Project Door completed!

I am happy to say that my almost month long project of creating an art piece out of an old door is finished. The only expense was paint stripper (which I ended up not needing) and a few pieces of hardware to hang it. I have to give my husband major credit for drawing the chevron lines and for hanging it. I attempted the lines and they were not even and something like chevron has to be symmetrical. I just love looking at it!

The frame around it is actually a pretty bright yellow, it just doesn't really show up that well in the picture.

Getting my recipes together

I do love to cook, but lately it has seemed like a chore and just something I have to do to feed my family. One of my resolutions was to begin enjoying my time in the kitchen again. To fuel that I started by organizing my recipes and the way I plan my weekly menu. Typically, planning my menu would take me over an hour sometimes because I felt like I had to look through all my cookbooks and read so much. I knew I couldn't keep spending so much time each week on our meals. I have other things to do! So, I figured out a more simple way, at least I think so. I am taking a few days/weeks. (hope to have it done by beginning of February) and going through my cookbooks and making a document of the recipe, page number and name cookbook of recipes my family has liked or that I want to try out. And then at the beginning of the month I am going to plan February menu. Now, I am not going to plan the whole month because things come up and we have people over for dinner or such, but I am going to plan at least 3-4 meals per week for the month of Feb. It will take a little time a the first of the month, but I think everything will be easy sailing after I get my document done and the first month planned. May be silly, but I am way excited about this new method. I do still plan on weekly grocery shopping. We eat mostly fresh, so it is just better to buy it once a week. I love getting organized!

On a little more serious of a note. My husband (Don) just wrote an awesome blog post about where we are at in pursuing missions and some things the Lord has shown him and encouraged me with. Read it here if you are interested. I am so blessed by a wonderful husband that leads our family so well.

Joy

I am learning to find joy in all the little moments that the Lord gives me. I struggle with this. I often want life to be one big exciting time. I constantly want something to look forward to, whether it is going out, having a date, doing a fun family night, vacation, buying a new outfit, buying anything new or fill in the blank. And when life slows down and all that happened that day was a sink full of dishes, toys all over the house and a mom that hasn't had a shower I want to feel down about the day. The Lord is greatly working and opening my eyes to finding and having joy in Him during those "not so glamorous moments". I can't remember where I read this, but I remember someone saying that "life is made up of all those little moments". And that is so true and I feel challenged to make the most of those days. To love my children, husband and those around me and be filled with great joy even when life can seem mundane. Thankful that the Lord is filling me with the desire to overcome this in my life and that He will provide the grace that I need.

Dates and family nights

I loved having a date with Eden! It was so sweet just getting to sit, talk and play with her in a different setting. We went to Starbucks on Saturday morning. Ordered drinks. Made a puzzle. Took pictures. And played games. Here are a few pics


taking some pics / Puzzle we put together


having a taste of mommy's tea / Playing Brown Bear Brown Bear game

Mommy and E

Daddy and Owen played with Eden's dolls. It's really funny but he loves playing with them

For our family night we went to Whole Foods for some dessert. And then came home and made puppets. We did the story of Esther.

Mordecai, Esther and Haman / Our little puppet show about Esther.

the woes of unfinished projects

I have been messing around with the "look" of my blog for over an hour! I have got to leave it alone. I am on the verge of hiring someone to make it how i want it. I am not completely ignorant when it comes to technology, but i am also not the most clever. Enough of that.

I haven't posted any of my little projects lately because they are all unfinished! Some are still floating around in my head. My biggest one that I am eager to get done is my chevron door. I love chevron. I know it is pretty popular, but I just want something chevron in my house! I found an old door behind our house and I scraped and sanded and scraped and sanded it. It had a lot of old paint on it. My plan is to paint the frame part of the door and in the inside of the door yellow and then gray chevron strips in the middle. Then distress it. I am a little torn if I should distress it or not because it is a modern looking pattern. Or if I should even do the chevron and simply paint it and distress it. Plus, i am having a hard time getting the chevron strips drawn perfectly even. And they have to be perfect. Hubs says he will help this weekend. He is good at that kind of thing. Ok I am thinking on this door way too much. Well, here's hoping it is finished by this weekend. I have no clue how we will hang it. Don can figure that one out. :)


after i scraped and sanded it. I couldn't get all the paint off, but it is smooth enough that it should paint over fine.

