9 months ago at this very moment...

On the day Elora turns another month older, I look at the time and think of what was happening at that very moment on her birth day. She was born at 8:44am, on Sunday the 25th of October after 72 hours of sporadic hard contractions followed by 30 hours of labor (anyone else amazed at what their bodies can do?!). When she was finally born I felt total surprise. Yeah, I knew I was having a baby, but after so long, it didn't really seem real. She really was in there, she was Elora all along. I'm so glad she joined us 9 months ago at this very moment!

Sew, Mama, Sew Thread Questionnaire

There's a thread giveaway over on Sew, Mama, Sew! I really need some new thread and the colors are amazing!! So here goes...

• How did you select colors for your personal thread collection? I just got the very basics. Black, white, off white, brown, and pink (pink is a basic when you have a baby girl!). And then I add new colors as I have projects that don't fit with what I already have.
• Do you always match the color perfectly to your project? I try to do my best. My mom always taught me to match the thread so I try to honor her and get matching thread :)
• Do you ever use contrasting thread? Sometimes. But it usually matches somewhere. Like if I have a print, I'll pick a color from that and use it everywhere on the project (like black fabric with pink thread, which I recently used for a dress for my daughter).
• Do you use the same color in the bobbin as the upper thread? Usually.
• What if a fabric has big areas of very different colors? I choose one color and go with it. Sometimes it doesn't blend as well but the colors all go together so it's no big deal.
• Do you have any tips or suggestions about choosing thread? Just make sure you take your fabric with you when you choose a thread to match. I've made the mistake of picking up something that looked close and it wasn't at all. Bummer.
• Can you show us a picture(s) of your thread collection? It's really sad...you don't want to see it, I promise! (that's why I need to win this contest!)
• Do you ever buy thread because you fall in love with the color (without a particular project in mind)? Sadly no. That sounds fun though. Even though a spool of thread is pretty inexpensive, I try to avoid buying extras when I don't need them.
• Do you “invest” in thread? No :(
• What types of thread do you have? (elastic, quilting, all-purpose, wool, etc.) I have elastic, polyester, heavy duty, all purpose...I think that's it.

The Garden

I planted a garden about 6 weeks ago. It was pretty late to get started on something like that, but that's what the weather allowed so I went for it. I'm so glad I did.

It's a small garden but I crammed it pretty full of whatever I could. So far I have only been able to harvest the herbs, but even that has been very rewarding...and delicious! Almost every evening for dinner I have picked some basil, oregano, cilantro, or all three. And iced tea is fabulous with a few stevia leaves and some mint. Love it!

I can hardly believe how much it's grown since I planted it. There are already some zucchini ready to eat! I know most gardens have probably already yielded a harvest, but mine is just a baby and I'm so proud of it! Look how much it's grown!

And I love the analogy of a garden. It's so easy to make connections to real life and Biblical principles (I'm usually so bad at making those types of analogies, but God has makes it easy when you're in the garden). The most obvious is weeds and sin. I can't believe how quickly the weeds can get out of control if they aren't plucked out as soon as I see them. The same thing with sin. If I don't pluck out sins as soon as they appear, they can grow and take over and then I wonder why I'm not harvesting very much fruit. And just as new weeds appear daily, sins become evident every day as well. It's so easy to rush through and think, I don't have time to deal with that. But when I remember to pluck out the weeds a few days later, they are so big! They've been stealing the water from the plants. The same goes with sin. When I neglect to pull out the sin in my life, it quickly grows and crowds out the fruits of the Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for the constant reminders!

Favorite Things

Elora...my nieces...sewing...creating...family...new storage...weddings...new babies...get-togethers...sharing the gospel...love...all for the glory of God. Those are a few of my favorite things.
Since my last post, my days have been filled with the aforementioned things. It's been busy but fun and I just wanted to highlight some of the goodness.
The weekend before last was my nieces' birthday party. They turned 1 and 2, I made them matching dresses and think they turned out darling! Of course when cute girls are wearing the dresses, they can't help but look darling.

Next event for the weekend was a wedding. The friends who got married are new believers who just started attending our church. They were baptized just a few hours before the wedding, it was so sweet to see such delight in them as they seek to obey God in all they do. They are expecting a baby in August and we're all very happy for them. It's so wonderful to have new members in the body of Christ.

Then we were on to regular stuff during the week, but we added in a little extra busyness by organizing an evangelism booth for the local Independence Day street fair which happens on the 3rd of July. We got to share the gospel with lots of people and I think Corey must have some "sunburn crowns" waiting for him in Heaven because he sure got burnt! :) Of course it's quickly fading in to a lovely farmer's tan. After the evangelism, we headed up to my sister's house just a short walk up the road from the downtown street fair. We barbecued, roasted marshmallows, and watched the fireworks from the driveway. It was great fun with the family.

We went to another fireworks show on the 4th but it was less impressive. Fortunately we spent lots of time with the family again and it was great fun. Plus Elora had a super cute outfit that I made from this tutorial on Made By Rae. I loved it and she got to wear it on the 3rd and the 4th to be extra patriotic :) Since she had already worn the outfit twice she decided it was time to really mess it up, so she dug in to some guacamole. Somehow I was completely unaware of it even though she was sitting right on my lap...hey, it was late, I had been up until midnight the previous nights, I wasn't all there, okay? She loved it though! She also really liked the fireworks...that is after she was convinced they were pretty. After each one I just kept saying, "so pretty!" and she started to agree.And finally...yesterday was a busy day

And finally, yesterday two projects were finished that had been looming over me! One was a dresser that we were painting to put in the kitchen to add more storage and counter space. The other was a dress for my cousin's baby who will be joining us any day now. Both are now complete and I am very happy! All it took a day off for Corey and he pushed us to get them done. It was great and I'm very happy with the results of both projects. No photo of the finished dresser right now, but here's one of the dress. I hope they like it!