Handmade Pay-it-Forward 2012

So as I've mentioned here before, I joined a Facebook challenge from my friend Lori for a 'Hand-made Pay-It-Forward' challenge, where the first 5 people to comment on the offer would receive something handmade by the end of 2012, and so I commented to receive something from her and then paid it forward and offered the challenge on FB as well. 

This is what I received from Lori, the most delicious biscotti I have ever had. It was chocolate with hazelnut and dipped in white chocolate! And considering it was shipped all the way from Calgary it still tasted so fresh and soft! She's an amazing cook/baker that one :)


I have 2 more handmade gifts coming my way, as 2 of the friends who commented on my post also paid it forward, and so I signed up for theirs, of course!

For my own gifts I threw a bunch of ideas around but then I stumbled on an idea on Pinterest (gotta love that Pinterest!) and at first thought it was a perfect addition to the stack of gifts for my friend who had a baby, but then I realized the potential I could create out of this idea. I bought all the supplies and started on my first one and loved it! Not only the finished product but I loved the process, wondering at each step of the creative choices, if it will look the way I hope, and just watching it develop into something beautiful at my hand. I have SO missed the feeling of creating like that!

So, here are my creations!
for Tanyss - the baby gift

 for my sister Jodi - who quickly snuck in and wanted it for her birthday.

 for Lori - the originator of this challenge, and from whom I received my yummy biscotti

 for Joanne - who makes delectable goodies with which I hope she'll pay forward to me :)

 for Shanon - my long distance friend, hope this makes it to the US ok!

That was soooo much fun, and I haven't even received most of my gifts yet :) I'm going to keep this kind of painting up, I love it! And I just may have to promote another challenge like this! But of course, to keep future potential participants guessing, I'm going to have to switch up what I make them ;)

Over the Moon

Today, Friday March 30th (I'm back dating this post) I was able to see an ultrasound for the first time - 4D no less - at Baby Moon with Tami and Kellin and a few other family members. It's the first baby in our family where we get to find out the sex (providing the baby cooperates!) before he or she is born!

My vote before we went into the room was that I was going to having a niece come June :)

I am over the moon that I was able to witness this glimpse into the miracle process, here's a few glimpses for you as well.

The baby was hiding a little in mom's ribcage but we still got to see some nice pictures, cute little nose like Teigon's and some pouty lips, even some wisps of hair.





As for whether I was wrong or right.....





you are just going to have to wait a bit, still a secret for now :)

Top Ten Tuesday

Haven't done a top ten in awhile :) so here's a quick and easy one, Top 10 Cakes (I'd like to get for my birthday, lol, jk). Why cake? Other than I love cake? Well, lately Sean keeps asking for cake rather than bacon (very strange, yes!?), and it's planted a seed in my head I can't shake. Then we had birthday cake at the office yesterday, but I only had a teeeeeny bit because technically was a no sugar day. And people keep pinning beautiful cakes on Pinterest! So without further ado, here are my top ten cakes I'd love to dive into, in no particular order of preference (taste or loveliness):
1. This Rose Ombre Cake!

I've always been fixated on the beauty of graduated layers of color, also called ombre. I also love roses and the colour pink! This icing is butter cream, my fav of course, and I imagine a strawberry shortcake kind of taste. Perfection!

2. A Donut Cake

 I'm becoming very fond of the desserts stacked like a cake, but my love for mini-donuts says this one 'takes the cake!' And I'm surprised by how lovely it looks with a little flower on top. Love it!

3. The Rainbow Cake

 For those of you who know my penchant for being indecisive when it comes to colours and flavours, so I'm often heard saying 'I'll have one of each', you get why this is the perfect cake for me! And I just adore rainbows!

4. The Decadent Cake

 I've been drawn to this style of vintage sweet shop splendor about 10 years now, I love the pastel pink contrasting with black, I love cake pedestals, the elegant details. It could be just about any flavor inside there and I would love it!

