Living as a Victorious Christian Woman

After a season of making entirely too many sympathy and get well cards, I'm finally able to turn my attention to birthday cards! I would much prefer to cover the front of a card with candles and balloons and beautiful flowers, so that's where my heart is this week. But what about the inside? Have you ever struggled with what to write in a birthday card? If words don't come easily, here are some of my favorite Scriptures that celebrate birthdays in the perfect way. And if you want to print them out like I do, just copy and paste them directly from this post into a word document. Then you can change the font and sizes before you print them on your computer's printer. Be creative! The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.  Numbers 6:24-26 This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.   Psalm 118:24 Delight thyself also

I love cookies. I've always loved cookies. I have the recipes for cookies I ate growing up, and I have dozens of cookie recipes saved for testing. Does any of this sound like you? If so, you'll want to try this crazy-awesome cookie recipe that combines raspberry muffin mix, cream cheese and white chocolate chips into little balls of perfection. And, if you so choose, you can swap out the raspberry muffin mix used here for any other flavor you find. Yep, crazy-awesome cookies coming right up! Ingredients: 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened 8oz cream cheese, room temperature 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla 2 7oz boxes raspberry muffin mix 1 1/2 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 cup white chocolate chips 1. Allow butter and cream cheese to come to room temperature, about 4-5 hours. 2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. 3. In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream butter and cream cheese until completely blended. 4. Add sugar and mix

Think back to grade school for a minute. Remember the tests we took to find out what kind of learner we are? Some of us grasp concepts better when we can see them, others when they hear them and others when they interact and get hands-on. Did you have an experience like that, where this important lesson about yourself became clear? I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am a hands-on learner. I can't listen to someone explain something and understand it perfectly. Even when I read directions myself or watch someone else do that thing, I don't always comprehend and retain things. What this screams to me is that I have to study it, work on it, trial-by-fire experience it for myself or I'll never get it to connect. This idea of knowing how we learn best is so vitally important when it comes to our Bible study time. Who wants to waste time every single day because we're doing what we think we're supposed to do. It's not about reading the Bible through in a year (a

I'm telling you, layers are the best way to take your paper crafts from so-so to sensational. I actually have one of the first cards I ever made, and I regret to inform you that it's a single black-stamped image on a piece of white card stock. Oh, how far we've come! Today's birthday card has two daisy images - one for the background and one for the matted image in the middle. I wanted to make the tiny daisies stand out from the background, so all I did was mat them on yellow card stock.  For embellishments, I added eight acrylic dots in the corners for some added dimension. If I'd been thinking about it, and not rushing on to do the fun stuff like words and dots, I would have raised the matted image on 3D adhesive to create a shadow layer. More layers! Ready to make this card sketch your own? Start with a folded piece of white card stock, then choose your background layer. You can start with a solid color and then cut a pattern 1/2-inch smaller to create a border,

You can tell how tight a pack you have by looking at how they sleep. Yes, I'm one of those dog moms with more pictures of the dogs sleeping than anything else. Our four move at hyper-speed, so pictures don't come out the best. Instead, I capture the moments that will photograph clearly: the times when they're asleep. Sound asleep. Diesel doesn't care where he sleeps. He is the one who falls asleep in a matter of seconds, which is evidenced by the loudest puppy snoring I have ever heard. Someday I'm going to learn his secret for nodding off so easily, but for the moment we just smile when he snores so quickly. Parker is our little old man, and he loves piles of blankets. He will move them, rearrange them, pile them up differently and get them just the way he wants them. Then he collapses with a sigh after all that hard work and goes right to sleep. His second choice is my lap when we're downstairs, and I'm only too happy to oblige. Molly, our big girl, can

Did anyone else's January go by entirely too fast? One minute I was celebrating the new year, and the next I'm staring February right in the face. Can you relate? It's for that reason that I only completely read four books in January. I have several started, but I'll admit that I haven't been great about seeing them through to the end. Yet.  So here's what I read: A Peace of My Mind by Stuart Briscoe. I loved how the word shalom translates to peace, the tranquility of order. If God is orderly and perfect, then our lives will be internally peaceful regardless of what's happening in the circumstances around us. Peace like a river! Building a Great Marriage by Anne Ortlund. For the longest time, I would ask Danny each morning what I could pray for him for and what I could do for him that day. This book has stirred up that desire again, asking what I can do for him, what would make him happy and how can I be praying. With these simple prompts, I can spend much o

What would you do if you saw an item from your particular hobby in the clearance section ... but you didn't know exactly what it was? I took a huge leap of faith this week and bought two stacks of paper knowing only what you see here. The only other thing I knew was there were llamas. Lots of teeny, tiny llamas. So they came home with me! As did the rest of my blind purchase. I had matching papers and colors in the two packages, so I knew I could make something with the outside patterns, if nothing else. The first three patterns I found inside were these beautiful flowers! I would have been happy if it had just been these three because the colors and total difference in style make them absolutely gorgeous and perfect for the many different cards that I now have in mind for them. But then it got even better! There are denim plaids, paint streaks, polka dots, sequins, dots, more llamas and a fun "fa la la la la" Christmas paper. There are many of some of them, and just one