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Bling it on!

I like comfort anything. Comfort foods, comfort quilts, comfort footwear – all of them rate very highly in my daily existence. I love boutique shopping, but more often than not, you can find me in a favorite t-shirt and jeans. Even though I am really into comfort, aside from gardening season, I really enjoy having well done nails. I cherish being unique in my style, and for an outfit to really be mine, it has to involve something animal print, from the ocean, from the heart, or something with a touch of bling.

I was blessed with the best mother-in-law in the entire world. I love her, but if she were to have a signature look it would not include any of my pizazz. Jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts are her daily uniform – but no embellishments and definitely no bling. I adore her and there isn’t much that she does that anyone could improve upon.

That was until . . . yesterday. My mom-in-law is like the Pied Piper of children, and one of her tried and true tips is to always have play dough on hand. Of course, it is the homemade kind that is so much better than store bought. She has an entire corner of her kitchen dedicated to all things play dough. Over the years some additions have been made to her recipe like using Kool-Aid packets instead of food coloring for tint. I even once added essential oils as an experiment for aromatherapy dough. (It worked, but we never repeated it. I have to say lemon dough was pretty amazing. )

As we were preparing for St. Patrick’s Day, I just couldn’t help myself. I decided to attempt something I had seen on the internet somewhere (my friends would tell you probably Pinterest) by embellishing Grandma’s Dough in honor of our good friends the leprechauns. We made the recipe below as usual, but as we were cooking on the stove we added 2 tablespoons of gold glitter. I, of course, loved it as did my little shadow who also has a penchant for all things fuzzy and bling-y.

She thought it was much too wonderful to keep to ourselves; so, we made a bag for her friend and a bag for the leprechauns (more on that tomorrow).

Some days, I feel as if childhood is becoming an endangered species in this country. I will do anything possible to keep that magic alive. I want my kids to be kids as long as they can. Honestly, though, I am not sure who had more fun making sparkly dough. I think it would be a tough call.

Long live imaginations including hers!

Grandma’s Play Dough recipe (Kid tested and approved!)

Heat burner to medium.

1 cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 Tsp cooking oil, 1 cup water, food coloring or Kool-Aid mix, 2 Tsp glitter (We used gold, but my imagination tells me that faeries might like purple.)

Mix water and food coloring or Kool-Aid mix.

Stir this and other ingredients together in a saucepan.

Put on burner, stirring 3 to 4 minutes until mixture looks like stiffly mashed potatoes.

Allow to cool and then enjoy!

Sweet Grace: hope-filled

~ Real women ~ Real lives ~ Sweet Grace ~

As a little girl, Easter was always my favorite holiday. I enjoyed Christmas, but Easter always made my heart just jump for joy. I loved picking out the perfect Easter dress, bonnet, shoes, and those oh so adorable white gloves. I still love gloves today. There is just something so genteel about little white gloves. Growing up down South, we had egg hunts outside and sunrise services where we didn’t freeze to death. When Easter morning arrived, I could hardly contain my excitement. The items in my basket were always good, but for me the pure joy came when we stepped through the doors of our white church. He is risen! He is risen indeed! Those hope-filled phrases were used in place of hello, and they echoed from every corner of the sanctuary. Christmas is wonderful, but it if you want to see joyful Christians come to church early on Easter morning. I like contemporary Christian music, but I was raised on good old Southern gospel hymns. Each Easter, joy and hope exuded from every pore as we sang “Because He Lives” and “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”. Even today, I still get goose bumps when I hear the organ roll leading into the chorus of “Up from the Grave He Arose”.