5. Cake Pops

Cake pops are the most adorable yet fabulous little pieces of yummy art! And, once again, they solve my problem of choosing a colour and flavour, everyone with me now 'I'll have one of each!'

6. Pretty Petal Cupcakes

There are literally thousands of cupcakes on Pinterest I could waste all day picking a favorite, so I picked the prettiest ones because lets face it, I'll eat just about anything with sugar in it!  And I love hydrangeas.

7. The Shabby Chic Ruffle Cake

This is a work of art, mossy green ombre icing ruffles with cherry blossom like accents, I almost wouldn't be able to bare cutting it! Yet, I think that might be vanilla bean bunt cake underneath all that prettiness calling my name!

8. Smores Cake

 Ok, chocolate cake + smores = Yes Please! What a brilliant cake concept!

9. Cake

Yet another genius combination of flavors, my good ol' standby birthday cake, Angel Food cake (usually with lemon-whip cream frosting and fresh raspberries) but with lime zest baked into the cake and coconut butter cream frosting! I LOVE coconut lime! I think my feet might have left the ground thinking of this one.

10. Raspberry Chocolate Icecream Cake

3 of my fav things, raspberries, chocolate and icecream! Yum! And nothing beats the chocolate crunchies that go on the base of an icecream cake.  Another great flavour combo mastermind.

Now that I equally hate and love that I'm not an expert baker/cake maker, I will wipe the drool off my keyboard and get back to work.

Fill-in the blank Friday

Well, it's been FOREVER since I've done one of these and I loved today's theme - COLOUR! I <3 colours! And it's SPRING! Colours will begin to blossom everywhere soon (which is why I picked this colourful FIBF header).  And I've been slacking here lately, needed a quick post that still captures a little about me :)

1. My favorite color is pink and teal. yes I know that's more than one, be glad I narrowed it down to two.

2. My home decor color palette includes browns, with shades of blue/green and white or black accents.

3. Other people always tell me I look good in (the color) jewel tones, specifically red and teal.

4. The color I detest is is greeny-brown, don't know if it has a name but the only thing I can think of is $#!+.
5. If you were to look in my closet most of the colors you'd see would be is a little bit of everything :) I actually have it organized rainbow style! there is a slight majority of neutrals because they are the easiest to pair with all my colours, but my two colours I have the most of, you guessed it, shades of pink and teal!
6. A color that I simply cannot pull off no matter how hard I try is orange. maybe if you get into the orangey-peach-pink palette, but definitely not pumpkin or autumn oranges. which is a shame! I love autumn colours!

7. The color of my favorite dress is taupe and ivory with a teal liner. the dress is beautiful but the teal liner won it for me, I like the 'hidden' pop of colour you can only see peeks of. like the shoes with the red soles.

Big Plans

I am so blessed to be part of our Church, I really have lost count of the ways I feel blessed there.

I've been blessed by how spirit led our pastor is, like I wrote about here. Just as we were at the end of our rope, trying to come up with ideas to accommodate up to 1400 people attending, because we're busting at the seems in our 400 seat auditorium, our pastor hears from God that our dreams of buildings are not audacious enough, our dreams should be to share our transforming God with MORE people! So, our pastor obediently brings that message home to us, stirring a passion to pray for people in our lives (or even possibly not even in our life yet) every day for the next 2 years, so that we can be guided by God as to who he wants us to be intentional about sharing our faith with. He asked us to pray about a specific number of people God would lay on our heart to reach out to in this way and Sean and I together came up with the number 7, a number that represents the Holy Spirit no less.

After that step of obedience, it was no time at all before God gave our pastor a vision for an expanded Church that fit Riverwood perfectly. The plan I wrote about in that post has come to fruition, we've been able to buy 3 more separate buildings all within a couple blocks from our Church building right now! Now, you'd think with having bought 3 properties in a very short amount of time our staff would have gone straight into capital campaign mode. They started hinting in February that something BIG was going to be happening and we'd find out March 4th. Most people thought it was going to be the capital campaign but boy were we surprised when this was what our pastor spoke about that Sunday.

