Hope and Service

What happened on Friday  morning at the Elementary school in CT was horrific.  I can not imagine the pain those kids and parents are going through.  Sometimes it feels like we live in such an awful world.

Here are a few quotes that I've seen floating around on Facebook and Pinterest that can give us all some hope and comfort.

"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death. I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that this cruelty too shall end, and that peace and tranquility will return once again."
~Anne Frank

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world."

~Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers)

The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again. …
“… The only difference between the old and young dying is, one lives longer in heaven and eternal light and glory than the other, and is freed a little sooner from this miserable, wicked world. Notwithstanding all this glory, we for a moment lose sight of it, and mourn the loss, but we do not mourn as those without hope.”

~Joseph Smith

And here's an article about titled:  Men Shoot, Cars Crash, Diseases Surprise:  How to Live in This World.  It's a great perspective.   

I love my kids and I want them to love others too, to be one of the helpers in the world.  Doing service is a great way to help and love others.  Each day we've been doing a little Christmas-y thing.  Last week we made and delivered cookies to some of our neighbors.   It's hard to find the time to do things when the kids are in school.  So this turned into a 3 day project, even with my mother in law here to help.

On day 1, we made sugar cookies, using Christmas themed cookie cutters.  We discovered that the trees and snowmen worked best.

 On day 2, we decorated the cookies

Inspiration For The Weekend - 47 (stocking display)

So how do you hang your stockings?  By the chimney with care?

Last year we hung our stockings on the stairs.

But this year since we have a taller tree, you wouldn't be able to see them.

So I decided to hang them on the mantel.

Luckily we have just enough stocking hangers for our stockings.

We actually have two differnt types of stocking hangers.  Since we have three of the brass hangers, we use those for the kids' stockings and the smaller hangers are for my husband and I.

But what if you have a larger family.  How do you hang lots of stockings without having to buy more and more stocking hangers?  And by the way, the stocking hangers can be expensive.  A quick search on amazon found similar ones to what I have for $15 - $25 each.

Diane from South House Designs has come up with a simple yet elegant way to display a lot of stockings.
She just uses two stocking hangers to hold a curtain rod.  The stockings are simply hung from the curtain rod.

Be sure to check out her blog post HERE to see what her stocking display looks like.

And if you are wondering where to buy stocking hangers, you can check out my amazon store links here, here, here and here.

As for where we got ours, I don't know.  They were a gift we recieved several years ago before we even  had kids.

And here are some more great ways to display your stockings:  on an old window, a cute board, a ribbon, a tree branch, or a ladder,

Ideas were found here, here, here, here, and here.

So how do you hang your stockings?  Feel free to include a link to your blog post in the comments.

(Every Friday I share something that I like, would like to do or otherwise inspired me in some way.  I call it "Inspiration For The Weekend")

Thanks for stopping by,

Christa

Inspiration For The Weekend - 45

Mormon Helping Hands is a program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to provide community service and disaster relief to those in need.

Thousands of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continue to volunteer to assist in the recovery efforts in communities affected by Hurricane Sandy.  Although these efforts are organized by the church, anyone and everyone is invited to participate.

   
Hurricane Sandy Helping Hands from Joshua Brown on Vimeo.

You can also click HERE to view the video.

The devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in these areas is unreal.   The outpouring of help, support, love and caring is incredible and inspirational.  We are all our brother's keeper.


Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a great weekend!
Christa


To read about more ways the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is helping those affected by Hurricane Sandy, you can check read the following articles here, here, here and here.

Inspiration For The Weekend - 44

I saw these and thought they were adorable.

Bibs that look like a dress shirt and tie.  Wouldn't these be so cute for church.

Be sure to check out Modest Maven where she has a link to the pattern you can buy to make your own.

These would be a cute Christmas gift idea for an expectant mother, or baby boy, or a great baby shower gift.

Hopefully today's post will inspire you to sew something, or start Christmas shopping, or Christmas craft making, or baby making (ha ha).

Have a great weekend!
Christa

Inspiration For The Weekend - 43 (Balloons)

Have you seen this?  Last week a friend of mine posted this on Facebook and I just had to check it out.

It's a living room made entirely out of balloons.

Click HERE to see a 5 minute time lapse video of the 40 hours over 3 days it took him to create this.

Check out his website:  http://www.balloonguyentertainment.com
or follow him on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/BalloonGuyEntertainment
to see what else he has done.

It's amazing what this guy can make out of balloons.



Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the weekend!

Christa

Inspiration For The Weekend - 42 (waterfall swing)

Have you seen this waterfall swing?

source

It was created by Mike O'Toole, Andrew Ratcliff, Ian Charnas, and Andrew Witte of the Brooklyn-based art and architecture firm Dash 7 Design.

As the rider swings forward, a hole opens up for them to swing through without getting wet.
O'Toole said that people get an old-fashioned thrill from narrowly missing being soaked as they swing on the high-tech play structure.

It was designed for the 2011 World Maker Faire.

Wonder how long until it makes it's debut in a city near you?

To find out more about it, you can go HERE and HERE.



Have a great weekend,
Christa

Inspiration For The Weekend - 41 (Halloween Desserts)

On Fridays I like to share something "inspirational".  This time it's also something delicious.

I've been seeing lots of Halloween themed desserts and treats on Pinterest, and being the dessert loving gal that I am, I've been dying to make some.  I've only gotten around to making one so far, the candy corn pudding.  I got the idea HERE, from Yellow Origami Bird.

