Anyhow, I thought I'd pop on here real fast and share the second week of Thankful verses for the kiddos to write out. 

I hope you are having a Blessed November!!  Remember to be Thankful, there's no Happier person than a Thankful person! ~Kiy

Hello!  It's been a long while.  Busy summer, but here we are and it's already November. I wanted to share this list of thankful verses to write out each day of this month.  I plan on writing these thankful verses on notecards and taping them to mirrors, doors, doorways, fridge, etc.. I will leave them up through Christmas. Hoping to help us to remember to be thankful. It’s easy in this world we live in to become unthankful and even greedy, as if we are owed blessings from God.  Instead of looking to be blessed, strive to Bless the Lord.  When you get a quiet minute, read Psalm 103 and 104.  And if you have SermonAudio you can listen to a good Thanksgiving message from brother Wayne Hudson on there! I listened to it last night while I did my walking.
Looking forward to this next month of focusing on Thanks Living and Blessing the Lord! Happy Autumn!

You can print this one below for the kiddos to copy each day of the week.  I will upload the next 5 soon!

We hope you are  having  a LoVeLy AuTuMn! ~Kiy

...In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. Isaiah 30:15
Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Jeremiah 6:16
...how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matthew 23:37
How often has our nation told God, "No!" ?
He offers rest, peace and protection, yet the answer has been, "No, Lord, I'd rather not, thanks all the same." A nation that continues to go against God and do things its own ways will not see the blessings of the Lord.
As christians we need to draw nigh to God and find rest in Him.
Psalm 132:14, "This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell..."
God's got this! 
It's all part of His plan.
Trust him.

"He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler." Psalm 91:4

Happy Friday!  Sure hope you have a lovely weekend!

​Kiy

There's nothing like waking up on New Year's Day to a Winter Wonderland!! 
We, OKLAHOMA, got snow, AGAIN!!! 
​This is our 3rd snow, following a huge ice storm! 
What a crazy, beautiful winter this has been!

This is probably the prettiest snow I have experienced.

So many picture perfect scenes around the neighborhood.

Lookin' pretty around the church!

A little ice... a little snow!!  If you're looking for a church, I know a good place to go! :)

Lovin' the backyard this morning.

Cocoa anyone?

I couldn't quit looking at this tree.  A little black and white photography!!

It's time for a long winter's nap!
Wishing you a very Blessed New Year!
Kiy

I mentioned in a past post that we have chickens...

We're fond of our ladies very much! The snow this month was their first snow experience.  They were not sure about it, and it took them 3 days or so to come out of the coop.  The day they did come out they were very unsure, but were tired of being cooped up so they braved the white fluffy surroundings.  

One of our ladies was a bit stressed out and had trouble laying an egg.  It broke inside of her.  We googled what to do to help her.  We found soaking her in warm water would help.  So that's just what we did.  She was more unsure of this than the snow, and you can tell by the photo below she was not too happy about it.  We have 3 cats in the house and they were very curious too.   

After a long soak, we dried her off and kept her inside until she was completely dry.

She has been fine ever since.  Laying eggs daily.  

Our chickens love shiny objects.  They go after my ring any chance they can get.

We really enjoyed the snow.  We might get a dusting later this week, it might just be ice too.  Whatever it is, stay warm, stay safe as we bring in a new year!

Someone wake me up!  Is this a dream?  This is the 2nd snow day this week!  I am not believing it, are we still in Oklahoma?  

I woke Asa up this morning, told him to "get up and get dressed, we are going to take photos in the snow!"  So he did, and we did!!  Fun times!

I could not keep the girls in the house today.  I finally decided "School Is Canceled"!

Kylie is following after her mama, she loves taking photographs!

Oh!!!  I cannot wait to tell you about our cHiCkEnS!!

Hope you are all having a blessed day!  See you again soon!

