On a journey

Pin It

I keep wanting to blog about what is going on in our life as a family and keep everyone updated and I always amazed at the end of the month that the whole month has gone by already.  When I do think about my blogging and what I am sharing, it always seems to fall short of what is truly important to me and that is my walk with the Lord.

I am wanting to share what is happening in my life and at the same time I just want readers to see that this is just my journey and not one to be compared to.  Others, I am sure are far beyond where I am at and I am sure there are others that are not where I am at.  As long as we are all on the path towards seeking the Lord, I think we are doing good.

With that said~~~Since the beginning of the year, I have had this strong, strong conviction on my heart to seek the Lord, to spend time with him.  It came through a series of different sermon’s at church and I believe culminated right before we had our Missions Conference in February.  I had also started to a series on Revive Our Hearts about the Song of Solomon How to Fall and Stay In Love with Jesus.  WOW!!

I have not finished the series and I am just amazed at what the Lord has shown me through listening to these broadcasts.  I have been able to focus my time throughout the day to make sure I am getting chapters of His Word read.  I want to share with you a few quotes that I heard in the broad cast…

“But I want to love Him with a passionate, fragrant love that engages my whole being and all my senses.

She has come to realize how wonderful he is, and she longs to experience his love in the fullest possible way. She doesn’t want to just know about him casually. She doesn’t want to just know about him. She wants a close, intimate, personal relationship with him. There was a time when she was contented with his absence, but not so any longer.

I think this is a picture here of a believer in Christ who has an intense desire for a more personal, intimate love relationship with Him.  This is somebody who’s come to be dissatisfied with the ordinary. They long to go further than average believers. There are other believers around you in your home perhaps or your church who are content with the status quo, just to go on professing Christ. It’s just a so-so, ho-hum relationship with Him. But you have been awakened to the loveliness of Christ. There’s something in your heart that can no longer be satisfied with a common, casual, distant relationship with Him.

You long for that intimate love relationship with Christ.”

This is where I am at.  I find it so hard to put into words.  The quotes from the broadcast resounded so much within me.  I just have this feeling that penetrates my soul it is in the very cells of my being.  So I have given up per se my Pinterest account…I have it but I know longer pin items to it, I see it was taking up too much of my time.  There are lots of great recipes on there I still plan to use and there are decorations on there for our Ladies Tea at church I will be using, etc. It has just come to be uppermost in my mind to make sure my free time is on those things that would really glorify Him.  Not that Pinterest is the evil one, but if something is taking so much of your time that you are no longer focusing large amounts of your day on the Lord but on a worldly pursuit, then it is time to let something go.

I believe it was in early March that I was at a Sunday evening service and was blessed beyond measure. Unbeknownst to the congregation the teens had been challenged by our Youth Pastor to memorize scripture.  I am not sure if the verses or chapter was assigned or if they were able to pick on their own.  What took place, was a young gentleman by the name of Timothy, came to the podium and recited all of John chapter 4 with no assistance.  I think Timothy must be all of 17. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the congregation.  Perhaps due to the conviction of the Holy Spirit upon most of us for not spending enough time to get God’s word in our hearts.  I am told he did it in a week earlier than the time allotted.

Well shortly thereafter, there was another broadcast on Revive Our Hearts You Need Hunger a three part series on how to memorize the word.  Janet Pope was the guest speaker and she has written a book on how she started this process in her life.  I might add she has memorized 14 books of the bible and over 100 chapters. She showed that we do not have blocks of time in our day to sit down and devote to memorization.  However, we do have time when we are getting ready in the morning, when we are folding laundry, when we are putting together the evening meal, driving children to sports practice, waiting in lines, waiting at practice, and the list goes on and on….when you add up those little snippets of time, you DO have time to get the word in your heart.

So I took the challenge I heard, just as she took it years ago when she first heard someone quote a chapter at a conference.  I started last week and memorized Psalms 1….yes 6 verses.  Some might scoff, but I say let them.  I did it, I set my mind to it and accomplished my goal and am moving forward.  My children are on board with the idea and we sat down this week to start the complete book of Titus.  One verse at a time day by day building on the previous verses.  I am looking forward to the blessings that abound for getting the Lord’s word in my heart and a constant mediation in my mind.

