A Dinner Party

Recently, our son hosted a dinner party for friends. He had planned to have it outdoors, but Iowa summers are tricky. It became so windy that day that we had to move it indoors. It wasn't exactly as planned, but I think they all still managed to have a good time.

Chalkboard tags from World Market

We quickly brought everything indoors and tried to make it as festive as possible.

I helped out where I could

Beautiful sunflowers!

A little bit of Italy mixed in

Friends brought good food

Lovely Guests

Kristi

and special guest star....Kristi's shoes

Mason jars and candles

Iced Coffee

Nat King Cole playing

Good friends = Good times

*All photos by Evan Olson


Linking up to:  savvysouthernstyle.net   and  homestoriesatoz.com  impartinggrace.com

5 on Friday

Good morning! I'm linking up to 5 on Friday today with  the-good-life-blog.com  Here are 5 things I like this week.


1. I have very thick, wavy hair and this shampoo has been helping to tame the wild beast. I tried their keratin version, but found this works much better for me.

Suave Moroccan Infusion Shampoo

2.  Sonic. If you live near a Sonic, their shakes are 1/2 price after 8 pm. It's a fun thing to do with your kids on these hot summer days. My favorite is the pineapple shake.

3.  The next 3 are 3 favorite blogs....kellyskornerblog.com She is the friend everyone wishes they had. She's a beautiful mom and I'm always encouraged after reading her posts. She's the real deal:)

4.  hisugarplum.blogspot.com  I especially love her fashion photos.

5. pinteresttoldmeto.blogspot.com  Schaeffer writes the funniest and most informative blog that I have ever read. I'm always laughing at things she says. She has a real eye for fashion and keeps you posted on sales. I think she needs to be on television.

Have a fabulous day!!

Something That Costs Nothing At All

There's something that is really fun to do and doesn't cost a dime. That something is being kind and also being kind "incognito".

I've been thinking recently on kindness. You know the feeling you have when someone speaks sharply or unkindly to you. You feel like your spirit sinks or wilts. Kind words, of course,  have the opposite effect.

It's so easy to be kind. Thoughtfulness and kindness go hand in hand. Kindness and compassion are also kindred spirits.

It's easy to be critical. But kindness takes the high road. I've had to learn this lesson over and over again, I'm afraid.

Kindness means having a friendly or generous nature. It means showing goodness or sympathy. Our kind words hold life.

I especially enjoy the whole aspect of random acts of kindness. Two or three years ago, I pulled up to a grocery store and watched an elderly lady walk slowly into the grocery store. I encountered her later in the produce section. She smiled so warmly at me and my little boy. She radiated kindness. Since I remembered what car she was in, I wrote a short note to her and stuck it on her windshield. I just wanted to tell her what a lovely smile she had and that she had blessed my day. I didn't know her and didn't sign my name, but hoped that it helped her to know that her kindness mattered.

The only reason I share this example is that it didn't cost me anything other than a few minutes of time and I smiled all the way home.

I read a most wonderful story on the blog  www.theletteredcottage.net  last week and had Layla's permission to share it here with you.

A few years ago, my mom and I took a road trip together. We drove several thousand miles from start to finish, and we had lots of great conversations along the way. We visited family in Minnesota, and stayed at Camp Wandawega in Wisconsin on the way back home. I’ll cherish those memories forever! Even the little tiny one that springs right to the front of my mind every time I think about that trip. It doesn’t have anything to do with where we stayed, or who we visited. It’s not one that I could’ve planned, and like the fishing friends, I didn’t even see it coming until I was right there experiencing it.

I can’t remember what state we were in, but my Mom and I were seated at a table near the ‘Pay Here’ counter at KFC. I could see the register over my Mom’s shoulder. We were talking about who-knows-what, when out of the corner of my ear, I tuned in to a conversation between the cashier and a satisfied customer.

The cashier was a sweet little thing, maybe in her late-60s or so.

The customer looked like he was in his 40s, and I remember thinking he looked like a hard-workin’ man.

The customer told the cashier that he just had to come back up and tell her how much he enjoyed his meal. “It was just absolutely delicious, and you guys outdid yourselves today!“, he raved.

The cashier beamed from ear to ear as she reached for his tray and told him she was so glad he enjoyed it.

Like moisture when it’s humid, I could literally feel happiness in the air right then. I fought hard to not get up and hug ‘em both- ha! (Note: I do not always win the battle against the bear hug.)

My eyes welled up as they went about their ways, and I loved sharing with my Mom what had just happened over her shoulder.

Funny how hearing somebody say something nice to someone else can not only make their day, but it can also make your day, too. 

Isn't that a beautiful story? I love that! Just a few kind words made that cashier's day.

What can you do today to make someone else's day a little brighter?

 And always remember this..."Then your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." Matthew 6:4.

