Please pray for Samuel

Go here to learn about Samuel

and his fight for his precious little life.

Samuel's father,

who has endured many of his own

long and painful trials,

grew up at the same church that I did.

Please be praying for this family.

'tis the Season

We're still working on up-packing

and arranging stuff from the move,

but that didn't stop Mark and Kate

from pulling out all the Christmas decorations

Thanksgiving weekend.

They had such a fun time putting everything

right where they thought it should go.

It sure looks interesting (aka: messy!)

but they had a blast and I hardly

lifted a finger.

This past weekend they got Ron to get a tree

which they then decorated pretty much

all by themselves.

It's so fun to see how excited they get

and how well they get along when they're

doing something together that

they enjoy so much.

totally random

Here are a few quick pics from the last month...

Kate and her friends all ready to Trick or Treat around the new neighborhood.

Scary Mark.

Adam and his friends heading off to Homecoming.

Gregory behind a camera. One of his favorite places.

when in doubt, bake something

After powering through a bunch of boxes this morning,

I was ready for a break.

My sister told me about a recipe for some really yummy cookies

that she made and I wanted to give them a try.

I couldn't find the exact ingredients,

so I varied it a little and here's what I came up with .

Mix a box of cake mix,

a can of pumpkin,

and half a bag of white chocolate chips together.

Bake for 13 minutes at 350

and voila!

Super duper yuminess!!!

They're really little, so they end up being the perfect size

to just pop one (or maybe 5)

in your mouth.

The original recipe calls for

a box of yellow cake mix

a can of pumpkin

and a bag of cinnamon chips.

I still want to try those,

but I haven't been able to find any cinnamon chips yets.

Oh, and I almost forgot,

I added some chopped pecans to mine too.

And I've got this in the crockpot for dinner.

Here's to new recipes

to get me out of my cooking rut!

views

We went from a view of this...

to a view of this.

And a view of this...

to a view of this.

We're still buried under boxes,

but it feels so good to be

home.

busy, busy, busy

We have had back

to back

to back

houseguests

the last five weeks.

It's been super fun, but now it's back to reality.

Which for us right now involves finishing up packing the house

because we are moving one week from tomorrow.

I took a bunch of pictures of the chaos

we are living in these days,

and some pretty pictures of the leaves changing colors,

but then we packed the thingy I need to get the pictures from my camera

on to the computer and over here to this neglected little blog.

Since I don't like posting without a picture,

I thought I'd share an old picture of the monkey.

Enjoy.

not so wordless Wednesday

Ron and I got to have a wonderful little getaway this past weekend.

It was super relaxing, we got to catch up with

some of our best friends,

we made some new friends,

and my man got to golf on a course that had views like this...

I'm pretty sure that's what heaven will look like for Ron.

Now I'm off to the airport to pick up my mom.

Hope she's ready for the insane amount of work I've got waiting for her.

You just gotta love moms!

And maybe while she's packing up my house

I'll have a chance to post some more pictures from

our super fun fantastic weekend.

colorful morning

As we were leaving our neighborhood this morning,

we saw this hot air balloon

lifting off from our neighbors yard.

Too cool!

After I dropped the kids off and was almost home

I saw it out over some corn fields near our house.

I'd say that's a pretty good way to spend a beautiful morning.

flea market :: edited to add pictures

This was one of the first booths (tents actually) that we saw when we arrived.
I immediately fell in love with the distressed green bed for Kate.
I decided to keep on walking and if it was still there
when we made our way back around...

Long story short, Kate has a new bed!

It was super cold (high 40's)
and drizzling the whole time we were there,
so we didn't stay too long
and I didn't get very many pictures.

But it was still a lot of fun and I'm really glad we went.
We even ran in to a couple girls that I know from church.
They had some awesome art work that I would
have loved to have gotten, but the bed won this time.
Maybe next month.

My sister and I are headed here this morning.

I can't wait!

I'll be back later today with some pictures of what we saw

and hopefully some treasures that we got to bring home.

In the meantime, you can watch this.

It's way cool!

charming handbag

After much frustration,

more time than I cared to spend with my seam ripper,

help from a friend,

and a couple of re-do's...

I finally finished the Charming Handbag.

It wasn't feeling so charming to me by the time I finished it.

But now that I know what I'm doing,

the next one will go much more smoothly.

Besides, the fabric is so darn cute it kind of makes up

for the mistakes I made and the words that may or may not

have slipped from my mouth as I was making it.

I'm just saying...

The bag is from this book if you're interested.

10 on 10 {september}

The idea is from here.

Take a photo every hour for ten consecutive hours on the tenth of each month. Document a day of your life and find beauty among the ordinary moments. Then share your beauty with us!

9am :: Procrastination = Laundry Mountain

10 am :: Picking out a sewing project for the day

11am :: Lunch

Noon :: Loving the all the colors in these fabrics

1pm :: Happily playing

2pm :: Listening to Pandora while we work

3pm :: Picking the kids up from school

4pm :: Project central

5pm :: Adam is home from Camp T

6pm :: Lazy dinner

They're here...

We're so excited to have my sister and niece here for a visit.

It's a short one, but we're going to pack in

tons of fun and have a blast!