In the midst of all of this, I came across a blog post that mentioned The Hello Mornings Challenge A challenge to get up and seek the Lord first thing in the morning with prayer, scripture reading as well as exercise.  I took the challenge as well.  I was getting up at 8am previously and am now up at 7:30 and am seeking to get up at 7am.  The next challenge session starts May 6th and the FREE registration starts April 26th it will be a 13-week bible study of John and there will be a downloadable file to study along.  I am really excited to be apart of this Spring/Summer session and have signed up to be a an Accountability Coach to encourage those on my team.  I hope you all can join in if you have the time.

I also finally found a great deal on a used copy of Baxter’s Explore The Book, it is by J. Sidlow Baxter and it is the six volumes in one book and goes through the whole bible in an in-depth study.  I had asked my Pastor for a good study book of the bible as he does not recommend Strong’s concordance and he gave me this book that I mentioned.  I am really looking forward to being able to find out more about the bible and the people that wrote the books of the bible, etc.

Well that is it in a nutshell.  You see everything else just seems, to me, to pale in comparison to the Lord and my hearts desire. 

2 down 4 to go…..

Pin It

December 4th just shortly after noon, my oldest Son asked the Lord to be his savior!!!  The Lord blessed me by giving me the opportunity to share the scriptures with my son and without prompting he said that he was a sinner, that he wanted to have eternal life, he asked forgiveness of his sins and asked the Lord to be his savior.

Which then meant an interruption in the school day as we went to the store and purchased a new bible and cover and of course a celebratory cake!!!

Woman’s Work…..

Pin It

This past week was Baptist History Week at our church.  This week happened to coincide with our monthly ladies brunch.  We were honored to have a guest speaker, Mrs. Danielle Faggart, the wife of the visiting Preacher for the week. I was so blessed by her devotional, I thought I would share it here to the best of my ability.

One of the first comments that she shared is that it is often referred to as “Woman’s work” and yet when it comes to men it is called “A man’s job.”  just thought that was interesting!!

The purpose of this devotional was to show us the different rolls we have as women throughout our lives. And using scriptures to show good and bad examples of each type of roll.

1. As a Daughter--In Genesis 34":1 we read about Dinah, Jacob’s daughter. “And Dinah the daughter of Leah, and she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

Dinah was not happy or content with the way things were at home.  Was somewhat rebellious.was not content to stay with her people, her family.  She left home and was defiled. We need to make sure we are content with our family and our church and wait for the Lord.

Proverbs 30:15 “the horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough”  Again, two daughters that are not content with things at home, constantly making demands, never satisfied…coveting and despising their parents authority….

2 Kings 5:2 “And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife.” We are not told the name of this maid, but we are shown that she was faithful, she waited, she didn’t need anything.  She waited on the wife, she served in any capacity possible, she waited on the Lord. There are blessings to be had with waiting and waiting with contentment.  Be content with whatever you have.

 

2.  As a Sister--Let’s look at Numbers 12:2 “And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it.” The text is referring to Miriam, sister to Moses and Aaron. She became jealous of Moses and not content. There was sibling rivalry that took place. However, she also insulted God and as a consequence was shut out from the camp having been struck with leprosy.  We are never to old to have problems with the flesh….

Mary was a sister as well, to Martha and to Lazarus.  Each family member had different personalities and gifts.  They had a sweet family spirit.

2 Corinthians 10:12 “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. “ We don’t want to compare ourselves with others and get into devilish issues.

 

3. The Unmarried Woman--Matthew 14:6--“But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. Mat 14:7  Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask. Mat 14:8  And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head in a charger.  Herodius’ daughter, dancing in the palace…used her body as a tool to follow the devil…had no thought of God. Was not under proper authority.

The opposite of this is found in 1 Corinthians 7:34--“There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. “  In this situation, the focus is on how to serve parents, how to help out the family, time is spent examining themselves, their time, their behaviors to make sure they are in line with scripture.

It is not just a housewife or a mother, with training in scripture God will give you what you need and turn you into what you are…be the best you can be and He will give you what you need…

 

4. As a Wife--1 Kings 21:25 “But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread?”  Jezebel, a name associated with wickedness.  She used the position she had for more wickedness, more evil instead of for the good.  She was stirring up her husband for evil.  We are to use our influence for the Lord, it is a privilege.