"Remember there is no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple." Scott Adams

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echos are truly endless." Mother Theresa

*Story shared above from www.theletteredcottage.net

Linking up to:  savvysouthernstyle.net       impartinggrace.com  frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com

5 on Friday!

         

  

                                         

   Hi! I've never linked up to this party before, but here goes! It's all about 5 Things I am loving this week.

1. Sunflowers! I didn't know I loved them.. But they look "happy" and add so much to a bouquet. They were only $3 apiece at the flower shop and they make me smile when I walk into my kitchen = priceless.

2.  Paper Straws -They look so cute in a mason jar. You can add them to a summer drink table at a party. They are sold at Target for $1.99 and I also saw a big box of pink and white paper straws at T.J. Maxx. They would be great for birthday parties, too.

3. Blowing bubbles with my little boy in the summertime.

4.  Fried okra - don't knock it til you've tried it. I sometimes make my own, but this was from a local restaurant.

5. Our finished DIY job of a tile backsplash in our kitchen. I blogged about it this week on missgracefilledlife.blogspot.com  My husband is a hero!

Thanks so much for reading. It's always fun to link up to new parties!

Linking up to The Good Life Blog: http://bit.ly/15o6mKj 

                                                                  

Our Kitchen Backsplash Project

After watching HGTV's  Bang with a Buck  recently, my husband and I decided to do a DIY project in our kitchen. Actually, only one of us did this project. (I just helped out however I could.)  Unfortunately, I'm not one of those wonderful bloggers who can wield their trusty hammers or paint brushes. Not even a little bit!  But I do come up with ideas from time to time and Dave will usually say, "I think I could do that."

In our first home, my husband and father-in-law built the most beautiful white pergola off of our back patio - totally from my husband's design sketches and my father-in-law's building expertise.  I think he could pretty much do any job he put his mind to do. He is a pastor by day, but I think he could be a contractor on the side.

So, my husband and I went to Lowe's and picked out tumbled marble tiles and all the things we ( uh-hum, I meant "he" ) would need for the job.

We decided we liked the tiles laid on the diagonal and so the job began.

Here is a "before" photo. We have granite countertops in the kitchen and antique white cabinetry. The wall color is "Restrained Gold" from Sherwin Williams.

This is my husband, Dave, hard at work.

Things were going along very well until it came to THE GROUT. We both stood in the aisle at Home Depot looking at all the colors of grout there were to choose from. We agreed on a color and brought it home. Dave began adding the grout until....

We both decided it was the wrong color!

The problem is that Dave had gotten pretty fast by this point. If you've ever done a kitchen tile backsplash, you know that you can't stand up and work. You have to crouch the whole time since you are working under the cabinetry. It was starting to take a toll on his back, so he was working quick and had gotten a lot of the grout work done on one whole wall.

But as we stood back and looked at it, we both thought the same thing. It was just too dark.

We decided to try and dig out the grout. Easier said than done! We both worked and worked on it, but decided the grout had also discolored many of the tiles making them darker than the original.

Dave made the decision to remove the tiles he had put up on one wall. As he began popping out tiles, we made another discovery. Some of the tiles came off fairly easily. But other tiles came off with chunks of the wall attached. I sat down at the computer and googled "how to remove tiles without removing the wall"....(here's where my help came in - ha!) Some of the sites said, "Forget it. There is no way around it. The wall will come off with the tile." But then I found a helpful tip. It said to aim a blow dryer at the tiles. I ran upstairs and retrieved my blow dryer and started working. Sure enough, it did cause many of the tiles to pop right off. But some of the tiles were more stubborn and were still taking off the wall with it.

We debated. What should we do? Our littlest boy said, "Mom, we should pray about this." We did and then heard the phone ring. It was our dear friend, Quinby Collier. After a few minutes of conversation, he headed over to help.

In the meantime, Dave made the decision. He was going to have to remove the tiles and then also put up new drywall on that wall. The two other walls were safe since they had no grout on them yet.

Ugh! A job that had been moving speedily along now came to a grinding halt. Thankfully, Quinby was available to help that afternoon and knew how to cut and install drywall.

I know! We still can't believe it either! My beautiful kitchen...but it gets better! There will be a happy ending, friends.

Once the decision was made to actually do it, the two men worked fast. You know the old saying, "Many hands make fast work." Both Dave and Quinby are hard workers as well as perfectionists. So, I knew the end results would be great, but I felt so badly for Dave. He was using up his vacation days for this "project from..." well, you know the rest.

But here is the final reveal.

Remember the before?

The after.

Here are a few more "afters".

Close-up

It looks so beautiful now. You'd never guess what he had to go through to "right the wrong". I'm thrilled with how it looks. It reflects the light so beautifully and seems to finish the kitchen out.

