If it weren't for those meddling kids...

It has become a tradition to find family-themed Halloween costumes (although I'm already in the planning process this year and it is getting more difficult). Our oldest son loves helping me scavange for pieces to our costumes hopefully without having to buy an actual costume from a party or Halloween specialty store. Other than Scooby, we were relatively successful last year.

I think a lot of people, much like me, think "I am not creative. I can't put that together." Uh, yeah you can. You get a picture of what you want to duplicate, think about the plain pieces you can find at inexpensive stores (Ross, Goodwill, eBay, your closet, around the house). It may take some extra time and planning, but it can be done.

For Shaggy, my son already owned brown shoes and brown pants, and we found an oversized green t-shirt at Goodwill for 50 cents! We did purchase the goatee, but big deal. It also came with a huge wig, that wasn't like the character at all, and my son's hair was already the right color.

I found Velma's red pleated skirt (actually a Reebok tennis skirt) at Goodwill for $8. The orange turtleneck on eBay for $24, but I can wear it as an actually sweater in my regular wardrobe, so the price was justified for me. The orange knee socks from Academy Sports, two pair for $6. The red maryjanes at Goodwill for $6.

For my husband, Fred, a pair of his own jeans and black Doc Martens, a white sweater (from eBay), a blue collared shirt from his closet, and an orange scarf (a bandana for 89 cents from the local craft/hobby store). I did get him what I *thought* was yellow hair spray, but it turns out it was flourescent to glow in the dark, which made it look green indoors. So, in that, I confused everyone. But outside, it the dark, it was pretty neat.

And little Scooby is just too cute (in my opinion) to not include, even if his dog tag is turned backward.

The gang at our church fall fest, with our senior pastor.



Catching Up

So I am apparently really terrible at keeping up with the blog. :/ I read my Bible every day, do the laundry nearly every day, check facebook every day, but for whatever reason, I can't even check the blog once a quarter.

Anyway, I've become (along with anyone else who has been invited) addicted to pinterest. I want to pin everything, make everything, travel everywhere, design my own dream home, live in some impossible-to-maintain garden, do crazy crafts with the kids, sew everything (and I don't even own a sewing maching). But I got to thinking, "hey, I've got a few good ideas, too!" There are two things I am good at. I love to plan a great theme  party from invitation down to the last party favor detail. And for whatever reason, we strive to make awesome family themed Halloween costumes, which is weird because neither of our families celebrated Halloween or went to the church alternative or any of that. But it's become this awesome opportunity to do something together with our kids that most parents wouldn't do. We dress up WITH them.

Two years ago, my oldest son was very much into Popeye, thanks to his daddy. So, for the most part we made our own costumes. We did buy Swee Pea's, but I'm sure if you know how to sew you could DIY...but I am not that crafty. It was felt that came to a point at the feet, and had a little piece of velcro in the back. But my husband and I made little Popeye's shirt, with forearms and all.

For Popeye's shirt, we took a black t-shirt, one size larger than what my son would normally wear, and first folded it vertically off center in the front, then sewed it to make it look like a button down shirt. We sewed three oversized gold buttons. I used stitch witch (or whatever iron-on adhesive) to put on the bright blue 2" ribbon sleeves, with the ends meeting under the arm. We took a heavier red material and sewed it into a square collar on the back, and again used stitch with to attach the black grosgain ribbon.

I was content with just drawing anchor tattoos directly on my sons arms, but my husband wasn't having that. He went to the dollar store for womens white tights, and sewed them double thick, and used cotton batting to stuff the forearms, and used permanent marker to ink him. My husband even went as far as "whittling" him a somewhat functional pipe that whistles.

His treat bag was made to look like a can of spinach,  made from felt and cotton, with an iron-on transfer of an actual spinach can label (the one that advertises Popeye on it), with pieces of green felt loosely coming out of the top like spinach. We did discover that the bag really needs a sturdier handle...the felt stretches very easily.