A Godly Wife--Acts 18:2 “And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. “ Priscilla’s name and Aquila’s name are almost constantly linked in the bible, always together, working for the Lord.  They had a vocation to help the ministry as one, a team in scripture…These were not easy times but they were faithful to the Lord.

 

5.  As a Mother-- 2 Chronicles 22:3 “He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly. “ His mother was Ahaziah.  His mother counseled him to do wickedly, thus, not pleasing to God…She like many of the other women mentioned so far, has left a record and a legacy…she didn’t help him put away his wickedness.

John 2:5 “His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” Here we have Mary, Jesus’ mother.  Follow whatever Jesus said, not just because I said to do it because Jesus asks it. Mother’s are to teach their children to bring them to where you are at not push them to where you are at.

 

6.  As a Widow--1 Timothy 5:11 “But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; “ Young widows refuse…when not trying to please the Lord, when a young widow being idle, taddlers, revealing things they should not…just not focusing on the Lord, forgetting what their mission is….

The older widows were taken care of by the church we see in Luke 2:36 a wonderful example of a Godly older widow--“And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; “She served the Lord with her time, she was constantly busy for the Lord, she prayed, fasted and had a ministry that God revealed special things to her.  She was using her time to glorify the Lord.

 

7.  As a Grandmother--2 Timothy 1:5 “When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.” Lois had faith, she was an example of living her life faithful to the Lord; doing everything still to serve the Lord…as a Grandmother, you can use influence to teach good things and commit these things to faithful men…to pass onto Grandchildren.

 

8.  As a Friend--Acts 9:36--“Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did. “ When she passed away all the friends came and showed the things she had done for them.  Whatever she had she was willing to share, willing to do…she was willing to do what was needed..She was devoted to the household of faith first.

 

Our “Works” our good and bad that we do….we will be judged for our works…were we following out His commission..

We are not going to give an account for our sins, our sins have been forgiven and washed by the blood of Jesus.  What is really interesting/ fascinating to read about is 1 Corinthians 3:13 “Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.”

We are going to be judged by our work…What kind of daughter, what kind of unmarried woman, what kind of wife, mother, grandmother, friend….  This is our work he has given us to do; were we a submissive daughter, a submissive wife, a Godly Mother.  Were we a guiding Grandmother?

He is doing that work in us and it is up to us to do that outwardly and we will be judged by how well we have executed these works.

 

 

This devotion was so wonderful to me and had a wonderful impact, I wanted to type it out as best I could to refer back to it and share it with my daughter…I know it may be a little sketchy, but this was as thorough as my notes were and I was writing as fast I could.  I hope you enjoy!!

God Bless~~

 

 

 

The Father-Son Campout

Pin It

This was the first year that Tim was able to attend the Father Son Campout with our church…He took the three oldest boys.  They loaded up sleeping bags and two backpacks of overnight clothes for the four of them.  One of the Church members has quite a large piece of property out in Honea Path, SC that has a large lake as well.

They met up at church and loaded up the church van and drove down to the property at about 4pm on Friday…Now you must realize that with a 6 year old, a 5 year old and one just a month shy of 3….that there was nothing they could think about all week except going camping!!!

Practically every day was “When is Friday?”, “When are we going camping?”, “Is it time for camping yet?” The boys were so excited to be able to sleep in sleeping bags outside in tents and to go fishing…

While my husband was away with the three oldest boys, my daughter had a friend come stay the night from church.  This probably was the ideal situation because the boys were all gone and not here to harass the girls and my youngest little boy could have cared less that there was a guest in the house .

Here are a few pictures of the boys…my husband sent them from his phone.

This is my oldest, Master A, and my husband said he has a natural talent for throwing the line out in the water, he did the best, better than my husband he said!!

My next oldest, Master J,..quite proud of his catch, this was their first time fishing and catching fish.

My youngest, Master P., with one of the other little boys from Church.

They came home, excited, dirty and talking a mile a minute about how much fun they had!!!

I am hoping that maybe for next year we can organize a Church camping weekend in addition to The Mother Daughter Luncheon and the Father Son Campout.  I have done that with a church we used to attend and I think we would have a really enjoyable time with this church.  We don’t have as many church members that would be camping but the few that would be able to go would make it a really nice time.

THE Mother Daughter Luncheon….