Instead of worrying about how we were going to pay for our new buildings and land, instead of instantly bowing to the pressure of legal and financial commitments, our pastor gave priority to something else God was laying on his heart in a BIG way! And it wasn't just him, it had been on the hearts of several of our pastors, leaders and staff. A prayer movement for our Elmwood family, the community we've been so committed to staying in and serving. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, but prayer is even bigger than action, because it's not our action, it's then God's action!

And not only is this a way to have a BIG impact on the approximately 3600 homes we'll be praying for, for the next year, but it will also be stretching us in our prayer lives! Honestly I don't know if I've ever consistently prayed for something every day for 366 days! It's only been a few weeks and I've found I've accidentally forgotten, or been very brief at the end of the day, when praying for my 3 homes, but I keep persistently working at making my prayers for them count, and to do that every day.  It's been a great challenge that has encouraged me in my whole prayer life.

I really can't wait to see the changes in myself and our Church neighborhood a year from now.  I LOVE my Church!

Best Things In Life

Most women have had a life-long best friend, or one they have had at least a large portion their life.

Not me.

Even after we stopped moving at age 10, you have no idea how many years I spent trying to 'deserve' the friendships of my peers, to the point of becoming co-dependent.

Female friendships especially eluded me, until highschool it was rare I had even one true girlfriend, one that wasn't around because I was a doormat.

Highschool brought a handful of girlfriends into my life, yet I was easily annoyed by the drama, gossip, cattiness, and fickleness of teenage girls and did eventually back away from some of those relationships. I often preferred guy friends (and not just because I was guy-obessed).

Into adulthood I was no longer an outcast and actually found it very easy to connect with more women, and I realized there were a higher percentage of women out there like me, after you take away highschool drama! I still often found it easier to connect with guy friends though.

The few female friendships I had from 16 on, I grew to really value and trust them, but there just wasn't that 'bestie' connection. Often by that point in life these women had their own well established best friends and I kinda felt my desire for a deeper connection was one sided.  Or life would get in the way, or a guy would get in the way, things that shouldn't get in the way if it was a real kinship.

I somewhat resigned myself to the fact I may never have that best girlfriend, so I stopped trying so hard, stop trying to earn 'bestie' status.  I just took every friendship I had and just enjoyed what they brought to my life.  And I just focused on being the best friend I could be.

Maybe it was because I know longer reaked of desperation, or maybe it was all about timing, but God is the greatest 'networker' and he brought into my life new friends over the last few years that have just naturally developed a deeper connection in short order. Inexplicably strong connections you can't try to manufacture. Friendships that feel like they may as well have been life-long! I have been soooo blessed to have these women in my life! The kind of women I can truly call kindred spirits (for all you AGG fans like me :). Support, encouragement, laughter, prayer, celebration, honesty, inspiration and the list goes on!

Best friends are definitely one of the Best Things in Life!

Laugh of the Day

It may be my lack of sleep, but watched this episode in a Girl's Night Big Bang Theory-a-thon and couldn't stop laughing! No....I just love this episode, in my right mind and all! :)



I'd love to jump in a ball pit, I loved the ball pit as a kid...and as an adult apparently.

My own lack of sleep didn't turn out so humourously. Definitely didn't start out humourously!

For those of you who didn't see on Facebook, Sean was bitten by our neighbor's dog on Wednesday after work.  It is a bulldog/pit bull-ish looking thing, a rescue they got in November that only recently started acting like it was warming up to us, like their other big lovable dog who just begs to get attention from us. Sean decided he would let the dog smell him, stuck his hand over the fence and that's as far as he got cuz the dog lunged and bit his finger on his right hand (thank goodness he's left handed, although he's right handed at his computer at work).

