Answered Prayer!

Here is some amazing news from the Smith family. I asked for prayer for them several months back here and look at what the Lord has done!! I love hearing good news!!! Praise the Lord! This is copied from their most recent blog post...

Dear friends and supporters,

We are so sorry that we have not updated via email or blog since September 22nd. My desire was to sum everything up and send the prayer letter out. This has been one of the busiest times of our lives and we have had some very busy times! We are sitting in the Anchorage airport with a flight delay and we have free wifi.

First, let me tell you the good news that all of Joel's scans are CLEAR! There is absolutely no sign of disease in Joel's little body! His portacath was removed Monday, September 27th. No more treatments. No more ER visits when Joel gets a fever. No more 5 or 7 day hospital stays. No more blood pressure cuffs. No more surgeries. Just every three months for a year he will have scans. After that every 6 months. THANK YOU for your prayers.

We made it safely to Alaska and have already been in several meetings. We arrived in Anchorage on October 2nd, and have already been to Glennallen and back. Today we fly to Fairbanks for a missions conference. Just driving between meetings has been a blessing. As Jennifer said, "Our God is an artist."We'll be sure to post pictures soon. We return November 8th to the lower 48.

Thank you for your prayers.

Joshua Smith and family

Reversible Towel Apron

Ok, so while I'm in a blogging mood, here is another project I finished a few weeks ago. Again, suuuuper easy and cheap. I picked up these towels at Target on sale for $2.45 and then got to work on....



... this tutorial I found. I loved Shelley Detton's version of the reversible apron and would love to try it again with different material on each side. But for this first one I had enough material to make it reversible, but the same on both sides.
It was fun, quick and easy and I love how it turned out!

Love My New Felt Pillow!!

I am so loving my new felt pillow! I started the project a few months ago, and planned on doing it all by hand but then, our church decided to buy a sewing machine for a few projects and guess who gets to keep the machine between projects...yay!!! I am having so much fun with the machine and I'm finally getting around to finishing some of the projects I started forever ago. I sewed my first zipper today and it actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! I love the frills on the pillow and it was sooooo easy to make. Seriously!!! You really don't need a machine if you decide to not add a zipper and now I have a beautiful accent pillow that sits in my living room. For those of you who love fun, quick and easy and INEXPENSIVE projects, you are going to love this one! Here is a link to the tutorial that I followed. Who knew felt could look so good!!

Very urgent prayer request

Please, please pray for this missionary family. They went to College with my sister. They just found out that their little boy may have a very serious form of cancer. Pray and hold your children extra close tonight. Here is a link to their blog. http://smiths2argentina.blogspot.com/

New Blog!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I have started a new blog. It is going to be all about our adoption! Yes, that's right! If the Lord allows us to, we will be adopting a little girl from China. We are sooo excited! I decided to create a new blog that will just be about our adoption journey.

You can click on the following title Spirit of Adoption to read all about it. I will also have a link to the new blog here on our family blog, which I intend to keep, that you can always find under My Other Blogs.

We really covet your prayers as we begin this process!!

Please pray!

I wanted to ask you guys to pray for a friend of mine, Beth and for her husband Jason. He is very sick and at this moment in the hospital because of an internal abscess they have found that is located near his tailbone, the size of a regulation football. They have operated and it looks like the infection continues to spread. Click here to access the information on their Caring Bridge site. Jason and Beth have 4 children and their youngest is only about a month old, so you can imagine what this is like for Beth, as she has the responsibility of caring for the 4 kids, as well as being with Jason.

Thanks for praying!!

In You Alone

This has become one of my favorite songs. I am so thankful that in Christ alone we can find all that we need. So many times I only truly begin to understand this when I realize I have nowhere else to turn but to Him. And the sad part is that I should have known that from the start! I am so thankful for His patience with me. His mercy is overwhelming. I am so glad that when I reach my end, He is just beginning!!


When I am weak, You carry every burden
When I'm alone, You're just a breath away
When I am restless, You're the One who stills me
And where I fail You always stay the same.

In You alone I'm lifted up to Heaven
In You alone I soar on borrowed wings
When I reach the end, You are just beginning
In You alone I find all that I need

When I am lost, You rescue me from danger
And when I fall, You pick me up again
When I resist, you love past my defenses
And though I stray, You're patient to the end.

A Very Merry Christmas!

We wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. The Lord has been good to us this year, in spite of some hard times, He has remained faithful and daily gives us the strength, as we need it, to move forward. He is our blessed hope and the reason that we can truly find joy and hope in this season and every day.

I leave you with one of my favorite cartoons of this season and a reminder of what Christmas is really all about. Merry Christmas everyone!!

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Christmas Countdown Blocks Tutorial

I realize it is probably a little late for any Christmas Countdown projects and I meant to share this one earlier, but if not this year, then this could be a good one to save for next year.

I found this cute idea for a Christmas Countdown over at Whitney and Ashley's fabulous Shanty2Chic blog.



She ordered all the pieces she needed that are sent out in a kit ready to assemble and for real cheap, too. Which would be a great idea, if it wasn't for the fact that I live all the way over in Europe, so I improvised and it turned out to be a very simple and extremely cheap project! So, here are the steps...

First you need three blocks of wood....2 would be squares and the 3rd a rectangle that the 2 squares can sit on. I went to our local lumber yard to see if I could find some scraps of wood for cheap and instead found some long posts that were leftovers and going to be trashed and they let me have them for free!! So, with Jeff's help, we sawed 3 smaller blocks from the long posts and ended up with what you see below. After cutting them to size I sanded them and then very lightly spray-painted along the edges of the wood with a black matte color.



After this I chose some rich red paint to cover the blocks with. I did not put it on very thick, because I wanted some of the black color I had spray-painted underneath to come through and give it a bit of an old, worn look.



The red paint ended up being a little too shiny for my liking, so after it dried, I sanded it down a little more and it made the color a little more dull, plus brought out a little more of that black under the red paint.



The next steps I did not get pictures of, but you can see them here. I basically cut out 12 pieces of scrapbook paper into squares and one rectangle. Then, using the Princeton Let font in Word, in 300 pt. font, printed the following numbers...0,0,1,1,2,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. I glued the scrapbook squares to the blocks and then cut the letters out so that none of the black borders on the letters were showing and glued them over the scrapbook paper. I used a glue stick and it worked great.



I can't remember what font I used for the "days till Christmas" and I will probably look for some nicer Vinyl letters for next year, but this will do for now.



The last thing I did was mix 2 parts glue and 1 part water to make a thin paste that I brushed over the whole thing to completely seal it and give it a more finished look.



So, there you have it. I think it's adorable and it was so simple to make. My son loves to switch the blocks everyday to see how many days are left till Christmas and it's a fun reminder that Christmas is almost here!!!