Today is the first full day of having the kiddos back after their church camp this past week and it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside so I thought it was a good day to scratch another thing off of our Summer Bucket List! Awhile ago I bought two hula hoops from the Dollar Tree and today we headed off to Walmart to pick out curtains to hang on them. My girly-girl of course picked sheer curtains with sequins in black and purple and my handsome boy picked a plain white shower curtain. The curtains that Tatym picked didn't have holes around the top like the shower curtain does so I had to actually cut the hula-hoop in half and "thread" the curtain around the hoop and then tape it back together.
Then we headed outside to hang them from the tree in our front yard!
As I'm typing this they are sitting out in their forts laughing and playing games together and listening to music. This is a rare treat! They tend to argue & fight a lot so finding things they can do together is AWESOME!
I have been drooling over these welcome sign holders that are all over Pinterest and was determined to make one myself! I bought a 4x4, fence post cap and hooks the other week, at one of our local hardware stores but my hubby was set on making ME do most of the work on this project including using power tools! EEK! The captain of Team Courtright had spent quite a bit of time the past couple of weeks working on making a beautiful chest for my sister's birthday so he wanted a little break! Check this out:
My super talented husband built this completely from scratch! He didn't even have plans to copy, this was all from his head! He used cedar wood on the inside for the drawer so it smells WONDERFUL inside! It's like 60" wide and is as tall as my waist! My sister wanted it to go at the foot of their bed so they could put pillows in it and set a tv on top of it. I think it's gorgeous and I know she's going to love it!
Josh (Captain of Team Courtright) and I woke up this morning to GORGEOUS weather and our kids were gone for a church camp most of the week so we had some time to kill this morning before heading out to pick them up so we decided it was the perfect time to start working on my project!
We cut the 4x4 down to 30" for the first post and decided we'd go ahead and make a 2nd one using the rest of the wood. I can't remember what length was left but it was probably around 40" or so. Hubby cut up some of our scrap wood to make a base around the bottom. We live on the Oregon coast and it tends to get windy around here and we thought it would be better to have a sturdy base! I then painted everything an off-white color. This post cap was the one I bought at the hardware store. It was almost $13 and I wasn't too thrilled about that but it was the only thing in town I could find that was made out of wood and not plastic!
After everything dried I started using an antique glaze to give it a more rustic look. I love this stuff! So easy to use and looks really cool when it's done! I just painted it on with a sponge brush and then wiped it off with a rag.
The top board doesn't have the glaze yet and the bottom board does. The picture doesn't show it as well but you get the general idea!
The post cap here is one that my super talented hubby made after we had decided to make 2 posts instead of just one! My mind is B-L-O-W-N by the skill this man has! He has had no training in woodworking other than a wood shop class in middle school and one in high school! Really, there's no limit to what this man can do! He's great with technology, woodworking, cooking, baking, fixing vehicles or other motored things that breakdown and a million other things! He's a freakin stud! Sorry ladies, he's all mine! :)
Then it was time to put the base on the posts. We opted to use good ol' fashioned wood glue because I didn't want to see nails in it. So you can see the contraption (I really should learn what that tool is called) that's holding the base together while the glue dries.
The "welcome" sign is one that I made a few weeks ago. I had never made signs before and after watching this youtube video I decided to give it a whirl!
Here are a few other signs I played around with that day:
I have so much fun with these and can't wait to make some more! :) Here's a sneak peek at one that I started last night:
Isn't chevron absolutely the funnest?!?! I love it!
Alright, back to the welcome post! :) Here is the final product look oh-so-adorable by our front door!!!!
Pay no mind to the color scheme of the house, we're renters so we have no say in that! LOL! I cannot wait until we buy our own home next year (Lord willing) so I can really make it "ours"!
In the end, the taller stand measures roughly 44" tall (from base to top of the cap) and the shorter one is about 32" tall. I love, love, love them! Thanks to my handsome husband for showing me how to run the table saw and for all his help today! I'll forgive him for trying to stab me with the power drill near the end! LOL! Really, I was helping hold the hook onto the post so he could get the screw in and it slipped off and hit my thumb nail and made it through the top layer of my nail. Maybe I can be pitiful and get him to let me get a manicure to make up for it! Hee hee!