The bleeding went down pretty fast but a few hours later there was an ugly bump that looked just nasty so we decided to go to the closest emergency room. We got their at 10:30 pm and didn't get into to a room until 5:20 am, and then the doctor wasn't done with his stitches until 6:10 am.  Luckily he had his tetnus shot just in October, our doctor randomly asked us if we'd had updated shots, which we didn't know we needed, so we got them. The dog also had his shots, so with some stitches and antibiotics Sean's finger should be good as new soon, with a gnarly scar.



We called in sick and slept most of the day Thursday but then we had an appointment to have our main drain cleared, our water was backing up significantly, but our 5-7 pm appointment turned into finally calling in a different employee at 9:15 who only got to our place at 10:15 pm, but we didn't turn him away because we've been through this before, usually it's only about an hour, however the owners before us likely didn't have the roots cleared out recently and with our 3+ years here, he had to make 3 attempts to clean out the roots. So over 3 hours later he was done and we had 4.5 hours to sleep before we had to get up for work!

Fridays as usual we have a 7 am to 10:30 pm day away from home, then today I had Girl's Night, we'd planned for awhile now and there was no way I was missing out, but of course a Girl's Night never ends early, then take into account it was Daylight Savings and we lost an hour of sleep! I'm a bit of a zombie but that's ok, I'm going to go find me an all night ball pit! ;)

the most beautiful creation in all of earth

 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.


And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation....let the water teem with living creatures .....let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds.

And it was so.

And he said it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness... So God created mankind in his own image.

The entire universe was spoke into being, but we were knit together by his hands, stitch by stitch.

Only THEN God saw all that he had made, and said it was very good.

Never doubt you are the most beautiful creation walking the face of this earth!

(thank you to Eric Samuel Timm for this message at the nineofive tour)

things I don't want to forget from....

our 9th anniversary celebrations:

~ you thought you were hilarious when you joked you had brought your laptop to play video games on the wireless internet
~ laughing at slot machine names, like 'Super Happy Fortune Cat...now with Lucky Hamster!'
~ Ghost-Buster's shirt, aka, lingerie
~ how I actually surprised you by smuggling in a venti cup with only your favorite Starbucks syrups on the bottom so I could make 'your coffee' Monday morning, even though we were 30 min. away from the nearest shop
~ you couldn't even eat my left over bacon at breakfast!
~ you are 'awesome' because of the way you fixed the hotel room toilet
~ our talk on the drive home
~ how much I love spending time with you

(this is us at our first out of town get-away, 2001)

Miscellany Monday Monthly

Here's my monthly collection of ordinary happenings and moments I don't want to forget.

~ early in the month I made homemade cream of mushroom soup, completely from scratch, and I must say I did really well! I think I'll start early and spend more time thickening it, I like thicker textured soups, but still I'm very impressed with myself :)  And my side sandwich was a yummy invention, tuna with shredded spinach, chopped walnuts mixed in curry mayo with smoked gouda on rye. I'm getting pretty good at this healthy, yummy food thing!

~ I received my first handmade gift from the handmade pay it forward 2012 challenge (from now on referred to as the 'Handmade Gifts 2012').  It was the most delicious biscotti ever made and I'm amazed it was so fresh and intact after being shipped to me from Calgary! Thanks again Lori :) I will have a whole seperate post on 'Handmade Gifts 2012', pictures and all, once I've given and received all the gifts. Oh, and I'm completely done 2, mostly done 2 and 1/3 done the 5th! :) They are soooo fun to make!

~ a new girl from my CR Friday night group was struck by tragedy at Valentine's time when her mom died suddenly, however our Church did an amazing job of rallying around her! I took the opportunity to bring her some food, for her and the multitude of relatives she had staying with her, and I brought along a mutual friend. We were so blessed to have the chance to care for and support her in that way.

~ and it's tax time around these parts, we actually received all of our stuff early so we were already done them on the 18th. we got exactly enough back to have our shingles replaced this year! just waiting to book my BIL now!

