Thinking You Aren't Good Enough

Does that feeling of inadequacy ever strike you? I often feel like I'm not good "enough". I'm not sure how good I'd have to be to qualify as enough, but I'm quite certain I currently am not. I'm not a good enough wife or a good enough mom or a good enough Christian. I especially cannot fathom how *I* can qualify as Christian enough to train my children to love and worship God.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Matthew 7:20 KJV Am I a good tree or a corrupt tree? Are my sins so deep, I cannot show my babies the way? No, they aren't. Hopefully, I can lead them from the sins I have committed.

Malachi loves God. He likes to tell me things about "Jeesius", about how much the Lord loves us. He makes me smile. (When he isn't making me pull out my hair!) If I am so bad, why does Mal like to pray randomly throughout the day to thank God for a safe drive to the store 10 minutes away? How does he know he can ask for God's help when he is having trouble behaving? "Dear God, please help me stop jumping in Mommy's chair. Amen."

On Good Friday, we made it to St. Albans MOPS. We don't make it often because Friday School usually falls on the same Friday. The boys came home with various and sundry Easter projects; colored eggs, plants (well, seeds in a cup), and a plastic egg for each of them with a small accordion folded egg-shaped book (Mal called it "a pray book of my Jeesius") and a small green stamp that read "Jesus lives!". Now the whole point of this gift was to open the book and stamp Jesus lives on all of the blank pages. Mal took it one step further. Maybe more than one step further. He stamped his hands, face, shirt, the ceiling of the car above his carseat... and this.

MOPPETS gifts

At the larger MOPS I attend, each small group takes turns making/buying an appreciation gift for the MOPPETS workers (the childcare providers). I just got my new scor-pal and was eager to make some boxes and try it out. I cut and scored 18 boxes (AND assembled seven of them!) in about an hour. We then filled each box with gum, spring tic tacs, homemade cookies and a tiny, adorable egg decoration. Then we wrapped them in cellophane.

Each box is about 2.75" square and 3" tall. I used SU's rich regals cardstock and the SAB paper. The sentiments are Max Lucado stickers from Walmart, mounted on WW cardstock and popped up on dimensionals.

January Cards

Some cards I made this month.

Birthday
Since these have probably been received by now, I can post them here. You are the queen was a dollar stamp at Michael's. How cute is that?! The chipboard is from colorbok. The rest is SU!.

Get Well
A friend's daughter was hit by a delivery truck in Mexico almost two weeks ago. She is in the hospital there and they hope she will be home with them next week. Please pray for Vanessa that she heals well and quickly from this ordeal and isn't any the worse for the hospital stay in Mexico. The inside of the card says simply "praying for you" (it's from the set you see below).

Valentine's Day
We made these cards at my small MOPS group last night. The paper is more of the DCWV Christmas Stack from 2007 (I will be using that paper for. ev. er.). That particular piece of striped paper paired nicely with Pacific Point and Bashful Blue cardstock. I used So Many Sayings from SU! for the sentiments. That was a set of three stamps, but I had M get me some square sticks (with the dowel rods) and I cut them up and got 36 individual sayings and borders. They are so easy to use now. I have another set like it that I need to get sticks cut for so I can use that one too! These were inspired by THIS card by Silke Ledlow.

MOPS Gifts and Projects

I made these clear glass ornaments with the two MOPS groups I'm involved in. In St. Albans I run Creative Activities with my friend Jodie M. There we used the small ornaments I picked up at Joanne's. I used last year's DCWV Christmas Stack, assorted silver ribbons and this silver garland with these tiny little stars shooting off it. In E. Berkshire, I coordinate the (very small) group myself. We used the larger ornaments (from Creative Habitat - thanks Jenny!), same assortment of ribbon and stack, but instead of the garland, we put some iridescent icicles in them.

I also made this Cookie Cutter Fudge that my good friend Linda pointed out to me. I found cookie cutters 6 for $1 - trees, snowmen and stars. They are smaller than the ones on the website, but this recipe made a dozen and still had enough to get some thin fudge in a 5x5 pan. They are in the SU medium cellophane bags, and tied with their Pink Pirouette ribbon. I used the retired navy organdy to tie the tags on.