 

 I just used a vanilla pudding box mix, and made it according to the directions.  I split the pudding mix in half and added two drops of red food coloring and two drops of yellow food coloring to one half.  So now I had an orange pudding and a yellow pudding.  I should have looked at the example more closely because my colors are not in candy corn order.  The kids didn't notice and it tasted great anyway.  I layered the pudding into the bowls and topped with whipped cream.  It was easy to make and looked neat. 

You could even make this for a Thanksgiving treat too.

Here are some other Halloween desserts and treats that I've found

Inspiration For The Weekend - 40 (Trunk or Treat Ideas)

Our church is having a trunk or treat next week.  So I'm gathering ideas on how to decorate my car.
Thought I'd share what I found as my "Inspiration For The Weekend".  I hope to get inspired and decide how to decorate my car.


This Wizard of Oz themed car is cute and seems simple to do, just need to get the costumes.

What a cute way to include your newborn into the festivities:

A giant spider web and some fall decor:

A silly car.  It looks like the tongue is just a red pillow case.

I love the toaster car, and the coordinating costumes too.

All of the above images were from The Adams Family blog found HERE.

A Cars themed group of cars.  Hmmm, hubby has a red sports car, maybe we should dress that up as Lightning McQueen.

Jail

Star wars jail

The three images above were from Tip Junkie, you can find them HERE

Another cute idea is to dress you trunk as the bed from Toy Story.  And the kids could be Toy Story characters like Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and Jessie.  Thats exactly what the Niebuhr family did.  You can find out more about their trunk or treat adventures HERE

Another idea to incorporate a baby.  Doesn't he look so cute as "King of the Jungle"

So many great ideas.  Still not sure what we'll do, and now I feel like decorating more than one car.

Have any of you participated in a Trunk or Treat?  This is our first time.
What have you done to decorate your cars?


Thanks for stopping by.  Be sure to check back next week to see how our Trunk or Treat Activity went and how I decide to decorate our car.  (update: You can check out that post HERE, and you can check out the 2013 Trunk or Treat activity HERE)

Have a great weekend!  We're going pumpkin picking to a place that advertises pink pumpkins.  We just have to check that out.

I would love for you to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

Inspiration For The Weekend - 39

On Fridays I like to share something "inspirational".  Sometimes I'm inspired to create or make something. Sometimes I'm inspired to do something or to change.  A lot of my inspiration comes from someone else's creativity.  

Check out these cute mummies I found over at Eighteen25.  Jill made these out of toilet paper tubes.

Click over to her blog HERE to see how she did it.

Another toilet tube craft is these adorable owls found HERE.

Well, I have plenty of toilet paper tubes.  For some reason I started saving them thinking I could make a craft out of them.  So Sweetie Pie and I made our own versions.

What do you think?
They were super easy and best of all the material were something we already had on hand.
Hmmm, what other crafts can we make out of all these toilet paper tubes? 

How about bunnies for Easter:

source

Or Valentine sun catchers:

source

Or race cars:

source

There are lots of possibilities.  Seriously just type "toilet tube" into the search field on Pinterest and check out all the ideas.   What a great way to be crafty with your kids using something you were going to throw away anyway.  

What have you recycled into a craft?


P.S.

Episode 4 of Season 3 of Downton Abby is available from Utah Sweet Savings HERE.
It's getting good now.  Well, it was always good, but now there are a few more twists to the plot.
If you haven't gotten a chance to watch episodes 1, 2, or 3, click HERE for the links.

Thanks for stopping by,

Christa

Inspiration For The Weekend - 38

On Fridays I like to share something "inspirational".  A lot of my inspiration comes from someone else's creativity, and I'd like to share that with you too.

Last weekend Sweetie Pie turned 8 and was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.    You can read more about that HERE.  

Every celebration needs a good dessert.  So being the creative genius copycat that I am, I searched the Internet for some ideas.

Here is what I found:

This is a cute baptism cake

source

CTR stands for Choose The Right, appropriate for choosing to be baptized.

source

Since we were also celebrating her 8th birthday, I thought something like this would be fitting.

source

It also looked simpler than the first two.  Simple as in the shape, not the decorative icing.

Sweetie Pie requested a peanut butter cake with peanut butter icing.   My mom has made that for parties in the past and it's become Sweetie Pie's favorite kind of cake.   I asked my mom to make it in the shape of an 8.

There are two ways to do this:
Make two bundt cakes and put one cake above the other so it looks like the number 8.
OR
Make two circle cakes, cut out the middles and put one cake above the other so it looks like the number 8.

My mom did the latter and here's how it turned out:

Sweetie Pie loved it!

And it was delicious.



What kind of cakes have you made (or gotten your mom to make) for your kid's birthdays?



Thanks for stopping by,
Christa

Inspiration For The Weekend - 37 (free museum day)

Today's "Inspiration For The Weekend" post is about a great opportunity to have some free fun.

I found out that Saturday September 29th is FREE MUSEUM DAY:

Check out this link for more information. You can search by museum name, or by state.
There are quite a few in our local area that have free admission.  If we didn't already have plans, we'd go to one.  It would be a great family fun day, and it's free.

We've gone to museums before (unfortunately not on the free day) and the kids love the hands on activities.   Mom and Dad had fun too.

Have a fun weekend!
Christa