Say Hello to Misty from Monkeys and Tutus!

My name is Misty and I blog over at Monkeys & Tutus! I am an Army Wife stay at home mommy to 3 kids under 3! My blog is a compilation of all the fun and chaos that goes along! Here are my 3 crazy beautiful babies!

I am so thrilled that Danette asked me to do a guest post for her! I have been debating on what to share with you all and after my manic Monday I learned some important things about blogging and some great life lessons in return and that's what I'm going to share with ya today.

In the past month I have been working really hard to grow my blog and make it something that people would want to read, a place other toddler mommies can go to find fun ideas and I have poured my heart and soul and a ton of time and money into making it just that.

Monday while looking at my stats I saw something weird, I had noticed it before but wasn't really sure and when I did some investigation and then got really freaked out. It basically looked like most of page view were coming from a referring sight that turned out to be a Russian Porn site! As you can imagine I had a total freak out mostly because I post a lot about my family, lots of pics of my kidos etc. Long long long story short (you can read full story here) I had that massive freak out only to find out it was just what is known as referrer spam! In the complete haste of my panic I went a little crazy! I deleted every post that had a pic of my kids on it.  I spent hours taking down pics of my kids from everywhere and I was on the verge of shutting down the blog.  I made twitter posts, facebook posts and a blog post saying I had been hijacked by pervs and I was shutting it down.  I felt sick and distraught and thought my blogging life was over.  (cue dramatic music, ha) In my crazy hasty overreaction not only did I delete a lot of important posts, a lot of hard work and spend countless hours worrying I ignited fear in a ton of people because believe it or not, a ton of bloggers have this crazy referrer spam in their stats site.  Luckily I had a lot of amazing support and people that helped me find the solution.  I was overwhelmed with the sweetness of my readers.  I got links, posts saying don't quit and lots of help to calm my irrational fears!


The purpose for me telling you my crazy story is two fold. First, if you notice 'pregolum' or anything like that in your referring urls or sites ignore it! Do not click on it :)  Its just stupid spam. Referrer spam (lots of links and info on referrer spam here) Clicking on it only makes more spam come in and makes it worse. The more you click the more you get. The more you ignore it the less you will see it.

Second, it taught me a valuable lesson about hastiness, mercy and grace!

It is not good to have zeal without knowledge,

nor to be hasty and miss the way. (Proverbs 19:2 NIV84)

Ignorant zeal is worthless; haste makes waste. (Proverbs 19:2 MSG)

Proverbs 14:29 Amp
He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is hasty of spirit exposes and exalts his folly.

Those verses pretty much sum up what happened to me! I was very 'zealous' if you want to put it that way!  I was passionate about the reasoning behind my madness and hastiness.   Untimely I was worried about the safety of my kids but there were a lot of different ways I could have handled it. A lot of easier ways that I could have taken care of things until I had time to do my research.

Proverbs 29:20 Amp

Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a [self-confident] fool than for him.

The same goes in many areas of most of our day to days.  From small things to huge things, if any of you are like me, its all to easy to jump to the bad conclusion and run with it before knowing the whole story.

Its easy to fly off the handle at someone in traffic, its easy to judge the lady screaming at her kids in the store, its easy to get mad at someone for being late, its easy to think the worst instead of assuming the best in every day situations even when we don't know the whole story.


Did you ever hear the story about the man on the plane with 3 loud rambunctious kids and he is just sitting there not even paying attention to them.  The other passengers are getting angry because the kids are being awful.  Another passenger finally says something to the man about needing to control his kids and he says I am sorry their mother just died and I am still in shock and I have no idea how to tell them.  

Of course the passenger (as well as most people reading this) have a total paradigm shift.

Same goes with someone cutting you off in traffic, someone being unnecessarily rude to you etc.  Its much easier to be hasty and get angry with out knowing the situation. 


I learned a valuable lesson in being hasty and my readers taught me a valuable lesson in mercy and grace.  It would have been so easy for them to just say ok and unfollow and be done with it or to say omg shes crazy and way to over reactive but so many of them reached out and offered support. 


Every day we do things that go against God, be it little or large, we all sin and we all fall short of His glory but He is always right there offering us grace and mercy.  How sweet is it that no matter how hasty we are in our day to days Gods love and mercy are always new.  