If you ever decide to tile, test out your grout before you put it on the wall. It would be good to do a "mock up" of the tile on a board and see what you think before you ever put it up on the wall.

It may sound crazy, and we burned up a lot of vacation days, but in some weird way it was sort of an enjoyable experience - working together in the kitchen through the good and the bad.

Didn't he do a great job? And...thank God for good friends!

Linking up to:  homestoriesatoz.com 
www.savvysouthernstyle.net  astrollthroughlife.net   stonegableblog.com  impartinggrace.com  frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com  beneathmyheart.net
bystephanielynn.com  virginiasweetpea.com kellyskornerblog.com

A Pottery Barn Idea

We recently hosted a get together of students at our home. I was checking out Pottery Barn's website to get some inspiration and came across this.

I already had a similar drink dispenser that I had bought at Sam's Club a few years ago. I looked around at Joanne's Fabrics and found 3 chalkboard mini frames for $1.50. I attached one with some twine and voila! A PB look for a lot less. (On a side note...I love fabric stores even though I can't sew one bit!)

Since we were serving bbq, I used bandanas for napkins and wrapped the silverware inside with twine. I used mason jars that I already had for drinks.

The cute paper straws came from Target.

It's fun to see what you can create with just a little inspiration. Love that Pottery Barn!

Linking up to:  www.impartinggrace.com and www.frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com and www.stonegableblog.com

What To Do When Your Home Lacks Peace

For the last couple of weeks, I seemed to be having a lot of nightmares, headaches, and feelings of exhaustion. I also noticed myself snapping at one of the kids in particular. He could have come downstairs and casually said, "How's it going?" and I could have easily bitten his head off with irritation. I mentioned this to my husband who prayed with me. But again last night, I had such an intense nightmare about one of the kids. I felt troubled all morning.

At lunch today, my husband came home because he felt like we should pray over our house. I believe the first words out of my mouth were, "Could you get someone from church to come over here and pray with you?" I was pretty sure my prayers were not going to do the trick and I even felt irritated that he was asking me to do this. After all, does God even hear me when I feel like this? Yes, of course He does or where would anyone of us be? If He waited until I was living a perfect life, why would I need His help?  I think He has great compassion on us on our bad days or when we are going through a difficult time. And the fact is, it helped me as I stepped out in faith.

If you are familiar with the Bible, you may recall a story out of Exodus where God instructed Moses to put the blood of a lamb on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the house, so that the angel of death would pass over them. He told Moses, "No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt...I will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down." (Exodus 12) It is interesting to me that they were required to take this step in order to be safe. It wasn't a matter of just praying, but also action.

Today, we anointed each doorframe in our home with oil - both inside and out.  I took the upstairs rooms and Dave took the downstairs. I said a simple prayer, "Lord, I break every assignment of the enemy to disrupt our family."

I had to leave shortly after to drop off one of our children, but I noticed that when I came back, my headache was gone and I felt more peaceful.

Sometimes we need to take action over our homes. It shouldn't come as a surprise to us that we have an enemy that views our family seriously. We need to take him seriously as well in that we have the authority needed to disrupt and change his plans. We aren't supposed to just helplessly watch as he goes about on his mission which is to "steal, kill, and destroy". That is what he is all about. He has no other purposes for you or your home than those.

A lot of you reading may be Christians and so this is nothing new to you. But if this is a new concept to you and you have felt your home lacks peace, I encourage you to do the same. You don't have to pray an eloquent prayer. I certainly didn't. But each time I came to another door of our home, I realized that I had the authority, given to me by Jesus, to break off every plan of our very real enemy.

Father, I bless each person reading this. If they don't know You, I pray that You will invade their life and make Yourself real to them where they are today. I speak supernatural visitations over each one of them. If they need peace in their home, I bless them and their home with peace and bind every assignment over their home. In Jesus' name - amen.

Linking up to www.homestoriesatoz.com   www.impartinggrace.com 

10 things moms do at Target

10 things moms do at Target  I wish I'd thought of this! It's a great read for all of us Target lovers:)

To Young Moms

To all young mothers...I remember!

I remember several years back standing in our kitchen at Teen Challenge. I had four children and the oldest was 2 1/2 years old. Two of the children had special needs. It was probably about 8:00 in the morning and I was tired and hungry. Of course, there was food in the house. I had eggs in our refrigerator, but I was too tired to make them. I distinctly remember looking out the window and wishing there was something like a food truck for mothers that would drive up and deliver scrambled eggs, bacon and a glass of orange juice to me. (By the way, I still think that is a million dollar idea. My sales pitch would be..."Up all night? Let Kathy deliver your breakfast this morning." ha ha)

I also remember wishing I could just grab my purse and the kids and go to Walmart. There was no such thing as a simple, spontaneous shopping trip. To take both of the kids who had special needs on my own, just wasn't possible.

