Easter Mountain Craft Kit

I'm so excited to share with you my latest project! As I considered ways I could contribute to raising money for our adoption, I had three criteria: 1. Something I am passionate about 2. Something God has already gifted me with 3. Something my kids could be involved in. And the Lord led me to Easter Mountain! A tradition we've done in our family since the kids were tiny. (See our blog from 2014 here: Heflin Easter Traditions) Helping other families celebrate Jesus is something I am so passionate about. And this project was something my kids could help put together.

The activity is designed to walk your family through the events of the Passion Week on a mountain created from homemade dough with these colorful characters and Scripture devotional cards. The idea is to surprise kids each morning with a new scene on your mountain while talking through the Scriptures and applying them at a practical level. Allowing the events of the Passion week ignite a Passion in the hearts of your family for Jesus! My hope is that this would be a tradition continued in other families for many years to come. 

My favorite part of  this project was creating the Scripture Devotional Cards. I loved digging into my Bible to find verses that would serve well to capture each scene of the week. Each card also has a section of verses in bold font that could be easily memorized together as a family. On the back of the card, I wrote some devotional thoughts both for grown-ups and kids to think about each day. I loved praying over what to write for each of these! Here is a sneak peak and example of what to expect for each devotional. This one is the devotional for Palm Sunday:

After connecting their hearts with the Scripture reading and devotional, kids can then decorate Easter ornaments so that their little hands are involved in the process as much as their hearts. These ornaments can also be referenced later to remember the scenes throughout the week. You can use these on an "Easter Tree" like our family does, or just put them on your fridge or bulletin board.

I worked really hard to make this Tradition as Easy and Do-able as possible. I don't want anyone to be intimidated! I put together two step-by-step guides with detailed photos and descriptions. One guide describes the entire process of creating the mountain and preparing characters and props. All you need to add are 3 simple ingredients: flour, salt, and oil! (And for you GF peeps like me, you can use rice flour with guar/xantham gum)

The other guide provides details and ideas for what your characters can be doing throughout the week. In this guide I also include ideas for simple and fun activities you can do as a family for each day. (For example, smelling perfume or essential oils on the day Jesus is anointed.) 

And so...Ta-Da! This is what all is included in the Easter Mountain Craft kit. I would love for your family to try out the entire kit and begin this meaningful new tradition with your family. But I know life can get crazy, so if you'd just like to start small, you have the option of purchasing just the Scripture Cards and Easter Symbol ornaments for your family. 

My kiddos and I are super excited to share this tradition with other families. They helped me create the mountain and take the photos of each scenes you see in the above images. They will help me stuff each envelope as we get ready to distribute them to others. They will get to see their hard work be rewarded as money comes in from sales. They will be so excited to get closer and closer to having enough money for our adoption! I love that they get to be involved.

There is a Facebook page up and running, where other families can share ideas and photos of what has worked for their families with this Easter Tradition: Easter Mountain Craft Kit Facebook Group

You can start this new tradition in your family by placing an order here:

Orders will be mailed out the end of March 

Easter Mountain Order Form

The idea for Easter Mountain has been adapted from the Book, Treasuring God in our Traditions (c) 2003 by Noel Piper

All the wonderful clipart is used with permission by ©2012 Tammy DeYoung

You can visit her fabulous shop on Etsy at: Song in My Heart: Tammy DeYoung Designs

10 year High School Reunion

That classic Senior yearbook pic

10 years!!! How did I get so old!!!


My 10 year high school reunion is coming up which has got me thinking about these past 10 years. I may not have invented Post-Its like my two favorite ladies of a certain 90s movie, but I have had quite a full 10 years! I was going to write a blog about what I've been doing... but nah....you can easily watch my "Facebook movie" to get the gist of that.

So instead I decided to write a list of the things I would tell me 17 year old self if I could go back in time 10 years ago. If you happen to be 17..(cough..cough..Katie Joy..) you may want to pay attention. This is 10 years of wisdom in the making!

What my 28 year old self would tell my 17 year old self:

1. Step away from the tanning bed. 

2. Just because it is cereal does not make a Rice Crispy Treat a good breakfast. Same goes for the juice in fruit snacks! 

3. You may not know him now, but your body and your heart both belong to your husband. Guard them with all your might...then when that's not enough ask for help.

4. Seek out a godly mentor to help you sort through these impressionable times of your life.  

5. Buy some stock in a little company called Amazon. They won't just be selling your college textbooks for long.

6. A year from now after you made it into college no one will care about your SAT score, GPA, Honor Societies, drill team rank, "Who's Who" books, jewels in your class ring, or patches on your letterman jacket. Enjoy them now, but don't spend too much money on these things!

7. Go help your Momma make dinner and clean the house! And stop wasting your Daddy's money at the mall and movies! They do a lot for you, help them out a little.

8. Curfews were made to keep you safe, please abide by them. Nothing good ever happens after midnight!

9. You are more beautiful then you think. Especially in the eyes of your Creator, and His eyes are the ones that truly matter.

