Be-YOU-tiful

In a world were beauty is constantly "debated" about, I am striving to raise children who understand their divine worth and individual beauty and understand that God defines that, not the world.

I think this is especially important to teach my daughter.

There will always be magazines, people, movies, and many other things telling her that she is not good enough, that she is not "beautiful enough". I want her to know that everything she is, is beautiful to God, to me and that she should see herself that way too. 

I want her to know that she is beautiful simply because she is a daughter of God. 

I want to teach her that she should see her own divine beauty and to help her see that in others.

I want her to know that Beautiful is not something that is up for the world to debate or to define.

Beauty is on the outside but most importantly it is on the inside.

I want her to know that being who you are, being a daughter of God and standing up for who YOU are is the most beautiful thing in the world.

I want to strengthen her as she walks through this scary world.

I want to teach her to be in the world but not of the world, to walk a higher path.

I want to teach her these things so that when the day comes when I am not standing by her side to help her that she can stand on her own and learn to lean on the Lord.

I want her to learn to turn to him to help her define her beauty.

I love the song that Mercy River sings called "Beautiful for Me." 

These are some of my favorite lines.

There's a whisper in the noise, can you hear a little voice? And he says, "Has anybody told you you're beautiful? You might agree if you could see what I see, cause everything about you it's incredible, you should have seen me smile, the day that I made you beautiful, for me."

If its true that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, I want my life and whats inside to give him something to behold. I want a heart that's captivating.

Close your eyes, look inside, let me see the you that you've been trying to hide. Long ago I made you so very beautiful, so I oughta know, you're beautiful.

I made these blocks to put into Aowyns room so that she can have a constant visual reminder to be herself and that she is beautiful just the way she is.

I bought the wood and painted the blocks white.

I used modge podge to attach the scrapbook paper.

And then I added the vinyl.

Her shelf is full of things handed down from her ancestors and things made for her by women who are very dear to my heart.

I want her to know of her beautiful heritage.

I often come and stare at this hutch when I am missing my grandmother and great grandmother.

There are so many beautiful memories on these shelves and I can't wait till the day when I can tell her all about these great women who helped me realize my own divine beauty.

I hope that each of us are able to see our own individual beauty through the clouded world we live in. Our Father in Heaven made each of us, and he made you so very beautiful.

I need to work a lot on making sure that I know my own divine worth and beauty so that I can teach my sons and daughter to find their own.

I need to stop being so critical of myself every time I look in the mirror.

I need to remember that when I look and seek to find all my "imperfections", that I am telling my Father in Heaven that his work of art was not good enough.

I know that I am good enough, that he made me just the way I am. And that he made me very beautiful.

You can go read another one of my posts along the same lines here.

I am a constant work in progress. 

Clothing rack in the laundry room

We have no space in our laundry room to put our hangers or to hang stuff to dry.

I was trying to find a simple/cheap solution to this problem.

We live in base military housing and since I could not put in a permanent fix I had to come up with a solution that could be easily removed.

I bought some heavy duty wire.

I wanted to make sure it would hold up to the weight of a lot of clothes and hangers.

I found this ladder looking this at Ikea, Im not sure what it is actually used for.

I took some spray paint and painted it red, cause it's a bright color for a small space.

I want to eventually get an old antique ladder to use but I needed something to use in the mean time.

The Ikea piece had holes running up the inside but they did not go all the way through.

I took a drill bit and drilled two holes all the way through the piece so I would have something to help me when it came time to hang it up. 

I did this 4 times. Twice on both sides of the ladder and then at the top and bottom.

I took my wall hanging wire and wrapped it in and out of both holes and wrapped it around itself to secure it tightly.

I used this hook to hang the rack and it worked for a little bit but after a few days the weight pulled it out of the wall so I had to get a hook that was meant to go into dry wall and hang heavy pieces.

(sorry the picture is so blurry. I wrapped the wire around the hook after I realized it was going lopsided under the weight.)

That did the trick and it has not fallen out of the wall yet.

It is also important to wrap your wire around your hook.

You do this to prevent the rack from becoming lopsided due too to much weight on either side.

Thankfully it has worked out perfectly.

I can't wait to find an antique ladder and try the same thing with it.

Do you have a small laundry room?

If so, what are some of your solutions?

Here are some of my favorite laundry room images from my Pinterest account.

(click here to visit my Pinterest account and click here to see my Laundry Board)

I listed the original sources under the picture if it was available.

better homes and gardens

I absolutely LOVE the idea of having a sink in my laundry room. 

I also love how bright and airy these rooms are. I spend a good deal of time in my laundry *closet* that it would be nice to have something bigger, brighter, and cheery. In my ideal world I would have a big space to sort, fold, and hang laundry. I would have a basket for each kid to take to their room (one day they will be in there folding too). I would also love to have a TV in there, something I could either catch up on shows, watch movies or listen to music with. I fold my laundry on the couch now, so it sits in our living room for long periods of time waiting to be folded and put away. 

Does anyone else dream of their perfect laundry room?

Aowyns Birthday

Aowyn turned 2 on December 1st.

I made Aowyn a kitchen for her birthday out of an entertainment center.

It took FOREVER and cost more then I thought (about $110 for everything), but in the end I loved how it turned out. ( I still need to add the knobs to the stove, I ordered them but they did not arrive in time and I can't seem to manage to find the time to put them on.)

She loved it too!

We gave her a couple more presents before church and then more after church.

She loved all her babies and clothes.

Two things that are her absolute favorites.

I also found her a cradle at an Antique store and repainted it and repaired some of it.

She loves books that make noises and loves Minnie Mouse, so she was in heaven with the Minnie Mouse piano book.

She gets so excited when she opens presents. 

I love to watch her face.

She loves her jewelry.

I love this little girl so much. She is so silly and sweet. She loves babies and loves to take care of them, she is just the sweetest little mommy.