Off I go to figure out what project to work on next! <3
My sweet Tatym is turning 5 this summer. I can't even believe it but it's true! My littlest baby is old enough to be going off to kindergarten in the fall. Pardon me as I run to my room and cry my eyes out!
Here she is holding her kindergarten registration packet back in May.
Along with turning 5, she's old enough now to join Girl Scouts...but I have issues with Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts have connections with Planned Parenthood which I am EXTREMELY against as well as the "girl power" mentality that comes along with our world today.
We are definitely a feminist society and that's not biblical and that's not what I want to teach my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about "girl power" in the sense that us girls should stick together, encourage one another, help one another and we really can do anything we set our minds to, but God created men & women differently. We don't look the same, smell the same, think the same, act the same and we have different roles in life. So this sent me on a mission to see if they had groups for girls, similar to Girl Scouts but with a biblical viewpoint. Through the grapevine I heard about American Heritage Girls as well as through my scouring the internet I found a bunch of other "christian" girl's clubs and then I stumbled on KEEPERS OF THE FAITH. Every other club required start-up costs, they wanted you to buy a ton of stuff, pay lots of dues and membership fees as well as jump through a bunch of hoops to even get established as a group. I didn't want to deal with all of that! I just wanted to get like-minded moms and their daughters together, do some crafts & baking projects, memorize scripture and songs together, do community projects and learn about what kinds of women God wants us to be! Keepers of the Faith is just that group! They don't require a start-up fee, they have several books and things we can buy from them but it's not required. They offer support if we need it but give us freedom to run the meetings how we want to and their whole stance is that girls & boys are different and as parents we need to be teaching them what God wants of them in each of their roles!
So today, while my kids are away at church camp, I finally had time to sit down and start planning out the upcoming school year's activities!
Don't mind the mess! :) LOL! Creative mind at work!
When I originally decided to start my own girls' group I was going to do it for older & younger girls and then it got bigger with the idea of adding in the boys part of it and I started getting really overwhelmed and just stopped planning altogether. Now that it's the summer before Tatym starts kindergarten I decided it was time to buckle down and get serious! I've chosen to only start with the Little Keepers at Home group designed for girls 4-6 years old. We've invited a few of Tatym's girlfriends to join us and I'm really excited about it!
As I've been looking through the book to plan meetings I see that we get to help the girls memorize verses and even whole chapters of the bible, we get to practice showing love & kindness to our families, our neighbors and our friends, we get to do fun crafts like gardening, painting, making cards, scrapbooking as well as do some baking, learn how to play croquet, learn how to care for our homes and lots more!
I don't have the best or even a really good relationship with my mom and I am bound and determined to work my buns off and to continue to pray daily for as close of a relationship with my daughter as possible for her whole life. I love that this is something we get to do together, to strengthen our bond and I can't wait to see how the Lord works in our group!
This post has been fumbling around in my head for a few days now. Trying to wrap my mind around what exactly is happening in my heart and in my mind has been tough. Tough in an amazing way! There's so much talk about the gay marriage issue and a few weeks back a Facebook friend of mine posted this video from youtube and for the life of me I cannot find it to share here a HUGE thank you to Jessica Goodman for helping me track it down on Facebook, here it is. Sorry it's kind of lengthy (just under 20 minutes) but it is so worth the time and will really make you think: And for some reason I can't get the video to post on here so here's the link to watch it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySkB30rf5Ao
And then another friend of mine posted this video yesterday that also made me start to think!
