YOU are a good mom!

A friend posted THIS on Facebook today.

As I read it, I was reminded of all the lies I used to believe about myself as a mom. It hit hard, and I HATE how the enemy can creep in, be so sneaky about it, and the cycle of those beliefs can start all over again if we aren't watching carefully, prioritizing our time with the Lord to be on guard so that the enemy will not come in a feed us those lies.

So mamas, will you please take a minute to read this? Don't let the enemy tell you things that you are NOT! You are a good mama, you're doing your best, and YOUR best is different than someone else's best, so don't compare. Look to the One who can tell you who He sees you as, do not believe the lies the enemy tells you. Be on guard and in prayer over your household, your children, yourself, so that the enemy knows he is not welcome in your home.

Hand/Footprint Christmas Projects

It's almost Christmas! Eeeeek! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas. We've been having unseasonably warm weather this December here in Michigan and currently it is raining outside (with a chance of thunderstorms tonight) Doesn't look like I'll be getting my white Christmas....sigh.

Something that I have enjoyed doing for my mom and dad as well as my mother and father in-law each Christmas that we have had children is to create a hand/footprint craft for them.I try and pick something that they can use as part of their decorating for the holidays. It's been fun to see the projects grow from 1 child's hand prints to having to figure out how to use 3 kiddos prints for the craft. Thanks to pinterest I have gotten some lovely ideas. I'm not super crafty and my projects don't always turn out like the picture ideas I have gathered (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone pinned mine on the 'pinterest fail' site), but that's okay. What matters is the love put in to each gift and how excited the grandparents are to get them each Christmas.

For each of my children's first Christmas I did a clear glass ball ornament and put their hand print on it and used puff paint to put their name and the year. 

Here are the projects that I have currently done:

2011 - 1 child hand/footprint reindeer

2012 - 2 children footprint "mistleTOES"

2013 - 2 children hand print wreath

2014 - 3 children Snowmen footprints

2015 3 children - Manger Scene footprint people and hand print animals (cow, donkey, camel)

Christmas Gifts for Teachers

As I continue to seek what the Lord has in mind for this blog, I am feeling as though it's supposed to be a place to encourage moms, share ideas that have worked for my family and things have maybe haven't worked. It's a place where I can share my joys and my messes of motherhood amidst the sticky fingers and laundry piles that flood my home (and I'm thankful for them). 

As I'm taking a few minutes to sit down while my younger two are napping (or resting quietly, cuz let's be honest, my 3.5 year old has decided he doesn't want to nap anymore), I wanted to share a project that two of my boys worked on this week for their teachers for Christmas presents. I can't take the credit for the ideas....pinterest helped.

Being a former teacher, I have received my share of gifts from students. I love how excited they were to show me what they have chosen, made, or bought for me. For me, some of my favorites are the ones that are made by the kiddos themselves, but it was also nice to receive something that I could use myself. I believe that teachers play such an important role in my children's lives as I am entrusting them with my children for many hours of the day (an homeschooling mamas....you rock too! I hope you occasionally get some 'teacher gifts' or bless yourself with something for a job well done). We wanted to bless our teachers with a little gift this Christmas season.

My oldest son is in Kindergarten. For his teacher's gift we did a gift card to Target (because Target is awesome!), a pack of colored pens (most early elementary teacher's love cute colored markers for lists, labeling, etc. I know I still do and I don't even teach anymore!), and some homemade pretzel hugs (a holiday favorite at our house). Below is the way we make pretzel hugs at our home.

My middle son, is in preschool and attends 2 days a week. We gave his teacher a Target gift card, some colored mini pens, and pretzel hugs. He also has a teacher assistant in his class and we wanted to bless her with a little something as well so we made her a Reindeer cup (with a Bigby gift card inside). I got the idea from pinterest after making THIS for my sons preschool teachers a few years ago (except we used Bigby coffee). 

