Seriously........

What God has called you to do!

I'm one of those people that struggles with saying NO. 

I love helping people so as a crazy people-pleaser when someone asks me to do 

something my automatic response is typically to say YES. 

The result of that automatic response is that I often end up 

with way too much on my plate and have no one to blame but myself!

The older I get the more I'm learning that:

1. The world will not end if I say NO. 

2. People will still like me if I say NO to them. 

3. If I ask God before taking something on, I have plenty of time to

 accomplish the things HE has called me to do.

 It's all that extra stuff I add to my plate that He 
hasn't called me to do that makes me overwhelmed! 

This is one of my favorite quotes of all times- one that I must remember always! 

Every Bit of Time

Snow cone FUN!

My sweet new friend Crystal {who is a fabulous photographer and can be found here on FB} took pictures at my RAOK birthday party so that all of you who couldn't attend could see the precious faces of those who enjoyed the free snow cones!  
I put the pics together into a video so that you could see how adorable they were 
and how much they enjoyed those snow cones! 

Weeks later, seeing these sweet faces makes me tear up. 
They were so cute and so thankful. 
It was truly an amazing day!
To those of you who donated towards the snow cones- 

THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!
Words are inadequate to express my gratitude to you- you truly are a blessing to me!

Autocorrect Mom FAIL

I was at dinner last night with some friends and Madison started texting me 

asking when I would be home and if I would bring her something to eat. 

I was distracted and talking and trying to text at the same time 

{which was obviously not a good idea}.

Here's part of our conversation: 

Autocorrect Mom FAIL!

Wag More. Bark Less.

I saw this quote on a teacher friends shirt today and absolutely loved it. 

Imagine if we all followed this simple advice? 

wag more

Oh Glorious Day!

Happy Easter sweet friends! 

Thank YOU!

Early this morning I woke to find several sweet emails from blog readers.  

I'm pretty sure that most people don't  have any idea
 how much I love and treasure each email from blog readers 
but y'all they mean so very much to me!

It makes me super excited to see them pop in my inbox! 

To hear how my blog, ideas, and printables have made
 even a small difference in the lives ofpeople I don't even know- 
gives me more joy than you could possibly know!

I know it seems so silly to be so touched simple by words in emails

but when your love language is words of affirmation 

know that it means a TON!

I realized this morning as I read these emails that I 

needed to say THANK YOU to you sweet readers. 


So THANK YOU!

Thank you for reading my blogs,

 for leaving sweet comments and ideas, 

for emailing me questions and thank yous. 

Thank you for being so stinkin' sweet!

Each of you is truly a blessing to me and I am so very thankful for you! 

And for sweet new reader Kristi who emailed me early this morning  
I want you to know that I am praying for you! 
{and here's a little something I made this am just for you!}

Every Little Thing

He Is Risen!

My Random Acts of Kindness birthday party yesterday was truly amazing! 

My heart was so full all afternoon and I can't wait to share all about it with you.  

As soon as I get all the pictures I will tell you the details and post all the pics.
Those sweet little faces were so stinkin' cute I could hardly stand it! 

For now just know it was an absolute blessed day 

and something I will definitely do again next year!
Thank you so much to all of you that prayed for the day, 
donated towards the sno-cones, 
and/or joined me for the day!

In preparation for Easter this coming weekend here is a little printable 

I made of one of my favorite verses, Matthew 28:6. 

Such great joy in the promise that He is RISEN!

he is risen

Oh and I posted some a fun little Easter treat on my other blog yesterday. 

Hop on over to get a free printable copy if you'd like! 

Signs, Signs, and more Signs

Several months ago I asked for some sign ideas from you fabulous readers.

I got tons of great ideas and have slowly been working on creating them.


For the next several weeks I'll post a few at a time. 
Hope you ladies like them! 

Suggested by Paige:

You Can't Be a Smart Cookie

Suggested by KEM:

time to get to work

Suggested by Barbara:

Be Cheerful and Pass It On

A List of Randomness

1. If you are like me and LOVED using the Picnik site that is closing soon, 
you'll LOVE the new PicMonkey which was created by the Picnik team! 
And it's FREE!

The things I love about this site are:

• It's FREE!
• It's similar to PhotoShop but it's SIMPLE {and did I mention it's FREE?}
• It's online - no software required and you can start working on editing pictures on one computer and finish on another. How cool is that?
• It has SERIOUSLY TONS of options: Crop, Rotate, Exposure, Color, Sharpen, Resize, Effects, Touch Up {like teeth whitening, blemish fix, wrinkle remover, spray tan, plus many others including my FAVORITE....weight loss!}, Text, Overlays, and Borders. 

Seriously if you've always wanted to edit your photos but don't have the time or money to spend on Photoshop, this is your answer! 
Check it out! 

2. We had book club at my house last night. 
Our book this month was The Hunger Games and after dinner
 and discussion we went see the movie. 
If you haven't read it- you so should ....along with the other two in the series. 
Such an interesting and thought provoking story! 