Easter is the definition of HOPE. Maybe not according to Webster’s, but it really should be. Recently, I have been grappling with the reality of Easter. For any believer who has lost someone, the significance of Easter is a clinging hope. The only hope that makes sense. It is the promise that through Christ’s sacrifice, we will see those loved ones again. His incredible gift to humanity has made that possible. When I was a little girl singing with her church family, I would often get choked up on Easter morning. The chocolate bunnies and Peeps were nice, but even then I realized that someone gave his life for me. Lately, my conflict has been are we recognizing what Jesus really did? He didn’t just give up extra cream in his latte or get bumped off a flight. He gave his life in a cruel, brutal and foretold way so that we could know the lavish depth of His Father’s love. If you have ever felt unloved, this is why you shouldn’t. He loved you enough to go through with the most horrific of deaths. If you ever feel left out or rejected, please know that he chose me (and you and everyone else) – loved me enough to lay down his life. But even more significantly, he would have done it even if I was the only one who needed to be saved, and that alone fills my heart with hope.

Family Cooking: Easter Bread Nest

oneperfectbite.blogspot.com

This has been a gift for several years from our friend, Karla Adams. She is an amazing cook, seamstress, volunteer, and friend. Actually, I don’t know much she isn’t good at. Kandy’s kiddos have always loved when the Easter “knock” comes and there she is with the gift of this bread. It always looks beautiful on our Easter table. Delicious, fun, and something the whole family will love.

Ingredients:

2 Frozen loaves bread

5 raw eggs

Food coloring

Powdered sugar frosting

Dye eggs with food coloring. Add food coloring to 1/2 c water. Dye as desired. DO NOT boil eggs first.

When bread is thawed and just starting to rise, make into ropes of dough. You will have 2 long ropes. Take the ropes and twist them together. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Shape into a circle and pinch the end together to form this circle. Place the dyed eggs into the braided gaps. This will look funny at first. But as the bread rises it will look more like a nest.

Spray dough with cooking spray. Try not to spray eggs. Place a flour sack towel over it. When bread has doubled in size, bake @ 350 for 25– 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool completely. Drizzle with powdered sugar frosting. Leave it white or color it. Sprinkle with Easter colored M&M’s or robin egg candies.

NOTE: Before making the ropes I like to roll out each loaf of bread and add some butter and sugar with cinnamon. This gives it a little extra look and taste.

February Challenges: The February newsletter’s theme was love. We encouraged our readers to Did you love your neighbors? Did you encourage a young person last month? If so we would love to hear from you.

The best laid plans . . . well, we didn’t get the neighborhood soup night accomplished. The mission/tagline of this ministry ~ Real women ~ Real lives ~ Sweet Grace isn’t just something we say, but it is how we really operate on a daily basis. We want to be genuine and real, even when we come up short on goals. Instead of soup night, we cleared snow off of driveways following a recent snow storm. Our neighbors who were out of town returned home to clean driveways and were able to just relax. I did accomplish the writing of letters for challenge #2. I chose six teenagers to write letters of encouragement and told how proud I was of them. Most importantly, I told them how I was glad they were in my children’s lives. After I had mailed them, I told my kiddos that I had done it, in case any of the recipients said anything to them. A few did, and I received a call from one mom. The best was the one who caught my eye (didn’t say anything), but made sure I noticed her after the school band concert. It felt really good to do it. So much so, that I think it is going to become a habit.

Making hope a habit is the lesson from our guest writer this month. Our friend, Fay Prairie has blessed us with a great piece on choosing hope. Fay is a speaker, writer, counselor, wife, mom, and friend. You can learn more about her at her website http://www.fayprairie.com/ I have enjoyed getting to know her, and she has been a huge encouragement to me as I have decided to follow God’s leading in forming all of this.

Hope Can Advance Your Life

Life is full of uncertainties, disappointments, and moments of despair. However, even when times get difficult and intimidating, as long as we keep hope alive, we can continue to move forward with confidence.

When you have hope, you believe and have faith that things will get better and you will persevere. Hope is a powerful attitude which opens doors where despair slams them shut.

The Webster definition of hope is the “feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best” or the “feeling that something desired may happen.”

How does hope help us in our life?

