The 10 day fast...

From time to time I feel its imperative to have a fast weather its a dietary fast or other. For me an area of my life that I need to work in is media/entertainment fasting. I spend far to much time on mindlessness when I should be praying and reading the word. So I developed a fast plan for myself. I however the fallible human being I am have already struggled. I pray for guidance and strength in this. Here are the guidelines I set for myself.

1. No video games, computer games or board games
2. No mindless net surfing, only research and learning
3. No message boards or facebooking that isn't fellowship related
4. No reading of books other than the bible and devotions
5. No leaving the house just to get out only necessary trips (food shopping, post office, church etc.)
6. No knitting or other crafts unless it is part of teaching the girls something
7. No baking of sweets or other goodies
8. No blogging mindlessness only positivity & faith
9. No chit chat on the phone with my mom or friends
10. No IM'ing with friends..

I really need some clarity in my life and these things are all big distractions from the things I need to be doing right now. I want to spend at least an hour studying the word a day during this time and focus on cleaning and just talking and praying with my husband and girls.

My exceptions to these rules is 30min work out per day on the wii fit (as that is to better myself) and games and fun on Sabbath as they are all centered around prayer and fun with the family. On the 21st we also have a fun event at church but it will be good fellowship and such. And educational/uplifting things on Netflix to watch only..

Now netflix is not really a great source of Spiritual movies but I did watch part of a national geographic documentary last night on "the lost gospel of Judah" I feel asleep before I formed an opinion on it.. but it was interesting the first 5 mins at least. I am a huge sucker for documentaries I will watch just about anything but I am not to be swayed if I already know it to be false information. I plan to try to watch the rest of it over the next few days.

7 days in a skirt (the finale)

Day seven has come. And while this wasn't a challenge for me because I already wear skirts all the time but the challenge for me was stepping out from behind the camera and be encouraging to others who have not taken these steps toward modesty. It has been a wonderful experience and I will do this again. Hopefully with a skinner version of me. This really opened my eyes to my weight gain and has really shown me that I really need to kick the dieting into gear. Down -3.7 lbs this week too which is wonderful. I hope that this has shown others that you can wear skirts. I never wanted to be girly and NEVER wanted to wear dresses or skirts as a child, or teen or even into my twenties. I have really seen that wearing skirts doesn't mean you can't mow the lawn, mop the house or shovel snow. I can do all these things while keeping my modesty. (I am not saying you can't be modest in pants its a personal conviction and not for everyone) I hope you enjoyed watching my week. I choose to include my daughters in the grand finale and made this photo B&W to kinda symbolize the end of the lack of confidence in my life.

Hubby took this photo

My oldest daughter took this one as we where finishing up and it was cute so sharing it too.

7 Days in a skirt day 6

I am sure you all are ready for some more interesting blog posts. Don't worry the grand finale is tomorrow. I hope to get my darling husband to take a photo of me and all the girls together. I wish we had some coordinating outfits or something but it will just be a hodge podge of colors but that is ok maybe I will post that one in black and white to close out the event. I have enjoyed seeing so many taking part in the challenge. and I hope that this will show others that you can be more modest in your attire. I this pose is a bit weird but my leggings are in the wash and my goofy socks and a few inches of bare-white legs where not going to make the cut lol.

7 days in a Skirt day 5 (posted a day late)

Yesturday was eventful. Do you recall your Mother ever telling you to behave in the grocery store? I should of done just that. I had my hubby toss me some produce and all was well until the head of lettuce came flying my way.. I broke my finger.. yes, on LETTUCE..lol I am no stranger to broken fingers so I did what and crazy person would do reset it myself yeeeeeouch had it looked at by a sports medicine friend and went about my day. My husband was the photographer for this day and after deleting about 40 photos of my butt or goofy looks on my face these where the winners. I think the entire store thought we where off our rockers.. tossing produce, taking photos... yeah..a little too much bordem in our lives leads us to have a little to much fun doing mindane tasts such as shopping. My finger though is doing much better today its possible I just dislocated it and didn't fully break it. Good thing today is Sabbath and I have most of my duties out of the way. I did though buy challah from the bakery which was $6.99 and not really that good at all. I just didn't feel as if I could do the dough myself in this condition. I will use the breadmaker next week and skip the knedding and rolling out and such that I normally would do. Now this bread was pretty and all but the taste was just not right.

