A Real Woman: Lauren from Living Loved

I am so honored to have the lovely Lauren here with us today. She is awesome to say the least. She is from Australia. Which is awesome. She doesn't know it yet but I am going to visit her one day and we are going to laugh and craft and talk and have coffee. Ok...stalker status.

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I am not a housewife. I am a single, twenty-one year old lover of Christ. I blog at Living Loved. When Savannah asked me to post for this project I thought it was an excellent idea! That's so much for having me Sav :) The point of this post is simple, but incredibly powerful. Show Grace when blogging. There are many women, of many different faiths that have blogs. So how do we make our blogs reflect beliefs that are Christian? How do we allow readers to acknowledge what makes Christian women's blogs different? There is an anecdote that goes something along the line of this:

Years ago, a large international conference was held of religious leaders from around the world. In the midst of the conference, a debate began about what it was that set Christianity apart from other religions.

Some argued that it was God coming in the flesh that set Christianity apart from other religions. They decided that wasn’t it, because other religions claimed that their gods came in human form. Some argued that it was love, or sacrifice, or the resurrection, or one thing or another; each idea being shot down. Finally, C. S. Lewis, having arrived late, walked into the conference and asked what all the noise was about. When told they were discussing what it was that set Christianity apart from all other religions, he said, “That’s easy. It’s grace.”  source

Christianity is set apart because of Grace.

When I think about what I should or should not blog about... I remember that the most important thing is being real with readers and continually reminding them of God's grace as much as I need to remind myself sometimes.  That's why it's important to post about the messy, the sad, the frustrating.. because Grace has always  and will always cover us and spreading this message can change lives. Nothing we do will ever change how much our Lord loves us.  So when you've had a bad day and all you want to post about it 'today was rough' or 'today did not go how I planned' then post about it! AND declare His continued faithfulness, renewal and amazing grace, too. We need to be imperfect examples so that His perfection shines through.

Gretchen from That Mama Gretchen: A Real Housewife

Today I have the lovely Gretchen who blogs over at THAT MAMA GRETCHEN

She is ready to get real with y'all. After reading here, go check out her blog...she is one amazing lady!

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Hi! My name is Gretchen and I blog over at That Mama Gretchen. I was so excited when Savannah asked me to participate in The Real Housewives Project! I hope you get a kick out of my real life moment at home - yoga pants with no plans of yoga, un-stylish top bun, a sick child glued to my hip, and a sink full of too many dishes :)

Since becoming a stay-at-home mama last September I have struggled with perfection. I had Pinterest ideals of a lovely home, 3 course meals, hip mama/baby outfits, and of course, the perfect blog that attracted hundreds of followers. Instead, I've yet to find a real sync in my new life and with a second baby on the way, I'm hesitant to believe I'll ever find my groove!

But, I promise I'm trying - striving for a realistic plan, not perfection. This last weekend I got super organized ... I made a simple meal plan, wrote out a realistic to-do list, and prayed I would have the strength, determination, patience, and every other good virtue to have a successful week. Then my sweet girl came down with a fever and cold :( She tossed and turned all night and our day has morphed into a snuggle movie day.

As we cuddle, I'm reminded of my true calling as a mama. It's not about folded laundry or a picture perfect family - it's about growing love, and then teaching my children how to give that love to others. It is my prayer that we can all let go of perfection and embrace these words from Ruth Hulburt Hamilton ...

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Ok - Savannah again - I LOVE the poem that Gretchen added to the end. It is one of my favorites of all time and I hope one day to remember it when I am a mom!!

Thank you so much Gretchen, such a great "real" post!

Rubyellen from Cakies: A Real Housewife

I am completely honored to have Rubyellen here with me today from Cakies. I am SUCH a fan of hers and her blog is one of the ones I go to first each day. Great posts on parenting, healthy eating (her husband is a nutritionist!), and crafty lovelies! Enjoy!

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Hi! I am Rubyellen from Cakies and I am honored to be sharing a bit here on

The Real Housewives Project.

