Checking In

It's February. To me that means more than a statement about which month of the year it is. It has become a statement about the season I'm in. It's a dark month, not much sunshine. There are moments where the sun peeks through, but I'm weary. There is a history of depression in the women of my family and I'm not sure exactly whether or not this is classified as such, but I'm ready for "February" to end. In the meantime, I choose to believe that God is good and I have SOOOOO much to be grateful for. In 1 Samuel 30:6 the Bible talks about how David encouraged himself in the Lord. Have you ever noticed that where your focus is, that is where your heart is, too? Well, I've come to realize that if I focus on my circumstances instead of the goodness of God, I quickly become buried in heaviness. So, how do you "encourage yourself in the Lord"? Remember his promises. If you don't know His promises and about how he is always faithful to keep His word, then that's a great Bible study to begin. At my Moms' group, we have a little bookmark card with a great reminder on it...

My friend last night reminded us that when we are discouraged by life's circumstances or we are consumed with how big the storm is, we just need to study about how BIG God is and it's amazing how our change of focus can bring encouragement and hope. Bad things happen and life is hard, sometimes, but God is good ALL the time. That is what I will stand on.

In other news, here's a bit about what's been going on...

• The actual season of winter has been pretty amazing. Yes, we've had some 'stupid cold' days with a windchill of -40C, but the cold snaps haven't lasted for weeks and weeks and the nice days, have been really nice. That has meant sledding days and river walks and getting outside. We've really been enjoying the toboggan runs (winter slides) at Kildonan Park. I don't recall ever seeing these in Alberta, but we've really appreciated how much easier the stairs are than hill climbing with littles and David's injured ankle. They're super fun, too.

you don't even need a sled!

• The Forks! I still think this is by far the coolest place in the winter. The river is frozen so you can walk (or skate) for a long way before you run out of room. The artistic warming huts and ice sculptures make it engaging and fun even for the littles. We went on Louis Riel day (Family Day for a lot of Canadians) and I just kept saying "I love this city!"

The littles are looking for sharks under the ice

checking out an ice sculpture on the river

• This is one of the warming huts on the river and since it was painted the same colour as Malachi's jacket, we told him was so camouflaged that we couldn't see him. Then I had the littles pose for some pictures and I only showed him the pictures without him there. He was totally convinced.

• Valentines was quiet and nice. David and I went on an unexpected date on the Friday evening before. We weren't planning on it because we have big plans next weekend, but when you are offered free babysitting you go on a date! We did a "fancy" littles friendly dinner and had a mini family selfie session. We ended the day with a glow stick hunt. It was simply sweet.

• Bible journaling has begun to fill my Bible nicely and there are certain books that are full enough to require adding in pages. I still have plenty of room in the Bible in general, so I won't be buying a new one for some time, and I think I'll be sad to close this one. It's become so dear to me. Not because of my art, but because the art represents more time in the word and more word getting into my heart.

• My Documented Faith journal is also filling in nicely, but I love how it will take the entire year to fill properly. 

• I haven't had very many custom sewing jobs lately, though I've played around a bit.

"doodled" house keychain

Bible cover inspired by this

•  I am thankful that I've been able to save from my sewing jobs and David and I are going to have a weekend away - just the two of us. I am beyond excited. It is long overdue.

• Oh, I have a little art journal that I use to practice faces and play around with doodles etc. On a particularly cold day, I filled in a page with what I love about living here. I really do love it here!

Thanks for stopping in today. If you're struggling in life's circumstances, join me in turing our focus from the storm to the God who not only created it, but who is able to calm it (and if not, He is still good!)

Documented Faith 2015 Introduction

Three posts in less than a week? I guess I have a lot to share ;)
I want to show you my progress on my Documented Faith (DF) planner. I joined an online community run by Stephanie Ackerman. We get a word of the month to focus on and weekly verses to study and pray over. There's a lot of latitude to make it your own and I've explored on Pinterest many pages from the sister group Documented LIFE. I've explored Stephanie's blog for inspiration and in the end I'm just winging it. I want my planner to be a mini journal of sorts, a beginner's version of an art journal, a place to remember what God has done and is doing and a creative outlet that has some daily function. I think it's going to be a collection of "me" on paper. I'm loving it already.

First I prepared my planner with suggested washi taped edges. Then I made monthly tabs with labels I cut into circles. I sewed on a happy scrappy house on the cover (yes, with my sewing machine).

Next I did a few pages inside.  Happy New year page - more painting tidbits and the date circles as inspired by this lady's pages.  My contact page resulted in wanting to use my practise paintings and needing a cover up for the stitching from the cover. Finally a few family pics. I followed Stephanie's instructions for printing little pics from iPhoto. It worked great and I'm sure I'll be using this technique a lot over the year. Alberta or bust packing list - colouring page inspiration from here. 

