Easter and Baby Gifts

Happy gorgeous Tuesday! Hope you all enjoyed your Memorial Day. I for one am so thankful for all the men and women that served and are serving our country. I have a nephew who recently got out of the Marines and one of my dearest friends is serving in the Navy. I know I could never do what they do to protect our country so God bless them!

Speaking of serving others...I would like to update you on our Easter. I know Easter is well passed but I thought I would share with you some pictures of Easter since I am playing catch up on posts. I always love Easter. It always seems to be a crying day for me. I simply am over-whelmed with God's love for me. I certainly do not deserve such unconditional love and I pray often that God would help me to love Him and others like that.

Adaliah was a good sport and let me sponge roll her hair the night before Easter.

And the finished result on Easter morning......


I thought she looked simply adorable. I had great fun dressing her up. Nicole bought her the dress at Goodwill and the hat and gloves at Target, Katie K. got her the sweater at a Mom2Mom sale, and I got her the purse at Target.

We can see where she gets her looks from....=)

My big girl and myself
After a time of remebrance of what the Lord has done for us we went over to Nicole's house and had a wonderful Easter dinner. Keb and Jaydn also came over with Jason's best friend Austin. We did a little candy hunt with all of the kids. Maria did a little lesson before hand talking about the reason Jesus came to earth was to find His lost treasures....His children. Then she told the kids that is what you guys are going to do...find some treasures. The kids were so cute and were finding the "treasures" and putting it in their cousins baskets. Warmed our hearts!

This is the best shot we could get of the 5 grandkids. Jaydn was not feeling well and wanted Keb to hold him and Micah wanted to take the picture not be in it. lol

As I am sure you are all aware of...my two sisters are due this summer. I finished the babies' presents this week. Maria is doing a zebra print with hot pink accents. So I took this......

I painted the inside white and I used the printed duct tape and covered the outside of it. Then I put a black and white ribbsons (with help from hubby since I didn't seem to have enough hands to hold it all straight) at the bottom. Around the silver part I put black "gemstones" and this is the finished product.

Maria can use it as a toy box or storage. When the decide on a name for baby girl I am going to put it around the middle in hot pink.

Nicole is doing baby boy Murray's room in a barn theme. So I took a steamer trunk that I had (I went through a phase and picked them up ALL the time at garage sales so I ended up with more than I needed) and I spray painted it red with metalic silver trim. Then I put decals and stickers I printed off the computer around of various farm scences and animals.

They certainly are not perfect but I hope my new neice and nephew will know I was thinking of them and loved them before they were even born.

Well there you have it. Another post trying to get you all caught up to the present. Hopefully my next post I can show you what we have been up to with our outside projects. I am sooooo excited. God bless you all!

Humbled

Well dear readers, you are in for a treat! Almost two months without an update and now you will get two in one day. You see, I am humbled to admit I was given a blogging award by my friend Lindsey from www.mrsbucks.blogspot.com and my sister Maria from www.nehemiahsmommy.blogspot.com. Also the little one is taking a nap so I thought I better seize this chance. Thanks guys for the award. Really appreciate it. So I now have to tell you seven facts about myself and list my favorite seven bloggers.

1. I am living my dream. I always wanted a loving husband and children with my own house and gardens and animals. =)


2. I love to travel! I have been to numerous states and to Scotland, Ireland, London, Paris, Canada, and Mexican. I still have many other places I want to go see.


3. I secretly dream of having some of my writings published some day. (Ok now it's not much of a secret) lol


4. I hate to put laundry away. It usually rivals Mount Everest before I MAKE myself fold it and put it all away.


5. I still dance around the house to music when I clean or work on projects


6. I love to browse around Forever 21 but I have only bought something there once when I was like 16. (Its the thrifter in me....I can't pay $25 for a shirt no matter how much I like it)


7. God is STILL working on me and showing me things that are not like our perfect example Jesus, so please be patient with me!