God's Word says that above all else we are to love one another as Christ loves us. How does He love us? Unconditionally and sacrificially! I know the bible says that homosexuality is a sin. I get that. But how does God want me to treat the gays? With unconditional love! My mind is still all over the place on this whole subject but I'm really having to stop and pray and really dig into the Word and wrestle some things out with God about how I show that unconditional love. It's not a secret that the gay community feels rejected, judged, condemned, unloved, and even hated by christians and THAT is not of Jesus!!!! So today as I sat down to have my quiet time with the Lord I stared at my various bible study books and packets that I'm working on with different bible study groups but I really felt the Lord calling me away with just Him! No other books to tell me what to think or try to explain it to me the way the Lord has spoken to them about things but to get raw and real with the Lord. I've always felt that I'm not smart enough to understand God's Word without a little help from my study notes or commentaries from pastors that I look up to but God reminded me that wisdom comes from Him and He will give me all the understanding I need. I'm on a mission to really dig into the New Testament especially the gospels to really dig in there and see Jesus! I want to see how Jesus treated people caught in sin. As I started digging in I was reminded that throughout the gospel Jesus is hanging with the sinners, the rejected, the hurting, the lost...obviously He must have been loving and kind and compassionate to them or they would have RUN from Him. I know when I feel unaccepted for who I am I stay away from those people. The ones Jesus focused his harsh words on were the religious people! The ones that were judgmental, condemning, hateful, legalistic, etc. I want to be like Jesus! I want people to feel love and accepted when they are around me. Love & acceptance doesn't mean I fully support someone in whatever sin they are in but it means loving them regardless of what they are struggling with and coming alongside of them in non-judgment. I made it through the first 2 chapters of Matthew before I had to stop because I'd already been sitting there for almost an hour! :) What did I learn in those first 2 chapters? Jesus came to be a shepherd.
What does a shepherd do? A shepherd guides, protects and cares for his flock. He goes after those that wander away or get lost. He protects them from harm. He comforts the scared and hurting. He bandages up the wounds. He firmly and lovingly disciplines when the sheep start to wander into danger.
We need to be more like shepherds and less like wolves!
My journey into really looking at Jesus is going to take quite a bit of time but my prayer is to become more and more like Jesus and a whole lot less like the religious people!!!
The Pottery Co. has got to be one of my favorite places to go with my kiddos, especially on a rainy day! If you're not familiar with it, they have a ton of different pieces of pottery ranging from little animals & piggy banks to plates and mugs and vases and lots more! You go, pick out the piece you want to paint, pick your colors and then go to town painting away! Once you're done you give it to the employees, they fire it up and make it nice and shiny and about 3-4 days later it will be all done and ready for you to pick up! My sweet girl chose a cute horse to paint and picked about 6 colors to paint it with!
I love her little look of concentration! :)
She finished painting hers in about 20 minutes!
I don't normally paint anything when I go with her because she finishes so quickly and then gets bored waiting but this time I decided that I was going to paint (didn't get a picture of my project) but I chose a decorative plate which I painted yellow & gray chevron stripes. I had Bitty help me paint the bottom of it because she was at her meltdown point from having to wait on me so long so I needed something to entertain her! LOL! Our pottery will be done on Saturday! YAY!
Happy Monday everyone! My oldest child is away at a camp-out for VBS with some friends of ours and my sweet girl was missing her big brother so I was on a mission to have a special girl day! I surprised her by taking her to the theater to see:
It was a super cute movie and I was relieved that there wasn't a bunch of adult humor which usually ruins a movie for me! Tatym loved it and we had a great time sharing snacks and giggling away!
Then I decided to consult our Summer Bucket List for a craft project and decided we'd dye rice and make pictures!
If you couldn't tell, Tatym is a wee bit of a camera ham! :) Catching her making a regular, cute smile is R-A-R-E and I'm ok with that because that's who she is and I love her spunky personality!
So to start I put some rice in snack size ziploc bags. All we had was brown rice. I'm sure white rice would make brighter colors but I try not to have it in the house these days as we're switching to a Clean Eating diet. Anyways, I didn't measure how much rice, I just put some in and then I covered it with rubbing alcohol and Tatym squeezed lots of food coloring in.
Then we left it on the counter for an hour, turning it over and squishing it every 20 minutes to make sure all of the rice was getting covered.
I then dumped out the liquid, lined a cookie sheet with wax paper and layed the rice on it to dry.
After about 30 minutes I decided to put it outside because 1: the smell of rubbing alcohol was not so pleasant for either one of us and 2: I thought it would dry faster!
Once it was all dry we got out some white cardstock paper that I had on hand and some glue and went to town making pictures and writing words.
