Resurrection Garden

Our Resurrection Garden

When Big Monkey was growing up, they had a Resurrection Garden for Easter. I had not heard of a Resurrection Garden until recently seeing them pop up on Pinterest.

GrandMom came to stay with the littles the other weekend and they planted a Resurrection Garden. Last night we had a lesson about it, added the crosses, put Jesus in the tomb and rolled the stone in front of the tomb. We asked the kids a few questions and I was impressed with what Little Monkette knew. Big Monkey asked if they knew what Jesus did on the cross. Little Monkette popped right up with, “died!” We talked more about what Jesus did for us and why it was important. Then we let them know that on Sunday they could roll the stone away and Jesus shouldn’t be in the tomb anymore because that is when he was raised from the dead. Tomorrow, we will find Jesus is gone and talk again about the real meaning of Easter.

 

Choosing To See

Choosing To See

I asked for this book for Christmas and received it. (Funny I asked for two books…before this I don’t even know the last non-children’s book I read cover to cover!) I was able to pick up this book when we went camping over new year’s and got about half of it read.

Choosing to See was a book that I honestly didn’t want to put down. I wanted to just sit and read it straight through, but even camping, that wasn’t possible. I did try and get some reading in at night and nap time once we got back. It didn’t take much longer before I had finished the book.

It was a great read. Lots of ups and downs, happy and sad, you’ll laugh and cry. I learned a lot about the Chapman family that I didn’t know before (For instance, Mary Beth’s last name was Chapman even before she got married to Steven! How handy was that!). The book shows their amazing faith and strong belief in God and how he will provide in all situations. No one wants to bury their child and they certainly don’t want to have to do so because of the actions of another child.

Mary Beth tells about life before Steven, life with Steven, life with their kids, adopting their three girls and all that comes with it. I was amazed by their belief and faith in God. Not sure why, because of course they have great faith in God, but in the unbelievably hard times they still did and while they may have questioned God and his decisions, they never questioned that he was in control.

I would recommend this book, especially to moms, but really anyone could get something great out of it. I have already loaned out my copy but once it comes back, I would consider reading it again as well as loaning it out more.

Thank you Mary Beth Chapman (who by the way has no clue who I am or that I’m writing this) for your willingness to share your experiences with the world. It was a blessing to read how God has changed your family through every circumstance. From being a SCC fan, it was cool to read about how things came together for you guys back in the day. I remember The Great Adventure-we sang that music with our church youth group for choir tour!

Initial Shirts

A family in our small group has two darling little girls. They also happen to LOVE Lilly. I thought they might like a fun gift and decided to make them both matching initial shirts with some Lilly fabric that we had. I think they turned out cute and hope the girls really like them too!

Initial Shirts

I am enjoying trying some of these new crafts that we have been doing. It makes me want to learn how to do a lot of other things. I am actually very excited to learn how to make some cute dresses for Little Monkette!

I am sharing this at:

Happy Mother’s Day!

Did you have a good Mother’s Day? Our plan was a busy day and it turned out that way!

It started with me being the first one up to shower, eat and get everybody else ready to go too. Then the kids and Big Monkey got up too. Before we left for church, Big Monkey gave me my Mother’s Day present. He got me a funny card, as did the kids. Then I opened my gift.

Mother's Day Pendant

Big Monkey did a great job. I will end up getting another necklace to hang it from but I used one that had another pendant on it so I could wear it right away. He wasn’t sure if I had one that I could use or not. At the top center it says I (heart) u and then has all of our birthstones at the bottom.
(A little history here–For our one year dating anniversary, Big Monkey got me a birthstone ring with his birthstone, a diamond and my birthstone. When he ordered it he was very specific about which one he wanted but when it came in, it said “MOM” on it! They ending up sending it back and fixing it but it was funny. After Little Monkey was born, we had the center diamond removed and added his birthstone to the middle instead. Now that Little Monkette is here, there was no way to add a fourth stone to the ring. Since I don’t wear much jewelry, Big Monkey decided a pendant might be a better idea. I love it!)

