1.5 inches wide.  

Then all I did was tie the strips onto the wire rings of my frame. I fit as many strips onto one section as I could for a "fuller" wreath.

Here is what the wreath looked like from the back after I finished the first section.

I wanted to finish the wreath off with a cute felt bow. I used this tutorial for the bow and it turned out great. I wanted to be able to change out the bow if I decided to use the wreath for a different holiday so I hot glued a strip of twine to the back so I could tie the bow onto the wreath and change it out! 

Here is a pic of the wreath Pre-bow.

And a shot with the bow! 

The possibilities of this wreath are endless!! I see myself making many more of these in the near future! 

Happy Crafting! :)

Linking up here,  here and here. 

DIY Fabric Flower {Perfect for headbands, clips, or a brooch!}

I have a slight obsession with making hair accessories for my girls. Now that we found out we will be expecting baby GIRL #3, I am constantly creating new hairpieces. Baby girl's head will never be naked! ;)

A couple of weekends ago we took our annual family photos and I was in desperate need of new hair accessories to match Emme and Taitum's cute new outfits. Finding  hair accessories to match an outfit can be both time consuming and expensive, so I went to my quick, cheap alternative: MAKE THEM MYSELF!

I went searching through my craft junk supplies and came up with some pretty off white cotton fabric and some gorg peach chiffon. Perfect for a fabric flower!

Here is what you will need:

Heavyweight cotton 

Light chiffon or tulle

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Felt 

Card stock and pen/pencil

Scissors

Elastic, alligator clip, or pin (optional)

1. Trace a five petal flower on your card stock. It definitely does not have to be perfect as you can see by my lovely attempt below. My flower was about 5 inches wide. Cut out the flower.

2. Trace the flower onto your heavier fabric. I doubled mine over so I could get a couple of flowers from one trace. 

3. Cut out the flowers. You need 9 cut out flowers for one complete flower.  

4. Repeat step #2 on the chiffon.

5. Cut out the flowers. Again, you will need 9.

6. (Not pictured... Oops!) Cut out a small felt circle. Mine was about 2 inches wide. 

7.  Layer one of the "heavier" flowers and one of the "light" flowers. You can put a drop of hot glue in the center to make sure they stick together (I started out doing this but by the end I decided it wasn't necessary).

8. Fold the flower in half...

9. ...and in half again.

10. Put a drop of hot glue in the center of the fold at the tip (on the inside) so it doesn't unfold

11. Glue to the center of the felt circle and make three more petals and do the same. 

The bottom of the flower should look like this after you have glued on all four petals:

12. Repeat steps #7-11 again, overlapping the bottom four petals.

13. For the "center" of the flower, repeat steps #7-9 and then roll up the triangle. It should look like the below pic.

14. Glue the edge down so the petal doesn't unroll.  

15. Pu a generous amount of hot glue in the center of the flower....

16. And press the bottom of the rolled petal into the glue. Push down and hold it for about 10 seconds while the glue dries.

17. Put a small dab of hot glue on the top of the surrounding petals and stick the petal to the center, twirled petal....

It should look like this:

To finish it off, you can either hot glue on an alligator clip (which I did for Emme)...

Or make a headband (which I did for Taitum)! 

You could also hot glue a pin on the back and use it as a brooch!

Here is the finished product in my little ladies hair! Didn't they turn out adorable??

Happy Crafting!!

Linking up here!

A Realization: I Want Another Baby! {Part Two}

Read part one of my story here.

While tears were running down my face after realizing that I wasn't pregnant I started to pray: "Lord, what are you trying to tell me. I know you had this happen for a reason. What is it that I am missing?"

And of course it was then that it hit me like a ton of bricks: I wanted another baby.

I am going to reiterate from Part One of this story: I keep using the word "I" here because this is about my personal journey to the realization that I wanted more children. Brooks has always wanted more but he never wanted to push me to do something I wasn't prepared to do. (He will freely brag that he knew I would come around, 'no doubt about it'.") Smart man :)

So now that the Lord helped me realize I did in fact want another baby, the question was: When??

I'm a hard core planner. We immediately went into planning mode with operation "Make a Baby." We knew we didn't want a huge age gap between our girls and the new baby. Our decision, revolved around one of my best friends wedding's (this is how much I love you KB... hehe), which I am in in June 2013. I didn't want to be a whale in her wedding (either JUST have had a baby or very very pregnant), so we decided we would give it a go in June. If we got pregnant in June, I would have the baby in March and have a whopping two months to look semi-decent (scary!). If not, we would wait till after the first of the year so I would only be about 5 months pregnant and still look acceptable. 

