Apr 23, 2008

Weekly Post and Bloggy Break!

It seems like lately I've been making only 1 post a week. Things have slowed down a bit and I'm so enjoying the wonderful weather. We've been in the yard everyday mowing, hoeing, and the kids have even been doing their school outside on the patio table. I LOVE the spring! It's awfully hard to be in nature and not see God everywhere. He sure did a good job when He created everything, nature itself declares the glory of God!

Oh yea this morning when I was waking the children up I took this quick picture of Hannah, she's 10 but she's still my baby girl. Oh yea and she sleeps with a whole herd of babies.

Today we went back to Slovenia to buy a few groceries and you'll never guess what we found. Okay I'll tell you, BOWLING! Really a real American bowling alley. We went inside and found out it opens tomorrow and we can't wait to take the family. It's 16 € for 1 hour of play. You can rent shoes for a little more than 1 € but the catch is; you have to buy special socks to wear when renting shoes and you can only buy the socks there. Hmm, pretty smart huh?

Oh yea and I took this picture of the kids at church the other day. I sure love these kids. The big boy in the back is mine and the cute white faced little girl in the middle is Hannah, she's mine too. Anyhoo, I just thought I would share them with you, they sure are special!



Hey guess what, Sew Mama Sew is still having her Tutorial Contest
and she has some wonderful tutorials. It's totally worth checking out. Fire up that old Singer and let us see what you can do!


Well I'm so tickled, guess what's about to happen? My best friend is coming to Croatia. I know you've heard me talk about it a lot, well I'm kinda excited. They fly into Budapest, Hungary on Tuesday morning and then we'll bring then back to lovely Croatia. They, Pastor Rasbeary , his wife, and Bro. Petulant will be here for 11 days. So I won't be posting much if any while they're here but I'll be back soon with lots of pictures and stories to tell.

Take care my bloggy friends, and I'll be back in a few!

Apr 20, 2008

New Work Space!

Well I finally did it! I finally cleaned up and organized my sewing space. Actually I'm not finished but I'm pretty happy so far. I was such a mess and when I wanted to sew I had to straited up first. I had been meaning to organize it but never could seem to make it a priority.

Because I use a small corner in Johnny's (wonderful hubby) office I had alot to fit into a small space. I figured the best way to fit it all in was to go up as in shelves. I didn't really have the money to buy a system but I did have some old wooden mounts and a board that fit just fine. After I put the shelf up I noticed that it really looked a bit lost on the wall.

So I took the shelf, mounts, drawers from the little chest and the thread board out side and stained them red. I wanted a real red but I got more of a mahogany/redwood look to the wood.
After it all dried and I was surprised that it only took a couple hours to completely dry, I moved it all inside. I finally got the shelf up and then thought about something I had seen.
You know in the super wonderful sewing rooms they always have rools of ribbon on a bar, well I figured a way to do it. Johnny and I went to the local hardware store and found a 3 ft. thing metal bar. I drilled holes in the mounts and inserted the bar, whala, a ribbon holder. The only thing I need to do is to cut the bar off at the end and use some bolts to finish it. I know it's not Heather's studio but it's functional and it's what I have.
So all that's left is to get busy creating. I have been doing some culottes for my sweet Hannah girl lately but after that I have some neat projects I want to start.

Anyhoo, thanks for looking!!

Apr 18, 2008

I Won!!!

Hey y'all, guess what! I won! Really I won a contest over at the BaptistMuse. Guess what, I didn't even enter the contest and I still won. How cool is that? Today I got an e-mail with a $10 gift certificate to Amazon. Yea!

If your an Independent Baptist you might want to check out the BaptistMuse. Bro. Nicholas posts some wonderful stuff and his sweet wife Diane makes her appearance every so often too. Oh yea and he has guests writers from around the blog sphere also.

Oh yea again if you don't remember; I won!!

Apr 17, 2008

How Exciting!!


Wow guess what?? The other day we're all inside and I heard hollaring. We looked around and realized that it was our neighbor. Apparently the postman delivered a package from the states to her house and it was for us.

We were so excited to find out our very good friends, the Brantleys from N. Carolina had sent us a care package. The Brantleys are members of one of our favorite churches in NC, Grace Baptist, Pastor Wes Bailey. Anyhow wasn't it so sweet or what? They sent: two packs of every missionary's secret desire, Oreos, a billion or so packs of Kool-aid, enough taco seasoning to start our own restaurant, two packs of Cilantro seeds (for hot salsa), a huge container of Ranch dressing mix, several great preaching CDs, 3 boxes of every missionary childs secret desire, Pop Tarts, and enough season to last me a life time. What a wonderful treat from a family who mean alot to us.

Thanks Bro. Shane, Teresa, and kids!

We love you guys!

Apr 16, 2008

Wonderful!!


Please go by the Seller's Blog, Valley of the Mountains and watch their mission presentation. They have a wonderful family heritage and call to the country of Nepal. I wiped the tears away as I watched this video and again felt the burden for a country without the Gospel.

