More Inspiration

WOW...two posts in one day. THREE posts in a week. I'm on a roll.

Just wanted to point out the new links under Crafty Inspiration. Cluck Cluck Sew has some great projects (and a fat quarter giveaway right now from Fig Tree by Moda). Have I mentioned that I really want to start quilting? In all my spare time. Right. However, if this baby is a girl, she's getting a quilt right away. That's all there is to it.

Simplify is a quilting blog. I LURVE her patterns and fabric. She has my baby "girl's" first quilt. She's also due in early December.

Homemade by Jill...well, I've already distracted several of you by pointing to her site. Enjoy!

Prevailing Obedience

This morning I was studying last Sunday's sermon on 1 Peter 1:14 which talks about us not conforming to the former ways and living a life of holiness. Pastor Rick talked about how the prevailing nature of our lives as children of God is to be obedience - not perfection, but obedience.

As I journaled in my big comfy chair this verse hit in me in two ways. 1) My heart - It was a challenge to me as I started the day. In all I do, I need to consciously think about how I can best obey and glorify God in each situation. 2) Wyatt's heart - I was reminded that at 13 months, the prevailing nature of his life is disobedience and sin. He is in the early learning stages of learning to obey and he does not have God's Spirit helping him. This reminder started my day with peace and patience, and another challenge - to be a mom who is obedient to God in discipling my son.

It's a good thing that God chose to start my day this way. He knows all things! Wyatt woke up, did a great job eating breakfast, and then had a marathon of stubbornness as he refused to say thank you for his food. About five or six minutes, I started timing him. It took close to TWENTY minutes of me sitting in front of him, waiting for him to say thank you. It really wasn't too bad. He started getting frustrated toward the end, and I'll admit I felt the twinges and then the reminders from the morning kicked in. Sometimes I think instructing and disciplining Wyatt is more about instructing and disciplining Dana.

Oh did we celebrate when he finally gave in!! Let's hope the rest of the day is better.

And just because they're so cute....this was in the middle of a wrestling match last week.

A little bit of Sunday

This morning our church celebrated 15 years of being a family. I missed out on most of the celebration because I was hanging out with 3 & 4 year olds (although most of them are 5 by now, scary). Usually I have 16-18 kids in my class. This morning most of the kids were out in the big tent with their parents and I only had 6 girls. Six super fun girls who were absolutely astonished that anyone could have 11 brothers and 1 sister (Joseph).

Good news! Lucy came home this afternoon! And Wyatt was extremely pleased to see her...and so was her real family.

Also, I found this blog with some super fun projects on it - Check out Homemade by Jill for some serious distraction and inspiration. Thanks to her and this tutorial, I have completely destroyed a pair of jeans that only fit so - so. They were the kind that stretch to plumber pants every time you wear them and were just enough too short to only be worn as capris. Hopefully by the end of this week they'll be worn as a skirt....saving me $30 at Old Navy and accommodating my growing bump. And yes, it is definitely a growing bump!

Boys & Mud

How does a nice clean boy go outside and get soaked and muddy in 5 minutes flat?

With a sippy and a birdbath. Oh and a tomato plant that got watered.

And "his" dog who lives across the fence. Lucy is a great dog and loves Wyatt, and that's as much of a dog as we need!

Lucy scoots as close to the fence as possible and Wyatt reaches through to poke, pat, or get kissed. When Lucy isn't out, Wyatt stands by the fence and yells. When Wyatt is out but not petting her, Lucy barks to high heaven. I'm not sure what they'll do when we put up a privacy fence later this summer.

Unfortunately, Lucy the very nice dog ran away yesterday. We hope she comes hope safely.

What a Difference a Weekend Makes

A long weekend, Home Depot's paint sale, available parents, and a dear friend who had Wyatt over for a playdate made for a very productive weekend! There's something about paint that makes a house feel clean and fresh and ours. No more white paint. No more icky, yucky, old outlets and light switches. Just a wonderful, new atmosphere.

This is what you see when you walk in our front door. The hallway, dining room, and most of the living room are Cliveden Sandstone. And two walls are La Fonda Sombrero - the perfect terra cotta orange!

Our family room is Summer Field, a color I seriously debated. But now I'm so glad we went with it. It brightens the room but it's still warm enough. And the new carpet it ordered...yay!

We made a good team this weekend. Randy rolled paint, my dad cut in around the ceiling, and I cut in around the baseboards and windows. Why the mask you ask?

To protect this little peanut that's been hanging out on the refrigerator...and growing in my belly for the last 12 weeks. :-) We're excited to meet him or her in early December!

Finally...

I'm back. And not nearly so desperate. I tell you, I don't think we've been that crazy or chaotic in the four years of our marriage. We moved, twice sort of, I got super sick, then Randy got super sick, then Wyatt got super sick (which we nipped in the bud with his first antibiotic). At the same time as we were moving, Randy and his dad put in an awesome fountain at a local dentist' office. So the days off that Randy took to settle in disappeared with earning money for new carpet and all the other things we need to buy. Plus a few other major things that we'll talk about later on.

So for my first post back I'm picking...well, probably not the most important thing of the last month, but one about which I'm VERY excited. We pulled up ugly blue carpet in the living room, hallway, and dining room, revealing really nice wood floors underneath. However, we had no furniture for the living room, so our whole house echoed. I could hear every little move Randy made down the hall in the kitchen every morning. Errrr. Plus, our house felt very blank and unsettled with a large empty room in the middle of it.

Today Wyatt and I took a trip down to Carl's, a discount furniture store one of Randy's co-workers owns downtown. I had never been in, but garage sales have been turning up nothing the last couple weeks. I walked in and saw my couch! Marked down $100, but still more than I had envisioned paying. Just so happens they had a large rug they were selling for $100, which would usually retail for about $300. The two were perfect together, and I think I got a steal of a deal on exactly what I wanted in the living room. They were delivered 30 minutes later, and my living room no longer echoes!

I still need to find something funky for a coffee table - as in, not a traditional coffee table - and a chair, but I can take my time to finish it all. This is just MUCH better!

dear,

vacation, my name is dana. can we please meet? my husband and i will be driving a ford focus with a kansas tag. he'll look desperately tired and i'll look, well, desperate. we don't need much of your time. a weekend will do. please respond soon.