Jun

01

catch up

i unloaded my camera last night, so today i’ll just catch you up on the last week of life around these parts!

with summer coming, bella’s dance class is going on break for a few months. so last week they gave all the parents a little performance:

showing us all of the many things that they have learned throughout the year:

we’ve been learning alot about beach life as we find many interesting creatures washing up on our shore. this morning bella and i happened upon a big sea turtle. unfortunately, she did not make it :( i’m not sure if she was attacked by something, but we were both pretty sad. we LOVE watching for the sea turtles and checking out the nests, waiting for them to hatch! we hope this one had a long full life!
(i was able to capture a pic with my phone to show the boy when he got home from school)
speaking of beach life, i’m realizing that our fam is quite obsessed with sharks teeth. i even caught the boy looking in our beach pictures for them the other day as we were getting ready to leave for soccer practice.
(he has is very first 3v3 soccer tourney this weekend! should be fun…)

i made a different version of these for a little party in canaan’s classroom. i used a Funfetti cake mix instead of the red velvet, and they were such a hit with my kids, that they begged me to go to the store that very afternoon and buy more ingredients to have on hand for some summer treats:
the reason for the little gathering in canaan’s classroom was so that they could show us the projects they have been working on lately. canaan has been studying kangaroos. here’s his habitat he made:
and a poem he wrote all about kangaroos. gave us a chuckle!
we found a bike for the bug, another $5.00 well spent!! she is thrilled:
and we spent memorial day weekend on the beach with many friends stopping by to join in on the fun.

bella being a starfish:
we caught a few real fish…some small:
and some a little bigger:
we had a little cookout on the beach, and i’m thinking that i could have nights like this all summer long!
i found these marshmallows at WalMart…they are at least double the size of regular jumbo marshmallos…perfect for…
roasting over a campfire in order to…
create massivly good and gooey smores:
if any of you want to come hang with us this summer, i’ll make you one too!

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May

25

Beach Bash Printables

i know i know…its taken me WAY too long to get these out to you. i hope your beach bashes haven’t already come and gone!

here are some printables that i used for Canaan’s Beach Bash last month. i designed them all in a drawing program that i have on my computer. nothing fancy, i downloaded it for free. its called OpenOfficeDraw. i used some clip art that i found for free online, as well as some i created and adjusted myself. (my brother did the board shorts image for me in photoshop…he’s really good at that!!) i’m sure there is a way to do all of these in photoshop, but i’m still in the beginning stages of learning how to edit photos in photoshop, let alone schooled enough to use it for graphic design quite yet! (but if any of you want to teach me, i’m super game to learn!!)

for the full post on the Beach Bash, see here.

i am no professional…just a mom who tries to throw fun, personalized parties to celebrate my crazies without spending money that i don’t have :) so i’m sure there is a better, more simple, less time consuming way to design printables…and i guess when people figure it out, they start making money on etsy.com! i am, unfortunately, not one of those people…so this is the best you’re gonna get from me!

for the life of me, i cannot figure out how to embed my files on this blog without screwing them up somehow. so i just attached each document as a jpeg. you can click on it and save it onto your computer, and then print. they are each designed to print to a full page, so you might have to adjust your print settings to enlarge it so that it prints to the size you want.

here you go, my faithful blog readers!! thanks for being patient with me!!

Water Bottle Labels

i cut each into a strip all the way across the paper. i then covered them in clear packing tape (so that condensation wouldn’t blur the image) and taped it to each bottle. (its best to cover both the front and the back of the label in tape so that no water touches the image. or you can skip that step and just serve lukewarm water!)
i also significantly enlarged one of the images above to use as a template for the board shorts banner. i cut them out of scraps of fabric in the party colors, hot glued a small ribbon bow to the top, and hung from jute rope with mini clothespins. here is where i got that idea!
Fish Food Labels:
i cut these into circles and glued them to paper cups to hold the snacks, which consisted of a mix of pretzel sticks, marshmallows, and whale shaped crackers/goldfish. (our party was from 2:00-4:30, so i just provided yummy snacks since it was after lunchtime. a good way to save some $$$!!!)