A family night and dates with the kiddos

I mentioned in my previous posting that we are starting weekly family nights and date nights with our kids. I just wanted to share how the nights went. Friday night was our first Gale Family Night of Fun.

We made pizzas! They pounded and pounded their dough. (owen has a black eye if you can't tell...it happened days ago)

flour face!

flour face #2!

we baked them for a few minutes then we added our topppings. Eden loved getting to pick out what she wanted to put on her's.

Owen was really hungry so he tried to eat it before they were finished.

After dinner we decorated cookies! The Gale family night was a success!

The next morning Don took Eden out for breakfast and a little thrift store shopping. They went to Brian's breakfast out on Summer. Don said the place was packed! They didn't find too much thrifting, but Eden did come home with a pair of white little girl "high heels" probably 3 sizes too big. Yes, she has worn them everyday.

Eden enjoying her biscuit with Daddy

Owen and I stayed home and colored and played blocks. And did a lot of hugging and kissing. Seriously, Owen loves to kiss and hug. It's so sweet!



We had a great time with our dates! I am excited about making family nights and dates part of our week. We know that it might not happen every week, but that is our goal.

Planning it Out

One of my goals for the new year is to plan my days better. I have always been a pretty good planner, but lately I have been getting a little lazy with my planning and I have let the days just rush by. One thing I quickly learned about staying home with my babes is that I have to have structure. It keeps everyone a little more sane in the Gale household. So, fridays are my days to plan Eden's schooling, crafts, outings, playdates for the upcoming week, menu for the next week, dates with Eden and Owen and family nights for the next week. Sounds like a lot when I write it down, but it really doesn't take long. Here is a short breakdown of it all

1. Eden's schooling: I bought the preschool curriculum called Character Concepts. It has been ok. I could write a review and maybe I will, but not today. I look over the week's lessons and figure out what we are going to do on what day. The curriculum specifies things, but I have learned what works best for Eden, so I change it up a bit. For instance, they have a writing book, but Eden doesn't like it. It's very repetitive of the same letters over and over, so we will just write letters together on the chalkboard or play a game with flashcards.

2. Crafts: I LOVE crafts! And I love doing them with my kids. This week we made cards for grandma (it was her last treatment!!) and we made masks. I had planned for us to make snowmen, but it just didn't seem appropriate with the warm weather, so we ran and played outside instead. There are craft suggestions in the back of my mom's guide in the preschool curriculum, I also have this book called the The Toddler's Busy Book and it has some ideas. And there is always Pinterest or I just make them up. Eden is easy to please. I do the crafts with Owen too and just prepare myself for a huge mess. On days that we don't do crafts I usually try and have some kind of game planned. Eden got some games for Christmas, so we have been playing those.

3. Outing: this typically includes the Children's Museum, the Zoo or the Botanic Gardens. Those are our go to places because we have memberships thanks to grandma :) Other fun places we enjoy are the play area at Wolfchase, of course the park and storytime at Central Library. Right now I have to be selective with my places because of the age that Owen is at. He is into everything!! And he hates being in a stroller for a long time, so some weeks we may only have 1 or 2 outings.

4. Playdates: pretty easy. I just try and get together with a friend on Fridays. This may not happen every week, but that is my goal. I do accountability with 2 of my sweet friends every week and between the 3 of us there are 6 children all around the same age so my kiddos def. get their playtime in.

