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It’s winter, so let’s build a snowman!

February 4, 2022 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

We’ve been enjoying a winter storm here in Indiana. The kids are going on day three of school moving from in person to e-learning for the amount of snow we have had. They estimate we have had more than a foot of snow in 48 hours.

Our family has been able to get out and walk, play, and even scrap the driveway a time or four now.

Although we love the outdoor play, we have had more indoor play as well. It got us thinking that others might be looking for some indoor fun too. We thought we would share this fun and multiple step snowman project with you to encourage some creative fun in your home this winter. Gather a few supplies from around your home and join us to build a snowman!

Supplies:

base canvas (we used white cardboard)

coloring tools (we used pastels)

paint supplies (we used tempera paint and a brush)

scrap paper (card stock, construction paper, etc)

scissors

Elmer’s glue

Once you have the supplies and are ready to create, the first thing you do is draw a snowman! I love how Reagan drew a two circle snowman and Jeremiah drew a three circle snowman that is zoomed in on, as part of his shape is “off” the page.

After you have used your drawing tools to draw the snowman, then you are ready to paint a winter scene for the snowman to live in! Paint the background surrounding the snowman. You can ask your artist why you should NOT paint in the snowman. Hopefully, they value clean, white snow too.

The final step is to embellish and add details to that snowman. We used scrap paper to cut hats and scarfs to dress our snowmen. You can also use your drawing tools from step one to add more details to the snowman or background.

Wasn’t that super easy? This is such a fun project to do with a few students or a whole class! Just as a review the steps are..

  1. Draw a snowman
  2. Paint around the snowman
  3. Embellish by gluing and drawing to add details

We love that no matter the same steps taught or supplies used, every project can look different. If you keep the rules “open ended” like they are listed simply above, each artist will take their own interpretation and be able to use his/her imagination to bring their own ideas to life. How cool is that!?

We had so much fun creating some indoor snowman. Jeremiah suggested that real outdoor snowmen are more fun to create. It’s hard to compete with snow, right!? But, if you too need some indoor fun, try this fun project. My artists are in 5th and 7th grade and they still had fun. We are never too old to play with creative tools! The pieces don’t have to be saved for forever. Stick them on your mantel for the season like we did, and then feel free to toss them out. The most important part is to to HAVE FUN!

What kind of snowman will you create? Imagine the possibilities!

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Their Hearts are Bigger than their Home

December 4, 2015 By Erica Deuel 1 Comment

kindness_matters to kidsHave you ever been in a moment where the reality of a major life change hits you? It may be your wedding day. It may be a graduation. Maybe it is the birth of a child. It could be the moment your best friend moves away. A new job. These are moments where we realize that life is changing. Sometimes we have a say in those moments and sometimes we don’t. What if you could help change some lives forever for GOOD?

Children in foster care have a chunk of my heart. I will never forget the feelings as we sat in our first training classes. I felt an awakening, as if I was on the brink of doing something I was always made to do. When I think of how I have been wired, there is a piece of me that just beats to be an advocate for these kids. They are innocent. So often their life has been messed up and they are merely the victims. They need hope. They need open arms. They need patience, grace, and a whole lot of love.

We recently said good-bye to the little boy we were loving on. He was with us for four months. When I look back on that experience, there are parts of me that can’t believe we did it. Fostering children is hard. You are dealing with hurting little people trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t make sense. More often than not you are showing them a new world. All they’ve known to be normal…is suddenly gone and there’s new faces in the picture.

It’s hard.

Then you add in appointments, therapies, visits, and numerous other things…it’s just hard. There are several faces that come to mind when I think of our experience, and they kept my head above water.

They saw the hurt in my eyes when I said I was ok.

They told me they were coming to help with the kids for the day.

They brought meals.

They sent me songs and verses.

They hugged me just a little tighter.

They let me cry and they cheered me on.

They watched my kids.

They gave me a playset.

They opened their homes to our craziness.

They cared for a sick one while we were in a hospital with another.

They kept calling me, when I stopped returning calls.

They were angels on earth.

What is often overlooked when thinking of foster care is it takes an army. You do not have to have a child actually live in your home to play a part in helping children in foster care. There are numerous other ways to help and make a difference. I will tell you from my experience, the people who are housing hurting kids…have a hard time asking for help, but they need it.

They need your support.

They need your eyes to see and heart to hear.

They need a break and they need advocates who understand.

These precious souls I call angels on earth. I would not have survived and been able to be in the trenches without help.

Just a little before we took our last boy in, my sister and her husband took in a little foster girl. They slowly learned she was one of five and have worked to get three of her other siblings reunited under their roof. Olivia and Cody are caring for their own two biological girls and now a sibling group of four. They have six kids 6-years-old and younger in their care. They are in the trenches and truly being the hands and feet of Christ.

feetThey need our help.

What was originally approved as an acceptable bedroom  placement and living situation has now been deemed not acceptable. They are a young couple. Their hearts are bigger than their home.

It is their heart’s desire to keep these kids united without having to be moved yet again…until it is time for them to go home. Weeks before Christmas, they are in jeopardy of being split up again and having to move and change schools a third time this semester.

A temporary living arrangement has been approved at their home with the understanding that they will start construction process to create an addition very soon. You can help us make this possible.

sing_renoWe can’t all take in a foster child, much less a sibling group of four to love as our own, but we can all help support those that do. These kids are on the brink of being split up. They can’t fight for life together on their own. We are their voice.

Would you consider giving to this Go Fund Me Campaign?

Would you share this post with your community?

