Works for me Wednesday ~ Remembering what is important

Today I had big ideas of what I wanted to get accomplished.I started working hard at it and then I realized that I was getting a little stressed and before long I would be crabby and then the kids would get crabby too. I needed to step back and think about what was really important and what really needed to get done right now.

I don't know about you but this is something I face fairly often. I love to be busy and I love to get a lot done. My brain also works very fast coming up with enough ideas to keep many people busy. There have been many times that I have let all of my ideas bring me to the point that I am stressed and the whole household is grumpy. This is something that I realize is not at all good and so I have been working on how I deal with my goals. I am learning to recognize when I am starting to feel stressed and then step back and think about my priorities.

What I had planned to get done was this: Finish getting the Christmas letters out, bake bread, bake something to take to all the people on the street ( I was thinking cinnamon rolls), bake something to take to all our local friends (I was thinking possibly ginger bread families and a breakfast bread), Make Christmas cards to go with the baked goods,Do our schooling for the day (We have a morning singing, memorizing and prayer time and then I need to help them with their other lessons.), Watch two rowdy boys of some friends for the morning, Make sure that my house stayed nice and neat, Prepare my class for church tonight, and have a ladies bible study here this afternoon. I also wanted to get the boys' room cleaned for pictures to post today for works-for-me-Wednesday.

When I write out the list now I can realize how ridiculous it was to plan that much to do, but yet I do that. Thankfully I was able to realize the ridiculousness in time and instead of doing all that I thought about what my priorities were.

First of all I want to please God and if I am stressed and crabby that is not pleasing to Him. So I knew that some things needed to go.

Next I want to please my husband, He enjoys it when I get a lot done but mostly he wants a nice place to come home to, children that have been taught their school and a meal ready and waiting AND a happy wife. To satisfy that I did try to keep the house fairly neat and we did do school.

I also want to be a good Mother. That meant I had to stay relaxed and cheerful. So I worked on keeping my voice low and then I made sure I spent time with them.

I also had a commitment to teach class and have bible study so I made sure to have time for them. I also baked our bread for the week.

I did also work on getting our letters out. I am not finished with it yet, but I am not worrying about that. What I really like about letters is finding out what is going on in other's lives and possibly seeing pictures. I don't care if it comes before Christmas or not.

About the baking. I did not get it done. I had wanted to do that as a way to reach out to people that don't know the Lord and just to encourage others. I would still like to do it but I am not going to get stressed out with my family in order to do it. So if I have time I will but if not that is okay.

I just wanted to encourage you too, that when you are feeling stressed about all the many things going on in your life, to step back and figure out what is really important. It works for me!

In which i boast of my infants' many talents

Asalam Alaikum,
been a while eh?
i have been soooooo busy with the little man that i have not posted in a long while(and am currently typing one handed-hence the lack of cap, punc, etc.)
he is not so little, just turned 7 weeks on monday! and hes growing so fast,
here is a list of stuff he can do-
coo
say aaggoo
put his hand in mouth
smile (socially...it is not gas people, he smiles when you smile)

and today for the very first time he rolled over, he did it when i turned around for one second, i think it was totally accidental but whatever!

well he is getting hungry so i gotta go, hopefully i can get a knitting progress update up tomorrow!

Christmas Recital

On Friday evening we had our Christmas recital. It went well and was a lot of fun. I don't have a lot of students right now and one of them was sick but we still had a fun time with music with the group that was there. Every student played at least one solo and then we had several different groups that played. I did some duets and other groups with them as well. At the end I my dad led a few carols while I played the piano and a few of my students played the violin. Afterwards I had snacks to eat. We all had a fun time visiting together.
I had fun decorating with very easy and economical for the recital. I used a lot of vases and put greenery and pine cones in it to set on the tables. I got this idea from my friend Emily.
I put this together for the stage area. You could also do something like this for a centerpiece on your table. This is simple because you simply put a soaked piece of oasis in a bowl with some water and tape it in. Then stick one or more candles in the middle. Fill in all over with fresh greenery. Then you can add flowers (I used some silk ones that I had on hand), pine cones (they could be painted gold or silver) and anything else that you like. I put a little horn in to go along with the music of the night. You could also put in ornaments, tiny wrapped gifts, etc. You can get very creative.
This was my basket that I used to store pine cones in, but I had been using up most of my pine cones in decorating so I stuck some extra greens in it. It ended up looking kind of neat with greens and pine cones and so I made a bow and stuck it on as well and used it for decoration. Very, very simple!
Do you have any very simple decoration ideas for the holiday?

 

Linked to Funky Junk Interiors

Frugal Gift # 12 ~ Clothespin dolls

This was Jonathan's afternoon project today: Clothespin dolls for Megan's Christmas present. This is pretty simple and fun project and a gift that I know Megan will love. All you need is old fashioned clothes pins, fabric scraps, yarn for hair, hot glue gun, glue and Magic markers to make the face. You can also use ribbon, lace and other odds and ends to make them fancier. Jonathan drew the faces, cut the hair and cut out scraps for clothes and I glued them all together. To make different sizes of dolls we just cut some of them shorter.

We had made this set a little over a year ago when we were studying a lot about pioneers. We had tons of fun making the claim shanty, furniture, covered wagon, outhouse, people, well, root cellar, etc. We still have this and the kids enjoy playing with it. We do treat it carefully and keep it up on a shelf when not being played with as the house isn't super sturdy. This is incredibly cheap to make (use whatever you have on hand and a glue gun) yet it can provide hours of fun.
It was tons of fun for all of us to work together to make it. Everybody had a new idea for something that we definitely needed. We were trying to think of what the Ingalls would have had and limiting ourselves to that. I hope you have as much fun as we have with this simple toy.

Make sure you don't miss my DVD giveaway!

Alphabet Adventures ~ recap

We really did have a lot of fun with our alphabet adventures last month. The kids are asking when we are going to do it again. I had taken quite a few pictures and then hadn't gotten around to sharing them with you so here they are.

This was, can you guess? "G" day. We had to wear green, gray and gold.

On "J" day we had to tell jokes. Our favorite one of the day was: "What goes "Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Plop?" Answer: "Somebody laughing his head off."

This is some Lefse that I made for breakfast on "L" day. Lefse is a big thing here in Northern MN with a lot of people (I believe it is Scandinavian), but I had only made it once with an older friend. This was my first time to make it by myself and with the first one I decided there was a reason that not a lot of people make it but the making got better. They ended up turning out quite yummy!

Here is our pretty and petite Megan dressed in purple and pink for "P" day. We enjoyed having People over to visit for the noon meal that had a lot of "P" dishes. One of our visitors was "Prince" Patrick.
Here is Queea (Mara's doll that she got and named when Jonathan was born -a little before she was 2, and who has been part of the family ever since) dressed as a queen for "Q" day.
We had to read some quotes this day, here is one for you: "Kindness makes a fellow feel good whether it's being done to him or by him." Frank A. Clark

Running a race on "R" day.
My sister Martha sent the boys sailor hats just in time for "S" day! (They are also wearing scarlet shirts.)

Here is Mara on "U" day with an upside down cake that she baked herself. She is also wearing an umber shirt.

Well I had better head to bed! Good night!