Well obviously you know the end of the story by now:

-Tried in June. 

-Got pregnant in June. 

Done and done. ;)

We could not be more excited about the little peanut that will soon be joining our family. This is the first time we actually "tried" to get pregnant. The experience has been so amazing and we were both SO EXCITED to share our news. 

Like I said here, I knew if the Lord wanted us to have more children he would tell us, and tell us He did.

John 14:7

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.

{Here is a high quality cell phone photo of our 12 week sono pic of our healthy (big!) baby!!}

A Realization: I Want Another Baby! {Part One}

So remember this post where I told you all I was not interested in having a baby anytime soon? 

Obviously, my feelings on this topic have changed. :) Many of you have asked me what changed my mind. As promised, here is my story about my journey to the realization that I wanted another baby:

Note: I will be using the word "I" in this story quite a bit because this is about my personal journey to the realization that I wanted another baby. Brooks has always wanted another baby (even more than one more!) but he never wanted to push me to do something I wasn't prepared to do. (He will freely brag that he knew I would come around, 'no doubt about it'." Smart man! :)

In May, I was convinced I was pregnant. At the time, I had an IUD in and decided I better google "what to do when you find out your pregnant and have an IUD." 

Another side note: Momma fail #1,238,256: I had an IUD put in after I had Taitum and never thought to do a little research on what would happen if I ended up pregnant with an IUD in place. Epic fail that I am going to blame on postpartum baby brain and crazy hormones ;)

After I decided I had all the symptoms of pregnancy and read all the horrible things that are likely to happen if one becomes pregnant with an IUD (tubal pregnancy, miscarriage, the list goes on an on) I immediately called my OBGYN to have it taken out. If I was pregnant, the sooner I had it out the better. 

I made my appointment for the next day and was relieved to hear the doctor tell me it was right where it needed to be and she wouldn't need to perform any procedures to get it out (of course I had no clue that was even a possibility. Again... FAIL). She didn't mention anything about a baby but I thought maybe it was too early to detect (what do I know?).

On my way home I bought a pregnancy test. I took it and it was negative. 

I CRIED. 

What was I crying about?? I had no interest in having a baby. I was content and perfectly happy with two sweet little ones to love and take care of. 

Wasn't I?

{Image via here}

To be continued....

BIG {actually very tiny!} NEWS

We are super excited to announce that we are adding a fifth member to our family due to arrive in March! 

Morning sickness has been kicking my booty (which is why I have been MIA the last few months) but as I come to the end of my first trimester I am hoping it disappears! (Right along with my waistline... HA!)

The girls are so excited to be big sisters! Emme is already insisting it's a girl and has already informed me of her name: Princess Fairy. Taitum says I am having a "boy baby." They are so cute with my belly, kissing it, singing to it and reading it books. They will be the best big sisters. 

I will write a more detailed post about how I changed my mind about this post, but for now we am so excited to finally shout it to the world!!

Can't believe there will be a third little hand to hold so very soon!!

Blessed <3

DIY Tea Tin Vases

I have mentioned on this blog before that I am absolutely not a coffee drinker. Never have been and probably never will be. I do, however, have a slight obsession with tea. Tazo Earl Grey Full-Leaf tea to be exact. You know, the expensive stuff from Starbucks that comes in a fancy silk "sachet" and an awesome tin?

Lucky for me my brother in law's amazing girlfriend Lindsey works at Starbucks and gifted me a few tins. Such a sweetie! I absolutely love the shape of the little tins and knew I would be making some type of vase with them. 

Here is what I whipped up in a matter of 5 minutes (my kind of DIY project!):

Cute, simple, and perfect for my new photo shelves!!

What you will need:

Tea Tin

Old pages from a book

Hot Glue

Twine

You guys, this is so simple its embarrassing.

Start with this little beauty.

Trim the pages of your book to fit around the label of the tin. It took 2.25 pages of the book I used.  Run a skinny strand of hot glue on the backside of the book page and adhere to the tin starting at the outside ends (for my tin it was the two skinny sides).  Wrap the book pages around the tin and secure the end of each page with a thin line of hot glue. Here is a shot of what my seams looked like where the pages met (on each end). 

Wrap some twine around that sucker, tie a sweet bow, toss in some flowers, and you've got yourself an adorable little piece of home decor, essentially for free. Woop Woop!

I put mine on my new photo display shelves. I wanted to add more dimension to my shelves and some femininity as well. Perf!!!

Happy Crafting!!