January 2014
  

Monday Moments (Sew Butt On)

Katrina's pajama top lost a button.
She wanted me to remember to sew it back on, so she decided to write me a note.
From her room, she called out to me and asked how to spell "Sew Button".
I called out "S-E-W... that's the word sew. Then button is B-U... T-T... O-N and that's it."

Well, you know how kids are when they write words, right? It really doesn't matter if they've got room for the whole word on one line, they'll just continue the word on the next line.

Which is what she did:


So you can imagine when I saw the note, I knew exactly what it said & didn't give it a second thought.
But when Ken saw the note, he was like, "What?" ... "Sew Butt On?"

hahaha :)

Living with kids is so fun and so entertaining :)

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January 2014 Sharing Time - Week 4

Welcome to the January Link Party!

First, here's the week in review:

You don't want to miss this Pear Tree Greetings Giveawa from earlier this week!



I also shared a funny video of my kids being Surprised by a Trip to a Themepark.



I also posted about Easy to Make, Delicious Yogurt Parfaits



Now, on to the link party! I've been having fun visiting your posts and seeing what you've been up to!







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Easy Fruit And Yogurt Parfait (Healthy Eating On The Go!)

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser. #CollectiveBias

In 2014, my husband and oldest daughter have decided to try to go a year without eating sugary treats! Talia is not eating candy or cake/cookies on regular days but she will eat cake on special occasions- there are a few exceptions. Ken is really trying to stick with it for every day. This is a great goal and I'm impressed with them for sticking with it so far! It's helping me to think about being more healthy as well, as I try to cater to their choices.

Like many families with young children, we are busy! I am usually trying to think of snacks and meals that can be made quickly! One healthy treat that we love to make at our house is a Fruit and Yogurt Parfait!
It only takes a few ingredients and is very easy and quick to make.

Healthy Eating On The Go #CollectiveBias #Shop

Ingredients:

Pear Tree Greetings in Canada! (Review & Giveaway)

You have probably heard of Pear Tree Greetings, but did you know that they ship to Canada now?
I was happy to hear that news! In celebration of that, I am sharing some of their Valentine cards with you today
AND offering a giveaway at the end of this post! :)

We ordered these cards for Katrina's class (I love these ones). The wording was change-able, which I was happy about because I could change the American spelling of "color" to "coloUr" :) We also ordered some customizable stickers (which of course my girls were thrilled to use on their envelopes)


Talia chose these dragon cards for her class:


Then we decided to order some special photo valentine cards that we could send to our faraway friends
(cousins & pen pals who live in the USA). I love the way they turned out!


There are so many cute designs, it was hard to choose! And there are a ton of photo card options, too!

Use the form below to enter to win $40 to spend! (open to Canadians only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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How to Surprise Someone With a Trip :)

Last June, we surprised our girls with a trip to Storybook Gardens. We had seen plenty of Surprise Disney Trip Ideas online and although we weren't doing something quite so major, we wanted to give them a surprise trip!

(Don't miss the video at the end of this post!)

Surprise Trip Planning by www.RaisingMemories.com

The Night Before

Ken & I had everything we needed ready to go the night before- lunches, picnic blanket, sunscreen, swimsuits, etc.  We had everything in the trunk of the car the night before (lunches in the fridge- we got those in the trunk when they weren't looking in the morning).


The Morning of the Trip


We were planning to go on a school day, so we let the school know they wouldn't be there and we "accidentally on purpose" missed Talia's bus that day. We told the girls we would have to drive Talia to school, so they hopped in the car with her backpack ready to go. We set up our portable DVD players and told them we wanted to test them out for another road trip we would be taking- they were happy to watch a Disney Movie while we embarked on a rather lengthy car ride.

We were hoping the movie would distract Talia enough that she wouldn't notice when we took some 'wrong' turns. We were also hoping that she would take longer to notice that we were taking too long to get to school. It TOTALLY WORKED! They were distracted for over an hour of driving & didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until we arrived at the park!
The Surprise!

We videotaped their reaction- it was great :)




This was so fun to do and the girls will probably never forget it!

It was fun to watch this video again and remember what it was like to have sunshine and warm weather ;)
I can't wait 'til June comes around again! Maybe we'll plan another surprise trip when it gets warmer out :)

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Come Alive (A CD from Mercy River)

(pssst... don't miss the cute video at the end of this post!)

I first heard Mercy River at a Time Out For Women conference that took place in Toronto years ago. It was fun to "meet" the girls (Brooke, Soni, & Whitney) while listening to them sing and talk. A little after TOFW, I was riding in a friend's car and she had their CD, Beautiful Dawn, playing in her car. She told me that she listens to it ALL THE TIME in her car. She had to run in and have a pedicure fixed and I sat in the car waiting for her (while listening to Mercy River) and by the time her chipped polish was fixed, I was hooked on Mercy River and knew I needed to buy that CD!

When their CD, Higher, came out, I hurried to get it as well. (I have to take these CDs out of my car's CD player eventually though because my husband gets tired of listening to the same CD for so long ;) Well, he's in for a new set of songs now, because I just got Mercy River's newest CD, Come Alive, from Shadow Mountain Records. I'm excited to share a bit about it with you!


When I get a new CD, I like to get out the lyrics and sit down with them to read while I listen to the songs. It helps me get to know the songs better. So I was disappointed to find that lyrics weren't included with this CD and I could not find them online. I did find lyrics to one song that I will share with you, but for the rest I had to just listen (I'm sure they'll pop up online eventually after the CD has been out for a while).