Matthew 5:7 Amp

Blessed (happy, ^[a]to be envied, and ^[b]spiritually prosperous—^[c]with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!

Thank you, Danette for the wonderful opportunity to share some ramblings from my heart!  

Thank you, Misty!  I appreciate Misty and her willingness to guest post.  Don't forget that tomorrow is the launch of the Blue Jay Boutique!  Hope to see you then.

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Parenting Series: Nurturing Creativity

The following is an article written by my mother, Linda Dillon.

Linda has been a mom for 29 years to many children.  Some have been her own but she has raised, or helped raise, hundreds of kids into adults.  Linda spends most of her time serving in the local church where her husband pastors, but, like most women, she enjoys a good pair of shoes, a cup of coffee, and shopping.

Creativity is a lost art in children today.  It's almost sickening to realize that we raise our children to be entertained and to absorb rather than to give and to make the world a better place.  Parents are always telling and asking me about things to do with their kids so they can avoid hearing their children complain of boredom.  (Being bored is a post within itself and I'll have to write about that another time.)  But regardless, of this culture standard to entertain and pander to our kids we are only hurting them and the creative experience.  We can use our influence to impact our children's lives and the lives of children around us.  We can nurture the creative mind that each person is born with.  In turn, that nurturing can help change the world.

I was reminded of this fact a few days ago while I was at work.  One of my young friends, Miss G,  began babysitting for my employer.  Miss G grew up as the youngest of three girls and her mom believed in encouraging creativity and active imaginations in her girls.   Miss G was hired to baby sit for my my employers two year old grandson, Baby M.  Baby M has absolutely everything any two year old could want.  He has toys and age appropriate video games and movies.  His grandmother gives him love and respect.  Seriously, there's nothing more a child could want.  But on this day those toys and video games and movies just weren't quite enough for Baby M.

While watching a movie, Baby M began throwing his toys--all his toys--violently across the room.  Miss G did her best to control the toy throwing, but when she just couldn't anymore, she did the next best thing.  She used her imagination.  She gathered all the blankets in the house and began to build a tunnel all over the furniture.  Obviously, this behavior became distracting to Baby M.

"You're crazy.  You are playing with yourself." he said to Miss G.  He's mind, though young, was not geared or open to this game. 

After Miss G finished she had Baby M follow her through the tunnel.  It was great!  Imagine going through a jungle with monkeys chasing close at your tails or hiding from dinosaurs or exploring a deep, dark cave.  

I was taken back to the days when my four children were little and we did the same thing.  We actually built a tent and slept out all night in the den of the house.  We played circus and had music and dancing.  We threw candy to each other.  Greatest of all was when they were really small getting the pots and pans out and playing them as drums.

Maybe we've lost the art of being creative ourselves.  We depend on teachers, magazine articles, and news recaps to tell us, show us, and inform us what to do.  In same cases they even do it for us.  What about putting your "thinking cap" on and coming up with something great to do with your kids this week that doesn't cost a dime?  And I'm not saying put the kids in the backyard and let them play on the trampoline either.  Spend time with them not money on them.

Dust off the brain and go for it.  Your kids will love your creative side and they will learn to be creative themselves.  You. Can. Do. This.

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Giveaway? Who doesn't love a giveaway...Parenting Week #3

Several of my blog friends are doing giveaways.  I love giveaways.  I really love winning.  I think most people are the same way, but because I love giveaways, I also know it's hard to enter every giveaway that comes up in your Twitter feed.  Most of the time I'm checking into Twitter on my phone and there's no way to enter all of them from there.

http://www.chasingoursunshine.com/2012/06/june-group-giveaway-day.html

http://dalaynadillon.blogspot.com/2012/06/they-really-are-my-friends.html

http://tatertotsandjello.com/2012/06/outdoor-inspiration-and-100-lowes-gift-card-giveaway.html#comment-186556

Today I wanted to share a sermon from Willie George and Church on the Move.  Having grown up watching The Gospel Bill Show, I have long admired and respected Willie George's ministry and the impact that he has on the next generation.

Recently I was snooping on their church website (sometimes I do that), and came across this sermon that he had preached the previous weekend.  As I was watching, I quickly discovered that although this is specifically for parent's he had some encouraging information for people in any kind of authority.

Hope this message helps you because I know it inspired me. :)

In The Zone - Part 5 from Church on the Move on Vimeo.

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Parentally Advice

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