28 Day Clothing Challenge

So I am super excited for this month!!! And this clothing challenge. Especially because all of this is inspired by Grace. Our little 10 year old is such a beautiful young lady who has such a servant, kind, compassionate and loving heart. And I LOVE when she gets excited about something.

And so this month her GEMS group is doing a 28 day clothing challenge from February 2 - March 1 to help bring understanding as to how we live compared to girls in Zambia. Since we all have closets full of clothes that we wear, this challenge encourages all the girls to pick 15 items of clothing out of their closet and wear only those clothes for the entire 28 days. With a few other guidelines...

Lesson: TO LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT WE WANT AND WHAT WE NEED.

I like it! I like it a lot!

So here are the rules for the challenge:

1. Choose 15 items of clothing in total - pants, skirts, jeans, tops and any accessories beyond those allowed.

2. Not included in the 15 items are: uniform needed for work, shoes, underwear, socks, bathing suit, sport clothes, or clothing needed to stay warm ( coat, mitts, scarf, toque) Decorative scarfs are included in the 15 items;)

3. Create all your outfits for the next 28 days out of these 15 items

4. Jewelry: you are allowed one set of jewelry - one pair of earrings, one necklace, a watch and your rings. If you want more pieces of jewelry they have to be part of your 15!

You can wash these items as often as you need to and we are supposed to keep track of our thoughts and feelings related to this challenge.

Grace is doing it and has inspired (at the very least) me and the little girls to do it too. Cory may or may not be on board...

Are you up for the challenge? If you are....that's awesome. Pick your clothes. Stick with it. And write down what you thought and when. Let's chat in 28 days!

oh well...new month ;)

So I just read my last post and of course I didn't stick to many of my resolutions and some I totally failed at...what can I say...i am still learning about goal setting and perseverance...sometimes you just have to get back up again.

January can be summed up in a few sentences:
-Kate is anti-sleep training...and we are on the worst stretch of sleep deprivation yet...
-Maggie is thinking about potty training, but of course likes the jelly bean incentive way more...
-Little exercise for myself ;P
-haven't looked up triathlon dates but did meet a family whose kids do triathlons and feel even more inspired
-Have meal planned! Have read toddler wise! And have spoke out psalms...all very very helpful!

3/7 ain't bad right??

oh well...new month ahead ;)

It's a New Year!

Praise God! It's a brand new day and a brand new year!

And like many people I am in the mood to set some New Year's resolutions...and try to fulfill them!

One of them is tracking along with this blog...hehe...I think I've written about this in every entry so far!

But I also want to finish what I start and seemingly and historically have a VERY hard time with this. Lots of vision but little perseverance! And if I have perseverance it is very emotionally drawn out!

So here's to level headed perseverance and a willingness to change and to not be gripped with the fear and the idea that I cannot change!

So here's to little goals...achieveable goals...measurable goals!

So Day 5 of January these are some goals:

1) Sleep Train Kate...oh to sleep through the night again! How much more productive will I be with a good nights rest under my belt!

2) Potty - Train Maggie....need I say more...

and of course for myself...study God's word, read more parenting books, exercise more, eat less, be a better friend and family member...and big one...remember birthdays and send cards!

So to break this all down for January:

1) I will read toddler wise!
2) Start Kate on a schedule for feeds with a start time to our day...oh no...I think I may have to set the alarm clock...
3) Look up triathilon training schedules for Grace and myself;)
4) Jog for 20 min monday, wednesday and friday
5) Wake up and read a psalm out loud everyday
6) Meal plan!

Today is thursday... i will check in on monday and let you know how i'm doing!

and hopefully this accountability helps....

Go Gracie Go

Let me share a story of perseverance...

Today my 10 year old ran in a cross country run and came in 134...probably out of 175 kids. Is she proud of herself....yes ma'am! Are we proud of her? YES MA'AM!!!

How the story of cross country running goes is that last year in her first race ever she came out running too fast, winded herself and couldn't recover. She made it about 500 m before she had to stop. We went the back way in the race to try and meet her to encourage her but she never came around. So then we were concerned! Needless to say when we did find her she was safe and sound with a race coordinator but all tears!!!! So as any good mom would do I cuddled her a bit, listened to her tell me what happened and how she felt and then made her finish the race...with me running with her of course. And if i remember it correctly we did walk most of it. 2 km is a long way you know... 

This is us last year after running the 2 km together... she's a little unimpressed!

So this year I told her because last year wasn't a great experience, albeit a learning one, she had to do at least one cross country race. And so what did she do...she signed up for 4! So we trained a little bit (one day we ran in our neighbourhood) and she ran at school... and of course come the first race day she was SOOOO nervous. 

She came out running, paced herself and finished. Oh....sweet redemption!!! Such a good feeling.

Right after the race finished she told me "Mom, I'm not doing any other races" through huffing and puffing. So like a good mom I told her that right then in the line probably wasn't a good time to make that decision. She agreed. And guess what? On the way home she told me "Mom, I did my one race that I was supposed to. I don't have to do anymore......but I want to". 

Today she ran her 3rd race and we are as proud of her as ever! 

eyes on the prize

...so it has been 6 weeks since my last post...truly no excuse for not posting again...but i knew it was time when i started dreaming about posting a new blog post....funny right?! or it could have been that i was surfing blogs right before bed and then just dreamed about that...

either way...i'm baaaccckkk!!!

i do hope this blog will do a couple things...
1) allow me a place to share openly about my thoughts, my lovely friends and beautiful family
2) showcase an artistic side of me i hope to bring out more often and
3) curb useless surfing of the internet (mainly etsy...), giving more purpose when i go online

a friend of mine recently did a 30 day scrapbooking challenge on her blog...hoping to do one scrapbook page a day for 30 days...so...

...maybe i can do the same with this blog, except maybe more like one or two posts a week for the next 1000 weeks...we will see....

....that's roughly 10 years...

....am i setting my sights too high...you be the judge?

"Ta-Da"

...... is the new word my 22 month old is saying. She finds a new toy.....Ta-Da! She pulls a chunk of granola cereal out of the box and shows me....Ta-Da!! She climbs on top of the back of the couch and leans over the railing.....Ta-Da!!! All very very cute is our household!! Well except for the part where she leaned over the railing.

So to borrow the new Maggieism...I have started a blog...."Ta-Da". So stay tuned....I can't wait to share stories, projects, pictures and life with you! xo

A.