And now my 7 picks are in no particular order................

www.mrsbucks.blogspot.com Lindsey always has some interesting thought or some beautiful pictures

www.nehemiahsmommy.blogspot.com Maria is such a faithful updater and has great pics of beautiful people (my neice and nephew)

www.trippingoverflatsurfaces.blogspot.com Jeanie is always so down to earth

www.theagapetree.blogspot.com Jen makes me laugh out loud

www.missamericaandmisterbelgium.blogspot.com I love to see Leahs adventures overseas and get slightly jealous with all the countries she has visisted. =)

www.gensiscostner.blogspot.com Gen is always so uplifting

All the decorating/ home improvement blogs I follow that have like 10,000 followers so they won't even know I gave them this award. lol

Have a great day everyone!

Two Months Worth

Ok my friends, I come and humbly beg forgiveness again for my lack of updates. I do have a good excuse.....I'm back working. My stay at home mominess didn't last long. Let me explain. We have had this problem with our water since we moved in almost 5 years ago. Say if I do a load of laundry and some dishes, I am out of water for 2 hours or so. Kinda annoying people. Do you know how fun it gets trying to coordinate showers, laundry, dishes, watering the garden, etc? So, I finally broke down and called a plumber and................ wait for it people................God's still teaching me something...............they were drilling a well the next day. Yep, our well was 84 feet deep and they said that should have be plenty deep but we only had about 12 feet of water, hence why we would run out. So they had to dig a new well 182 feet. Needless to say, this took almost every cent we had been saving for our anniversary trip to Hawaii and for my new kitchen. Then my SUV has been acting up AGAIN and Miguel said he was tired of sinking money into something that we don't even wanna drive since gas is $4.15 a gallon. God sent someone to us the next day who bought it. Then hubby decided to use that money and the rest of our saving and he bought a scooter. This is what it looks like.... Miguel's work also has slowed down. We are so very grateful that he still has a job, just went from working around 60 hours a week to no overtime. With all of this in mind when I got the call that my one job needed someone to cover for the night secretary temporarily, we decided that this was a good thing for right now. That job ends this week though, so I am hoping to stay on top of everything better.

Since we have had a few warm, non rainy days...and I do mean a few, we have been trying to get our outside projects finished. Miguel is building me a formal English Herb Garden and we have relocated my veggies garden. I can not wait to show you the end results. Its gonna be beautiful. Here are a few projects that I have finished over the best two months.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Took the basket on the right and took off all of the fall colored yarn and spray painted it and added new ribbon to match Adaliah's room. Did this to four baskets.

Only cause I love you all do I show this next set of pictures. We have a lot of storage, but some of it isn't finished yet. I am trying to get better organized so I decided to start with the closet under the staircase. This is where the bulk of Adaliah's toys are and it seems like everything gets dumped into it. As can be seen by the following picture.

Isn't it awful!?!?!

All of this was in this.........

I am shuddering. So I took everything out, sorted through it and got rid of some and put others in their proper place. Then I painted the paneling and shelving, ripped out the carpet, sanded and stained the floored and here it is..........

She's excited about this too.

So that's about two months worth of updates. We are about finished with several other projects that I will share with you all soon. I will leave you with a thought that God has been dealing with me lately from a thought from William Branham. A water lily labors to get up into the sunlight from the muck and mire at the bottom of the pond. You would think that it could now just kick back and relax. It labored hard and now it should be able to enjoy the sunlight it worked so hard to get to. But do you know what the lily does instead? It opens itself up and let's any insect draw strength from it. The insects all take from the lily that worked so hard to get to the top. But you know what? The lily lets them willingly. We as Christians should do no less. Yes, life is so hard. Yes, it seems like the battles are more frequent. But no where are we suppose to curl up and say that's it. I can't help anyone. I have nothing to give. Christians, that's our job! To tap into Jesus' strength so people can draw from us. It doesn't stop until we are home with Him. Please do not think I am rebuking anyone. I am talking to myself. I have felt so much in survival mood lately. Yes, this year has not been easy. Yes, I have suffered some deep wounds. But you know what...there are other hurting people and I just feel Jesus whispering to me, "It's time to focus on them, not yourself. Cuz when you are so wrapped up in your own hurt you can not see others' pain. Be like the water lily." God bless you all. You are loved by me and God. =)