here is the image that i used on the bags that the kids used to collect shark’s teeth during the sharks teeth hunt:
i cut each into a circle, glued them to cardstock, and then glued them to a small plastic bag found in the jewelry section of Joann’s:


we created flags to mark the sharks teeth for the sharks teeth hunt:
i bought a package of thin wooden dowels at Joann’s for just a dollar or two, and attached each image to a patterned piece of scrapbook paper, and then to a square piece of cardstock and then glued an edge of the cardstock around the dowel.
Party Favors:


i printed each image onto cardstock, cut them into rectangles and clipped both top corners at an angle to create the tag. i attached them to the beach buckets with jute rope. you can have your child sign his or her name on the bottom if you want to personalize it!
hope this helps some of you out as you prepare for your parties!
a few things to note:

you are free to use and share these printables (and all ideas on this blog for that matter), as long as you don’t use them for commercial use, meaning that you cannot make money off of the things you use from my blog. although you are MORE than welcome to send readers my way if they are interested in the things you find here!

and since we’re on the subject, please please please please please with a cherry on top do not use my photos without my permission, except in the case of a repost on your blog where you link back to this site. i post way too many pics of my precious kids for them to be floating all over blogspace without me being able to carefully track them, which i do, in case you are wondering! :)


thanks friends!! ya’ll are the best!

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May

20

sites to behold

i’ve been trying to think of the best way to share with you about the rest of our time in Haiti, but i figured there was no better way than to just show you! so here’s a ton of pictures. i’ll include brief descriptions for some of them, but i’ll try to write few words so that you can just take in the sites and the faces…they speak their own stories!

Haiti is recovering from the earthquake, and progress is being made, but there are still many many tent cities:

no traffic laws make for interesting rides, to say the least!

how we sleep:

i include this following picture, not to be disrespectful in any way, but because i think its important to come home and share as much of the reality in Haiti with you as i can.
this is a mass grave site where many of the earthquake victims were buried:

precious Haitians:





worship:

















a true beach bum :)

this is a new village, called Leveque, that MOH has started building since the earthquake that will hopefully house 500 families who survived the earthquake.

each family gets its own plot of land in order to grow food, as well as a latrine in the back just for themselves. this kind of property and home in Haiti is rare!

some of the kids in the new village of Leveque:











we visited this waterfall again. you might remember from last year, but it is used in Haiti as a place of ritual for the many Haitians that practice voodoo. even though used for evil, it is one of the most beautiful sites i’ve ever seen. its breathtaking, which just goes to show that even when evil is rampant and people are silent about God, even the rocks (and all of creation) will still cry out in praise of who He is.































village life:



how the villagers get water:
we went to the little village where we used to stay before going to MOH in the hopes of visiting some of our old friends. my sweet Ebway was not home…which was bittersweet for me! seeing him is always a highlight, so i was disappointed that i missed him. but the good news was that he was in school, which is encouraging because many kids do not have the resources to continue school, especially at his age!! but i did get to visit his home and see his parents. and i got to leave him a new soccer ball and pump, so that he’d know that i came to see him!
(to read the story of Ebway and why he’s so important to me, see here)

our old friends love to see photos of themselves from our previous visits, so we always bring an album of pictures to show them:

this is one of those pictures from years ago. the little boy on my left is Nestle, and the little boy my right is Jackson:

Nestle now:

and Jackson now:







the coast of Haiti is a tropical paradise:
i think this about does it for now on posts about Haiti. thanks for reading, encouraging, commenting…i LOVE getting to tell you all about this place, cause i know many will never get to experience it for themselves, and i think its just too special of a place and people to not know about!!


also…i’ve gotten alot of interest from readers wanting to buy 3Cords products. since its still just in the beginning stages of being an actual little business, there is presently no way to purchase the items unless you are in Haiti. the main reason for that is that they cannot ship items out of Haiti. but they are busily working to figure out a system of bringing items to the states and then shipping them once here, via orders placed on a website. i will certainly keep you all posted. but the next time i go (which i’m hoping is more sooner than later!), i will look into bringing items back with me too, and selling them to you all from here! so check back in for updates.


Happy Weekend,


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