Bible Reading Is Important

As a Christian, I love the Bible. I love starting my day off by reading God's Word. I have been reading through the entire Bible every year for several years now. One of the things I strive to do as a parent is instill Biblical values in my daughter. I want her to love the Bible and love God as God wants us to. I want her to see worship services as a time to praise, worship and give thanks to our Creator and Bible class as a time to learn and study. I want her to grow up to love the Word and be the Christian that is found in the pages of the Bible.
I've been happy with her progress so far. She knows who God and Jesus are. She enjoys going to Bible class. She will participate once in a while. Even when she refuses to participate, I know her little brain is soaking in the Bible stories and learning the songs. Most importantly, she is receiving the foundation she needs to continue to study and learn from the Bible.

One thing I've been lacking on is teaching her at home. We pray before nap time, bed time and meals. We sing "Jesus Loves Me" before bed time each night. We talk about God's creation. But I want to do more.

Last year (2010) I read the Bible out loud to Chloe Jo all year. That was tedious and my voice often got dry and tired by the end of the reading so I haven't done that this year. Then I read a book that had a section about a Bible reading plan that is specifically designed to be read at church services. Every service, a portion of the Bible is read and at the end of 3 years, the congregation will have read through the entire Bible. I presented that idea to Russ for the congregation we are members of, but then thought to myself, "Self, why don't you look for a daily 3 year plan for Chloe Jo?"

And that's what I did. I printed it out and tonight we did our first reading before her bed time. While I was printing the plan out I explained to her that we were going to read the Bible each night before she goes to sleep. I also told her that I would leave the Bible (we have several and the one we are using is one of my old childhood Bibles) and the plan in her room. After she went potty and brushed her teeth, we both climbed into her bed and she laid very still and listened as I read the Word of God to her. We then said a prayer and sang "Jesus Loves Me." Before we turned out the light, she asked if the special Bible would stay in her room.

And my heart smiled.

And God smiled.

The 3-Year Daily Bible Reading schedule we are using is {here}.

Miss Attitude

Latest Projects

Lately, I've had several projects going (ok, who am I kidding...when do I not have several projects going?) and I want to document some of them.

Last month I made this jumper since Chloe Jo is short on dresses. I thought it was a little plain so I took it to a lady in town to get it monogrammed. I got it back yesterday and I love how it turned out. Monogramming is a great way to jazz up something plain!
I have several large pieces of fabric that I have been wanting to make clothes for Chloe Jo out of and today I finished up this outfit. I was wanting the skirt to be a little more full, but I think it turned out cute over all. Next time I will make the tiers fuller, though. Of course, I had to applique flowers on the plain shirt. I even appliqued a cute flower in the bottom corner of the back of the shirt for a little more pizzaz!
Last, but not least, I made this turkey shirt for Thanksgiving. I call it the CBS turkey. Don't the feathers look like the old CBS symbol? Ha ha!
And just for kicks, I think this outfit is so cute! I love her boots with leggings tucked in! She looks like she is ready to go riding!
P.S. I have to tell you all that I am a big fan of clearance racks. I bought those brown boots for $3.00 at Wal-Mart during the summer. I also bought a pair of black ones. They are size 8 and she is currently in a size 7 (I've been letting her wear them anyway) so I'm hoping they will last through the winter.

Park Day

While my sister was here, we had plans to do several things. One of those things was to take the girls to the park to play. We got around to doing that on Thursday. The girls had a good time and Chelley and I enjoyed watching them play.



One thing I love about our small town and the location of our home in said small town is that it is easy to walk to just about anything. So after playing at the park for an hour or so, we walked to a fast-food restaurant to get something to drink and then back home. We had a great time playing with the girls (minus Brianna getting a bloody lip from face planting off of the slide) and spending time together.

Up next: Making cookies with our girls...and then I will be done with posts from my sister's visit.

Crafting with my sister

While my sister was here, she had a couple of projects for me to "help" her with. Usually it ends up me making the project and her watching, but that was not the case this time! Anyway, she loved the mobile I made for Chloe Jo's room and wanted to make one for her bambino on the way. This is the one I made for Chloe Jo back in the spring. If you are interested in making one, there is a tutorial for it in the tutorials section at the top of the page.
Chelley liked a lot of the paper that I had used for Chloe Jo's mobile. I had some of it left so she used it for Brenson's mobile. We thought it turned out so great!
Isn't it funny how both mobiles are made out of {mostly} the same paper, but they are so different! The ribbon made all the difference in making them feminine and masculine.

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

It's midweek again!

And that means it is time for What I'm Loving Wednesday!
Link up {here} to tell us what you are loving on this rainy day!

I'm loving that I received a Target gift card in the mail for free from my bank for "being a good customer." You can't beat free stuff!

I'm loving that my sister and her family were here last week! We had so much fun hanging out with them!

I'm loving these sweet girls (Chloe Jo and Brianna Elisabeth Jo) and the adorable matching outfits I made them. Tutorial to come soon!

I'm loving the children's cd Chelley brought for us. It is Jack Hartmann's I've Got Music In Me cd and it is great! This is one of his songs that we looked up and learned the sign language moves for.


I'm loving Star Trek Voyager. I am a huge nerd and I loved watching Star Trek when I was younger and I just got back into it. My sister was very disappointed in me. I have been slowly making my way through Voyager and I will then start on Deep Space Nine.

I'm loving that my hubby is very good with computers (or at least a lot better than me) and he recovered everything yesterday after my poor computer contracted a virus.

I'm loving that I am on my 27th book from the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time list. I am currently reading Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence.

And that's it for today! Happy Wednesday!

North Carolina State Capital Road Trip!