For Olive Oyl, I found a black stretchy skirt at Ross or some discount clothing store, and added a piece of yellow grogain ribbon, again with stitch witch, about 4 inches from the bottom. I also took a long sleeve red t-shirt from Old Navy (usually around $8) and took round velcro from the craft store to adhere a cotton eyelet lace trim around the collar, which later I removed and still wear the shirt!

For my husband, I looked in thrift stores for those yellow pants, but found them on ebay. Why Ralph Lauren ever decided men needed yellow corduroy pants, I'll never know! He already owned a black polo, and I purchased the teal ribbon long enough to tie in a belt. And both of the sailor/captains hats were found on ebay for dirt cheap. I think $2 for the Popeye sailor hat, and maybe $7 for the captains hat.

I do have to give my husband props for wearing the outfit. He was more than a trooper about it...he actually was getting irritated with me if I wasn't make the costumes absolutely authentic to the original cartoon. We received so many compliments and people asking us where we got the costumes, and were completely blown away when we said we made them. What a novel idea...to make your costumes as a family! Didn't people used to do that all the time before all of these party and Halloween stores started popping up?

I know this wasn't an actual tutorial with step-by-step instructions, but trust me, I am not crafty in the slightest...and look what I was able to do with a little help!

Vintage Christmas

I'm sure like most girls, I have an obsession with chick flicks and tragic love stories, which makes me a sucker for any and all things Nicholas Sparks. If you're not familiar, how about A Walk to Remember, or Message in a Bottle, Nights in Rodanthe, The Last Song, or...wait for it...The Notebook. Ah, yeah, now you know who I'm talking about. I absolutely adore The Notebook. I prefer the novel to the film, but it still makes me feel so many emotions. It's one of those movies, no matter how long it's been on, if I happen across it, all things else in life cease so I can escape into it. To make matters that much more personal, my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's, so it especially hits home.

Anyway, I had looked up photos of the making of the movie for whatever reason, or accidentally came upon someone who had done engagement photos inspired by the movie, and fell in love! They had found this vintage pick up truck, and they were wearing the attire. Oh, just, oh. Loved it! Made me wish I was Allie and he was Noah...and we were mad crazy about each other. So I set on the quest with my great friend/photographer to make our own Notebook inspired family photo session a reality.

The hardest part of all was finding the truck. You'd think with car clubs and vintage car enthusiasts there would be one somewhere, but no. And I knew, since my husband was already being more than reluctant to go along with me on this one, that there was NO WAY the truck could be a Chevy...he's a Ford tough man! Thankfully for my brother who had spotted one, and for my friend who works for the man who owns it! We were able to use the 1947 Ford with pull choke (which is apparently some cool car thing)...my husband even drove it! (man, was he in heaven!) I think someday, many years from now, my goal will be to surprise him with a truck like this on, although it won't be red (his most loathed color).

It was very cold, and windy, and toward the end, rainy that day. The boys did very well, especially considering they were freezing their tails off! My photographer is amazing and I love how she gave us three photo finishes for each photo...true color, retro, or b&w. My favorite for this particular shoot was the retro because it just worked so perfectly for the feel I wanted. Visit her website at http://www.tracynicolephotography.com/

And a special thanks for my friends Brent & Tori for tracking down this truck, driving with us out to the location...and especially for Brent acting as the photographer's assistant...holding the umbrella, dancing, yelling, singing to make children focus in the right direction! So much fun!

"So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day."

"That's my sweetheart in there. Wherever she is, that's where my home is."

"It was real, wasn't it? You and me. Such a long time ago, we were just a couple of kids. But we really loved each other, didn't we?"



Thankful

This time of year, people are posting daily on facebook all of the many things they are thankful for. I did it last year, and I'm sure I said all of the typical things. But this year I didn't jump on the bandwagon. First, I'm trying to have less of a presence on facebook when posting updates. I am still a little too attached. There, I said it! Second, I am thankful for many things but don't think it should be just a "hey, look at me and what I have" daily thing. It should be an all-the-time, all-year-long, every-single-day-on-my-knees-praising-God thing.

