A Miracle in the making - Anna Joy

My friend Alissa is the strongest and bravest woman I know. She was the maid of honor in my wedding, and seriously a sister to me during our time in missions with YWAM. She loves the Lord so dearly and trusts Him with so much! Recently she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Anna Joy. This sweet little girl has two different heart defects and the doctors didn't give her much time to live after birth, and if she did, they knew that many operations would have to take place.

Well This little miracle is a fighter! She did have to go in for heart surgery after only 9 hours of life, but she is recovering and doing well. Please, please be praying for continued progress for Anna Joy, and her family!

Please go and check out their blog for more information! And leave them some comment love on their page!
http://babyannajoy.blogspot.com/

{via}

Thank you so much!

Her story once again leads me to gratitude. Thank you Jesus for healthy children in our lives, and for the grace and mercy you are showing to Anna Joy!

Tinker bell shoes update.

So her shoes that I made for Halloween... Post found here

Are holding up pretty well! There are a few spots near the heel and toe where the glitter has worn off. But other than that the glitter is holding up very well! I might just re-apply the glitter treatment for future occasions. As of right now she wears them too often for me to do that! I love that she loves them and that everyone at the mall/grocery store/gas station has to ask about them! I can't resist her requests to wear them EVERYWHERE! Even church. I just adore her and the fact that she loves girly stuff!

Advent Calendar DIY

Advent Calendar

Stamping out the tree

Sooo last year I made an Advent Calendar for myself and my sister in law....

As you can see I used my daughters hand and foot prints as my stamps for a Christmas tree.

#1 I bought about a yard of plain muslin, and 2 yards of the christmas fabric.
#2 Purchased the little ornaments that are meant for the pint sized mini-trees. 25 of em.
#3 Lots and LOTS of iron tape. (I don't sew!! I wish I could)
#4 Green yarn
#5 Two different colors of Green, and 1 brown.
#6 The little clasp fasteners "Hook and Eyes"
#7 Some green-ish thread for stitching on the previous item.
#8 Green felt - for the top star.
#9 Wooden Dowel and round ends.
#10 Ribbon that I already had to hang the calendar onto the dowel.

This took me forever and since I made two I did each one a little different.
First I made the one for my sister in law

I took this picture only so that she'd see how it was meant to work. (I mailed this to India, where she was living and working, with the paints included for her to stamp her sons hands and feet with. So that's why the tree is blank.)

On mine I went ahead and puffy painted the numbers on. It was MUCH faster and easier to read.

Here is how I did it:


A) Iron tape the green and blue pieces together (these would be your festive fabrics) all around the edges.  Be sure to place your loops of ribbon in that sticky iron on tape too! This will hold onto the dowel at the end for easier hanging later.

B) Iron tape the three rectangles to the lower portion of your Advent Calendar. Only iron tape the two sides and the bottom. You want to leave to top open for your ornaments later.

C) Take Your Muslin fabric (which will become the triangle) and stamp your child's hands and feet in the shape of a Christmas tree. I put cardboard under mine so that the paint didn't ruin my floors!

D) Carefully cut around their tree leaving about an inch of extra muslin.

E) Stitch on the tree to your Advent Calendar using the green yarn. Also sew "pockets" for separation of your ornaments and days. 

The lines above are not exact. And as you can see from my pics, neither one was the same. 

F) Stitch on the "hook and eyes" to the calendar and the ornaments you've purchased. I sewed the "Eye" portion onto my tree and the "Hook" portions onto my ornaments. Some were sewn into the ornaments, hot glued, and even knotted onto them. Depending on which method worked the best. 

G) Puffy paint on your numbers.

H) Insert Dowel (and hot glue the round ends on if you want to) and Hang up! 

Tada! 2010 Christmas.

My little girl loves this Calendar! And when she's all grown up we'll marvel at how tiny her hands used to be! 

Time, stop going so fast!

 I love you EmJ, you are the light of my life. 

Thanks for stopping in!

Love,

Bri

Baby Toot's

I've been looking through old video's and pics of my baby girl. This one def cracks me up!!!!!

I can't believe that this little girl is almost 3!

And I'm sure some of you are thinking... "Oh that poor baby, she'll be so embarrassed when she's older...." Well if she's anything like her mother, and she's the spittin' image of me, then she'll be fine!! ;)

Emily's Best Friend

We are currently living in Phoenix, Arizona. We have lived here before (around 5 years ago) and we made friends with a few other couples. None of us had children then and now we all have children that are about 6-8 months apart. It's funny how the timing all worked out. 

Emily has grown very close to one little girl. She will jump for a minute straight if I say we are going to visit her. It's really very sweet. 

Just last week this sweet family welcomed another baby girl into their family, so we went to visit and give them a little break by taking the big girls to the pool! Here's a couple pics of best-friend-ness. The cuteness is too much to handle. 

Best Friends

 Oh and on a separate note.... I've framed the little art project that Emily and I worked on this month. You can check it out here if you didn't already see it.

 I bought 2 frames from IKEA and hung them in my hallway... I'm happy with them! And The whole project only cost me $3.00! (that's the cost of the frames. I already had all of the other supplies!!!) Awesome!

"As Seen on..."

So I want to start a new thang....
I always see these super cool things online that I really want to try. And in the days before Pinterest, all these amazing things that I saw all over the web would be forgotten about in all of 15 minutes. So now that I have Pinterest I am able to remember all those cool things I wanted to try. But ya know what.... I'm still not trying anything! Uggh!

Why is it that I don't do the things that I love???? I should be trying to do these things that bring me inspiration! Instead who knows where my creative time is being spent!  I watch tv. (a little more honest) ;)

So I'm going to change this! Every month I'm going to attempt something I've seen on the world wide web! I figure that once a month is a good start for me, and if I find that I want to add more, then bigolly I will! So here it goes!!!!!!!!!

The first ever "As Seen On..."                (I'm so excited! EEkkkk)

So the other night I saw this adorable little piece of artwork

{via}, also on my DIY board on Pinterest

I loved it so much that I wrote "I'm doing this tonight!!!"

And you know what???? I DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hooorayyyy!

Sho here's how it went down:

I grabbed my pumpkin princess and we went to town! Well, we went to the dinning room, that's close enough to town right????!!!!

So here's my little tutorial:

My cast of characters

I cut out a good shape and then put the paper side up. It's awesome because the back of the freezer paper is plastic like, and this acts as a barrier for your paint too!!!

Grab your paints and pour them into your plates. (I didn't use actual finger paints, but you totally could. I just used regular craft paint that I already had, along with some puff paint for some glitter.)

Then I started getting her little feet dirty!!! It was super fun!

Then I washed up those feetsies and let her shake out some more glitter on her butterflies!!

Once all of this has a chance to dry, take a permanent marker and draw in the butterflies body, face and antennae... 

You know what the best part of this whole thing is??? My little munchkin kept saying "I want to paint wit Momma! Thank you Momma, {insert kisses here, kisses to my face, arms, hands, and anything else within her reach!!!}"

 I had so much fun with my little girl! It was a real bonding moment! Thank you Project Balancing Act for bringing me and my daughter together! And with such a cute little piece of art to hang in my daughters room! And what a fun thing for her to look back on and see just how little her feet were! 

This little project also lead to this:

After I was done with her feet butterflies, my munchkin still wanted to paint!!! So I set her up in her high chair and let her go to town.... 

What do you think I turned it into? I'll show you later in the week! 

I'd love to see your creations!