We headed off to church early because Big Monkey was singing on the praise team this morning. At church, they played a very cute video (made with kids from our own church) about why they loved their moms. When I picked up Little Monkey from his Sunday School class, he presented me with a rose and told me, “Happy Mother’s Day.” We came back home, changed clothes, got our stuff together and let the dog out. Then we headed over to Big Monkey’s brother’s house to hang out with their family for Mother’s Day.

We went swimming and Little Monkey LOVED it. He did a great job and even was jumping into the pool. Of course he wasn’t doing that when I was out of the pool and taking pictures though. Maybe next time. I even tried to catch some video of him, thanks to my Mother’s Day present from Grammy and Pops!

Camcorder

I figured out how to use it and did get some video of Little Monkey swimming. Now I have to figure out all the other items of how to use it and get the items on my computer. Hopefully we’ll get that figured out (I haven’t tried yet, so hopefully it’s not too hard.) and be able to share more videos with you.

After swimming, we had a big table full of food to eat for dinner. Then we played outside at the neighbor’s house (They weren’t home but thankfully wouldn’t mind us using their toys and driveway.). The boys played chalk for a bit, bubbles too and then it turned into multiple games of PIG and HORSE. As it turned out, I believe Uncle J won two games and Big Monkey won one. We also had some great dessert that Aunt S made for us (even though she can’t eat any of it!). It was very yummy.

It was a very busy and long Mother’s Day but we did have fun. I hope to soon have Grammy’s Mother’s Day gift done (slacker…I know!) and go see her to take it to her. Hope you all had a good Mother’s Day too.

My Little Stylist

Handsome!

Usually I pick out Little Monkey’s clothes the night before and lay them out for him to get ready. Saturday night was no exception. I let him know that he would have to get dressed but bring his shirt out for help with the buttons.

Sunday morning he came out, ready for church, minus the buttoned up shirt. I helped him button it up and a bit later he decided that his outfit was just not complete apparently. He told me that he wanted to wear his tie to church. This is very unusual because if I ask him to wear one he will refuse. He went to his room and found his guitar tie. I let him know that it did not match his outfit but that did not deter him one bit. He put it on and I helped him get it under his collar. He left his top button unbuttoned and kept the tie on through church and small group. He took it off once we got back home. Everyone at church told him that they loved his tie. Who cares if it matches, he was happy to wear it. I managed to get a quick picture of him right before he took it off.

Pepsi Refresh!

Pepsi Refresh is a program that is giving away grant money to the top ten voted on projects. Project Legacy is one program that is looking to get grant money. They have applied for the program but only the top ten ideas get grant money. This is where you come in. You can vote each day for the idea you like best. Just head over to Pepsi Refresh to vote. If you would like to help out Project Legacy, you can use this link to vote! Currently Project Legacy is ranked 150, so we have a long way to go to get the grant money. But, with your help, it is possible.

Project Legacy Information (from their Pepsi Refresh site):

This ongoing effort we call Project Legacy brings the business community & citizens together combining our efforts & resources to improve our whole community. We want to improve the lives of everyone in the area especially children. Our organization has begun fundraising to improve the state & safety of local schools, raised scholarships for youth to participate in sports & after-school activities. We hope to continue & expand our efforts to these & raise funds to give scholarship opportunities to youth in the community & help other groups including Kiwanis & Rotary clubs to improve the community in their own individual ways. Our goal is to combine the efforts of all causes in our community to improve our area as a whole rather than piecemeal. With the help of Legacy Week & local businesses we have been able to do 5% days & other fundraising to furthers our cause & allow local businesses to flourish in a struggling economy.

Project Legacy has applied for the $25,000 grant. Here is how they plan to spend the $25,000 should they get it:

$10,000 to improve safety measures and playground equipment for elementary school
$3,000 for scholarships for Lady Lake Little League Baseball Association
$3,000 for scholarships for the Lady Lake Soccer League Association
$9,000 to fulfill needs of the Lake County Education Fund

If you have a few seconds to spare today, head over and vote for Project Legacy!

