My apologies

It seems the holidays, student teaching, and the fact that my digital camera broke have been very efficient in keeping me away from my blog. This is something I wish not to become habit as I find blogging can be very stress-relieving for me. I hope to come back and stay consistent in my blogging! My apologies for staying away for so long!

Life lessons.

Life is so silly, how one simple thing can poke and prod at our hearts disturbing our default mode of simply slipping through the day to day with little to no change. This evening I was gently reminded (certainly by the Holy Spirit) of what a prideful hypocrite I can be, and I am so thankful the Lord stopped me through one simple moment raking leaves to humble me.

You see, my husband is out of town on business and I am left to do all the nasty laborious chores he normally takes while he is here. Today, it was raking the yard. Leaves were everywhere, and I had some gloves, a small rake and some kitchen garbage bags. I jumped into the job with enthusiasm and as I made my way from side yard to the front, I thought to myself, "My neighbors must see me out here raking. I wonder what they must be thinking." My first guess was that they would wonder why Michael (who usually does the yard work) isn't raking the yard or carrying around a leaf-blower or doing something manly.

But my thoughts didn't stop there, as I noticed other neighbors out walking/playing with their children, carrying in groceries, etc. I sat there (piling leaves into bags) thinking they must just love having me as a neighbor! From what I've heard, the last tenant was not respectful of the property and ended up costing our landlord a lot of money. I figured the neighbors must love having a pretty yard to look at and love the fact that my husband and I are generally quiet, we don't do drugs, and don't have yappy/aggressive/big/stupid/whatever kind of dogs to poop in other people's yards. Furthermore, I thought, I'm not like this and such neighbor with this and such problem, and I went on and on in my head justifying what a wonderful person I am and how wonderful it must be to live next to me.

As I told myself that I respect my yard more than the neighbors across me because I'm raking my yard, I looked up to see the mom of that house handing her boys rakes. Conviction shot through me as I gaped at the little boys serving their mother by helping to pick the leaves/fruit that had fallen from their trees. I felt a push on my heart that what I had just been saying to myself was a pack of lies, that something evil, my own sin had been speaking to me, stroking my ever dangerously-large ego. Judgement had taken over because of some leaves accumulated on a person's yard, so very quickly I had elevated myself for the very purpose of looking down my nose at the "less worthy" neighbors that must be "such a burden" for their landlord.

Oh shame. Shame, Lizzy, that you do not love like Christ. Shame that you do not desire to serve, but only desire to be noticed and called great. Shame that you are impatient, so far from the Lord, our God, slow to anger and abounding in love.

These small things in life that bring me to a low place, these are the discipline of the Lord. Thank you Lord for your loving discipline! For disturbing my every day pattern of exalting myself.

A weekend with the fam :)

I love time with my family :) This weekend, I drove home by myself (hubby's out of town on business for the new job) and just relaxed, crocheted, held my adorable niece and ate yummy food! It was very restful and wonderful to not spend the majority of a weekend sitting by myself alone in an empty house! I made two amigurumi this weekend- a pumpkin, and a candy corn for the fall/halloween season. Both were featured on my weekly Lion Brand email updates so I downloaded the (*free) patterns and made them up in a jiffy! My sister loved the pumpkin so I gave it to her, and the dog, Piper got my candy corn. He (the dog) always loves it when I come, cause usually I make him a toy. He tries to dig through my yarn bag and steal my creations! It was really cute to see him with the candy corn cause it was just the right size for his mouth :)

Well, I hope you all had just as lovely of a weekend as I did! May your week be productive and full of good people!

OH! p.s. My sister and brother-in-law bought their first house! They close on Friday, and I am very happy for them, so congrats you two!

I love fall :)

I love when it starts getting cold outside, cause it just seems the time to curl up and crochet lovely things like hats and scarves! And that is just what I have been doing! Here's a beret I finished last night, and a lacy cap w/flower I just finished this afternoon. The flower I added to give some pizzaz to an otherwise rather plain skull cap.

The Joy in my life

Molly Joy 10 weeks old

I get to see Molly today!

I love this baby girl SO much, and today I get to see her again for the first time since before I started student teaching a month ago! She is so lovely and sweet, and I get to hold her :)...oh yeah, and I get to see the rest of my family today. (I love them too, just not as eagerly anticipating them because they aren't the cutest baby in the world!)

It's been a while...

My recent crafting endeavors. (baby hippo, booties, a card, and my finished blanket).

some of the sweet men in my life...and Molly :)

Molly with grandpa, both sporting their awesome fohawks.
smiling at her daddy 7 wks old

Molly comes for a visit!

My Squirrel Friend

This squirrel keeps coming up on our porch and licking the pavement...

Molly Joy

She is so beautiful and has captured my heart! I cannot believe she is already 5 wks old. She makes this furrowed brow look 80% of the time. It's the same face I made as an infant, not because I was unhappy, but because I was trying to figure things out. I still make that face when I'm concentrating (especially when counting my stitches when crocheting!).