Pin It

Well I am posting things in random order just to get them posted at this point…I want to share and if I don’t start somewhere, it won’t ever get on this blog and ya’ll will really be wondering where I went!!

Several months back at our church there was an announcement that the Mother-Daughter (MD) Luncheon was approaching in May and if you would like to help out there would be a meeting to attend.  Well I know the lady who did the food last year was swamped and I didn’t want to see that happen this year so I mentioned to the lady in charge, prior to the meeting, that I would help out with food.

Well the evening of the planning meeting arrives and I show up with about 6 or 7 other ladies…this was my first time helping out, we have only been at this church for a little over a year….I was a little surprised that not more ladies had shown up….

Well the lady in charge gave her vision of what she wanted to see accomplished and what our theme was to be…we went around our small group and talked about decorations and it came to the food and she mentions that she had me down for food and from there…I ended up being in charge for all the food!  No one else volunteered to be in charge of food and the lady who did it last year said she would give me help wherever I needed it….See last year they had the food catered and the lady who was in charge of food was a little stressed because the caterer literally walked out one door as they opened the main doors to let the attendees in to start eating…a slight nail biter there!

So I was put in charge of finding out the cost of food which would include having fresh meat for everyone to make their own deli sandwiches, the selection of breads, the tomatoes, lettuce…they wanted to have this huge table filled with fresh fruit i.e. melons, grapes…Chips and then for desserts…Cheesecakes, brownies, strawberry shortcakes…and don’t forget beverages…

Now mind you, I am an extremely organized person…it’s the only way I could get something like this done…When it was all said and done, I think I had no less than 6 different spread sheets that had cost analysis break downs, etc.  And within the first week, I think I only had maybe two days of complete restful sleep…my mind was constantly thinking about this event and all the details that would be involved.

I had two rooms to work with, our ladies Sunday School room and the attached room next door that we used as our baptismal…I needed to get the long buffet tables in there as well tables for desserts and beverages.

The theme we were working with was His eye is on the Sparrow…from the bible….so all the decorations in the gymnasium where the ladies would be sitting had to deal with birds, birdhouses, bird nests, etc… There was a whole team to decorate that area and I said I would worry about the decorations for my little area.

Then we also decided that it would be really neat to have aprons made to give away to all the little girls age 10 and under and for 15 of the 30 raffle prizes… someone spoke up and said since I knew how to sew I could help with that, and I was like sure, I would like to help…it was going to be about 15 aprons to be made. (Thankfully my parents were here visiting the week before the event and my mom made the 8 aprons that we ended up needing from me…way to go mom)!!!

So as the days go by and I get all the costs involved to have the sandwiches made in the deli dept. at a local grocery store…and had priced out item by item all the other food we would need..I came across a website…Ellen's Kitchen

this lady is wonderful about catering for huge large crowds and offers up her advice to people on a daily basis….Well I wrote in with my menu and let her know we were planning on a buffet luncheon for approx. 130 people.  Last year in attendance we had 124 show up.  She looked over my menu and said it was really much cheaper if you provided the sliced meat and condiments and had the attendees make the sandwiches themselves instead of buying the sandwiches pre-made…. so I went back and did some more calculating and then we had a sign up sheet for what ladies could sign up for to bring to help defer the food costs……

Well the sign up sheet ended up not being a good idea…we had priced the food out at two different stores and there was no guarantee that the ladies would shop at those stores for the items and then drive the price up for the event.  Then not to mention the fact that I had specifically broken it down by fruit platters, what each lady would need to make a complete fruit platter…well when the first lady came up to me and said…well I will bring a platter of watermelon….I was like um….I need a plate of these 5 fruits…and she kept insisting that she just wanted to bring one tray of watermelon…I finally got through that I would need a complete tray and so she said she would get back to me….and then there was one lady that said she would just buy a fruit tray…well that would be a smaller tray than what I had a recipe for from Ellen’s website….so that wouldn’t work…. 

