Creating the Unexpected

The following creative projects are not of my creating, but they all reside in my home and make me happy.

First off is MyGirl's Valentine Tree. She found a Valentine table runner for the skirt in my linen drawer, a silver heart garland and red wooden and knitted ornaments from Ikea that had been in one of our Christmas boxes, and knew she had a five foot tree in her closet that she could easily access.

Here is what you see up close. I love the knitted hearts. They add such a warmth to everything, which is good on a day that is in the negative temperatures like today.

 When Cowgirl was here, she and MyGirl made snowflakes and taped them to the windows. Grandma had given them a pattern for the Broncos and reindeer six sided stars, and they ran with it from there . . . So many varieties and sizes. They're all up on our big window next to the kitchen table and look just as pretty at night.

 Little homemade touches just add an unexpected feeling of joy into a home. Or maybe its just that creativity gives me joy, whether its from my own hands or someone else's.

 Then there is the orchid on our kitchen table. Not what you expect to see in the middle of winter either, but it reminds me that Heavenly Father's creations are beyond our own abilities and are miraculous and beautiful in their own ways. I am so grateful for the many ways that He blesses my life. Last night after scriptures, we took an inventory of what we were grateful for yesterday, last year, and ten years ago. I am so humbled to realize how much we have all changed in ten years. We are not the same people we were then. We have all grown so much, and while some of that was just the natural processing of aging children and growing bodies, much of that growth has come from the hard times, the struggles, the challenges. Only HE could have known what these experiences would bring us, and in the process of giving us more than we could handle sometimes, we were brought closer to Him and even to one another. And that is a very good thing!