7 days in a skirt day 4

Day 4 is where I am at. My darling 2 year old fell into a table last night and banged up her chin pretty badly so she has been stuck like glue to me all day. I enjoyed the snuggles though as I know those days become fewer as the grow up. I am a little mix matched here as well but that is part of the real "mom uniform" from time to time.

 Nothing else major to report today. My husband is off work tonight so I am trying to have some time with him.

Seven Days in a Skirt/Dress day 3

Today was a snow day for the kids. It was a good thing though it was pretty bad out there. We also stayed home from church because it was then icey after all the snow started to melt and for fun we added in a little freezing rain. SO.. I actually wore 2 outfits today but the first one was soaked with snow so outfit B is what you get. My "mini me" Morgan wanted her photo taken once again and today she wanted to use one of mommies head coverings. It was too cute not to share.

up close on the skirt



Mini Mommy



Seven Days in a Skirt Day 2

 My house is so narrow not many places to take pics and my 5 year old really wanted to show off her pretty dress too. I was on my way to put away laundry and had my 12 year old photographer snap this shot in the foyer before I headed up the stairs to put it away.

Their is a Menu Makin' Mama in me!

Part of my personal goals for 2011 was to start making a menu plan and sticking to it. My wonderful husband was a great help with this. He gave me some great ideas and took the stress right out of it. I am so blessed to have a level headed husband who keeps me on track. I was about to toss in the towel on this idea before I really even got started. Him and his infinite brilliance got the system started for me. I was trying to make a calendar for sorts but I got to day 2 lunch and I was frozen. He said to stop looking at the days of the week and just go with a list of meals you want to make. Really that was all it took to get the wheels turning certainly I can make a list of 14 dinners, and about 5 or 6 lunches and breakfasts to rotate. So we did just that. we made a list of meals we wanted to make keeping in mind we wanted 4 Crockpot dinners 2 for Wednesday nights when I don't have time to cook before bible study/awana, and 2 for other days I know I wont have time to cook or don't feel like making dinner, 2 crock pot breakfasts & 2 Crockpot lunches for Saturday Sabbath that I prep on Friday mornings so I don't have to "work" on Sabbath. So now I just have a list of meals on the fridge and we cross them off as we eat them. My hubby also helped properly label and bag up our meats and such after the big shopping trip. It's been working out quite well thus far. We always over spend and things go bad and such but we really made huge efforts to stretch the budget and just get the things we needed and have all the meals covered for 2 weeks. We also hit some sales, used some coupons and we spent a mere $246 for 2 weeks for a family of 6. That is not bad at all. I was proud of my lists and handy work so I took a photo after they where completed.

Day 1 (7 days in a skirt) & My bargains of the day!

dreSharing a photo of day 1 of  "7 days in a skirt" I had my 12 year old take this photo while I was doing this dishes. my kitchen is really small so there is no way to get a full length shot in there. This is an ankle length skirt. I only have 1 that is shorter than that and I don't wear it often other than around the house, but that skirt will not be shown online. The part of the Challenge is showing things you do around the house and such because its such a misconception that you cant clean or workout or do yard work etc. in a skirt.

I am thinking I will do a day to include my daughters too. As they are also skirt/dress wearing fulltime. I got a SWEET deal today 10 dresses for $5 at the local thrift store they where really nice ones too :) Thrift shopping is a part time obsession of mine. I love a good deal. I have a hard time finding skirts for myself but I always find things for my 3 youngest daughters. I was a full fledged bargain queen today. I got the dresses and found so pretty scarves for $3 each that where originally $10. I also got some scarves on ebay 5 for $15 I can't wait for them to arrive. 

7 day's in a skirt/Dress Challenge...

