Week 1 - Blogging Through the Bible in 90 Days

So I've reached the end of the first week of my challenge of reading through the Bible in 90 days.  It was pretty difficult to find the necessary reading time that I need daily.  It takes me about 45 minutes to an hour each day to read the devotion, but I'm getting through.  I don't have a lot of time to read at once, so I've had to break this up into little morsels of time that come up, but I'm getting through it.  Not having a set time to read this each day is becoming a concern for me because it could very easily get me off track.  So I need to work on that and come up with a better plan.  And to be honest - I haven't technically read all of this so far....I've listened to it too.  I don't know if this is considered "cheating" because we aren't supposed to skip any of it if we get behind - so listening to it has allowed me to squeak more time in and complete the devotions.

So our first week brought us through the first two chapters:  Genesis and Exodus.  A lot of this is very familiar to most people.  What I love about reading parts of the Bible - is that whenever I sit and read it..I get something different out of it then I did before.  Which is great because even though I read the same stories I'm familiar with...something new always sticks out.  I think where you are in life, situations you've been through, your character, etc...all have an effect on what you choose to gleen out of scripture reading.  It is my desire that after reading scripture - I never walk away with nothing and to find something that is applicable to my life.  I also like to get off on other trails so just sticking to the reading has been some what of a challenge.  But I've started a little journal log of things to go back to when I have more time.

But here are some of the thoughts I've had from this past weeks reading:

1.  Gen. 1:29 - when Adam and Eve were being instructed on what was food, it was only plants and there was no meat included.  I've heard before that our teeth were not created for meat-eating..want to look into this somemore.

2.  Gen. 1 - creation in general is amazing.  Think about what "create" means:

cre·ate:

1. to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes.

2. to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention.

Most of you who blog have created something and are creaters.  Creating can be time consuming, tiring, difficult, and yet very rewarding.  It's amazing to make something out of nothing.  So trying to grasp that God created E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G out of nothing is pretty crazy.

3.  Gen 19:  Why do you think Lot's wife disobeyed and looked back?  She was instantly turned to stone and she knew that would happen if she looked back.  How often in our lives are we forced to move on from something yet we can't help but look back or even revisit them old chapters in our lives?

4.  Gen. 22 - This is so crazy to me - being asked to sacrifice your child!  We need to give also emphasis that it was is only child, a son.  That was huge for people in those times.  Thank God that he didn't have to sacrifice his child...that would be horrible.  On the flip side - I couldn't imagine being the child.

5.  Gen 25: - first twins E-V-E-R!  Awesome

6.  Exodus 1:  Being asked as a midwife to kill all little boys once they were born.  Horrible thing to be asked to do, and amazing that the midwives wouldn't listen to their king and refused to do it.  I kind of compare this to jobs now.  How often are we possibly asked to do something in our jobs that is immoral?

7.  Exodus 3:  God speaking from a burning bush....I'd crap my pants.  I try to think of how Moses would have responded if he were just walking along thinking of what to have for dinner or whatever and God speaks to him from a burning bush that was not actually burning up!

I'm learning more and more and I'm looking forward to linking up with other fellow bloggers doing this same challenge and seeing what they are learning and what is sticking out to them!

-Mamma G-

New Year = New Reading

Oh wow - it's been a few weeks since I lasted posted!  I need to get back in the swing of things.  The holidays made my blogging schedule fall a little to the back burner, but I plan on getting back to it.

So I have decided to take on some reading challenges this year and I'm so excited about them.  I always enjoyed reading and I will go through spurts of reading where I will read anything I can get my hands on and then I won't read any books for a little while.  Well I want to read more.  So it just so happens, my lovely family gifted me a Kindle during Christmas and I've been happily pushed to dive back into reading more.

So the two reading "projects" I'm excited about are:

1. - On Jan. 3 I checked the "Blogs I am Following" on the Blogger dashboard and seen this awesome challenge of Blogging Through the Bible in 90 Days over on Mom's Toolbox.  Now - I have never actually read the Bible in it's completeness from cover to cover.  I've read my bible, but never from front to back (the Bible isn't in order anyways - which is why it can be intimidating for some people to actually read it).  I have also been feeling a little guilty lately for not reading it as much as I probably should.  So when I stumbled across this challenge mixed with blogging - I thought it would be great and really felt like I should give it a go.

2. - Right around Christmas I had a cousin mention about starting a book club and she wanted to know who all may be interested.  She had enough response of interested people that she started a book club.  So, now I'm also in a book club.  I've never been in a book club before.  I've thought about it a year ago and even began to search it out a little, but then dropped it and never picked it back up.  This month we are reading Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin.  I have already read the book and I would recommend it to anyone who is an Alice In Wonderland fan.  It is the story of the real Alice who was the inspiration for the novel to be written.

So - I plan to do a little blogging each week to link up for the Bible challenge and what I'm learning there as well as a little blip on what our book club is currently reading.

-Mamma G-

Our Newest Addition - Tugg

We are the proud family of a new puppy!!!