(photo taken by 3 year old natalie)

The kids are all at school and we're heading to Snooze

and then the fabric store.

For starters...

Tuesday Tidbit

Bible study started up again this morning,

and as usual

I was smacked up-side the head

with some good stuff.

I was thinking that maybe

if I took the time to write some of it down,

it would sink in and last a little longer.

I'm doing the Beth Moore study

To Live Is Christ

and it's about the life of the apostle Paul.

Should be good.

Anyway, in the midst of her teaching

that we were watching

she said...

"God is more interested in our restoration

than in our rescue."

It goes right along with something a friend

said to me yesterday,

that in our constantly searching to know

God's will for our lives,

the one thing we know for sure

is that His will is our sanctification.

UGH! To be honest,

sometimes I just don't like to hear the truth!

But... I believe it to be The Truth,

so I will continue to press on,

knowing that the Lord loves me

in spite of me,

and being so, so thankful

that He is patient with me.

excitement

...in the cul de sac.

There was a brush fire at the entrance to our neighborhood

the other day (which is not exciting, by the way).

This firefighter was sent to our street to fill up his tank with water

and the kids got a front row seat to watch the action.

They were too cute sitting on that rock watching him the whole time.

Thankfully, the fire(s) were all put out fairly quickly and no one was hurt.

Praise God for brave firefighters!

sew cool!

I am sew excited!
(Yes, I know I'm a dork.)
I have been wanting to start sewing for quite a while now
but it just hasn't happened.
Until now!
My friend Katy was visiting from Minnesota last week,
so I drug her down to Old Town to this new and super cute fabric store.
We picked out a pattern and some fabric
and she very patiently helped me get started and I made this!

It's called a Gumdrop Pillow and it was super easy to make, which is a good thing
because the kids have been fighting over it and I think I might need to make three more.
Or at least one more.
With monkeys on it.

Here is one of the many things Kate has been doing with it...

I'm kind of addicted to the whole sewing thing now.
I've made Kate a little tote bag and matching wallet and a quilt for her dolls.
Now I'm working on a tote bag for myself and I also
bought fabric and a pattern to make myself a shirt.
I can't wait for my mom to come out
and help me with that one.
Oh, and the skirt that I want to make but I don't know
how to do an elastic waistband.
And then there's zippers!

Can you say addict?
I think I'm going to have to go get a job to support my new habit.
Maybe that cute fabric store is hiring...

bummer

Mark got poked in the eye today while playing tag at recess,

so I got to go pick him up from school

and take him to the eye doctor to get checked out.

Can you tell he was completely thrilled to be there?

He wanted to push those buttons so badly he was about to crawl out of his skin!

Fortunately, all that is wrong is that his eye is bruised

and he has a small abrasion,

both of which the doctor said should heal up within a couple days.

We're thankful that it wasn't anything worse,

because it sure looked like it might have been.

I think he is a little disappointed he didn't get to go home with an eye patch.

Then he could have been a pirate like his uncle Todd.

silly boy

Gregory was taking pictures of himself

in the car on the way home

from school yesterday.

He was cracking himself up!

first day of school

I can not believe how fast this past summer has gone by!

Here's the kids this morning before heading off to school.

Adam told me that under no circumstances

was I allowed to take a picture of him

once we got to school, so we got a

couple shots in the driveway and off we went.

It's Been Awhile...

Haven't been in to the blogging thing much lately.

Obviously.

But I got to go visit my sister in Minneapolis this past weekend,

so I thought I'd give you the link to her blog so you can

check out some of the fun that we had.

It was a wonderful little getaway.

Thank you Kristine and Ron!

You can go here to check it out.

snow day

The kids got to have a day off of school today because we got a nice big dump of snow yesterday afternoon and evening. Today was a gorgeous sunny day with white everywhere. I wanted to post some pictures, but the battery on my camera is dead and I can not find the charger anywhere! But, my sister is here and took some pics, so as soon as I get those on my computer, I'll add them here.

As beautiful as the snow is, I'm VERY ready for spring and warmer weather. I, very spur of the moment, took the kids to California last week for their spring break, and it was so wonderful to walk around in shorts and flip flops. And to lay at the beach. I can't wait to go back this summer! I'll try and get some of the pictures from our trip up here too.

monday morning

I've made a few changes here, again. I'm really going to start trying to make a conscious effort to not spend too much time on the computer being unproductive. I do way too much of that. So I'm here for a quick hello and then on to more important things. Like laundry and sweeping the kitchen floor. Woo Hoo!

But before that I'll enjoy this...



While I'm looking out my window at this...



When I'd really LOVE to be looking at this...



Hope you all have a wonderful day and a wonderful week!

The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works,
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord;
And all flesh shall bless His holy name
Forever and ever (Psalm 145:17-19, 21).

random thoughts

Nothing much to say, but figured since I was changing my background, AGAIN, I'd do a quick post.

I finally got motivated the last couple days to do some unpacking. Finally! Our house is actually starting to look like a house again.

I'd really like to take some pictures of the kids this weekend. It's been quite a while since I've gotten some cute ones, so hopefully it'll happen and I'll post them if I do.

Have a wonderful weekend!