Overwhelmed, exhausted...those were normal feelings during those years.

My husband was a hero because oftentimes, he would come home right after work, take one look at his frazzled wife and say these magic words, "Let's load up!" We would load all the kids into our van and head off to Des Moines for McDonalds, a walk around a mall, or go to Sam's Club to buy lots of cereal! Just getting out for a couple of hours was such a lifesaver for me in those days.

As the kids got a little bigger, we bought a side by side umbrella stroller. That made taking a walk a little easier. (Our twins had CP and weren't able to walk.) Whenever we would  take the kids to Mississippi to visit my parents, my dad would put our very fussy twins in the stroller and walk them up and down the driveway. They were magically quiet during those outings and would come back inside with suntanned faces. My mom would then stuff them with pudding and for an hour or so, all would be quiet. That was quite a gift to me!

I remember how hard those days were. I remember being very sick with intense morning sickness and trying to take care of the kids I already had. There would always come a point where I couldn't do it anymore and Dave's mom would come and stay a few weeks until I could get back on my feet again.

I just wanted to say to all of you young mothers that I remember. It will get easier. Things will get better. It won't always be this hard.

Ask a friend to come and play with the kids while you take a shower. My friend, Nancy, would walk over from the ministry building where we lived, and sit in the livingroom with all the kids just so I could have 5 or 10 minutes to take a shower. She also gave up her lunch hour to sit with the kids once a week so that I could drive to Newton and go to Walmart. Sometimes I would take a couple of the kids with me and sometimes I would go alone.

We started putting the kids to bed early. That way we were able to have 1 or 2 hours to watch a movie or just talk.

One of our kids had severe health issues, so taking a trip away wasn't an option for us, but little things like taking a walk or having my husband take the kids for a walk so I could be alone in the house (!) meant so much. When I did feel comfortable leaving for awhile, I left a long list for the babysitter. I was and am very OCD, so I actually left detailed steps on how to do CPR. I laugh about that now, but I wasn't taking any chances! It's a wonder that I didn't demand references.

It won't always be this hard and believe it or not, you will look back on these days with fondness. You are doing a great job at something that isn't easy. You are investing your time and love into little ones that will remember that you read books to them, made them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and watched them splash in kiddy pools.

I remember and I want you to know that it will all be worth it!

Linking up to:  www.kellyskornerblog.com and www.homestoriesatoz.com  

www.impartinggrace.com 

15 Random Things About Me

Here is a list in no particular order that you might like to know about me (or not). Here we go!

1. I watch Arthur, Good Luck Charlie, and Austin and Ally even when there are no kids in the room or I happen to be alone in the house.

2. I love fried okra. It is my all time favorite food. I will even eat it boiled. But fried okra is one of my heart's true loves.

3. Sonic is another love. Do you have a Sonic drive- in where you live? You have to try a cherry coke there or a cherry limeade. I love pulling in and ordering food. It's kind of a miracle. You sit in your car and they bring you food.

4. I had my first child at age 28 and my last child at age 42. I actually had my first three kids in one year. My first was born in February of 1991 and 9 months later our twins were born prematurely in November. I don't recommend doing it that way.

5. My favorite comedy movie is Father of the Bride with Steve Martin. . My favorite dramatic movie is Slumdog Millionaire. God spoke to me during that movie. It changed my life. I will blog about that again soon.

6.I have shaken hands with two Presidents - President Clinton and President Bush. Well, actually, I think President Clinton shook my little boy's hand who I was holding at the time. He may or may not have shaken mine. I was a little flustered.  I have a family photo taken with President Bush sitting in my husband's office.

7. I grew up in church, but sincerely gave my heart to the Lord when I was 19 years old.

8. I met my husband at a Bible college in Louisiana. We have been married for 24 years and he has been a pastor for 11 years. God spoke to my heart when I was 21 years old that I would meet my husband at Bible college and that is exactly what happened.

9. We lived and worked at Teen Challenge for 14 years.It is a ministry that helps people with addictions such as drugs and alcohol. My husband graduated from the Teen Challenge program when he was 19.

10. I really miss Jon and Kate Plus 8. I still watch their old dvd episodes. Wouldn't it be great if they could forgive one another and get back together? I always pray for happy endings. It could happen.

11. I also watch 19 Kids and Counting. Michelle Duggar fascinates me. I love to watch how she takes care of her family. I love their message that each child is valuable, no matter how many you have.

12. I started out as an English major in college but switched to Elementary Education. I taught 2nd grade.

13. My brother is a police officer.

14. I have never parachuted from a plane and have no plans to do so.

15.I love Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday. I don't even know exactly why. But I truly love it!

Well, there you go. I have probably left out many interesting tidbits that I will remember at 3 am tomorrow morning. Maybe another time and another blog:) Have a blessed and happy day!



Linking up to:  www.impartinggrace.com   and