And of course, after awhile the colors started getting mixed up so we put it all together in one of the cookie sheets and played in it, pushing it into one big pile and drawing pictures in it.
While the rice was outside drying, of course I had to make dinner and earlier I mentioned how we've been changing to a Clean Eating diet so I've been trying LOTS of new recipes and new ways of cooking things. We haven't switched to completely organic but I have been trying to buy everything fresh and eventually will switch to organic. Tonight I tried my hand at stuffed bell peppers and it was YUMMY!
Here's the recipe that I used and I'm sorry, I'm totally spacing on where exactly I got the recipe--- Ingredients: 4 large bell peppers, any color & make sure they have a flat enough bottom to stand up, remove the top, ribs & seeds water sea salt 2 cups cooked brown rice 1 tsp EVOO 1 yellow onion, peeled & chopped 1 large carrot, peeled & grated 1 cup butternut squash, peeled & diced 3 cloves garlic, passed through a garlic press 2 cups fresh roma tomatoes, diced and set over a fine mesh sieve to drain (I just put them on a paper towel) 1- 15 oz can black beans, rinsed & drained 1 cup fresh corn kernels (I omitted this ingredient since we're trying to stay away from corn) 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro (I omitted this one too since my hubby doesn't like it) juice of one fresh lime fresh ground pepper Directions: Preheat oven to 350*. Place cooked brown rice in a bowl and let cool. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Place the peppers in the water and cook briefly. The peppers just need to be a little soft. Remove the peppers from the water and put them upside down on a plate lined with paper towels to let the water drain out. In a large skillet, heat the EVOO and saute onion, carrot and squash. Cook 10 minutes, covered. Add garlic and cook a few minutes more. Now add tomatoes, beans and corn. Cook for 5 more minutes. Remove from heat. Add rice to the mixture and season with cilantro, lime, salt & pepper. Mix together until evenly distributed. Set aside. Prepare a baking pan with a light coat of cooking spray or oil. Place each of the peppers right side up on the pan. Stuff each pepper with the rice mixture. Don't pack the rice too tightly. Bake for 20 minutes and serve immediately. You can add lean ground chicken/turkey to the rice mixture if you want. I think they turned out great and my hubby liked it!
So I've admitted to being a total Pinterest addict and I'm determined to do as many of the projects that I pin as possible! I don't have a whole lot of 4th of July decorations so while I was taking care of my sick little girl and surfing through my Pinterest boards today, I came across THIS super cute wreath tutorial. I remembered that I still had quite a bit of red felt leftover from the Valentine heart-shaped wreaths I had made like 3 years ago. (You can visit my old blog post HERE and see how those turned out.) So I went to town cutting 6 sheets of red felt, 6 sheets of white felt and 4 sheets of blue felt into 2x2" squares.
I was really regretting the fact that I had sold my rotary cutter at my garage sale last year! Must add one to my shopping list! :)
Then I started pinning the squares to the wreath:
The nice things about projects like this is that it's not very messy and although it's time consuming, I can watch tv and visit with my hubby without having to be fully engaged in the project!