My dear friend Suzanne posted this challenge on her Blog. While it't not much of a challenge for me as I wear skirts all the time anyway it might make me doll myself up a bit and wear something other than my "uniform" skirts that I wear around the house. No promises of course you might get a lovely photo of me in my jean skirt wearing slippers but Maybe this will boost my self confidence and not always diving to be the person behind the camera. I am going to aim to start this tomorrow. And will try to post daily on it.

Taken from her Blog
(from feelin' feminine) 
The Challenge

The challenge is to wear only skirts/dresses for an entire week of seven days, and then post a photo of your outfits (head to toe) on your blog. If you don’t have exactly seven different skirts, that’s alright. Mix and match with different shirts. We can be not only feminine and modest, but frugal too!
If you want to “personalize” your outfit a bit more you can add a hat, a scarf, a headband, a matching purse  – whatever you like! You can also style your hair in different ways each day. 
While there are no outfit ‘requirements’, we do ask, for the sake of my beliefs  please make sure that your dresses and skirts are at least knee length and that none of your shirts are sleeveless. Show us pictures of daily activities of you in your skirts.

Already Wear Skirts?If you already wear skirts on a regular basis, please don’t let that stop you. Participate anyway! This is for all ladies – ask your mother, sisters, grandmas, aunts, and girlfriends to do it with you!
I love the look of dressing modestly but want to showcase that it can be done stylishly as well!  So, post your pictures for each day on your blog and link to them here..   I can't wait to see the variety of styles we all have. :)
I'll start this up tomorrow.. feel free to jump in whenever you want! :)

Cleaning...crumbs, laundry & kids

I threw my back out playing wii fit. Go me! lol so just watching the house go down in flames quickly. I don't think the sahm's roll is full appreciated until she is really sick or injured. I fully admit that I am not the best homemaker and with 4 kids things can go from "clean to scream" as I call it in a real hurry. So as I heal my mission is always the same NO CRUMBS. I loathe crumbs I can not stand to be barefoot in my own home for the better part of the last twelve years because getting crumbs on my feet makes me crazy. I don't know where they all come from. I sweep and sweep and sweep but they are always present. I truly believe that kids excrete crumbs. You can take a seemingly clean child out of the tub and crumbs will fall right off. For added fun since moving here we have a new issue pine needles. we have 17 trees and needles everywhere they get tracked in and then not only do you have crumbs but you get stabbed by those pointy little needles. you would think with several inches of snow I would be rid of them. NO, they are just wet and stick to your shoes even more. Extreme? some think so...I got a leaf blower and I try to blow all the pine needles as far away as humanly possible. Now could I open the back door and blow all the crumbs out of my house? I am considering it. Now issue number 3 is laundry. It never stops ever. I don't think I have ever not had laundry to do. I try to have a system of assigning everyone a day and the 7th day for towels/sheets but it never seems to work out that way. With diaper laundry, school uniforms, special care items, accidents.. Oy! What I need is a plan of attack. I need to kick house-butt and take names. So to my mere 3 followers (lol) help me out.. give me a game plan..help me help my kids to want to help me lol..

Project 365......sigh...

Well, I have jumped into P365 again. Last year I made it 100 days. I really want to do the full 365 this year. Of course their is an issue with this. I don't really want to duplicate the photos I took last year and other than photos of the kids and cats I am drawing a total blank here. I thought about doing themes like Sunday- Erynn
Monday - Aria
Tuesday- Morgan
Wednesday - Cady
Thursday - Nature
Friday - Household
Saturday - Sabbath
I was bored just typing thst list. So that is a red flag that I wont even do it. I already feel like I took photos of everything interesting in my house last year. So what am I to do? I think looking at the number 365 and thinking I need THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE DIFFERENT PHOTOS it what is wigging me out. I need to take baby steps. and just take it one week at a time. I have set my self up on the P365 website and I am also blogging it on another blog I think the double accountability is good for me. I got a new camera for Cmas its a point and shot but it is more like a DSLR it has lots of features that I wish I had more time to figure out. I like my older point and shot better where my biggest choice was flash or no flash. I do love the quality of the photos from the new camera and hope that I have more down time to learn more about it. The book that came with it isn't very helpful when you don't understand all the terminology. so take a look at the first five photos of the year and tell me what you think.

