Avery's Prayer

Last night at bedtime prayers, I had to rush out as soon as Avery had prayed so I could scribble down her precious words...

"Dear God, thank You that we can have a fun time together. And thank You that you didn't lie and that You're the perfect One. And thank You that You didn't have any accidents when You made the world. And thank You that magic isn't real - like magic carpets and stuff. Amen."

Allie's prayer went something like this: "Dear God, help us to be good and thank You for the gooey geyser. [peels of laughter..] And thank You for the gooey geyser [more laughter...]. And thank You for the gooey geyser [still more laughter...] Amen." (the gooey geyser being something from a Dora movie) That kid thought she was SO funny!

My prayer: "Lord, thank You for the blessing of my husband and daughters. Thank You that they know You and grow their hearts to a better understanding of Your love and what You did when you sent Jesus to die on the cross for their sins. Let Rich and I love each other and You more every day. Amen!!!"

Something I overheard this morning...

When I heard my daughters up at 6:45 this morning, I thanked the Lord for an extra 45 minutes or so of sleep. Yep, Allie's had me up by at least 6 every morning lately. Poor girl has been really sick. Now that her fever is gone, she's just coughing and feeling miserable. So we were up A LOT last night. Anyway, Avery had gotten up and seen Allie laying on the floor and I guess some maternal instincts kicked in. This is as close a version as I can remember to their conversation:

Avery: "Are you OK?"

Allie: "Yes, I'm having a hard time cleaning my nose."

Avery: "Do you know what Mommy told me a lot and a long time ago? She said that you can pray to God in your heart and He will help you. Like you can ask Him to take away your bad dreams and give you good dreams or you can ask Him to help your nose feel better."

Allie: "I'm having a hard time cleaning my nose."

Avery: "I think you had a hard time sleeping because you were coughing a lot and it kept you awake."

Allie: "I'm just having a hard time cleaning my nose."

Avery: "You can go tell Mommy and she will help you."

Allie: "Yeah, I can go get in bed with Mommy and sleep with her if I have a hard time sleeping."

Avery: "Wait here and I will go talk to Mommy." (to me) "Mommy, Allie's having a hard time."

And as they went downstairs to watch Curious George on PBS, I heard them say:

Avery: "Allie, I'll let you pick whatever show you want." (which is moot since there's only one channel with kids' shows on at our house)

Allie: "And can I sit in the soft chair?" (obviously one source of contention in our home)

Avery: "Sure!"

Folks, kindness DOES occur in our home! Praise the Lord! You can imagine the beaming smiles Rich and I had on our faces as we listened in our bed...

See the Resemblance?

I thought it sounded fun to show the resemblances of our daughters to their parents. I will probably try this again when I find even better examples, but this is pretty close. This first picture is of me with my brother, Ryan.

The ages are not quite the same - I was a couple years older than Avery is here.

This is Rich's 2nd grade picture. He's SO CUTE!

Wish I had the perfect picture to show how much Allie looks like her daddy! Again, this is not quite the same age, but she's making a similar face.
I don't think I'll even go into how our girls resemble us in personality! That is better just witnessed in person. Oi!

My First Craft Fair

Well, I thought I'd update ya'll on how the craft fair went this past weekend. We had a lot of friends come out and support us and it was so fun to see you all. I went into it simply hoping I would cover my cost. It was really hard buying supplies ahead and not even knowing if anything would sell. However, I actually met my cost and made some money on top of it! The response was really good - my little charms seemed to be quite popular. Here's a few pictures of our booth.

My jewelry is on the right side of the picture. The sign along the back says "Baglady By Design" for Connie's business and on the left of the picture is our friend Wendy's little spot for her photography (she's awesome! check her out at www.Kivettphoto.com).

Here's the majority of my charms. I started out with 107 total. Some of those are displayed on various chains I had available. After all my orders were completed, I had only 30 left!

The pink page in the frame was my price sheet: $6 per charm and chains ranging from $6 - $12. Pretty affordable! The brown page in the silver frame listed a special: 4 charms for $20!

And this is the whole reason I even did this - the dearest, sweetest gal in the whole world - Connie! She has really inspired me to simply challenge myself and try my hand at creativity. She is so good at what she does and has so many ideas and dreams. I won't go into why I love her so much - that's for another post. We've been good friends since I moved to Oregon (I think 14 years ago) and she's never been out of my life. In the past 10 years, I could probably only count on two hands the number of days we haven't at least talked on the phone (maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's close!) We got to spend a whole day together and I think we had a pretty cute booth! Not too cluttered, but full of beautiful stuff! The day was great!

"Initial Inspirations"

That's what Connie came up for as a name for my little initial charms I've been making - "Initial Inspirations". Catchy, huh? So, I didn't come up with this craft on my own. I saw a friend's jewelry who had copied something she had seen and I just loved it. She was kind enough to show me how to make my own, and then I shared the love. I got the supplies and started making the charms for friends, or having them over and helping them do it themselves. Since then, so many people have noticed and admired the cute little things, that my friends encouraged me to do a booth at a holiday fair this year. I don't pretend to be any craft genius, but I think practice and a bit of an artistic eye (at least interest) has brought me to a place where I've got a good assortment of a lot of cute little charms. So this Saturday, Nov. 7th at Pringle Elementary school here in South Salem, I'm sharing a booth with my pal-of-all-pals, Connie Libby. Everyone knows what kind of beautiful bags she makes! She will be selling some other adorable things as well. She has a ton of these cute little Posy pins that are made out of various coordinating fabrics that I just know are going to sell like hotcakes! Plus makeup bags and coin purses, as well as handbags and totes. So, our booth will have quite an assortment of pretty items - I don't think anyone will need to go to any other booth! :) Here are a few pictures of a very small sample of what I'm making. I'll also be selling a few different kinds of chains.

These are the charms I've been wearing recently. Both of my daughters' names start with "A", thus the initial.

This is a sample of the small flower that I make. I think it's so cute on a little girl! This isn't the best picture, but you get the idea!

This is Avery's necklace on her. The focus didn't work to well, but you can see it's so cute on her!

I admit I'm a bit apprehensive about actually trying to sell these. I really wouldn't be doing it if I hadn't been encouraged from many of you that people really do like these and will want to buy them. We'll see what happens!