I went and talked to the Pastor’s wife and she and I agreed it would be best if I bought all the food and had some ladies come help cut it up and get it all ready.  The luncheon was on Saturday May 7.  Thursday I had arranged to have a lady come help me do the decorations…we were orig. going to meet at 10am and then she asked if she could meet up closer to noon because she wanted to get some homeschool done…I said sure… I arrived about 11:20am and start getting busy ironing… I had chosen to use garden flags with birds and bird houses on them throughout both rooms so they needed to be pressed first to get the wrinkles out from shipping… I had the children with me and they were playing in and outside throughout my time…I was just about done with my decorations..I had one small table to put a table liner on and four tiny posters to hang on one wall and I was ready to go…It was 2:30pm and the lady who was to show up at noon…just drives up….promptly walks in and says…Well what can I do now that it’s all done…I just smiled..I said it is all done..there really wasn’t anything to do. I felt sorry for her she felt really bad….but she knew she had told me when she would be there and had taken her time and had been watching a movie with her children….sigh… 

Friday, I met at church with a different young lady from church and the Preacher to go to Sam’s club.  I had my grocery list and we arrived there about 7:30 in the morning. I had priced everything I needed at Sam’s about a month and a half prior…I just had to go and find the items and put them on our carts….You know what is somewhat of a dilemma shopping at Sam’s…not all items are stocked on a regular basis!!!  The packages of pound cake that were just the right size…3 loaves to a package….they were no where to be found!!!  I asked, it turns out they had been discontinued…acckkk…the base for one of the main desserts….well sometimes you have to think on the fly…we ended up getting Angel food cakes…  The boxes of 12 count croissants…..no where to be found!!! I asked the bakery department….they hadn’t been baked yet for the morning I would have to come back after 10am….akkkk…I put a hold on the four boxes I needed.

So we left Sam’s made it to Wal-mart for the remaining items and then back to the church.  I had several ladies scheduled to help me out.  It took until about 4pm to get everything prepped for that next day…and I still needed to go home and get  seven pounds of Pasta Salad made and two large bowls of dip made as well as pick up to huge tree decals that were to go up on the walls and go back to church and get that completed.  We ended up leaving the church  about 9pm on Friday and it was about midnight when I finally got to bed.  The event was the next day starting at 11am….

I guess there was a break down in communication for the day of the event between the lady who said she would help me, mentioned earlier and myself….she told me she would be there to help with whatever I needed…I thought that meant she would be there before the event started to help get all the fruit trays, condiment trays plated up, desserts plated etc.  I arrived about 8:30 and started work….I had scheduled the young men of our church to come and help out with the food service that was the idea, so the mom’s could spend time with their daughters…hence the name of the luncheon…Mother/Daughter   by 11am I was just looking at final touches and saw I needed to go sit down….the lady never once came to see what help I needed….towards the end of the guest speaker I had gotten up to go get a tissue for my allergies and the lady who said she would help me…..she comes following me out to see what she could help with….I kind of looked at her with questioning look….we had all the help the guys were in their assigned spots, and I was just going to oversee there was nothing left to do…..

Well food service started and overall it went well, there would be some things I would do different next time if it was to be the same menu….like pay to have the sandwiches pre-made, not do cheesecake….it’s a wonderful dessert and all but does not lend itself to a buffet very well unless you have one person make them all or buy them all pre-sliced…possibly consider having all the fruit trays pre-made as well. I would get a second opinion as to the amount of food that was needed….the website that I had contacted, she answers tons and tons of emails each day about cooking for large groups of people and has tables and charts why would I not think that the numbers she gave me would be inaccurate….I had enough food left over to feed the church fellowship the following night and for ladies to take fruit and chips home, cake home, etc.  We had 144 ladies at this years attendance!!  I feel really bad about that part….so much money spent on food.  Regardless of the fact that I was completely exhausted, a total basket case, completely stressed wondering if there would be enough food, trying to make sure everything got restocked on the food lines and there were no major foul ups….it went really well.

I do not think I will be in charge again, I missed out on getting to spend any time with my daughter, spent way to many sleepless nights, stressed because I wanted it to go so nicely and to glorify God with my efforts, but it took its toll. I will however give assistance as I see how hard it is to put something like this together!!

Anyhow….here are some great pictures…These first pictures are of the night before when I had the decorations set up in the two food areas

These were the inside of the doors to the food area that would get opened up and welcome the ladies in….I just loved the banner on the right…it says “Taste and see that the Lord is good”  how appropriate is that!!

 

I chose to do Mother Daughter Quotes throughout the two rooms as the ladies would be standing in line for a little while and it would give them something to read!  You can click on the photo’s to enlarge all the pictures.

  

  

  

These are pictures of the buffet the day of….

