Olive shoots

Gotta love moments like these (even Jayden is paying close attention:)

and these...

For those who don't recognise it - this is a Paw Paw (papaya) protective stretchy thing that becomes a favourite plaything in our house...

I must confess that these special moments are to be especially treasured in our house lately. As a Mum I am constantly crying out to the Lord to help our children to love each other more, to show thoughtfulness, to be cheerful and most of all to love the Lord. Often feels as though every moment there is a squabble to be sorted out, an unkind word spoken or someone has just had an injury and enormous bursts of tears and cries of pain are the norm... and maybe they are, for now...

So hard to see the Lord working sometimes, so difficult to deal with yet another battle (the same one we've been dealing with over and over for some time. Some days the battles really do begin from sun up to sun down... at times I believe I have even heard battles happening in sleep talk!

David and I are reminded, over and over again to cry out to the Lord - in our despair, to do a work in our children.

Mother's Day craft

I like to make something little for Mothers on Mother's Day ... just something to let all those Mammas out there (at church) know they are loved and appreciated. Some years the ideas seem to flow other times I think of an idea but it changes 3 or 4 times before I find the right prototype to suit. Well here is this year's craft...

I started with... cork circles... I picked these up at Reverse Garbage (one of my favourite hang outs:) for $12/kg (I cannot remember how much it worked out each but pittance really because cork is quite light weight)

Some other things I used:

Mod podge - a type of decoupage glue - love this stuff

white paint

Tissue paper flowers (I think I could now do them in my sleep after making 30)

Double sided tape

metal screw in eyelets

keyring and small rings to attach to eyelets

Punched out flower pictures

Ribbon to match

Double sided tape

Shiny rhinestone stickers

Cello bags

Firstly I painted the cork circles white. It took quite a few coats to get a finished look as the cork seemed to absorb much of the paint.

I screwed small eyelets into the top (easily done with cork). I then attached my little pre-punched shapes, rhinestone centre, keyring and tied ribbon to the top. I gave the whole thing a lick of Mod Podge. I also turned them over and did another flower on the other side. Ta- dah...

I then roped my Joshua into helping me bag them up with a couple yummy Aldi chocolates in each (the incentive for Joshua was having a choc. sample when finished:) and tied them up with a tissue paper flower on the front:

Then arranged them all in a basket ready for all the beautiful Mums young and old at our church

I had myself a lovely mother's day - a lovely posie of Aussie flowers from hubby and spent the day enjoying my handsome young nephew's dedication service and scrumptious lunch to follow... enjoying lots of cuddles with my young uns'