Some of us can do a little. Some of us can do a lot. All of us can do something, and every little bit will add up to make a difference.

To help make this fun and add a little incentive for you, I have set up a giveaway. Enter as many ways as you want/can for your chance to win these handmade goodies of mine. This prize pack is valued at $75 and will be shipped right to your doorstep when you win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

MasterpieceAs I recall all of my angels on earth and the ways they helped us through our last foster placement, it excites me to be on the other side of the equation. Please join me and let’s be an overwhelming army of support for the Sing family. Ready… Set… Give! Share! Go!!!

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Eddy’s Postcard Series: Please, never grow up Snow White

August 1, 2015 By Erica Deuel 1 Comment

If you are just joining this series for the first time, you can read the heart about it here.

There are moments that happen through the day that are just normal. They are my everyday.

For example, it is not unusual for my little girl to be dressed up as a princess and either be wrestling with her brothers or crafting at the same time. Although this is a normal moment, it’s one that I never want to forget.

Someday I will look back at these sweet moments in time and smile through teary eyes at how special, precious, and quick they were. So, I stop cleaning up dinner dishes to just watch her and capture this picture.

2-August 1, 2015

2-August 1 2015 backThis sweet babe of mine is my baby girl. Three weeks ago her world was rocked as we welcomed another little boy into our lives for a season.

He is our first foster placement since moving to Indiana. I look at my sweet girl and realize she is no longer the baby in the house. She is no longer the only four-year old in the house. My heart hurts a little bit for how I have changed up her world, but then I have to believe I am showing her a much bigger world. Telling her to love others is much different than the power of showing her.

We are navigating to find a new normal around here, and I could not be prouder for how my kids are loving this sweet new one in our home.  As my schedule has changed, and I don’t have as much time to do other things besides kids, I am reminded of how I can still be creative in other ways from crafts. Finding special moments with just one on one interaction with my kids is one way I am having to be creative.

It’s funny how when we are searching and looking…we can find them and Jesus has been so good to grant them to me daily. Watching Snow White craft away a coloring picture to cut out, glue to cardboard, and use as a toy was just one moment in the last week that I never want to forget.

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Collections

July 24, 2015 By Erica Deuel 1 Comment

A few weeks ago my family packed up our van and headed out on a road trip. We drove from Indiana down to little Port St. Joe in Florida for a week at the beach, back up through Atlanta to see some family, and then off to Virginia to see some dear friends, before returning home. We soaked in some amazing views as we rolled through 2,800 miles of the country.

Do you like to road trip?

We love it. The long drives force us to sit and do nothing but talk with those that we love and take in the stunning creation out the windows.

On this last drive, we saw a vast array of land. I loved seeing the corn-growing in Indiana, the mountains in Tennessee, and the ocean with leaping dolphins in Florida was pretty spectacular. The landscape changed from flat grounds to the most gorgeous mountains and hills. My mind kept thinking how it looks like God had textured and layered his painting so perfectly. One scene that got me was my parent’s back yard. pine_treesThose Pine Trees…I have all the heart eyes in the world for them. It’s a funny thing growing up in Georgia. Pine trees are common. They may even be annoying or a nuisance cause they are just everywhere and the pollen they spew in the spring can be ridiculous. After moving to the mid-west, it suddenly hit me one day that my flower beds have rocks covering the ground rather than pine needles because there are no pine trees. My heart ached a little. Pine Trees are home to me.

Even as I type this out and think of that picture, I feel myself fighting a lump in my throat and watering eyeballs. It’s amazing what a picture can do, isn’t?! A single picture can bring back a flood of emotions. It can cause you to recall lots of memories even to the point you smell and taste them. Hence the phrase: a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s so true.

It reminds me of my childhood postcard collection. As we camped, hiked, and traveled as a kid I would buy a postcard wherever we went. It was my little snippet of that trip. That single image sparked a family trip, a camp out gone bad, a birthday hike, or even just a long day in the car fighting over seat space. The memories, the images, the postcards are snippets of what was my reality, My life. These are my moments that I never want to forget.

I can be guilty of sharing TOO many images these days. Social media has made it so easy to upload a picture that sometimes we miss the moments. We are focusing on the actual image and capturing the perfect shot rather than living the moment. The order is reversed in how these memories should go.

I want to recapture the sacred picture. The picture that floods my brain. The one that I go back and look at 20 times that week and smile, laugh or cry aloud at the moment it captured. These pictures might not be the most edited. They might not be the prettiest, but they are real.

It’s these thoughts that make me want to try a new regular series on on the blog called Eddy’s Postcards. Eddy, is also a memory from my younger days. It’s a nickname I picked up while mentoring some pretty awesome girls. They took my initials and had fun with it. Now I really feel old with all these “remembrances of younger Erica days”. Oh well. 

I will post a picture every week and give a little blurb about why that picture is my favorite picture from that week. I hope this idea will help me think less of the posing of pictures and more of the pictures that are the real moments I never want to forget.

1- July 4, 2015 postcardFor example, this picture from our trip is one I have smiled at so many times since we have been home. I love how I can hear the boys squealing with delight, how Matt is literally in the middle of the action capturing it all, and Matt’s sweet dad is standing off to the side all by himself looking reallllllllly worried about all the fireworks going off around his family. It’s awesome.

1- July 4, 2015 postcard back

I hope you will follow along with this series, and it can encourage you to remember the moments that matter and let some of the others go. We are in this journey of life together, and I hope we can (in some small way) spur each other on to be stretched, focused on what matters, and give life all we can.

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