  

    

Here are some pictures from the gymnasium that my friend Christy took, she was on the decorating committee for where the ladies would be seated…

 

This was the gift table, we had 30 gifts to give away and all the little girls received aprons and then they had a really nice seating area to get pictures afterwards of Mom’s and their daughters….

They did a photo montage of Mother Daughter pictures from the ladies of our church…

The opposite corner from the sitting area up near the front by the stage.

the stage area and the area to the left.

The tables all set with little topiaries with birds on them that had our theme verse and little tiny birdhouses that were all for the guests to take home, the larger bird houses were just for the decoration.

This was a wonderful little birdhouse that was made so that you could pull it out and get pictures of you standing in the opening…so sweet!!

Well, that’s it… that is the main thing that took up so much of my time and why I wasn’t blogging for all of April!!!

God Bless~~

 

 

5 Reasons You Should Get To Church On Time…..

Pin It

You're a bad example to your children. You're a bad example to visitors. You're a bad example to the congregation. You're a bad example of a Christ follower. You're a bad example to your Pastor. We could go on, but we'll stop there. I hope this isn't you, but if it is, repent and get up early this Sunday!

The Project is finally over :)

Pin It

Back in October, I had posted on my old blog about looking for elegant Table decorations….I have moved that post over here and you can find it at this link.

Each month, the last Sunday of the month, the church has what they call Teen Afterglow.  This is usually sponsored by a couple in the church, it is a different couple each time….and there is usually food provided for the teens…it can be anything you want, a taco bar, snacks, desserts, whatever you want to provide.

I signed up last October to provide the food for this January. Usually this event takes place in our Gymnasium which is quite big in comparison to the number of teenagers.  We have about 15 teenagers give or take some either way and the two adults that are their leaders.

I asked early on if I could provide the food in the Ladies Sunday School room which was adjacent to the gymnasium.  This is a much smaller and cozier environment.  Once I had permission, the wheels in my brain started turning…I wanted to provide a Winter Wonderland setting that was really elegant; something that the teens had never had done for them before.  This is the room before….

The picture below is the wall directly opposite the glass door in the picture above.

This picture below is the wall directly opposite the double doors in the first picture.

So as soon as the Christmas decorations started going on sale at Hobby Lobby I went scouring the aisles….I was looking for snowflakes and anything that might be winter related but not Christmasy…if there were such a word….lol

I started looking on the internet for some inspirations and found some great ideas.  I ended up making some souvenirs to remember the evening..those probably took the longest time but shouldn’t have .

Here is my inspiration:

Here is what I did:

The idea was to be simple on purpose and to get the significance of the star by itself…it is not something I pointed out to the teenagers but if anyone happens to ask about it I will share it with them….

I found a beautiful floral centerpiece on the internet that I copied the idea and made my own.  I found some pretty candle holders and found a way to make something similar on my own.

I wanted to include a thank you to the teenagers for being inspiring and to thank them for being role models.  Well this past January….out in blog land there seemed to be several people posting about their “word” for the year….either what they wanted this year to be or what they thought last year summed up would be….anyhow….Michelle over at She Looketh Well…had a fabulous post about her word and it was the inspiration for what I shared with the teenagers.  Michelle focused on what she wanted to pursue as a mom and I adapted some of her ideas and added more of my own to apply to the youthful years of a teenager.  I then included our thank you and a scripture verse at the end.

We strung white Christmas lights all across the ceiling and turned off the fluorescent lights which gave a soft warm glow.  We then had over 60 snowflakes that were hung in three different sizes all scattered around the room.

I saw these beautiful centerpiece flower arrangements and wanted to try and do something similar:

 

I was wanting to try and do the smaller square bottom one on the right…..well this is what I ended up coming up with….

I took two vases from Hobby lobby that happened to be 50% and then bought a half round florist foam that was about 6.5 inches or so and cut it down some because I needed it to be around 5.5 inches…then I went to three different Dollar Tree stores and bought a combination of white rosebuds and white roses that were open and mixed them all up and filled in the dome….

Then we took Dogwood branches from our yard and spray painted them white….

Once the branches were dry I took a paint brush and painted them with Aileen's glue all around each branch and covered them with a combination of German’s glass glitter and another product called Vase filler that they use for making it look like Iced snow on branches.