End of summer

I feel my summer is quickly coming to a close, and the peace and general slowness of life that I have enjoyed is soon to be stripped out from underneath me. I will be starting student teaching in just over a week, and I have also just been hired (the results of my job search from the beginning of the summer have finally caught up!). So I will be working part time at YMCA in their child watch center at night, and student teaching in the day. Thankfully this is my last quarter of school- and after this my life will get more of a normal rhythm without having to reorder/reorganize my life after every quarter to the new class schedule and whatnot.

In the hurry to do everything I desire before summer ends, I have been frantically throwing together projects (in anticipation of not having time to crochet with life getting much busier). Included in this project list: a bunny blanket for a friend's daughter. She lost her beloved stuffed bunny that has been her object of comfort since she was a baby. This was my effort to offer a replacement(her mom's replacement, a monkey her dad had as a child, has not been very well received)...we'll see how she reacts when I give it to her!

Next on my list of projects was this cute little giraffe. I made one just like it for my niece. I'm hoping to add this to my ever growing collection of things I can eventually sell...I don't hold much hope that I won't just give it as a gift to someone. I'm finding I have a habit of doing that. Oh well.

The good news is: both of these patterns can be found for FREE on LionBrand.com where they now offer ALL their patterns for free! That's over 2000 patterns people! Get going :)

Happy 2 Year Anniversary!

My love and I celebrated 2 years of happy union this week, and I just thought I would reflect on what a blessing it has been to be married to this man!

First off- marriage is a wonderful creation made by God to reflect his glory. Woman was created to complete man- to make God's creation finished and "good." It is a wonderful task to live out a reflection of the relationship God shares with himself in the Trinity as well as the relationship Jesus has with his Bride- the church.

It has been an especially edifying experience to share my life exclusively with one man- to be so vulnerable, to be so very humble in a relationship that I choose to honor their good and happiness before my own. I have learned through being married what a wretched sinner I am and how I cannot hide that fact from someone I am so close to. Marriage has taught me how wonderful grace is and how horrifying bitterness can be.

Marriage to Michael, my wonderful husband, has challenged me to grow more towards extroversion than my default mode of complete introversion. He has gently pushed me to speak more, to love lots of company, and to not be so afraid of new adventures. He encourages me to be creative and share my ideas and creations with others. Marriage to Michael means I am not ashamed to be myself, to be silly, and to play my music shamelessly. Marriage to Michael is lots of prayer, time in the word, humble correction, a life with Godly friends and their awesome wisdom, service in ministry, lots of practice and service for Worship team, and a general understanding that the direction of our life is completely in the Lord's hands.

Here is the card I made Michael for our anniversary. I think it looks very bridal

And here is the flowers my amazing husband brought home from work on our anniversary :)

And now for the story of the thank you card in my last post: We were invited over to a friends house (from church) the night of our anniversary for dessert and a little dip in the hot tub. When we got there they discovered it was our anniversary, and insisted they serve us, make us lovely cocktails and have the hot tub to ourselves that night. It was so sweet of them to do that, and we were so blessed just to have time alone that night with our drinks and lovely jets. So we simply had to thank them profusely and my husband asked me to make them a card with a ribbon for "Friends of the Year." I didn't think that would all fit very neatly into my little circle, so I just put a big 1, and told them they won 1st place for the coolest friends.

It is just so clear to me that they understand how important celebrating marriage and the milestones in it is- they clearly showed us by their service they long for God's glory in our marriage and desired that we strengthen it by an unexpectedly romantic evening to ourselves :)

And to cap off the celebrations: We're having a very fancy dinner tonight at a floating restaurant over the Couer d alene lake!

Recent crafting endeavors!

a thank you card for friends (claiming they made first place as the coolest friends ever- you'll find out why in my next post!)


birthday card for sister-in-law. (front and back view)

Hat w/flower

More flowers :)

The incredible miracle of life

Have you ever sat and pondered about the miraculous event that is called life? All the intricacies that must join all at once in the perfect order and place to create a tiny human being...not just an amalgamation of flesh and bones, but a living breathing being with a soul. The weight of that realization was almost too much to comprehend as I held my adorable niece sleeping peacefully on my chest. This little creature that has entered the world will one day make a choice for life or death and live out the rest of her days on this earth according to that choice. For me to watch and (hopefully) guide her along this journey of discovering her creator is an incredible blessing and very high calling. I only hope I can truly represent Christ to her showing her both love in my care and servitude to her as well as in my careful discipline of her. I know it will require of me lots of prayer and humility to be the best aunt to her as I possibly can be. Thank the Lord that while I have a responsibility to show her Christ, it is not my duty to choose Christ for her, that it is her decision and I can relax knowing God has her in His sovereign hands.

Molly

This is Molly Joy, my niece, still in the hospital enjoying the blanket I made her. My sister loved the blanket and made sure to tell me how many compliments she got from the nurses on it. It's just so incredible to have her finally here so I can hold her and see what a gorgeous creature she is!

Here is the first family picture-Brother Nate, Sister Rachel and Baby Molly. Here also is my first picture with Molly, as you can tell, I am so proud!