10. Be grateful you are a bit nerdy and quiet. It's God gracious way of keeping you out of too much trouble and close to His heart.

Easter Traditions

When each holiday rolls around, I get to thinking about traditions. I smile when I think about all the fun traditions we had as a kid. Opening one special present on Christmas Eve, rolling eggs at each other on Easter, eating green food on St. Pattys day. Traditions were the things that stayed constant in a family that was ever changing and ever growing up. Traditions were what made you still feel like a little kid. 

As I start my own little family, I get to start my own little traditions. I can keep up some of the ones that my husband and I enjoyed growing up and then we also get to add our own to our own unique family. I want my kids to know the deeper meanings of holidays. To know why they are celebrating, so they can truly celebrate. And so my traditions will reflect that goal.

To celebrate Easter this year we created an Easter Mountain to help our kids understand the true meaning of Easter.

It consisted of homeade playdough,  Bible character clip art taped to pipe cleaners, and a few props. Every day during Holy Week we read from the Toddler Bible, acted the scene out on our mountain, then colored a picture with that same scene. Both boys really enjoyed it and S really got a hold on the story. He was able to manipulate the characters and play with it on his own through the week. He was a little concerned on Saturday when we weren't allowed to touch it because Jesus had died. But that made the moment of His Resurrection even sweeter and exciting!

He is alive! Let us remember through our traditions!

Great Book on Traditions and where I got the idea for Easter Mountain:

Officially Dedicated

This past Saturday we had J's official baby dedication...no....PARENT dedication. It's gonna take me forever to get used to calling it that! Our church believes that the dedication event is really for the parents. To serve as a rock of remembrance for the beginning of their baby's life as they are dedicating themselves to raise their new baby to know and love the Lord. What exactly were we dedicating ourselves to do? See the below dedication certificate for the specifics J

Each child was presented at the front of the church and prayed over based on a chosen verse. Josiah’s was 2 Kings 23:25, so his prayer was focused on Josiah turning to the Lord with all his heart soul, mind, and strength. I thought it was also sweet that  the pastor prayed for Sam and Josiah to become the best of friends.  The Father of the family also spoke and told the crowd the reason behind their being there to take part in the dedication.  The words below are Brodie’s sweet words.

“We know that Josiah is our gift, blessing, and reward from the Lord. This is evident in God’s care for us while Josiah was in the NICU and the calendar verse on his Birthday stating, “The child grew and the Lord blessed him.” We know that we are only stewards of this gift and he is God’s child. We know one day, as we all have, Josiah will choose to separate himself from God by choosing sin. Bri and I ask that our friends, family, and church help us in teaching and demonstrating to Josiah’s God’s provision and way to regain his relationship back as God’s child. It’s only through faith and trust in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension and hope of his return. Our hope for Josiah is that he will be a hearer and doer of God’s Word as the Biblical Josiah read, obeyed, and encouraged others to do the same. “

Picture Time with the Family!

A Pintresting Christmas

This Christmas, Brodie and I embarked on an ambitious quest to make some homemade Christmas presents. It was pretty time consuming and didn't really save us much money in the end, but it was fun and I think everyone enjoyed their personalized presents!

 Like many of you, we have been quite inspired by ideas found on Pintrest. It gave us great ideas for gifts, a yummy Christmas snack, and even a baby shower I helped put on in early December. Here are our creations:

Thankful

 My Thanksgiving festivities began this past Thursday at my ladies Bible study where we celebrated with a  huge turkey feast. We shared praises and how God has been working in our lives. I was just overwhelmed with a Spirit of Thankfulness for God's Faithfulness. Then to top it off, when I picked up Sam from the nursery  I saw that he had "made" his first craft at church! With his little yellow hand print on top of the die-cuts and Psalm 106:1.

That day I started a new tradition that I hope will continue throughout the years.  I put out a big dry erase board and markers out with the idea that everytime we thought of something we were thankful for we would add writing or pictures to the board. I can just envision  that board being filled up that day with scribbles of a toddler, Kindergarten level drawings of people that look more like spiders, and words spelled out so creatively! But of course, this year it was only Brodie and I adding to it, but we filled up our Thanksgiving board quick! We have so much to be grateful for!

Thinking about this past year, there are two major prayers which we prayed often and God was so good to answer.

1. For a healthy pregnancy, birth, and baby. As you can see by looking at past blogs, God answered this one above and beyond everything we could ask for!

2. For a church home and friends in Fort Worth. After being discouraged so many Sundays by visiting churches and feeling like we'd never fit in to Fort Worth, God finally gave us a church to call home. We love Christ Chapel Bible Church so so much and it has provided many new friends for us too. We are so thankful that God answered this one very specifically.

Our Anniversary Adventure

I just want to brag on my sweet husband and the creativity he had in celebrating our anniversary despite his very engineer-y mind :) (Oh..engineers...how I've grown to love you!)

