Simply Dawn

My Summer Project–A Family Anthology for a Friend

I am so excited to be able to share with you, finally, about my summer project!

I helped my neighbor with a book project.

There was an article in the Friday, December 9, 2011 edition of the Sartell Newsleader…here is the link:

http://www.thenewsleaders.com/schreder-book-offers-a-symphony-of-voices

Anyhow, this was such a fun project. It started out using Creative Memories Memory Manager to scan in hundreds of photos…every photo in the book was scanned in. Some enhancements were done to them, the cover photo in particular needed some work. It was the only one of all the family together and was damaged and blurred…so we went with that and did a soft focus on it with brightening. The idea was to have an impression of the family together…sometimes you have to get creative with old photos.

Getting bored yet?

Next, I shared them with Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus software. I had a separate project for each of the eleven kids (did you read the article?) and each of the kids had about 6 pages of photos in the book. There were also farm pictures in the front, along with Faye’s early years; at the back of the book there are many group pictures of the family. All the pictures were different aspect ratios (shapes and sizes) so each page has a different layout. Each photo was then turned black and white and given a thin white border and a shadow to add depth to the page.

After that, Faye asked if I could help with the text too. So I used Open Office for that and added the pages in. Then she asked me to help with the cover front and back. So the only thing I didn’t design was the spine! Of course Faye had final say in all things, and it was so fun getting to know her better and working with her on this project.

The final part of the project was the Thanksgiving family party the Schreder family had. My friend April and I did a photo shoot for them – April shooting me assisting. It was so neat to get to meet the people I had come to love through their photos and stories. At the end of the shoot as we were packing up, Faye placed the book in my hands. It was a bittersweet moment. So wonderful to see the fruits of our labors, yet so sad to know that it was over.

So that was my big, “mommy” project that I got to work on this summer, I hope I can do more!

Lovies,DJ

April of IHPOC–Adoption

Ok, so yesterday you got to meet April of In Hot Pursuit of Color (IHPOC).  Today I wanted to share something that she has been dreaming about for a very long time.  With her permission I have copied her post.

About 12 years ago the Lord placed it on our hearts to adopt a little girl from China. Three children later, our family still wants to adopt. With the desire to do so still there, we are moving forward with the process. There are obvious costs to adopting out of the country, so we are starting to fill our "cookie jar" in anticipation of walking through the process. The total cost is roughly $20,000 with an initial application cost of $5,000.

In an effort to help raise the funds, I am offering my photography skills to you. For a donation, of whatever size you have on your heart, I would love to do a photo session with you, your family, an event, or whatever. The only additional cost would be if you wanted prints made of the photos through me. I would make sure that you only had to pay actual cost with no additional charges. You will also receive a CD with a minimum of 15 print ready pictures to do with as you wish. Please feel free to share this offer with those you know, that may be interested.

If you don’t need to have pictures taken, but would like to spend some time recording a song or your musical talents. Minsan would be happy to record you in his music studio. Same offer applies, just give a donation of any size that you have on your heart, to help us with our cookie jar.

Thank you for partnering with us in this next journey of our life. We truly can’t wait to see the Lord walk us through this process!
Feel free to email me at naturewood@gmail.com, Facebook message or call 320.237.2273 if you would like to coordinate something.

Minsan and April

Getting to Know Lizzy of Builicious

My long time friend, Lizzy, just celebrated one year of blogging.  Yep, Builicious has been keeping me up to date on all that is cool and hip in the world and keeping me in stitches.  She agreed to do a bloggy interview…Enjoy!

Tell my readers a little about yourself...

My name is Alissa Bui; my blog is http://builicious.blog.com/ I love challenging myself to learn new things all the time, which is how I learned to blog. I don’t like anything extreme unless it’s shopping or coffee.

I have always loved gardening and naturally have a green thumb. My own garden is an eclectic mix of flowers and veggies growing side by side. Since marrying my husband nearly a dozen years back, I have developed a taste for travel which brought about my love of baking in the more recent years. I especially enjoy making French and German breads and pastries that I am slowly mastering with much time, patience, and flour. I have catered a few times that was a lot of fun.

Recently I took up ballet that turned out to be a great match for me. I also like to write children’s stories in my spare time but I have never had the guts to send anything in yet. I have many little collections of things like Sand, Coins, Post Cards, White Hearts, and Tea Sets just to name a few. I am an ADD reader, but I only have one favorite magazine, Vogue. I love food and will eat anything except kiwi or liver. I enjoy most music, especially dance and Bossa Nova. I hope I live to be 100. And the next long term challenge I am giving myself is growing a Bonsai plant from seed.

Life with me is never dull. That’s a brief introduction of me Builicious. Hopefully we will find something in common.

How did you get involved in blogging?

I always wanted to blog because my friends did it and I admired them for it, but I found it very intimidating. My father-in-law told me “just do it you are smart you can!” Then one day my sister-in-law and I were talking and she and I set it all up, at first we did it a lot together, but now she has not had much time, so I have mostly been maintaining it myself. It was really easy, much easier than I ever thought.