Some of my favourite songs from this CD are "How Deep the Father's Love For Us" (this song has beautiful harmonies and I just love listening to it- it's so calming. "Walk You Through the Night" is a sweet song about parenting. It's sung from the perspective of a mother of a baby and she talks about her hopes for her child, about how she may have to guess about what is best to do as a mother in the future, but she will love that baby and she will walk with him/her through the night. I love the sound of the song "Restless", and their upbeat version of "Walking on Sunshine". And lastly, I wanted to share with you the song that I found some lyrics for: "Reason for the World". It has a beautiful chorus:

Maybe the reason for the pain
Is so that we would pray for strength
And maybe the reason for the strength
Is so that we would not lose hope
And maybe the reason for all hope
Is so that we could face the world
And the reason for the world
Is to make us long for home

and then (I'll skip ahead to some favourite verses), it says:

I know you're past the point of broken
Surrounded by your fear
I know you're faint and tired and lonely
From the road that you walk down here
But just keep your eyes on heaven
And know that you are not alone
Remember the reason for the world

No ear has heard
No eye has seen
Not even in your wildest dreams
The beauty that awaits beyond this world
When you look into the eyes of grace
And hear the voice of mercy say
Child, welcome to the reason for the world

I love the message of that song!

Alright, that's all I'm going to tell you about this CD- you'll have to go download it or buy the CD now, to listen to more ;)

But I DO want to tell you a bit about the cute girls behind Mercy River, and before I share a blurb about them, check out this little clip from a Time Out For Women conference (see, they're moms just like us!! :)



About Mercy River

With 13 children between them, it’s amazing that Whitney Permann, Brooke Stone, and Soni Muller have time for anything other than runny noses, sock hunts, and prying suckers off the van floor. But music has been a part of each of their lives since childhood, and is now a strong presence in their homes.

The three friends met while singing in the Jenny Phillips Choir and there found a common love for tight harmonies and sharing the gospel through song. Over the past five years, Mercy River has traveled all over the United States and Canada as a highly sought after ensemble, performing for thousands of people while testifying of the Savior. Each member of the group brings several years of experience performing, writing, and directing hundreds of firesides and concerts—as well as recording on dozens of inspirational albums.

Their self-titled debut album was released in May 2008. “Beautiful Dawn,” was released in March of 2010. Their third album, “Higher” was released with rave reviews in February 2012. Mercy River is back with mesmerizing harmonies and upbeat vocal arrangements in “Come Alive”.

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January 2014 Sharing Time - Week 3

Welcome to the January Link Party!

First, here's the week in review:

The week started off with these Maternity Photos that I took of my sister.



On Tuesday I posted about how we gave our kids a Surprise Trip to Disney On Ice for Christmas.



Then I shared a book review of Does This Insecurity Make Me Look Fat?



I haven't blogged since then because I've been busy! I spent a day out of town setting up & putting on a baby shower for my sister and then I had a couple more busy days at home (there was no school on Friday, so I was busy with the girls all day- we had a lot of fun!) There will be lots of fun things to share with you on the blog as soon as I get some down time! ;)

But for now, on to the link party! I've been having fun visiting your posts and seeing what you've been up to!







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Does This Insecurity Make Me Look Fat? (Book Review & Giveaway)

I'm reading this book right now:


When I heard that I could review it, I jumped at the chance because:
A. I like the colours on the cover ;)
B. It's a topic that I think all women can relate to
and C. the title is just funny, so I thought it would be entertaining :)

Alright, so you want to know a little about the book?

Here's a description straight from the back of the book:

Michelle Wilson’s humorous yet poignant insights help women examine the limitations we place on ourselves out of insecurity and self-doubt. We have faith in God, but do we know that He has faith in us? 
When we see ourselves with God’s eternal perspective, we can feel confident and whole—even in our imperfection. Just think what we might accomplish if we truly believe that we are more important than we know, stronger than we realize, and extraordinary in every way.
And here are some of my thoughts while reading it:

Well, it's got me thinking. I like that in a book.
It has me thinking about things that I often think about on my own, but I like the points the author brings up and how she leads me to think in different directions than I might on my own.

Michelle talks a lot about letting things go. (Sidenote: My kids are totally into the new Disney movie, Frozen, so I've been hearing a lot of belted out "Let it go! Let it go!" around my house, so every time I read "let it go" in Michelle's book, I had that song going through my head- I guess it helped cement the idea for me!) She writes about letting go of pity, a need for others' approval, fear, doubt, comparing ourselves to others, envy, guilt, & shame in order to become confident and get past insecurity.

I like when she talks about comparing ourselves to others and she says that doing that can make ourselves or our things look better or worse than we thought they were (but of course they haven't actually changed at all!)

When I read the part about envy, I wrote this in my notes: "envy ruins our attitude & our gratitude", and "Opposite of Envy = Charity". When we have charity we are glad when others prosper. We love, serve, and are happy for others. Our view of them is not tied to our view of ourselves.

This issue comes up in my mind a lot (and I assume I'm not the only one who deals with it). It's good to read this fun book (which is full of cute and thought provoking stories) that helps me to think through it all and put things back into perspective.

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You can find Does this insecurity make me look fat? (as a paperback book or ebook) on Deseret Book's webpage. You can also find Michelle online at her website and blog.

You can also enter to win your own copy of the book over here and here.
(but hurry- there are only a couple of days left to enter!)

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