Stephanie posted the list of words for each month and suggested we use these month at a glance pages in the beginning of the Moleskine (a suggested planner, but NOT required). I realized after I posted this on Instagram that I made an error and that January's word is TRUTH not trust, but I'm using both hand in hand. We can know truth, but we need to trust in that truth. 

I've seen on Facebook groups and Pinterest and on blogs that I follow, that people have been choosing a focus word for the year. OLW has in-depth details, but I'm not following a specific group or project to go with this. I am praying that God will show me more of what this word means for me this year. FIGHT. This word came to me for a few reasons. At the end of last year, David and I went for prayer after church and the gentleman who prayed for us prayed that we would get our FIGHT back. I'd said many times last year that I was tired of just surviving and wanted to thrive. I think it's something I need to FIGHT for. This is just the starting point and I'm excited to see where this goes.

So, week one's verse was Jeremiah 29:11 This is a favourite verse of mine and I was happy to journal it in my Bible as I hadn't done it yet. (The beauty of DF is that is works hand in hand with Illustrated Faith aka Bible journaling).

Here's my week one at a glance. The right side is a tip-in. The TRUTH image is from Stephanie and I journaled under it. On the left there is a Bible verse on a mini tip-in that I wanted to remember as it was the focus verse from the sermon on Sunday and wouldn't fit in the space I had left. I just used washi tape. I've been keeping track of the temperature (it's not necessarily the temperature that lasts all day, just whatever is listed when I look it up online - just a general idea) it's been crazy cold the last few days -40, -45, -33 (I always use the windchill temp. because that's what you feel). This is celsius and for reference, -40 is the same in celsius and fahrenheit. "Stupid cold" as my friend says.

Opening up the tip-in reveals, in the middle, our verse of the week and underneath in another tip-in (it was how I chose to make it all fit) is a declaration that was read at our church this week. I'm waiting to find out the source to share with you, but they had print-outs to take home and I wanted to keep it and re-read it often. The picture on top of the tip-in was a free colouring page offered up by a lady on my Bible journaling FB page. I coloured it with watercolour pencils. On the right is a quote from the sermon by one of our pastors, John Mickelfield. He preaches the best inspirational messages for the new year! This sermon isn't posted online yet, but here's the link to the sermon main page and it should be listed soon.

"The Covenant of Purpose" - I'll share more in detail when I get the information/permission if you're interested

UPDATE: Rick Warren wrote this declaration and led his congregation in declaring it for the first time on their church's 25th anniversary. You can read an article about it here.

Here's how the little tip-in flips out.

It's busy, it's messy, it's full of nuggets and it represent me. So glad to be a part of this journey.

Looking Back and Moving Forward

Phew! Anyone else wrung out a bit? 2014 was a crazy year that had really great challenges and really great blessings. I can hardly believe how much has happened this year and yet, I know that we have so much to look forward to in 2015. Here's a bit of a breakdown of 2014:

• We said a sad goodbye to David's father, Richard in January. God showed us His generous provision as we traveled to Alberta for the unexpected funeral. Hannah was only weeks old. Abby celebrated her fifth birthday among our extended family - a first. I mourned the loss of something in my David that I feared I'd never see again - his jovial nature. We came home to a really long and extremely cold winter.

Richard Gingras

• February was a month of adjusting and healing, both physically and emotionally. We were blessed to attend a family retreat on Valentine's Day weekend. It was a great weekend that I enjoyed more than I thought I could. 

Family Retreat

• David returned to work after being on paternity leave just after spring break in the beginning of April. That adjustment went better than I expected, but I do recall thinking that I'd be glad to get out of this season of just surviving. I wanted to thrive. April was still cold and we were all longing for spring.

• May brought Mother's Day and for the second time, we got to dedicate our baby on that special day. We were so blessed by the support of friends and our Winnipeg "family" at her dedication and in awe of Hannah's big sister, Abigail, whose prayer for her dedication was incredibly special.

Hannah's baby dedication

• We had a little backyard BBQ in June to celebrate Micah's 2nd birthday and waited for the heat of summer. Micah, our only summer baby, got a swimming pool with birthday money that we enjoyed throughout the summer. 

Micah's 2nd birthday

• In July we celebrated our one year van-iversary. We are still in awe and wonder as we think of what a blessing our "Cinderella" has been to us!

Cinderella's van-iversary

• 10 years of marriage brought us to August's party of the year. What a great celebration we had with David's mom and step dad as well as brother and sister, plus my parents were able to come and join the fun. We renewed our vows along with many others (we invited the married couples to join us in the vow renewal). Fresh cotton candy was a party favourite - if you ever get a chance to rent a cotton candy machine, do it!

• September brought our little Abby to Kindergarten and family adjustments as David returned to work once again. We had our family pictures taken by our favourite photographer and life rolled on.