Please go see the video and pray for this family.

PLEASE READ
***it has been brought to my attention that some people are viewing a video that isn't this family's presentation. I have followed the link several times and every time it comes up as normal. If you follow the link and find anything strange, please let me know. Also you can tell if it's the right video by the blue screen and the word Introduction at the beginning. If it is not a blue screen please do not watch it.

Thanks Pam for the heads-up.

Apr 15, 2008

How to Remove the Border Around a Header

Hey Y'all!!
I sure enjoy browsing all your lovely blogs and I enjoy the individuality of each. As I've been browsing I noticed something: on many of your lovely blogs you have a border around your header picture and sometimes the border isn't the same size or isn't lined up. Well I thought I would share with you how easy it is to remove that border.

1. Open your Blogger Dashboard
2. Open the blog in question
3. Go to LAYOUT
4. Now click EDIT HTML
5. Scroll down in the HTML window until you see this:

/* Header

-----------------------------------------------
*/

#header-wrapper {
width:660px;
margin:0 auto 10px;
border:1px solid $bordercolor;
}


#header-inner {
background-position: center;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}

#header {
margin: 5px;
border: 1px solid $bordercolor;
text-align: center;
color:$pagetitlecolor;
}


6. In this section you are going to change the pixels on this border.
7. See this line in the above code: border:1px solid $bordercolor; It is in the 1st and 3rd sections
8. Change the 1px to 0px
9. Preview your blog to see if the border is gone.
10. Save your work!

Apr 11, 2008

Catching Up!

That's what I'm doing today, catching up. I've been away for a bit, but i'm back. It's funny how much I miss this whole blogging thing when I don't do it.

Anyhoo, we had out Spiritual Conference with Bro. Bill Smith and it was fabulous! He did and outstanding job and covered many of the battles our people are currently going through.
We had a great crowd each night and many people praying at the alters. Sadly there were 3 unsaved people at the conference and they remain unsaved, not because they didn't have opportunity.

Here are some pictures I took, not many but some. Here's the line-up (literally) of our men at the conference, not all but the main ones. L-R Bro. Rajko is the national pastor that Johnny trained, Johnny is next (handsome huh?), Bro. Bil Smith, our honored guest and Bro. Dave Fraunhoffer, missionary in Hungary. Bro. Smith preached four times each night, over three days we covered 12 lessons or sermons. It was great and he did an excellent job. Oh yea Bro. Rajko translated for him every night.
On Sunday morning we had the priviledge of hearing Bro. Fraunhoffer preach to us. He did an wonderful job and brought the sermon we all needed to hear. Here is a picture from one of the meetings. You can see the crowd and the building. If you think our building looks sorta American in style that's because it is, we had 23 men come from the states with all the material and they built this building in 8 days. Really! We have a very unique building since it's probably the only one of it's kind in the country.

Anyhow, the conference went great and we look forward to seeing Bro. Smith next year as he returns to preach out 2nd spiritual conference.

Oh lest I forget, guess what wonderful thing is happening over at Sew, Mama, Sew!? She is hosting a tutorial contest and it's great. There are already some great tuts and I can't wait to see what else comes in. Oh yea and she's offering a $25 gift certificate to the Sew, Mama, Sew! store and trust me, they have great stuff! So, if you have a tutorial you would like to enter, please do. I can't wait to see all the entries.

Guess what? In less than three weeks my friend, my bosom pal is coming to see me. I can't wait, it's gonna be so much fun. They will arrive at the end of this month and be here for 9 glorious days. We're gonna be so goofy and have so much fun. Oh yea and when they get here I don't know how much I'll be blogging but I'll be taking lots of pictures!

Well I'm going to do some decorating today, well actually just putting some more stuff on the walls. I don't know if that's decorating or not but I'm gonna finally get that black frame grouping up. I was thinking of doing some vinyl lettering for it, but I decided against it. I thought about cutting out, "Today's moments are tomorrows memories" but I don't think I will, not now though but maybe later.


I have some new blooms in my yard. Actually one one is a bloom, I'm not sure what the others are. I love, love, love the purple Magnolias, aren't they pretty??
Then this critter and it's yellow blooming berries, I guess. Please, if you know what it is, leave a comment and let me know.
Lastly this tree, I figured it would have some blooms but this isn't what I expected. It's pretty though and the red is a nice change.
A new name, Praise the Lord Jasmin was saved yesterday evening. He's 20 and he'll be coming to church on Sunday. Pray he will decided to be baptized and get faithful. One more soul down, only 4,300,000 to go!

Have a great Weekend Y'all!!

Apr 7, 2008

Oprah's Heresy

Of course you've all seen this before, but it's so important that Christians know who and what she is. She is in fact a tool of Satan to lead millions of souls to hell.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

John 14:6

Wow, that doesn't seem too hard to understand.




We must be so careful what comes into our home, in front of our eyes and the eyes of our children.
Remember, Satan is the prince of the airways.


Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Ephesians 2:2


We must be careful, mark those that do not endure sound doctrine and obviously Oprah does not.

