Birthday Celebration!

I thew my sweet friend Kristen a golden birthday party this year.  It turned out really fun.  I thought I would share some of the photos just because of how fun it turned out.  We were on a pretty tight budget so we made a lot of the decorations.  Check it out...

spray painted soda holder with glitter-sprayed dollar store flowers

tables with lace table cloths and decorations

dinner buffet

place settings with paper straws from etsy and decroated frappuchino bottles as cups

party favors made with stamps and folding paper for the bags

raspberry sparkling lemonade

cherry blossoms and fruit pizzas

cheese cake bites

spray painted mason jars for dinner ware holders

cheese cake stuffed strawberries

fresh cherry blossoms

three generations, mama, baby and grandmama

 Pretty fun, right?
We did chicken salad on croissants, spinach/strawberry salad, fruit salad, cucumber finger sandwiches, cheese cake stuffed strawberries, cheese cake bites, mini fruit pizzas and cheese ball and crackers.  For the lemonade we mixed up a whole thing of your standard, powdered lemonade with some sparkling water - citrus flavor and to get the pink we dumped a whole thing of frozen raspberries in.  It was fabulous!  We also had green tea and iced caramel mocchiato.  It all came together so well.  We had a high school friend of mine do a Mary Kay facial demo and ordered off a wish list for Kristen's present.  It turned out to be a really, really fun day!

A mission for our family

So last night Andrew and I sat down and wrote up a mission statement for our family.  It was really a sweet time for our hearts to connect together in the presence of Jesus.  The verse that I had on my heart was Hebrews 12:1-3 about running the race and fighting the good fight.  I began to think, perhaps God hasn't given us a girl or maybe even never will give us a girl because the mission that Andrew and I have together is to raise strong men of God that stand up for Faith and take an active and fighting role in the Church.  What a blessed purpose.

The verse that was given to Andrew's heart was even better,

Isn't that wonderful.  We both loved the beginning phrasing, "but you MAN OF GOD."  While our family so far consists of just boys, I just thought it was wonderful.  A charge from God.  Andrew said even a charge from him and I to our boys.  There is just so much power and I love it.  Here is our mission statement:

It was so fun to work on the wording, phrasing and elements of this together.  I just love it and am having a 16x20 print made of each to hang above our nook in the kitchen.  Thanks, Mom for the idea!

Hope you enjoyed this and were perhaps encouraged to do one for your own family!

Kayla

Grace upon Grace

Well, once again it's been a very, very long time since my last post...I don't really have anything deep or exciting to say tonight.  I'm waiting for my husband to get home from work...ugh.  We are still waiting on the mortgage company to find out if we are approved for a loan modification, working on the kitchen with some tax money and rearranging and reorganizing to make this place nice.  The whole process has made me so very thankful for so many things.  It has made me really appreciate just HAVING a house and then it has made me aware of the things that I'm thankful for ABOUT this house, the neighborhood, the nice yard, the tree cover, the space, the location and more.

I made up this printable, feel free to download/save it and print it out and frame it.  It is such a good reminder of what we have to be thankful for, really.  So simply put too...

There it is.  You should be able either to just click it and then right click and save or just right click and save it.  However it works for you, help yourself.  The photo is one that I took on a walk with Benntt and Andrew at the end of our road.  I just love it.  I hope you do too and that you really reflect on the Grace that we have received.

Have a happy night!

Kayla