~ on our stat holiday on the 20th we had a great day over at some friends of ours, the guys played video games while us ladies crafted together (my project was one of my 'Handmade Gifts 2012').  It was such an awesome time of creating and connecting, so much fun we've agreed we should make this a monthly date! :)

~ on the 21st it was Girl's night out with my sisters and mom for Jodi's birthday. Had a great night out at Sonny Beans in Steinbach, even though the highways just had one of the biggest dumps of snow all winter I made it there easily, on the way home the #12 was treacherous though! I wasn't able to visit the kidlings like I wanted because Jodi's country road would have hung up the Journey for sure, but I did get to see Teigon for a bit.  Tami is climatizing him to the impending baby and said to Teigon, 'show Aunty Lori where mommy's baby is.' So he promptly lifts up his shirt and points to his bare belly.  So cute.  He is apparently a fan of baby pictures, but Tami holding other babies NOT so much :)

~ that was a 'baby week' because that Thursday my co-worker Cam's wife came by with their 17 day old son, who I got to hold a good while.  Then that evening my friend Tanyss (also a co-worker) invited me over to see her not-so-little guy who was 13 days old and almost as many pounds! I was able to bring over a special present I made and some naan bread pizzas I made for her and her husband, which they were both so appreciative of.

~ I also made waffles for the very first time, made ahead some batter on our stat day off and then used for a lazy supper later in the week.  I've been looking forward to waffles ever since I bought my grill/griddle! They were delicious and who knew so little batter could go such a long way, not only did I have enough for supper but 2 more suppers down the road as well.


~ my friend Kristi got engaged this week! 6 weeks almost to the day after their first date, a blind date no less! But her guy Steve is very cool, only met him twice but he's on fire for God and is switching to our Church...not just for her but because he hears God calling him there, even though that means leaving a Church he is passionate about and serves. I of course expected no less, she has very high, Godly standards. I'm so excited, I love weddings!

~ speaking of weddings, it was our 9th anniversary last Thursday, which we celebrated quietly because a) it's a Thursday, and b) the big celebration was planned for Sunday - Monday. But it was nice to have quiet time together, especially since we almost spent it apart due to a CR leaders meeting previously scheduled, but that got bumped thankfully.

~ I found out what my annual increase was last week and I am getting a 6% raise! I had my performance evaluation 2 weeks ago which went very well, but it's nice to get monetary confirmation as well :)  They actually had a hard time coming up with any areas of improvement for me other than I need to be MORE utilized.

~ and it was testimony time again for me at Celebrate Recovery. We are now talking about the importance and healing of confessing/admitting our hurts, habits and hang-ups. I have gone through quite a few 'confessions/admissions' in the last 5 years, most of which went overwhelming well, they were a blessing and so healing. Some were not so good experiences, but hopefully they will learn from what I went through and still take this step for their own healing.

Celebrating New Birth

One of my friends/co-workers/neighbors/Church family had a beautiful baby boy, Jonah, on February 11th and today we celebrated his life at their baby shower!

Here's Jonah!

Here are some of the presents I gave Tanyss and Jonah. This was made by my sister Tami....so cute! It's in some of Tanyss' fav colours. Tami makes a lot of different crochet items but especially the most adorable/pretty hats, at Trims and Brims.

This blanket was made by Baby Mine (who happens to be Tami's cousin-in-law). They are the softest blankets ever, a fabric called minky. She lets you pick out your own patterns, on both sides of the blanket, and the edging colour...your own one of a kind and SO SO soft baby blanket!

This is the painting I made for Tanyss, either for the nursery or not, but she loves trees and birds and I made it to represent their family of  three now.  The colour green I managed to almost identically match to the nursery and the kitchen. She loved it!

after all this time love

We haven't always been rainbows and roses
but we've always had
laughter and love ♥.

after all this time love

It's still hard to get enough
From the very first time I thought you were the one
Who'd make all of my dreams come true
I still do
... I'm never gonna stop feeling like this
Like the first time that I fell for you
I still do.

Happy Nine Years babe!