He created a "choose your own adventure" day for me. You know those books you read as a kid where if you chose to go into the scary cave you havd to go to page such and such to see what would happen but if you chose instead to go for a swim then you'd turn to a different page. Different fates awaited you depending on what you chose.

So for my adventure I has a series of clues throughout the day and whichever I chose would determine the activities for the day. But I had to choose based on clues written on notecards, and sometimes I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into! Like the card that said, "let's get on unhealthy healthy snack" (which turned out to be the yummy mexican corn from Fiesta with all the sourcream and butter galore) or the card that said "let's fulfill a drawing of an artist now a second grader." (which meant a picture one of my kinder students 2 years ago drew of us eating mint chocolate chip ice cream. Some cards were a little more obvious, like the one that said "your husband telling you nenu nenu prame stunane makes you crave what kind of food?" (which means 'I love you' in Telgu-from India- so we would go to an Indian resturant if I chose this card). It was a super fun day and was sweet celebrating our first year of marriage.

I special thanks to Grandmother who babysat for us that day and brought us paper products as a traditional gift for a first anniversary. Special thanks to Mimi who saved our wedding cake topper for a whole year so we could smoosh it in each others faces! And thank you to technology so we could watch the video from our wedding that evening and relive those special memories!






We have a Baby a Cousin!

About 3 months after I announced my pregnancy with S, I got a phone call from my little sister Becky telling me that "Booger" (S's nickname) was going to have a cousin. I had joy in the fact that God had brought forth a new life into the world and that I would get to experience pregnancy side by side with my sister. But I also had a lot of worries about how they would financially support the baby and I had just met this Brandon guy and wasn't quite sure about him yet. But over the past 9 months I have seen both Becky and Brandon really step up into their new roles as parents. Really supporting each other and showing so much love, care , and excitement for their unborn baby as he grew bigger and bigger. Brandon works countless hours upon hours to make ends meet, taking responsibility for his new family.  Becky went through a pretty rough pregnancy with lots of morning sickness, scares of placenta bleeding, puffy hands and feet, and an itchy rash. But she did a great job hanging in there through it all and making it 39 loooog weeks. They both have done such a great job preparing for the arrival for their precious little one.

And now Declan Zane is here. He was born October 24 at 7:34pm. He weighed 8 lbs even and 19.5 inches. He is a pretty chubby baby already! I know his Mommy and Daddy already just love him so so much.

I like how the meaning of his name fits together. Declan means "full of goodness" (Celtic) Zane means "God is gracious." He can be "full of goodness" because "God is gracious." I pray that Declan's name come to life throughout all of his days. That through God's grace, he becomes full of goodness.

I am excited to see our two boys as they grow up together,being so close in age. Two little boys running around, wrasslin, pickin each others nose...being boys! Being from a family of 3 girls I never experienced such things, so it will be fun (and I know trying at times) to have energetic little boys around.

Aunt Bri, Uncle Brodie, and Cousin S are happy to welcome "Little D" into the world.

Happy BIRTH-day Declan!!!

He will Never Leave Me

On October 16, Brodie and I will celebrate our first wedding anniversary. This past year I have enjoyed so many aspects of marriage, like the free back massages, the late-night heart to hearts, learning about each others little quirks, laughing together at our bodily functions, etc, etc. But there is one thing that I think is my favorite part of marriage, and that is the sense of security I have. I know Brodie and I are in it till "death do us part" no matter what. The SECURITY, the COMMITMENT, the FAITHFULNESS is my favorite part of this thing called Marriage.

When we were dating, there were times I had a bit of a fear that Brodie would break up with me. I would be scared to let find out about weird habits or annoying quirks I had. I didn't want to tell him about things in my past for fear that he would like me less. He told me later that he had those same fears, those same tendancies. When I would tell him we needed to "have a talk," he would always, think, "oh, no, this is it, she's breaking up with me." When we were dating, there was no commitment. We were both free to leave each other whenever we wanted.

But now, as a marrid couple, we are STUCK! Stuck in a good way! God has united us in the covenant of marriage, and has super-glued us together if you will. It is a beautiful thing, being stuck with God's super glue to the one you love. I am free to be my weird self around Brodie without fear he will leave me!

What is even more beautiful is that this commitment between husband and wife is just a small picture of the UnBreAKaBle commitment God has with His people. For those who have entered into a covenant relationship with the living God by calling on Jesus for Salvation, He is ever faithful. He will not leave us no matter how much we think He won't like us. We don't have to live in fear that something we do will make God leave us or forsake us. In fact, He promised us the opposite, that he would NEVER leave us or forsake us. What a good God to help us see such a commitment in a tangible way in our daily lives through our marriages. But with God, there is no "till death do we part." With God, it's more like, "at death do we START!" Our face to face relationship with Jesus starts at death and last forever!


And now enjoy a fun memory of Brodie and I celebrating on the day we entered into the marriage covenent. Only one short year ago.