When God shares with us His plan, do we submit with joy or doubt? Do we believe and protect His promise, or do we expose it to ridicule?
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This year, we will be making a new contribution to the Thanksgiving table – specially decorated and thoughtful place cards and favors.
Place Cards
We made each place card out of heavy paper, and Ava helped by coloring the front of each one and placing autumn stickers on them. Then, on the inside, we also added a little phrase telling each person why she was thankful for them!
Favors
We wrapped a couple of cookies and some gummy bears in plastic wrap and tied it off with some brown ribbon. Ta-da. Simple and cute.
I created the sailboat on Landon’s birthday shirt (I purchases the blank shirt on sale at Hobby Lobby for less than 2 dollars) with felt! I want to share this, because it requires much less stitching, manipulation, and trouble than appliqueing fabric. Felt holds its shape and it doesn’t unravel, so it was perfect for this birthday shirt makeover. And I will definitely be doing it again with another design on another shirt on another day!
The steps are simple!
1) Draw your design directly onto the felt (backwards on the backside) and cut it out. I drew a sailboat, because it was the theme of his party, but do anything you want. If your child is old enough, they may enjoy helping create the design. ***Also, if you are more comfortable, you can print a design from the computer or draw your design on paper first, and then cut it out and trace it onto the back of the felt.
2) Pin the felt piece(s) onto the front of the shirt to keep them in place. (If you don’t have straight pins, you can use safety pins or double stick tape to help keep the pieces in place while you begin stitching.)Using needle and thread (matching or contrasting) simply stitch around the outside edge of your design!
3) Add buttons or ribbon if desired and you’re done.
And it is machine washable. I have washed Landon’s shirt several times inside-out and it is still going strong.
Sometimes I just really need a way to mark bags for each child, but I don’t want to write on the item with a permanent marker. Problem solved… I came across a package of three of these key/luggage tags at the key kiosk for less than $2 (if I remember correctly), and they are wonderful for attaching to zippers on bags, backpacks, lunchboxes, etc. With different colors, it’s easier to tell which whose is whose at a glance. Almost a decade later, we are still using them! You can find a pack of 40 in 9 assorted colors for about $6 on Amazon.
Every child is proportioned differently, and each shirt fits differently, too, so this idea just may work for you, like it did for me. Landon had a few onesie shirts, which fit him around his torso, but they were becoming too short for snapping closed. So, I got out my fabric scissors and cut off the onesie bottom part of the shirt. Because the shirts were make out of knit/jersey material, no hemming was necessary! They can be worn and washed without any sewing, and Landon is getting quite a bit more wear out of his clothes!
This banner for Landon’s Sailing Birthday Party is made from felt cut into half sheets with letters made from white felt glued on top (with tacky glue). Rough “natural” string is used to hang the pieces and because of its roughness, the felt stays in place really well. Here’s a tip: To help keep your letters about the same size/dimensions, first cut the white felt into half sheets, as well, so you will be better able to gage the size of your letters and keep them consistent with one another.
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| The waves are cut from blue posterboard and taped to the window! |
It happens quite often that Christians find themselves spiritually unprepared when trials come their way. The war begins, and suddenly the good Christian finds themself overwhelmed and having a great deal of difficulty hearing the voice of God or understanding His direction. Their sword is dull, their shield is dry, and so on. It’s not a good place to be. The positive part is that with a renewed focus on God, they can still make it through the dangerous battle grounds and find new strength and help in the Lord. The sad part is that they could have already been strong in the Lord when the war began, and they could have been busy fighting the enemy and making ground, instead of feeling panic and confusion when fiery darts started flying their direction.
So, while your days are going by swimmingly, don’t take for granted that you are not currently facing troubles or attacks. Battles come to everyone, and God has already given you the knowledge and training you need in the Bible. It would behoove us all to dig in now, and prepare ourselves for battle before the war begins. Ephesians 6:13 tells us, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Go ahead and put on the full armor of God and understand what that means, because today is the time to be ready. Today is the time to fully understand the power you have in God to overcome Satan’s schemes against you.
The verses in Ephesians about the armor of God are incredibly powerful, insightful, and necessary to every Christian’s walk. I know you have heard them before, but I strongly encourage you to delve in and study them. You will be greatly blessed and you will become a much stronger soldier as you allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth and power in this Scripture directly to you.
Ephesians 6:10-18
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
If you would like to watch an in-depth video recording on this Scripture, visit Cornerstone Church’s message on The Full Armor of God. I found it very enlightening and helpful! You are, of course, welcome to watch the beginning of the video, but if you want to move ahead to the actual message, move the “time slider thingy” 🙂 to 31:00.
I want to quickly share with you how I made/constructed Landon’s 2nd Birthday cake. It was really easy, and it made a super cute centerpiece.
Cake: I made the cake with two 8″ round cake pans and then iced it using two cans of store-bought vanilla icing. I used Wilton food coloring (a little goes a long way, and Wilton food coloring has more depth/brightness than other brands) to make the icing aqua-colored. To give the icing more stiffness so it would take on the look of waves, I added approximately a cup of powdered sugar before icing the cake. Then iced the cake and used my butterknife to “swirl” the icing around.
Sailboat: You can be creative here and do your own thing with materials you have on hand. I used a paper cup from the party and cut the entire bottom two-thirds off of it. Then I pressed/squeezed it in half to create a boat shape. To make the sails, I used heavy paper/cardstock, cut it, and used E6000 (super glue) to attach it to a chopstick. At the top, I used left-over felt (but you could use paper) to create a flag and a number “2”. Once again, I used E6000 to attach it.Ta-da!:
Lastly, I pressed the bottom of the boat down into the top of the cake and then pressed the chopstick down into the cake, as well. Ta-da!
Now that Landon is a little older, it is pretty rare that he falls asleep on me anymore. Our bedtime routine is to read a book together in the rocking chair, sing a couple of songs, pray, and then lay him down in his bed. But today, after reading our book, he fell asleep in my arms. It felt so good. And no child falling asleep in my arms could feel as good as my own dear son or daughter.
Our precious little boy has just turned two years old! We decorated with sailboats and it turned out perfect! Here are some of the things I did, in case, you can use any of these ideas for your own party…. Some of these I will post more about later.
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Sailboat Cake
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Brownie Sailboats
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Nautical Water Bottle Favors
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Cheerful Balloons in the theme colors of red, blue, aqua, yellow, and white
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Sailboat Shirt for the Birthday Boy
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“Landon” Felt Banner
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Pendant Garland
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Wrapping Paper Table Runner
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Posterboard Waves
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Nautical Hanging Lanterns
We immediately think of decorating hard-boiled eggs at Easter time, but there’s no reason we can’t decorate them any time we like throughout the year. If you don’t cook hard-boiled eggs very often, here are the steps…
Hard-boiled Eggs
- In a pot, bring water (enough water to cover a single layer of eggs with an inch of water) to a boil.
- Gently add a single layer of eggs to the pot. Turn heat down to a simmer and set your timer for 14 minutes.
- Submerge cooked eggs in a large bowl of cold water to stop them from cooking. Then remove the eggs from the cold water and let them cool on a towel.
- Now decorate!
Here is a fun way to enjoy a box of Oatmeal Cream Pies or any other clear-packaged snack/dessert. Open the box, and let everyone go crazy on the individual wrappers with permanent markers. Make silly faces or whatever you like. Now put them back in the box and enjoy whichever one you happen to pull out next time you start craving a treat. It would also be fun to do this before placing a snack in your child’s lunch box.