I found some cute glittery star stickers at Walmart and I usually use them to dress up my Scentsy customer's orders and I decided to hot glue some to the blue area on the wreath and added some shimmery pipe cleaners. And here's the final product:
I'm really happy with how it turned out and it's on display on my mantle now! :)
I'm really looking forward to the 4th of July week as we get to celebrate my precious daughter's 5th birthday and we've got family coming up to stay a few days with us too! Life is good and God is even better! <3
I've always wished I could have a do-over in life so that I could go and do the missions trips that I want to do, travel to Israel and see where Jesus walked, go out to the homeless camps in our community, volunteer more at the Women's Safety & Resource Center and the million other ministry things I want to do. Now that I'm a mom & a wife, it's not easy for me to just jump on a plane and head to Haiti or Africa or Mexico or even travel to Israel because I have responsibilities at home, a husband who doesn't understand my desire to do crazy things like sell everything we own and go somewhere off the beaten path and share Jesus with strangers. We all know that we don't get a do-over in life and the Lord knows my heart and my desires so as I'm reading this book those desires are just burning away in my soul but God is good and reminds me that I may not be able to jump on a plane and head to Haiti but I have plenty of opportunities in my own back yard to share the love of Jesus with the lost & unsaved. We have a neighborhood full of kids that don't know Jesus that hang out in my driveway on almost a daily basis. I can share Jesus with them! I have neighbors that don't know Jesus. I can share Jesus with them! There are people standing on the street corners asking for help. I can love them like Jesus, fill up a blessing bag and offer it to them as I drive by! I have friends that like to dig into the Word with me. I can share my passion for Jesus with them! I have an unsaved husband. I can submit to him, love him like Jesus and pray for him daily! I have young children. I can dig into the Word with them, pray with them, guide them and hopefully instill my love for Jesus into their little hearts! I have unsaved friends. I can share Jesus with them and pray for them! I know lots of hurting people. I can tell them about my Jesus, pray for them and love them! I have a troubled relationship with my stepson & his mom. I can continue to show them the love of Jesus, pray for them and refuse to give up hope!
Even something as simple as a smile to a complete stranger walking past me can show them Jesus.
During this season of my life I may not be able to do the grand things I have planned in my head but I can do the little things and pray that one day I can do the big things! This is where the Lord has me at right now and I need to be content with it but willing to do ANYTHING He asks me to do! My prayer is that I live 100% sold out and surrendered to Jesus...totally willing to give up everything and do anything that He asks me to do! I need to care more about pleasing God than about pleasing others...including myself!
Needless to say, I HIGHLY recommend this book and can't wait to get my hands on her two other studies! :)
Thanks to Pinterest (which I'm totally addicted to) I've been doing things I never thought I'd do...like making my own laundry soap! Talk about feeling domesticated! LOL! I've made two batches of liquid laundry soap (which totals 20 gallons) but I haven't felt like it's gotten our clothes as clean as I'd like so today I went out and bought all the stuff to try the powder detergent and I'm SUPER excited about it! Who in the world gets excited about laundry soap?!?! ME! :)
I got this recipe from the blog: BeingCreativeToKeepMySanity (click on the link to be taken to her post) and I added 2 bottles of Gain scented laundry beads just because I'm a freak about wanting my clothes to smell good!
At Walmart all I could find for Oxi-Clean was a 3 lb bucket or a 1.8 lb bucket so I just went with 3 lbs even though the other blogger suggested 3.5 lbs. I bought the jar new today as well as the measuring spoons so my total today was around $35. Next time I won't have to buy the jar & spoons so that will save me $14.
I even got my son to help me! :) He grated most of the 3 bars of Fels-Naptha for me! What a little stud he is! We have a rule in our house that the tv is off from 9am-5pm so by offering to let him watch tv while he grated, there was no complaining whatsoever! LOL!
This recipe FILLED the pretty jar!
All I have to use is 1-2 tbsp. in each load so this bad boy is gonna last me a LONG time!
So, thought I'd give blogging another go. I've been wanting a place to post our fun family adventures without being sucked into the time vortex of Facebook...so here I am!
Team Courtright (that's what we call our little family) has lots of fun things planned for the summer so I'll be posting pictures and recipes and all that fun stuff along the way! Here's a look at our summer "bucket list":
So far we've gone to Wildlife Safar:
I also planned a surprise summer kick-off party at our house on the last day of school that was a big hit!
I filled up around 550 water balloons throughout the day (with some help from a fabulous friend), filled up a pool, 2 bins, several buckets, 12 squirt guns and 10 water squirters and the kids had a hay-day soaking each other!
I saw this idea on Pinterest (click on link to be taken to the blog post) to help with the summer schedule and am going to copy her!
We have:
Make it Monday--craft/baking project
Take a trip Tuesday--park, museum, farm, etc.
Wet Wednesday--pool, beach, water fight, water game in the backyard, etc.
Thinking Thursday--weekly trip to the library & research something interesting together
Friend Friday--friends can come over for a playdate & possible sleepover
We're really excited about our schedule and it helps since we have a rule of no television on from 9am-5pm Mon-Fri!
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