Happy Anniversary Everyday Marvalous!

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015 / everydaymarvalous / Leave a comment

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I cannot believe that today the Everyday Marvalous blog is 1 year old! It has been an amazing year! My first post, “The Gift” on December 31, 2014, I used to introduce myself to you through a fictional story regarding how I see myself with the Lord. I have truly enjoyed the opportunity to share my thoughts on how to bring beauty and joy to everyday life. Being that the ultimate source of true joy is the Almighty God, His presence permeates through my blog posts. I do believe that when we allow His light and love to shine through us, we experience His peace, draw ourselves and even others closer to Him. To demonstrate how far His light and love has shined through me, my blog has reached readers outside of the United States in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Russia, and the United Kingdom. WOW!

Here are some of my favorite images from the past year.

Singing happy birthday to the boys.

The children’s bedroom.

The boy’s black and white themed birthday party, 2015.

The year 2016, I plan to continue to update the content with the home tour, adding new and interesting topics to share, and all more frequently. I look forward to further growing the readership of Everyday Marvalous, sharing my walk with the Lord, and hopefully inspiring you to join me in enjoying the beauty in our lives.

Thank you and God Bless!

Marva

Miracle polish in a bottle…

December 28, 2015December 28, 2015 / everydaymarvalous / Leave a comment

Sally Hansen Miracle Gel 2

I am creature of habit. Once, I find a product that works, I will become a loyalist to the brand for years. On a whim, I strayed from my usual brand of nail polish and purchased some of the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polishes. This products touts a 14-day wear and not needing light to dry the polish. I tried waiting the 14 days. However, I like to change polish weekly. So I was able to hold out for 10 days before changing the color. I was really impressed with the long wear of the polish. There were only slight imperfections on the 10th day, I could have gone longer. I have purchased more colors. In the picture below, I am wearing Game of Chromes, a nice color to ring in the New Year.

You apply two coats of color followed by the clear top coat, i.e. the black bottle in the photo above. I love the ease of application, the fast frying, and the long wear. The only obstacle was that I needed acetone nail polish to remove the color. I normally use one without acetone. These You may even find some on sale for less. Target (in stores) and Ulta (on-line, possibly in stores) has a twin pack with the polish and the top coat for $15.99. You can read more about this product at the Sally Hansen website below and view the color options.

http://www.sallyhansen.com/nails/nail-color/gel-nail-color/miracle-gel?cid=usa_search_bing_%20sally%20%20hansen%20%20miracle%20%20gel_broad

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2015 / everydaymarvalous / Leave a comment

I hope that you all have had a wonderful Christmas Day! Our Christmas celebration began on Christmas Eve, attending the candlelight worship service. I was really inspired to continue to allow God’s light to shine through me and felt thankful for the gift of Christ, His birth, death, and resurrection. We sang traditional Christmas songs of worship. In my heart, I sang an old song that I learned in elementary school, God is so good. He really is! When I think of how He has blessed me, guided me, loves me, cares for me, and I could go on and on. I just want to sing, “God is so good. Oh so good to me!”

My children are older now and Santa was not a major player in celebration this year, as in the past. They are appreciating more the “reason for the season.” And the magic of Christmas is still palpable. I enjoy sharing this time with my family, attending service, gift giving, sharing the Christmas breakfast (our new tradition). It was such a wonderful opportunity to just love and be loved. Below are some highlights from our family celebration of Christmas.

The greatest gift is Christ, our Savior. We can show our appreciation by how we serve and love others, as He does for us. Give the gift of love. Merry Christmas!

Love,

Marva

A Marvalous Weekend

December 14, 2015December 13, 2015 / everydaymarvalous / Leave a comment

This weekend, I was able to help celebrate my Mom’s 65th birthday. It is such a blessing to have her as a Mom and a friend. We enjoy a lot of the same things, so it was easy to plan a few activities to make her feel special. Friday night, the boys and I delivered to her a bouquet of flowers and a birthday card. Saturday, we had lunch at The Dove’s Nest in Waxahachie (http://thedovesnestrestaurant.com). The food was delicious. Their bread pudding was the best that I have ever had.I enjoyed eating and the company that I forgot to take a few pictures to share. I recommend that you visit them, if you are ever near Waxahachie. Not only, will you enjoy a great meal, but shopping, too. After lunch, we worked off our meal shopping in the nearby antique shops.

I got a few treats for myself, too. For example, this hat is a new from The Dove’s Nest.

One of may favorite things to do is shopping in antique stores. I love finding new uses for old and delicate items, such as tea cups to store jewelry. In one of my past shopping adventures, I bought the chair below for my boy’s bedroom for $25 dollars. I love this chair! I did not change a thing about it. What a deal!

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Here are a few of the smaller items that I have purchased on past shopping trips. I use the silver plated hand mirror everyday.

On Sunday evening, we sang Happy Birthday and ate a cake that I made for my Mom. Note: I am an amateur baker. Great tip from my sister – replace the cooking oil for a box cake with a stick of butter. The cake was a delicious strawberry and vanilla four layer cake.

Then we finished the evening by the fire watching an episode of the Real Housewives of Atlanta.

I could tell she was happy and so was I. It really was a Marvalous weekend!