Living an Intentional Life
I used to basically live in her bedroom. She’d play play play and I’d work work work; draw draw draw. Whatever we did, we loved hanging in her bedroom when we lived at mom’s.
Well, today, Tatum suggested I work in her bedroom. How do you think it went?
Well, the real test was Coopy. Would he lay there and lick my laptop or my leg or the bed or what not…. Nope! He did just fine.
He’s a very observant little guy.
Tatum had insisted on us wearing our matching overalls.
We always have to start with some type of treat, so today did not disappoint with little chippers.
It was definitely one of my favorite days because we always have a rich conversation. Today, we talked about our emotions. Tatum FEELS everything. Often our feelings can control our day, but if we can name the feeling, discuss it, then give it to God, we can not let the feeling be in charge of US. A simple feeling of frustration can escalate to more frustration to anger and then KABOOM. If at the genesis of the frustration, we can talk about it/deal with it, then it doesn’t have the power over us.
Now, back to the cookies!
Later, we were to meet my friend Cana and her son Ethan at As You Wish to paint!
I wanted to make Tatum a plate to commemorate her adoption and to have her mission statement right there for her to always see.
Here is the “BEFORE.” I’ll pick it up after it’s been through the kiln.
Oh that puffy paint makes me crazy!!
Final product:
Honor God, others, self
Love God, others, self
Learn from God, others, self
Laugh with God, others, self.
AND LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE! (Matt 5:16)
I love you so much Taties.
Tatum accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior on July 27th, 2018. How did I know this?
It was early July of this year, and Tatum asked me when at 5 she accepted Jesus? When did she make that choice? I told her I couldn’t remember exactly the day.
Then, I happened to look it up in the blog, and BOOM. There it was on my first click in 2018. July 27th. It was way too coincidental. So, we decided to celebrate it on that day this year.
Doug bought her the sweetest card and a key from HIS heart. What a beautiful card!
More gifts now….We are so into Nancy Drew as I was when I was a kid. Apparently, Nancy Drew has some more current books (The Clue Crew books where she is only 8 or 9 not 18).
I am more of a classic Drew girl. We are enjoying them.
Oh yes, the card!
And the piece de resistance!
I love you, Tot. May you follow HIM and Love HIM more than you ever love this world. As His disciple, may you learn and grow in His LOVE.
Today, Tatum made a card for Sandrine. She is going to be 14 years old!
We sponsored her back in February from Food for the Hungry.
Sandrine lives in Rwanda, and she dreams of being a nurse one day. Tatum wanted to draw her some bears and give her a hug! The bear apparently likes bananas which is a staple food in Rwanda.
Hope she loves it!
Piggie and Puppy are back! Remember book one, Piggie and Puppy at the Beach?
Tatum and I decided to write a sequel since we were studying fairy tales this summer.
We worked on our rough draft and ideated for weeks. Man, we couldn’t come up with a theme, but we landed on the challenge of temptation. We had been studying this term in the Bible (and if experienced in our lives!) and had read many verses about staying focused on Christ and having wisdom with decisions/discernment.
Here are our notes and our dialogue. We had to plan out each page. (The parenthesis means we don’t write that but draw it).
Ok, we are ready to create the book. Coming up with a title was the last hurdle, but more on that later.
We wanted Piggie to be tempted by a “villian” since a fairy tale has this feature. He was warned by a “curious bird,” and then was tempted by the villain. The reader has to guess what will happen (and root for Piggie to make the wise choice).
We chose “Bait ‘n’ Surf” for our title as a play on Bait and Switch. Piggie is being baited and then gets to surf.
COVER:
Now the first couple pages:
Ok, now for the curious bird who approaches with a WARNING. All fairy tales have this!
Puppy returns.
And the villian now is introduced. (We love Petey the Cat in the Dogman books, so thanks to Dav Pilkey for this).
Hmmmm…..pink magic? Sounds fishy. The reader is worried. Piggie!! Don’t listen to him!
He is faced with a choice. We all face temptation daily, and how do we choose what is right?
(Well, Tot and I turn to prayer and the Holy Spirit speaks to us, but we kept this part out). The reader now is to wonder, what color is he using as he surfs against gorilla!??
Aaahhhh, good choice, Piggie. (as he holds up his blue ribbon and the bird is giving a thumbs up. Petey is disturbed).
And our tag line of “The End.”
What fun. We had a blast making our book. Now we are ready for our next book. Oh, the work never ends for us authors. HEE!
Zoe and Tatum had a playdate today. Tatum wanted Zoe to read, so she pulled out one of her ABC books and showed her.
Then, Zoe wanted me to see how she was doing. Tatum was so proud of her!
What encouragement! Go ZOE!
This time, Zoe did not protest, but got excited! YEAH!!!
Seriously! I was so busy one day on Zoom and work, so Tot focused on her art. I had no clue she was creating mini-masterpieces of Circle People!
WHOA!
She just started coloring two of them.
I want to create some books with these characters!
What do you think, Coopy?