It's been a long while since I've posted on this blog, just a few weeks shy of 2 years.  A lot has happened over the past few years.  I started the other website in hopes to be more of a ministry to women with devotions and encouragement.  I've missed this freestyle of blogging so much, that I decided to come back to it!!  I may grab a few things off the other from time to time to share over here.  
It's amazing to look at where we left off two years ago and see where we are now.  My kids have grown up so much!!  I have two teenagers, one just finished drivers ed and is starting a job this week.  I am definitely at a different stage in life as a mom.  It's a good stage, and I'm happy here, miss my babies, but I am happy where we are!  God is Good all the time and All the time, God is Good!  :)

I no longer use this Weebly website!!  Please, come on over to my new Wix site, Purposefully Joyful, and see what's going on!!!    Click here

Sometimes you just have to take a moment to laugh, be silly and enjoy the little things.  I love opening up the Photo Booth program on my computer and calling the girls to join me.  If you have kids, and you have photo booth, and you have never been silly  with your kids with photo booth, WAIT NO LONGER!!!  Your kids will love it and you will get some good laughs too!  We laugh so much and so hard at all the silliness that comes along with this program! 
Life has been busy and even hard around here.  I'm here to explain where I have been the past few weeks. 
The week of Thanksgiving we headed out to the Wichita Mountains and camped out all week.  Yep, we are no sissies, we camped in a tent at the end of November!  I'm pretty proud of us.  ha     
Anyhow, I took lots and lots of photos.  When we got home and got settled back into everyday life I eventually uploaded the photos from our trip and made a really fun video. Just as I was finished with it, the hard drive on the computer went out and we lost pretty much the last 10 or so years of our recorded life.  Photos, files, well, you know, a whole lot of stuff.  I had not deleted the photos of our trip off of the camera chip, so I get to re-edit them and hopefully very soon will share a very small portion with you. 
We also soon noticed our sweet little kitten MerryBell was getting a bloated looking tummy.  We wormed her hoping for good results, but nothing changed.  Her little belly just got larger.  After a trip to the Vet, we brought her home with a death sentence.  She had a virus and there was nothing that could be done for her.  My girls have been such good little nurses over these past few days.  They brought her food and water every 30 mins to an hour, and loved on her.  She passed this morning.  It was a hard morning.  Love and tears during those final moments filled our living room as she took her last breaths.  I know it's just a cat, but she was part of our family and our girls loved her dearly.  We had her exactly 1 year to the day.  How ironic is that.  She was a rescue kitten, we gave her a home and loved on her for a whole year!  Who knows, had she not been rescued her little life would probably been much shorter.  We hope to get another kitten in the  distant future, but for now, we will just cherish memories of our sweet MerryBell.

I plan on getting back to Friday Finds next week.  I might even make a few post before then!  Hope you all have a great weekend, it's gonna get cold out there, maybe even some ice!  Stay warm and stay safe and come back real soon!

It's time for Monday Makeovers!!!  Remember, a few Fridays back, I had found $2.50 fleece blankets and matched them up with thrifted top sheets!  I have several sewn together!  Two of them have already been gifted out!!  You guys!!! These are awesome gifts this time of year, and well treasured gifts!!!  Homemade is BEST!!!  Am I right?!

I'm just in LoVe with how these turned out!  

It's FRIDAY!!!  Is anyone as excited as I am about this?!?  Next week is going to be full of food, family and fun!!  But first, I must share this with you!!  

You know those cheap blankets that are for sale everywhere right now.  The ones that are not really thick enough to keep you warm but are cute as a little accent blanket.  I got this great idea to sew another layer to them!!  I FOUND some flat sheets at the thrift store.  I did not pay more than $1.99 for any of them.  Matter a fact I even got a few for 50 cents!  Then I Found a blanket to match!!!    The blankets are around $2.50.  I already have three made (for my girls)!!!  They love theirs.  After sewn together, these blankets are the perfect thickness to lay on the couch with, or carry in the car on a road trip! These are going to be great home made gifts for the holidays!

This dino sheet is going to make a super cute blanket!!  I think I just might steal a nephews heart with it!  (hoping!  fingers crossed! I have lots of competition!)