Now I beseech you, brethren,
mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
Romans 16:17


Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Titus 1:9

This is a serious business, we need to be faithful to the Truth we have been taught, endure sounds doctrine and avoid those that go against the Doctrine we know to be truth.


Apr 4, 2008

Pretty Busy for a Few Days!

As I sit here and type I realize it's the calm before the storm, not a bad storm but a storm of activitiy. Today we start out Spiritual Warfare Conference at church. We have guest speaker Bro. Bill Smith flying in to speak for us. He'll be making his way down from Budapest, Hungary with missionary Dave Fraunhoffer and three of his children. We're so excited to have them and our kids can't wait to speak English to someone. :0)

We start the conference off tonight with a 45 minute secession and then dinner together and then another 45 minute secession. Tomorrow and Sunday night we will do the same with a 1hour service Sunday morning.

I have lots of cooking on the agenda. Tonight the church will provide roastil chickens and we will fix all the sides, Croatian style. Tomorrow we'll be having real Italian spaghetti. Croatia is right next to Italy so we have some pretty authentic cooks. Oh yea and real Italian isn't the same as the Olive Garden! :0) I personally prefer American Italian but that's a different thing!
Oh yea and Sunday night will be Goulash. The Northern part of Croatia was once part of the Hungarian Empire so they're pretty good at making Goulash too.
Should be some good eats!!

Oh yea and I'll be taking lots of photos too, so stay tuned!

Oh yea for all you Texans out there, look what I found. Did you know that there are blue, white and pink bonnets in Texas. All my years in Texas and I never saw a pink blue bonnet, :0) but they're real. Aren't they pretty. I actually have some blue bonnet seeds here in Croatia that I'm going to plant this year. Hey now that I think about it, there is probably a law against planting foreign florals, I bet, but ignorance is bliss!!

I read the "story" of how the pink bonnet came to be...They say that after the battle at the Alamo with Santa Ana, the pink bonnets were discovered growing down stream from the Alamo. They say the blood of those brave Texans colored the bonnets pink. In truth, the original pink bonnet was first found south of San Antonio growing along side the road. Very interesting.

Also they say that the flower of Texas isn't the blue bonnet but instead it's the species of bonnets that include all three colors (white, blue and pink). Just so you'd know!

Oh yea before I forget, Tracy over at Unless the Lord posted a wonderful tutorial for making a crochet needle case. I tried to make one of these the other day with out much success. I'm stubborn and tend to want to do things with out instruction and usually have to go back and redo it. So I'm going to redo it using Tracy's tut.

Happy Sewing!

Oh yea one more thing, I keep remembering all the things I wanted to tell y'all. :0)
There's a new craft blog for kids, The Craft Crow, it's really fun and has lots of links and ideas for things to do with the kids.

Praying you all have a great weekend and Lord's Day!!!

Apr 2, 2008

Sunny Days are Here Again!

I have been basting in the sun lately. I can't seem to stay in the house because the sun is so lovely. It's nice to have a yard to work in now. Before when we lived in the center of town we didn't have a yard, actually we did but it was only 5x5 ft. , is it possible to do anything with that size yard and it was only about 8 inches deep in soil and then a cement slab. So anyhoo, I'm so enjoying having a yard.

Yesterday we mowed and did some cleaning up in the yard. Hey remember those little purple flowers I showed you from this post? Well look at them now, aren't they wonderful?? And to think I almost pulled them up as weeds!
Oh yea and here is my master piece, there aer two of them sitting outside the front door. I'm going to buy a nice pot to put them in if we get the money or I even thought about some nice burlap and raffeta, what do you think, the ugly black pot from the nursery isn't so nice. In case you can't tell, it's a spiral topiary. It's a little sparse now but I think it'll fill in. HGTV has a nice article about how to make a spiral topiary you can find it here and one more good link here at Dave's Garden.


I pulled up the dead Heather plants in my little garden area and planted some color. Our yard is made up of lots of low maintenance ever greens, which I love but I think it needed some color. So I planted a few of these cuties and can't wait for them to settle in.
Anyhow, the yard looks great and I'm happy.


I thought I would share this little poem that I read from the Baptist Bread devotional book. This particular devotion comes from Jay Cubbison, Pastor of Joy Baptist Church, Westland, MI.

Heaven's Eye

"And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: yea are of this world; I am not of this world." John 8:32

With awe and appreciation,
We look upon a tapestry so finely rendered.
We think of the labor and care,
The precision and dedication tendered.

Do we often look upon or seek to display,
The knotted, frazzled underside?
It is the finished from that intices delight,
And there is value we decided.

The front is beautiful and cherished,
Yet lost, except the back side.
Trust the Master as He weaves
Our beauty comes alive.

Perfect His will is in us fulfilled,
Greatly please God on hight.
Appreciate the beauty of God's work,
See the struggle with Heaven's eye.

"Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;" Psalm 33:18



"I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt: I will guide thee with mine eye." Psalm 32:8


Hope you all have a wonderful Hump Day!!