Who is your target audience?

Women who want to let their minds wander, people who need a break from the stress of the world, or just their everyday life, these are the people who enjoy my blog the most. Sometimes I have a strong feeling about things happening in the world or things happening in my own life, but I never blog about this, I want to give people an escape. I want them to feel like the biggest problem in the world at that moment in time is “should I drink vanilla in my coffee or go with the mocha?” Of course I care about the deep stuff, and sometimes I worry and I come off superficial or have my head in the air, but my intent is to give people a laugh, and let them relax. I think women who understand this have appreciated my blog more than anybody else!

What’s your strategy with your blog, generally speaking?

I try and keep things light. I will tell my readers about my new shoes, or the jerk at the checkout, but I try to avoid comments that could be perceived as judgmental or hurtful. I also like to change what I talk about frequently, sometimes I go through phases where I blog more about gardening and baking, and other times I might be more into music and ballet. I think switching it up really helps to keep things fresh and give the reads variety so they don’t get bored with me and I won’t get bored with myself either.

What has been the most challenging moment in your blogging?

Taking the first step was by the hardest. I was terrified. “What will I blog about? (anything) Will I be good enough? (yes) Will anybody want to read what I blog?” (yes) If it is meant to be it just works.

Who are some of the bloggers you look up to and why?

I like to look at my friend’s blogs they are interesting and I like to see what they are up too. I care more about my girlfriend’s blogs than anyone else because I know they have good characters and good hearts, so I look to them first. Sometimes though, I admit I will look up cooking, garden or fashion blogs for advice, but most of my blog time goes to my friends first because I trust those ladies most of all.

If someone were interested in blogging, what are your top 3 suggestions?

This is funny because I find myself asking all the questions and saving all the advice like little nuggets of gold. I am not normally the one passing it out. First off I would say Don’t ever let fear stop you! Secondly research as much as you can on your own, look at different sites, ask a friend who has been there and done that. Also when you open your blog, stay true to yourself.

What do you see in the future for your blog?

I am going to keep blogging and doing my thing. I want nothing more than to keep going with the flow, I feel very happy with my life and enjoy what I do.

 

Thanks Lizzy!  I can’t wait to hear about your next adventure!

If you want to keep up with Lizzy’s Buitiful wit, click on over to Builicious and subscribe to her feed.

Lovies, DJ

A New Etsy Shop

My long time friend and fellow blogger, April, has just started an Etsy shop!  You can find her wares here and see more of her work on her photography blog, ihpoc - In Hot Pursuit of Color.  April has become much more serious in her study of photography this year and you can see it in her work.  She is selling fine art prints in three sizes and her photo finisher is fabulous!

Anyhow, please stop over and check out her work and maybe pick up a print for yourself or for a gift!

Happy shopping!

Lovies,DJ

The Ants Go Marching…

I have a friend who lives in a much warmer part of the country who was lamenting about ants.

I don’t like ants.  I guess I don’t have a hate relationship with them, but I don’t hate them.

Maybe it was growing up in southern Nevada and having them in the house, no matter how much you cleaned or tried to spray.  I suppose all of us will have some horrible disease from the chemicals we used to try to keep them at bay back then.

Anyhow, back to my friend.  She’s been on my mind and I was reading (I am doing a lot of that lately) in my essential oils book about some natural ways to send them packing.

My book has a chart in it titled The Natural Insect Repellants and lists several heebie jeebie causing little creepy crawlies.  According to the chart, there are Repellant Plants or Plant Teas that can be made, as well as Essential Oils.

Topping the list is Ants.  The repellant plants are spearmint, tansy, pennyroyal and peppermint.  You can grow the plants near the doors of the house either in the ground or in pots.  The book also suggest putting the essential oil on cotton-wool balls (brittish?) and placing them by the doors.  Spray the oils along shelves where the ants are seen and even on their nests.  The oils that work best are spearmint, peppermint, pennyroyal, garlic and citronella.

So this got me thinking…we have some spots with sandy soil in our yard and the ants are horrid.  Fortunately we haven’t had too much trouble with them coming into the house, but in the yard…yikes!  I am excited to try this during the summer on the nests.  I will let you know how it works.

Likewise my dear friend if any of this works for you, shoot me an email and I will do a follow up post.

Lovies,DJ

My source: The Complete Book of Essential Oils and AromaTherapy by Valerie Ann Worwood.

A New Focus

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”
Philippians 4:8

So this morning I find myself focusing on the negative, the things that aren’t right and well in my world.  It’s time for a spiritual jolt…a kick in the pants if you will…to wake myself up to God’s goodness.