I love blogging and reading blogs, but it can also be a terrible thing. Sometimes you can get caught up in reading blogs, idolizing someone's lifestyle, and start to get easily discontented with your own life. You can start to think, "Wow! They have got it perfect! Why am I not like that? " or "Why can't I have that?"

Blogs can look quite dreamy and I know mine may even portray that from time to time, but I personally feel it would be a disservice or dishonest if I don't acknowledge my faults and how un-dreamy things can be for our family too. We are just like any other normal family, so we have messes, I yell, my kids get in trouble, Ben and I fight, we aren't always dressed to the nines are all things that happen in our real life too. What goes on in your house, probably goes on in my house. We are no exception.

I do love to document the pretty things in our life, but I have no problem admitting the bad too. I can look back and see God's work through all of it. He grows me through the happy, pretty moments and also through those nitty-gritty, tough moments. Life is full of ups and downs and I want people to know that and rejoice through it all. It is only by God's grace that I am able to go through each day, even if some days are harder (or better) than others.

If you are afraid to show your messy self in the blog world, don't. We are all messy and I think we can all just get as encouraged from reading about our messes just as much as reading about the pretty parts of life. Life's a mess anyways, so let's just all find joy in God through it!

Wanna be featured for the Real Housewives Project?

email me!

sav{dot}horton{at}gmail{dot}com

Emily from The Anderson Crew: a Real Housewife

Hello lovely readers! 

I am Emily, and I blog over at The Anderson Crew.  I am married to Mr. Anderson and together we have 6 beautiful and well behaved children. 

Ahem, yah right. 

We're being real today, I forgot.

My children ARE beautiful, and some days I could call them well behaved, but describing them as loud, hilarious, crazy and wild seems a better fit.

Being real in the blog department is not always easy. 

Some days, I open up my google reader and see that so-and-so has posted about how their children are awesome eaters and eat every vegetable and fruit put in front of them and then all I have is this:

My son, crying and whining over being forced to eat one single pea.

Wow, her child must be more awesome than mine.

And then so-and-so posts about how they took a trip to the beach with all their children and it was a glorious time and no sand was stuck in any crevices afterwards, and to top it all off, they got an awesome shot of the whole family together.  And all I have is this:

A totally fabulous shot of my 2 year old screaming because 1. he doesn't like the sand, and 2. he doesn't want his picture taken.

Awesome.

Then, you know who, goes on their yearly Disney trip and comes back with fabulous stories and pictures from their va-cay, including one amazing shot in front of the Princess castle.

And all I have is this:

My son, flashing the peace sign and grabbing his wenis in front of the castle.  Certainly a photo we won't ever forget.

You get where I'm going with this?

So-and-so and You Know Who are always going to have better photos and stories than you, if you choose to believe so.

And that just might be their real life, but I'm not gonna let that get to me.  I want to always remember when Kohen was so afraid of the sand that he screamed.  I want to remember Milo being forced to eat a single pea, and I'll never forget the most amazing photo of him in front of the Princess castle.

I love my real life.

I love that my kitchen sink almost ALWAYS looks like this:

It's not worthy of a magazine cover, but it shows life.  Our life.

And yes, real life for us means movie days:

And wrestling on Mommy and Daddy's bed:

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

We have to stop comparing ourselves to everyone.

Our blogs are a tiny snippet of our life.  Some of us choose to put the not-so-pretty photos and stories on there and others don't.

As long as we continue to blog what's on our hearts, I think we won't have any problem being real.

You never know how the Lord will use you and your story, to touch another persons life.

Be real ladies, be real.

Heather from Life Made Lovely: a Real Housewife

The FABULOUS Heather from Life Made Lovely is here with us today. I was floored when Heather e-mailed me back saying she would contribute to my Real Housewives Project. Her blog is huge and I just admire her so much, it was a true blessing hearing her heart and being able to share it with you all!

She has an amazing family and story so please, please if you haven't heard of her (unlikely) then please go and read her blog! You will be inspired and blessed...I know I always am!

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Hi there!!

My name is Heather and I blog over at Life Made Lovely.

