Made With Love!

Originally, my husband and I were not going to spend money on gifts for our one-year anniversary, and instead just spend money on doing something together. But I still wanted to get make him something, and I was inspired by Pinterest. 

I saw this tutorial for canvas wall art...

And tried my hand at it. I didn't like attempt number one:

The stickers that actually stuck the best didn't have cut outs for the insides of the letters (like "e" or "s") so they showed up funny and I didn't have the time or skill to hand cut them. Plus I thought the font was weird... On a side note this project was a lot harder than I thought. The stickers are hard to peel off without leaving pieces behind and it's hard to have enough letters without buying six sticker packages to get your whole phrase.

But attempt number two was a lot better, except one thing - not wanting to waste the first two of the four canvases I tried to "re-do" them. The grey-on-yellow one worked well...but I don't know if I like the yellow-on-blue one...

We even used them in our photo-shoot for anniversary photos!

And will hang them in our bedroom once we move to our new apartment!

I also was inspired by The Dating Divas blog to make a jar of dates - 10 dates for $2. Here's how my date jar turned out: 

(I'm not gonna detail the dates yet because they will be a surprise to Jason as he picks them one-by-one. Hopefully I can document and blog about the dates once we've done them!)

I also was just super impressed by my gift-wrap skills:

(Yes I did re-use tissue paper and ribbon from our wedding gifts!)

PS: We were blessed with a gift card for a restaurant and a place to stay, so we ended up having some "gift-money" as well!

{Several more anniversary posts will follow!}

The Last Best Place

Montana will always be home. And Montana will always take my breath away. God sure created some beautiful country here!

Check For Murderer

 

For those of you who fall into the above category (not gonna lie, that's me sometimes), you would appreciate  the downstairs bathroom of my parent's house:

Yes, that's right. There is a bb gun behind the towel in that bathroom, just in case you need to protect yourself from the murderer behind the curtain.

JUST KIDDING! Well sorta. There IS a bb gun there, but that's not the reason why. The reason why is Josie. Josie is obsessed with shooting the bb gun because she is TWELVE.

You see, for Josie age is defined by what you get to do, and a lot of it is based off what her siblings did at certain ages. For example, she believes that when you turn 20 you get married, because that's what I did. While she was still 11 she was praying with my dad one night. She prayed something along the lines of, "God, thank you that when I turn 12 I get to shoot a gun and kill people and kill animals." My dad immediately stopped her and said, "Josie, you never shoot people, only animals." And since then she has learned what to shoot and what not to shoot. (You can blame the "shoot people" desire on watching Westerns). Now that she is 12, she really enjoys marching into the yard with the bb(less) gun to "shoot" at birds. She just so happened to leave the gun on the bathroom floor, and now it is hanging out on the towel rack.

Just Josie #2

{This would be better video taped! Or audio recorded even.}

Our neighbors are really good to Josie and she often goes over to borrow movies and to play their xbox.

Tonight our neighbors had a lot of cars in their driveway, and she asked why. I told her they were having a party! Bad idea. She loves parties! And yes, she has crashed their parties a few times before. She spent the rest of dinner trying to convince us that she was supposed to go to the neighbor's party. We kept telling her that she didn't get an invitation, so she couldn't go if she wasn't invited.

Then her face lights up with an idea! She insisted on returning the movie she borrowed. Oh Josie, we are on to you. We know how convenient it'd be to return a movie over there tonight.

When that didn't work, she says, "Guys, I have a plan!" Then she details on an imaginary map, "Ok here is our house, and we are gonna walk walk walk over here, to the [neighbor's] house." Nice try Josie.

She even tries to convince us by saying, "I'm serious! I'm telling the truth!"

But finally she knows what to say. "God has a plan for me." We all busted out laughing because we knew exactly what she was going to say was God's plan.

Nice try Josie. You're so creative though!

On the Inside

Sometimes it looks like I have everything all together, but allow me to let you in on a little secret - I don't. Don't be fooled by how it looks on the outside. I don't try to be fake but sometimes it's just easier not to bring up what goes on inside my head. The secret is: I am insecure.

I change my outfit multiple times, hoping each time that the next outfit will make me look pretty.

I stare hard into the mirror, hoping that I am thin, fit, and beautiful.

I wonder if I'm a good wife.

I don't feel like I'm the woman of God I should be.

I feel very inadequate.

Don't blame my husband, he doesn't do anything to make me feel less beautiful or to feel like less of a wife.

Where these insecurities come from, I'm not sure. But I need help to overcome the lies and rise above myself and instead to fix my eyes on Jesus.

I don't write this to get your sympathy or compliments. I write this to be honest. I want you to see inside my head. I want you to know that I don't have it all together.

Just Josie #1

Josie, my now 12 year old sister, is so precious to me. I want to record memories of her in this electronic memory bank as well.

My dad and brother came to visit us for Nate's spring break this year. They were heading down to our place from Cheyenne and I was heading home from work. Jason was at our house waiting. I called my mom cause it was her birthday. After talking to her, Josie got on the phone cause she wanted to talk to me. Her very first words were, "Can I talk to dad?"

"No Josie, dad's in a different car, he's not here."

"Oh. Can I talk to Jason?"

"No Josie, Jason is at home, not in the car with me."

"Oh. (Pause). Well I guess I'll talk to you."

Celebrate the Differences

Jason and I are very different in many ways. Most of the ways make me smile. Some of the ways I appreciate a lot. And there might be one or two ways that could be frustrating if I let them.

This last week I've been compiling a list of these differences, just for fun!

I always leave the switch on the overhead light in my car in the middle position so that the light turns on when my door is open and off when it shuts. I know when Jason drives my car, because the switch is always moved to the "off" position because he doesn't trust it to actually turn off when the doors shut. This makes me smile.

I rarely turn the air completely "off" in my car. I just adjust the temperature and/or fan settings to get the car comfortable. He turns the air completely off a lot. This makes me smile.

At dinner Jason eats one thing at a time and gets overwhelmed if I say things like, "Hey, are you gonna have some oven fries too??" I like to put a little of everything on my plate and eat a few bites of each thing here and there. This makes me smile.

I season my food while it's cooking and rarely add anything else once it's on the table. Jason needs salt and pepper on every meal and Worcestershire sauce on every piece of meat, no matter what other seasonings are on it. This makes me smile.

I like to plan ahead. Jason likes to be spontaneous and gets stressed if I try to plan too much too far ahead. This can be frustrating at moments, but we are learning to work together.

When Jason does the dishes, he puts them away as he goes. I leave them out on the counter to dry. I really appreciate that he puts them away right away, it makes the kitchen so much cleaner!

Jason is good a driving in the morning without falling asleep. I have a really hard time staying awake unless I get the perfect amount of sleep. I appreciate his ability to be a safe driver!

Jason hardly ever goes above the speed limit. I like to go 5 above most of the time. I appreciate his conviction of obeying the law exactly (and not getting a speeding ticket!)

I know there are more, and maybe I will add to the list later! I have found that our differences usually compliment each other or just give me something to smile about.