I got a "wild hair" (if you wanna call it) concerning my husband's Christmas gift this year.  English Bulldogs are my husband's most absolute favorite breed, always have been and probably always will be.  I also knew that my husband wanted an all white, male puppy (if he could be picky).  While I was online last week I got a pop-up for petfinder or some other pet website and a white bulldog puppy was on the picture, so curious me clicked on it (just to look).  I sent the pic to my husband of the puppy and all I said was "isn't she cute".  He got back to me "yeah, whose is it?"  I just had said "urs, for a whole lot of money"  (I knew she was way out of reach.)  Well later that evening he said to me "when you sent me that text of the puppy my heart dropped, and I thought you got me a puppy for Christmas!"  I didn't mean to lead him on.....but out of the rest of that conversation I realized how much my husband was excited at the thought of that puppy...I knew that I had to try and look into this somemore.  I didn't think so close to Christmas I'd find exactly what he was looking for, but I did.  The next day I looked online for breeders in my state and found some who had puppies available.  I called a few and came across this little guy.  I arragned to "go look" at him on Saturday morning and as soon as I seen him and that he was what my husband wanted - I had to get him.  That afternoon, with a lot of help from my wonderful family, we suprised my hubby with his Christmas gift and he literally had no clue!

We've never owned a puppy before and even when I lived with my parents - we always adopted dogs, so this is new for us. 

Well - that's kind of a lie.  Four years ago my husband and I bought an English Bulldog from a breeder, took him home on Friday, went to church on Sunday and the puppy died in his crate.  The "breeder" came and got the puppy and had an autopsy done on him..to find out he had a heart condition called cardiomyopathy.  This wasn't something the vet could detect at his puppy check ups, so no one had any idea.  My husband and I put off getting another one, that kind of just left a bad taste for us.

My daughter wanted to name him cupcake (and if he was a she - we would so go with that name), but we decided on Tugg.

-Mamma G- 



Mommy & Me Monday: Christmas Cookies

Hosted by Krystyn at Really, Are You Serious?
Last weekend my little one and I baked cookies for Christmas, and I realized I never took any pictures and we don't have anymore cookies left.  So......I was determined to make some more cookies for Christmas, Santa, my hubby (who ate most of them), and to get some pictures of this tradition!

So we only made chocolate chip cookies this time around (my hubby's fav).  I couldn't believe when I went to the local major grocery store they had ran out of Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chips...at Christmas time!  So I went to my normal grocery store, and of course they didn't fail me...never do.

So here is us making our cookies:

Of course we have to eat the batter (I used to be a stickler about this, but that is part of the fun of making cookies):

Some of our yummy cookies:

So now we are all set with cookies for daddy and Santa!

-Mamma G-

Trains, Cookies and Asparagus

I just realized that I haven't posted anything all this week.  Time has just slipped by this week.  But I wanted to share this awesome thing my daughter made at her school for Christmas and the story behind it.

This week one of the themes is trains.  So the stories, arts, snacks, etc. are all having to do with trains.  So they made this fun "advent" train out of candy and she can eat one piece a day.

I just think this is such a cute idea.  It would be neat to make these as gifts for her friends some year.

But her and the other kids were in a discussion and they were being asked: 1.-If you took a train ride, where would you go? and 2.-What would you take with you?

My daughters lovely answers....."I would go to the park and take cookies and asparagus."

I just love the way she thinks.  I don't know where that came from.  We do eat asparagus in our home, but we haven't had it since the summer time.  We don't go to the park as much as we'd like to, and we probably haven't been there since early fall.  We go when it's warm, but it's kind of a treat to go to the park for a few hours.  And I looked over all the rest of the kids replies and they were things like:  grandmas, blanket, food, dog.  They were general and "normal" things. 

So today what I will tell my child is...don't loose your creativity.  Don't let it "grow up" while you grow up.  Don't be influenced to not think out of the box. 

-Mamma G-

Christmas Cards!

Ok, I'm finally posting my Christmas cards for this year.  I didn't want to put them on here until I knew people actually received them.  The pictures don't do them justice at all--you can't get the full effect of the colors and embellishments.  They aren't real fancy, but I was so tickled with myself for doing a pop-up Christmas card.  So here it goes.  The front:

The "Merry Christmas" was stamped and then embossed with white powder, those three little dots are little pearly gems that look fabulous with the colors of my cards.  I did use different patterned papers so all of my Christmas cards are different.
The inside:

I also stamped and embossed the words on the inside.  The Christmas trees are stamped, embossed with golden stars on the tops and then just colored here and there with colored pencils.

I love them.  I already have my idea for next years Christmas cards and I will be starting on them once Christmas is over so I can get a jump on them.  I'm thinking I'm going to do less stamping because it is very time consuming and more of using my Cricut machine instead.

-Mamma G-

My Husband Needs A Murse

It's official - I have decided that my husband needs a murse!  (Murse = Man Purse, for those of you who don't know.)  My husband crams sooo much stuff in his pockets.  He used to wear regular jeans with the 4 pockets, but he has out did them and now only buys carpenter jeans because of all of the pockets to stuff all of his crap.  I have taken a picture of all of the things he stuffs his pockets with on a normal day before leaving the house.  He will come home with loose change, drill bits, tools, screws, tape measure, and the list could go on.

Us women can carry a lot of stuff and I don't know about you - but for me:  the bigger the purse then the more I collect.  I think it's justifyable for us to easily do that because we have the room.  But my hubby doesn't have the room in his pockets and he absolutely refuses to carry a murse, man bag, duffel, cargo bag, guide bag, wallet bag, etc.  I know he has no intentions of cutting back on the things that he carrys with him, so we'll see - I may end up sewing a slew of pockets on his jeans.

Maybe he'll consider a jean purse (I mean bag), it could blend in with his jeans:

Or we could just bring back the MC Hammer pants:

Um no.

-Mamma G-