5. Dates: We just started doing dates with our kids. Tomorrow Don is taking Eden out for breakfast and whatever else he has planned. So next week I will plan something with her. I will have time with Owen tomorrow morning and I think we are going to some major coloring and building some really tall towers. (all his faves)

6. Family Nights: We hope to make this a weekly thing, some will be bigger nights than others. Tonight was our first official Gale Family Night. We are made individuals pizzas and sugar cookies and some impromptu dance time. Yes, my calm laid back hubs will bust a move, but only for us. It's amazing!

We practiced colors and counting with M&Ms. I had her attention with those


The mask Eden made. She was camera shy that day

Chalkboard fun

Planning is good for me and our family, but I do not plan every minute or hour of our day. It's more that I just make sure we have things to do throughout the day. The kids play on their own at times while I do housework. I like structure, but we also have a lot of flexibility. I believe it is all in balance and there are definitely days that all the plans go out the window. I love my "job" and I want to make the most of educating, playing and training our children.

So, this is the New Year

Unlike Death Cab's song New Year I feel great. I am excited about the new things the Lord has for the Gale family. The hubs and I went out New Year's Eve we did not make it the show that I mentioned in the previous post, but we did have dinner and dessert. The show just started too late and the older I get the more of a homebody I become. We had a great time discussing our answers to the New Year's questions, reviewing our family plan and setting some other goals for the future. And we finished watching Season 1 of Downton Abbey and if you have never heard of it it is the best show I have ever watched. Don and I love it! I wanted to share a few resolutions for myself for 2012. I won't share all of them because there are over 30. I know that seems like a lot, but some of them were not really resolutions more of reflection questions and how to change.

1. Play with these sweet faces more. Don and I both feel like we are to focus even more in on our children. Training, loving, educating and discipling them. We plan to begin weekly dates with Eden. Don is taking her out Saturday for a special breakfast and Owen and I will have some sweet time together. And then next week I will take her out while Don spends time with Owen. Owen gets home dates right now because he is a little "difficult" at times in public. He likes to be free.

2. Plan my days better. This means taking each friday afternoon while the kids sleep and plan the upcoming week. Playdates, what school time will look like, what crafts we will do, what adventures we will go on, what things we will cook together. I have to be structured with my days otherwise I tend to just want to let the kids do "whatever" so that I can "whatever".

3. Blog more. Like to try and do 3 times a week. And redo the ole blog. I am not very technical so the way my blog looks now is because it was a free template that my sweet friend Al showed me how to do. Just like to get something different that fits me a little bit better.

4. Write and mail notes to people this year.

5. Mail birthday cards to my friends and family members

6. Start our family journal. We have had it for a few years, but have never written in it. It will be a journal that just keeps up with the things our kids have done, stages they are at, ways the Lord is growing and teaching our family.

7. Have a morning devotional and prayer time with my kiddos. I want them to begin understanding that we start our day with the Lord.

8. Listening to books on CD with the kids. We have started doing this and they love it! We have listened to Mike Mulligan and the Steam Engine and we got them this collection of proverbs stories that we listen to in the car. And I really enjoy them.

9. I want to be more of an encouragement to my husband. He has a huge job leading our family and he does a wonderful job and I need to tell him that more. He started a blog. And it is so good. He is a fantastic writer. Here is the link if you want to follow him.

10. I want to memorize more Scripture this year. I want God's Word on my heart and on my lips. To be able to speak truth to myself throughout the day.

11. Be on the computer less. I realized a few weeks ago that for no reason during the day I will just be checking my email or looking at facebook or the weather, yes the weather, when I had just checked those things an hour ago. So, I decided to only open the computer when the kids are not awake. That means I can only check it before they get up in the morning, when the nap and after they go to bed. I am excited about doing this. I think it will give a lot of freedom.

Alright, those are a few of them. Again, I am so looking forward to this new year. And I know everyday will not be perfect in these things, but I think it is important to set goals for yourself and when you get off of them one week or day or month just started back on them the next day. The Lord's mercies are new every morning!!

Goodnight.