Ya know, I didn't set out to be a Christian blogger.  In the beginning, I wasn't planning about blogging on my faith much at all.

I just wanted to be a mommy blogger and write about my little family, but God just wouldn't let me.

He wanted me to share my story...His story...for my life, and so He pursued me relentlessly until I finally did.

Once I finally started sharing about how Jesus had worked in my life, and continues to work each day in my life, my heart began to feel so much more free.

I began to see that by sharing my faith, it was becoming even stronger.  The closeness with Jesus that I so dearly wanted was starting to become a reality.

Needless to say, that's all it took for me to change my own plans.  Whatever kind of blogger I am, I now share freely about my heart for Christ.

Whether I'm sharing a post about my little family, a craft project, or a home that inspires me, I always write from a place of faith.

It just makes my life more lovely.

Ashley from 5oh Wifey: a Real Housewife

The wonderful Ashley from 5oh Wifey: life as mommy and cop's wife is kicking off our series.

I am so blessed by all these encouraging women who will be featured these next couple months.

Enjoy!

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Hey y'all! My name is Ashley and I blog over at 5ohWifey: life as a mommy and cop's wife. I am amazed every day by what God is doing in my life. I am a southern girl now living in California against my will. I am the wife of 5ohHubby who is a police officer and wonderful man and no that's not mutually exclusive. I am a stay at home mom to an amazing little girl I call 5ohBaby and she is my whole world. We have probably the cutest, ugly dog out there (5ohPup).  

I try to blog about what I know. I try to keep it as real as possible. I blog about everything from holding on tight to my little one to the time I accidentally fed her jalapenos. I write about both the joys and the stresses of being in a police marriage. I love to cook and even make my own baby food. Sometimes I get a little crafty and dabble in fashion posts. I always say that I want my blog to be a place where we can laugh together, cry together, and just be real with one another.

But am I being real? Does anyone really know me from reading my blog?

 When you look at my blog, any blog really, it might seem like we lead these perfect whimsical lives. Our children are always well dressed and smiling, our hair is always just so, our husbands make prince charming eat his heart out and the only thing more spotless than our house is our spiritual walk . Or so it seems.

Everyone knows, or should know, that a blog is just a small part of a person's life that they're sharing with the world. But why is it always this part? This pleasantville-picture-perfect-leave-it-to-beaver life?

Because people out here on the internet judge you based on it. I have a blogging friend who has readers literally dedicate hours to leave nasty comments and write negative posts about her on other websites. I have other blogging friends who have their parenting questioned or their love for their children. Another friend who writes about her journey with weight loss and is worried about posting her actual weight on her site because she knows her high school friends read her blog. I know for myself, people at my husband's job scrutinize every single word I write, often in the hopes of finding something to mock 5ohHubby for.

And that's why we only share this tiny sliver.

Because we are afraid.

Afraid of what people might think.

Afraid of what might be said about us.

Afraid of people judging us.

Afraid of people mocking us.

Afraid that if people knew who we really were, what our house and our lives really looked like then they wouldn't accept us.

So we pose our lives, pose our children, and sometimes even convince our hubby's to pose. Everything is clean and bright and perfect.

But that's not how God sees us.

And it's a good thing, too.

Because, no matter what it usually looks like on my blog, I'm not perfect.

I don't have it all together and neither does my family.

 My daughter isn't always smiling.

My husband works long, hard, weird hours so he misses a lot of events.

Sometimes we skip church, even if we don't have a good reason.

Sometimes my house looks like this.

Ok, a lot of the time.

But the cool thing is, God knows me.

And He loves me anyways.

So, that's where I find who I am.

Not in my stats. Not in my comments.

Not in the "me" I choose to share with the internet, but in Him. 

Smith & Daphne guest post - and a cliff hanger...

We have the lovely Kristen here from {Smith & Daphne} giving us a tree topper (That will blow your mind!) tutorial.

She is a "for real" friend too, and she is amazingly talented, she always wear these beautiful handmade dresses to church, and I have to remind myself I am at church and to not covet them. 

Here's the catch...the final step is on her blog so be sure to check that out at the end!