Do you have a two year old?

This is something I shared today on one of my favorite message boards. My 2 year old talks a lot, far more than this list but these are the most common terms broken down.. any mom of a young 2 year old should be able to relate some to this.

Isn't she sweet LOL

Teek-ou = Thank you meaning I stole something from you but going to play it off like you gave it to me
Weldom = Welcome is what she says when she just handed you a booger
I got Purst = I got first as in Mario cart wii touching the remote by Cady means she won
She it me = She hit me meaning my sister has something I want and I only know how to tattletale by hearing my sisters say she hit me 1,000 times a day
I don't like it = meaning my sisters said they don't like something and now I wont even try it
She stinky = I am stinky meaning change me now before I paint the walls with it
Baby Jeezits = Baby Jesus meaning all babies are baby Jesus and so is Ironman
Amen = this is only said when we are taking to long to pray and Cady is already bowing her head sneaking food and ready for you to stop talking
It Buu-a-ful = It's beautiful meaning I just colored on the wall somewhere and now you have to find it
Tuppy = Cuppy meaning get me a drink now or I am going for the cats water bowl
Binty = Binky meaning give me one now or I will scream and tear apart the couch because that is where my binkies usually end up.
1-2-3-4-8-10 = 5,4,3,2,1 meaning I just did something really bad and I am going to go ahead and start counting for you
Wire = lair I just randomly yell this when I am not getting my way because my sisters yell that at each other when they are mad and getting punished for something
Hello = In her best Kate Gosslin voice is when I am done eating and still in my chair and no one has came to get me yet

Back to Reality

Erynn's Solo

(insert long exasperated sigh here) Winter vacation has come to an end. We had some really good times over the break. While we might not of accomplished all of our goals all in all it was a great time. It seemed we had so many events and parties there was little time to focus on housework. That is a big goal for this year to really buckle down and get organized. We have a pretty modest sized home for 6 of us and all our things. It's time to purge and pair down as we prepare to move out of state in the next 2 years. God has really lead us to wanting to move to the mountains and leave city life behind. We are excited for these up coming changes and where it will lead us in the years to come. I think my top 3 favorite times over this break was ringing in the new year with our first family Sabbath, Aria & Morgan singing in the Christmas service at church and, Erynn's band concert at school. They all a remarkable job! I was so very proud of them and thankful that God has blessed them with these talents.

Aria is in the back row in the maroon dress, Morgan in the front with the green dress

Happy New Year! Sabbath & P365

The Crawford Crew rang in the New Year celebrating our first family Sabbath. We made Challah bread Friday morning for the first time and had a nice dinner. We then had some prayer and a Family bible study. The children where so egaer to learn. I love that so much. They where so attentive and we had a really good discussion on the 10 Commandments specifically focusing on The Sabbath and Coveting. My thought process is that the children are getting ready to go back to school and lots of talk about "so and so got ____ for Christmas" would be popping up. It's always a great time to talk to Children about being grateful for the things they are blessed to have. We spent a lot of time playing games (both wii and board games) I was really surprised that 3 out of 4 girls stayed up until midnight. We went outside in hopes to see some fireworks but we are kinda in the middle of the woods so getting to a treeless area is not really possible we saw a few through the trees and heard quite a bit. We all slept in and had a breakfast and a little more fun time. We then sat down and made some individual goals and family goals for the new year followed by a short refresher bible lesson on the things we talked about last night. We will have a modest dinner this evening and back to the grind. I love Saturday evenings though because everyone goes to bed early for Church in the morning and we have such wonderful fellowship to look forward to. Seeing as today is the first of the year I made a personal goal to do all 365 days of the 365 photo challenge this year. I may not have the time to post the photos everyday but I will at least take them. I made it to 100 days in 2010. So I will share the first pic of the year and some photos of New Years eve & Sabbath.

Princess Checkers with Princess Morgan

Kerplunk knock-off game with Dad, Aria & Erynn while I play Checkers with Morgan

Day 1 of P365... our 2011 Goals! *please note dry erase boards do not come with spell check*