Reindeer Cup:

I made an antler pattern and had my son cut it out as best as he could (he's 3.5 and still learning to work with scissors, I was really proud of how well he did!) You can see the cup with the gift card (I just asked for a small cup but any size would do when I purchased my gift card, don't forget to ask for a lid!) two googly eyes and a red pom pom and some glue (we used craft glue but you could use a hot glue gun if you wanted, since I wanted my son to make the project, we used craft glue)

I wrote "Merry Christmas Miss ____ love Brekan" and had him write his name. We glued this piece to the back of the cup.

Completed project! I think it turned out super cute!

Pretzel Hugs:

You will need circle pretzels (mine are from our grocery store, meijer brand), Hershey Hugs (regular kisses don't melt as well), and M&M's (I used red and green for Christmas)

Prehead your oven to 170 degrees (or warm)

I set up two trays with parchment paper and the pretzels on top and let my boys put the hugs inside each one (after hand washing of course). It's a wonderful fine motor activity and I just love this baking project because they can be involved in almost the whole process. You could even have them count how many they are doing. For each teacher I used 1 full bag of Hershey's Hugs. I only bought 1 bag of M&M's and had many leftover (lucky me)

Once the hugs are in all the pretzels I put them in the oven and keep an eye on them. You don't want them to melt completely but you need them to be soft enough to push down the M&M's and fill in the circle. If I was guessing it was between 5-10 minutes they were in the oven.

Take the trays out of the oven when ready and set on the counter (or hot plate if you need one). This next part you need to be quick so I helped my boys. Put the M&M's in the center of the hugs and push down gently. Then you let them set (I usually do it overnight) until they cool completely. I made a mistake this time and tried to take the parchment paper off the tray as to not have the hot tray around the boys. That didn't work as well as you can see the wrinkles in the paper and they didn't turn out as uniform as I was hoping (oh well, they still taste amazing). You can also try and put the M&M's on letter side down so you don't see any of the M's...because my boys were doing this project, it didn't matter, but if you wanted the uniformity of it you could do it that way as well for a cleaner look.

I bought little tins at the dollar store and lined with wax paper to fill up. 

There ya go! Merry Christmas! I think the teachers enjoyed their gift this year.

This is life....and it's amazing

Just a snapshot into my evening last night. I had my hubby snap a pic because I thought this moment went perfectly with my Blog Name. Just keeping it real....in the midst of folding laundry piles that seem to never end, I wore my dinosaur hat and played dinosaur stomp with my youngest. Kisses and tickles in the middle of the game just made it even better. I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me, "document this moment Kelly - it's going to go by so fast and you wont want to forget this". And He reminded me that even in the midst of a messy house (notice the Christmas stuff all over and the toys on the floor...the rest of the house looks similar if not worse! lol) and laundry piles there is plenty of room for laughter and smiles and JOY. I'm thankful for that reminder last night. The messes can wait...

Christmas/Advent Books Tradition

Christmas/Advent Countdown

When I was a little girl, I remember my mom getting out a special basket of books during the Christmas Season. They were about Christmas, Santa, Snowmen, how other cultures celebrated the season, etc. When I taught 1st grade in 2007/2008, I wrapped up 26 books (the number of students I had) and let the kids each open one each day (sometimes two) during the month of December leading up to our Christmas break. Now that I have a family of my own, I knew I wanted to bring this into our family traditions and when my husband and I were first married we decided this was the way we could countdown to Christmas.

Here's what we do: I have gathered (and still am gathering) books about Christmas. In our home, we want the focus of Christmas to be about Jesus' birth. While we do have some books with Santa, we choose not to put a huge emphasis on him in our home. Most of the books in our Christmas countdown have an emphasis the Christmas Story but some have Santa, some are about snowmen, kindness, helping others, etc. Below is a list of the books we currently use. The same book is used on Christmas Eve that tells of the Christmas Story from the bible. Currently it's in a version that the boys can comprehend for their ages but eventually we will simply move to reading the story right out of the bible as my husband did that when he was younger. I usually buy more books after Christmas when they go on clearance and also look throughout the year at garage sales and mom2mom sales. I also keep out a basket of other winter/Christmas books in the house during the season as well.