1. Hope helps us to feel stronger. When we truly believe things will get better, we are willing to do whatever it takes. With hope we can look to the future with confidence and excitement, and we can begin to do more than we ever imagined.

2. Hope helps us focus on the positive. Whatever we focus on grows. When we maintain our focus on the positives in our life, more positive things come into our life. Hope allows us to look forward to all the wonderful things in life.

3. Hope helps us envision possibilities and solutions There will always be difficulties, but hope helps us to visualize good outcomes. It allows us to expect good things to happen.

4. Hope gives us the desire to learn and grow. Hope helps us regain interest and get involved more fully in life. By growing as a person we will make improvements that lead to greater life-satisfaction and well-being.

5. Hope helps us to take an empowered view toward life. A hopeful attitude helps us see the best, work for the best, and, ultimately, experience the best in life. Hope increases our joy, courage and level of success in life.

No matter what you face in life, always think hopefully, speak hopefully, work hopefully, and act hopefully. Do all you can to make hope a daily habit. Remind yourself that regardless of what happens in your life, you always have the option to choose hope.

Family Traditions

For the last few years, Kandy’s and Brenda’s families have gotten together to dye Easter eggs. We all look forward to it. Last year, I think we dyed eight dozen eggs. We decided the four dozen from the year before just wasn’t enough. Everyone gets involved. There is a lot of creativity – including planning for the next time we do this. Conversations of I saw this cool idea in Martha Stewart magazine or on Pinterest come up more than once. We dream, we plan, but mostly we laugh. I don’t think anything tops the laughter from the year we created a mural with the left over dye. After admiring everyone’s creations, we lamented about how the dye was just going to go to waste. As a teacher, I am always up for a new experiment. With a twinkle in my eye, I ran downstairs and grabbed an old white sheet that was destined to become a plant protector when the fall frosts threatened my garden. We took those coffee cups filled with dye and splatter painted that sheet. It was amazing. It was so much fun that it lands up there with catching fireflies, playing in the sprinkler, and running to meet the ice cream truck for this Southern girl. Of course, the most laughter came after the sheet dried and we noticed the now Easter dyed lawn. Oh well, a little collateral damage was worth the fun we had.

We would love to hear of your families Easter traditions. Please respond to this post with what Easter traditions you and your family hold dear.

Family Easter Garden

We decided to see repeat a blog from last year because it was such a wonderful activity that our whole family enjoyed. Our littlest one took pride each day in spritzing the garden with water. As the garden grew, she delighted in trimming the lawn with scissors.

http://kandynolesstevens.com/2012/04/02/easter-countdown-part-1-johnathan-has-a-starring-role/

March Encouragement

Spend a few minutes each day in the next week, praying and asking God to bring to mind one – just one – person that you can bring hope. Often in life, it is the small things that bring the most hope. Once you know who that person is do one small thing for them – write a note, send flowers, drop by for a visit, make a call, make a meal, do a chore. Just do something, and leave a message of hope. If you feel comfortable, you can tell the recipient you were the hope-filled giver. We would love to hear what you decide to do.

Ministry Update

We are proud to announce that we have partnered with 5j Design LLC to design our logo and website to help us basically help ourselves (when we are way over our heads technically speaking). They are assisting us in developing a better way to reach others with the message of God’s grace and love. In the coming months, we should have a new website with a more streamlined method of communicating with our friends and churches. The story of how we found Jake and Zach is an amazing God story, but just know He is looking out for us. Based on guidance from our friends at 5J Design, we have made one small change in our ministry. Watch for the unveiling of that change in the coming days.

We wait with hope for spring filled days where we can sit on the deck, sipping sweet tea and chatting. Until then, we would love to chat with you.

Kandy & Brenda

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (NIV)

A cross-country love . . . the last Reed’s Run

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I will be the first to admit that social networking has its pitfalls. I will stipulate that Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter can be huge time drainers. However, with eyes open wide to the pitfalls (of which I am prone) I also believe that my life has been enriched by the somewhat instantaneous connections with friends and family flung far and wide. I love relationships and that feeling of connection. I know it isn’t face to face conversation, and I agree cyber hugs pale in comparison to real embraces. Yet, I love that in the past few years I have reconnected with family and friends that I haven’t seen in person in many, many years.

