Crafting a Grateful Heart

Hello, friends!  There may be a couple of you out there who wondered if I was gone for good.  Sorry for the long delay in posts.  As I mentioned in my last post, this Mama and family have been embarking on the adventure of moving from Oklahoma to Texas.  So the crafting adventures were replaced temporarily with adventures in packing and unpacking.

The reason for our move was largely motivated by being closer to our family.  Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude for our families and the time we have already spent with them.  At the end of January my wonderful husband's fantastic parents and brother came to help us pack up boxes and load the moving van.  We are EXTREMELY GRATEFUL.  We loaded up the truck and pulled into my marvelous parents' house where they took in this family of three for a couple of months while we sold our house in Oklahoma and found a house here.  We are EXCEEDINGLY GRATEFUL.

It's now May and we are finally getting our new house in order.  It is a wonderful house that God has blessed us with here and we are AMAZINGLY GRATEFUL.  The time we have spend with family here has increased exponentially already!  We look back on our time in Oklahoma with all our wonderful friends and church family there with GRATEFUL hearts and look forward to the time we will have here with family and friends and a new church home with great expectation.  And we are GRATEFUL to GREAT GOD who loves us, guides us and blesses us far beyond what we deserve.

So what has this Mama been up to lately besides moving?  Being a mama.  I'm approaching my second Mother's Day as a mother this weekend.  It has been such a wonderful adventure for the past 14 months.  And now I'm starting to learn a little bit about how parenting can hurt.  I have recently developed what I've come to find out has been termed "Mommy Thumb."  It is a certain type of tendinitis that is at the base of the thumb joint and wrist.  It is generally caused by the motion of picking up your child...thus the nickname.  I know this is extremely insignificant in the scope of pain (physical and emotional) that parents go through in the life of a child, but it is a small example of playing through the pain and doing what it takes to care for your child.

Just because my wrist hurts, that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore my baby girl when she looks up at me and says "Up please!"  No!  I'm going to pick her up and hug that sweet baby!  And when she cries I'm going to cradle her and support her until her fear or pain goes away.  And when she looks at me and says "I Na Nu" (which is I love you in her little language), the pain of a wrist melts away.  When I think of sacrifice and love of a mother, I of course think of my sweet Mama and my loving Mother-in-Law.  But I'm also reminded of our dear sweet birth mother who chose adoption for our baby girl.  She knew she could not raise this baby,  but she made the hard and brave decision to choose parents who would love and care for her.  She did what it took and played through the pain to make that call to the adoption agency.  And we are ETERNALLY GRATEFUL.

This Mother's Day I have so many people in my life for who I am GRATEFUL.  And I know that all these blessings come down from the Father above.  So happy Mother's Day all.  I'm praying that even if it is a hard day for you for one reason or another (as I'm sure it may be for our birth mama), you can be able to look to God and find the blessings in your life that He has brought.  May He be the one to craft in you a GRATEFUL HEART.

(I am getting back to my crafting adventures so stay tuned for more posts!)

Big New Year Adventure

Well Happy New Year Friends!  We are starting on a wonderful new year and I don't know about you, but we have kicked in 2012 with a BIG new adventure in our household.  Our family is moving back to Texas next month and January has hit with a bang.  We have loved our time here in Oklahoma.  We have a wonderful church home, we have made some life-long friends who we really consider family now, and our daughter was born here!  It has been a tremendous almost 9 years here.

I was actually reflecting on this a couple of days ago while sitting in the floor of my daughter's room playing with her.  We are packing up boxes and putting our house on the market...the house that was our daughter's first home.  While she won't remember it, Jody and I will always think of it as the home that held some of our very best memories.  Bringing her home from the hospital, so many of her big "firsts," and so much more.

Looking around her room that day was a little sad for me thinking of leaving this place, but then also a reminder of why we are moving and the wonderful things we have in store for us.  One of the main reasons we are going is to move closer to our families who are all in Texas.  And looking around that room, there are so many tokens of love made by her family who love her that we are taking with us to her new room in her new home.

I couldn't help but take some snapshots of the room so she can know what her nursery looked like when when she gets older.

I don't claim to be a decorating genius by any means, but I do love her nursery.  The curtains and bedskirt and pillow in her chair I made the week she came home with us to match an old copy of The Wizard of Oz I had found and loved.  I also painted the canvas above the crib with Psalm 139:14 before we ever met her or knew it was Olivia who would be blessing our lives.  The beautiful tree quilt draped on her chair was made for her by her Mimi.  I'm sure it will be a keepsake she will keep always!  And the bird hanging on her wall with her name and birthday was made for her by her Nana.  Just perfect for her room!

Her nursery came together piece by piece after we brought her home with love from her family!  And even though I'm a little sad to leave behind her first home, I know it is the memories that we'll always have.  I also know God has a wonderful plan in store for us as He is leading us back to Texas.  And it is such a blessing that Olivia will have the close support of her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as she continues to grow into the beautiful woman God intends her to be!