The larger plastic looking pieces are the vase filler and the sparkles are the glass glitter.

And then let them dry and stick them into the foam.

The crystals were also purchased at Hobby Lobby in their Christmas stuff…they are plastic but it was great that they had snowflakes!!  The bottom inside the vase and inside the bottom of the candles were the little round iridescent half marbles.

Each of the tables had one large candle display with two tea lights on each side spreading out the length of the

and tables. We had bought this glittery ribbon to use as table runners in blue and white however that was before I had found a great deal on these tablecloths and organza overlays.  So we used the ribbon to make sashes on half the chairs with a bow on the back of the chair.

This was my inspiration:

I think those were sawarsky crystals on like a bracelet that went around the candle holder.

 

Here is what I did:

I took candle holders from the Dollar tree and used Aileen's Tacky glue around the top edge and then purchased German Glass glitter and sprinkled it around the top edge.  I bought a 66’ strand of iridescent beads in the Christmas decorations at Hobby Lobby and cut it into 12’+ lengths for each candle display…  someone said you could use sugar but I don’t think the sugar would be as sparkly as the glass glitter.

My husbands idea was to use tape…like masking tape so I would have a straight line….

Neither one of us would recommend doing that again….luckily I had two left that I did not tape and just eye-balled it with the paint brush…..you can’t tell the difference and the issue was that the glue got on top of the tape and then when it all dried, I had to go around each candle holder with an Exacto knife and cut through the glue and glitter to get the tape off!! Just free hand it!

There were two fake palm trees in the room that we moved to either end of the buffet and used lights in amongst the foliage to give an extra glow.

Overall, the evening was a big success, the teenagers were wowed and awed and very appreciative.

After having had been sick for weeks, I was finally better until about 3am Saturday morning when I had a sore throat and when I woke up later that morning, my nose was completely stuffy.  All day Saturday I worked on the preparations and then we had fellowship dinner that evening at church which I had made two casseroles….there was to be extra people there that night…..I had one of those casseroles in the oven for close to two hours and it was still frozen in the center…arrgghhh…. we ended up putting it in the fridge and getting off to church…  I was just praying the whole time to be able to get home as soon as possible I had 8 tablecloths I needed to iron and it wasn’t until I had called my parents asking for prayers for my strength to get through what I needed that I realized I still needed to frost another cake… I went to bed at 10:30pm Saturday evening exhausted….I got up Sunday…. the morning of the event….my goal was to get to church early before everyone else to unload everything because it was to be a surprise…..

There was no way that was going to happen….Tim took the children to church, I went back to bed, my legs were freezing.  I got up once and did some work, went back to bed…and then slept and sweated out a fever…which was a huge blessing, I felt like this fog had lifted….I wasn’t better but felt I had the strength I needed to get done what was necessary.  I arrived at church at about 1pm and it took until about 5:30 to get everything all set up, which gave me a few minutes to tidy up loose ends and get myself cleaned up before evening service.  I took some cold medicine at the start of service which really helped me the night before so my nose wasn’t running….no such luck yesterday, it was like I hadn’t taken anything, my nose was on run non-stop. 

It was about 10:30pm last night when we finally left the church and everything was as if nothing had ever occurred there.  We came home brought the refrigerated items in and fell into bed!  There was only one small casualty yesterday…you see those chairs in the pictures….I was standing on one of those to hang up snowflakes well one time I was up there and moved my leg and it slipped off and went down through the hole on the back side of the chair….I had a snowflake in one hand and that went flying across the room like one of those little ninja discs…good thing no one was in the path of that thing!  but I have a nice black and blue mark on my upper calf…drats!!

That second casserole…..came in handy this evening…now I know why God did not need me to bring it to the Fellowship dinner, He knew I would need it today with no energy to cook!!!

So here are the pictures of the room….you always think you capture every thing and then realize later you don’t but this is what I have….

This was with the lights on….with just the candles lit on the buffet table.

You can kind of see the sashes that I made for some of the chairs on the left side.

Again, this was with the lights on but wanted to show the snow flakes and lights….

I had tinfoiled out the glass door and window so no one could see in and it would be a surprise

 

 

 

I put all the food trays together myself and made the carrot cake and chocolate torte.

It just so happened, I had a skirt in my closet that had snowflakes on it!!!!

The end…….