Several of those relationships have evolved over the years to being some of my sweetest friendships. One of those sweet blessings is the deep friendship and adoration with our cousins in Washington. Long distance, we cheer each other on through all of life’s ups and downs. Our relationship has gotten so close that we have even started our own language, recently coining the term “Pray-paring” in relation to how we should get ready for anything life.

When we first announced registration for Reed’s Run 2012, these same cousins became the first to register, albeit with a twist. They were going to run the race remotely. We were open to the idea, and we happily mailed them their t-shirts. One of our cousins was so proud of her t-shirt; she immediately wore it to school the next day. (Again thankful for Facebook because that is where I saw the evidence.) They inspired a few more cousins and friends to do the same. Their willingness to participate (in whatever fashion) made our hearts soar.

The night of the run, my sweet Amy, penned us the following letter to tell of how they had spent the day and how the remote run went. She included all the pictures here.

Kandy

It is with joy that I write to you to share about our Reed’s Run here in Washington.

It was like waiting for Christmas morning. The countdown began & quickly, day by day, it got closer. The questions began. “Where should we run?” “When should we leave?” “What do we wear?” Then the preparation began. We got our light sabers first. (We had to have them to bring the boy in Reed, the playfulness into our home.) We got Gatorade ~ like it would somehow fuel our feet. I think it was then that I realized I had “pray-pared” a lot more than I had prepared. My heart was ready – the love overflowing – the joy and excitement contagious, but preparing physically – not so much. Kayla hurt a tendon earlier in the week at drill practice & Sam came down with strep. We wanted to do it as a group so we walked most of it & I was glad we did.

I woke up Saturday morning to a grey sky & wet pavement. Evidence of rain. We have not had rain in about 2 months which, in Washington, is unheard of. That is when I knew it was going to be a great day. Courtney (Sam’s girlfriend) came early with donuts. You need carbs to run you know. J I asked the children to help me with our “numbers”. Because we weren’t in Minnesota, we decided to use the names of Reed, Emilee, Hunter, Jesse, and our flag as our race numbers.

We drove to Ruston Way. A beautiful and most important flat road next to Puget Sound. J It was 67 F and sunny. We prayed by Kelly’s truck as a group and started on our way. I was surprised by the number of people who stopped & asked us what we were walking for. (So I thank you with all my heart for the shirts). It was an honor to share about Reed’s Run with them & everyone was touched by Reed’s life & his story. We finished with tired feet but joy filled hearts. What a gift it is do something nice for someone else.

Kelly & I took a few pictures & are sending them to you and your family. We want you to have an idea where we were. We wanted to bring a part of us to you.

I know that this is the last Reed’s Run, but I hope that you realize because you allowed us to be a part of this – we are forever changed. We will now look for simple ways to bring God into others’ lives by showing others His love. And every time we pick up our light sabers we will remember Reed.

Memories are beautiful part of God’s love & we have a beautiful memory of our special Reed’s Run day.

Love,

Kelly, Amy, Sam, Courtney & Kayla

Those that know me know I was a puddle of tears after reading this letter. I still choke up reading it. Of the multitude of reasons is the fact that our cousins love us and Reed enough to want to be a part (even their own special way) of our day. But more so, they were an embodiment that Reed’s story (which is ultimately God’s story) has a far and reaching effect. From what seems so senseless this side of heaven, God is using in ways that we can only imagine.

This time He used our cousins to help us see His bigger picture.

Note – the emphasized words in Amy’s letter are mine. However, I truly believe that is the heart of healing. Realizing that God has a purpose for us and often that purpose is to serve others may just be the secret to healing broken hearts.

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Bling it on!

A cross-country love . . . the last Reed’s Run