Abby's first day of kindergarten 

twila mae photography

• October rocked my world as I received a text from my mom saying that I needed to come if I could - My dad almost died. It seems so unreal as to how he got there and how he's doing now, but it was a scary time. I clung to the promises of Psalm 34 and did, in fact, go visit my dad. Hannah and I travelled over a weekend and Dad was barely aware that we even came. Thankfully, that wasn't the end of the story.

• In November we celebrated with my Dad as he finally accepted Jesus as Lord, but continued to pray fervently for his healing. Things got dicey for awhile. We hosted 37 people in our home for a superhero party of epic proportions. I've heard stories that the children who attended are already planning for next year's party. Sorry, littles... not sure I'll repeat that one, but I'm so glad you had fun. The party was to celebrate both David and Malachi's birthdays. Malachi still asks about Mrs. G (my heroic alter ego).

some of our 37 party heroes

"Mrs. G - Truth Serum"

• December had us make the long drive to Alberta again. We weren't originally planning on going for Christmas, but with my dad still in the hospital, I couldn't imagine him there on Christmas without company, so we went. We stayed for a week and a half, travelling back and forth between our families about every day and a half. I got to visit with my dad 3 different days, including on Christmas, and I'm so glad to say that he's doing really well. The long road to recovery is only beginning, but I'm still praying for miraculous healing and an incredible end to that story. Our church family experienced a tragic loss and though I wasn't personally close to their story, I couldn't help but be even more grateful that we were celebrating Christmas with my dad and not attending his funeral.

we celebrated yellow day on our drive to Alberta

Christmas at the hospital

We are home now and it's New Year's Eve. I've been thinking a lot about the past year and looking forward with hope for the next one. I've chosen a word to focus my prayer life around and how I want to live in 2015. I'll share that with you soon. I don't make new year's resolutions, but I do try to make reasonable goals. I hope to find myself thriving in 2015 and not just surviving, but it's something I plan to FIGHT for. Through our trials my character is being refined and strengthened. I hope to put that to good use next year.

Thank you all for sticking with me through this year and I hope to share many triumphs and joys with you in the next. May you be blessed! 

Checking In

Halfway through Bethlehem LIVE! 2014 and we are all still alive and well. We miss David who is busy serving, but he isn't in tonight's performance, so we will get to see him soon. They've had record breaking numbers on this the mildest BL weekend that I've experienced. In year's past it's always been the coldest days of December that we've tracked to BL. It's a nice change for the workers, but especially for the parking crews. I have a few random things to share, so I'll get right to it.

• When I especially miss my David I steal borrow his shirts out of the closet. My littles give me a bit of trouble or they laugh about it depending on the day. I usually send David a picture in way of confession with some cheeky caption like "Shh! Don't tell, I borrowed something". Silly, but it makes me feel better.

• I have recently come to the conclusion that I think I am an artist. Let me explain. I never doubted that I was creative - my mom was great at making sure that I knew that (her mom always said that she wasn't and my mom really is, but didn't know until she was an adult). I learned many kinds of crafts as I wanted to try new things, but I wasn't what I thought you could call an artist. I took art when it wasn't an option (it's a core subject in elementary) in school, but didn't pursue it after that. I wasn't into painting, drawing, sketching etc. all of which I considered to be artists' domain. Something's happened. I don't when it started or when I realized, exactly, I was doing it, but I started doodling and dabbling in watercolours then acrylics and WHAM! It hits me! I think I'm an artist. What?! Well, maybe. Still pondering.

my living room floor on any given evening

art·ist/ˈärdəst/

noun a person who produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby.

• I whipped up a couple of notebooks for a Christmas gift exchange. I tried my hand at fabric "doodling" and I had so much fun making these happy little houses. Love how they turned out.

• I found this ribbon at the dollar store... how cute is that?!

• My David has given me my Christmas presents early. He knew that I could be using them already and boy oh boy, have I ever!!! Spoiled rotten!

Art 101 Art set ~ two layers of art delights! (acrylics, watercolours - pallets, pencils and tubes, oil pastels & oil tubes )

I forgot to flip the picture, but this is a cool easel I'll take better pics to show you, soon!

• I've been prepping my Documented Faith planner. I will probably do a post about that later, but for now. Washi tape wonder!

• This girl! After my own heart. Abby can't contain the art inside of her. It's so difficult for her to wait until quiet time to create. (Micah gets into everything and I usually ask her to wait till he's napping - we need to assess a better way, maybe, but that's how it is right now). I've had her start an art journal where she can keep some of her pieces (Abby makes 5-10/day, so we just keep her "best" or pieces done with her latest techniques). 

• In case I don't get the chance later, Merry Christmas to you and yours. Hold them close and tell them how much they mean to you, you never know how long you have! 

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make his face to shine upon you and give you peace.