The Unlikely Disciple

Back in January, Casey reviewed The Unlikely Disciple on his blog. I had heard about it before that and decided that I wanted to check it out. Since we don’t have money to spend on buying books that we will read one time, I decided to check the library. They didn’t have it but it did show it was on order. I kept checking back so that I would be able to check it out. Once it became available to put on hold, I did and almost immediately there was a waiting list of eight people waiting for the book! I was first in line, so I was excited to get the book, but also worried that I wouldn’t finish it in time. I don’t remember the last book I read completely, especially in a short time frame. Since there was a waiting list, I would not be able to renew my checkout time on the book.

Thankfully the book was a good, easy and pretty quick read. The more I read, the more I wanted to keep reading to hear about Kevin’s experiences. The author, Kevin Roose, was a student at Brown but he transferred to Liberty for a different experience. It was interesting to see that there were plenty of people at Liberty who also struggled with very tough issues. I didn’t expect to find that out. I mean, sure everyone struggles with something but  I just didn’t expect to find so much of that at Liberty.

The book also made me think about how we see other people. Most of the folks at Liberty thought that Kevin was a Christian when he was there. And from the outside looks of it, he was doing “all the right things” that one would expect from a Christian. Bible studies, singing in the church choir, prayer time in the chapel with his partner. He sure had some folks fooled. This made me wonder-who are we fooling and who is fooling us. Even if you can fool everyone around you into thinking that you are the best Christian, God knows your real heart and mind and you can’t fool him.

Since it was a fast read, I finished it in less than a week! Amy had wanted to read it too, so I offered it to her since it wasn’t due back to the library yet. She too finished it rather quickly. You can read her review here. If you want to read it and can’t get it from the library, you can look here at Amazon for it.

Birthday Bean Bags

Little Monkey was invited to another birthday party but we are not going to be able to attend. We still decided that we wanted to make a gift for the little boy. I am hoping that he will like them. Of course we might end up needing to make a set for his sister too! (Her birthday is coming up soon.)

Birthday Bean Bags

I really like how this set turned out. They are for a little boy at our church. His Dad is the music pastor so I included some guitars and music notes in his set. Since boys like trucks and animals, I found some fabrics I had with those patterns too. The birthday boy’s Dad and Big Monkey also play in a fantasy football league together so I made one with a football theme. I hope he likes them!

Loving These

I think I have just about mastered how I make my tag blankets. (Of course the other day I saw someone’s new tutorial…and now I think I might need to make a change. But that’s ok, always room to improve I suppose.)

One of my friends from church had a baby just two months before Little Monkette arrived. For some reason, I never made her little girl a tag blanket but just bought a gift instead. We were in small group the other week and her little girl was playing with Little Monkette’s tag blanket. We had not even gotten home and I had a message from her mommy asking if we sold those in the Two Florida Girls shop. (We don’t but we do have lots of other fun stuff!) She wanted to get one for her little girl. I told her I would be happy to make one for her and didn’t know why I never made one before!

I didn’t think I would get to work on it right away, but I actually did and had it done the next day! I hadn’t posted it yet because I didn’t want her to see it here (if she even reads my blog-but just to bed safe, I waited). But now you get to see this one too! I love how it turned out. The colors are very fun.

Fun Cupcake Tag Blanket

Of course when I went to take it to her husband (he works close by) he tried to tell me I spelled her name wrong! I about had a heart attack. I knew I had checked it a bunch of times. Turns out it was right.

Our Newest Model

The other day Little Monkey had agreed to wear a Little Guy Tie to church on Sunday. Then Sunday rolled around and he changed his mind and Big Monkey let him not wear a tie. I begged because he looks SO cute when he wears them, as shown by this photo that he did let me take but then asked to remove the tie!

So handsome!

I told him that I bet Roland would love to wear a tie. I was right. He didn’t even try and bite it or tear it off. Granted he only wore it for maybe two minutes max, but still. I suggested that he become the new Little Guy Tie model for Two Florida Girls!

Roland The Tie Model

(No dogs were harmed during this photo shoot. And no worries-that is Little Monkey’s personal tie and we will not be using Roland as the Tie model!)

Speaking of Little Guy Ties, they are on sale in the shop right now!! They had already been marked down and then got the extra anniversary sale discount too! Only $2.60 plus shipping. That actually gets you TWO ties because they are all reversible! Hurry on over and get a fun Little Guy Tie for your favorite Little Guy, the sale ends Thursday, February 4th.