I know I already posted a similar picture of Chloe Jo and her cousin, Brianna Elisabeth Jo, but it is so cute I couldn't resist posting it again!
Chloe Jo seems to miss her cousin a lot. She was really happy to get her room back, but she told me today "I miss B." Those girls had so much fun playing (ahem, and fighting) together. I very much regret that I wasn't able to give her a playmate that close to her own age.

Anyway, last Monday, Chris (my sister's husband) didn't have to work so we all loaded up in their rental van and headed up to Raleigh, North Carolina. Chris and Chelley love to visit capital buildings. She told me that they have visited around 25 and are hoping to be able to visit them all one day.

We parked in front of a very old, beautiful church building and had a photo op. These doors were enormous (obviously by the miniscule size of my daughter) and extremely heavy. Chloe Jo decided to mess with this door until she opened it! None of us could believe Chloe Jo (whose name may be changed to Hercules now) could get it open! I, of course, wouldn't have let her even try if I had known she would be able to do it.
Here is another door of the same church building. I love this shape and the architecture of these old buildings. They are so beautiful.
After our photo op, we went across the street to tour the grounds of the capital building. Chloe Jo was a good sport to sit on this statue and let me take a picture. This is probably the only time she will ever get a photo op with Presidents James Polk, Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson all at the same time.
Brianna (aka Wiggle Worm) can't be trusted to sit on a statue like that so Chelley and Chris put her in this cannon instead! I laughed so hard. There were 3 policemen standing in the vicinity and one of them said that there had to be a law against that, but he sure didn't know what it was!
After touring the grounds, we toured inside. I love capital domes. They are so beautiful. This one was hard to photograph because the sun wasn't in a very good position, but still beautiful.
I can't remember what this room was called (and I have no idea what happened to my brochure). Chloe Jo was good enough to sit at this desk and take a nice picture. Brianna....eh, not so much.
But we did get this cute one of them in another of the meeting rooms. I love that Brianna is waving at us!
This is the same room as above, but from the second level. This building was so old. I'm sure the second level seating was roped off because it is unsafe by our standards.
Again, I can't remember exactly what this room was called, but I think it was some kind of apothecary. My sister will correct me if I'm wrong about that!
This is the capital library. I would have loved to be able to curl up in a leather chair by the fire and read for a few hours.
And here is the outside of the capital building.
We had a great time on our little trip to Raleigh. Russ and I had not been except to the airport so we enjoyed getting to see some of the city. Of course, the company made it that much more fun!

2 1/2 years old!

Today my sweet daughter turns 2 1/2. I can't believe she is already this old. I look in her face and I still see the tiny baby that I held for the first time 2 1/2 years ago. Children growing up is so bittersweet.
My Chloe Jo is the light of my life. I'm so happy and thankful to have her. So what has she been up to lately?

-She is speaking in more and more sentences every day. She can count to 10. She knows her colors (though will only show me that on her terms). She can spell her name. She says please and thank you most of the time. Her verbal skills have improved so much over the last 3 months.

-She is still only day-time potty trained but has been so now for a year. She will go a week or so without pottying in during nap-time and then will have an accident so I still put a pull-up on her during her nap. She has only had a dry morning pull-up one time so we aren't even talking about that yet.

-She takes a nap every day. It is usually 1 to 3 hours depending on what we did that day.

-She is still picky as ever about food. She used to love my chili and my Mexican casserole but will not touch either anymore. Her favorite meal is meatloaf and peas.

-She wears size 3T, but I have to take up the waists of all the pants. She needs the length in a 3T, but she really needs a 24month waist. She is very tall and skinny.We have been having issues in the discipline area. She tells us no and she swipes at us now. We are trying to be very consistent in persuading her not to do either of those things.

-She still loves Dora the Explorer and Elmo, but has also started enjoyed movies like Beauty and the Beast.

-She would play at the park all day if we let her.

-She weighs 29 1/2 pounds putting her around the 55th percentile. She gained 3 1/2 pounds in the last three months. I think it's time to start limiting her sweets intake (and ours, too!).
-She is measuring 36 1/2 inches putting her around the 65th percentile. She gained a lot of weight but didn't grow in height much the past 3 months. This doesn't concern me at all because she grew 6 inches the previous 6 months.
I am so blessed to have my beautiful daughter in my life!

Our home is empty once again.

My sister and her family left Friday morning to go home to Oklahoma. While I'm going to miss them very much, we are all happy to have our home back to normal...especially Chloe Jo. She loves her routine. She did say "I miss B" several times this morning, though. Parting wasn't bad this time because we will be seeing them again at Thanksgiving. I have several posts coming about all the fun things we did while they were here! For now, I'm going to leave you with this adorable video:

Beach Fun

My sister and her family flew to South Carolina on Friday. Chris is going to work a few days here and Chelley and Brianna took the opportunity to come stay with us. We have been having a great time! They arrived at our house late Friday night so we didn't have time to do anything on Friday, but we decided to go out to North Myrtle Beach on Saturday. The girls had so much fun! Chloe Jo still didn't love the sand, but she tolerated it this time.
I think Brianna's excitement helped Chloe Jo be excited, too!
I enjoyed hanging back, taking pictures and picking up seashells. I loved that there weren't very many people on the beach and that it was a little chilly out. That is a perfect beach day to me. I don't care much about getting in the water (especially after Russ said he saw fins - Eek!).
I love pictures like this. Chloe Jo had not quite decided about the water at this point.
It didn't take Brianna long to figure out what her favorite part was. :)
And, of course, we had to have a family beach picture!

Music Monday

This one's for you, Dad!

Playtime

My sister and her family are here for the week. We have been having so much fun with these two precious girls!