Pictures & a Car Accident

I wanted to share my favorites from our picture session with Jessica Rowell Photography in Hernando, MS.  If you’re anywhere around that area and want some wonderful pictures done of your family for excellent prices – call her!  She’s amazing! 

 

Amelia wasn’t too terribly thrilled to be doing these pictures, but she did better than I expected.  Caroline did great as long as we sang Veggie Tales over and over again!  I’m really, really happy with how they turned out so I wanted to put them up here to show them off.   

In other news, we had a car accident last Sunday but we’re all okay.  Someone didn’t see us coming down the highway and crossed the intersection (going straight across.)  Thankfully, I did hit my brakes and swerved to try to miss him, so we avoided a total T-bone collision, but I did slam into the very front of his vehicle.  I was honking the horn when we hit him and our airbags deployed.  When we hit him, it somehow basically knocked our wheel off the car and shot us into a small ditch.  Let me just say that wrecking with your whole family in the car is a lot different than wrecking by yourself!  Someone who saw the accident said he knew we had babies in the car because our car had not been stopped for 2 seconds and both of our doors flung open to jump in the back and get them.  We were so lucky.  No one was hurt, including the man we hit.  I’m so, so, so thankful for that.  I had some cuts and bruises on my arm where the airbag deployed while I was honking, a seatbelt rash on my chest, and some bruised knees – and that was the extent of everyone’s injuries.  We were all really sore the next day (and even worse the 2nd and 3rd day) but I’m feeling 100% now.  It probably didn’t help that I had done Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred on Saturday night for the first time ever.  Yeah.  Talk about bad timing.

Look at that dirt that we took with us from the ditch!  Crazy!  Our car was totalled, and we’re hoping to get a new one this week.  I was SO sad about my car!  I know that a car is just stuff and is replaceable and I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome of our situation, but I was so proud of my car!  Oh well, it did its job and kept us safe! 

If you’ve made it through all of my ramblings, thank you. 

Couponing Powerpoint

If you’ve been wanting to learn to coupon but haven’t had time to go to a class – you’re in luck!  I recently taught a small class and prepared a powerpoint to go along with it.  It doesn’t give you ALL the benefits of an actual class because everything that I said isn’t written down, but it will definitely work to get you started!    Just click the “couponing” tab under my big farming picture up there and scroll down a little.  You can make it full screen or just zoom in on the pages that aren’t big enough.  Hope it helps someone get started! 

Amelia Laughing Video

Please excuse the crazy person that came into my house, grabbed my camera, and videoed my child laughing.  It definitely wasn’t me.  I don’t sound like this crazy woman in this video. 
Also, please excuse my daughter’s avacado face.  Apparently that crazy woman didn’t know how to make the spoon actually get into my daughter’s mouth.  Once you’ve excused these things, feel free to watch the video! 

Blessings

1. I have a Christian family!
2. I have Jesus.  I’m learning more and more how much He loves me and cares about even my smallest disappointments.
3. I have my health and the health of my family.
4. I have a roof over my head – and a wonderful one, at that!
5. I have air conditioning.  I’m very serious.  It’s super hot here.
6. I have an amazing church family.
7. I have a patient, humorous, adorable, handsome, hard-working husband!
8. I have two of the sweetest girls on this planet!
9. I have the best family (from BOTH sides) that a girl could ask for!
10. I have a fun hobby that I enjoy.
11. I have a car to get me from one place to another!
12. I have a yearning to get closer to the Lord and and study his Word more than I ever have before.
13. I have had my past and my sins wiped clean through baptism!
14. I have 5 more months until Judd and I get to spend an entire month together!
15. I am able to stay home with my children and raise them in a Christian home.
16. I have many, many blessings.
17.  
• My sister introduced me to a song – Blessings, by Laura Story. 
  

  Listen to it here!

I am in. love. with. this. song. 

I’ve been thinking for a few weeks about how truly BLESSED I am.  I think it’s finally hitting me.  My family and my Jesus are what make this life so great.  They’re who I think of first when I think of my blessings.  Everything else is just, stuff.  And I know, without a doubt, that when my any of my family leaves here they are going somewhere much better than this place…and I know I’ll see them all again! 

I AM BLESSED!

Chalkboard Painted Jars

So I had a few minutes to myself the other day (chime in with the hallelujah chorus!) and decided I wanted to do something crafty.  I haven’t made time to do something besides housework, mommywork, and sewing in a long time.  I’m redoing my sewing area (I can’t call it a sewing room, it’s overrun with gobs of toys!) to make it a little more functional to hold all of my stuff.  I have more fabric than I know what to do with (addiction, maybe?) and all the usual office looking clutter.  Anyway, this post isn’t about my redo.  It’s about the jars!  So in my redo, I decided I wanted some cute little jars to hold things like buttons, pins, safety pins, alligator clips, and the like. 
This is a very easy tutorial with lots of pictures.  You’ll have to excuse the pictures, though.  Go read this post to see why. 
Okay, so let’s get started!

I got some half-pint canning jars at Walmart.  These are the Better Homes & Garden line.  They have a small space on the front to write on. 

Then go get some chalkboard paint.  It’s not crazy cheap, but the possibilities are endless with this stuff!  I have more things I’m planning on doing with mine.  There are several different brands.

Tape around the edges of where you’re going to put the chalkboard paint.
Ahem.  We did not have any painters tape.  I HIGLY recommend painter’s tape.  I did, however, have Scotch tape.  And because I’m cheap, and lazy, and live 20 miles from town, it’s what I used.  Regardless of what you use, if your jar doesn’t have a flat surface for the tape to adhere to, you’ll probably have a little seepage.  But never fear!  You’re painting on glass so it can easily be scraped off with a knife or razor blade.    Carry on.

Take your fingernail (or whatever) and do your best to make the tape stick down around the edges.  This is probably where painter’s tape would’ve come in handy.

Get your paint out.  Shake the can up a lot! 

Smooth some paint onto the surface.  Go from side to side (not up/down) and try to do it in one or two strokes.  Don’t worry if it looks a little drippy.  It gets smoother as it dries.

Paint your jars (I did 6/12) and wait on them to dry.  They dry to the touch in 30-60min.  The can says not to write on them for about 4 days.

Sit your jars aside.  If you want to spruce the lids up, continue on!

You’ll need scrapbook paper (or fabric) glue, a marker, the 2 lid pieces, and some scissors.

Take your jar lid and and marker and trace a circle onto your scrapbook paper.  It doesn’t have to be perfect.

The circle will be just a smidge bigger than the inside piece of the lid.  Anyone know what that thing is called? 

It will fit like this….

Put some glue on your lid.  Yeah, it’s clear.  Don’t ask why I took a picture.  Whatever.

You have two options here.  You can glue the excess edges onto the inside piece or you can cut the excess off.  I chose to cut it off.  Doesn’t have to be perfect, you won’t be able to see the edges.

Here’s the new inside lid piece.

Stick it inside the outside piece. 

Screw the lid on your new cute jar!  This is post-tape peeling and paint scraping due to the scotch tape incident.  USE PAINTER’S TAPE. 


With buttons!

This entire project was done during naptime!  It doesn’t take very long.  I did 6 jars!  The package came with 12.  Any crafty ideas on what I should do with the other 6?   
Enjoy!

I'm linking up to Power of Paint @ Domestically Speaking, Somewhat Simple Link Party Thursday, and Transformation Thursday @ Shabby Chic Cottage!

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