Ten Christmas Lights by Teresa Imperato (adorable counting book), this is the first book we open.
Biscuits Snowy Day by Alyssa Capucilli (my oldest will be able to read these this year as he just started to read!)
Biscuit Gives a Gift by Alyssa Cpucilli
Seek and Find Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (they LOVE the movie and they love seek and find books)
Seek and Find Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown (again, they love this movie at Christmas Time)
Snowmen at Night by Carolyn Buehner
One Night In Bethlehem by Jill Roman Lord (this is a board book for my youngest)
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas by Emma Kragen (board book)
Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson (we love all of her Bear books)
What is Christmas? by Michelle Adams (found this at Family Christian)
Room for Little One by Martin Waddell (board book)
God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Bergren - one of my favorites! I usually wait 'til the week of Christmas to open this one
Baby's Santa Mouse by Michael Brown (a book I read when I was little)
The Sweet Smell of Christmas by Patricia Scary (read this book growing up too but bought a new one so we could smell the pages as it's a scratch and sniff book)
An Otis Christmas by Loren Long (Otis books are awesome too if you have tractor loving boys like me!)
Mortimer's Christmas Manger by Karam Wilson (author of Bear books - we love this book, our pastor read it last year on Christmas Eve and I'm excited to add it to our collection. This book will be done the week of Christmas as well.
Humphrey's First Christmas by Carol Heyer. A beautifully illustrated book and great story.
Snow Friends by Christina Butler
Mistletoe the Christmas Kitten by Joe Troiano
Snowman's Story by Will Hillenbrand (My oldest loves this book because you make up the story as it has zero words....it's different every time!)
Goodnight Manger by Laura Sassi (same author as Goodnight Ark, beautiful pictures)
Pine Tree Parable by Lizz Curtis Higgs
Away In A Manger (this is a song book that plays the song with pictures and lyrics)
The Christmas Story by Patricia Pingry (this is our Christmas Eve book) we wrap this one in gold paper because it's the most special story for us


I already have a list going of books I'd like to get for next winter! Titles Include, Santa's Favorite Story, Ten in the Sled, Christmas Day In The Morning, When Jesus Was Born In Bethlehem, Christmas Alphabet (it's a pop up book), If it's snowy and you know it clap your hands, and I'm sure I'll find more. 


At the end of November I'm busy wrapping up 24 books. It takes a bit to organize the books and put them in order for the boys (they take turns opening one each day so I want to be sure the book is appropriate for their age level even though we will read them all together). My youngest is 20 months and will have lots of board books/touch and feel books, while my older two (ages 5 and 3.5) will enjoy longer stories this year. There are a few different ways I've done this. I have wrapped the books in different paper (so each child has a specific paper) so they can tell who gets to open the book. I also number each book 1-24. This year, I wrapped in the same paper and wrote the boys names and the number on an address label because they are old enough to recognize their names. WE always wrap the last story (The Christmas Story) in gold because it is the most important story at Christmas.

(before wrapping)

My oldest remembers some of the books from last year and keeps asking when we will get to read a certain book....but it's all a surprise as to which book will come next (and it varies year to year). Just today I was able to see (through Facebook time hop) 2 years ago, a pic of the boys starting the season with their books. It was so precious and I'm glad I have pictures of each year for them.

(all wrapped and ready!)

(excited boys to begin our yearly tradition)

We look forward to this tradition. I love books and instilling a love of reading in my children (and I love that they love to read!). The boys love being able to open a present each night leading up to Christmas. It allows us to keep the focus of the season on Christ and create fun family memories reading together before bed each night while also not going crazy waiting for Christmas to open their gifts (it's like a little present each night). On Christmas Eve the boys will get to open up new pajamas and we will all open the 24th book of the Christmas Story and read it before bed.

Welcome to the Joys and Messes of Motherhood!

Hello and welcome to the Joys and Messes of Motherhood! I wanted to start up a blog where I can share family traditions, successes/joys, and messes of everyday motherhood. I'm excited to share things that have worked and not worked for me in my journey as a mom. Welcome and be blessed!