That being said, hardly anyone reads my blog, so it's mostly just my online journal. I have always have multiple things to be thankful for, but at this time in my life, I feel especially thankful and blessed beyond measure. There was something going on in my life that I was trying to hide...from embarrassment, for fear, to keep from being judged. I had been slowly dipping my toes to test the waters of telling the truth, and it seemed impossible. But let me tell you, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD. I prayed that God would work in me to just spit it out. I prayed that God would prepare my family to forgive me. I prayed that I wouldn't be "that" person any longer.

The Bible tells us that we can have anything if we just ask...BUT we have to be seeking God's kingdom first. And I knew I was not in God's will because I was being disobedient. I was hiding something. I was lying. I was keeping my family from blessings because of my selfishness. I was giving the devil a way into my home because of my deceit! I wasn't eating as much (but far from starving). I wasn't sleeping well. I would be exhausted during the day from lack of sleep at night. I was having nightmares of my family being torn apart, being forced out of our home, something awful happening to my children, all because of my bad choices.

But I was DONE! I didn't want to carry that load anymore. God was working in me, and I KNEW if I would just say it and get it over with, pull the bandaid off, that the healing would begin. I would be a new person. I would be back in God's will. I would be forgiven and I could move on. I knew no matter how anyone else felt about what I had done, that God would love me. I was okay with God. I have faith in Him. However, I didn't have faith in Him to work in my husband to extend me the same forgiveness and mercy. Yes, it was hard for several days. I cried a lot of tears, prayed a never-ending week-long prayer (or it felt that way). I sought the Word for guidance and counsel. I was actually reading with purpose, not just out of obligation. Things were jumping off the page at me that hadn't meant much to me before.

Can I just say, God is amazing! How could I ever not trust Him to take care of everything? Sure, my husband was not happy. He was furious. Sure, I cheated my family out of blessings and there will be consequences for quite some time. But my husband could have reacted a lot of ways, but the one thing he said even when he was mad was that he loved me. HE LOVES ME! Those were the words I needed to hear. God knew that I needed to know my husband wasn't going to walk away, but that my family would remain in tact and we were going to work through this together. I know this story is far from over. Our story is still being written until we take that last breath, but I can already tell a huge difference in my life. While it was hard to confess to my husband, I was far more afraid of him than of God, because I know God loves me. But since then, I have been free. I am no longer wondering when I'm going to be found out, or how I'm going to hide it. Now, my life is an open book. I reached that point of brokeness where I had nowhere else to go but up.

God will take us back, no matter what we've done, no matter how many times we've messed up. But it is OUR choice. Sometimes people are mistaken in thinking that God just forgives us...no, you've got to say you're sorry and do your best not to do it again. You can't just keep on doing what you've been doing and expect forgiveness. It is always our choice to choose our way or God's way. That's the difficulty of free will. Too many times we let ourselves get in our own way, or worse yet, in God's way.

So while everyone is telling what they're thankful for...I'm thankful for God's forgiveness and salvation. I'm thankful for Jesus dying on the cross for every sin that would ever be committed in all of time. WOW! Just think about that. Jesus didn't just die for me and the lies I had kept. But he died for the murderers, the rapists, the thieves, the liars, the cheaters, for those who rejected Him, for those who killed Him! WOW! I'm thankful that God sent me a husband who grew up with a similar foundation and love of God as I did. I'm thankful for second chances, for receiving mercy and being able to extend it to others. I'm thankful for my children who are beautiful, healthy and smart. I'm thankful for my home and everything in it. I'm thankful for protection. I'm thankful for the friends and church family He has surrounded us with. These people have been so supportive and non-judgmental through all of this, and there is still a road to travel. I'm thankful that my children are still young and will probably never know what is happening, and we have the ability to right the wrong now, and teach them to learn from my mistakes. I'm thankful for staying home with my children to bring them up in the ways they should go, and to guard their hearts and minds for as long as possible.