          

I always love the book way more than any movie 
but I will say this movie was very well done! 
{And it was my first HD movie. I loved the fancy leather rocking chairs but that screen is BIG- so big it kinda made me a little sick to my tummy with all the motion!}

3. I made these tiny little individual 7 layer dips 
{that I first saw on Pinterest} 
for book club and they were a big hit! 

They were easy to make it just took awhile to assemble the layers. 
{my layers were: beans, sour cream, guacamole, chunky salsa,
 cheese, tomatoes, onions/olives} 

I did figure out something that made it go much faster-

 I started using my cookie dough scoop. 
 

If you don't have one, you definitely should get one. 

I use mine for making cupcakes, muffins, brownie bites, 

as well as cookies and a ton of other things. 

It was perfect for making the layers the same size!

4. A friend told me about another series she was reading that was
 similar to The Hunger Games and I started reading it this weekend and am hooked.  

The first book is called Matched here's the Amazon book description:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow. 

5. I also made a Strawberry Margarita Cheesecake Trifle for dessert
and it was super yummy!
The original recipe can be found here and I tweaked it a bit.
I used half the butter and fat free condensed milk and cream cheese.
I made little individual cup trifles and they turned out super cute!
A great spring-like, light dessert!



6. I'm pretty sure I've never been more proud of my sweet
daughter as I was this weekend.
After a heart wrenching Friday night and a very sad, quiet Saturday,
she went to a slumber party at one of her very close friends house-
a friend who also tried out for drill team officer and who made it.
She knew it would be hard to go but she knew C would be sad if she didn't come.

Earlier last week her friend C sent her a picture
 of a sports bra she had seen in a store.
For drill team practices the girls must wear all black-
except for officers who can wear colored sports bras.
So C sent her a pic with a message saying
"When we are officers we can buy and wear this!"

So before going to C's house on Sat.,
Madison had me take her to the store and
she bought C the exact sports bra from the pic.
She wanted C to know that although
she was sad she didn't make officer, she was truly happy for C.
Oh how I love my sweet,  big-hearted girl! 

Randomness on a Saturday Morning

I'm sorry I've been such a blog slacker lately. 

My life is usually super busy but this past month has been uber CRAZY!

Let's see....in the past month there have been:

• Two out of town dance competition weekends {where the girls did GREAT!}
• A job interview and a week of waiting to hear if I got the job {I DID!}
• Spring Break {YAY!}
• Testing 30 kindergarten students for the gifted and talented program
  {standardized Testing for 5 years old is kind of like herding cats!}
• Traveling to Houston for a Project Dance weekend
• My dad's 67th birthday {Happy Birthday Daddy!}
• Doing some more painting and more work in our kitchen
• Our 10th anniversary {Happy Anniversary to my sweet husband!}
• Planning my Random acts of Kindness Birthday Party {can't wait!}
• A week of preparing for drill team officer try outs
  {CRAZY detailed and long process}
• A week of supporting, cheering on, and praying for my sweet daughter through the exhausting week of officer try outs {seriously one of the most grueling and demanding weeks you can imagine}

Last night was the end of the officer tryout week. 

And although my sweet daughter was not selected as an officer

 I could not be more proud of her if she had.  

Watching your child put their heart and soul into something- 

working as hard as they possibly can- and then not getting it? 

Oh my goodness. It was truly awful.  

Although she knows that God's plan is the best plan, 

her sweet little heart was broken last night. 

And my mama heart? 

It was broken watching her learn, for the very first time, 

that you can work ridiculously, amazingly hard- 

giving something your complete and absolute best- and it not be good enough.

Ugh. 

As a mama it's our nature to protect and guard our babies hearts. 

And although I know eventually their hearts will in fact be broken 

over learning some of those hard life lessons, 

this first time was harder than I ever imagined.  

Much of my evening was spent holding my sweet crying girl 

and telling her how proud I was of her 

{and occasionally telling her I thought it sucked too}.  

As a mama, my job is often to say or do that right thing and that helpless feeling- 

that you can't do anything to make it better- is awful. 

In the midst of the sadness of the evening- 

there were some incredibly sweet blessings. 

Watching Madison's sweet friend Amber leave in the middle of a birthday party {they were at the Hunger Games movie} 

to come to our house and cry with Madison was precious. 

Seeing the texts and calls from her friends {and mine}checking on her and loving on her was so sweet. Watching her text the girls who made officer and telling them congratulations 

and how they were amazing dancers and that she was proud to be lead by such a wonderful group of girls- even doing so through her tears, was precious. 

Hearing of the dad of one of the other officer candidates {who made it} 

asking for them to recount the results because they so believed that 

Madison should have made it warmed our hearts.  

My sweet girl went to sleep late last night exhausted but no longer crying. 

While her friend was here there was laughter and eating and 

talk of going to a party today of one of the new officers. 

Life is tough, but this I know to be true- it goes on. 

God causes or allows everything to happen in our life. 

And His plans, when we understand them or not, are truly best!

Happy Saturday friends!

Just Let it Go!

I love this saying. 

So easy to say.......so hard to do.