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Although my husband and I have been married for 6 years, last year was the first year we had a tree since we were always out of state for Christmas. I pulled together a few ornaments and lights, but there was no tree topper... This year? I made one.

I started folding paper and ended up making several round layers, each created differently. This isn't difficult to make, but it can be a little time-consuming. You can make this much simpler by just choosing one folded circle, or mixing them differently... it's easy to customize. My tree topper has 3 main layers, but technically there are about 9 in there if you count everything - so feel free to leave any of those out! I'll explain the first two now. This is my final product:

{ok, Savannah here: Isn't it great?!}

Well start from the inside and work out...

The first layer is made with an accordion fold, back and forth like you're making a fan. The difference is that you make every other fold on a diagonal. This turns it into a flattened out circle and lets the back peek through a little bit at the top. 

Cut out two 4" strips of paper. Start with one and on the back, I marked every half-inch along the top and every 1-1/2 inches along the bottom.

Now, with the half-inch marks on the left, fold the top at the first mark. It should fold towards the front. Now you're going to match up the next 1/2 inch mark with the first 1-1/2 inch mark on the right. It will be diagonal and fold towards the back. It was easier for me to fold it towards the front so I could see the marks and then fold it backwards along that crease, but I also used a thin piece of cardboard to fold the paper over by lining it up with the marks. Keep folding it until you get to the end. Then, smooth it all out and cut the paper in half so you have two 2-inch wide strips.

After you cut in half refold each strip

I needed at least 4 thin strips to make a full circle - you'll have to play around a bit with lining each one up to make them look continuous, cutting off the ends as needed. I taped them all together on the back; you may want to use some tape (double-sided if you have it) in between the folds - you'll see where it might need to be held together. The center may not look pretty, but that's why I have a glittery circle on top. 

The next layer was just a very basic accordion fold in green paper. I used 3-inch strips of paper for this, and taped the ends together until I had enough to make a circle. Then I glued it to a circle of thin cardboard - use something like a cereal box. The paper wanted to un-fold itself and flatten out, so I used paperclips to hold it together here and there toward the center; otherwise, it can be really hard to make it stay circular. I used a glue gun for all of this, but if you're really particular you may want to use regular white glue. My green circle isn't quite even, and the glue dried so quickly I couldn't really change that. It doesn't bother me, but it's something to consider.

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Ok...Kristen has left us on a cliff hanger.....

To see the rest of the DIY Tree Topper...go

{HERE}

{Guest Post!} Pink Champagne Cupcakes!

Comin' atcha a little late, but here is my good friend Natasha's recipe for delicious Pink Champagne cupcakes!

Natasha blogs about all her fabulous baking creations over at Natasha's Creative Confections...do stop here, go check out her other to-die-for desserts. You won't regret it, though your waistline might. : )

 RECIPE (Cupcakes)

2 cups white sugar

1 (3 ounce) package raspberry flavored gelatin
1 cup butter, softened
4 eggs, at room temp.
2 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup raspberry puree made from frozen sweetened raspberries

Preheat oven to 325F and line muffin tins with cupcake liners.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and dry raspberry gelatin until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Combine the flour and baking powder; stir into the batter alternately with the milk.

Blend in vanilla and raspberry puree. Divide the batter among the cupcake liners. Bake for 15-18 mins (depending on your oven!), or until a small knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Allow cupcakes to cool in their pans over a wire rack for 10 mins before removing to cool completely.

RECIPE (Frosting)

3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 Tbsp. champagne

With an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter. Mix on low until well blended, and then on medium for about 3 minutes. Add vanilla and champagne, beating on medium for another minute.

 

The frosting is now ready, and you can frost your cupcakes any way you'd like. I piped them on using a sandwich bag by opening the bag inside a large glass, adding the frosting and then twisting the top as I held it. Cut a small hold in one corner and then pipe the frosting on in circles.

 

Add sprinkles or another type of decor :) 

 They are seriously delicious! Enjoy!

And thank you Natasha for your wonderful recipe! Now go check out her blog, and let your taste buds get inspired!

Love, Sav