Do I deserve all of this? No. Does anyone? No. We all deserve hell. Yes, I said it, because I believe what the Bible says...and it says that is what we deserve. I've heard several pastors preach that we should never pray for what we deserve, because we will not like what that is. We don't deserve anything but death. But by choosing to accept Jesus' gift of forgiveness, and choosing to live for Him, we have the gift of life eternal in heaven. It cannot be earned by attending church, giving money, helping the poor, etc. It can only be given as a gift from Jesus. An evangelist who visited our church told us we are given a handfull of choices every day, and that we can either choose Jesus or we can choose the devil. The Bible is clear that if we are not for God, we are against Him. So it IS that simple. If we don't choose what would be pleasing to Him, we are most definitely choosing the enemy (even if we don't think it's "that" bad).

I'm thankful for every person who is reading this, and pray if you know Jesus you will be encouraged...and if you don't, I pray that you will. All He wants is you to talk to Him, like He's your best friend. Consult Him in everything. He will take you through. You'll still make mistakes, you'll still be tempted, you'll still have hard times, but the difference is He will be there to walk you through.

BLOWOUT!

We all have these stories...or at least I'm pretty sure we all do. And if you don't...well, then we can't be friends because you should have to endure this like the rest of us mere mortals!

This past Friday I took my sons and the two children I was watching to Orange Leaf, this amazing frozen yogurt place, to celebrate the end of VBS and the last day the other kiddos were going to be with us. We're going to miss them so much!

Rarely do I meet up with my family, but my sister was free of her children and my mom had the day off, so they met us there. My mom said, "I caught a whiff of the bathroom or something." Only, we were nowhere near the bathroom. About that time, my 14-month-old leaned forward in his stroller, and my mom said, "Uh, Melissa...he's got it all the way up his back." dun-dun-duuuuuu

I quickly rush out to the car to grab the diaper bag, and I had just come from church bible study, and no one had warned me there were NO MORE DIAPERS. I look in the lunch bag I keep with an extra diaper, wipes and snacks (because my child is a messy bottomless pit)...and there is NO SPARE DIAPER! I am in a frenzy! What am I going to do?!?!

Thankfully my mom watched the other kids finish their yogurt while I go into the bathroom...and there is NO CHANGING STATION! It's one giant bathroom where you lock yourself in the whole room, and that means no other woman in the place better need to go or I'm probably going to bark at her. My sister took my debit card to go to Target to buy diapers, literally across the parking lot. I had to have been in the bathroom for 15 minutes at least. I took paper towels and laid my baby down on the bathroom floor. EWW! The paper towels were sticking to the poop on his backside. EW! I did have plenty of wipes, so I just started wiping like a mad person. When he looked clean, then I put him in the overly large sink and proceeded to soap him up and give him a bath. I dried him off with the paper towels and cleaned up the floor. Then I realize...the stroller. We had only had it a few days. We needed a bigger one because he overflowed the little umbrella one we had been using. And this thing doesn't come apart to be washed. Great. Why didn't I think of that before we bought it? Grrrrrr....

I figure someone must need to use the bathroom by now. I had already chased the child all over the place trying to clean him up and dry him off. He was laughing like a hyena the whole time. I'm glad he thought it was funny (well, I guess it kinda was). So I wrap some napkins around him, put him back in the stroller, and push him through the near capacity yogurt shop as quickly as I can, hoping no one will realize he isn't actually wearing a diaper. I don't care that he's naked as much as I care that he might repeat the episode all over again and send these people scattering and fast! I motion to my mom to bring the other kids outside and pack them in the car. It's close to 100 degrees.

