Beautiful Girlhood

"Far away there in sunshine are my highest aspirations,

I may not reach them,

but I can look up and see their beauty,

believe in them and try to follow where they lead."

-Louisa May Alcott

Kelsey and I have been able to share some girl time together on Wednesday nights while Kevin is at Bible study and Matthew is at youth group. I thought this would be a good time for us to read through a devotional together and build on our good relationship as she enters into these next few years of her life.

I purchased the Beautiful Girlhood book at a homeschool swap some time ago and picked up the companion guide to go with it. We have gone through a few lessons already and have really been enjoying this time that we have together. Her life is so different than mine was as a young girl. I know that I am not perfect, but I want to be able to share with her that with faith in Jesus, she can grow up to be a confident young lady who is not afraid to be different from the 'world's' standards.

We have also been going through my craft board on Pinterest, searching for projects to work on together. On one of the blogs that I like to read, I found this simple Easter project. Kelsey thought this would be a great one to work on. We started them both last week and finished them up yesterday.

I really like the way they turned out!

Last night, we found another project to start on. We cut out all the felt and will be working on finishing them up over the next week.

Stay tuned to see how this one turns out!



Pinterest, Instagram, and Baking

A friend of mine pinned a recipe on her baking board that sound so yummy. So I printed out the recipe and we decided to start baking after lunch.

Well, then I learned that Instagram was finally available for Android! I have been envious of Matthew having this app on his iPod, so I have been anxiously waiting to be able to use this app for a while now.

I had a chance to give this app a try yesterday during our baking session...

...letting the eggs and butter come to room temperature...

...cinnamon sugar biscotti!

Since I don't always have my camera with me, but I always have my phone with me, I am looking forward to playing around with the Intagram app and seeing what I can create. Let me know if you are on Instagram so I can follow you... :o)



Preparing for our special visitor

We are pretty excited around here as we will have a special visitor at the end of this month! Since Olive will be speaking at a nearby church in the morning, Compassion thought it would be great if she could visit our church also. We will be putting together a special Sunday evening service so Olive can share with us what it was like growing up as a Compassion sponsored child in Uganda.

Yesterday, I ran by the library to pick up a book that was on hold and thought I should pick up a book on Uganda also.

I had forgotten that Katie Davis (author of the book, Kisses from Katie) was currently living in Uganda ministering to young orphaned girls. I am looking forward to learning more about Uganda over the next few weeks and learning more about this young lady who has left her comfortable life to follow what she believes is God's plan for her.

Help children in poverty AND get a t-shirt!

Every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria. Compassion's Malaria Intervention Fund exists to provide children in poverty with mosquito nets.

This week, Sevenly has a goal of raising $7000 to purchase 700 mosquito nets. There are two ways you can help.

Option 1: In the next seven days, sponsor a child using this link and you will receive a free t-shirt from Sevenly.

Option 2: Purchase a t-shirt from Sevenly and $7 will be donated to provide a life-saving mosquito net to children in Rwanda.

This opportunity ends precisely at 9:59 AM PST next Monday, April 9 and you must use the links provided in this post.

I picked the olive woman's t-shirt...which one did you choose to help children in Rwanda?

Dona, Santiago, and Tobolsk

Meet Dona, Santiago, and Tobolsk. I picked them up today knowing that later on this summer, they will produce beautiful heirloom tomatoes!

I am thinking of planting them between the brussel sprouts that have yet to produce any brussel sprouts.

Not sure how much bigger the broccoli is going to get this spring, so maybe we should harvest some of this and roast them to have with dinner tomorrow night.

Could there be a chance we might have blueberries this spring?

We might need to put a net over these to keep the birds away from enjoying them all.

And I need to figure out what pesky pest is eating up my garden.

But in the meantime, I love smelling the sweet fragrance of these...

...and these.

Since we are at the end of March, I really need to start planning my summer garden. What yummy things will you be planting this spring?

Have you written to your sponsored child lately?

Tonight, I attended a Compassion Advocate training call on the Ins and Outs of Correspondence. I love attending these training calls! This training call reinforced for me the importance of writing to our sponsored children regularly.

The trainer tonight gave an example of a young boy in Indonesia. This young boy was discouraged because he kept losing his sponsors. He was considering leaving the Compassion program. Then someone starting sponsoring him who wrote to him regularly, encouraging him. This young boy ended up staying in the Compassion program, graduated out of the program, and is now working for Compassion in Indonesia. Because one person decided to make a difference in a young boy's life.

Need more motivation to write to your child? Here are 10 motivating reasons to write.

Not sure what to write? Here is a great blog post from the Compassion blog to help you get started.

Don't have a lot of time to write? Be sure to check out the new online letter writing tool!

Want to do something a little creative? Instead of sending them a blank coloring page, draw a picture for them!

Just think of your sponsored child's happy, smiling face when they receive that letter you took the time to write.

My take on 'The Hunger Games' movie

Yesterday, I went with Matthew to go see 'The Hunger Games' movie. He has read all of the books, and I have not. Due to some reviews I had read about the books and the movies, I felt that his dad or I should be along to watch the movie in order to have some discussion about the movie afterwards.

I did not enjoy the movie...

Here are some of the reasons why I did not enjoy the movie:

1. Government control over children - this was really disturbing to me and reminds me of what is happening to a lot of our children in the public school system. How could any parent allow their child to be 'reaped' for the sake of the government? I know this is part of the plot line of the book, but we are already seeing the government take too many liberties with our children. The children belong to their parents, not the government.

2. Children killing other children - when did this become entertainment? Don't we see enough of this going on around the country that this needs to be part of what 'entertains' our children? What exactly does this teach our children? For the sake of the game, it is all right to kill other people?

3. Adults manipulating for their pleasure - during the 'game' portion of the movie when the children are roaming around the 'game board', I couldn't believe the manipulation that was going on by the adults who were 'controlling' the outcome of the game, basically so people would watch. This really bothered me, especially when their manipulation caused the death of some of the children.

I know that many people like to read these types of books and watch these types of movies simply to be entertained, but where do we draw the line.

Thankfully, the movie and its plot/theme were the subject of a long discussion last night. Sometimes, we need to discern ourselves whether these are the types of movies/books we want to watch/read. Just because 'all of our friends' are reading the books or watching the movies does not mean that we need to jump on the bandwagon.

I don't write this post to judge what other families have decided about the books and the movies. I write this post as an observer who has a different view which may not be popular. My view may be different than yours, and that is okay.