Suzanne Griffin

Today I turned 38. I have not feared getting older, but I am shocked to think about the fact that I am so close to 40 yet I do not feel as wise and mature as I thought I would at this age. I still feel like the 20 something most days until I walk in front of a mirror and don't recognize the reflection of myself. While I am not jumping for joy at the loss of my younger figure, I am thankful that the lifestyle of the 20 year old is long gone. This year is already proving to be a much better birthday than last year . Allen remembered and had a nice gift card for me to pick out something of my choice. Gabby is making blueberry pancakes, Wyatt slept with me last night (I know, not a good thing usually...but this child will rarely snuggle, let alone give a kiss and I got to kiss and snuggle him all night without resistance.) At this time of year, I know there are a lot of goals being made as New Year's approaches. I am right there with ya. I don't have any huge, life changing, w...

I can still remember sitting in the back yard and plucking the petals off the Black-Eyed Susan playing this Russian Roulette with love over a childhood crush. I cannot recall how many flowers fell victim that day to my hopes of winning the answer I longed for. I was so young and so innocent to believe that love was held in the number of petals and my ability to start with the correct one. As I aged I no longer played the game with the flower petals, but I still played the game in my head. With each heart break I faced, either letting my parents down, a friend that betrayed, or a relationship that ended badly or I had lost their affection; it grew harder to deeply trust and know whether the relationships I were in were safe for the long run. Did they love me, did they love me not? And now as I can almost touch being 40 years old I see that I play this same game with my Lord. It is hard not too. The style of love that most of us have experienced is based on performance. Most of our paren...

I know I've posted a lot today, however, while the kids are working so nicely I'm getting in just one more. A dear friend was chosen for a Betty Crocker House Party and if you haven't registered with House Party you can here . We had 5 stations and worked in teams to make 5 different yummy cookies, had cake and punch. And of course Mrs. Crafty had therapy in the way of making little beautiful gift boxes while waiting for the goodies to cool. What a lovely evening. Thank you!

I have never put together a Christmas Float before and for some reason thought it a grand idea to suggest doing so for our homeschool group. Of course it was the day after the Christmas Workshop, so I was a little busy last week. We didn't do anything extravagant, but thankfully there were other ladies with ideas and common sense thinking to lead the way. We went with a theme of Children are a gift from the Lord. By Saturday morning, the float wasn't decorated, we didn't have hay bales for sitting and we didn't have a banner or even the paint in hand to make the banner. It was getting a little uncomfortable and quite honestly with the freezing wind, this was the 1st time I considered calling it off. But it all came together, hay and paint was found, someone generously painted the sign so I didn't have to bend over.... However, at @5:00 was the 2 nd time I considered calling it off. There were only 3 of us families at the float and since the idea was to hopef...

Homeschool Elementary Christmas Gift Workshop. We had 50 kids signed up to complete 10 projects each in 2 hours. It was so much fun. I am so thankful to all the ladies to helped make this happen. And my hubby. Table #1: Sugar Scrubs Table #2: CD Sleeves decorated for holding large cookies Table #3: Individual packets of Hot Cocoa. You can see Tables #4 & 5 in the background, but I must have gotten distracted because I don't have pictures of them. #4 was fire starters. #5 was individual cakes in a cup. #6: Marshmallow Shooters #7 Wagon Train Rag Dolls #8 Recipe Cards #9 Gak/Slime #10 Sock Babies

1st we found this little guy a while back: We put him in a jar with some leaves and he formed his little chrysalis. Then last week we heard some rustling in the leaves of the jar and this is what we found: After about 15 minutes:

Gabby choose the "target" design and decorated the cake herself. I have no idea why she choose her crazy face for the picture.

It's been a long time since I sat down to write. It's been a long time since I had time to sit and write. Our homeschool Co-op classes are finished for this semester which is bitter sweet. I'll miss the girls, but have a little more time and freedom in the week. My vacuum broke, but we were able to get a great deal on ebay in a Hila System. Yeah! I hurt my back over Thanksgiving vacation and have no idea what is wrong, although my kids are getting really good at picking things up off the floor for me. We just finished a Christmas Workshop for the Elementary aged kids in our homeschool group. I had 10 projects, 50 kids, 2 hours and $110. It went rather smooth and I was so pleased with the outcome that I'm sure we'll do it again next year. We had our Christmas parade which also came together in the end. At 10am we had no idea where to get hay, had no banner made, no paint to make the banner...it was looking rather hopeless, but God is good and it all work...