I load them up in the car and turn the air on full blast. And my sister still isn't back yet???? My mom said she had just called asking what size clothes he wears! WHAT?!? Why?!? I have spare clothes, but I really just want to go home. The kids mom is going to be there to pick them up in 30 minutes, and the oldest is already saying she doesn't feel good. uh-oh

She still isn't back. I think it was close to 40 minutes to get diapers and some clothes!! And she didn't even leave the parking lot! I love her, but really? I didn't care what brand, what color, how much...if I would have known it was going to take that long, I would've chanced him doing it all over the car seat and just gone home. That's only 15 minutes away. But it all worked out okay. We made it home on time for the kids to go home. My sister paid for the diapers and clothes. And the baby...well, see for yourself.

Houston...we have a problem...

So, I lived out one of "those" stories that my friends tell me should be written down and shared. Let me preface it again with, THIS DOES NOT MEAN I LOVE OR RESPECT MY HUSBAND ANY LESS! This is just one of those things that proves no matter how long you've been married, no matter how well you think you know each other, if you don't communicate effectively with each other, we can't read each other's minds!

Our tenth anniversary was a couple of weeks ago. Brandon, my husband, wouldn't tell me where we were going. So I started to let my mind run wild. Well, not too wild because I knew we shouldn't afford to do anything outlandish. But I thought surely for our tenth anniversary, a milestone, that we would go somewhere new or more extravagant than normal. I had a dress and shoes already picked out. I don't have many options of how to wear my hair, but I thought I'd do something a little different. I was thinking that in the past we had gone to a few really fantastic places and that this year would at least be like those places, or maybe even better!

Let me back up to our wedding...Brandon HATES chocolate. Absolutely can't stand it, and doesn't understand most people's obsession with it. I also learned recently that apparently grooms cakes are a southern tradition. Going along with that, it's tradition that the bride's cake is white and the groom's cake is chocolate. That's just the way it is. But Brandon said he wanted a strawberry cake. His favorite (when he was still eating sugar and wheat) was actually the boxed cake, and it's specific...it HAS to be the strawberries and cream icing, not just plain strawberry. But being the bridezilla that I was (I wasn't really, but I didn't want my groom having a pink girly cake), I wouldn't "approve" the pink cake. Looking back, what did it really matter?

So, I thought I would try to find out where we were going for dinner, and have a pink cake made and take it in advance as a surprise to him. I won't name names, but someone informed me of where we'd be going. I can't say I wasn't disappointed. In my head, I had let myself build up the venue to be The Tower of Americas, or La Mansion, or The Lodge, or something along those lines. But, I continued to pretend I had no idea. I talked with my favorite baker about making the infamous pink cake, but we both had concerns that it might not work out the way we wanted using Brandon's box cake and canned icing. Then the venue charged a fee for bringing in outside dessert, so I just threw in the towel. He still doesn't know what I was planning. :)

Earlier that day, he tells me we need to leave a few minutes earlier because we have to stop by his office to pick up the coupon for dinner. WHAT!?!?! A COUPON for our anniversary dinner?!?!?! I'm not even worth full price on our tenth anniversary?!?! And we're going to a place that even ACCEPTS coupons? but I digress...

That evening, he got dressed before I did. I purposefully waited until the last minute because I didn't want to put on my great cocktail dress and sparkly sandals if he was not dressed to match. He came downstairs in jeans with holes in them, and an untucked dress shirt he doesn't even deem dressy enough to wear to church. In my head, I'm asking myself "Is this really what he thinks of me after ten years? Torn jeans?" I wanted to scream or cry, but I didn't want to start a fight. Because I don't have a clue of how to even play poker, I obviously wouldn't own a poker face.

I came downstairs in my jeans, cute sandals and a dress shirt, and he says, "You're wearing THAT?" Really?!?! He was asking ME if I was wearing what I had on? I explained if he was wearing jeans and he thought it was fine, then I would dress to match him. He said, "I thought you'd AT LEAST put on a dress." Grrrrrr....why would I if he's in jeans? He says, "Should I have worn something different?" I continue to assure him that everything is fine. He knows where we're going, and if he's dressed appropriately, and I match him, that it's fine. He isn't buying it. But again, I don't want to fight. We did that on our second anniversary and it was miserable!

