Little Blessings

This week we had a wonderful little blessing in our lives.

As some of you may know--especially those who live here--the South has been experiencing quite the heat wave! It's been HOT, HOT, HOT! So hot that you just don't even want to go outside...unless you have a pool to jump into. Which we did not. But we didn't want to have to keep the kiddos inside too much either.

Our little town actually has a wonderful city water park (big slides and all), but it is pretty expensive. Especially for a family of four and especially if you'd like to be there everyday-ha!

So Vince and I had been discussing purchasing one of those larger inflatable pools, but even the sale prices we'd seen were really stretching our already-stretched budget. Then I saw a sale paper for a local store that had a smaller size for a very reasonable price--something that we could afford and would be perfect for the kiddos.

So I went right over to check them out. However, I must tell you that on my way there I was praying about some things while driving (when you're alone in the car, this is a great opportunity to pray!) and, among other things, I specifically prayed for favor in making a wise decision about purchasing the pool. I even prayed about a certain feature for the pool.

Well, when I got there, they were totally out. Very disappointing, yes. So I inquired about a rain check (they couldn't guarantee they'd get any more) and about a replacement (they weren't interested). Finally I asked if they had a store in the neighboring city (they did) and if they could call and see if they had any left (they said they had "plenty").

So I hopped in my car and drove 20 minutes or so to the other store only to find out they didn't have any. The manager had misspoken because he had seen a few left the night before. He was very nice and very apologetic. And I was, once again, very disappointed. Especially since he'd said they had "plenty". Before I could really say anything though, he said "the only way I can see to make you happy is to give you this next size up for ____ (nearly half off and the price of 2 visits to the local water park)". That came to just a little bit more than the one I originally had gone there for, plus that pool had the specific feature I had prayed about! I said "I'll take it!"

I felt so blessed! We were able to afford a great little pool for the kiddos and it's actually big enough for us to cool of in, too--yea! We'll more than get our money's worth out of it during this summer, too.

God is good. He even thinks of the little things.

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

Search This Blog