... and I already know how cute this one is!  I made it last night for my littlest miss who is absolutely in LoVe with donuts!  We are going to take ours camping with us next week!  WooT wOOt!!  So excited!!  Yes, I am making you all wait to see the the up-cycled sheets and repurposed blankets on Monday!!  Until then Happy haPPY WeekEnd!!!  See you Monday for Monday Makeovers!  xoxo

When Life gives you Lemons... Make a Cake!

So that is just what we did!

Last week was busy!  Really busy!  It  wasn't a bad week, it was just a busy week.  Mom stuff.  Asa needed dress clothes and shoes for his uniform check at choir today.  Hannah needed boots, the temps are dropping and flip flops are frowned upon these days.  Don't get me wrong, flip flops year round sounds like a good plan to me. However, if you take your kiddos to the grocery store, in 40 degree temps, with flip flops on, beware of the glares you'll get.  I wore flip flops out once when it was around 60 degrees.  A lady of a certain age (that I will not point out because I will be there in 10 or so years, and I may seem to think I need to let everyone know my opinion as well) made some rude comments to me.  I can only imagine if she saw my girls in flip flops.   Therefor, boots we must wear!  Then there was ladies meeting on Wednesday, payroll on Thursday and Bible Club on Saturday and all the time that goes into preparing for these two really important monthly events.  I do enjoy these things and wouldn't trade a minute for anything else.  Then the usual mom stuff like laundry, breakfast, lunch, dinner, homeschool, haircuts, laundry, breakfast, lunch, ...  I think you get it.  I barely had a minute to spare, which left Miss Felicity feeling bored and lonely.  She is my little shadow, but this week left little if no time for our Spot it games, book reading and I spy findings!  "Mom it's so boring", she told me several times with tears in her eyes.  When she found me sitting at the computer, working on devotions, BC flyers, etc., she would bring her game and say, "Mom, you haven't played this with me and you said....".  By the time Sunday came along I was tired and really wanted my Sunday afternoon nap.  But then there was this sweet little face looking at me that really needed some mommy time.  "Can we make a cake?" she asked.   Of course we can make a cake.  She ran to the garage to get her stool and cake making we began!  We looked through the cupboards to see what we had available.  A white cake(boring) and a Lemon Cake(yummy!).  We even had lemons!!

Her lips are sealed!  I read the instructions to her.  She got out each thing we needed and I taught her some little secrets!  I told her not to tell anyone our Box Cake Secrets.

When the cake was finished we found some fun dishes (we only get these out for special times).  It does not take much to make a little girl feel special!  I highly recommend having a few pretty dishes tucked away somewhere that you only pull out for a time like this!  We picked these up at a local thrift store years ago.  

We sat and sipped our milk and ate our yummy cake together.  We giggled when the others came in and saw we were having milk and cake without them.  We giggled about our little secret of making the Best Box Cake ever!

She felt special!  Can't you tell by her little face?!  I doubt she'll have memories of 'the week mom was really busy and didn't have much time for books and games'.  I just bet though, she'll remember days like this! xoxoxo

Oh! Your wondering what the secret is.  It's simple, just don't let her know I told you.  Because you know, it's our little secret. 

When making a box cake, substitute the water with milk and the oil with butter and add a little vanilla.  Then serve it with a smile and pretty dishes and it will be the BEST cake you ever made!! 

 We got snow today, that makes for a pretty awesome Tuesday!  ​Hope you are having a super week!  Check back Friday for Friday Finds.  I missed last Friday (was super busy, remember?).  I do have some stuff to share with you.  See ya soon!

Since the first of November I have been posting, each day, a photo of something I'm Thankful for on Facebook.  I thought I would share a few of the photos with you.  

Thankful for the Joy and strength we get from above!
​~It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful!~

​Thankful for all things PuMpKiN! ....really, it's something to be thankful for!

Thankful for the right to vote!
(sorry for the blurriness of this photo, the camera on my phone is really bad)