He says, "I'll tell you where we're going so you can decide what we'll wear." I continue to tell him it is fine, and I'm getting irritated that I'M reassuring HIM. He finally says where we're going, and then asks if that wasn't a good choice. I explain as nicely as I can, that because we didn't communicate, I had one idea in my head and he had a completely different in his, and that neither was right or wrong, it just wasn't the same idea so we both ended up being disappointed.

I explained that for future reference, I stay at home with children all day. I don't get to dress up often. And normally I wouldn't care where or if we went out for our anniversary but that the tenth one seemed pretty significant. I reminded him that we had often talked about having a vowel renewal, but I knew that we shouldn't do something so irresponsible with our money. I also knew we weren't leaving our kids for some amazing honeymoon. But I thought we'd at least "do up" dinner. I explained I thought he'd wear his summer linen suit and I'd wear my cute dress and sandals. And he says in the quietest voice, "I thought I did a good job." I felt terrible. I hadn't meant to make him feel bad. He did do a good job. He planned it all, which alone, is HUGE for him. We just had two different ideas in our heads from not communicating.

It goes to show you, it doesn't matter how long you've been married, you can still do everything right and get it wrong. I'm not just talking about my husband, but me too. I knew ten years ago that my husband is frugal and it wouldn't be beyond him to use a coupon for our anniversary. I knew ten years ago that he's not one for crowds or dressing up or making a big fuss. He also knew ten years ago that I'm just the opposite. :)

Introduction to Me...because yes, you really want to know

I've had a few friends ask if I blog because apparently the stories I tell are comedic and they feel they should be put on paper (or the web, whatever). I do love to write, and it may take me a while to get back into it, but hopefully it'll be like riding a bike. I'm not sure if this will end up being more of a ranting place, or a place to talk about my faith or my family, or all of the above...but know that at that moment it was important to me, or I wouldn't have taken the time to write it down.

Three things...One, if I criticize my family, understand right now that it's not because I don't love them or want to be away from them. It's called "life." I want to be authentic and transparent about the things I go through, hopefully to be a better witness to those who are trying to understand why I follow God, so maybe they in turn will also follow Him. We all go through our seasons of frustration and happiness. I'm not going to pretend that everyday is perfection, but it is a gift from God, and I try to see the goodness that He put in it. I love my family and wouldn't trade them for anything. I breathe them. They can make me want to pull my hair out, but I do adore them and am blessed by them.

Second, my friends are my family. I have family as everyone does, but my friends are the ones who love me in spite of my flaws, hold me up when I fall, hold me accountable when I'm about to go the wrong direction...or who forgive me when I already have. Relationships are difficult, whether blood related or not, and we all fall short. But thankfully we don't all fail at the same time. The people God has placed in my life are an amazing support system. You know who you are, and I love each of you as my own brother, sister, mother, father, aunt, uncle, granddaddy...

Third, but far from last, my faith is of the utmost importance to me. I want to share it with everyone, and that does require boldness, and that isn't something I've necessarily been accused of often, if ever. But thankfully, we're all works in progress. For now, I will say, there are a couple of songs serving as my anthems. One lyric says, "We are one choice from together, you and me..." and that is absolutely what I believe if you are not serving and loving Jesus. It is just one simple choice from being apart of God's (and my) family. I do absolutely believe there is hell, and if you aren't serving heaven, you are serving hell. Yes, it is that black and white. The other lyric says, "It's gotta be more like falling in love than something to believe in...more like losing my heart than pledging my allegiance." This is the revival I'm currently experiencing with God. It's not about doing what your parents taught you or going to church because it makes you feel like you did your duty...it's about not wanting anything else in life except the truth of Jesus.