I am going to quit worrying and be thankful that…

I have a house to pick up
I have a truck big enough to haul all of us in one trip
I have eight other people to take care of
I have a big yard and pool to spend summer days in
I have the help of teachers and staff to give my kids a great education
I have a great church to go to, where the truth is spoken
I have good friends who are there for me
I have a husband who is willing to go to work and provide for all of us, who even does the dishes and puts kids to bed at the end of the day
I have family far and near who love me…

In Hot Pursuit of Color

OK!
It has finally happened!
I can share my friend with you! 
My fabulous, photographer friend, April, has a photography blog!
I have wanted to share her with you for years, and last year she got a new SLR camera!
She's been snapping pictures of everything that moves and has been focusing on more abstract photography.
She is the one who took all my fabulous preggy pictures and the pro-portraits of Sybilla!
Check out Color Musing in which my lovey, April, shares her inspiration for her new blog, In Hot Pursuit of Color!
Finally!
Lovies!DJ

Testimony

This is from a friend of mine, it is so moving and such a testimony to God's sovereignty, His goodness and His love for each of us.

A Testimony by Laura Swenson

Emmanuelle Patience-Our little treasure in heaven

Psalm 37:4 "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." We, the Swenson family, had a desire from the Lord to have a baby. In fact, it was in our hearts to have twins. So we prayed. We prayed for months that if it were the Lord's will that he would bless us with twins. And so he did. He blessed us with two little miracles.

In the first trimester I miscarried one of our babies. The day before this we had just finished reading the book of Job. After having the miscarriage, we talked about the verse Job 1:21."The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." The Lord's timing is always perfect.

This was a great opportunity to put into practice 1 Thes. 5:18 "In everything give thanks." We had a wonderful talk with our children about how we could give thanks to God about this. Then a few months later along came our precious Emmanuelle Patience. How her name alone (meaning God with us) ministered to us all those days in the hospital. I could not even look at our beautiful daughter without thinking that God IS with us, He is right here!

At the ER in St. Cloud a wonderful friend said to me, "I know that no matter what happens, God WILL see you through." These words brought comfort to me knowing God was in this and he was in complete control. When our sweet Emmanuelle was on the stretcher going into the helicopter, I saw that as her altar and God gave me one word, that word was "TRUST". Then the verse Proverbs 3:5 came to mind, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; lean not onto they own understanding". I knew then that our job was to simply trust Jesus. God's word is such a comfort.

Knowing I don't need to understand and that I just need to trust Him. God gave us the grace to be able to trust. Trusting Jesus brought peace to us. Peace and trust go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other.

Philipians 4:6-7, "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. We as a family are experiencing the peace of God which passeth all understanding. Praise the Lord. We never once had to ask God "why". God revealed to us that very first night at the ER not to lean on our own understanding and to simply trust Him.

We arrived at the U of M and we were told how amazing it was that a baby with this condition would live to be nine days ole without going into cardiac arrest. We serve an amazing God and this was just one of countless mercies he poured out on my family. This time with Emmanuelle was a gift from God and no accident that we had her home all those days. The doctors also told us the first night we got there, BEFORE they even knew the complexity or severity of Emmanuelle's condition, that she had a 50% chance of survival. Praise God that nothing is by chance with Him. God was, is and always will be in control.

This was one of those moments when Randall and I realized how empty and weak we were. When we were empty, He filled us and when we were weak, He strengthened us. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." We have always known this scripture in our heads, but now we were experiencing it in our hearts. My husband said this, "We are sitting at the feet of Jesus, clinging to Him and His word." God's grace HAS been sufficient! Moment by moment He led us and comforted us. He truly has been our all in all.

While at the hospital, Romans 5:2-5 was a verse that really spoke to us."By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience, and experience, hope." We were living out this verse.

Ephesians 5:20 says, "Giving thanks always for all things unto God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." God's grace enabled us to be thankful during this time.

Being able to truly give thanks in all things while at the hospital and through this time is only God's grace! God's grace in this way has been one of the most precious gifts he has given us. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 "In everything give thanks." We do give thanks to our Lord Jesus for every minute we had with Emmanuelle Patience and for eternity! The first time I saw Emmanuelle in her room at the U of M I also saw a vision of her in God's right hand and Randall, the rest of our children and myself in God's other hand. He was carrying us through grey tribulation, like a grey cloud. It wasn't until our precious daughter went home to be with Jesus that I could see the complete meaning of this vision. Emmanuelle was in a separate hand from us because God was with each of us, but, Emmanuelle was always meant to go home to our Jesus. This was the Lord's will.

Six of the best days of my life were the days I gave birth to our six children. But, the most amazing day of my life was holding my precious little Emmanuelle Patience in my arms and seeing her go home to our Jesus!

Psalm 34:1 "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. "

Simple Gifts, 5-16-08

My neighbor gave me tulips from her garden...one for each child...the red one was for Addie...too pretty!  This was on the shelf in my bathroom.

Visitors, 4-5-08

Our friends came by to take our oldest boys to a movie and left thier youngest children with us.  You know, I am not really great with other people's children, especially the very young.  However, I was happily surprised by how well it went.  Emily took to Jess right away and the two of them shared Paddy-wacks car seat while Emily fixed Jess's hair.

Caroline was content to chew on her dress and watch the Veggie's...

Jess says, "Is mom here yet????"

Paddy-wack...aren't those the most amazing eyes?!!