Welcome Spring!

I'm back by popular demand!!!  Yippee!!!  Seriously, I've had several people ask me to PLEASE continue blogging, they miss seeing the Livingston's and what we've been up to since January!  Yes, it's been since January since I've posted, yikes!  We've been super busy, I know, haven't we all?!  So I can't commit to doing a certain number of posts per week or month or even each year, but I will promise to post pictures for those family members that don't get to see us much, maybe a story or two!  After all, I created this blog for all our family and friends that live far away and don't get to see us much :)

  

Happy 8th Birthday!!!

To our Emma Marie!!!

January 27, 2003

7lb 7oz  3:20pm

19 1/2 inches long

Around 1 year

18 months

Almost 2 1/2

3 years

4 years

4 1/2 years

5 years

6 years

Almost 7 years

7 years

A little over 7 years

7 1/2 years

Almost 8!

Wow!

How time flies!!!  

We are excited to see where life will take our Emma Marie :)

A Little Wordy Wednesday

I just want to share my thoughts today...I enjoy blogging, reading, posting, putting up all the pictures, but lately I've found myself not enjoying it and rushing to get a post up just so I have something up.  I enjoy reading everyone else's blogs (I read about 10 a week-friends, family, other Moms, random ones, etc.).  But I've found myself starting to compare myself to others, their lives, their blogs and I'm not liking it.  So lately I've stuck to reading mainly blogs that are encouraging and uplifting and not so much friends & family-no offense :)  

I'm at a weird place right now, very busy with my own 4 kiddos, family and church-teaching Sunday School, being in the choir, and we're getting ready to start a capital stewardship campaign for a new building.  My main reason for creating this blog was so that our family and friends could see our family on a daily or weekly basis-people that don't get to see us and that would like to know what's going on with us!   So I've decided I'm not going to rush and try to get something up every day, every weekday or every other day, just so everyone has something to read about our family and so they'll keep reading!  I want to be real and transparent, life is full of making mistakes and people need to see that, not a plastered on smile and always happiness!  I am not the perfect Wife, Mom, Youth pastor's wife, I don't always have to be happy and put on a fake front!  Trying to be perfect all the time can be exhausting, not a good example to my own kiddos, students at church and other adults around me!  No one can be happy and always smiling, it's not reality and it's not healthy!  I don't want our blog to fall under the category "look at me and how perfect my life is", we are not perfect, do not claim to be and are not fooled that we are!  So, from now on if I feel like posting, I'll post, if not, I won't.  Please family and friends don't take offense to any of this, this is me, being me!

Turkey Bowl & Decorating

Back in November our students (7th-12th grade) had their annual Turkey bowl, a flag football game after church around Thanksgiving!  I of course had to play-my competitive nature I guess!  Here are a few pictures I took during the game.  

We ended up with 3 1/2 teams and of course my team ended up winning the whole thing :)

I also wanted to add some pictures (not really good quality) I took of our student center back before Christmas.  Jody and I spent a few days planning, shopping, cleaning, rearranging and decorating for Christmas!  

It ended up snowing and iced over the roads the night of our Christmas party, so all the planning we did was short lived and the party ended up being cut super short so everyone could get home safe :(

Part of the room decorations were small Christmas trees.  Each Student Sunday School class was given a 3 foot pre-lit tree, construction paper, a bottle of glue, a bottle of glitter, 1 pair of scissors, pipe cleaners, popscicle sticks and were given 10 minutes to decorate their tree using only the materials given to them.  The winning tree (selected by the church secretaries) or class received a pizza party at Big Pie in The Sky :)  Here are 4 of the 6 trees (I missed a pic of 2 of the trees somehow)...

My Sunday School class didn't win, but we had fun...and the room looked awesome with all the decorations!!!

New Bed!

I LOVE crafting, sewing, making things, etc.  I decided a few months ago to make new bedding for Jack.  I knew we'd be transitioning him to a toddler bed soon since we found him numerous times hanging over the side of his crib very close to flipping out!  He likes Thomas the train, he LOVES Thomas actually!  We're not sure where the obsession started, but anytime he sees anything Thomas he starts yelling "Thomas" or "train" and points.  So of course I decided to switch out his plane bedding with Thomas the Train.  Well, I quickly found out what I could find of Thomas the Train here in the US was quite expensive and I wasn't ready to spend that kind of money on something he would outgrow and lose interest in!  So over a few weeks I found Thomas fabric here at Hobby Lobby, waited for their coupons each week, kept an eye on the materials going on sale and slowly bought all the fabric and materials I needed.  My goal was to make him a duvet for his existing quilt, pillow & case and Thomas minky lovie-a small blanket he could carry around with him to church and out and about instead of his large star blanket!  Here are the finished products!

The pillow...

And the Minky Blanket (kind of a dark picture)...

I made both the pillow and duvet cover to be removed so they could be washed!  I used flannel fabric so it would be softer and because it was bedding.  Here's what I bought:

*1 yard of the Thomas fabric which cost $2.54 ($5.99 regular but used a coupon)

*1 yard of the red fabric which cost me $2.11 ($4.99 regular but used a coupon) for the duvet

*1 pillow form for $2.11 ($4.99 regular but used a coupon)

*1/2 yard of Thomas fabric cost of $1.27 for the pillow and Thomas lovie!  

*1/5 of a yard of the Minky fabric $2.60 (I had on-hand but I'll add it for a true cost) 

*2 spools of ribbon $5.00 for both which were half off (I have mostly girly ribbon)

I even have fabric & ribbon left over to make something else with!  Total cost for bedding...$15.63 for a duvet cover, pillow & pillow-case and a Minky Lovie!  And all these projects were fairly simple to make and didn't take much time at all!

After ll that I decided he needed to be in a toddler bed :)  All of our kiddos were out of the crib by the time they were 18 months old, so we never got to the stage where they were trying to get out like Jack and he was scaring me!  I had seen this tutorial on how to make this toddler bed (we had given away our 2 toddler beds when we moved to Wake Forest a few years ago).  It looked fairly simple and would use our existing crib mattress and best of all it was cheaper than any toddler bed I had seen (even on craigslist)!  Here are the materials we needed...

plywood, 2x2, staple gun and screws...

for the upholstered part, batting and fabric :)

The bed ended up costing under $35 for a custom-made platform padded bed!  Had I not wanted to build it the same day I would have waited and bought the fabric (4  yards) when Hobby Lobby had a coupon :) We had the guys at Home Depot cut the wood to our specifications, so all Jody had to do was screw the pieces together and then we upholstered it!  

  

What kind of crafting can you do?  Or have you done?

Super easy, looks cute and Jack LOVES it!!!