Letter from Abner!

July 22, 2013

Last week, I received a letter from Abner. He is one of my correspondent kids from Colombia. Here is what his letter says:

Dear Godmother,

I greet you with a big hug and many blessings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; I wish that God pours health, wisdom and economy. I am very grateful for the beautiful album and card. You show me the great love for me, I liked to see the beautiful creation of God reflected in the sea, what I liked was seeing the humpback whale. My family and I are praying for God to manifest much more in your life. I would like you to support me in prayer for my whole family knows the word of God. My family and I are in good health; I share with my family praying at the table. I want to tell you that at school I was in the 5th position, I excelled in art with the highest rate. I go the CDC every Saturday. Every day I learn about the word of God, the planet care, house rules and crafts. Sponsor, I’d like you to please send me pictures of your house. This Saturday the teacher taught us to do green heads, is dashed with sawdust, seeds, pantyhose and buttons for eyes. This seed will grow within 15 days. I want you to please read this verse from Matthew 13:37-38 “He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man the field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one,” We also want to say that I will be on holidays in the month of July for 3 weeks. I leave you with much joy wishing you great blessings in each of your activities.

I recently sent him a small photo album with pictures of our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium back in January. I am so happy to know that he received it and has been enjoying it. The thing that makes me the most happy though is that his whole family knows the word of God. What a blessing that must be for Abner!!

Question for you: Has your sponsored child every asked for a photo of your home?

An Unplanned Summer Day Trip

July 19, 2013

My husband decided to take the day off today, so we got Kelsey up a little earlier than usual and made our way to this location:

No, we didn’t travel to Philadelphia. We went to the Jelly Belly Factory! We have been there quite a few times, but it is still a fun destination with a free tour and a free bag of Jelly Bellys at the end of the tour.

Then we headed here for lunch:

We don’t have a Chick-fil-a very close to our home, so we made sure to stop here for lunch today. Their chicken sandwiches are so good and I just love their fries.

Before heading home we stopped here (Barnes & Nobles):

The closest book store to us is over 30 minutes away. My one big unrealistic dream would be to have a room with floor to ceiling bookshelves completely filled with books. Maybe one day! The only thing we bought here was a Sherlock Holmes book for Kelsey. If I had unlimited funds, I would have bought a lot of books today!

Question for you: Where do you like to go on day trips?

Capture Your 365

July 17, 2013

Time to share a few of my Capture Your 365 photos from last week with you…

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/100 sec

Day 189 – One Flower: You know what this one flower means, fresh zucchini!

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/50 sec

Day 191 – An Ordinary Moment: This is my kitchen, meals are prepared here usually three times a day. It doesn’t always look this neat and organized, people do live here and we do make messes.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/80 sec

Day 192 – On The Street: This is the street where we live. That is my son’s truck in the driveway of our home. It is a pretty quiet street and we are so thankful to live here!

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/10 sec

Day 193 – Stacks: Here is a stack of flannel baby blanket and wash cloth sets I have made recently. As you know, I have been making items and selling them to earn money for our Compassion trip to Mexico in January. See a set here you would like? Be sure to visit my Facebook page and see what else I have for sale!

Questions for you: What did you photograph this past week? What would you consider an ordinary moment in your home?

Compassion’s Photo Scavenger Hunt

July 15, 2013

Compassion is hosting a fun photo scavenger hunt this month and there are some fun prizes they are giving away if you want to participate! Be sure to pop over to the Compassion blog to read this post which has all the details. The contest runs through the end of July, so you have plenty of time to start looking for those photos and posting them with the hashtag #CompassionHunt.

Here are a couple I have already posted on my Instagram account:

Church sign: our church hosted a free VBS last week and this was the sign that was outside our church.

Cow: living in the Central Valley of California, we drive past a lot of dairy farms on our way to one of the ‘big towns’.

Question for you: Do you have an Instagram account? I would love to follow you, so be sure to find me on Instagram or leave your profile name/link in a comment below.

Taming the Fabric Scraps

July 12, 2013

You know you have too many fabric scraps when they start to overflow the five tubs (yes, I did say five tubs!) that are already filled with scraps. Summer is the perfect time for me to tackle some of these projects that kind of get neglected during the school year. So I poured myself a big glass of iced coffee and got to work.

I spent most of the afternoon going through all of the fabric I had in these tubs, deciding which fabric I wanted to keep and which fabric I wanted to give away. For the fabric I was keeping, I organized it by colors. I figured this would be an easy way to find and use up some of the scrap fabric I have.

After a couple of hours, I ended up with five bags of fabric to give away, and hopefully a more organized system of keeping and using up some of my scrap fabrics. I was also able to reduce the five tubs down to three tubs. One tub has scraps of batting, one tub has scraps of fleece, and one tub has scraps of flannel. Now to go find some ideas on Pinterest to use up some of these scraps of fabric!

Questions for you: How do you organize your scrap fabrics? And what types of projects do you like to do to use up your scrap fabric?